I think you could kind of tell that 12:30 a.m. was not the time I wanted to be negotiating with the employees of a just-barely-closed-for-the-night Wendy's to give you a frosty. A nobler woman than I once said that "Angry people are not always wise."- (Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice). I think the same can be said for exhausted people, so I let you have at it on your own. As you walked in, I depressed the 'recline' button on my seat in the car and thought that maybe if I fell asleep fast enough, I could dream that I was already warm in bed, instead of out here, chasing down icey treats at all hours.
It didn't take you long to get nowhere with the Wendy's employee. She was probably dreaming of bed herself.
"She pointed me in the direction of a McDonald's. It's not far"
I had been nodding off in the theatre, but had found a second wind in stepping outside. Unfortunately, the second-wind had long been used-up by the time we drove into the next city and back. I don't think bed has ever called my name so loudly.
I bit my tongue.
On to McDonald's we went.
The poor fellow working at the drive-in at that unearthly hour got more than he bargained for when we pulled up to the microphone to place our order.
"Yeah, how are the Rolo shakes?" you asked.
"It's a McFlurry. And we're out of the Rolo ones."
I don't think you heard him.
"Yeah, I was hoping to get a Rolo shake tonight."
"They're McFlurries and we don't have any of the Rolo ones right now."
I guess you still didn't catch his correction.
"Ok. Between the Oreo and the M&M shake, which do you prefer?"
"They're McFlurries."
By this point I was ready to crawl in the window, box the employee's ears, and make one myself. I didn't understand in the least why the young man felt that such impertinence was necessary, when all I wanted was to get some sleep.
"OK. Can I get an Oreo shake?"
He didn't argue you on that one, and I thanked the gods of the fast food industries as you pulled forward to the first window. While we sat there, the magical moment of 12:45 am tolled. You know, the moment where everything suddenly becomes side-splittingly hysterical; things that, 25 minutes earlier, may not have even merited a smile?
We sat there, at that window, and I don't know what made me think of it, but I couldn't help but bring it up.
"Did you take a look at that sign in the Diner tonight? The one that said, 'Come Again!'" I made quotation marks with my fingers in the air when I spoke to indicate exactly how the sign had been written.
I finished my thought. "I don't get it. What is the point of the quotation marks!? They are completely unnecessary!"
You were right behind me, and by then, we were already giggling more than the silly grammatical error had warranted.
"You know, it's like my old gramps used to say. 'Come Again!'"
We lost it.
There in the McDonalds drive-through, I temporarily lost my sanity. It was only made more funny by the fact that a few moments later our favorite employee stuck his head out of a window a few yards in front us, trying to see if we were coming for our "shake".
We were at the wrong window.
I am 100% sure he thought we were drunks, which was all just as well. I never will be drunk in my life, and, you know, you've got to get your kicks in somehow.
The point is, had we been sleeping at that moment, the one thing I thought I really wanted, I would not be writing this little anecdote. Your sense of adventure has always been such an inspiration to me; not in seeking midnight sweets, but in making life what you want it to be, and not letting little annoyances get in your way. You've always treated me as though I were endowed with that same unquenchable desire for adventure, and for fulfilling all of my dreams in-spite of the inevitable difficulties that arise in trying to do so.
If there is one thing I need a little more of in my life, it's that attitude. Thank you.
An Hundred Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood...
"I shall be telling this with a sigh,
somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-"
-Robert Frost "The Road Not Taken"
If only it really were TWO roads that diverged.
If only it weren't a proverbial web, spreading out in all of those directions.
Incomprehensible,
Without bounds,
Overwhelming in its multiplicity,
Paralyzing in its possibility.
If only it didn't always have to be told with a sigh.
Years ago, I sat on the couch of a familiar little apartment in Provo, UT and had the following conversation with my best friend:
Me: Sometimes I wish that life were less like life and more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book.
Her: So that you could go back and put your thumb in it.
Did you ever do that, reader? I put more than a thumb in it. I would keep one digit between the pages of every decision I made. It always seemed as though it would be so easy to back-track if I became dissatisfied with the ending of my story, (eg if I fell down an old well and was never heard from again) so painless, so possible.
Sometimes, in my adulthood, I almost feel that same sense of possibility. Just imagine me! I still have ten digits between my two hands, and I still assert that I can recognize when an important moment is transpiring. I still have the urge to put a finger here, a finger there, to mark pivotal points, as if marking them can save me from the consequences of them.
But Oh! how those moments eat at us in the days, weeks, months, years to come: those momentous moments we mark as having transpired right before everything came crashing down. It is very probable that these "moments" are not even related to specific personal decisions. Maybe they were the products of elemental circumstances, or the decisions of someone else. In cases such as these, must we trace back further to avoid undesired consequences? Where is it then? That wrong decision? Where can we find the moment in which the stupid decision was made that led to all of this insanity?
In the seeming impossibility of tracing the genesis of the "mistake", which moment do we pin as the fatal one? If you could only go back once, trying to avoid ultimate tragedy, which moment would you choose? What if the turning point really comes in your reaction to the choices, or in your reaction to the set of circumstances, (which reactions become little choices that accumulate over time)?
What moment do we save so that we can re-visit later? Do we mark all of them and then choose once the final blow has been administered, or is that when it is already too late? Which choices only feel important, and may end up having little bearing on the outcome? Which ones seem insignificant but may rock the very foundations upon which we have built our everything?
In the final few paragraphs of what I consider to be one of the most moving novels I have ever had occasion to read on the subject of love, author David Levithan writes the following as a sort of definition for the noun Zenith:
"I'm standing in the bathroom, drying my hands on your towel, and you're hovering in the kitchen. I am happy from dinner, happy the day is over, and before I can ask you what's going on, you tell me there's something we need to talk about.
