From Seeing Out Louder by Jerry Saltz on artists relationship to their art,

“It is unruly, weirdly independent, and needy. It takes up way too much of your time, energy, and money. You love it or need it but it dominates your life and your inner-life. You think you understand it but you don’t, quite. Worse, you never know exactly what it’s going to do in front of people. It often embarrasses you. Sometimes it’s unmanageable, stupid, tiresome, goofy, or gross. Sometimes you hate it and want to get rid of it; other times it seems to hate you and won’t do anything you want it to do. It is often stupid when you wish it would be serious, and serious when you wish it would be playful. You are in control of it, yet somehow it seems to be weirdly in control of you. Any time you describe it, you get it wrong. The more you describe it, the wronger you get. Jasper Johns said, “you avoid everything you can avoid, then you do what you can’t avoid doing, and you do what is helpless and unavoidable.” Johns makes you understand that on some level, as weird as it sounds, that artists don’t entirely choose what art they make, and that somehow, in some way, that art chooses them to make it.”

Location:  Evanston

Location: Ukrainian Village

This probably won’t be the picture I use, but I thought it was funny.  Actually, I’m temped to go back with a bag of bread and see what happens. Will I get attacked by seagulls?

Before today, I’d only seen the part of Cremaster 3 that you can get on DVD. I just returned from seeing 1 and 2 today at the Music Box, where they are showing the whole cycle this week.  The Music Box offered a pass, which I like because I can spread my viewing out over several days.  Barney’s issues with pacing and tedious dialogue (if there is any) make it necessary to break up the viewing experience, in my opinion.  Seriously, I saw Drawing Restraint a few years ago at the Landmark and almost pulled my hair out during. The funny thing about that is that I liked the movie, but it was painful! So, between 1 and 2, 1 is definitely my favorite. 2 had some cool parts like the bull riding scene, but was boring overall.  Witney Siebold writes an interesting review of the whole cycle. Siebold writes, “The only problems with “Cremaster 2” arise when Barney clearly becomes a little too enamored of the aerial photography. Nearly a fifth of the film is devoted to long slow shots of Canadian mountain ranges, lakes and glaciers. The pacing become, well, glacial in itself.”  I agree.

Assignment: Mock interview for teaching job.

Location:  Albany Park, Chicago

Well, I finally got to wear my interview suit. My friend, Dalia, hired me to help her prepare for an interview with a high school tomorrow.

Update 9/2/10

Mock interview are one of those things people say you should do to prepare for an interview, but most never do.  My friend called me on Tuesday to tell me she got the job!

Assignment:  Yard work

Location: Andersonville, Chicago