Someone's signing me up for listserv after listserv after listserv again. I'm convinced there's a database for conservative trolls to consult when they feel someone's maligned their dearly beloved. Copy, paste, then give that vicious liberal the spam he so richly deserves!
However, there must be a glitch in their system: this is one of the lists to which I'm now subscribed. (Replace the slashes with "a" to view the site.) The email itself was so entertaining, I took a minute to learn about "Mich/el Isr/el":
Isr/el's work moves far beyond the act of painting and the final result of what is achieved on canvas. Yet, if only those portions of his work are considered, he may well be keeping company with some of the most brilliant artists.
And while our First Amendment guarantees us the right to make any statement we wish, Mich/el believes that such freedom comes with the moral obligation to use it for good purpose and not sensationalism and vulgarity for the sake of profit and greed.
Call me an elitist, but I'm not sure I'd want my official online biography to contain freshman comp. quality filler about the First Amendment. So, what is this work that "moves far beyond the act of painting"?
The act of painting is just one component of his artistic expression in a fervently charged performance, one in which his audience is very much a part of the process. To date, there may not be a specific definition for Isr/el's work. Is it a performance? Is he a painter in the artistic sense? Is it a concert? A social commentary? An experience? The answers are all emphatically yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. It is all of those things and more. Mich/el Isr/el is an anomaly.
What it is like to experience this anomaly?
His performance encompasses a multitude of components. The initial and most obvious being the heart-pounding music, pulsing and reverberating, crescendos highlighting Mich/el's performance in perfect unison to his strokes, sometimes with double fisted paint brushes, others with only his hands. As he spins his canvas, round and round, back and forth, the audience is mesmerized [and covered in paint ], curious as to what his movements and strokes will reveal. Mich/el Isr/el, lithe and athletic, uses his whole body in what seems to be a magical, lyrical, exuberant dance, pulling his audience in as part of a heightened experience. To witness him in action is to think that he personifies the concept of kinetic art [and be covered in paint]. It is that and more, which defies definition. As his program builds to a booming, thrilling conclusion, audience members are left exhilarated and fulfilled [and covered in paint ], having been captivated by his hypnotic performance. Far more than an up-side-down portrait or abstract splashes Mich/el’s presentation exudes originality and significance.
I concur: that and more do defy description. Or maybe I'm being uncharitable?
For charities, Mich/el's performances raise awareness, goodwill, and funds on a grand scale. Certainly, these achievements alone are the purpose in orchestrating such events and yet, through Mich/el's moving, compelling program, he reaches beyond the usual altruistic endeavors and reaches a little more deeply, clearly, and honestly on a more personal scope.
Whether he is performing for Special Olympics, the American Red Cross, Susan G. Koman Breast Cancer Foundation, City of Hope, or countless other charitable organizations, one thing is certain, Mich/el Isr/el knows how to reach his audience, and he touches boldly, deeply, and succinctly [and with paint].
Maybe I've misjudged him. Anyone who does this much charitable work must be a humble man, right?
Clearly, Mich/el Isr/el has transcended the boundaries suffered by painters of the past. His work, both during the process, the performance, and subsequently in the end result of the composition have proven to reach out to his audience, embrace them, and thereby evoking feeling and emotion. Will this concept go down in history as the next chapter to ultimately be praised and followed? Hopefully those emulating his movements and technique will in the process discover: it is not the paint that lands on the canvas or how high you jump that is significant but the message that lands on the heart and how it empowers others.
In an age of abundant multi-media, it is possible that Isr/el's performances will be viewed and studied in classrooms, the progression beyond the proverbial slide show of French Impressionist paintings. One thing is for sure, decades into the future, he will be exalted for creating the next genre of art, when a new movement in art is exactly about that: movement in art.
Clearly, both subsequently and in the end result, Mich/el Isr/el is not a humble man. He is "event insurance":
- You don’t need an art critic or some “expert” authority to tell you what your body, mind, and soul will.
- You along with thousands will be overwhelmed with the urge to cheer,
- your heart will beat faster as you lose yourself in the art,
- goose-bumps raise on you arms and
- tears well in your eyes,
- life’s most significant ideals focus into perspective,
- your emotions go wild and
- you feel uplifted, (We couldn’t stop at 7.)
