edcell



from Mister Fish:
The thing about art, and I include folklore to be part of that discipline, is that it will always deepen the historical record that defines our moral and immoral certitude by insisting that the human heart, with all its contradictions and inarticulate universality, be present at the existential committee convened for the comprehension of life itself. Straight journalism, for example, or the rote memorization of theocratic balderdash or the cataloging of scientific data are certainly insufficient compilers of all that comprises the complicated identity of the whole species. Consider how unremarkable and ineffectual the 1950s and ’60s would’ve been had the only commentary available to us been that of Walter Cronkite, Bishop Sheen and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Or try processing the great Dante-esque calamity that was the Second World War without such books as “The Naked and the Dead,” “Catch-22” and “Slaughterhouse-Five.” Additionally, no one would even know that there was ever a labor movement in this country that was vibrant and effective in teaching people how to organize and to gain both civil and workers rights had there never been Woody Guthrie, John Steinbeck or Thomas Hart Benton.

“I worry because I don’t see any significant artwork being produced nowadays to help deepen our understanding of recent historical events beyond whatever sound bites we’re given by the 24-hour news cycle,” I said, standing behind a commie-red podium in front of a crowd at Revolution Books in lower Manhattan after a presentation of my cartoons. This was on the night before the night before the NYPD was covertly scheduled to dismantle the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park and to wage the only sort of war that the U.S. power structure seems willing to fight anymore, both domestically and internationally. That is the sort launched against the defenseless and, preferably, the sleeping, the heroism of the cops and soldiers involved typically being determined by how squarely they’re able to shoot their target in the back.

“There’s no poetry in the retelling or re-examination of what we’ve been through over the last decade because there is no artistry in the way the memory has been rendered,” I said, locking eyes with a kid in the front row who had just gotten into town from Duluth to join the fledgling OWS resistance movement as a photographer. “What source material will our children have access to when it comes to making sense of 9/11, for example? Who are they going to quote, the great Wolf Blitzer? ‘In My Time’ by Dick Cheney? It’s fucking ridiculous and we’re running out of time! Nothing will be remembered if we don’t feel like retelling the story!”
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/page2/the_egg_and_i_20111118/