While I was waiting for my Chinese carry-out last night, sipping a Tsing Tao, I caught up on a couple of movie reviews, including that for "The Cult of the Suicide Bomber." I haven't seen the movie, but the following image flashed through my imagination: high-definition, slow-motion footage of a suicide bomber as s/he is detonating, stretched out over 3 minutes, cutting between close-ups and wide shots of fabric and flesh tearing apart.

That image disturbed and appealed to me in a sick, operatic way. For the first time I could really understand how, at a cellular level, Francis Bacon [and to a lesser extent de Kooning, to a greater extent Picasso] could seduce and terrify the viewing public.

But I can't ever remember work by those artists, or any other that I can think of, having that effect on me. Perhaps I've built up an immunity to still images? The most profound feelings I've experienced directly include the desolation of some of Hopper's paintings, or the egomaniacal self-loathing of Guston's late work.