Mimetes

Eres lo que lees.

All information on the dog-starvation piece, "Eres lo que lees" (You are what you read), comes from sites protesting it. There are many of these, as well as petitions, long diatribes, etc. The artist's statement accused those indignant of hypocrisy: why do you clamor for one dog among so many, why (one supplies) bother about dogs among so much human suffering. It was often written by detractors, 'this is not art'¹. In typical form, the evaluation lacked explicit criteria. Those with the strength are free to reenact debate.

The strange complement to many of these texts (blogs, message boards, etc) was the appended disclaimer that none of it might have happened (this is the way many pages ended, with an afterthought about the possibility of its being a 'hoax'). Conflict focused on endowing the event with profundity or stripping it away; very little elaborated the clues about whether it had actually taken place.

In fact the possibility of the event came into being (in the absence of originary information) as a byproduct of a controversy about it. The idea that "it doesn't matter what it means, it shouldn't have happened," rebels against the necessity of a real precedent despite being literally predicated on one.

An Instance of Cremation Grave-Robbing Provokes Questions about Authenticity

I knew a journalism professor who enjoyed aphorisms and described his discipline this way: "like a lover, you fall for and then betray your subject". Betrayal was a necessary function in this compact philosophy because, like all bright misanthropes, he saw the transcendent truth in the lives of others, from which hypocrisy and stupidity shield them.

I had a conversation recently which I would like to report with all sympathy to the situation of my 'subject', who understood its possible inauthenticity as well as I did.

I was looking for treasure on this island:

The only thing I found, within the first few minutes of a week of otherwise fruitless searching, was a small chip of flexible metal which turned out to be a cremation tag: it had a number and the address of a crematory in a nearby state. Because I found it between the rocks of a promontory, I knew it must have fallen when the urn was being emptied. I was proud of it and showed it to most of the people I ran into. Incidentally, I spent the day wondering if I had committed a form of grave-robbing.

Eventually someone told me that it probably came from his friend, who had died in a car accident a few towns over from the address on the tag, been cremated, and whose parents had scattered his ashes on the island. We concluded that was probably where it came from, though the island has many visitors, weddings and other functions. I gave it to him, because it would been grotesque not to. In the course of a conversation a few days later he said he had "reflected deeply" on it.

Because of the number of visitors who come to the island (and because calling the island one's 'spirit's home' is repeated by enough of them to make it a joke among workers there), it is perfectly possible that his reflections were concentrated on something which did not come from his friend. It may not have. It probably did.

Tomaž Šalamun's Wager

If Tomaž Šalamun intended this poem to be a personal statement on the reading of his poetry in general he would probably be horrified by the idea that it might itself be read to ironically affirm ironic readings. It is attractive to think of it as an earnest command because of its sudden clarity among a body of obscure works, many of which are autobiographical, and more importantly because it is an incomplete theory requiring personal, inflective force: irony may be a "decadent defense system", etc., but such statements trail into simply calling it "muck".

The possibilities are: Šalamun is disgusted and refuses to finish his statement; the argument is left unsealed in order to let sufficiently shameless ironic readers through; it is a theatrical event whose only function is to separate these two former types of readers. A work of criticism incidentally inserted among poetry; a poetic joke pretending to be a work of criticism; a naked and indifferent device miming the two options.

Reality Television's Retaining Wall at the Extreme Periphery of the U.S.

Eastport, Maine. A statue at the easternmost point of the U.S. (far North as well: the islands in the photograph's background are part of Canada). The plaque reads,

"This statue was built in 2001 for Fox Television's filming of its reality mini-series, Murder in Small Town X. Restored in 2005 with donated funds and services, the statue is now a tribute to Angel Juarbe, Jr., the New York City fireman who won the $250,000 grand prize in the mini-series and soon after lost his life as one of the first responders to the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001."

One might think that if vérité were the goal of reality television, constructing anything would have a corruptive effect. Dziga Vertov took the risk of arranging the real in hopes of accentuating its truth; here, the image of the town is materially impressed on the actual town, but here there is no feeling of representational responsibility at work; the risk is null. The statue was a monument to a (an imaginary) town; with the act of its refurbishment it was dedicated to the corresponding act of best clarifying that ideal, for which a performer (from New York) won the "grand prize". If it could be called a revision of intention, it might be quite an insult.


The statue has engendered considerable controversy among Eastport residents, but as a member of the Chamber of Commerce cheerfully summarized, "I wouldn't compare it to serious sculpture, but it has an economic value to the town. Tourists love it."¹

Detractors of the statue have observed that the fisherman (besides having disproportionately short legs) is holding a Pacific rather than an Atlantic salmon.² However, if we are to read him as a kind of televisual ambassador, he appears to be bearing an offering to the formerly prosperous port from the birthplace of his own industry on the opposite coast (perhaps his legs have simply worn away from the long walk; his refurbishment furthermore took place in Nebraska).

One might guess that the re-dedication was motivated by the performer's death in September 11th, an event widely received as having its precedent in television and film. It seems reasonable to say that for many readers, the phrase "won the $250,000 grand prize in the mini-series and soon after lost his life" has a cinematic "before he could even spend it" in the negative space. The death is uncannily appropriate, as the hero of merging the image and reality of the town goes on to become a 'hero' in the event that merged the country with its image, nobly sacrificing (again to use the vocabulary of that event) an American dream of enjoying his large, fortuitous prize.

Besides a few docks the statue may be the easternmost thing in the U.S. It is in part apparent in the photograph above that Eastport is not doing terribly well; the statue's cheery absurdity makes a noticeable contrast with the town's melancholy.

1. Esposito, Susan. "Fisherman Statue in Eastport Maine Focus of Restoration Efforts". http://www.remyc.com/eastport_fisherman.html. Accessed 5.29.2008.
2. ibid.