This is it, the moment before you tell me the precise thing I don't want to know.
Is this the zenith? This last moment of ignorance?
Or does it come much later?" -David Levithan "The Lover's Dictionary"
The truth is, however much we want to protect ourselves, at the end of the day, we only have ten fingers. That is not nearly enough to keep a marker on all of the potentially-life-altering moments. As if this realization is not dis-heartening enough, it is also true that the more fingers you have marking pages, the less you have available to use to turn new pages forward, the more frazzled you become, the more confused.
There comes a time when you have to take your fingers out of the page, when you have to acknowledge that no one is allowed to live outside of circumstance. No one is allowed to live non-linearly. No one is allowed to take every path, wish as we may, try as we might.
"I wish we could take every path.
I could spend a hundred years
Adoring you.
Yes, I wish we could take every path,
Because I hated to close
the door on you.
And I have never known the plan.
It's been a long, long time.
How are you?
Your eyes are green. Your hair is gold.
Your hair is black. Your eyes are blue.
I closed the ranks, and I doubled back--
but, you know, I hated to close
the dog-gone door on you.
-Joanna Newsom "Baby Birch"
somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-"
-Robert Frost "The Road Not Taken"
If only it really were TWO roads that diverged.
If only it weren't a proverbial web, spreading out in all of those directions.
Incomprehensible,
Without bounds,
Overwhelming in its multiplicity,
Paralyzing in its possibility.
If only it didn't always have to be told with a sigh.
Years ago, I sat on the couch of a familiar little apartment in Provo, UT and had the following conversation with my best friend:
Me: Sometimes I wish that life were less like life and more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book.
Her: So that you could go back and put your thumb in it.
Did you ever do that, reader? I put more than a thumb in it. I would keep one digit between the pages of every decision I made. It always seemed as though it would be so easy to back-track if I became dissatisfied with the ending of my story, (eg if I fell down an old well and was never heard from again) so painless, so possible.
Sometimes, in my adulthood, I almost feel that same sense of possibility. Just imagine me! I still have ten digits between my two hands, and I still assert that I can recognize when an important moment is transpiring. I still have the urge to put a finger here, a finger there, to mark pivotal points, as if marking them can save me from the consequences of them.
But Oh! how those moments eat at us in the days, weeks, months, years to come: those momentous moments we mark as having transpired right before everything came crashing down. It is very probable that these "moments" are not even related to specific personal decisions. Maybe they were the products of elemental circumstances, or the decisions of someone else. In cases such as these, must we trace back further to avoid undesired consequences? Where is it then? That wrong decision? Where can we find the moment in which the stupid decision was made that led to all of this insanity?
In the seeming impossibility of tracing the genesis of the "mistake", which moment do we pin as the fatal one? If you could only go back once, trying to avoid ultimate tragedy, which moment would you choose? What if the turning point really comes in your reaction to the choices, or in your reaction to the set of circumstances, (which reactions become little choices that accumulate over time)?
What moment do we save so that we can re-visit later? Do we mark all of them and then choose once the final blow has been administered, or is that when it is already too late? Which choices only feel important, and may end up having little bearing on the outcome? Which ones seem insignificant but may rock the very foundations upon which we have built our everything?
In the final few paragraphs of what I consider to be one of the most moving novels I have ever had occasion to read on the subject of love, author David Levithan writes the following as a sort of definition for the noun Zenith:
"I'm standing in the bathroom, drying my hands on your towel, and you're hovering in the kitchen. I am happy from dinner, happy the day is over, and before I can ask you what's going on, you tell me there's something we need to talk about.
This is it, the moment before you tell me the precise thing I don't want to know.
Is this the zenith? This last moment of ignorance?
Or does it come much later?" -David Levithan "The Lover's Dictionary"
The truth is, however much we want to protect ourselves, at the end of the day, we only have ten fingers. That is not nearly enough to keep a marker on all of the potentially-life-altering moments. As if this realization is not dis-heartening enough, it is also true that the more fingers you have marking pages, the less you have available to use to turn new pages forward, the more frazzled you become, the more confused.
There comes a time when you have to take your fingers out of the page, when you have to acknowledge that no one is allowed to live outside of circumstance. No one is allowed to live non-linearly. No one is allowed to take every path, wish as we may, try as we might.
"I wish we could take every path.
I could spend a hundred years
Adoring you.
Yes, I wish we could take every path,
Because I hated to close
the door on you.
And I have never known the plan.
It's been a long, long time.
How are you?
Your eyes are green. Your hair is gold.
Your hair is black. Your eyes are blue.
I closed the ranks, and I doubled back--
but, you know, I hated to close
the dog-gone door on you.
-Joanna Newsom "Baby Birch"
Vabagond: On Home
Home. Home is a fire, a burning reminder, of where we belong, love. With walls built up around us, the bricks make me nervous, they're only so strong, love. Plates they will shift, houses will shake, fences will drift, we will awake, only to find, nothing's the same as yesterday.
-Death Cab for Cutie "Home is a Fire"
-Death Cab for Cutie "Home is a Fire"
I have been slightly homeless as of late. Not that my family isn't taking care of me, that's not a problem. In fact, the problem has less to do with a lack of a physical center as much as it does a lack of some emotional centrality. Allow me to give a bit of back story. You see, I am currently living between two cities that are about an hours drive from one another. Seeing as how this particular epoch is following one of bumming off of some friends on their couch, in their home office, etc, for a few weeks, it gives a particular sort of ambiance to my life that I find both liberating and dissolving, diluting--depleting, perhaps. What a paradox. As I come to know my own self, and find respite in 'doing my own thing', I almost have a sense of a dissolving, diluting, and depleting of the things that once held a great deal of value to me. It is like pouring liquid from one vessel to another. One fills while the other depletes. There is no replenishing effect at work.
