Author: Michael Fallon

  • "We Choose to Go to the Moon"

    “Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, ‘Because it is there.’ Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and…

  • ArtofPolitics.com

    One common blogging convention, that our Vicious Circle of intrepid arts writers has yet to employ, is what I am going to hereby dub the "Cavalcade of Links" (also sometimes called, by those who follow such things more closely, a "Blog Carnival"). For our purposes, a Cavalcade of Links is a posting wherein a lazy…

  • Eric Inkala's "Overflow: A Pleasure Trip"

    Eric Inkala‘s no fool. After a good run of years of painting his coloristic, hazy-dazy, arabesque, Little-Engine-that-Could-meets-Pacman murals (this guy is a tagger of the most whimsical sort) on walls around town, Inkala’s finally been hit by the legitimacy bug. That is, in the manner of graffiti artists gone legit–like Keith Haring in the 1980s…

  • The New Dada

    Part the first — History Is the Past   History is something that happens to other people. -Anonymous   WELCOME STUDENTS. I’d like to begin today’s seminar with a pop quiz. (No groaning, people!) Please take out your Bluebooks and answer the following two-part question: 1. Identify the following historical era: In the early years…

  • Dried Blood and Dandelion Wine

    (Header image credit: "Conversation with Death" by Gabriel Combs) In an effort to seek out and engage multiple voices and viewpoints from the local arts community, I will present in my space on The Thousandth Word occasional postings by “Vicious Guests” — that is, writings by various artists, curators, guest critics, journalists, art experts, art…

  • Serious Art

    Here’s a truism of modern art: Every new generation of emerging young artists is convinced it will reinvent the culture. And, strangely enough, they all go about this reinvention pretty much in the same way: By making a bunch of meaningless noise. Think of Tristan Tzara here, and his poems that go nowhere. Think of…