Eclectic Amateur

In a world where the Dutch murder infants, celebrating Herod and not Christ, it is good to remember the gentle spirit of Mary.

Read the whole thing.

(hat tip: MCJ)

Apparantly, 500 British “art experts” have reached a conclusion:

APOLL OF 500 BRITISH ART EXPERTS has concluded that the most influential work of modern art is Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 work “Fountain,” which is an ordinary white porcelain urinal.

They forgot to mention that it was turned on it’s side. And signed “R. Mutt”. Yeah, that’ll make it art.

My poor college humanities teacher, Dr. Bill, tried to get me to appreciate Modern “art.” He failed.

But I see today that I was not quite right. I believed up to now that most of modern art is crap. Now I understand that “500 British art experts” agree with me that modern art is a crapper.

It comes “as a bit of shock,” art expert Simon Wilson told The Associated Press. “But it reflects the dynamic nature of art today and the idea that the creative process that goes into a work of art is the most important thing – the work itself can be made of anything and it can take any form.”

Actually, the only shock is that they didn’t award it to something by Jackson Pollock. And Wilson is right, this is part of the idea of Modern, the conceit that all that matters is the “idea”. Matter doesn’t matter. (Hmm … Modern Art as realized Gnosticism. Makes sense to me.)

Notice that Fountain was noted as most influential, not the “best”. I’m not sure the “experts” are wrong — a urinal may actually have been the most influential bit of art in the 20th century.

I think this explains a lot.

(The Independant has a good article on the influence that Duchamp had on modernism, and exactly what was being foisted on our culture by Duchamp and the Dadaists via Fountain.)

God have mercy.

Dawn, yet again proving she is a national treasure by dumpster-diving into the surreal world of Planned Parenthood:

Yes, you read right: Planned Parenthood is teaching teenage girls to let teenage boys blindfold them and lead them around. I didn’t have the guts to let a guy do that to me until I was 27! And it sure as heck didn’t improve my sexual decision-making.