Yesterday morning I boarded a plane in San Francisco that was bound for Long Beach with a connection to SLC. As the plane taxied around the runways, I decided to listen to Death Cab for Cutie's latest album "Codes and Keys" in its entirety. I bought that album a while back, during a very different time in my life, and have connected with the album a very distinct and vivid set of memories. As the music and then lyrics of the first song (quoted above) came through my headphones, I let the rhythm drive the words into me, and began to think about the concept of "home". What does "home" mean? Really. What does it mean? People have been writing about it, speaking about it, singing about it for centuries, so what has anyone actually learned? A few contemporary music examples that immediately come to my mind follow here:
Another summer day
Has come and gone away
In Paris and Rome,
But I wanna go home
Mmm I've got to go home.
-Michael Buble "Home"
Well I'm going home,
To the place where I belong,
Where your love has always been enough for me...
These places and these faces are getting old,
So I'm going home.
-Daughtry "Home"
Peel the scars from off my back.
I don't need them anymore.
You can throw them out or keep them in your Mason jars.
I've come home.
-Radical Face "Welcome Home"
Of course I cannot forget what is, perhaps, the most personally poignant of all of the songs dealing with the concept of home. It has particularly been on my mind as of late for various reasons:
And I have torn my soul apart from
pulling artlessly with fool commands.
Some nights
I just never go to sleep at all,
And I stand,
Shaking in the doorway like a sentinel,
All alone,
Bracing like the bow upon a ship,
And fully abandoning
Any thought of anywhere
But home,
My home.
Sometimes I can almost feel the power.
And I do love you.
Is it only timing,
That has made it such a dark hour,
Only ever chiming out,
"Cuckoo, cuckoo"?
-Joanna Newsom "In California"
I have learned from my own experience, as well as the experience of artists, that home is infinitely more complicated than we wish it were. Kitschy phrases like "home is where the heart is" have so little meaning for me now, in this odd stage of my life.
Ingrid Michaelson seems to agree with me on that point:
They say that home is where the heart is. I guess I haven't found my home. We keep driving round in circles, afraid to call this place our own. Are we there yet?
-Ingrid Michaelson "Are We There Yet?"
-Ingrid Michaelson "Are We There Yet?"
How am I to use my heart as a compass when I am not even sure where my heart is? I guess I am learning the hard way that you're never really lost until you've lost your compass. Is that irreparable? I'd like to think that it can be redeemed. I'd like to think it could be fixed, but I do not know where to begin. I will illustrate with a story.
Last Sunday I attended a church meeting to support a friend of mine who recently completed an LDS mission in Latin America. Her house happens to be close to the house where I lived when I started high school. When my family left that place, we put in a lot of renovation work, so I take a certain pride in the off-beat beauty of it. I would describe it as a quirky house; blue with an interesting slanted roof, but there is a small wrap-around porch and a lovely three-paneled white door. I drove by the old house on my way out of town; drove around it several times as a matter of fact, circling the neighborhood, listening to "In California". Those brief minutes were filled to overflowing with thoughts, feelings and emotions. I pondered the very musings that are finding public voice here, as well as a more concrete realization: how can you say a house is just a house? I don't think it is. That wood is in my blood. I worked for that place, so many long hours, and I cried and cried at the thought of beautifying it just to sell it and leave it. It isn't 'just a house', for as I drove by, I saw a little piece of myself in it.
The problem is, that is not a piece I can retrieve. It does not belong to me any more than any part of that house does. The family that lives there now seemed, judging by the outside decor, enthusiastic about the ensuing holiday. They were probably inside, listening to music, surfing the web, making lunch. They were blissfully unaware of my small agony as I circled, as I thought, as I wished.
And so it is with many houses, and people, and situations, and dreams, we leave them and they take little pieces of our hearts with them, and we hope that in our generosity we do not deplete the essence of who we are.
I retract. It is not born of generosity, but of necessity. The necessity to be a part of that which is around us. The necessity to give of what we are to what we are not, in the hopes that what we are not will become more like we are and what we are will become more like what we are not.
You say you're not interested in that sort of an exchange? To that I would reply that we can try to keep things from changing us, but we will find that in doing so, we are a great deal more than simply selfish, we are delusional. We come to this world to change, and to be changed. There is no place for holding tight to everything that we feel we "are".
I am changing. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes (like now) I feel that I have given away too many bits of myself, and that in my inability to reclaim those pieces, I am somehow rendered un-whole. I am still waiting on redemption. I am still waiting on a reciprocation that will make up for all of the missing pieces. Perhaps home is where the very most of you is collected. Perhaps home is your head, where all of the memories are stored. I do not merely want to look at home as a concept, more than a place. I have to. I have to see home non-conventionally in my present circumstances. Home as a state of being. Home as a little box of all of my most treasured memories. Home as a place of personal and powerful worship.
I want to experience a new level of worship, of love. A love that allows me to pour my heart out and find it filling to the brim in return. I want to change in the holiest of all avenues of change: the give and take, the ebb and flow, the exchange, the barter between a human being and that someone/something they love, that someone/something they dedicate to, in every moment, waking, sleeping, breathing, fighting, living, dying...
And when I come up for air, and glance around, I want to find that the object of that love is Home; and know that I have found it at last.
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You {Me}--A Study: Genuineness
To you, my friend, I would draw your attention to the first time we ever 'hung out' (for lack of a better phrase). Sometimes those are the memories that catch our attention in retrospect, because we see later that they come to be indicative of the whole of the budding friendship. Of course at times we do not "click" with someone right away, yet find later that we have developed a wonderful and fulfilling friendship with that person. That is valuable, and it is beautiful that such can happen.
