I've been on hold all day with Adobe. They have without a doubt the worst customer service and technical support in recorded history.

Can we fire an entire subcontinent? Say, INDIA?

Whose fucking brilliant idea was it to install CS4 on the Radiator? Not only won't it work, it screwed up my licensing on CS3. Brings my biz to a total standstill.

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Whose fucking brilliant idea was it to install CS4 on the Radiator?

I'm pretty sure it was Brother Obama. Where did he get to?

Oh sweet merciful baby jesus... this is the seventh circle of hell. The tech support people simply do not pick up the phone. I ran out the batteries on two handsets waiting on hold, then one just disconnected me (handset: smashed to bits. Seriously, no piece bigger than a quarter.)

Fuck them, fuck them. So I reinstalled all adobe products, which let me tell you, is not a quick process anymore. It's like installing Windows shit now. The installs also fail halfway through (beachball)... you have to turn off the machine and try again, and of course it ruins everything.

I finally have CS3 running again, so I can get some work done.

Apparently, the CS4 install doesn't like my serial number (100% valid and legal), and then it proceeds to destroy the licensing for every Adobe product on my machine. I had to BUY one or two CS4 programs and install them separately with new serial numbers (wouldn't take my CS3 serial numbers for an upgrade). Can't get through to Adobe to correct this. So now I'm caught paying twice for software I was going to buy as a cheaper, suite upgrade when I got the new computer. Now I'll have an extra copy of Illustrator and Flash.

Now I know how the Tea Party guys felt when Pelosi strolled by them with her gavel.

In the words of Bugs Bunny, Adobe: Of course you realize, this means WAR...

I've done that to keyboards. LOL. Wow. And you wonder why some people bootleg.

Oh man I was wondering how CS4 was working for you. I am not sure if you can just upgrade individual apps from CS. The problem may be the Illustrator and Flash upgrades will not upgrade the CS Illustrator and Flash. I thought you were just going to get CS4?

Now CS5 is out but you need Intel CPU's. Apple just updated the Macbook Pro's.

I have always said Adobe are a bunch of whores.

Hey Brother Rico,

I was going to get CS4, but after trying to install the trial, and the holy hell it caused, I was afraid to. I figured it was better to wait until I get the new intel machine when it comes out.

I mean, the trial is the same install as the actual, it's just a matter of a serial number. So the install failed so miserably on this machine, that I said forget it.

But I did get Flash CS4 to work, and I needed that (you can't open flash source files made with CS4 in CS3, which is ridiculous).

I know, I saw the new MacBook Pros are out. That means it'll probably be a little while longer for the Mac Pros. Hopefully by June. By then I should have the money for a 12-core or whatever it is, and maybe not a full load of RAM, but a goodly amount. Then CS5 (is the master collection out?)... then Leopard Server for the Radiator. Then we need to figure out a good sendoff for Seabiscuit. I don't know if I'll have the heart to put him in the dumpster. Plus, it'll be a big day for me, because once Seabiscuit is gone, I have no access to anything legacy. That'll mean I might as well shitcan all my archives of legacy jobs too. It's almost like wiping out my past.

I missed this post.

CS5 is officially out today.

Apple announced the dates for WWDC10 as June 7-11. So new Mac Pros could possibly happen sometime around then. So roughly about five weeks. I think in the long run the machines Apple should release around WWDC will handle CS5 and the next generation of CS better than the current machines.

If rumors are close the motherboard should have a re-due with better architecture involving RAM access. If you look at the Adobe CS5 teasers they talk about real time video/animation editing on the fly. That will take a lot of bandwidth between CPU, main RAM and the Video GPU.

I never have had any luck installing trial versions. Especially Adobe trial versions.

What the... I don't know what Adobe has been smoking, have you seen that CS5 site with the weird little flying creatures? I went to the "Master Collection" page and all I could think was, why on god's green earth did they waste all that money on that stupid happy horseshit. That's supposed to sell me a creative software package? A big rube goldberg "5" and crazy little flying bug aliens? A weird gloppy something in the water? Did we just land on fucking PANDORA or what?

