In the Name o f Art.
Dear Uncle Mike,
I am thinking of writing a
personal ad and would like to know if
you think they are safe.
Presently Lonely
Dear Presently,
There’s nothing the least bit
risky about placing a personal ad. The
risky part comes when you meet the
people who answer it. Uncle Mike has
heard many heart-warming stories of
unrequited humans finding each other
in the back pages of a newspaper. Granted, all but one were in ads
promoting the service, but Uncle Mike refuses to believe anything not
ruled out by physical law is impossible. The challenge with personal ads
is the natural urge most humans have to make a good impression; an
effort that often boils down to stretching the truth past all recognition.
You, of course, would never do that but the people who respond to your
ad might be less perfected beings. In clinical terms, what you’re doing is
posting public notice of an open position and soliciting resumes (a
French word meaning “shameless embellishment"). What you’ll likely
find during the interview process is that there’s at least one good reason
most of these people are unattached; something which could, in all
fairness, be said of most of us. Does Uncle Mike regard this social
process as dangerous? Not if you have a good sense of humor and deal
well with disappointment. If it’s your karma to date an ax murderer, the
personal ads will only be the means to it, not its cause. The worst that
will probably happen is that you’ll know even more people whose
company you’d cross the street to avoid. Uncle Mike wishes you the best
of luck and would love not to know how things work out.
Mike works at Bill’s and one day he set a jar on the bar
labeled “In the Name of Art.” He’d dropped a dollar in it as
bait. So, we had to ask, “What in the name of art is that all
about?* He explained that he was tired of artists looking at
their art as a hobby, something you do after your “real* job,
and how that idea is put in our heads at an early age. “ Oh,
Johnny sure can draw, you name it he can draw it, and he has a
nice sense of color too, but he’s better off working at the gas
station, and besides you know how those artists are, kinda
weird, and they all starve all the time." Mike hates that. So he
decided to try to change that way of thinking where it could do
some good, in the schools.
Mike and his friend Turtle got a plan together and
formed a non-profit and began raising funds. They put jars in
bars, and bookstores and various places in the area. When
thought they had enough they went to Seaside High School and
talked to the art teachers. They asked the teachers to identify
the students who had talent enough to be working artists if
they were given the motivation, then asked to see the students’
wofk and meet with them. They then offered to buy work from
the students. Cash money.
Mike told us of one student who was very good, who
had drawings and some collage works, and they asked him how
much he wanted for one piece. “$50,” he said. “Sold!” Mike
said. The student’s eyes got wide and when Mike asked the
price of another piece the student said slyly, “ $60.” “Sold!”
said Mike. Then Mike said you could almost hear the kid
thinking, “Wow, I just made $110 off some stuff I did in class,
what could I get if I really worked at this?” Which was the
whole idea.
After Mike and Turtle bought enough work to deplete
their budget, they took the drawings and paintings and had
them matted and framed. They also arranged to have them
hung with the students’ other works in the annual art show at
Seaside High, and made sure they were marked “sold.” It’s
funny how that works. Family and friends can be counted on
to buy some of the students’ work; but seeing what were
arguably the best pieces already gone, inspired them to look at
the other pieces and the students themselves a little differently.
Mike says the kids look at themselves a little
differently once a stranger has paid them for creating art. They
look at their art as something that has value, not just to them,
but to the rest of the community as well. Some might think of
this as commercializing art, that money taints “true” art, and
want to cling to the “starving artist” stereotype. Mike won’t
have it. I f we want being an artist to be a respectable
occupation we have to show it respect and in this society
money is the main medium we use to do that.
So far In the Name of Art has done the same thing
at Astoria High School and is planning to branch out in the
area. They are working with the Seaside Parks Department and
presenting a twenty-four hour “Art-a-thon” for the whole
family November 10th. We asked Mike about the why he called
this effort “In the Name of Art”? “It just looks good on a
check," he said. It does too, try it.
C L ^ b ro M j ih c iÀ ;
4
TRILLIUM
NATORALiWS >
3*
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Dear Uncle Mike,
You keep saying you know nothing about etiquette but you’ve
given some pretty good answers before and you have to know more about
it than me since I’m only seventeen. I’ve always eaten with the fork in my
right hand. I see a lot of people now eating with the fork in the left hand
and the knife in the right. It looks cool but is it etiquette?
Chris
Dear Chris,
First off, there’s no such thing as only seventeen. By that age
Mozart had been composing for ten years and Einstein had been passed
over in mathematics. But your question involves knives and forks. We
push on. Uncle Mike isn’t just pretending to know nothing about
etiquette. Aside from common manners, which chimpanzees are capable
of mastering, Uncle Mike would be regarded by members of court as
either, depending upon the level of gaucherie involved, an amusing
bumpkin or a well meaning primitive. You have, perhaps without
knowing, hit upon the first rule and the root cause of etiquette. It must,
to outsiders, look cool. The second rule is that the more complex and
arbitrary the anointed behavior, the better (and cooler) the form. There
must be a third rule, but Uncle Mike hasn’t the foggiest notion what it
might be. Neither is he curious. If it means anything, Uncle Mike holds
his fork in his left hand, pointy end down. This leaves his right hand free
to make conversational points with his butter knife. It also conserves
energy. When Uncle Mike thinks of the cumulative hours he’s spent
cutting his chili cheese burger into manageable portions, laying down his
knife and transferring the fork to his right hand before lobbing his bite in
the general direction of his mouth, he could just slap his forehead and
make cuckoo sounds. This is (aside from the lobbing part) the
“European” way of self nourishment and is considered the proper form in
every culture (aside from ours) that doesn’t lean to chopsticks or fingers:
methods hilariously counterproductive when applied to chili cheese
burgers.
