picking cichorium

Not a grand connoisseur of art, I know very few works.

I have walked past her several times, I am sure. This time around she attracted me. I did not look for a while at the title of the sculpture, did not even try to figure out what was in front of me. Instead I savored the fact that somebody has cast in bronze a familiar feeling, even a phobia.

Alberto Giacometti. Woman with Her Throat Cut. 1932 (cast 1949). Bronze, 8 x 34 1/2 x 25″ (20.3 x 87.6 x 63.5 cm)

Once I got home, I read in whatever art his literature I own and online about Giacometti and the Woman. Different critics interpreted the work differently, calling it anything from “a bronze construction of a dismembered female corpse” to “powerful image of sexual pleasure and violence.” The most thorough and thoughtful interpretation of the work that I found is by Laurie Wilson. You can read a four-page excerpt (p. 120) about the Woman in Wilson’s Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic, and the Man available via google books.

Still, how did he know, I wondered? How did he know this feeling of being defenseless yet dangerous, destroyed, yet dangerous, ripped open in front of the viewer, exposed, disfigured, yet graceful and, again, dangerous? The question that I am mulling on is “What kind of man is able to grasp this feeling, and what was his path to understanding it?”

Make sure to check out New York Times videos today, especially the one about Cape Town, South Africa. Clearly, poverty does not exist there according to NYT. The same holds according to the article that goes with the video. Well, I guess you dont get to see anything besides the touristy things in 36 hours. My bad.

An image from an article on HIV/AIDs in SA from RTI.org

I think there is a pressing need to create an “unbelievable, but absolutely true” category over here.

Two things that cought not only my eye, but also lots of my attention this week were the “Big Brain Theory” and a BBC article about genetic experiments in Taiwan. It appears that the cosmologists are having a Hylas-Philonous dialogue all over, and the Taiwanese will soon enjoy a new barn lighting system.

Indeed, the world is a fascinating place. I am not intelligent enough to carry a conversation with any peer or student of Mr. Hawking, but the NYT article gave me acute flashbacks to “The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Boltzmann brains seem like something one would definitely find on the Heart of Gold, however probable the cosmologists think they are :)

Following up on the post from Dec 18th…New York City MTA should do something about the subway warnings in Russian. Or not. I dont mind having a good laugh every once in a while.—Also, it is exactly a year since I came back from Ghana. I miss this ever-grinning country with its marvelous signs and ads.

every twig tenses up
and produces a bud
single glimpse of a spine
through the dressy long cut
follow through with the shoots
shaded red flashy meat
bursts, unfolds
forces out
the insides
incomplete
nonsense phrase
breaks the stiffness of air
he runs through the glass door
after the red dress’s flare
—
cheesy, i know.