Rauschenberg, phobia, and Crimestoppers.

Adrian Searle pays tribute to Rauschenberg in the Guardian:During the 1950s, Robert Rauschenberg produced some of the best and most influential art of the decade. Visiting Rome in 1952 with Cy Twombly, he hung small, totemic sculptures called Personal Fetishes from the trees in the Pincio Gardens. Subsequently, he threw all the work he had made and shown in Italy into the Arno River. “It saved a packing problem,” he said. http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1958599,00.html

The argument between or about bloggers vs reviewers is still going on interminably over there. I hope someone is close on patenting a decent arthritis pill that doesn’t burn a hole in the tummy, for the degenerating cartilage in the arms of those typing epistles arguing over whether we should be paid very badly to think about books or not be paid at all. Perhaps these folk need to get some phobias …

Jenny Diski admirably managed to overcome her arachnophobia(http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n23/disk01_.html ) in what must surely be akin to the level of surprise or revelation Bernadette experienced when the Virgin Mary turned up in the rosebush beside her (or however that story goes). It offers hope for my rodent and fear of dying anxieties. A hamster moving in helped.  The hamster, a dwarf, has gained weight and is more fluffy golf ball than rodent now. I considered a job as an autopsy attendant, tried looking at autopsy websites, an’ came very close to passing out.  I think phobias reside in the frontal lobe, sharing the couch with writer’s block and other such joys.

 Some medja are suggesting atonement for Ian McEwan. Forget that, his real calling could lie in forming a partnership with Crimestoppers. Since his last novel suggested he may be persuaded of the power of poetry to change the mind of tempestuous criminals. Am surprised the Met police haven’t recorded him reading poetry and then set up some kind of tape deck to blare it on a loop near notorious London crime spots.