Sorry for the big gap between posts, my five devoted readers! I’ve been on vacation. I know what you’re thinking: ID, isn’t your whole life kind of a vacation? Uh, no, I have a full-time job being a garden variety neurotic, and that’s not an easy gig!
Anyway, last week in Jerusalem, I went to a gallery called the Museum on the Seam (so named because it is right on the Green Line.) Wasn’t overwhelmed by the art there, but I did like one piece called “It Was Me. Diary 1990-1999” by Italian artist Daniela Comani. It’s a text piece that imagines the major events of the 20th century as if they all happened to one individual. Here is the whole thing, and here (colon) is an excerpt:
February 20th. London. I took my life tonight. First I tried with an overdose of pills (150 antidepressants and 50 sleeping pills) but was saved in King s College hospital, where I hung myself 2 days later in the toilets in the middle of the night. February 21st. New York. I murdered Malcolm X during a speech in Harlem. February 22nd. I executed the siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl. February 23rd. Edinburgh. I cloned a sheep at the Roslin Institute: Dolly. February 24th. I presented ‘the 25 point program’ to the German Workers Party. February 25th. Unbloody putsch in the Philippines: I overthrew the president Ferdinando E. Marcos.”
My traveling companion (in life) didn’t like the piece, but I enjoyed it because I felt like no matter how obvious the conceit, it did make you think about each event as if it had happened to you for a millisecond. Also, it reminded me of some horror movie I’ve seen––but forget the name of––in which the Devil (or some evil force named otherwise) reveals him/itself to have been behind all the tragedies of history. A whiff of The Invisible Man, too.
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