- and you know without looking that the person next to you—the thousands that surround you are all having the same experience.
And all you haters can stop your nattering already:
Unlike other performances, Mich/el Isr/el's is without gimmick or guile.
Hear that? The man paints celebrity portraits while doing Tae Bo to thumping motivational techno in front of thousands of people. Does that sound like a gimmick to you?
Because it should.
Is the goal with the /'s to avoid showing up in Google searches for the man's name? If so, are you sure you want to show up as the referring URL in the logs/statistics for his website?
Posted by: todd. | Wednesday, 19 September 2007 at 07:02 PM
Good point. I'm awful stupid sometimes.
Posted by: SEK | Wednesday, 19 September 2007 at 07:11 PM
Clearly just not sufficiently practiced at mocking people behind their back on the internet.
Posted by: todd. | Wednesday, 19 September 2007 at 07:12 PM
What a horribly composed sentence that was!
Posted by: todd. | Wednesday, 19 September 2007 at 07:15 PM
I wish I were that cool! I'm gonna put some slashes in my name to replace the "a"s and look real ... oh wait.
Meanwhile I love how the blog has split, like a slightly-out-of-control party raging on down in the basement while the host has come upstairs and out front to hang out and do completely unrelated, slightly geeky things, and meanwhile no one has noticed he's gone or even whose house this is. Seriously, those peeps do _not_ give up! That is one dead horse of a thread, that is.
Posted by: Sisyphus | Wednesday, 19 September 2007 at 07:27 PM
RE: The House Party
I know, believe you me, I know. But it's preferable to the nasty mail in which people repeat my own jokes back to me, i.e. "You know that picture of the headless statue on your blog, well, it fits. Ha!" You know, as if I didn't put it there myself. 'Gads.
Posted by: SEK | Thursday, 20 September 2007 at 07:59 PM
You missed a pretty good parody, if I can say so myself, Sisyphus.
Posted by: Rich Puchalsky | Thursday, 20 September 2007 at 08:49 PM
That was damn brilliant, Rich. I never thought you a fan of the hip and the hop. Maybe I should post about the new Kanye joint?
Posted by: SEK | Thursday, 20 September 2007 at 09:14 PM
Yeah yeah, it always happens ... they send me out for more beer and while I'm gone I miss everything great. I love your smackdowns, Rich, but what do you get out of it when _no one_ ever seems to learn or listen? It doesn't teach anyone or change their minds --- gah!
Posted by: Sisyphus | Thursday, 20 September 2007 at 09:17 PM
I like hip-hop, punk, Johnny Cash, pretty much anything you can sneer along with.
Sisyphus, well, yeah, the people who take those kinds of positions in the first place are generally incapable of ever learning anything. But sometimes other people do. And I learned something.
But when it leads to a parody poem like that, that's pure aesthetic joy, probably because I'm the kind of person who laughs at my own jokes. Whenever I hear "Roll Out" again -- which is not too often -- I'll probably think back to the wonderfully confident, humorless, absolutely wrong person who provided the opportunity for so much. I mean, using a genre that they probably have no appreciation of, and that subtly mocks their racism? Funny. Using the ludicrous / Ludacris bit to seque into a song that's all about wannabe gangstas envying the O.G., thus implying a similar relationship between KC and his fans? Funny! The way that the classic Eschaton phrase "dirty fucking hippies" fits into both the rhyme scheme and the sentiment expressed? Very funny! The way that "ALL CAPS" fits perfectly into the assonance demanded by the song and also mocks the style of a noteable comment box bloviator? Highly funny! The way that none of KC's fans will even understand that I'm mocking them as philistines with the "So much money" link? Really pretty funny!
And that's just the chorus. I'll resist the tempation to go through the first verse. But the great thing about these kinds of parodies is that the remaining verses remain in reserve, as it were. I remember with Masefield's Sea-Fever during the C-vs-c thing (pun on Sea vs C; perfectly fit the self-destructive urge to do back and do the same thing over and over) I eventually had to use all three stanzas. With this, I can laugh about how if KC's fans ever do poke too much into what he's doing, and the facade starts to crumble, he'll be all "Get out of my business / cause it's mine, all mine" just like the fourth verse.
All in all, well worth it.
Posted by: Rich Puchalsky | Thursday, 20 September 2007 at 11:46 PM