I am not talking of one of those times here, for there are other types of 'first-time-we-hung-out-together's that are just....magic. Unforgettable.
We had a mutual class, and I was planning to spend one particular evening watching a movie to get research material for an approaching paper in said class. That afternoon, we fell into a conversation as we walked out of lecture, and I mentioned what my evening's activities would entail. You said you had been wanting to see that particular film, so I invited you over.
When you came, I was in the middle of making some collaboration to eat for dinner. This was lucky, for that is what gave us time to fall into chatting yet again. For me, it was one of those conversation where you cut right through all of the formalities, and get straight to the heart of who the other person is. It is rare that I feel I truly KNOW someone after hanging out once, but such it was. Of course, it is terribly unfair to assert that I had a true knowledge of your character, hopes, dreams, etc from one (albeit, lengthy) conversation. If this concerns you, rightly so. I will clarify. I suppose what I really knew was that you were in possession of a rare sort of genuineness.
What else do you need to see to feel you really know someone?
Think of it! When you know someone is genuine, you know the interactions that pass between you and them will be genuine; that they will always strive to present themselves as they really are. It takes a great deal of confidence to be as open as you are. Do not mistake what I am trying to say by my lack of a better set of vocabulary words. By 'open' I do not mean that you told me about your ailments, showed me your family tree, related to me details about your first kiss, and gave a faithful narrative of all of your most embarrassing moments. I mean that you embodied an ease, a frankness--a sort of rare, unguarded, way of looking at yourself and others. It was a quality that hinted at its innateness, unpracticed and natural. You do not know how well you do it, I am sure.
Looking back, trying to get in touch with myself, with you, with us as we were that evening in July 2010, looking past and through all that has happened since then until now, I can't help but ask myself: why are we as human beings so constantly on our guard? Who has hurt us so irreparably? What gross breach of humanity has made us feel that everyone is out to get us?
The answer: I do not know. I guess we all have our own story. Perhaps you, at some point, decided not to let your "story" keep you from maintaining a frankness with others who would learn from your example. I so admire you for it.
If you need further proof that this night had an impact on me, I would draw your attention here to an old post on this very blog, where I wrote about that week, including a line about the evening described here.
There we were. You, me, Johnny, Muffa (I never will know how to spell that), that red towel, the pasta...
I miss that night. I miss you. Thank you for your genuineness. A little of that goes a long way in our human interactions. A very long way.
I am not talking of one of those times here, for there are other types of 'first-time-we-hung-out-together's that are just....magic. Unforgettable.
We had a mutual class, and I was planning to spend one particular evening watching a movie to get research material for an approaching paper in said class. That afternoon, we fell into a conversation as we walked out of lecture, and I mentioned what my evening's activities would entail. You said you had been wanting to see that particular film, so I invited you over.
When you came, I was in the middle of making some collaboration to eat for dinner. This was lucky, for that is what gave us time to fall into chatting yet again. For me, it was one of those conversation where you cut right through all of the formalities, and get straight to the heart of who the other person is. It is rare that I feel I truly KNOW someone after hanging out once, but such it was. Of course, it is terribly unfair to assert that I had a true knowledge of your character, hopes, dreams, etc from one (albeit, lengthy) conversation. If this concerns you, rightly so. I will clarify. I suppose what I really knew was that you were in possession of a rare sort of genuineness.
What else do you need to see to feel you really know someone?
Think of it! When you know someone is genuine, you know the interactions that pass between you and them will be genuine; that they will always strive to present themselves as they really are. It takes a great deal of confidence to be as open as you are. Do not mistake what I am trying to say by my lack of a better set of vocabulary words. By 'open' I do not mean that you told me about your ailments, showed me your family tree, related to me details about your first kiss, and gave a faithful narrative of all of your most embarrassing moments. I mean that you embodied an ease, a frankness--a sort of rare, unguarded, way of looking at yourself and others. It was a quality that hinted at its innateness, unpracticed and natural. You do not know how well you do it, I am sure.
Looking back, trying to get in touch with myself, with you, with us as we were that evening in July 2010, looking past and through all that has happened since then until now, I can't help but ask myself: why are we as human beings so constantly on our guard? Who has hurt us so irreparably? What gross breach of humanity has made us feel that everyone is out to get us?
The answer: I do not know. I guess we all have our own story. Perhaps you, at some point, decided not to let your "story" keep you from maintaining a frankness with others who would learn from your example. I so admire you for it.
If you need further proof that this night had an impact on me, I would draw your attention here to an old post on this very blog, where I wrote about that week, including a line about the evening described here.
There we were. You, me, Johnny, Muffa (I never will know how to spell that), that red towel, the pasta...
I miss that night. I miss you. Thank you for your genuineness. A little of that goes a long way in our human interactions. A very long way.
Drawing a Picture of God: Or, Why I Hate the Radio
The world is so loud.
So loud.
I hate it sometimes.
As in TRULY hate. I mean, sometimes my stomach hurts with the mayhem of it all.
I have begun this habit of gallivanting about. It is quite enjoyable, and so easy. I simply get myself in my car and I drive to a town that has an interesting town center. Then I park the car somewhere and start wandering the streets, in and out of shops: antique stores, boutiques, bakeries, book stores, whatever the town/city has to offer that appeals to my aesthetic, and-- occasionally --my taste-buds. For the most part I merely window-shop, but every now and again I'll buy something that catches my eye.
Perhaps in the schema of good/better/best, there are other "better" and "best" things that I could do with my hours off in the afternoon.
