it's so interesting that people act self-destructively more often than not. me, for example. i should have been saving money all this long life of mine to enjoy a stable, comfortable old-age. alas, in college english class we read an essay on 'the deadly coils of comfort.' and i fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.
as a result, i've wasted everything on creative projects. getting into photography, i spent a fortune on cameras and accessories, not to mention books, and books, and books. what am i to do now, discovering i could do it all on a cell-phone! thank god the value of lenses goes up.
or theater. i cannot tell you how much time and loot i've squandered on this particular madness. staging shows, writing them, watching them (71 in one new york spring). putting my heart into this celebration of the transitory, i certain haven't gathered many stellar reviews - it always seems like there's a fly in the ointment: an actor who can't learn his lines, an actress who throws fits, cries, threatens to bail.
in fact, i did combine photos with actors in one vainglorious exhibition where i installed hundreds of shots. alas, the only reason anybody found it was because the room used for talks and meetings. okay, i learned public art the best. put yourself where people can't get around you and have to step on you, as squishy as you are.
cutting to the chase, workers in the midwest of the u.s.a. stormed the gates for ronald reagan. how did he do it, making them destroy their factories and jobs? HE APPEALED TO THEIR VANITY! he'd be seen drinking evenings in bars with the hardhats, having stabbed them in the back with a presidential initiative that afternoon. they fell for the public image of themselves as tough, all-american and able to hold their liquor.
'never attack a man's self-image'. and you know why? that personal perception of oneself worth more than all the tea in china. vanity, vanity, all is vanity. where did i read that? only too true, it is. you can fool almost anyone by manipulating their desire to be something they're probably not. if they were who they are, maybe then they'd act in their own self-interest. until then....
the graduation videos, or how i think i learned something....
