ART OR TORTURE??? A true story

From: nenslo <nenslo@yahooX.com>
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Date: Wed, Jan 29, 2003 10:37 PM

ART OR TORTURE???
Another thrilling true story from my fascinating life.
In five tangentially connected parts.

Part One
I heard a micro-interview on NPR the other day with an historian in
Barcelona Spain who is researching the strange fact that, during the
Spanish Civil War, Anti-Franco forces used modern art to torture their
prisoners. They put them in tiny cells painted with bright geometric
abstract patterns to try to drive them insane. It reminded me of a
scene in They Saved Hitler's Brain where the madmen of Mandoras lock
the Kindly Professor in a cell and blare loud grinding noises at him.
I thought it sounded like Whitehouse or that Japanese noise band that
sounds like a lot of horrible racket, which I really like.

Part Two
A package arrived around the middle of December from my old friend
Reed Weimer and his wife Chandler Romeo in Denver with an explanatory
note which said, in part, "Ken as you recall many years ago Chandler
and I stole this artwork from you under the thin guise of protecting
it or something like that. We swore that we would return it someday.
The guilt has finally become more than we can bear. We have always
felt that this was an important work of yours and now it is time for
it to return to the creator.o/oo This "important worko/oo was something I
stuck together some twenty-five years ago out of a bunch of crap I had
lying around my apartment. I took a 6 inch high crucified christ off
his cross and glued him onto a cross made of swizzle sticks. I broke
off a little plastic cocktail sword and glued it to his side like it
was sticking out. I took a box that was the lid of a box for keeping
silverware in that I found in the alley and glued a bunch of broken up
scraps of wood and string and stuff in it and painted it gray. Then I
stuck that jesus on the swizzle stick cross into the box and put a
bunch of birthday candles around the bottom and lit them for a while
and they partly melted some of the swizzle sticks and then I blew them
out. I did all this without any thought at all except to stick a
bunch of crap together to put in an art show and it WAS in an art show
and apparently some people did mistake it for art. You have no idea
how sorry I was to see that, not only had this well-meaning fellow
kept that damn thing for so long, he went to the trouble and expense
of packing it so it wouldn't be damaged and sent it to me thinking I
would be glad to get it back. And I know from having seen it there
that the damn thing was actually on their wall for at least a decade.
When I showed it to her, wifey said "This is the first piece of your
work I've ever seen that I really didn't like.o/oo Well it was just a
stupid piece of crap, is why.

Part Three
See, Reed and Chandler were born to be Artists, and the Gods have
smiled upon them. They both got their MFA so painlessly that to this
day they are good friends with some of their former instructors. They
aren't the creepy unsightly ungainly type of person, like me, that
often takes to art because they are too fucked up to do anything
useful, they are the type of charming and beautiful people who play
artists in movies, and the passing of the years only makes them more
attractive. They make the kind of art which is universally admired;
inoffensive, appealing and diverse. They get along with even the most
pompous art ninnies. You'd think that being so Perfect they would
inspire resentment and envy, but they are so nice, so charming,
talented, kind and physically attractive they only inspire admiration
and respect even from such as I to whom envy and resentment are sweet
as mother's milk from a big pink titty. When they got married they
had so many friends that they got incredible scads of gifts, and once
Reed told me a story about the gifts they got. A few months after the
marriage a friend came by with a belated wedding gift. As he
unwrapped it, Reed was telling her about the unbelievable quantity and
variety of gifts they had gotten. Like three toasters, and seven
cheese domes, those glass domes on a piece of wood that you are
supposed to put a piece of cheese under for some reason, and he was
really going off on how ridiculous a thing a cheese dome was and what
a stupid thing it was to give anyone and what kind of person would
give anyone such a dumb useless thing, when he finished unwrapping the
nice new cheese dome she had brought.

Part Four
I let the box with that stupid piece of crap sit down in my basement
for a while until I knew what to do with it. Then I went out and made
the rounds of the thrift stores until I found a cheese dome. I took
it down to the basement and took that piece of "arto/oo out of its
undeserved bubble wrap, and started tearing it apart. I took that
jesus and sawed him into little pieces and I stuck them all in the
cheese dome, which I had inverted on a roll of duct tape, and I broke
all the swizzle sticks and birthday candles into pieces, and tore out
as much as I could of the smashed up scrap wood from the box, and I
stuck them all in the cheese dome until it was packed tight. Then I
mixed up some epoxy and applied it around the rim of the cheese dome
and put the wooden base on. And then I wrote a note saying "IMPORTANT
WORK, MY ASS. HAVE ANOTHER CHEESE DOME.o/oo and sent it back to him.
I bet he keeps that thing for the rest of his life.

