Apr 1, 2023·edited Apr 1, 2023Liked by Beautiful Eccentrics
Ay que dolor y que pena - y que sufrimiento and the shame. We’ve all been there. I was scheduled to give a lecture on Pedro a Friedeberg at the Phoenix Museum and no one showed up. As the curator and I were about to leave an elderly couple walked in to the auditorium so I offered to take them to lunch and we chatted about Friedeberg at a nearby diner over coffee and sandwiches. I won’t even mention my solo show at the Fuller Museum in Brockton, MA. I die a little every time I think of it. - alejandro Diaz solo show “party of one” but! As you say in your artoon “at least no one will know nobody came”. Loved your waiting for Guffman reference at the end. Alejandro
A paradox of contemporary academic conferences is that nearly empty sessions, attended in the embarrasing ways you recount, can later become influential books. (The opposite is of course also true.) An audience of, say, three or four terminally bored or embarrassed people, can become an enthusiastic endorsement of the resulting book. It's not hard to understand how something can fail to connect at the moment, and then find a voice later; but it is puzzling that people continue to organize those sparsely-attended sessions, when community, for some subjects, is clearly available mainly in texts.
You are absolutely right Jim. This speaks perhaps to the misplaced relevance we give to attendance and perhaps how we psychologically relate it to whether the artist/speaker/book, etc is relevant or not. We could write a whole book titled “Quiet Beginnings”, which could detail the first presentations/publications of important artworks, books, etc. that were met with indifference initially but became influential later.
If one is a targeted individual like myself people show up who have I'll will.
All the time. Everywhere you go. Total strangers. Targeted and tortured by the fusion centers.
No one showing up sounds good. I'm sorry if that was difficult for you though. You know the work is good and targeted justice dot com can explain why everyone is mind controlled. Blessings.
Ay que dolor y que pena - y que sufrimiento and the shame. We’ve all been there. I was scheduled to give a lecture on Pedro a Friedeberg at the Phoenix Museum and no one showed up. As the curator and I were about to leave an elderly couple walked in to the auditorium so I offered to take them to lunch and we chatted about Friedeberg at a nearby diner over coffee and sandwiches. I won’t even mention my solo show at the Fuller Museum in Brockton, MA. I die a little every time I think of it. - alejandro Diaz solo show “party of one” but! As you say in your artoon “at least no one will know nobody came”. Loved your waiting for Guffman reference at the end. Alejandro
A paradox of contemporary academic conferences is that nearly empty sessions, attended in the embarrasing ways you recount, can later become influential books. (The opposite is of course also true.) An audience of, say, three or four terminally bored or embarrassed people, can become an enthusiastic endorsement of the resulting book. It's not hard to understand how something can fail to connect at the moment, and then find a voice later; but it is puzzling that people continue to organize those sparsely-attended sessions, when community, for some subjects, is clearly available mainly in texts.
You are absolutely right Jim. This speaks perhaps to the misplaced relevance we give to attendance and perhaps how we psychologically relate it to whether the artist/speaker/book, etc is relevant or not. We could write a whole book titled “Quiet Beginnings”, which could detail the first presentations/publications of important artworks, books, etc. that were met with indifference initially but became influential later.
Thanks for this! May I post the cartoon and quote by John Cage to my social media? Always adding credit to you of course.
of course!
Great!
oof, and thank you!
If one is a targeted individual like myself people show up who have I'll will.
All the time. Everywhere you go. Total strangers. Targeted and tortured by the fusion centers.
No one showing up sounds good. I'm sorry if that was difficult for you though. You know the work is good and targeted justice dot com can explain why everyone is mind controlled. Blessings.