My apologies I should have put a warming to that link visiting that page may cause your eyeballs to spin out of your head.

LMFAO!

Holy crap, it really is the funniest thing ever. I've seen some bad, overdesigned sites for software products, Quark has been pretty bad in this regard... but this CS5 stuff takes the absolute prize. And now I find out that the art is different for each package. Ugh, they get worse and worse.

1. Design Premium-- Douglas Alves, influence by Dali and Hieronymus Bosch. No shit? Holy terrible.

2. A "5" made out of twisted cables, like a plant, with its "flowers" being individual Adobe product icons. And these being pollenated by bumble bees. Good Lord. I don't see any art credits. I wouldn't take ay credit for that either.

3. Production premium. This art is a kind of giant stage-set, with clouds and a spaceship hanging in front of a big metal "5"... with some figures standing and looking at it. There's some "Metropolis" kind of vibe going on inside the 5. This is the best of the bunch, but it's still so eye rolling I can't stand it.

4. Master Collection. The master fuck up. This is the worst product promotion I've ever seen from Adobe bar none. Watch the bullshit video "The Power of Five" on the Master page... you see everything wrong with collaboration... why this design is such an utter failure. The video pretty much explains why everything is terrible, why this doesn't work. Too many cooks, all their fears "not grounding", "free-for-all" they're all presaged in the video.

Plus every buzzword in the industry. This thing is gag-worthy. Oh my god, this is funny. This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. "Brainstorms" check-ins "Everyone was really open to the process" bwahahahahah "sustainable" "green" OH STOP, my eyes, my eyes...

Please watch this, this is everything wrong with design in the postmodern culture. And the final product shows how AWFUL things can be... and these guys are all patting themselves on the back about the end result. But they should be ashamed.

It really is like a bad performance of Cirque Du Soleil times ten.

Quark has changed their logo around 5 times in the last five years. That speaks volumes to the lost direction of Quark.

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It really is like a bad performance of Cirque Du Soleil times ten.

Exactly. That same self-important quality. Sweet mercy, if I was still teaching at the Design School, I'd use that video of "the power of five" as an example of EVERYTHING NOT TO DO. Adobe should be embarrassed about using it to sell their flagship product. I can see art directors all over the world mocking and laughing. At least I hope so. This is to design what big government is to the US. It's Obama-era design. Spend a ton of money on complete and utter nonsense. And then hire pitch men to sit there, and sing its praises as if it's good.

When everyone with a speck of design training or knowledge can see it's total crap.

This is design that's lost its way. Like the interface (Aqua) in OS X. When this kind of shit happens, you often have the art director (say, me) telling everyone to just start over, you've painted yourself into the corner... of a sewer... using a shit brush, and something in your nose is broken, where you can't smell the shit anymore.

I mean a perfect example of what I call mass consensus hypnosis. Happens in the corporate world all the time. Where so many committees, and cooks and other bullshitters have contributed to "the process" that it kills any design cohesiveness, and then nobody notices when the product itself is utter crap!

Look, CS5 might be the cat's ass. It might be a great release. But you'd never know it from the graphics on the site which is trying to friggin' SELL it.

All it tells me, is my industry has lost its way, and become DESPERATE. They're starting to become con-men rather than designers. There is so much wrong with that video that, like I said, I could teach a course, in a graduate school, around it, as what NOT to do. The people in it are total wring-wrangs... meaning when they give you an example of what they did in creating this monstrosity, you should run screaming the other way, and use them as total reverse examples. In other words, do everything the opposite of what they did, have every attitude in opposition, if what you want to strive for, is excellence.

Oh my god, I can't stop watching it. It's priceless comedy too. It's like the best Saturday Night Live skit, written for me, that I could possibly imagine. Only it's not parody... and that's what makes it even funnier.