Part Five
"Arto/oo and "Godo/oo are the two words in human language which have caused
the most trouble. They have no OBJECTIVE meaning, only SUBJECTIVE
meaning. Everyone has their own definition, and they often seem to
think it is THE definition, and they get people to do terrible things
to anyone who will not agree. If you add even one more word to the
sentence "Art iso/oo it becomes either an error or a lie. I took care of
both "Arto/oo and "Godo/oo simultaneously, twice - first I crucified christ
on swizzle sticks and celebrated with birthday candles, then chopped
them up and stuffed them into a three dollar cheese dome. Both times
it was done as a sarcastic joke at the expense of people who will
mistake it for art. That makes me just as much of an artist as it
makes me a theologian - not one bit. It does not change my standing
as a wise-ass; that remains unchallenged.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Joe Cosby <joecosby@SPAMBLOCKmindspring.com>

hy, NENSLO!

How perfectly CHARMING of you!

Brad and Janet will look at it and they will LAUGH AND LAUGH!

and then they will look at each other for a minute

and they will say

"THAT NENSLO!"

only you, Nenslo, only you!

--
Joe Cosby
http://joecosby.home.mindspring.com

...As long as they're clean they don't have to be perfectly straight.

-- Rev. Magdalen,

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: S Williams <swilliams023@msn.com>

et he keeps that thing for the rest of his life.
>>
>
> Why, NENSLO!
>
> How perfectly CHARMING of you!
>
> Brad and Janet will look at it and they will LAUGH AND LAUGH!
>
> and then they will look at each other for a minute
>
> and they will say
>
> "THAT NENSLO!"
>
"THAT NENSLO! Some Pink in Boulder offered us USD$100k for that piece and we
sent it back to avoid the temptation. Too bad he didn't read the note!"
>

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>

In article <3E389DE3.64572B68@yahooX.com>, nenslo <nenslo@yahooX.com>
wrote:

> ART OR TORTURE???
> Another thrilling true story from my fascinating life.
> In five tangentially connected parts.

I enjoyed the hell out of reading this whole thing, which probably
tired out your fingers just typing it.

I like some art and I like to hear about torure so you couldn't go
wrong.

> When I showed it to her, wifey said "This is the first piece of your
> work I've ever seen that I really didn't like.o/oo

You are SO lucky to have Mrs. Nenslo saying things like that. But
luckily for you, you KNOW how lucky you are.

> You'd think that being so Perfect they would
> inspire resentment and envy, but they are so nice, so charming,
> talented, kind and physically attractive they only inspire admiration
> and respect even from such as I to whom envy and resentment are sweet
> as mother's milk from a big pink titty.

That line made me laff and laff.

"IMPORTANT
> WORK, MY ASS. HAVE ANOTHER CHEESE DOME.o/oo

It's a shame you and Palmer Vreedeez have such similar senses of
humor/torture.

>
> Part Five
> "Arto/oo and "Godo/oo are the two words in human language which have caused
> the most trouble. They have no OBJECTIVE meaning, only SUBJECTIVE
> meaning. Everyone has their own definition, and they often seem to
> think it is THE definition, and they get people to do terrible things
> to anyone who will not agree. If you add even one more word to the
> sentence "Art iso/oo it becomes either an error or a lie. I took care of
> both "Arto/oo and "Godo/oo simultaneously, twice - first I crucified christ
> on swizzle sticks and celebrated with birthday candles, then chopped
> them up and stuffed them into a three dollar cheese dome. Both times
> it was done as a sarcastic joke at the expense of people who will
> mistake it for art. That makes me just as much of an artist as it
> makes me a theologian - not one bit. It does not change my standing
> as a wise-ass; that remains unchallenged.

I think you're giving Art too much credit for causing trouble. It only
causes trouble those artists or those who say they're artists or,
especially, those who say they're not artists but "KNOW ART." In fact I
think you're giving God a bit too much credit too.

You me and Palmer all had our say about Art and God in that last book,
the one with the red cover, but nobody paid a lick of attention, now
did they? They certainly didn't turn the art museums into hospitals or
lynch the art critics of the world. They couldn't even be bothered to
sue us for copyright infringement.

Ironically enough, I think you're a "truly Great Artiste", but then,
you know my tastes pretty well, so that statement probably holds little
import coming from me. My idea of a good artist is somebody who can
draw a pretty girl, and a GREAT artist is one who can draw a pretty
girl in a REALLY REALLY SUPER-COOL way.

