I'm hiding in the corners; I don't work or pay rent. Touch my web so I know you're there: nicholas.heskes@gmail.com https://linktr.ee/nsheskes ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– November 9 2023 While juggling with knives I lose my balance. April 2 2024 568 Poet and Bird. The phoenix showed the poet a scroll which was burning to ashes. "Do not be dismayed!" It said, "it is your work! It does not have the spirit of the age and even less the spirit of those who are against the age: consequently it must be burned. But this is a good sign. There are many kinds of daybreak." — Daybreak, FN Dichter und Vogel seems to have arisen out of N's earlier notions about the uses and abuses of history from the Untimely Meditations. The aphorism itself seems to be a response to the problem of untimeliness for the poet, but does not fall pray to any faith in progress. That there are "many types of daybreak (es gibt manche Arten von Morgenröten)" implies that any attempt at divining the future is futile; however, one can always count on the present being different from the future. The aphorism also implies a very extreme decentralization, that one can be neither for the times nor against the times——an even more drastic way to be out of step with the moment. But here he is not claiming that anyone actually aught to be in or out of step with anything but oneself, since the phoenix must rise again as certainly as the angel of history must continue to move forward. The spectres of the past recurrently haunt the present as what was ignored by history will reassert itself in unforeseen, even anonymous, manifestations. This is also to view the flow of history as an event which unfolds without true archetypal repetition. In the course of this unfolding forgetting is possible, and what was once acceptable becomes unacceptable as mores and fashions change irrevocably. These sands shift without ultimate purpose or telos beyond human invention. History is merely a matter of what one can hold on to via the maintenance of power and consensus. This rather bleak view of history would be consistent with N's meta-ethics and is not truth dependent. April 7 2024 The trouble with the spirit of the moment is defining it. Sometimes it is not acknowledged or defined until after that moment has already passed. Alternatively, the moment is simply understood differently during the peak of its relevance. The other, more significant issue is for whom the moment is relevant and in what sense. Since the conditions for everyone across the world are different, and what matters to different ethnic groups and classes is not always consistent, identifying a single zeitgeist proves a dubious undertaking. In the arts it has become a common consensus that the zeitgeist is the very lack of a zeitgeist: the decentralized and decolonized art world away from Europe and North American dominance. The rise also of visibility for previously underrepresented groups within North America and Europe has turned the primarily male and white centric ethos on its head. This is to say that despite the renowned importance of the Modernist western canon, everyone else was doing just fine without the approval of New York City or Paris. And even retroactively, in many parts of the world, eyes were not necessarily on the west but fixed on regional or local movements and modernisms, if not alternative international movements with their own centers of activity. April 11 2024 Rejection is a common experience for artists. Arguably, it is the most common experience, paradoxically essential to art itself. Essential, though, in that it is unavoidable rather than necessary. It is unnecessary because it impedes what would otherwise be free movement and validation of every artist's talents. Many artists from El Greco to Emily Dickinson, and so on, would have greatly benefited in their lifetimes from success. The creation of art does not, and should not, boil down to success and recognition, but there is nevertheless something tragic about the reality of persistent and damning rejection. N's poet, whose work is sacrificed to the phoenix, suffers a senseless disappointment. Tastes are changeable and subject to the influences of fashion, politics, personality, economics, and war. Behind every rejection is a story, if sometimes brief, in which plays out the minor drama of a decision. This could be the private weighing of options or a conversation before the condemnation is made. There is maybe a clash of personalities, or a favor. Sometimes the piece or body of work is not right for the venue, or it doesn't yet have a clear audience. It can also be as simple as "we don't know you" and so no risks can be taken, and, despite an artist's skill, familiarity is more persuasive than merit. The reverberation of events always influences public opinion and by necessity the opinions of the gate keepers of prestige and commercial success. And though their number is legion, there are even more artists and writers for every gallery, publisher, and producer. Here, the zeitgeist can play angel of death, because, in the moment, the decisions of individuals divining it are justified. Not until later is it proven whether they had it all wrong or that a mistake was even possible. Notoriously, MOMA has expressed regret for their rejection of Andy Warhol early in his career. And I wonder how silly all the publishers that rejected Harry Potter must feel now. But at the time, in the moment of deciding "will this sell or will it miss the mark," the business of art is justified until it is not. And the critics are justified until they are not. So the world turns and rejection is simply a bizarre condition that must be adapted to and eventually, one hopes, it becomes less consistent. The issue though is precisely this requirement for recognition. Art must have an audience. Without recognition, an artwork in secret would not exist. And I mean this with all seriousness. By recognition I do not just mean popularity and fame, but merely the literal recognition of its existence and by extension acceptance of its value. Because simply having a place within the economy of attention establishes relative value, and something considered worthless is only ignored and forgotten. Is it enough for the artwork to exist solely for the artist? And for what? April 12 2024 This is all viewed from the perspective of history. Who will be remembered, and why, is the guarantee of existence. Much more than relevance is the question of posterity. Will this last? And can we anticipate what will last? By "existence" I mean the enduring trace of something left in the world on others through documentation, preservation, discourse, and memory. An event that takes place without anyone to witness it is of no consequence unless it leaves traces of itself. A lightning strike in the desert, witnessed only by the snakes and lizards who cannot document the event, who may not remember the event apart from others like it, is always already voided as soon as it comes into being. An undiscovered artifact is unknowable if there is no record of it, and no one alive to remember it. April 19 2024 Extinction is the threat that the will depends on for its own striving. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––