Oh, Adobe. How the mighty have fallen.

Yes, Quark has changed it's logo a bunch of times. That's a sure sign they were in trouble. And weren't willing to face that the problem was with their software not being able to compete with InDesign, rather than it being a problem with their branding.

So branding changes are the postmodern solution. It's like ACORN changing its name (which it's done... it's divided into a bunch of smaller local organizations... all trying to distance themselves from the negative associations to the parent organization. Like rats deserting a sinking ship).

The new Quark logo and design don't bother me that much. But it's not what's going to make me try to rediscover that product. The only way, I'd do it. And I mean the only way, is if they gave it to me for free. They can see that I've been a loyal customer since the company started. They should be BEGGING me to come back. By giving free licenses. At least one. And then if I like it, give me a deal on multiple licenses if I need them.

They do a 60 day trial, which is huge... but it's not enough. They have gotten good reviews, but it's still not enough to kick InDesign's ass. They need to drastically lower the price. PLUS make a better product.

Oh, if the upgrade was, say $49.95 from previous versions... I'd do that.

My biggest problem with the Quark site, which isn't BAD... it's sort of fun... but it drives me nuts the green of the logo is so lime, but the whole branding of Xpress is that acidy green. They mix too many greens, which is what we call green seduction. Green is a tough color. You have to really restrict the tones and values or else you get that crap, which always looks very disjointed and amateurish.

Oh lordy, now I'm looking at the flash piece on the main adobe.com site. What a travesty. And you know they paid MILLIONS for this. Note to Adobe: next time you want to throw money away, how about hiring me... where you'll get a much better product, far less bullshit, and you won't have every graphic designer in the world laughing their ass off at you?

I mean, how many millions did you spend on that flapping happy horseshit juvenile garbage? 2? More? I'll design up something to sell the suites for half of what you paid, but it'll be a thousand times less stupid.

Oh my god. Those fucking little flying creatures are bizarre. Pandora on acid.

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"The Power of Five" on the Master page... you see everything wrong with collaboration... why this design is such an utter failure.

Okay, I get it. That's like five COMPLETELY different things thrown together that don't really belong together unless you jam a cucumber somewhere, move it around a bit, so that when you recite the word "collaboration" the fact that THIS SHIT DOESN'T REALLY BELONG TOGETHER will be forgotten as your frontal lobes spasmodically pulse in waves of postmodern word-association pleasure from hearing the word "collaboration."

LMFAO!

Arrgh. It's unbelievable. Welcome to postmodern graphic design. I had no idea things had gotten so out of hand. I thought there was still such a thing as artistic integrity. I wonder if anyone who stood up and saw this as total crap was called "homophobic" or "racist." LOL

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Arrgh. It's unbelievable. Welcome to postmodern graphic design. I had no idea things had gotten so out of hand. I thought there was still such a thing as artistic integrity. I wonder if anyone who stood up and saw this as total crap was called "homophobic" or "racist." LOL

Listen, I don't pretend to be even 5% the art student you are, but I thought you gave a good description of The Obama Phenomenon otherwise knows as "postmodernism" otherwise knows as "style over substance" otherwise knows as "10 bags of horseshit in a 1 pound bag." Just as people nowadays are not schooled in American history (they're given mostly a leftist revisionist history), so I imagine there are people going to art and design school that are filled with their version of William Ayers. Yesterday's "rules" are for suckers. Instead, what is flattered and massaged is the conceit in the students' heads that they already know it all and/or that what they "feel" is their best guide. The politics of the situation (the leftist-socialist emphasis on group-think for its own sake, that is "collaboration") is given emphasis over other considerations. Or, as others have said, everything is politicized. Perhaps you understand my thalo-ish schtick now. If everything is politicized, a political analysis necessarily is a part of any critique of whatever the popular culture is vomiting out.

