OK, now I KNOW I need to see more Black folks!
Chocolate Molds: Objects of Art
by Wendy Mullen
So, I have fallen down on the job as
far as blogging, not that I have an audience, but this is truly one of those
moments of Chuckle Points
moments.
I was finishing
up an encyclopedia entry on Performance Art & African Americans, when I
decide to see through amazon, if there were any new books. Actually, I was
looking for full citation of the _Object of Art_, which I plan to put in the
bibliography. The date was too old-yikes I'm aging!--so I went looking for
newer, perhaps more radical
encounters.
Then I came
across the above
title.
Now, who's to say
that it ain't about black folks and how they have to redo everything to suit
them? For about 2 minutes, I was baad excited about the boldness, the political
incorrectness of the title. THIS, I thought, will truly be a book about
performance art worthy of performance! The author even had the last name of a
favorite poet of mine, Hrryette Mullen, so I was too excited. Smiling, I sought
further info. It wasn't available just yet. Oooh! Newnew! But I noticed the
titles around it.
I had
gone from plastic arts, architecture, to random titles with the word "object" in
it. The internal voice of castigation pipes
up:
-"Fool," she said, "don't
you know this book is probably REALLY about
chocolate?!"
-"But why," I
asked. "Why can't it be about black people
fi--"
Oh, the
qualification is in the wrong place. It should read, "The Objects of Art: The
New Chocolate
Molding."
Yes,
technically, this does not qualify as a chuckle point. It is rather the
howler.
Now on to more
stuff.
So I am a
preistess/scholar/artist living temporarily in an apartment building without my
shrines, books, and most of my costume/prop construction
stash.
Why would I be so
foolish, you wonder. I am wondering myself, esp. since I am sandwiched between
two floors with an exceptionally emotionally underdeveloped insomniac living
above me. Girlfriend so uptight you would think that she wasn't gettin none,
but she got a man!
When
you know you are beseiged by a competitive, small minded neighbor (for aprtment
dwellers only)
10. Upon seeing
you walking home, she crosses street and walks faster to beat you to the
door
9. Unaware that you have
walked up behind her and said hello, she speeds up while talking, hoping to
still beat you home and at small
talk
8. Recognizing that you
LIVE in your apartment, not just store your stuff there, she begins to assualt
her floor with all manner of
objects
7. Number 8 occurs even
when your television is set at 5 out of 30 for volume
level
6. She tells other
neighbors what you do, with such a measure of disbeleife that they treat you
like the lying fuck she needs you to
be
5. She asks for musical
advice in the genre you have been working lately, with a
smirk
4. She checks in to see if
she has made it impossible for you to conduct your business, but is stunned when
you admit that you've accomplished a lot at a place even noisier than she's
managed to make the building.
3.
Leaves her fermenting trash on the landing for one day, next to the
radiator
2. Always leaves the
light on in the hall and the front door open, though she herself posted a not
about not doing that--surprise! it's your
floor.
1. Refuses to answer the
door when you go up to ask her anything, because she knows that she is wrong,
whatever it is, and can't take
"confrontation"
YES
LAWD!!
Ok, back to the
other writing...
Posted: Thu - January 15, 2004 at 09:44 PM