Perfect day for costumes and gummy eyeballs. We carved and changed the lightbulbs until late last night. We should see around 300 kids between 5:30 and 9. I have a new girl friday from the source of all good workers, the high school, coming this p.m. Her first new assigment is to fill 100 paperbags with a scoop of cat litter and a tea light. Then place them...and at around 5:15--lighting time. Also, there might be some raking to add to the jumbo composter we have. R. checked it the other day after loading it with leaves and that baby was literally smoking. Hot compost!.

Just started the Ludwig book.The book was written in the sixties as a graduate thesis that got funded and we now have this invaluable reference. I love what he says about the context of writing this book:

"The sixties were, among many other things, a time when high art finally succumbed to low. All kinds of objects crept into the museum, which were previously banned by the keepers of the gates. The very definition of what was art was challenged by the likes of Johns, Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, and Warhol. Most universities were often far behind the museums in their willingness to accept these new developments. Cultural history in general and art history in particular were based on the trickle down theory. According to the mantra of the day, culture flowed from the top down. At the bottom of the barrel, below quilts and samplers, lurked kitsch."

"I stumbled into what was then considered the chaos of low culture when I got lost on the way to an outdoor pig roast and found myself looking at the Thomas Cushman stone of 1727 in Lebanon, Connecticut. I remarked at the time that it looked like the kind of stylization that would have appealed to Paul Klee. The more I discovered, the more I became convinced that here was the early religious art of New England."

This was the beginning of his journey. We will share it together.

This is your treat. No tricks here.