There's always some truth to some of the elements of this postmodernist idea, of course. Rules are made to be broken…once you learn them. What you "feel" (what your inspiration is) is indeed a necessary guiding light. But you just described regarding Adobe and the art "style" infused into this CS5 launch something that is little different in what it took to elect Obama. The same thing has happened to large swaths of science where it doesn't matter what the facts are, it's what you feel is right, or what is politically correct, or whatever the rest of the herd is doing.

It's all the same thing being expressed in various ways. God, even what we used to call somewhat old-fashioned religion is looking good compared to the malarkey being advanced in so many quarters.

What this is, is groupthink, where there should be artistic vision. The many, many places this went wrong, was because the original idea of trying to scab together these disparate elements and "collaborate" was fundamentally flawed. There are many other ways to illustrate how to collaborate. And I'm not saying that collaboration is impossible. What I'm saying is that collaboration, without a singular vision or a cohesive end product, almost always equals crap design.

There's ONE cinematographer on a film. There's ONE art director on a job like this. The Adobe art director, failed. They picked politics over design. Even Avatar, which was an obvious collaborative effort, hung together better, with its own "look" and all its varied postmodern associations. I may not agree with them all, I think there was a bit of cheapness there, but nothing as bad as this Adobe nightmare.

Avatar was a commercial success, it was a cohesive enough whole to appeal to the target audience.

If the Adobe thing represents the target audience, oh my god, that's what's putting ice cubes in my nut sack. I swear to god, if yutes coming out of design school look at that crap, and nod their heads, and go, hmmmm, interesting, instead of laughing their asses off at how off the mark it was, then I just don't know design anymore.

Both Avatar and this are definitely anti less-is-more. But there's busy and complicated... vs. just plain stupid and meaningless.

All good design in advertising is supposed to, hands? Right. SELL THE FRIKKIN' PRODUCT.

The question is, do these munchausen worlds do that? I'd have to say the answer is a resounding "nyet." Oh god no.

The final frame on the home video, just text on a black backround, fine. No problem. The CS5 page, with just the product boxes (except for Master, which shows the stupid rube "5"), fine. But the happy horseshit video, and the individual suite pages, not only told me nothing visually about what the product could DO... it was almost a catalog raisonne of bad, self-conscious, self-important design mistakes. I look at that and see these guys going, hmmm, how can we waste our client's time and money today?

I have that same reaction to many TV commercials, which create these elaborate hi-tech animated movies, extreme visual complications... and you are left going HUH? What does that have to do with fucking anything, much less a car or a cell phone or insurance... it just makes no sense, unless you simply wanted to document how a corporation can waste money on stupid shit design.

I mean, seriously, look at some of those things on the Adobe CS5 pages. little animations of goofy little bizarre things wiggling around. That stuff took some designers or technicians HOURS AND HOURS... and they got, what... a writhing opium bulb with clock faces, and little disembodied hands turning it. Uh, OK. At least Bosch was trying to show us HELL. Is Adobe telling us that CS5 is hell? I hope not. That's the kind of thing that gets short-circuited in postmodern culture.

We get a lot of intellectual or design everests... the equivalent of spinning gears shit for the geek elite... but there's a fundamental contempt for the viewer.

There's an elitism here... almost as if to say, haw haw, I know a little art history, you don't... try and figure this one out, you stupid shits! I defy you to challenge me for wasting your frikkin' time!

We're literally supposed to sit here and marvel at the postmodern coolness... make all our own associations, and go ooh and ahhh. Meanwhile, Adobe has given us NOTHING but bullshit. Nothing but damp pubic-hair tendrils and organic forms and weird ass supposedly visionary shit. They're throwing it out there and telling us, that they have the coolest designers.

Er, but guess what? They don't. Because the design didn't ACCOMPLISH anything... it did nothing but confuse the point. Which tells me that CS5 is probably crap. The more happy horseshit cirque du soliel stuff it NEEDS to sell it, the more it's probably a mess. I could be wrong, but that's what my gut says. Good software you can sell with just showing what you can do with it.

