-For those who love paint: kandelakiv.com
-This portal represents the visual art of Vladimir Kandelaki, the great Georgian painter. His painting enriches the cover of Skin of Evil.
-He collects ancient swords. I know his daughter. Her name is Marika.
-I think people might confuse the woman in this image with the woman at the centre of the songs on Skin of Evil. I think this is wrong, as the woman in the painting is actually a portrait of Marika's mother, and she is a real person who has nothing to do with anything that I have ever sung about.
- I tend to be friends with the children of artists: Marika is rare as a child of an artist, because she does not hate art. In fact, she is a great painter herself.
-Artists are like fucking Kronos with their children.
-I think my albums always get mis-represented. Skin of Evil is not so much about 'Donna', as it is about my own attempt to just stick to something, and not veer off into the nebulous domains of 'fractured social commentary.' I think that in this sense Skin of Evil is a moderate success.
-I used to love paintings. I loved painting, the verb, and I loved to look at paintings. Or, at least, I loved acting in a play where a man loves to see paintings. I loved to think that I was spending some time enriching myself. Working on myself. Making my spirit better.
-Then I willed myself to stop loving it. I asked: what's so deep about a bunch of lines and colors? That stuff doesn't even move.
-I fell out of love with painting. It was easy. I just tried to convince myself that painting is boring. Tried that on, as one tries on a weird pair of pants.
-I met a few people with ferocious and sympathetic minds. During a small synchronetic* period they all admitted it:
-'I've never ever been moved by a painting!'
-What courage, to admit such a thing!
-These confessions made me wonder if I was really moved by a bunch of paint, by moving a bunch of paint, or if I was just playing at being moved. And, I asked, what is so central about being moved?
-Is it a virtue? Does it allow me to see the hues of the world more clearly? Sleep sounder?
-Dispense Justice?
-'Not empirically answerable,' I responded. Empiricism is the enemy you hate until it departs this Earth. And that which killed it?
You hate that thing one thousand times more...
-And some of these artists: Snakes! Vipers! They'd smother a baby for a handjob!
-And: the act of pondering other people's confessions has been stupidly problematic since I think Elsinore, 1324.
-So just as a test, I willed this love of paint out of myself. Flushed that shit for good.
-oooohhhhhhh, it worked, fuck...
-I can't recall ever being moved while actually painting. I can only recall a wonderful absence, a silence, a hollowing out.
-I said, 'I know what's clever. And what is important in that world of Art. And what people like to talk about. But a ziggy cartoon is 'clever' (?) (?) (?) (I actually remember thinking this)'
-It's a bit scary, and a bit liberating, this experience. If I can will myself to pull down the blinds against one form, then why not all forms? Can I will myself into stone?
-Could I shave my eyebrows and drop out of this world?
-Then can I also let that love of the WORD, and the words, drip out of me?
-Yes! Of course!
-It's always falling out of me, and I am always blindly crawling around, stumbling in its shards and rolling in its crumbs, re-devouring what comes back into my mouth.
-I'm practiced at sucking that shit back up into me...
-Noo-noo, that sucking thing...
-Precious flickering flame to be cupped and held in the most interior zone of hand...
-And if the line, and the smudge, and the fucking WORD can drain out of me, then why not music?
-What is so holy and pure about music? Stupid sputters and rattles. The sound of a dirty laundry cart with a whobbly wheel squeaking on a waxed hospital floor. Pissy cocks. Soft minds. Forks in cellos, shiny scarfs, hockey card-collectors, and boredom. So pathetic: so far from serious and so begging to be taken serious!
-Begging! And so in love with money!
-We mustn't judge though: Bolano says even poets are always dazzled by money.
-Who judges the meek?
-Lastly: The inverse of this act is liberating. Because if I can will myself into the discarding of one thing, then I can will myself into embracing one thing, and the fact that it can be lost, can so easily be lost, makes me cling. Or nurture. Hold tight to it, brother Self!
-I think I should love painting again. I am virtually ignorant of the thing. This is one benefit of being so 'short term' about everything; every few years your shit becomes tabula rasa.
-I should love painting again as I love music--for its frivolity, its play, its funniness, and its sorcerous power!
-I thank Vladimir for his paintings, though I have never met him, and I very much doubt he will ever read this, as he is off painting one thousand tiny Lenins into lightbulbs, or collecting ancient swords, and not slobbering over his own google alerts.
-I thank him, because the paintings move me, even though I don't know if I am playing at being moved or actually being moved. So please, if you love painting, go to the website.
