October 17, 2013

Two sessions at the studio yesterday, one in the morning when I worked, one in the afternoon when, it turned out, I regarded my work, even as God did. I was happy.
 
Neighbors inquire after my studio, it being of a good size and the open studios in the buildings round about having become shops, where you are required to keep regular hours, as though you were a shopkeeper. Russell describes his despair over teaching over drinks at Avenue M last night. He loves teaching, but the burden of inanities passed down from on high prevent anything that could be considered good teaching. I observe, rather loudly, after the second drink, that the problem today is that everything is supervised by people who do not understand the thing they’re supervising: schools are overshadowed by people who are not teachers and who do not understand either teaching or learning; the college is bullied by legislators who have no expertise in anything at all, least of all higher education; studios are bought by retailers; film studios are run by petroleum companies, publishing houses by banks; the most ignorant are given their say and the wisdom of the long-practicing and long-observing is dismissed as ivory tower or self-service. I tell people I could put this right if I were made pharaoh for seven years.

I do realize that people will say that it is this way because the people who don’t know anything about what they’re doing do know something about making money, and making money is the supreme end. I say their financial expertise is not commonly that at all, but salesmanship, in the sense of public relations, or a kind of glamour like a magic act where what is really happening is concealed, and some schlep who was merely lucky, or got out of the way before the collapse, gets the credit. Besides, what does it matter how cheaply a thing is made if it’s a bad job? You can get students through school the way the State wants them, but they come out ignorant, thoughtless, and unprepared, so what was the point? My argument is that making the most money is NOT making the most money, but rather exaggerating the crests and troughs between unreasonable expectation and calamitous consequence.

Surely the last few years will make us trust our legislators and overlords all the more. . . .