But when it came to designing Adobe's own advertising for the product, it failed miserably. The artwork it created to sell itself was utterly stupid. That's worrisome.

Because Adobe is such a powerhouse that they don't NEED to go that happy horseshit route. I mean design pros are a captive audience. We can't NOT upgrade to the latest suite. Eventually we HAVE to. They get our money no matter what.

But that design made me want to run screaming. It made me wish Adobe had a competitor. I want to see cool stuff the software can do, not how some art fags can waste Adobe's money.

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I swear to god, if yutes coming out of design school look at that crap, and nod their heads, and go, hmmmm, interesting, instead of laughing their asses off at how off the mark it was, then I just don't know design anymore.

Welcome to my world. They looked at Obama...and did not laugh.

They looked at the global warming scam...and did not laugh.

They looked at cuntlosi...and did not laugh.

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and you are left going HUH? What does that have to do with fucking anything, much less a car or a cell phone or insurance... it just makes no sense, unless you simply wanted to document how a corporation can waste money on stupid shit design.

There may be a cross-generational convergence here because that's pretty much what I constantly hear from my mother. Why I'm the recipient of these complaints, I do not know. But I am. And she's mostly right. There must be billions wasted on bad advertising every year. And the funny thing is, that guy with his donkey or his elephant is probably selling more cars than a lot of this really obtuse shit.

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At least Bosch was trying to show us HELL. Is Adobe telling us that CS5 is hell?

My turn to LMFAO.

An article on postmodernism, just FYI:

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Science has succumbed to the same virus that beset literature, art, economics, and the rest of the social sciences: postmodernism. Postmodernism is a progressive virus that negates reason, objectivity, and truth -- replacing them with relativism, subjectivism, and pragmatism. Having colonized every other branch of academics decades ago, postmodernism has now come for science.

There is no universally agreed-upon definition of "postmodernism." Like the philosophy itself, it means whatever the person who espouses the position wants it to mean. Three general tenets are acknowledged: Objective truth is unknowable, objectivity is fallacy, and modernity is a failure. By the last they mean that the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the Industrial Age are all malevolent failures of reason and objectivity, as they failed to solve the world's existing problems and created new ones. Stephen Hicks, Ph.D. explains in his book Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault:

Postmodernism rejects the Enlightenment project in the most fundamental way possible... [it] rejects the reason and the individualism ... And so it ends up attacking all of the consequences of the Enlightenment philosophy, from capitalism and liberal forms of government to science and technology.

Postmodernism developed into a political philosophy with Marxist/socialist roots. Its general tenets reflect a deep-seated disdain for the philosophical roots of Western thought, specifically repudiating individualism, an inherently American trait, as well as Western characteristics of objectivity, truth, reason, and logic -- all concepts fundamental to scientific method.

That's where post-normal science (PNS) comes in. According to the "inventors" of PNS, Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz, it is supposedly a scientific method of inquiry appropriate for cases where "facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent." What they describe however is more accurately recognized as politics than science, which is precisely the point: In postmodernism, everything is politics. And the aberration from "normal" science to post-normal science is designed for the purpose of manipulating and controlling high-stakes political artifice like "man-made global warming." This is not about determining "truth," which the advocates of post-normal science don't believe in -- it is about the power and control of politics.

I think a lot of that applies to art as well. The whole postmodernist thing is a thick kool-aid drink that puts on an even thicker mindset. This part was good too:

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Really? Science as the extension of democracy? "Quality" as a replacement for "truth"? How exactly does that work? Which czar defines quality? Who determines what "truths" are replaced -- East Anglia University's miscreant peer-reviewers? Absent standards and objective truth, there is no science. There is simply narrative, which is better-suited to propaganda than truth. Is it any wonder that we bitter clingers who still cleave to objective truth feel like we've fallen down Alice's rabbit hole?

