Impossible Objects

The Journal of Applied Impossibility

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Bad Art is Immoral

3/3/2022

 
 (Originally Begun 24. Feb. 2021. I'm becoming less timid in sharing thoughts)

Something a friend said to me made me realized that I have a certain reputation. I am apparently known in some circles for saying things at the park that scandalize other parents. J.K. Rowling is better than Neil Gaiman.* The children of elected officials should be required to go to public school, and the school should be decided by a weighted lottery.† Officials without children should not be allowed to make rulings on education policy. Get rid of pharmacies and have prescription drug vending machines.‡ Sometimes I remember to preface these remarks with "I'm not sure how much I believe this, but as an intellectual exercise, let's consider what might happen if..." Sometimes I just let it slip and see how far I can argue my point.  But one claim I will fight for is this: Bad art is immoral The argument is pretty simple. Resources are limited. Every moment spent  making art is a moment that 

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On Conceptual "Art"

2/7/2022

 
I recently read an article from Huffington Post about the “I could do that” response to so-called conceptual art.* 
The opening paragraphs read:
"Ideas alone can be works of art," Sol LeWitt explained in his epic "Sentences on Conceptual Art," a pretty brilliant primer on the ins and outs of modern art making.

Ideas "need not be made physical," he continued. "A work of art may be understood as a conductor from the artist’s mind to the viewer’s." There's the possibility that the idea may never reach the viewer, or that the idea may never leave the artist’s mind. But all ideas are art, he posits, "if they are concerned with art and fall within the conventions of art."
​

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Of Beauty and Disgust

2/3/2022

 
I'm about to be one of those people who gripes about contemporary art. The good news is that if anyone reads this, they will get to signal how well educated and refined of taste they are by telling me all the reasons I'm wrong.

...But before we do all of that, let me tell you about my friend. My friend hates cilantro. It's not her fault, and apparently it's reasonably common. I'm made to understand that it's genetic and has something to do with a receptor labeled OR6A2. I joke with her that it's a genetic defect, like being a ginger. One time I asked her whether, given the opportunity to change this perception she would choose to do so (of course I mean ceteris paribus. This isn't a monkey-paw choice where someone's dog dies or something). Of course she 

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Consider the Stars (part 1 of n)

12/13/2019

 
Note: originally posted on my personal site. Date changed here to reflect original posting date as I migrate my blog here.
I recently found these notes, which I wrote on 18. July, 2016

There is an ancient argument for the existence of God. For many centuries it worked to produce pious men and women. Even brilliant thinkers were swayed by its simple clarity. The argument runs thus:

Consider the stars.

This alone was enough -- once to persuade the souls of men that there was an author of sublimity. But tonight, I look upon the night sky in my city -- which I have loved -- and see the glow of growth: reddish,  and when there is fog, possessing its own beauty. ...

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