It's over

The semester is finally over! I had to drag my ass out of bed to do my philosophy final at 8 this morning. Is there anything worse than trying to write an essay on the nature of the meaning of "Is" in artistic identification? Bill Clinton has a famous quote saying "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is" in regards to the Lewinsky affair. The context obscures the fact that there is a difference in how 'is' is used (I used too many is' in that sentence).

There is an "is" of identity. "Cicero is Tully" is an example of this. The names refer to the same person. Tully is Cicero and vice versa. On the other hand, there's an "is" of predication such as "Grass is Green". The 'is' refers not to something that is the same (Green is not the same thing as Grass), but the state of something. I mention this because a famous 20th century art critic named Danto claimed there is a third type of 'is' involved in artistic identification. The theory goes that you must have an intrinsic knowledge of the history that goes into art in order to be able to recognize something as art.

The example Danto uses is an imaginary person named Testadura. Testadura looks at, say, Warhol's Brillo boxes and says "That's not art. Why is a recreation of a Brillo box so great? I could do that". Testadura represents someone who just "doesn't get it". Another example would be a Jackson Pollack painting where the paint is just randomly put all over the canvas. Is that art? Testadura would say no because a chimpanzee could do the same thing. However, Danto argues that there is an artistic identification that Testadura just does not have. He doesn't understand the evolution of art, the history of technique, application, and dynamic. Warhol's Brillo boxes would not have been art 50 years before, yet they are now precisely because the artist can see how things have evolved. In other words, Testadura is just ignorant to the fact that there is something more to art than just what we see with our own eyes. Danto argues that there is more to it than that and only certain people have access to the trait of artistic identification. Anyways, I had to write about that. Now I'm finished. Yay.

Christmas is coming up soon. Alyssa is gone all weekend visiting her grandparents in western Nebraska, so I've got the apartment to myself. I think I'm going to do some cleaning. Every once in a while I get in this mood to just clean everything like I'm possessed. Other than that, I plan on watching some movies. Stupid ass Netflix sent me an e-mail saying that three movies are being shipped from the east and west coast. I mailed these back on wednesday, so instead of having movies to watch this weekend from my local Omaha distributor, the bastards won't get me my movies until next week AFTER Christmas. I hate Netflix!

Gallup is showing Obama tied with Clinton in New Hampshire. I still think Hillary will pull out the nomination because I think most undecided people are ultimately going to go with the person they "know" rather than someone new to the scene, regardless as to whether or not Hillary would be good. That's sad, but probably the truth of it. As I've always said, this experience and exposure in the primaries will only help Obama in a future presidential run if he falls to Hillary. Still, I hope Santa brings a victory :)