themes
this week on the avant guardian \/\/ tighten up
Archie Bell and the Drells’ 1968 hit “Tighten Up” is one of a long line of American popular songs built around a dance. There are few lyrics beyond Bell’s cajoling the band and the dancers (you!). He does claim at the beginning of the song that “we dance just about as good as we... »
this week on the avant guardian \/\/ the blending heat of compassion
In his book The Traces of God in a Frequently Hostile World, Diogenes Allen tells the story of Iulia de Beausobre. In the early 1930s Iulia was arrested and tortured in Russia during the reign of Stalin when millions were tortured and died. She lived in solitary confinement for three... »
this week on the avantguardian \/\/ branding leads to revolution
This week we are leading up to a special kind of climax. An epic moment in theavantguardian’s history will unveil itself properly next Monday the First of March. We will have a logo. Righteous. We are moving on up. But in order to get a logo we have decided to hold a logo competition. Thus... »
the first tale from fishmammal state \/\/ be a hater in action
Hello readers, it’s been a while. I’ve mentioned that I’m a student, a professional book nerd. Well, for this piece I want to be more specific (well, kinda). I’m a student and employee (because I’m a TA) at Fishmammal State University (which is NOT FSU, it’s a northern US coastal school). So, because it’s a university, by... »
this week on the avant guardian \/\/ nature doesn’t ask your permission
“For pity’s sake,” they’ll shout at you, “you can’t rebel: it’s two times two is four! Nature doesn’t ask your permission; it doesn’t care about your wishes, or whether you like its laws or not. You’re obliged to accept it as it is, and consequently all its results as well. And so a wall... »
kandinskian evolution and the avant garde \/\/ chaos, perspective, order
So, since this week’s organizing theme is “External lack of cohesion is internal harmony,” (a quote from the painter, Kandinsky) I suppose this is a good descriptor for the avant garde in general. Not so much a coalition as a group of artists and thinkers with similar aesthetic and philosophical values, which address something like... »
this week on the avant guardian \/\/ external lack of cohesion is internal harmony
The harmony of the new art demands a more subtle contruction than this, something that appeals less to the eye and more to the soul. This “concealed construction” may arise from an apparently fortuitous selection of forms on the canvas. Their external lack of cohesion is their internal harmony. This haphazard arrangement of forms... »
composed before a million universes
I have said that the soul is not more than the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is, And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud, And I or you pocketless... »
beauty will be convulsive or it will not be at all
A certain attitude necessarily follows with regard to beauty, which has obviously never been envisaged here save for emotional purposes. In no way static, that is, enclosed in Baudelaire’s “dream of stone,” lost for man in the shadow of the Odaliques, in the depth of those tragedies which claim to girdle only a single... »
the omniscient narrator rode hard, put up broken \/\/ avant omniscient-pretentious
Dear reader-people, Friedrich Nietzsche – whose name I always spell wrong on the first try- said that GOD is dead. I don’t know about that. George W doesn’t agree, nor does a large part of our silly country (hmmm…silly and rich and well armed…interesting combination.) Nietzsche’s meaning is debatable. The man was quite mad himself before he... »
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