Consumer hell, art paradise

So I wasted several hours over the past few days, trying to restore nearly $100 worth of minutes to my Verizon pay-as-you go account. I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say, the folks on the other end of the line, with their endless repetition of "I'm sorry, but you failed..." got the better of me. Then I remembered this poem; heard on Writer's Almanac:

Meditation on Ruin by Jay Hopler

It's not the lost lover that brings us to ruin, or the barroom brawl,
or the con game gone bad, or the beating
Taken in the alleyway. But the lost car keys,
The broken shoelace,
The overcharge at the gas pump
Which we broach without comment — these are the things that
eat away at life, these constant vibrations
In the web of the unremarkable.

Add cell phone customer service to that list.



Meanwhile a wonderful-sounding exhibit it on at the Danforth Museum, Material Drawing:From Left: Audrey Goldstein, Michelle Samour, Debra Weisberg, Julia Shepley,Courtesy of the Artists

The exhibit explores the use of material as a jumping off point for image-making. Sounds familiar.