Gender is done, racism is done,
Sex and bodily fluids and carnage and the inside out is done,
What is next in art? What is left?
Let us turn inwards, perhaps,
What would it be like if urban sculptors and animators and designers
Moved on to the next bit of the cycle,
Checked the grotesque and shocking off their to-do lists
And turned their playful gaze
To the issues of the renaissance,
After all, isn’t that what we need now,
A renaissance or re-enlightenment,
To see us through the great recession?
What would Leonardo Da Vinci have created in Flash?
What would Michelangelo have sculpted in vinyl?
What is the shape of happiness when semen and stains aren’t involved?
Skateboards are done, the city is done,
Let us turn for the Next Big Thing to the wilds and the villages,
Let us recognize the beauty in the local hyperlocal,
Let us know what art is being made in a tiny town a hundred miles outside Vienna,
Let us see what is being made a hundred miles from anywhere,
What is being filmed, what is being written,
What is life when the headlines are gone, when the clichés are gone,
What is life beyond the chemical and the Hollywood, the Bollywood,
What is the story of the marriage that isn’t driven apart,
What is the good life still good,
What is the love and peace and quietude that isn’t small-town racism,
What is the wisdom of the corner store, the bodega, the spa,
These lives that aren’t constant clichéd struggle but are in fact still wondrous things,
Life in cars with fast food hamburgers and iPods and conversations,
Late night joes told over hot chocolate at Denny’s,
Band practice in the basement or out in the garage,
Dreaming not of fame and fortune but of being right here,
Of being in the music, the story, the art,
Of doing what they’re doing and having that be amazing,
Have it be enough, how much is enough,
Is that the glory? Is that the Next Big Little Thing?