Get closer.

Count this.

Since we’re in the gap between books right now, preparing to read a text that will have to be turned ninety degrees every other page in order to be read, I thought I’d provide some general thoughts and assorted shit about post-modernism in general.

If you want to really get into po-mo art, or abstract art, you have to learn to look at the pieces. I was at this modern art museum in Omaha a while back, and I was wandering around and looking at all these paintings. And there was this whole freaking exhibit dedicated to this one artist who, it appeared, just put two huge swatches of color side by side on a canvas and called it a painting. Right, obvious crap, “my kid at home could have done that!” and so on. And so on.

But then I got closer. Much closer than I would have been allowed to get in a regular museum. And when I stood close like that, I saw some things. It wasn’t all solid color, for one thing, there were subtle fluctuations. Some parts almost looked water damaged. The paint strokes were left in, too, so you could see swirls and slashes if you looked hard enough. And then I noticed that all over the surface of the painting were these stamp marks, various little shapes that had been pounded into a waxy surface that covered the paint. After all that, I stepped back, and I thought it was beautiful. Most people get so caught up in the insistence that a painting has to be something, represent something, that they can’t see the very simple beauty of a purple brush stroke on a white canvas.

So pull it back to literature (my own circus trick for the day). Most people, when they read GR, are going to say “I don’t get the plot,” and write it off as crap. Our own Herr Schneider insists on realistic characters in everything, and that put him off. Both these attitudes are not wrong, but certainly flawed. Because there are so many little things, puns or ridiculous names, stunning descriptions, philosophical insights, unique character quirks, historical tidbits you never would have seen otherwise, a structure held together by conspiracy and coincidence… to look at Gravity’s Rainbow and not see the quality of these little touches would be like looking at that painting and seeing two big splotches of color. It misses everything. It misses the point. Post-modernism is concerned with the details. Enjoyment is everywhere, if you look.