Notes on the television program “Roots,” Black Narratives, the new King monument in Washington, D.C., and Barack

On Who and What We Choose to Be and Do

“Darling, in you I found strength where I was torn down.”

—Ashford and Simpson, “You’re All I Need to Get By”

We do not have to choose between remembering the past or living in the present, any more than we have to choose between knowledge and love, or purpose and happiness, although sometimes we are encouraged by personal pain or certain people to do so.  I know that the original broadcast of the television program “Roots,” based on African-American writer Alex Haley’s imaginative reconstruction of his family’s history, was an important cultural and historical event, presenting at once to all of America a history—the history of the capture and enslavement of Africans—that had been referred to but rarely discussed at length or widely; the program was a sensation and a corrective to political amnesia; and it inspired many people to research their family history.  It presented one family, beginning in Africa with a manhood ritual, and moving on to the capture of a young man and the ocean journey—with more than one-hundred and fifty persons chained together in a ship—and their hard work and humiliating treatment in America over several centuries.  The servile manner dictated, the splitting up of families, the rape of women, the whipping and killing of men, and the selling of children are all here.  So is the tension between those blacks who remember the past and Africa, and those who accept their present life in America; and between those who attempt friendship and those resigned to bitterness.  The drama is enacted by some of the popular performers of the day, including Cicely Tyson, Ed Asner, Ralph Waite, John Amos, Madge Sinclair, Leslie Uggams, Chuck Connors, Ben Vereen, Richard Roundtree, Sandy Duncan, Ben Vereen, George Sanford Brown, and Lloyd Bridges.  Ralph Waite’s natural acceptance of the way things are—slavery and its immorality—as a shipman on a slave ship is perfectly smooth and startling for that reason.  He, like many of the other performers here (particularly Sandy Duncan and Lloyd Bridges), had a likable public reputation, and to have him play such a role must have been a rewarding exercise of his talent as an actor even as it encouraged the (possibly shocked) viewer to remember that those involved in slavery as slave-catchers or owners were human too, though they were morally reprehensible.  The performances that impress me now are probably the same ones that impressed me and others upon first viewing: Levar Burton as young Kunta Kinte, Madge Sinclair as Belle, Leslie Uggams as Kizzy, and Ben Vereen as Chicken George (though the Stan Winston makeup on some of them—or how that is photographed—is sometimes distracting; for instance, Vereen has a brown-in-black complexion, like black coffee, but the aging makeup gives his skin a black tone with some gray in it).  Someone like Chicken George, a man who enjoys and is good at training and fighting roosters, and likes wearing good clothes and bringing presents to his family, stands out for his independence and skill, for his individuality despite the times.  I like that we see some masters try to be decent, and I was pleased as well to see a young Brad Davis as a poor, loving young white man who is befriended by, and befriends, the blacks; and, though I am not sure his performance is entirely consistent and rooted (he is very sweet for someone who has had a hard life), watching him I thought of James Dean.  The program, which is driven by dialogue and plot rather than aesthetic beauty or reverie, was moving; and it remains a necessity, as that history is still not as known or as understood as it could be, though creative writers such as Margaret Walker, Charles Johnson, Toni Morrison, and Edward P. Jones have explored the subject, as have film directors in works such as Glory and Sankofa and Nightjohn (and, of course, scholars, too).

It was possibly surprising that the writer Charles Johnson, who wrote Middle Passage and Oxherding Tale, two novels exploring the enslavement of Africans, has written that it is time to create narratives that move beyond the fact of slavery and the history of segregation and its abuses to embrace the new opportunities and facts of success in African-American lives, individual and collective lives.  In a piece in the journal The American Scholar on the subject, and available online now, Charles Johnson aligns storytelling with philosophy, acknowledges the longtime paradigm of the victim through which the African-American experience has been interpreted, and, recognizing the ongoing travails of class, affirms the diversity of African-Americans and states, “In the 21^st century, we need new and better stories, new concepts, and new vocabularies and grammar based not on the past but on the dangerous, exciting, and unexplored present…These will be narratives that do not claim to be absolute truth, but instead more humbly present themselves as a very tentative thesis that must be tested every day in the depths of our own experience and by all the reliable evidence we have available, as limited as that might be.”  I would like to read those new stories, but it would do us well to remember that there has been in the African-American modern realist novel—Wallace Thurman’s Infants of the Spring, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, James Baldwin’s Another Country, and Alice Walker’s Meridian, Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters, and David Bradley’s The Chaneysville Incident, to name but a few and not the most current works—a grappling with the individual in society, with his (her) personality, potential, and problems.  There has been more than one way of seeing and storytelling, which is not to deny the validity of Johnson’s point, that the state of the victim has been a consistent subject in many African-American works; and that new realities exist to be explored.     

