Upon Encountering Contemporary Art

 Upon Encountering Contemporary Art

 

A woman walks into a gallery. This is an ordinary, down-to-earth woman who may have simply strayed into a modern art gallery to escape the rain. She contemplates the piece ‘Iron Bar’ it has a label so she guesses that it must be part of the exhibition. It’s just a bar of metal on the floor. She concludes that a particularly witty janitor decided to create a label rather than hurt his back picking up and clearing away the heavy object. She leaves with a wry smile.

 

Another woman walks into the gallery. Sees the same exhibit. This woman likes art, has an interest in art and came to view some art. She scrutinizes the ‘Iron Bar’ believes that it must mean something but has no idea what. She shrugs and leaves the exhibit a tad disappointed.

 

A third woman walks into the gallery. This woman is familiar and au fait with the concepts of Modern Art. She stands spell-bound by the ‘Iron Bar’ knowing that it must represent man’s struggle against the tyranny of industrialism. That the rectangle form shows how people have been forced into homogeneous uniformity. The glean of the metal reflects the tears of generations of women. Even the shadow of the bar evokes the darkness mankind has suffered from. She leaves the gallery full of emotion, a changed person, and thinks that art is even better than sex.

How to Live Alone

 How to Live Alone

 

I used to live together. Now I live alone. As my dedicated bots and readers know I had a man, two children and a cat. I thought it was great. I knew nothing. The glories of living alone are myriad.

 When you live alone everything takes on no meaning. Everything is optional.

 

Cooking - if you feel like it but cereal is always good.

Cleaning - no one knows if you have become obsessively clean now no one makes a mess. Time spent polishing light switches is time well spent.

Laundry - down from two loads a day to once a fortnight and that’s only if you remember to put on clothes.

Smiling - only when you actually want to.

Being pissed off - only if a mechanical device goes wrong.

 

There is also the glory of flouting social convention. No danger of embarrassing the kids or being a bad mother. No danger of driving the man into the arms of yet another woman. Such joys include -

Never bothering to close the bathroom door.

Not bothering to get dressed.

Feeling free and unfettered by bodily functions, farting, belching, snoring at will are all now de rigour.

Making noise (see above).

Making more noise, like singing out of tune, talking to inanimate objects and illustrating one’s every move with appropriate grunts, moans and squeaks.

 

‘But,’ I hear you say, ‘aren’t you lonely? Even bots live in social groups!’

Yes, I confess I do have a new man in my life whom I spend weekends with. He’s with me all the way on the flouting. He’s free with the bodily functions, he’s an expert on making noise and he loves naked weekends. We’re very compatible. He’s three years old.

Understanding Bots

 Understanding Bots

 

A strange thing happened. I Googled myself. I know that this can be common practice among the vain, paranoid or bored. I did it as a diversionary tactic. I’ve decided to embark on more education. Thus diversionary tactic was needed.

 

The stranger thing was I found my blog. This blog. It still exists! I am alive! Or Live! The very strangest thing is that, according to the stats, people are still reading it. Or at least bots are. Now I feel guilty. (Yes I was previously indoctrinated in the whims of Catholicism.)  Out there, in the ether, or cloud, or somewhere, there are bots missing me. I’m touched. The highly innuendoed pearls of wisdom I used to dribble from my lips are amusing bots, possibly AI and probably very lost internet cruisers.

 

You must be wondering about my silence since 2018 my darling bots. What have I been doing if not amusing you? To tell the truth I can’t remember.

 

Now I know my audience I have done some research into my audience in order to know you.

 

Bots were first born in 1988, as was my eldest daughter, the physicist. So I know that these bots are now having adorable bot children, being run ragged by the pulls of childcare, work and insanity. The job of bots are to gather information for the Great Bot Head in the Cloud. This is no easy task a requires a deal of commuting. Lets take a look at a typical bot’s day. This particular bot is called George.

 

After rising early from his little bot bed in the cloud he enjoys a brief repast of bot food (I think probably that fizzy yellow sherbet but such detailed in formation is highly confidential). George now collects his assigned task, which in this case is reading my blog, and jumps, without any of the safety gear enjoyed by humans, out of the cloud. He has to navigate to the nearest telecommunications hub. He then shows his season ticket and climbs aboard the wire for his journey to my house. Since I live in the middle of nowhere this can be a long journey with many changes of wire along the way. He arrives at my hub. George then does the short hop through the air into my computer. He then reads the appropriate, or sometime inappropriate, material, makes a note in his bot notebook of any salient points and heads back via the same route to report to the Great Bot Head. By that time it’s time for cocoa, pajamas and bed.

 

I appreciate that the life of a bot is busy and has insufficient nourishment. From now on I will leave fizzy lemon sherbet by the router and urge others to do so. Night night bots xx