Yet, that depends on how you look at it. I think that good/better/best varies greatly depending on what time of life you are in, and your circumstances. I think that considering my current short-term employment (that of a nanny, rocking a small child most of the day) getting outside is probably best for me. Well. Better. Best would probably be if I went outside and gave homeless people peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches.
I digress.
Let me set up a scene: Friday afternoon. Me: roaming about American Fork. Rain is falling, I have yet to purchase a $5 umbrella from Wal Mart. I have just left lunch with some dear friends and I wander into a new boutique. The store is quite pleasant, yet I can't help but notice how unpleasant it is that they are playing the radio, from which is emanating a... how shall I say this?.... HIDEOUS piece of cacophonous trash. Music? Annoyingly catchy. Lyrics? To translate from dumb to dumber "sex, sex, sex, you and me, sex, sex, stupid 1960's/70's music reference that we're using to pretend to be smart in some way, sex, sex.... that's all we care about... and if that's not carnal enough, we don't even have the decency to talk about it in some meritorious/adult/reverential way...."
I was incredibly annoyed, and by that I mean, it made my stomach hurt.
Why do we as human beings listen to stuff like that?! Why does that disgusting music video have five trillion hits on YouTube?! What do people see/hear in such heinosity? There is nothing of merit or interest there. Even worse is the pseudo-art craze in music, where people think that there is something of art in something just because it is weird. I mean, since when do diamond-studded-skimpery, meat dresses, and telephone hats NOT mean art? (sarcasm alert!). Lyric translation of 95% of such music: "sex, sex, sex, or, How Many Times Can a Girl Type that Word in One Middle-of-the-Night Rampage?"
Perhaps a better question is: why do images of the roman Colosseum and centuries upon centuries of prostitution come to mind when I rampage on this topic?
Entertainment in debauchery. Profit in the marketing of the otherwise sacred. What moments in life are more sacred than sex and death? Why do we think we can make mindless entertainment of them and call it art?
Have I mentioned I HATE the radio?
I hate it.
HATE.
This rampage brings to mind a beautiful bit of lyric from a true musical prodigy:
Why do we listen to music that dulls our senses instead of enlivens them? Why do we treat it as a drug instead of an art? Oh yeah. Because it is about a million times easier to not think than it is to think. Forget trying to catch meaningful references to literature/other music/art in general/culture/politics/history, thereby joining the conversation about life/the human experience/what it means to be us/etc. that has been going on for centuries. Forget trying to improve the human condition and trying to better human life through uplifting the mind and elevating it to make connections/inferences/syntheses and find, well, for lack of less frequently used terms: Beauty and Truth.
Which, of course, leads to a usual quoting of one of my favorite passages from one of my favorite Romantics:
So why do so many "artists" create such mindless, not to mention, degrading products? Perhaps some of them really don't have what it takes to create something that appeals to a higher aesthetic. Or, perhaps they simply don't want to. I think that in many cases, it is because the masses do not want it. People want "easy". People don't want to have to think. I have been there, I know how that feels. Sometimes you want to stick your favorite "Veggie Tales" jams in and just have a good time.
That leads me to an interesting point. Is "Veggie Tales" wholesome entertainment? Well, I don't know. It is a mildly morally uplifting show. It's probably a bad example. Ok, and AHA! The "Christmas Shoes" song. worst.song.ever. Do you want to argue it? Just show up at the next family Christmas party my brother will be throwing this December. We will undoubtedly argue about the merits/non-merits of that song, which will undoubtedly lead to someone pulling it up on their phone, which will undoubtedly lead to us haters deciding to make a cover.... next year. The cover is always going to happen next year.
Ok, forget about stupid examples. I had the opportunity to take an art philosophy course from a man I admire. Dr. Travis Anderson in the BYU Philosophy department. He wrote a paper some years back on the question of the word "wholesome" when it applies to entertainment. Is something really WHOLESOME if it is merely devoid of questionable material? Are rice cakes really wholesome? Ok, I said I was going to be done with examples.
When I think of "wholesome" (thanks to Dr. Anderson's pointing it out), I think of enriching. Full of good, not just devoid of "bad". So veggies are wholesome, but maybe "Veggie Tales" aren't necessarily that wholesome.... oh yeah. They do have their veiled way of teaching morals. Ok, we'll let them stand. Wholesome. Fine.
But creativity is so rarely encouraged anymore. The public has told our "artists" what we want. We have commissioned the hideous work that now blares over our radios. If consumers didn't consume, producers would not produce. They would catch on. Or they would sing their debauchery to themselves in the comfort of their own homes.
There is a story, I heard it told in a TED talk I found on YouTube. It is by Sir Ken Robinson and is entitled "Do Schools Kill Creativity?". So said story is about a girl in a drawing class, who is uncharacteristically paying very close attention one day. When the teacher lets the kids loose to make their art, she walks up to this little girl and asks, "What are you drawing?" to which the girl replies, "I am drawing a picture of God." The teacher, bewildered, responds, "But nobody knows what God looks like." Confidently, the girl rebuttals with, "They will in a minute." That is a true artist. It doesn't matter if one isn't "supposed" to "know what God looks like." This brave little soul was going to show us God as she saw him, and it didn't matter that an authority was telling her she wasn't doing it right.