The movement from enslavement and disenfranchisement to civil rights was facilitated by men such as W.E.B. DuBois and Martin Luther King Jr. as well as the efforts of ordinary men and women living their lives with dignity and purpose, but the vision of African-American humanity has been kept alive through the decades also by caring, intelligent artists.  It was interesting to see “Roots” and then to contemplate the new monument to the preacher and activist Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington.  I have not walked around the monument itself, but have seen a photograph of it in the September 5, 2011 issue of Time magazine (available the week of August 22, 2011).  The magazine’s writer Richard Lacayo declared that “As a work of art, the stiffly modeled sculpture of King at its center has its problems.  But as a work of visual rhetoric, a device for summoning feelings about one of the greatest Americans, the first monument on the National Mall devoted to a man who was never President—and the first for an African American—gets a lot of things right.”  Lacayo describes the sensation of walking around and through the site.  It is an impressive looking work, of course; and it is easy to imagine it becoming a destination for many.  It is a work that adds something to the telling of the American story, but it is impossible not to think of how long it takes public knowledge and manners to catch up to the creativity and liberty in individual human hearts.  

Liberty survives in human hearts.  We do not have to choose between remembering the past—Africa, enslavement, segregation and discrimination, struggle and slow progress—or living in the present, with its quickened speed and opportunity and frustration.  The statue of King, erected during the term of the first African-American, Barack Obama, as president, has historical and sentimental appeal; and we can look at it and think of the past, of its troubles and accomplishments, and of the problems that remain to be solved, whether those problems are in employing, health care, housing—or in human hearts and mind.  The election of Barack Obama is a sign of progress. 

I did not, and do not, expect everyone to like or admire Barack Obama.  How could they?  He is a very particular man with a very particular agenda, one that may be in part or whole opposed to that of others, but I did anticipate that it would be instructive to have him as president.  I think he has been a good president, though not a great one; for him to be great in my eyes, he would have to end the country’s wars, and regulate Wall Street and its financial practices; and then begin to advance his more progressive programs and ideas with greater momentum.  Yet, I have been surprised by the extreme, hysterical, and negative opposition to him in certain quarters, public and private; and surprised by the inclination of others to misinterpret him, though he is among the most articulate, clear, and logical of men.  I have been displeased to read, hear, or see that some people—who consider themselves progressive—criticize him for not being ideological (narrow-minded) or militant (vicious) enough, not focused primarily on African-American issues or more obviously determined to destroy his conservative political opposition.  The president is a pragmatist, an insightful one; and many of his critics are deluded, dangerously deluded. 

I used to admire the theologian Cornel West, and I admired him for a long time, but Cornel West and television journalist Tavis Smiley, two black men, two public activists, whose disrespectful and insidious speculation about the president's character and motives have forced intelligent citizens to question their integrity; two men who have proven themselves again and again to be vain and spiteful in regard to the president, less concerned with programs and projects and progress than with taking offense at what they see as the president’s inadequate regard for their masculine and self-centered pride.  They seem to expect a conformity to their expectations and views that would be, in fact, nothing more than a form of spinelessness, if not idiocy.  Why do they expect conformity?  (I do not.)  Of course, I do not know or like every black person, nor the perspective or philosophy of each; I never have and I never will—and to say that is but a fact of human society, of life.  When a friend recommended a piece by West that appeared in the New York Times (“Dr. King Weeps From His Grave,” August 25, 2011), I read it and immediately saw that it was a piece that took the celebration of the King monument as another chance to state, “The age of Obama has fallen tragically short of fulfilling King’s prophetic legacy.”  I thought about what West wrote, but, more than that, I thought of my own hope for the kind of work an African-American intellectual might do, remembering that I thought once that Cornel West and literary scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. would do that kind of work; and I wrote, quickly and roughly, to my friend:  

I just read the Cornel West piece, and I was not impressed.  West and Gates have genuine gifts and great opportunity; and both could have been as great as Freud or Marx, producing original, transcendent, world-changing visions, but that is not what either has done.  In different ways, to different degrees, they, like Baldwin, began to pander to black people and lazy white liberals--people who expected easy answers and a lot of flagellation of supposed enemies.  Self-transformation begins with the self, but everyone, especially the downtrodden, must begin that work; and then the public work begins, and it is not easy, it is not quick, and it is intellectual, spiritual, and political.  Barack Obama is president, but he cannot do everything alone.  What remains true is how little genuine thought and how little genuine activism exists now in America; and there is nothing new or invigorating, as far as I can see, in Cornel West's opinion piece.  It's the same old recycled rhetoric (and a key to that is the line about King crying in his grave--when a philosopher says something so truthless and melodramatic, everyone should be on guard: this is the language of a demagogue)... I'm just disappointed in West, and tired of his whining about Obama.  He has made his point, good or bad, and it's time to move on with something more productive and useful...It must be noted that I have been a "fan" of both West and Gates since I was young--in the 1980s; and I expected great things from both.  They have good public reputations, but I don't know how much of their work will genuinely last or is genuinely important...And, it is suspect when the only thing a black man is expert on is on being black.  Freud and Marx did not make being Jewish their subjects; they wrote about the human condition, about society at large...

Why do West and Smiley speak and act as if all are—even a president with more knowledge at hand, and more responsibility than both of them have ever had—expected to agree with them?  Why do they expect conformity?  How is it that these two men, who no doubt consider themselves sophisticated, have continued to maintain such deep and hateful provincialism?  Is it that their view of the past has narrowed their view of the present?  Is it that they cannot see beyond their own mirrors?  They seem to have forgotten that we do not have to choose between remembering the past and living in the present; nor do we have to choose between personal growth and cultural solidarity, or between cultural solidarity and political sophistication.  The president, who has claimed his human inheritance and is preparing his own significant legacy as an American of African descent and a public servant, is proof of that.

Query on Art and Criticism

I wrote to some artists and thinkers in different fields and posed some questions: Which arts are important to you and why?  In what ways do you find discussion about art and artistic criticism useful?  How often do you consider philosophical or spiritual questions when contemplating art?  What do you consider your most significant engagement with art--in terms of thought, emotions, or work?  What do you look forward to?  And thus far, have received a few responses, here below.

Dege Legg
Writer-Musician, (bands) Santeria and Black Bayou Construkt


Solitary Walker: Which arts are important to you and why?

Dege Legg: Every day is a work of art.  I admire people who create art out of the seemingly mundane elements that compose their daily lives.  Garden.  Walk through room.  Stop.  Stare at cracks in sidewalk.  Say hello to a cow.  U-turn on the highway.  It’s improvisation.

In what ways do you find discussion about art and artistic criticism useful? 

Art talk is only useful when those involved have a sense of humor. And heart.

How often do you consider philosophical or spiritual questions when contemplating art?
 
Constantly.  The two are intertwined.  Creativity is a spiritual practice for those without an orthodox religion.

What do you consider your most significant engagement with art--in terms of thought, emotions, or work?
 
N/A.  Not sure.  It’s all one big/strange/long blur. Discovering Gabo Marquez was pretty significant.



James Wagner
Art World Observer, JamesWagner.com


Solitary Walker: Which arts are important to you?

James Wagner: All of the arts, without exception.

Why are they important?

They are all equally important to me because I have always believed it is the arts that make life worthwhile; or to put it another way, I believe that once we have looked after the material requirements of the body and our need for love and for sexual satisfaction, except for the need to remain open and responsive to the needs of others, it is art which animates our human being.  I believe this is true for everyone.

I understand that not all men and women believe in art as I do, some maintaining, beyond my understanding, that they just are not interested in it, but I suggest they have just not allowed themselves to see or hear or imagine what they might.  Some argue that they just do not have any time for the arts, and certainly there really are unfortunates who are on the very edge of simple survival who really cannot make or enjoy art, and when we find them, their condition tests our faith even in art.

But I believe nevertheless in the supremacy of the arts above all other human consciousness or endeavor.
In the best of all possible worlds (admittedly a world which will never be), our own basic needs, and the needs of others, would finally be secured; at that point there would be no truly human function remaining but art.  In the meantime our best occupation is working to that end.

In what ways do you find discussion about art and artistic criticism useful?

I am not a good judge of the usefulness of art criticism, since I have always read very little of it, preferring instead to look at or read art first hand.  But perhaps by way of partial explanation I should reveal that I have absolutely no academic experience of any of the fine arts.

How often do you consider philosophical or spiritual questions when contemplating art?

Let me say first that I have absolutely no use for religious spirituality except as a subject of historical study (but having escaped parochial school for secular, then become apostate, maybe I seem to protest too much); I am not even certain that I can approach religious spirituality in a purely aesthetic fashion, but I also do not think of myself as a particularly materialistic person.  I'm pretty rational and intelligent, but I'm easily moved by work that is moving.   So, yes, I do bring philosophical and spiritual insights into my experience of art, but while I have a substantial background in philosophy, ethics, history - and aesthetics (that one self-taught), I think these tools are now so much a part of my being that I can't separate their separate contribution from my overall experience while contemplating of art. 

What do you consider your most significant engagement with art--in terms of thought, emotions, or work?

I am taking a chance on being wrong about myself with my initial response to the question, but my first thought is that, because of my attraction to, even passion for, the avant-garde in all the arts, in even the most shocking form, and on account of my life-long engagement in social and political issues as one (imagined and tiny) tribune for the powerless, my strongest responses to works of art in any medium are generally a consequence of experiencing works that are both strikingly original and somehow socially or politically engaged, however subtly.

What do you look forward to?

Two things: The successor to the current political world, which will serve justice, opportunity, transparency and the diversity of both people and peoples; and the increasingly-connected social world, which will find all people and all peoples engaged in the arts as never before, and all interacting on a scale and with a civility unimaginable today. All of the problems which the planet's existing systems of government have created, in the stupidity, greed, power hunger and secrecy-obsession of their operators, problems which appear unavoidable or insurmountable (as these governments want them to appear), can be resolved when this comes to pass.  It will take a while; I don't expect to be here. 

 

Strange Culture's Lesson: Beware of Ignorance and Power

Strange Culture, a documentary film directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson

about Critical Art Ensemble artist Steve Kurtz, featuring Tilda Swinton and Thomas Jay Ryan

Docurama Films, 2007

Governments do not have to censor or circumscribe, prosecute or persecute, but out of a concern for their own power, and to protect moneyed interests, and sometimes to ensure public safety, they do.  One such occasion seems to be that of artist Steve Kurtz, whose work with Critical Art Ensemble, a five-person collective, investigated the relationships among industry, science, the government, and the public, especially regarding the introduction of genetically modified food, without proper labeling, to the consumer market: people literally do not know what they are eating, or what the long term effects are likely to be (they are walking experiments).  In addition, with the current and increasing inclination of corporations to patent life forms, greater monopoly threatens.  In Strange Culture, we see how two events converged in Steve Kurtz’s life to profoundly detrimental effect.  As Steve and his wife Hope Kurtz and their colleagues prepared for a large exhibit focused on experimental produce, as part of his work Steve acquired through an internet purchase bacteria that he prepared in glass-enclosed cultures (he was consulting scientists too); and in May 2004 when Kurtz awoke in bed to realize that his wife Hope—an editor known for her gift for identifying patterns and anomalies—was not breathing, he then reported that, and the people investigating the sudden death saw his arty science work, the equipment and chemicals, and they feared bioterrorism—and Kurtz’s prosecution, or persecution, began.  The justice authorities knew nothing of contemporary art, and the broad range of domains art explores or the analytical practices it engages; and they did not care to listen as Steve Kurt tried to explain.  Ignorance and power were aligned against Steve Kurtz.

Strange Culture is an intelligent and useful film, demonstrating how several cultures acquire and disseminate knowledge, specifically the art world and the justice system.  It allows experts to speak, and it presents evidence.  We even see some art—some of which is expectedly odd, and some of which is obvious tribute to tradition.  The center of the film is Steve Kurtz, a long-haired blond, blue-jeaned artist and teacher, with dark circles under his eyes and a soft, humorous manner.  He talks directly to the camera; and other times he is impersonated, quite effectively, in scenes by actor Thomas Jay Ryan, who projects sensitivity with intelligence, an indirect sensuality, and a certain impatience.  Several ironies occur: the work of Kurtz and his associates was about the nature of social justice, and the impact of ignorance and knowledge on the public, and Kurtz came to feel the force of law (knowledge did not protect him); and when police authorities—the local police and then the Federal Bureau of Investigation—did their own work, driven by a supposed suspicion of bioterrorism, they were careless and clumsy with the materials they handled and the garbage they left behind.  Kurtz’s case embodies his worry, exemplifying the warning in his work; and the manner and methods of the policing authorities defied their own announced standards and concern for possibly hazardous materials.  Both the police and the FBI autopsy Hope Kurtz; and heart failure is found as the cause of her death, but they persist in pursuing her grieving, stunned husband.  Steve Kurtz is described as an open and giving collaborator and teacher, someone who is missed as he becomes involved in the legal case against him; and his students, who are fond of him, are afraid of signing a petition on his behalf.  The students do not want to be on the FBI’s radar.  It is sad to think that a benign gesture could threaten one’s own security (it makes an individual wonder about whether the genuine complaints one has lodged, or the legitimate protests one has joined, are part of a file that—ignobly, maliciously—will be used against one).  Why should an individual be punished for seeking justice, especially by the justice department?  Kurtz does get a vigorous defense from a lawyer named Cambria who has worked with the American Civil Liberties Union; and that defense is necessary, as Kurtz realizes that a persona and crime are being constructed by the prosecutors that bear no real resemblance to who he is or what he has done.  Government investigators ask those who know Kurtz about Kurtz’s politics, sexual habits, and drug use, questions that seem both crass and stupid.  Why is such an effort being made?  More than one person says that this is an attempt to broaden the reach of the (George W. Bush) government into academe and art, achieving the ability to silence dissent.  Making civil issues a criminal matter could do that; and agencies and laws—and the power they create and employ—survive the change in administrations.  First, silence the artists and thinkers.  An auction at the Paula Cooper Gallery is held, with writer Wallace Shawn’s participation, and many in the art world seem to rally and more than one-hundred-and-sixty thousand dollars are raised for the defense of Kurtz and the ailing scientist who is charged with him, Robert Ferrell.  One might think the case could be dropped completely when the public health commissioner declares that Steve Kurtz’s work did not provide or provoke a threat to public safety, but then prosecutors simply shift gears, charging him with wire fraud connected to how the bacteria he used was acquired.  (Someone says it is a unique fraud charge, in which no one directly involved—buyer or seller, museum or artist, or anyone else—has complained of being defrauded.)  The film Strange Culture was made before the case was resolved, and shows us some of the artists and lawyers who were actually involved in this real world event but it also features dramatic scenes with Tilda Swinton (smart, quick, shrewd, honest) as Hope, and Thomas Jay Ryan (casually comprehensive and responsive) as Steve.  It is one of those real world matters that you have to see to believe and even then it seems fantastical—or, more precisely, nightmarish.

Other Films

Documentaries, new, recent, and old, are not the only films worth considering; however, a film such as Strange Culture contains much that does, or should, concern us.  There are some films that I think might be great, films certainly worth discussing: The Dry Land, The Exploding Girl, Wendy and Lucy, and Winter’s Bone.  The Dry Land, starring Ryan O’Nan and America Ferrara, focuses on a young couple after the husband returns from war, having forgotten a painful event there, in which his compassion rather than his violent impulses led him astray; The Exploding Girl, about an epileptic girl played by Zoe Kazan, and her best male friend, two college students who return to the city while on break, as her boyfriend moves further from her and her best male friend considers that he and she might become closer; Wendy and Lucy, about a quietly desperate and nearly destitute girl (actress Michelle Williams) who is traveling with her dog; and Winter’s Bone, about a young woman (actress Jennifer Lawrence) who must find her absent, drug-making father who is out on bail, or face being evicted with her mother and siblings from the family home, which has been used for the father’s bond, and to find her father she must seek out dangerous relatives, crazy country people.  These films, with exceptional writing and cinematography and acting, present portraits of America that are true: we recognize both experience—the brutal confusion of war, the struggle for survival, the drift of youth, and the desire for friendship and love—and what we know about experience.

