My wife and I watched the film "Incident at Loch Ness" last night. Neither of us had seen it. (Werner Herzog's "documentary" about a documentary being made about him, while he decides to make a documentary about people trying to find the Loch Ness monster.)

It was full of "Herzogian" comments, which I often find interesting.

I have only my own experience for the following thought, but it might be a useful one:

As an artist, you search for the meaningful, and once it's found, you explore it at length. Variations on a theme, so to speak. Research. Experiments. Exploration. Viewing from all the angles.

Every so often, you need a break. In my Printmaking Thesis work, I called these "vacation etchings". Then, with your break done, it's back to the serious etchings, perhaps even with a slightly fresher point of view.

I think David Lynch (with "Inland Empire") and Herzog are both at places in their careers where they can not only afford, but need to create "vacation" films. Woody Allen does it. Spielberg does it. Anyone with the opportunity to do it, does it. It's part of the process.

"Incident at Loch Ness" seemed to me Herzog's way of screwing with his love for film, story, scoring, acting, issues of reality, and, as always, his fascination with the dark and stupid aspects of human behavior.

I enjoyed it - laughed through a good part of it - but understood it as a "vacation" film. When he "returns", I expect I'll see some fresh refocusing (so to speak), possibly with a few snapshots (so to speak) from the trip.

"Incident..." isn't a major film. But, when you admire an artist, as I do him, you follow his/her career all the way. There are ups and downs, but most of the time it is necessary, and eventually, good lessons are learned.

I've always felt someone rushed Kate Bush into making her album "Lionheart". After that she slowed down (and note how many years of quiet reevaluation (absence) before "Aerial" was released). "Lionheart" is the only weak album of her career.

Brian Eno seems to balance/rebalance himself by switching from his ambient explorations to rhythmic (even rock-n-roll-ish), lyric/vocal works.

Matisse would create imagery that simplified and simplified, and then would turn around and elaborate and elaborate.

Ebb and Flow. Yin and Yang.

Ronn.