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Post #1387 • September 9, 2009, 8:30 AM • 8 Comments

Off I go to work, a hundred miles away, head cold and all.

Art critic David Bonetti is leaving the St. Louis Post-Dispatch with guns blazing, in search of a better conversation. His target? Boston. It worked for me. One day shortly after I moved here, I saw a guy behind a sandwich counter get into a conversation with a buddy who came into the shop. A conversation about supercomputing and protein folding. (via via)

"It is one thing for an artist to credit his career choice to an unhappy youth in which opportunities for self-expression were perpetually stifled, and quite another for an artist to say that his parents literally took his voice from him." Eric Konigsberg on David Small's Stitches.

"Oh, happy day. The storefront bakery and confectionery in this bustling commercial walking district was stacked with metal trays holding an eye-popping array of sweets. The fact that we couldn't identify any of them, or read Turkish, didn't deter us from entering." Friend of Artblog.net Necee Regis reports from Istanbul.

Edmonton's best artists are busy folks these days.

Comment

1.

dude

September 9, 2009, 8:32 AM

I've never needed a supercomputer to fold my protein. You just take the Tofurky out of the pack and double up your slices as required. Maybe I'm old school. Folding protons on the other hand, yes the odd recipe does call for one.

2.

Chris Rywalt

September 9, 2009, 9:18 AM

Now, if you were talking about folding supercomputers, I'd be impressed.

3.

dude

September 9, 2009, 9:21 AM

The Bonnetti comment thread reads like some of the early artblog.net posts. Haha. How did 'douchebag' make it back around as an insult anyway? I've asked some kids if they even know what it means and they all have no clue. It just sounds nasty they all said, unlike 'douchey' which sounds somehow French, in a bad way.

4.

MC

September 9, 2009, 9:23 AM

...Busy, but not too busy to say "thanks for the shout-out", and "hey, slick new artblog design!"

Folding computers? My laptop does that...

I think it's John Stewart who has been hard at work keeping "Douchey McDouchington" alive, Dude.

5.

Chris Rywalt

September 9, 2009, 12:31 PM

I've noticed with some amusement the resurgence of "douche" as an insult over the past couple of years. I'm not sure where it comes from except the usual ebb and flow of pop culture, like a sewer backing up into the basement of your consciousness. When I was younger -- mid-1980s -- "douche" was pretty common parlance. Not one I ever really caught on to. My epithets tend towards the proctological.

6.

eageageag

September 9, 2009, 1:57 PM

Another nail in the coffin of print based art criticism. After all, who needs editing or writing skills? Just start an art blog! We will be left with nothing but the glossies and the all good news all the time public relations drivel they pump out year after year.

7.

ahab

September 12, 2009, 9:54 PM

Edmonton's best artists are busy folks these days.

Thanks for remembering us to people. We're on the same project as you-all new modernists.

8.

John

September 13, 2009, 9:34 AM

David Bonetti's short essay and the many comments that follow struck me as mass-ignorance of the primary fact of successful art criticism: getting your praise right is far more important than getting your put-downs right.

There was also an underlying feeling in the comments that the right critic could make the art scene there important. Also questionable.

But, in total, most seemed to understand, if reluctantly, that ink trumps dots on the screen.

And I would say, that as dots on the screen multiply even faster than the art glut multiplies, with the consequent folding of more and more ink based publications, those that remain will gain more and more clout, even if they don't develop any muscle.

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