Then I watched the first half of a documentary about Ai Weiwei. He's so interesting. Sometimes his art reminds me of an American artist who I have mixed feelings about but Weiwei's art is so rooted in a political perspective. In the doc he visits the town in which he sustained a brain injury from being hit by a policeman. He goes to ask that an investigation be launched. While there he has a dinner, which moves outside in front of the restaurant where he is joined by a group of fans. It creates an image that is comically close to the last supper. The police ask if he can move back inside and he says he will when he finished eating. All he's doing is having dinner with friends but it's such a challenge to a political system in which gathering together is seditious. He uses Twitter like a weapon against tyranny.
Later I read a book review. After the first paragraph I was ready to buy the book .
...he argues that, instead of feeling that we should have a better life, we should just live, as gratifyingly as possible, the life we have. Otherwise, we are setting ourselves up for bitterness. What makes us think that we could have been a contender? Yet, in the dark of night, we do think this, and grieve that it wasn’t possible. “And what was not possible all too easily becomes the story of our lives,” Phillips writes. “Our lived lives might become a protracted mourning for, or an endless trauma about, the lives we were unable to live.”
The reviewer doesn't seem to like Phillips much and after I'd read the whole review I decided to wait. I have a book he co-wrote and I think I heard him being interviewed about it. He has many interesting things to say. Many lucid things.
So a few random and disparate things happened. And I got a bunch of salt and pepper shakers washed. By the end of the day I felt clear. Or something. Clear is not the right word. Smoothed out. But also full of thought. But also other things. Hard to quite describe.
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