I love seeing people come out of darkness.
Maybe there are some traditional things, but they are more about the way the West packages the East.
We need to remind ourselves that contemporary art is first of all a form of conceptual gymnastics, in which we learn to coexist with what we don't understand.
The sad thing is that somehow, it is a type of event that mirrors the artist. You take it into account, and you're reminded in this specific case what the artist's work is about, what his life is like, and how life mirrors art.
In some Arab art exhibitions that have happened, there's always this idea that the East is more traditional; they show a lot of works on calligraphy and religion.
Many of the artists are not pretending to have an objective point of view. They're revealing the subjectivity.
You witness the artists acting as witnesses, but they provide a point of view that's less monolithic. It's less official in a certain way. Many artists are speaking in the first person singular, as a reaction to dubbed-over media commentary. The thought is: "Enough with how we're represented by the media. Let me tell the story. "
When I first met Benny Goodman he wouldn't talk about anything but clarinets, mouthpieces, reeds, etc. When I tried to change the subject, he said 'But that's what we have in common. We both play clarinet. ' I said, 'No, Benny, that's where we're different. You play clarinet, I play music. '
Here was the rub: one must be more zealous to please God than to avoid sin. One must sacrifice oneself utterly to God's purposes, even to the point of possibly making moral mistakes. One's obedience to God must be forward-oriented and zealous and free, and to be a mere moralist or pietist would make such a life impossible.
Mexico with the United States has outnegotiated us and beat us to a pulp through our past leaders. They've made us look foolish. We have a trade deficit of $60 billion with Mexico. On top of that, the border is soft and weak, drugs are pouring in, and I'm not going to let that happen.
The vigour, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life depends on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh.