Friday, January 25, 2008

STUDY OF REVENGE ON INDEFINITE RECESS


Wednesday, January 17, 2007

The Study of Revenge on Indefinite Recess

Preeminent political illustrator Arthur Szyk once declared: "Art is not my aim, it is my means." And so too it has been with the modest oeuvre I have presented at The Study of Revenge: A means of performing, with the limited powers at my disposal, the civic duty incumbent upon us all. It has been a duty, the magnitude and gravity of which, I have greatly underestimated.

Rife with diseased political orthodoxies, ours is an atmosphere thick with the anesthetic of "modernity." The pursuit of Truth and the defense of Liberty, regardless of intention, can only flail about blindly in this noxious fog of self-defeating paradigms; ours, it seems, is a fatal inheritance bestowed upon us by the flight of successive generations from civilizational certitude and from reality.

To carve a path through this dense morass requires an indomitable righteousness of spirit, bolstered by knowledge and, if not virtue, then at least the imagination to assume it. Dissolute is my imagination, merely adequate is my knowledge, and dead is my spirit. While I could continue in this vein for my own vain entertainment, I would be committing myself to a grave disservice: There is no practical value in amplifying the dystopian din of cynicism with yet another adequate voice, no matter how novel that voice may be.

None of this is to say that I will necessarily cease creating, only that, for the time being, I must dissolve myself from the bonds of the expectations of an audience if I am to achieve a greater lucidity of vision.

To the friends I have heretofore acquired, I thank you for your support and instruction. We may yet meet again.

DTD

4 comments:

Ronbo said...

What though the field be lost? All is not lost; the unconquerable Will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield: And what is else not to be overcome?

This lines work well after our defeat on November 4, 2008

Dag said...

Derek, I'm still here when you call.

Ronbo said...

@DTD:

Will there be a Second Coming of your Polemic Art?

Dag said...

Today I submit my seventh manuscript to my publisher. This book is titled Motoons, short for Mohammed cartoons. The cover graphic is Derek's Mohammed. I don't know if the book will pass the censors. If it does, I'll announce it here.