That is what great art has always been about. That is why Jackson Pollock will always be a genius, even though it's not too terribly hard to replicate what he did (well, that's debatable. People actually say that it is harder to replicate than one would think, which I am inclined to believe). Unless you have a time machine and can go back in time to beat him to it, you can never really replicate what he did, because what he did was so far removed from that paint-splattered canvas. It was a comment on art at the time. It was a comment on his life (a sad one, we are to understand). Who knows, but that he was drawing a picture of God. Perhaps that is what all true artists are doing. They are playing mini-gods in their own way. Gods who can control the sphere that they create in their art. As they create a world, they simultaneously construct a sort of commentary on that world. Thus, they are drawing pictures of God (the higher forces they see at work in the world), gods (themselves, the way they perceive the world/their lives), and character (animate or inanimate, a view on the things around them, other human beings, human nature, etc.). Oh, and I will say as an aside that if Pollock was drawing a picture of God, God cannot have found it to be incredibly flattering. Not in a literal sense, anyway.
So what I mean is that the whole "be true to yourself and your art" cliche is cliche for a reason. When someone with talent and ability is brave enough to do what is not being asked for, they often show us glimpses of the God we would cut ourselves off from (I happen to believe in a very literal God, the father of our souls, but if to you God is nature, or some other-worldly force, or the human intellect, etc. then that still fits in here) with all of our bars, prostitutes, and Christians being devoured by hungry lions. Not that great artists don't take us through some difficult places in the meantime. It's not always sunshine and bubbles. Sometimes we are led to where we would rather not trod. It is difficult, sometimes painful, but rewarding.
I need to get off of my soap box, I know. Some people actually like to let loose and have a little dance party.
And some of us just like to think, and over-think, and blog until 3 am.
Oh, I left myself in the boutique. Excuse me. I'll get back to that. I take my leave of the shop keeper and walk back out into the rain, and back into my car.
Then to recover I listen to this little beauty: (Joanna reminds me very much of the little girl in the story.)
and feel much, much better.
Oh, and as referenced:
and (I HIGHLY recommend this):
Good night.
So loud.
I hate it sometimes.
As in TRULY hate. I mean, sometimes my stomach hurts with the mayhem of it all.
I have begun this habit of gallivanting about. It is quite enjoyable, and so easy. I simply get myself in my car and I drive to a town that has an interesting town center. Then I park the car somewhere and start wandering the streets, in and out of shops: antique stores, boutiques, bakeries, book stores, whatever the town/city has to offer that appeals to my aesthetic, and-- occasionally --my taste-buds. For the most part I merely window-shop, but every now and again I'll buy something that catches my eye.
Perhaps in the schema of good/better/best, there are other "better" and "best" things that I could do with my hours off in the afternoon.
Yet, that depends on how you look at it. I think that good/better/best varies greatly depending on what time of life you are in, and your circumstances. I think that considering my current short-term employment (that of a nanny, rocking a small child most of the day) getting outside is probably best for me. Well. Better. Best would probably be if I went outside and gave homeless people peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches.
I digress.
Let me set up a scene: Friday afternoon. Me: roaming about American Fork. Rain is falling, I have yet to purchase a $5 umbrella from Wal Mart. I have just left lunch with some dear friends and I wander into a new boutique. The store is quite pleasant, yet I can't help but notice how unpleasant it is that they are playing the radio, from which is emanating a... how shall I say this?.... HIDEOUS piece of cacophonous trash. Music? Annoyingly catchy. Lyrics? To translate from dumb to dumber "sex, sex, sex, you and me, sex, sex, stupid 1960's/70's music reference that we're using to pretend to be smart in some way, sex, sex.... that's all we care about... and if that's not carnal enough, we don't even have the decency to talk about it in some meritorious/adult/reverential way...."
I was incredibly annoyed, and by that I mean, it made my stomach hurt.
Why do we as human beings listen to stuff like that?! Why does that disgusting music video have five trillion hits on YouTube?! What do people see/hear in such heinosity? There is nothing of merit or interest there. Even worse is the pseudo-art craze in music, where people think that there is something of art in something just because it is weird. I mean, since when do diamond-studded-skimpery, meat dresses, and telephone hats NOT mean art? (sarcasm alert!). Lyric translation of 95% of such music: "sex, sex, sex, or, How Many Times Can a Girl Type that Word in One Middle-of-the-Night Rampage?"
Perhaps a better question is: why do images of the roman Colosseum and centuries upon centuries of prostitution come to mind when I rampage on this topic?
Entertainment in debauchery. Profit in the marketing of the otherwise sacred. What moments in life are more sacred than sex and death? Why do we think we can make mindless entertainment of them and call it art?
Have I mentioned I HATE the radio?
I hate it.
HATE.
This rampage brings to mind a beautiful bit of lyric from a true musical prodigy:
"You spend your whole life trying to fall behind. You're using your headphones to drown out your mind." -Regina Spektor "Eet"
Why do we listen to music that dulls our senses instead of enlivens them? Why do we treat it as a drug instead of an art? Oh yeah. Because it is about a million times easier to not think than it is to think. Forget trying to catch meaningful references to literature/other music/art in general/culture/politics/history, thereby joining the conversation about life/the human experience/what it means to be us/etc. that has been going on for centuries. Forget trying to improve the human condition and trying to better human life through uplifting the mind and elevating it to make connections/inferences/syntheses and find, well, for lack of less frequently used terms: Beauty and Truth.
Which, of course, leads to a usual quoting of one of my favorite passages from one of my favorite Romantics:
- "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," – that is all
- Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
- -John Keats "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
So why do so many "artists" create such mindless, not to mention, degrading products? Perhaps some of them really don't have what it takes to create something that appeals to a higher aesthetic. Or, perhaps they simply don't want to. I think that in many cases, it is because the masses do not want it. People want "easy". People don't want to have to think. I have been there, I know how that feels. Sometimes you want to stick your favorite "Veggie Tales" jams in and just have a good time.
