Monosodium glutawhat?

I wonder what it says about me that I will still eat cheap ramen even though I know for a fact that it contains monosodium glutamate and a ridiculously high amount of just regular old sodium.
The bowl is just sitting there on the floor looking at me. An oily film forms on the top and the rest of the chemically manufactured "beef flavor" sifts to the bottom with chunks of over-saturated noodle, while the rest sinks to the bottom of my stomach.

I think that bowl is clearly trying to say:
"you are sitting on your fat ass on the couch eating lukewarm chicken nuggets and straight up MSG in a pathetic attempt to feed yourself. If this were the wild, natural selection would surely have culled you by now."

Oh boy don't I feel great. I think I might have to give up ramen except for those certain drunken occasions in which the Normal crushing guilt and self-loathing I feel for eating it is virtually eliminated by the desire to ingest mass quantities of salt.

You could say the same for save-a-lot Mac 'n' cheese, but in reality I think the amount of times I have puked it has ruined it for me rather than the nutritional content.

I think what frightens me is to think that we all know that this stuff is horrible for our bodies and doesn't even taste that great and makes us feel bloated and queasy most of the time but we just don't care. That or we sort of care and are too lazy and apathetic to change the way we eat. It's all about convenience! Why cook a healthy meal when I can just heat up some water and dump in some dried noodles and powdered sauce?

Well, anyway. Enjoy your ramen.

I was reading this essay about how site-specific sculpture, both functional and literal, is a way for artists to escape the capitalist hold on art, or combat the "commodification of art." One critic even went so far as to say that traditional painting is "dead." 


Let me just make one thing clear. Art as we (college students) know it is about making money. Our parents are paying money out of their asses not just for us to fuck around with as many materials as possible and have a great time expressing ourselves, but to develop a method or trade that will make us money in the long run and eventually pay back their investment. 


Many times I have had to explain to people that the difference between painting and drawing and illustration is that illustration is a more "commercial." Well, I'm changing my mind about that definition. It's hypocritical to say that illustration and graphic design and photography are considered "new media" (in other words: LOW ART) because if you make art and sell it, you have become a commercial artist. Also, much of art costs money to make, so in the producing of art one is automatically contributing to the capitalist system. 


Site-specific sculpture may have been a temporary break from the tradition of painting and the commodification of painting, but once it became a popular form of expression that made the artists a name and was printed in books and taught to young gullible artists and whatnot it is intrinsically modified to become a "commercial art." 


So, I think it's arrogant to assume that just because someone didn't commission you to do a painting of their dog or whatever that your art is somehow above the capitalist free market. We're all just trying to survive, and if someone asked them to do a big sculpture for free, what would their response be? Hell to the no. These things cost money. Case in point. 


Just a small thought I had. 

I was wondering. If all the stop signs and other street signs like "left turn yield to green light" or "pedestrians crossing" suddenly disappeared, would people keep stopping and being careful at intersections, or would they most likely be like "awesome I can go!!!" and just crash and die all the time?

Pondering.