Where did this insane movement come from, and how has it managed to captivate the world? Postmodernism's historical roots are in nineteenth-century existentialism, skepticism, and Marxism. Postmodernism evolved into an anti-rational movement based largely on the sophistry of "modernism's failure" -- specifically, objectivity's failure to eradicate war, poverty, and famine. Postmodernism emerged in its current political form around the middle of the twentieth century, when it was embraced by the new left. By the 1950s it was obvious that Marxist-socialism -- declared by the new left to be vastly superior to capitalism -- was both morally and economically bankrupt. The economic collapse and subsequent starvation of millions in the USSR, along with other atrocities committed by the regime, created severe ideological dissonance amongst Marxist cheerleaders. Intellectual leftists from both sides of the Atlantic needed to distance themselves from such public failings.

They found their new home in postmodernism. As only intellectual elitists can do, instead of abandoning their failed beliefs, they abandoned the principles that proved their belief system wrong.

In this instance, they ignored the fact that Marx's economic philosophy was based on rational objectivity. Ironically, postmodernism's rejection of reason, logic, and objectivity provided that rationalization. Accepting the premise that facts and falsehoods are culturally or socially constructed allowed them to sidestep the issue. As Hicks noted, "Postmodernism gives you, in effect, a get-out-of-jail-free card against any rational attack on your system."

The amalgamation of the "old" postmodernist left, whose anti-modernist philosophy was based on sophistry, with the "new" socialist left, whose political philosophy was based on delusion, created a new political vanguard with a shared animosity for capitalism. Since both camps were heavily populated with elite intelligentsia, they were well-positioned to pursue their objectives through the education system. Subjectivity, relativity, and pragmatism became keystones of a new "education philosophy." As its belief system did not make any strenuous intellectual or moral demands, it readily attracted acolytes from a generation looking for neither.

Not the "as its belief system did not make any strenuous intellectual or moral demands." Basically ideological eye-candy. And now the clincher:

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Running under cover of academic freedom and educational "philosophy," postmodernists have managed to do what other strains of totalitarianism only dreamed of: insinuate their beliefs into every aspect and level of education.

Not since the Middle Ages has the West needed to regain the sure footing of classical values so badly. The path we're on is headed in the opposite direction.

There's a lot wrong with that article... it falls into some of the, er, postmodern traps of vocabulary, and makes the term rather meaningless... like the left has made "fascism".

In art, there's a very distinctive STYLE called "postmodern" and it's seen most dramatically in architecture. Where established, recognizable, formal motifs are given fresh associations, proving that you can cherry pick them without having the historical meanings or foundations.

The argument being, these forms can INVOKE whatever the particular or current charge for the motif may be. And those associations can be variable. For example, a building may invoke an ocean-liner or a Jetson's building with only the vaguest of formal similarities. It puts the viewer, any viewer, in the position of being able to say: hey! That reminds me of... blah de blah, and they're not going to be WRONG.

So in many ways, complaining about the elite in postmodern culture is unfair... theoretically, what the elite says doesn't matter. A viewer or user can take a visual vocabulary (or text or whatever) and hammer their own charge and associations into it. However, the elites get involved pretty much in two ways: one, they can LEAD the rubes toward certain particular associations, where they're not free but determined by them... AND, they can basically give rewards for those associations. Kinda like giving trophies to everyone for not getting the right answer or not winning.

In many ways, postmodernism is very liberating. You don't have to be an expert in greek mythology, for instance, to look at some greek pottery. You can say, hmmm, that black figure looks like my uncle Jimmy! And in postmodern terms, you've "decoded" the piece.

Where it gets tricky, is when you try to take symbolic possession of HISTORY with your postmodern associations. Beck talks about this. We get things like, OK, George Washington was an evil rich white guy (making associations with current rich evil white guys), and then that taints the TRUTH, and gives us revisionist history.