That leads me to an interesting point. Is "Veggie Tales" wholesome entertainment? Well, I don't know. It is a mildly morally uplifting show. It's probably a bad example. Ok, and AHA! The "Christmas Shoes" song. worst.song.ever. Do you want to argue it? Just show up at the next family Christmas party my brother will be throwing this December. We will undoubtedly argue about the merits/non-merits of that song, which will undoubtedly lead to someone pulling it up on their phone, which will undoubtedly lead to us haters deciding to make a cover.... next year. The cover is always going to happen next year.
Ok, forget about stupid examples. I had the opportunity to take an art philosophy course from a man I admire. Dr. Travis Anderson in the BYU Philosophy department. He wrote a paper some years back on the question of the word "wholesome" when it applies to entertainment. Is something really WHOLESOME if it is merely devoid of questionable material? Are rice cakes really wholesome? Ok, I said I was going to be done with examples.
When I think of "wholesome" (thanks to Dr. Anderson's pointing it out), I think of enriching. Full of good, not just devoid of "bad". So veggies are wholesome, but maybe "Veggie Tales" aren't necessarily that wholesome.... oh yeah. They do have their veiled way of teaching morals. Ok, we'll let them stand. Wholesome. Fine.
But creativity is so rarely encouraged anymore. The public has told our "artists" what we want. We have commissioned the hideous work that now blares over our radios. If consumers didn't consume, producers would not produce. They would catch on. Or they would sing their debauchery to themselves in the comfort of their own homes.
There is a story, I heard it told in a TED talk I found on YouTube. It is by Sir Ken Robinson and is entitled "Do Schools Kill Creativity?". So said story is about a girl in a drawing class, who is uncharacteristically paying very close attention one day. When the teacher lets the kids loose to make their art, she walks up to this little girl and asks, "What are you drawing?" to which the girl replies, "I am drawing a picture of God." The teacher, bewildered, responds, "But nobody knows what God looks like." Confidently, the girl rebuttals with, "They will in a minute." That is a true artist. It doesn't matter if one isn't "supposed" to "know what God looks like." This brave little soul was going to show us God as she saw him, and it didn't matter that an authority was telling her she wasn't doing it right.
That is what great art has always been about. That is why Jackson Pollock will always be a genius, even though it's not too terribly hard to replicate what he did (well, that's debatable. People actually say that it is harder to replicate than one would think, which I am inclined to believe). Unless you have a time machine and can go back in time to beat him to it, you can never really replicate what he did, because what he did was so far removed from that paint-splattered canvas. It was a comment on art at the time. It was a comment on his life (a sad one, we are to understand). Who knows, but that he was drawing a picture of God. Perhaps that is what all true artists are doing. They are playing mini-gods in their own way. Gods who can control the sphere that they create in their art. As they create a world, they simultaneously construct a sort of commentary on that world. Thus, they are drawing pictures of God (the higher forces they see at work in the world), gods (themselves, the way they perceive the world/their lives), and character (animate or inanimate, a view on the things around them, other human beings, human nature, etc.). Oh, and I will say as an aside that if Pollock was drawing a picture of God, God cannot have found it to be incredibly flattering. Not in a literal sense, anyway.
So what I mean is that the whole "be true to yourself and your art" cliche is cliche for a reason. When someone with talent and ability is brave enough to do what is not being asked for, they often show us glimpses of the God we would cut ourselves off from (I happen to believe in a very literal God, the father of our souls, but if to you God is nature, or some other-worldly force, or the human intellect, etc. then that still fits in here) with all of our bars, prostitutes, and Christians being devoured by hungry lions. Not that great artists don't take us through some difficult places in the meantime. It's not always sunshine and bubbles. Sometimes we are led to where we would rather not trod. It is difficult, sometimes painful, but rewarding.
I need to get off of my soap box, I know. Some people actually like to let loose and have a little dance party.
And some of us just like to think, and over-think, and blog until 3 am.
Oh, I left myself in the boutique. Excuse me. I'll get back to that. I take my leave of the shop keeper and walk back out into the rain, and back into my car.
Then to recover I listen to this little beauty: (Joanna reminds me very much of the little girl in the story.)
and feel much, much better.
Oh, and as referenced:
and (I HIGHLY recommend this):
Good night.
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You {Me}-- A Study: Creativity
It was official. We had decided to be friends, and to make a film. It was going to be epic.
So I walked over to your house, video camera in hand, and we set to work.
Talking.
And Talking some more.
I loved that evening. Others coming in and out of the room, joining and disassembling at intervals--despite our best-laid plans, we couldn't seem to stop talking. Too busy creating a scene of human interaction to concentrate on our art.
Now that we have grown older, I am repeatedly amazed at your ability to create. Time and distance have worn the edges of that memory a bit, and I guess if we had made a film, I would have had that artifact to remind myself of how our voices sounded then, what clothes we wore, the references we used, the music we enjoyed...
I see in that the difficulties in such a photo-journalistic approach to art. Some will say the intent of the still and video camera was to capture memories. Indeed, that is how these instruments are widely used. Polaroid, Cannon, Nikon, Sony... they all instill in us a desperation to need to capture every moment in some media in order to remember those aspects our minds will toss out while we sleep.
I guess they have a point--if we insist on details. If we must remember every nit-picky thing that would otherwise be lost to us, then a camera will certainly be a necessary tool. But, what if what we want to remember is something akin to an instance of kinetic energy? The gathering force of a budding friendship. That feeling of a mounting conversation, back and forth; two young people, for a moment, too enthusiastic about life to remember to record it.
So, years later, I record the leftovers of it here. Thank you for teaching me about creativity then, and so many times since then--you truly are an inspiration, and I wish you the best of luck in all of your creative endeavors.
Here is to the film we never filmed. Perhaps it has become one of our greatest works despite our childish neglect of its craft.
So I walked over to your house, video camera in hand, and we set to work.
