Too much too late?

I recently came across an astounding factoid, courtesy of Google CEO Eric Schmidt: "There was 5 exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003, but that much information is now created every 2 days, and the pace is increasing...." (Schmidt goes on to hint that Google will work with the government to make sure we're all kept track of through increased surveillance.) I've been feeling a part of this global information overload for years now, but immediately upon hearing this information, I asked myself, what am I doing? Writing, blogging, making videos, reading, watching videos, talking.... The amount of stuff out there is overwhelming and I am actively contributing to the whelming by making that statement. Ayyyeeee! Too much.

But then again, I'm aware of this paradox and still acting in it. Playing a part because I must. A character that fulfills a need. Motivation is the need to create.

I was in Maine when I read the above article. A couple days later while packing up, with the late-morning sun searing through the windows, I'm assailed by flashbacks to Austin. The early days, listening to a Big Boys cassette while walking the motor-dominated South Lamar Boulevard, on a pilgrimage to Half Price Books, in the beating sun. Waking up on Saturdays, having just moved, with a world in front of me, and only simple choices to make. Do I go to Goodwill for small appliances or do I go to a Chinese buffet to satiate myself for the whole day? Days when Phil and Laura would come over for music, talk, rolling dice, and maybe water balloons. There was a feeling of community and a good deal of exploration during those days, when, for instance, Phil might leave his place for a walk and show up on my doorstep with a six-pack, at 11 in the morning. Chase the Cheerios. We walk on together, in deeper exploration.

Then, months later, coming back home from two shifts at the white collar factory, with almost no rest in between, my first exposure to late-afternoon autumn sun in weeks. I had to push on, hit two Oktoberfests, by myself, before being joined by the others. Still later, taking the bus to the University Co-op, reading Vaneigem, drinking coffee, and still time for breakfast at Einstein Bagels. Before I'm off to sell Longhorn sink strainers and dartboards....

What's the point of all this? What's the point in me remembering these times in written form? Simple: a certain orientation of the sun makes me happy by triggering distinct memories associated with other solar orientations. If I took it a step further, I would say that I want to channel these memories in the creation of new solar-charged moments in the present. But having typed that sentence, I think I've already taken it too far in written form. The Google CEO says we create an excessively huge amount of information every day. And here I've added just a little bit more.

Get lost

...in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. That was the idea, anyway. Random turns, to the heart's content, stare into massive ship-wrecking waves in the 18th century Atlantic Ocean, for hours with googly eyes, and move on through a bout of phantasmagoria.... That was the idea. But I had one or two things I wanted to see (like the exhibition of Toulouse-Lautrec's prints, which I was a bit underwhelmed by), so I grabbed a map, and then found more things I wanted to see, and eventually the whole idea of getting lost flew out the window. But perhaps that's the way it was meant to be all along...? C'est la vie.

At times I wonder if I'm simply more attracted to words than images. Times in museums and galleries when I'm drawn to the names and descriptions and biographies and histories... before even looking at the pieces themselves. It even extends to my passion for the cinema: I love to read the descriptions in the Shocking Videos catalog, and in Michael J. Weldon's The Psychotronic Video Guide, some times more than the movies themselves. Take this, Weldon's narrative of Flavia the Heretic (which I still haven't seen, and thus can't make a fair synopsis-to-film comparison):

"Flavia is sent to a 13th-century Portuguese nunnery where torture is common and a crazy tarantula cult appears. She wonders why God is a man and runs away with a Jew named Abraham. She's coached by an older rebel nun, then joins her new Muslim lover, who leads an invading army and punishes rapists. She hallucinates a female Christ, a dead nun rising, and women crawling out of a cow's carcass .... It's pretty strong and amazing stuff with some historical basis and feminist themes. The great music helps too. The director was known for making documentaries. The Brazilian-born star claims to have been JFK's last lover. Think about that while you watch this."

That's art to me. Having said that, in the museum, I really enjoyed Van Gogh's portraits, Monet's Mediterranean landscapes, and lots of other stuff.

Luis Melendez is a saint and a martyr. His Still Life with Bread, Ham, Cheese, and Vegetables is a monument to asceticism. I could never draw something like that. I could never sit there, painting for hours, with all that food in front of me... without devouring it. A saint and a martyr.

There are times, often, when I feel that museum-viewing should be a solitary experience. Look, I understand the importance of brush strokes and palettes and all that, but I don't need to hear bourgy old ladies belabor it through lorgnette-goggled eyes.

And having said that, these gold-tinged panels in the Medieval and Early Renaissance rooms - a medium known as tempera (which I just learned) - are the shit.

Bosch's Ecco Homo (Behind the Man), which I also love, reminds me of certain faces in Metalocalypse - those brainless, tortured faces, with deadened eyes and mouths agape.

John Martin's Seventh Plague of Egypt astounds me with its vision, its attention to detail, and the obvious amount of labor that was put into it....

And having said that, it's been a very fine experience, but after two hours in this goddamn museum, I'm ready to leave.