A true postmodernist will say that there ain't no such thing as the truth of George Washington, that it's ALL about whatever associations we have NOW. But that's kind of creepy and orwellian. The fact is, we have to be vigilant about actual historical accuracy and TRY to be objective, even AS we understand how these associations work.

Because those associations are truth. That's how many people navigate through life. Most don't become scientists to be able to access science, and most don't become historians to access George Washington.

And that's where there's room for manipulation. Because the people who take the symbolic possession of history, and who CONTROL your associations (the marketeers) become the ruling elite.

Yes, the term "postmodern" would have a different meaning in regards to art even if there were not an existing "postmodern" style. I would term the "postmodern" mindset to be the kind that would pooh-pooh the old masters and such notions that art must "make sense" or follow any "rules." All those would be old-fashioned and out-dated notions. And the thing is, in the realm of art, such fads, fashions, or re-definitions are quite harmless. If a bunch of self-flattering art people want to sit around and applaud feces being smeared on a white canvas as "daring" or "vibrant," they can revel in their conceit. What would the art world be without bullshit? So much of it is based on image or ego, not talent.

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So in many ways, complaining about the elite in postmodern culture is unfair... theoretically, what the elite says doesn't matter. A viewer or user can take a visual vocabulary (or text or whatever) and hammer their own charge and associations into it. However, the elites get involved pretty much in two ways: one, they can LEAD the rubes toward certain particular associations, where they're not free but determined by them... AND, they can basically give rewards for those associations. Kinda like giving trophies to everyone for not getting the right answer or not winning.

My view is that art appreciation (actually learning about art, not necessarily what the experts say is good art) is instrumental in enjoying and understanding art. At the same time, such "art appreciation" can often be little more than indoctrination where you learn to "oohh" and "awww" at all the right things. The other side of the coin is that I think it is perfectly legitimate to look at the Mona Lisa and give it your own meaning. It might even be a better meaning (if such things can be weighed) than some pre-canned explanation learned in art school. One is fresh. The other may be stale. And yet only a postmodernist clown (the mindset, not the art style) would say that educating oneself in art was not valuable. Cheap knowledge is what defines postmodernism, (the mindset, not the art style). It rewards superficiality rather than hard work.

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In many ways, postmodernism is very liberating. You don't have to be an expert in greek mythology, for instance, to look at some greek pottery. You can say, hmmm, that black figure looks like my uncle Jimmy! And in postmodern terms, you've "decoded" the piece.

I think it's inevitable and good to look at a piece of ancient pottery and see your uncle Jimmy. One of my core beliefs is that, no matter what the artist *says* about his art, he may be the worst judge of what it's about. That said, it would help immensely to know why the ancient Greeks decorated the pottery and the techniques done to do so. Obviously any technique and medium have their limitations and perhaps one might see why certain colors or materials were used rather than others, or certain pottery shapes rather than others, etc. And it might help to learn what styles other cultures were doing so you could indeed "appreciate" the uniqueness of some other.

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Where it gets tricky, is when you try to take symbolic possession of HISTORY with your postmodern associations.

Exactly. That's trying to take political control of history to advance a current agenda. The gay lobby, for example, is always saying that so-and-so is gay. They try to re-write Sherlock Holmes and Watson, for example, although I saw very little gay in that latest film. I didn't see it at all, actually. But the gay radicals are trying to take possession of history and justify themselves today by saying that so and so was "really" a flaming gay. They seemingly can't advance their idea merely by just saying "This is what we want to do today." They gotta make it seem like George Washington was prancing around in pink. Just kooks, but a very common and human thing to do from any side of the political spectrum.

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OK, George Washington was an evil rich white guy (making associations with current rich evil white guys), and then that taints the TRUTH, and gives us revisionist history.

It's funny, because that's a near exact representation of the left. Mind you, they don't apply these principle to themselves. But it is the technique they use to try to destroy everything that exists now.