Arts – Page 20 – An Echo That's Reversing

Symphony No. 1 – Time and texture

I realized after the fact that all of the titles except for the last movement have to do with time and the speaker’s relationship to time. 1st movement: subjunctive past; 2nd movement: present tense; 4th movement: past perfect; with the interlude referencing both infinite time and the end of time.

(1) What if this happened?
(2) I am now
Interlude: Everything was forever until it was no more
(3) An occupying army
(4) Decades had passed

Everything feels static right now, possibly because this current slow motion car crash leaves us in an endless nervous state that, when it ends, will cease to exist but will never end. My previous works were about a map that can tell the future and a man looking for the missing parts to his time machine, so time seems to be a general theme regardless of what’s happening in the world. Who knew?

Symphony No. 1 – The start

“16 Jun 2020”. I wrote that down on the first sheet of staff paper I pulled out to start the project that I’d wanted to do for years: compose a symphony. Last year’s monthly orchestral studies were a means to this end.

Banksy and a tweet and pseudonyms

@molotovbouquet tweeted an image of Fauci and Trump in response to a new Lincoln Project ad about their respective histories:

from @molotovbouquet, 7:32 AM, 15 Jul 2020

The molotov account’s name is “Not Banksy” and states that they’re “not on Twitter, not @BryanSGaakman”. The image at the top of his bio looks like a Banksy, and his avatar is a man in a hoodie (the uniform of street artists):

The name “molotov bouquet” is likely a reference to a Banksy titled “Love Is In The Air (Flower Thrower)”. According to MyArtBroker, it first appeared in 2003 “in Jerusalem shortly after the construction of the West Bank Wall”:

@BryanSGaakman is an anagram (no, I did not figure this out) of “Banksy anagram”. His bio has an image of a possible Banksy (note the balloon for further reference below):

Back on 10 Jun 2018, someone stole a Banksy titled Trolley Hunters from a Toronto art gallery. The thief was recorded on security camera, wearing a hoodie. He shuffles around inconspicuously and alone, grabs the painting, then hurries out.

*Trolley Hunters*, image from Unidentified Thief Caught On Camera Stealing $45,000 Banksy Print From Exhibit (NPR, 15 Jun 2018)

The suspicion is that Banksy was the thief who stole the Banksy because, well, it’s so on brand for him. In fact, just the day after the theft, Banksy posted a story of some hijinks he had just perpetrated on the Royal Academy of Arts. Under that anagram pseudonym, he sent them a work of art for a gallery show but it was rejected. (We all see where this is going.) He then turned around and re-sent it as himself. To quote Banksy: “It’s now hanging in gallery 3.”

Here’s the art, note the balloon:

Authenticity is either dead or never existed.

Coronavirus – 9 Jul 2020 – Square zero

Updated 11 Jul 2020

I read a short thread that gave me a feeling I haven’t had since the very beginning in mid-March when we were all combing through those graphs and data tables at least twice a day. It feels again like we’re realizing there’s a catastrophe starting and the shock is as if we’ve never felt it before. I think re-reading my old posts refreshed those memories of that odd time back in March (four months ago?!) when everything started hitting. There was a nervous apprehension of the unknown; everything was new. The recent unbelievable spike is magnitudes greater than what we first experienced so, yes, the is as if we’re starting anew.

Giallo film festival

I immersed myself with Dario Argento/Mario Bava/Lucio Fulci flicks a few years back (so probably 10 years back) having approached them most likely from my immersion in Italian zombie films of the 70s, which was actually a thing. Relatively recently (so probably a few years back) I watched Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, a stylish thriller and a departure from his standard psychological horror. It hooked me.

And so I became obsessed with Italian giallo films. Their characteristics, generally, include: murder (natch), suggestive supernatural elements, the absolute grooviest clothing and interior design that you could ever imagine from 70s Italy–even if the setting was ostensibly the US or Germany or wherever–and a high breasts-per-scene ratio. The mood will range from thrilling cat and mouse tension to a Gothic molasses of lingering ennui. A more keen eye than mine could enumerate more fully on the shared cinematic tropes. The quality, as with anything of course, is greater-or-lesser but they are never a waste of time if you’re looking for that impossible combination of gritty murder and stylish, iconic 70s.