Month: January 2017

I learned to type in the summer before high school.  That was just a little before the dawn of recorded time.  I didn’t want to know how to type, but I needed the credit.  I knew absolutely that I would have a secretary.  What I did not know was about the coming of the personal computer.  Oops.  I should have practiced more.

So have you ever wondered why the letters on a typewriter keyboard (and a computer keyboard) are arranged so strangely?  Well, the first typewriters had mechanical keys (you’ve seen them in the movies).  A typist would strike a key and a metal arm with a letter at the end would swing up and strike a carbon ribbon against a piece of paper.  It was a slow and unwieldy process.

So the keys were arranged as they were to slow the process down in order to prevent the keys from being struck too quickly and tangling up.  It has never changed.

A couple of quotes I like from Oscar Wilde:

“Some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”

“There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope.”

Goodness, are you a basket case?  Do you know one?  Your boss, perhaps?  Where did the term “basket case” come from?

The term originated from WWI, indicating a soldier missing both his arms and legs, who needed to be literally carried around in a litter or “basket.” Today it indicates a state of helplessness similar to the metaphoric removal of the appendages, most frequently in the context of mental health or aptitude.

Here is a question for you:

John Baldessari is a famous and respected artist.  The Broad Museum has a Baledessari picture.  Baldessari didn’t touch the piece (except maybe to sign it).  Here is how the Broad describes it:

John Baldessari
Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell
1966-68
acrylic on canvas
68 1/4 x 56 1/2 x 1 1/2 in. (173.36 x 143.51 x 3.81 cm)
On View
Accession Date:
01/20/2000
Accession Number:
F-BALD-1P00.08
About this artwork
John Baldessari never touched this painting. He did not paint it. He did not write the text. “There is a certain kind of work one could do that didn’t require a studio,” Baldessari said, “It’s work that is done in one’s head. The artists could be the facilitator of the work; executing it was another matter.” This concept — that an artist could present an idea rather than a material object from their own hand — was a way for Baldessari to take apart the notion of what art could be. In 1966 art meant painting, sculpture, or drawing, and with wry humor, Baldessari challenges this expectation. The viewer receives a painting in Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell, but the painting is completed by sign painters. The viewer is presented with a painting’s content, but the content is text taken from an art trade magazine dictating what content should be .

In the second decade of the 20th century, Marcel Duchamp put a urinal signed “J. Mutt” on the wall of a  famous exhibition and said it was art because “I’m an artist and I say it is art.”  “Conceptualism,” one of the most lasting movements in art, was conceived.

What we have here is a piece of art where the art is untouched by an artist  nor was the idea behind it unique, nor did any other artistic hand touch the work (as might be argued with the work of Jeff Koons or Damian Hirst, whose artistic assistant’s execute the work).

Is this art?  Was Baldessari actually advancing the discussion of  Conceptualism beyond Duchamp?  Was he conceiving another question that makes this art?  Was he thumbing his nose at Conceptualism that makes this art?

I came across this in a book I was reading.  I think it is the first time I’ve seen this word:

Eidetic memory (/aɪˈdɛtɪk/; sometimes called photographic memory) is an ability to vividly recall images from memory after only a few instances of exposure, with high precision for a brief time after exposure, without using a mnemonic device.