Art For Man's Sake

I have run across an interesting idea, and I want to share it with you. Ideally, you will find it interesting to, and either agree or disagree with it. I meet this notion in Paul Johnson's Art: A New History (No, I am not trying to impress anyone by saying that I am reading this huge book; in fact I am on page six). In the book he says that one of art's primary functions is to order the life of man. This idea about art is new to me. I always thought that you could argue that art is for beauty or function, but the necessity of order in our lives seems to be filled by other things. At least that is what I thought at first. But what orders our lives seem to be things of our own making. Thus the name, artefact. Almost every ordering thing in our life come from art; personal planners, calendars, clocks, etc. If we can say that language is an artefact, then the best ordering principle of human existence is from art. Where do the fine arts come in though? How do they order? I cannot answer this question. I guess I will have to get past page six.

Concerning Cognac & Life

Life is good. I just gave my thesis advisor a very expensive cognac, and he suggested that we should enjoy a glass. This was quite unexpected; if you knew my thesis advisor, and I don't expect you to, he is the type of guy who would be appreciative, but he would still take it home never thinking of letting a starving student share in the pleasures of fine distilled French wine. So when I bought the bottle all I could think of was how much I wanted just one glass, and now I'm going to get it.

As good as that is, that is not the only reason life is good. Sure I'll be out of a job in three weeks. Sure I don't have an apartment, so I'll have to beg to sleep at my dad's house for a while. Those are objective evils, but for some reason I think that every thing is going to work out fine. I have no idea why I think this, and to the best of my knowledge there is no precedent for things turning out for the better. All the same life, even when your dirt poor, is a whole lot of fun. Being really is better than non being. I just know that this cognac thing is indicative of life in general. You never get the whole bottle you paid for, but you might get one glass; which in some cases (jobs, apartments, love, cognac) makes up for it.

What is P & J?

I do not know how this will turn out. After thinking long and hard about just what kind of a blog I should have I have given up. This blog, the one that you are reading and that I am writing, has no essence or soul of even identity yet. I tell you this not to confuse you or to hide something. No, I really have no idea where this whole thing will end up. To drive home this point even more, I have no idea what my name means or where it even came from. Just on day the name "P & J" was on my mind and I knew that I must create something with such a memorable name. That was about two years ago. At that time I thought of creating a satirical student journal on campus; which did not ever get off the ground. The reason, I think, is that I was reading far to many Russian novels at the time and all the articles sounded like something from "War and Peace", (note, I am not comparing myself to Tolstoy here). More recently, I tried to start a satirical blog, of course named "P & J", and like the paper it never got of the ground. I have reached some sort of a compromise with this current endeavor. I shall write whatever I am in the mode to write and in return I expect no readership. Of course any readership, especially the loyal and uncritical kind, is greatly appreciated. Further, if I do get into the habit of writing about the goings on in my life, then please don't use it as an excuse not to get in touch with me in the more conventional ways. This is of course directed to all those friends of mine who have those blogs that are far superior to mine. Never-the-less I am more keen on actual dialogue between us, and not just the reading of each others on-line journals.