Talking.
And Talking some more.
I loved that evening. Others coming in and out of the room, joining and disassembling at intervals--despite our best-laid plans, we couldn't seem to stop talking. Too busy creating a scene of human interaction to concentrate on our art.
Now that we have grown older, I am repeatedly amazed at your ability to create. Time and distance have worn the edges of that memory a bit, and I guess if we had made a film, I would have had that artifact to remind myself of how our voices sounded then, what clothes we wore, the references we used, the music we enjoyed...
I see in that the difficulties in such a photo-journalistic approach to art. Some will say the intent of the still and video camera was to capture memories. Indeed, that is how these instruments are widely used. Polaroid, Cannon, Nikon, Sony... they all instill in us a desperation to need to capture every moment in some media in order to remember those aspects our minds will toss out while we sleep.
I guess they have a point--if we insist on details. If we must remember every nit-picky thing that would otherwise be lost to us, then a camera will certainly be a necessary tool. But, what if what we want to remember is something akin to an instance of kinetic energy? The gathering force of a budding friendship. That feeling of a mounting conversation, back and forth; two young people, for a moment, too enthusiastic about life to remember to record it.
So, years later, I record the leftovers of it here. Thank you for teaching me about creativity then, and so many times since then--you truly are an inspiration, and I wish you the best of luck in all of your creative endeavors.
Here is to the film we never filmed. Perhaps it has become one of our greatest works despite our childish neglect of its craft.
You {Me}-- A Study: Confidence
I had saved that voice-mail on my phone for quite a while. The one where you were laughing so hard it took you a few tries to say what you were trying to say.
"It's not really a big deal, just call me when you can because I have a really funny story to tell you, and I know YOU'LL appreciate it."
I called you when I got off work and we had a great laugh together. It WAS a funny story, complete with an untimely google search and a certain someone. It was not the kind of story I would have had the guts to relate to anyone, and I was surprised you were willing to tell me. Surprised and grateful. Grateful for your confidence--for your letting me in. I need to be let in. To me it is proof that others have confidence in me. It gives ME confidence in me.
I know this little vignette may be a strange way to point out that you have confidence in yourself and in turn inspire it in others. Yet, that is where the truth lies; that confidence is in your make-up--the very fiber of your being.
Thank you for sharing it with me that day, but all of the others, before and after. I am profoundly grateful.
"It's not really a big deal, just call me when you can because I have a really funny story to tell you, and I know YOU'LL appreciate it."
I called you when I got off work and we had a great laugh together. It WAS a funny story, complete with an untimely google search and a certain someone. It was not the kind of story I would have had the guts to relate to anyone, and I was surprised you were willing to tell me. Surprised and grateful. Grateful for your confidence--for your letting me in. I need to be let in. To me it is proof that others have confidence in me. It gives ME confidence in me.
I know this little vignette may be a strange way to point out that you have confidence in yourself and in turn inspire it in others. Yet, that is where the truth lies; that confidence is in your make-up--the very fiber of your being.
Thank you for sharing it with me that day, but all of the others, before and after. I am profoundly grateful.
You {Me}--A Study: Spontaneity
What better place to start these strollings-down-memory-lane than on BYU campus?
My memories of this night are general: like boiling something down to its essence. As I boil, I pause to ponder the strangeness of it: this was a whole day in my life. I woke up that morning, and probably did not want to get out of bed. I probably had a few things on my plate that I wished weren't there. I probably interacted with several hands-full of people, did homework, put on makeup, ate three meals, combed my hair, picked up the apartment. I do not remember what time of year it was, or what was going on in my life, though I might presume that I was wandering campus to stave off some pending sense of insanity. So many problems that drove me to that fountain, and I continue to find myself there from time to time. Perhaps this instance--or worse, this day-- would have been forgotten,
had you not called.
"Where are you?" you asked.
A few minutes later, there you were, with a little snack, just to say hey.
I don't remember whose idea it was, but before long the two of us had peeled off our socks and began wading in the fountain. I'm sure that at the time I had some sense of "we're not supposed to be doing this." but did it really matter? We were just two friends, eating a snack, chatting, wading, unwinding. Life is serious enough, but what is really serious is living a whole day without doing one thing memorable.
Thank you for saving that day for me, packaged neatly as this snippet of a memory. Thank you for that little reminder to not to let myself turn the page over to a new day without putting a bit of red pencil on the one just completed. While we're on the subject of thanks, I think that said day thanks you as well.
My memories of this night are general: like boiling something down to its essence. As I boil, I pause to ponder the strangeness of it: this was a whole day in my life. I woke up that morning, and probably did not want to get out of bed. I probably had a few things on my plate that I wished weren't there. I probably interacted with several hands-full of people, did homework, put on makeup, ate three meals, combed my hair, picked up the apartment. I do not remember what time of year it was, or what was going on in my life, though I might presume that I was wandering campus to stave off some pending sense of insanity. So many problems that drove me to that fountain, and I continue to find myself there from time to time. Perhaps this instance--or worse, this day-- would have been forgotten,
had you not called.
"Where are you?" you asked.
A few minutes later, there you were, with a little snack, just to say hey.
I don't remember whose idea it was, but before long the two of us had peeled off our socks and began wading in the fountain. I'm sure that at the time I had some sense of "we're not supposed to be doing this." but did it really matter? We were just two friends, eating a snack, chatting, wading, unwinding. Life is serious enough, but what is really serious is living a whole day without doing one thing memorable.
Thank you for saving that day for me, packaged neatly as this snippet of a memory. Thank you for that little reminder to not to let myself turn the page over to a new day without putting a bit of red pencil on the one just completed. While we're on the subject of thanks, I think that said day thanks you as well.
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