sophie

what has always drawn me to the realm of the arts is not so much what louise bourgeois describes as art being a guarantee of sanity but more art being a socially accepted stalking horse for so-called obsessive, compulsive disorders. (-although this clinical term already is such a pretentious definition of napoleonic schmocks who claim sanity as subjection to prevailing ideology.) what draws me in is that these "disorders" not only find understanding but even appreciation and celibration amongst one's environment, which would otherwise probably direct you to the psychiatrist's.
you are allowed to be mental and noone expects you to act supposedly "healthy".
sophie calle, who i sometimes enjoy and celibrate enthusiastically and sometimes find a little too obnoxious and self-important, making me feel embarassed for her shameless and insolent public display of rudeness and transgression, -though on the other hand i then again think: shamelessness -wonderful! insolence-yes! at least she's not following some "english schoolboy notions of honor" (augie march) and is just being a punk-, published the goodbye letter of her lover just to send it to 107 experts to dissect and analyze it and turn it into a work of art.
sophie calle wrote:
"I received an email telling me it was over.
 I didn't know how to respond. 
It was almost as if it hadn't been meant for me. 
It ended with the words, "Take care of yourself." 
And so I did. 
I asked 107 women (including two made from wood and one with feathers), 
chosen for their profession or skills, to interpret this letter. 
To analyze it, comment on it, dance it, sing it. 
Dissect it.  Exhaust it. Understand it for me. 
Answer for me. 
It was a way of taking the time to break up. 
A way of taking care of myself."

a very exciting, strange, impudent and beguiling work.
just like the voyeuristic thrill of reading other people's letters, searching for personal traces in ruins, finding out your christmas gifts before you're supposed to, being a detective, putting together paranoid conspiracy theories.
i have to say i kind of love this work, but then again i guess i'm just too "civilized" to say that without a trace of embarassment of being a nosey bugger myself, interested in everything and often without the adequate sensitivity towards the embarassment of my fellow men. but then again i also think: oh fuck it. life is too short not to enjoy the befuddling freedom of being a freak.