49.

□ Art hates me now and believes me to have cheated it out of a free ride. But look at postmodern people, those dabblers in public print, speakers of journalese, the many copy chiefs and know-it-alls whose lexicon is the television documentary.

An awful assumption was made about art when Liska and I were alive, insofar as when people saw a work of art, they expected edification. At the same time, the ultimate introduction to our society was that the arts were blamed for the violent ills which plagued it. Nobody believed a criminal back then when they said God or the Bible made me commit that crime, but people were still content to pin violent acts on Marshall Mathers (for example) and his wicked films and video games. For edification we had artists shitting into cups — artists who dissected their own families for public kicks — those who liked to shock and those who like to joke. Back then, we were edified most of all by the terrifying emptiness of the CONCEPT. Art was proclaimed through a tight sphincter of media excitement and the rave viewing public treated itself to expressions of violence on violence, and they still found art respectable, no matter how vile or drab its perpetrator. So long as the artist was making a statement, the public could understand and assimilate the work. The attitude of instructed people as regards art had changed, and it was never changing back.

Heery said that new words for art worked much better in Gaelic — and he was right.

This was a theological point, given the spiritual importance people placed on their art. Any technique concerned with revealing more about the relationship between ego and commerce could not be bad, and so I think Heery was on to something there.

The final lesson was that all of this art and business leads us only into trouble — equally and together. There is only one cathedral and it’s made of flesh — so fill it up with duck meat and read on.