Let's take it for granted that all artists have stupendous egos. the thing that distinguishes the tolerable from the intolerable, then, is whether they can practice their art in without their ego crushing their intended audience.
Those are my thoughts today after my friend Bari met me outside the apartment. His book just came out, and it has its moments of grace, but is weighted intolerably with his personal quarrels, all of which are rooted in his ego.
We got along just fine until he gave me a painting and, when a friend saw it and remarked upon its ugliness, we decided to hang it upside-down. The effect was remarkable, the thing had a kind of grace upside down, an improvemnt on the garish obscentiy it was rightside up.
But when Bari saw it and I told him what had happened, he denounced my friend as a "stupid art critic", then took the painting back, promising to fix it because I was too "conservative" to appreciate it.
His idea of "fixing" was to highlight the ugliest parts in flourescent orange paint and return it to me.
At that point I could no longer bear to look at it and stored it in the closet. Then Bari took it back, chiding me again on my obtuseness.
Well, in his book, he mentions me by name a few times. The most offensive instance is where he claims I don't know what he's talking about, in some fictional discussion about Picasso and Godzilla.
His world is a banal and grotesque world of art critics and angels, and comic books. That's just fine, but he doesn't need to write a book about it. Or, if he must, I'd prefe he kept me out of it, unless he's going to tell the truth. But his ego won't allow that.
Bari is a poetaster and a poseur of the worst kind. He has a house full of great books which he doesn't read, preferring instead to watch obscure horror flicks.
He has an MFA in performance poetry, a worthless and irrelevant document, in view of the fact that his idea of performance is nothing more than a lot of tuneless caterwauling and bitter personal attacks on people he views as his rivals, whose only defect usually is that they confronted his flamboyant ego, or that their own egos supercede his own, with the inevitable result.
we all have egos.
But it's polite to keep them at bay. The work turns out better that way.
Those are my thoughts today after my friend Bari met me outside the apartment. His book just came out, and it has its moments of grace, but is weighted intolerably with his personal quarrels, all of which are rooted in his ego.
We got along just fine until he gave me a painting and, when a friend saw it and remarked upon its ugliness, we decided to hang it upside-down. The effect was remarkable, the thing had a kind of grace upside down, an improvemnt on the garish obscentiy it was rightside up.
But when Bari saw it and I told him what had happened, he denounced my friend as a "stupid art critic", then took the painting back, promising to fix it because I was too "conservative" to appreciate it.
His idea of "fixing" was to highlight the ugliest parts in flourescent orange paint and return it to me.
At that point I could no longer bear to look at it and stored it in the closet. Then Bari took it back, chiding me again on my obtuseness.
Well, in his book, he mentions me by name a few times. The most offensive instance is where he claims I don't know what he's talking about, in some fictional discussion about Picasso and Godzilla.
His world is a banal and grotesque world of art critics and angels, and comic books. That's just fine, but he doesn't need to write a book about it. Or, if he must, I'd prefe he kept me out of it, unless he's going to tell the truth. But his ego won't allow that.
Bari is a poetaster and a poseur of the worst kind. He has a house full of great books which he doesn't read, preferring instead to watch obscure horror flicks.
He has an MFA in performance poetry, a worthless and irrelevant document, in view of the fact that his idea of performance is nothing more than a lot of tuneless caterwauling and bitter personal attacks on people he views as his rivals, whose only defect usually is that they confronted his flamboyant ego, or that their own egos supercede his own, with the inevitable result.
we all have egos.
But it's polite to keep them at bay. The work turns out better that way.