The Correlation Of Music and Stroking

I’ve been attempting to relate how one paints must be quite agreeable to what one listens to when one is painting. Listening to a lot of thick layered, over-produced recordings which tries to recreate Phil Spector’s wall of sound as heard in such examples as My Bloody Valentine, Flying Saucer Attack, Drop 19s, The Swans, in some Spacemen 3 produces the kind of painting which J.O does – thick, impastoed, multilayered, messy. But the difference is instead of drawing you in, his kind of paintings pushes you back hard against the wall. It is impenetrable whereas for the above examples mentioned, their droning sonic resonance rather draws you in. In one reviewer of a live performance of My Bloody Valentine, he was sucked in back to his mother’s womb and crying through the whole process – a dramatic exposition of going back to innocence and primordiality –amniotic and unspoken for. The fuzzy buzz may have made this slide all the more a comfy complete surrender. On the other hand, the paintings push you with such force because it is rather vain in its unutterable strangeness but also quite familiar. It demands a viewer, an audience willing to play the fool who seem to know everything.

Now we go to the Zen-Zen paintings. I have spoken with but a handful who does such paintings. Their listening selection is also quite predictable – instrumentals, new-agey, Philip Glass-like, a little jazz, some classical that veers on the baroque, and some Ibiza-inspired chill out lounge. These examples mentioned are regurgitated most of the time for Muzak or elevator music. They’re most of the time monosymphonic, minimal, thin, clear, light, melodic, quiet, can be easily relegated to the background. Similarly, one notices that most of these Zen-Zen paintings are minimal, monolithic, thinly washed by a single stroke, doesn’t allow for mistakes and won’t ever be exposed for it, exercises in balanced perfection as guided by the laws of nature which they’re trying to evoke in being essentialists. Their quietness or being non-confrontational is favored so much by ‘modern’ designers who pair such works with ‘hip’ mid-century furniture for that balance of quiet rawness with sleek modernity – a fleshed-out Space Odyssey dream in the corporate world, invoking Bowman who became god himself.

So what about punk and rock and roll? What about punk music anyway? Of course there’s collage and a mélange of various collages that never finishes itself. Art eating itself just as pop eats itself. Vomit and shit for nourishment. Alcohol makes it more tasty. This can be quite encompassing now, especially for those little boys who never really want to grow up.

And then there’s the special category of exclusively the domain of girlie singer-songwriters such as Ani Difranco, Joni Mitchell, Cynthia Alexander, Alanis Morissette, Jewel, and such and such and the like who coincidentally is most listened to by painters with underlying issues vocalized by the above-mentioned examples and more. Or am I just being sexist about this? But I get screamed at by such paintings, and their screams are vicious coming from the more knowing throats of the nether region. They’re always agonizing with their postured garish naivete.

I have never heard of anyone grooving to Cristina Aguilera whilst in the thicket of artistic creation. What must have their paintings look like? They’d rather not admit to such popism.

For coolness is often equated with esotericism. It’s a coded handshake that crushes you.

300 and Many Others

1) 300
300, the movie, for all its visual magnificence is proved to be very timely in view of world politics. The cause for conflict remains as the values of democratic freedom is pitted against the values of divine monarchial rule, thereby rendering the sacrificial but overly heroic triumph of King Leonidas as the very symbol of a very Eurocentric rationalism. East and West shall never twain meet, ever. And morals come down with politics itself.


2) Ikea
Ikea being the mecca of smart-shopping and designing saviness – does it really come with the lifestyle of being producers of less refined but over-valued junk which kinda validate our further junkiness? Yet we all clamor for it to be brought to these shores or instead wait out for exhibit propositions that will deliver us to these pearly warehouse gates of Nordic DIY-hood.

3) Love
Yes, love - it cracks with much pressure yet we cringe at the thought of losing it. It's either over rated and under rated. What's this has got to with anything really? A LOT!!! It directs courses and destinies and choices and obsessions and crimes and ......yet we're lost most of the time when we heed it.

4) That somewhat Euro-feeling in a land that's "truly asia"

“so what is the image of Europe? Europe is not undesirable homogeneity. Rather, Europe is persistent diversity. Instead of national identity usurped by Euro-bureaucracy, the ‘European’ is an extended identity, one that does not replace but simply strengthens. Europe is a state of mind that cannot be contained by traditional boundaries.”
- AMO/OMA led by Rem Koolhaas on the future of the EU

So what does this say of the relevance still of our being Asian? Can we then be still deemed as unique, exotic, truly one of a kind?

This is still a clear sign of Pan-Asian invasion reminiscent of empire building but translated into a utopian “global democratic cooperation” which will render national identities obsolete.

Although, the question remains if the Philippines would be readily absorbed by this idea or even be convinced into buying into it while in the stranglehold of US foreign policy.

I have quite gleaned some of such clues in this land called “truly asia”, yet these may all be reinforced vestiges of its colonial past.

- tea time at openings
- jaguars, bmws, and volvos - all right hand-drive vehicles
- obsession with efficiency
- cobble-stoned roads and turn-abouts
- accents