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So, modernism can be said to be the radical simplification of form; a dis tillation of form to lines. It is through this effect that the profound kinship between Georgia O'Keeffe and Frank lloyd Wright can be perceived. The two can be joined even philosophically: Wright has written that after he had designed a home and it had been constructed, the clients refurbished with their old furniture and he found his homes painful to view after his clients literally brought in their own baggage. This can be juxtaposed and shown analogous to O'Keeffe's suffering the pre-conceived notions a viewer would bring to her paintings which would obviously distort a "true" reading. O' Keeffe would probably accept Wright's famous statement "'Form follows function' is mere dogma until you realize the higher truth that form and function are one." Certainly, she would see nothing but kinship with his notion of the distillation of form to line and an echo of her choices of color with his insistence on materials inviolate. Which, you know, is a really long-winded way of bringing academic scruti ny to two great tastes that shouldn’t taste great together. Why, that’s like comparing Alex Toth’s Zorro to Bill Sienkiewicz’ Elektra: Assassin. Or ana lyzing the societal impact of Identity Crisis . Somebody somewhere can write it, and somebody somewhere might find value in it, but academic analysis of entertainment seems to me to be putting a dress on a pig. The dress gets dirty and it annoys the pig. Nobody’s happy. So no “Best of 2004” from me, this year. Everybody did the work, and somebody somewhere got entertained, and that’s what putting lines on paper is all about.

See you next year.

The Long View February 25, 2005

Lots of folks have been asking me what I think about Hunter S. Thompson killing himself.

Now, the people posting me emails and calling me up on the office phone and sending me smoke signals and whatnot mean well, they do. But most of these cats aren’t people who know me very well. If you’ve spent more time with me than it takes to drain a pint, you know I don’t really care over much about “celebrity deaths.” I’m a more private joe, I am, and I keep track of me and mine and that’s tough enough as it is. I never met Thompson, but I’d worked with those who had. I think what most mean when they ask me my take is: what do I think about a dude who put it out there, and did his thing, himself? Local guys in San Francisco remember

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