Letter From Home

Buford Youthward
stockcap@hotmail.com

Art Crimes raided my inbox and they are unofficially leaking this:

Dear Buford,

I can't quite understand your desire for the damned. You're pissed off and on cruise control. I can't even put on the radio. With the insistent charge that jazz is democratic in its process and rock and roll democratic in its results. It's all easily dismissed as greasy kids stuff.

While watching the cable news feed, you shout the heart of imperialism lies in the notion that morality is worth imposition. What good's an institution if you can't abuse it. Point of view and point of representation can never equate. Morality is a moving target.

Meanwhile, in institutions souls gather interest, compounded nightly. The future is held hostage. Life is on hold. Living in the land of the damned, I hear your constant murmur, your wondering out loud, "who am I, where am I, when I am." As if the how and why are of little consequence. Every action creates a ghost.

And then you do it. You hit the nail right on the head, debunking the fact that the process of editing does not dehumanize but rather romanticizes the medium you are working with. Editing is a technique as much as an art. And it crosses mediums. It crops in and out of photography and splices through cinematic reels and samples itself elsewhere.

The experience of reality refuses montage. Television programmers pump product, producers pimp pressure. Relationships are little more than edited moments.

You put the framing around an idea and I think of ways to pray. I try to understand you but you're complicated. I think you are going somewhere and I fear you are going nowhere.

Utopia.

Don't forget to feed the dog and take the trash out,
Love,
Mrs. Youthward


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