Art is Money, Money is Art

So I usually listen to NPR while driving to and from work. tonight, while driving home, the BBC had some program on about Art as Investiture (or some other made-up-British word). Something the commentator said has stuck in my head and I've been thinking about it for a while now. I thought I'd share.

Andy Warhol, at some point during his career, made numerous paintings and screenprints of a single dollar sign:

Apparently, one of these paintings is now worth $3milllion. The BBC World Serivce went so far as so speculate on its origins. (I'm paraphrasing here.. has anyone ever tried to navigate their transcripts site?? eugh!!) Anyway, he might have painted a single dollar wondering how many dollars it would be worth. This is irony at it's most ironical.

What a crap blog, today guys. Sorry. But it really got me thinking about art for arts sake and whether or not artists think about value/worth in a business sense or in a sense (also explained by a interview during the BBC show) of owning a unique snapshot... a poem.

Well just to throw and wrench in the works and make this the single most incoherent piece of writing ever concieved, take this quote from, yet another BBC interview of Andy Warhol himself:

Warhol claimed that the commercialism he appeared to mock was also a form
of art. "Making money is art," he wrote, "and working is art, and good business
is the best art".

So I'd really like to dicuss this with a few people who are willing to explore it a little more. Especially if you have a view of art or money that could help me understand or fix a point of view for me. Thanks for putting up with my late night ramblings.

Warning: Unintelligible babbling.

You know those days when you wish you could shoot lasers out of your eyes and burn buildings by point point pointing your finger really hard like Lewis Black and you could flip peoples car over because they drive slow but make sure that had their seatbelts on and no one gets hurt, just that slow fucking neon?

AND you know how on those days, when you're already really mad and you are revelling in your anger and you LOVE the fact that everyone is avoiding you and you tell them by yelling, "Don't fucking IGNORE me!" You know how on those days, you always manage to bump your head really hard, or slam your finger or pinch your skin on something painfully banal and dull and you or anyone else has NEVER hurt themselves on this spigot/curb/doorknob before. Have you any idea why that happens? I do.

And its not some weird cosmic shit like karma or "The Secret" or genies or fucking anything involving mental powers or Hinduism. Its the world fighting back! You're out here, stomping around, blowing noxious fucking gases out of your ears, creating noise pollution with the amount of times you drop the F bomb, grinding on the gears of the world by just existing in the state that you're in. I think its God or mother nature or whatever pinching you in the ass and telling you to chill out.

Or possibly the genie thing.

The funny part about that whole little tirade is that at the beginning, I was mad. You could tell, I know. But just by writing it, I cooled off, losing speed and momentum until my sudden burst of angry creativity completely fell out of the sky, like some Hindenburg-esque blimp with EUREKA! spelled out on the side, instead of GOODYEAR and banged-crashed-collided-was muffled and then completely absorbed into my little city of boredom.

The darkness that is my job ate my mean little inventive wit. I'm so pissed.

e-evolution.

--copied from a myspace blog-- Go read it there and then add me add me add me.


So I've just had an epfiany. It occured during my typing of a reply to a myspace message from someone that, under all other circumstances, I shouldn't have ever heard from again. (All other circumstances = No myspace.com). The idea that popped into my head was exactly that...
There was a time when certain people that you may have been aquaintences with (or known as the guy with the weird beard or the chick with the huge forehead) were supposed to slide slowly off your radar after you move away or stop going to the same coffee shop. If you saw them in a bar or at a bookstore, because of your no-first-name-but-recognizable-aquaintenceship, you might have the inclination to walk up and say hello and ask them what book they are reading. ( This approach, has in the past backfired, as everyone has experienced I think in the dreaded, "They don't recognize you,", or if either party is holding pornography.) However, if you did not see them after a period of time, these people were just gone. Not usually missed, either!! Not that they were bad aqaintinces or smelled or you owed them money... no! It's just that you didn't know them well enough in the first place to warrant setting up a meeting to see them again and in fact would have never even said goodbye, had they not brought it up awkwardly at the bar when you told them you were graduating/moving/finallygettingajob! Its the natural order of things! Certain people that are your friends - stay - your friends because you make a concerted effort to keep them as your friends! It's survival of the fittest! The spots that were once filled by casual aquaintences are now filled by newer, more casual aquaintences!! It's natural selection, honey! Weirdbeard Guy didn't make the cut! Clan of the Cave Bear is out!! You'll never see them again and probably won't ever remember they existed except for their exceptional names. (Which, technically, you gave to them in a fit of drunken hilarity. So really, you are only remembering them because of your off-handed association with their easily recognizable faults - a defense mechanism perpetrated by your ego to inferiortize them. Others, more close to you are spared this because you get to see the good side of each of their faults and your id justifies and forgives imperfections. Its called friendship.) Close friends stay close and casual friends stay casual and all those other people slowly slip into the background like white noise, only periodically to slip into the conscience through a conversation about the place you bumped into them a lot or a smell that reminds you of beard cream. Perhaps a sex dream containing every person in your graduating class. This has previously continued until each college socialite is just like their parents, with two best friends that live forever away who are only seen once every five years and every other spots being filled by allthepeopletheyworkwith. It's happened this way for generations. It's the way G-d intended. It happened to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It happened to Moses. It happened to Jesus. It happened to Arisotole. It happened to Charles Darwin. It happened to Bill Clinton. And it was supposed to happen to YOU.

But no. myspace had to fuck it all up. Now, once we have known someone long enough for a casual conversation, it undeniably means that we've known someone long enough to look them up on myspace (Which, by itself, is a hilarious social enigma, if you ask me.) And once someone is your friend on myspace...it though to get rid of them. Our egos are so fragile that the justification necessary to "Remove from Friends" is ridiculous compared to the will-power needed to 'fudge' and Add someone you never really liked in the first place. But now, you get to hear everything they have to say about their favorite drink, where they last were kissed, if they are a cat or a dog or a monkey or want a monkey or HAVE a monkey or just got finished eating monkey or if their last 24 hours had NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH MONKEYS. You will still hear about it. And this is all from the guy, that naturally, under any other circumstances, you would've never heard from again.
conclusion: Myspace is ruining the world. In fact, we are all headed for total social meltdown. I'm talking orgies in the street, here people. for real.

I gatta get back to work.