I sold the Barbie that I animated in a DEVO video to an art collector
for hundreds of dollars! And yet the most I can get for a whole BOOK or
a two hour video is $16.95. GO FIGURE!

Mark Mothersbaugh kept saying to me, "Less is more! Less is more!"
BULLSHIT, I said, I am not falling for that post-modernist crap; you
can't fool me, MORE is MORE." Later he agreed with me that in the case
of SubGenius, more was in fact more and les was less.

So much for that art shit.

My wife's co-singer was over last night for rehearsals, and she said
she kept getting distracted by the goofy shit in our living room. She
went to the sink and found that even the dish-scrubber was a strange
implement made to look slightly like some kind of alien creature (a
gift from irRev. Friday Jones). "Everything in your house is WEIRD!"
she said. (This particular lady has coordinated the big pagan hippie
event Starwood for 23 years). Princess Wei and I looked at each other
and shook hands self-congratulatorily.

"WEIRD" is plenty enough of a compliment for me. But even weirdness is
TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE. Some would think our "weird" decor merely kitchy.
We're not rich enough for it to be TRULY WEIRD. We MIGHT be crazy
enoug, but until we're rich that's a moot point.

What am I doing blathering on about art and god. I have important
TECHNICAL work to do. Installing upgraded program versions. Dodging
payments. Nothing subjective about the TECHNICAL world. I can see why
many people prefer to have real jobs. My fake job is easiest when it's
most like a real job.

Anyway thanks for the thought provoking essay, you nasty horrible man.

--
4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath of Dobbs Yeti,
Resurrected (Rev. Ivan Stang, prop.)
P.O. Box 181417, Cleveland, OH 44118 (fax 216-320-9528)
A subsidiary of:
The SubGenius Foundation, Inc. / P.O. Box 204206, Austin, TX 78720-4206
Dobbs-Approved Authorized Commercial Outreach of The Church of the SubGenius
SubSITE: http://www.subgenius.com
For SubGenius Biz & Orders: call toll free to 1-888-669-2323
or email: jesus@subgenius.com
PRABOB

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>

In article <kqjh3vk1b8uccsl3vt34qk5giquppn9b11@4ax.com>, Joe Cosby
<joecosby@SPAMBLOCKmindspring.com> wrote:

>
> Why, NENSLO!
>
> How perfectly CHARMING of you!
>
> Brad and Janet will look at it and they will LAUGH AND LAUGH!
>
> and then they will look at each other for a minute
>
> and they will say
>
> "THAT NENSLO!"
>
> only you, Nenslo, only you!

I have said "THAT NENSLO!"

but I was not laughing and laughing.

I had my eyes squinted in deadly anger and was thinking of revenge.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: nenslo <nenslo@yahooX.com>

Bobdiddley wrote:
>
> nenslo wrote:
> >ART OR TORTURE???
> >Another thrilling true story from my fascinating life.
> ...
> Liked the story, and the replies. Now I must pontificate; the frame makes the
> art. A picture is but a small part of the whole visual scene - but frame it,
> and you're saying, "consider this".

That's why I'll never forget the art I saw in a real art museum that
was half a dozen empty picture frames called Untitled.

>
> My brother wrote a story long ago, about a guy who strikes it rich by
> presenting his garbage as 'art installations'. On his deathbed, he tries to
> confess to his friend that it was just garbage all along. His friend says,
> "Yes, but such artistic garbage"...as the frustrated artist slips away.

Once I had a bunch of pieces of "art" in a show and this gal comes
gushing to me about one of them how great it was and asking me to tell
her all about it. I am such a mean guy that I told her the absolute
truth. Half an hour before it was time to take my stuff to the
gallery to hang it I thought, "they said I could bring six pieces but
I only have five that I want to lug over there. Let's see if I have
some crap I can throw together at the last minute." So I took this
fragment of an old counter top and tore a couple of pages out of a
sketchbook and glued them onto it and wrapped it all in some of that
transparent window curtain fabric and tied it all up with some string.
For some reason she found this very disappointing.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: nenslo <nenslo@yahooX.com>

"Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote:
>
>
> My wife's co-singer was over last night for rehearsals, and she said
> she kept getting distracted by the goofy shit in our living room. She
> went to the sink and found that even the dish-scrubber was a strange
> implement made to look slightly like some kind of alien creature (a
> gift from irRev. Friday Jones). "Everything in your house is WEIRD!"
> she said. (This particular lady has coordinated the big pagan hippie
> event Starwood for 23 years). Princess Wei and I looked at each other
> and shook hands self-congratulatorily.

You are a winner.