Contact In the Name of Art at:
P.O. Box 411, Seaside, OR 97183-0411
(5 0 3 ) 717-0927 or
www.inthenameofArt.org
O S B O R N E S T U D IO .C O M
F IN E ART, S M A L L E D IT IO N
P R IN TS, C O M M E R C IA L
R E N D E R IN G S & G R A P H IC S
L IV E V IS IT IN G R IG H TS
BY A P P O IN T M E N T
503 368 7518
E M A IL V IA W E B S IT E
* Fine Lingerie
and S le e p w e a r
Dear Uncle Mike,
I’m writing to ask you a favor. My girlfriend thinks you’re a
saint. I tell her there’s a big difference between the advice you give other
people and what you do in your own life. Your advice is usually— okay,
almost always— right on. But I’ll bet you’re as flawed as anybody else
and could use some advice yourself sometimes. Could you please tell
your readers the truth and get my girlfriend to stop comparing me to
somebody who only exists on paper?
D.R.
Dear D.R.
Uncle Mike is beside himself with joy at the chance to help.
Truth is an interesting word. Unless the Vatican is keeping it from him,
something they’d have little reason to do, Uncle Mike isn’t on any short
list. Unless the world is in even more dire shape than CNN is letting on,
he can’t imagine being even on a very long one. As Uncle Mike has tried
many times to make plain, he’s just out here with his eyes and ears open
and his mouth mostly shut, doing his level best to figure out what it
means to be human. He has his good days and his bad days. The good
ones are when there’s a poker game; the bad ones are generally when
there isn’t. In between, he bumbles along, arranging words on paper,
drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes and trying to do as little
emotional damage as he can. Like yours, his life is a comedy of errors,
some of them less funny than others; too many of them cause for
embarrassment and regret. Please tell your girlfriend for Uncle Mike that
there are legions of people who have, for one good reason or another,
given up on him entirely. Fortunately, none of them are in his poker
support group.
* C r a b tr e e & Evelyn®
Bath, Body and
Home Frqg/-ance
239 N. Hemlock #4, Cannon Beach • (503) 436-0129
r
SOARING CRANE GALLERY
Ground floor Inn at Cape Kiwanda
1-877-397-8444
Pacific City
W om ack
1238 8. Hemlock
P.O. Box 985
Cannon Beach, OR
97110
(503) 436-2000
Pax (503) 436-0746
“Whereas each man claims his freedom as
a matter of right, the freedom he accords
to other men is a matter of toleration.”
BUSINESS CARDS
SIGNS A BANNERS
LAMINATING/ FLYERS
BROCHURES/ FORMS
OFFICE SUPPLIES
FAST
SERVICE
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NOTARY SERVICE
W alter Lippman
Cannon Beach Historical Society Presents:
S hirley G ittelsohn
H a y s ta c k R ock:
M y V a n is h e d V ie w T w e n ty Y e a r s L a te r
My personal reaction to the loss, 20 years ago,
of our view o f Haystack Rock and the political turmoil
surrounding the building of Breakers Point Condominiums.
Presents:
October 5, 2001 - January 5, 2002
Opening reception Friday, October 5‘\ 5-7pm
Inkling Studio Printmakers
At
Cannon Beach History House
Corner of Spruce and Sunset
Open l-5pm Wednesday through Saturday
Call (503) 436-9301 or visit Shirley’ s website @
http //members aol com/shirlygitt/index.html
Sherrie Funkhouser
Liza Jones
Paul Miller
Hibiki Miyazaki
Gerald Purdy
Nicole Rawlins
John Saling
Margaret Van Patten
H ibiki M iy a z a k i
LEARN
Tracy Erfling N.D.
"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn,
beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That
is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and
trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night
listening to the disorder o f your veins, you may miss
your only love, you may see the world about you
devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled
in the sewers o f baser minds. There is only one thing for
it then -- to learn Learn why the world wags and what
wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never
exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear
or distrust, and never dream o f regretting."
Naturopathic Physician
Treating Women
& Their Families
1010 Duane • Astoria, Oregon 97103
Phone: 503-325-9194 • Email: e rflingnd^hotmail.com
4
r
Inkling Studio is an independent printmakers’ workshop
in a 1910 M om & Pop grocery in the C orbett-Lair area
o f Southwest Portland. Over the last 21 years
seventy-eight artists have shared space, presses and
expertise. The etchings and engravings in this exhibition
were made by 8 o f the 18 current members.
October 6th - October 29th, 2001
Opening reception
Saturday, October 6th, 6-8pm
Cannon Beach Gallery
1064 S. Hemlock
Cannon Beach, OR
(503) 436-0744
— From "The Once and Future King" by T H White
Quoted in the Powell's Bookstore online newsletter this week
(newsletter@powells com)
up e es UFT cose octobgr 2004
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