>
> Anyway thanks for the thought provoking essay, you nasty horrible man.
>

You haven't even started thanking me yet. Just watch, folks. Before
the end of next week this guy is going to be praising Nenslo all over
the place.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>

In article <3E3A3A29.9CB588F@yahooX.com>, nenslo <nenslo@yahooX.com>
wrote:

> > Anyway thanks for the thought provoking essay, you nasty horrible man.
> >
>
> You haven't even started thanking me yet. Just watch, folks. Before
> the end of next week this guy is going to be praising Nenslo all over
> the place.

That's BULLSHIT -- because I *AM* Nenslo.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "nu-monet v5.0" <nothing@succeeds.com>

Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:
>
> That's BULLSHIT -- because I *AM* Nenslo.
>

There can be only Nenslo.

--
Unless there is some reason for investigation,
the federal law and the Constitution still
protect the rights of citizens.
--FBI agent Greg Stejskal

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>

In article <ece00630.0301311228.6f5ae32f@posting.google.com>, ignatz
topolino <ridetheory@yahoo.com> wrote:

> A good artist is one who can draw (in pencil) a bowl of oatmeal, and
> you can tell what it is.
>
> A GREAT artist can draw a bowl of oatmeal and a bowl of creamed corn,
> and you can tell which is which.
>

Agreed, agreed. That is indeed a finer way of putting it. In PENCIL
too. I'll have to remember that one.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: bobdiddley@aol.com (Bobdiddley)

nenslo:
>I am such a mean guy that I told her the absolute
>truth. Half an hour before it was time to take my stuff to the
>gallery to hang it I thought, "they said I could bring six pieces but
>I only have five that I want to lug over there. Let's see if I have
>some crap I can throw together at the last minute." So I took this
>fragment of an old counter top and tore a couple of pages out of a
>sketchbook and glued them onto it and wrapped it all in some of that
>transparent window curtain fabric and tied it all up with some string.
> For some reason she found this very disappointing.
>
But did she BUY the shit? She's obviously clueless, looking for you to tell her
what is, so her money BELONGS to you. "Art" turns everything around - in real
life, people who have money always seem to think they're smarter than those who
don't. But in "Art", someone who has money is looking for something to validate
their pitiful existence. If they can buy your soul, then they don't have to
make one up for themselves, out of syphilitic gristle, or whatever is lying
around the house. So frame it, claim it, blame it on "Bob" and call it "Art".

Note: I've been saved from the ignomy of having to explain my "Art", or
declining cash offers for same. Come join me in the backwoods of Quebec, and
put the starving back into artist.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: hellpopehuey@subgenius.com (HellPopeHuey)

"nu-monet v5.0" <nothing@succeeds.com> wrote in message news:<3E3AA17D.3B4E@succeeds.com>...

> There can be only Nenslo.

Yeah, but millions can piss BLOOD *trying* to be. Then they can use
it to write haiku on the sides of public buildings. Now THERE'S some
ART for yer goddamned ass.

Newbie fer Dobbs: I joined this Church while stinking drunk.
H-Pee: So? I joined it while I was HUEY. At least you can sober
up.

"Your inner child pretty much runs the place, huh?"
- "The Drew Carey Show"

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "nu-monet v5.0" <nothing@succeeds.com>

HellPopeHuey wrote:

> Yeah, but millions can piss BLOOD *trying* to be.
> Then they can use it to write haiku on the sides
> of public buildings. Now THERE'S some
> ART for yer goddamned ass.
>

Can't think right now.

I'm imagining Friday Jones belly dancing to the tune
of Shocking Blue's version of "Venus".

--
"I don't trust common sense."
--Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "nikolai kingsley" <nikolai@broadway.net.au>

> "WEIRD" is plenty enough of a compliment for me. But even weirdness is
> TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE. Some would think our "weird" decor merely kitchy.
> We're not rich enough for it to be TRULY WEIRD. We MIGHT be crazy
> enoug, but until we're rich that's a moot point.

this isn't an interesting parallel or a clever metaphor or even an amazing
coincidence (but i type it anyway); in the introduction to the reprint of
his novel Schismatrix Plus, Bruce Sterling said he'd come to the point where
being weird just wasn't weird enough any more. i note that he still includes
weird stuff in his books. i still have brain whiplash from picking
Schismatrix up from a book-store several years ago, thinking it was regular
SF. heh.

nikolai
---
`Public pay-phones must survive in a world of unfriendly, greedy people, and
a modern payphone is as exquisitely evolved as a cactus.'
- bruce sterling

Back to document index

Original file name: ART OR TORTURE___ A true .txt - converted on Monday, 21 July 2003, 13:47