As well, I liked Columbus Short in Armored, as a caretaker for his younger brother and a man who takes a security guard job and is induced to participate in a robbery; and Omari Hardwick as a bisexual husband to a controlling magazine editor in For Colored Girls, the recent film interpretation, also featuring Kimberley Elise and Whoopi Goldberg, of Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem theatrical production.  Short’s acting is full of emotional detail—concern, fear, outrage, pride, and shrewdness; and Omar Hardwick has the cool surface and nagging tension of a man balancing desire and responsibility.  I liked the rakish Ewan McGregor in The Ghost Writer and as a gentleman in Miss Potter.  I admired Natalie Portman’s performance in both The Other Woman and No Strings Attached, two films with different spirits (in the former, about marriage, adultery, and grief, Portman plays an angry young woman, and in the second about friendship and sex, with a deeply charming and effective Ashton Kutcher, Portman is both alienated and free).  I thought the musical Burlesque, featuring Cher and Christina Aguilera, was amusing and sweet, an achievement in a treatment of a subject that could be tawdry (and Aguilera’s voice is genuinely amazing); and City Island, about a prison guard father (starring Andy Garcia) who discovers his abandoned son in prison and takes him home, had a similarly light spirit.  I enjoyed Sherlock Holmes; and Somewhere.  I could note that I did not particularly like Precious or The Social Network (the characters and the situations were mostly repellent), though I appreciated Paula Patton in the first and Armie Hammer in the second; and there are things—positive and negative, I think—to be said about Beastly, Big Fan, The Company Men, The Fighter, Love and Other Drugs, The Next Three Days and other movies.  Yet, a film like Strange Culture is not only about the world we live in, but it is about how the world came to be and continues to be what it is.

Excerpt, "Sarah at Palestinian art exhibit," from A Stranger on Earth

Writer's Note: I began working on a fiction project in 2006 in New York, and completed the novel, A Stranger on Earth, in late 2010 in Louisiana, and here is an excerpt from that already copyrighted work...

Sarah attended an early evening exhibition of Palestinian art in Chelsea, featuring drawings, paintings, sculpture, photographs, and things she had no name for.  It was on the third floor of a rough-looking building.  The walls of the gallery were gray; and the signs in the gallery were written by hand.  There was art on the walls, on stands, and hanging from the ceiling.  The organizers were nice enough to provide refreshments; and Sarah put some cookies on a napkin, which she carried as she moved through the images. She stopped in front of a large canvas of naked men, women, and children walking through a desert: an exodus, the beginning of exile.

It might have been an affectation but Sarah long had thought of herself as an exile.  Was she exiled from home, or from a dream of home?  Was she exiled from paradise, or from a dream of paradise?  The questions seemed romantic in the face of Palestinian facts.

“Do you think this picture is erotic?” asked a young man who had stopped next to Sarah, and was looking at the same canvas she was.  His voice was almost harsh, but his enunciation was precise.

Sarah looked around.  They were the only two people in front of the canvas.  He was talking to her.

“I had not thought of that at all,” Sarah said.

Was she reprimanding him?

“They are naked,” he said.

“We are born naked.  Babies and children are often naked in many parts of the world,” Sarah said.  Was that an intelligent, or an obvious thing, to say—or both?

“There are adults here.  Women with breasts, large thighs, hairy pubic regions.  Men with cocks hanging,” he said, smiling.

What was this man talking about?

Sarah said, “The people in this picture have had everything taken from them.  They do not have clothes on their backs.  They are leaving home, and they don’t know where they are going or what’s going to happen to them.”

“I know,” he said, smiling at her.  In a voice that had a sensuously thick tone, he said, “It’s an existential moment.  There is a lot of freedom in that moment.  It doesn’t have to be all about pain.  There can be pleasure.”

Sarah turned from his face, a face that indicated it was her response that was predictable, and possibly wrong, and she looked, again, at the picture; and, while looking at it, she said, “It is a moment in which anything can happen.  Anger.  Tears.  Hope.  Regret.  Comfort.  Sex.”

“Yes,” he said.  “That’s what I was thinking.  Why assume one thing?”

“The context,” she said.  “We know what has come before, being forced out of their houses—and we know what is going to come, not being able to go back when they want to.”

“But in this moment, as they move, naked, free?” he said.

Why was he being insistent?

“Are you Palestinian?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Did you grow up there, in Israel—Palestine?” she asked.

“I grew up here,” he said.  “My parents came before I was born.”

“Are you an artist?” she asked.

“No, I am a spectator, a voyeur—someone who enjoys seeing,” he said.

Sarah was abashed by his use of the word voyeur, by his tone of voice—intimate, low, suggestive.

“How can you call them free?” Sarah asked.

 “Aren’t we free if we think we’re free?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” she said.  “Sometimes we want to be free—and we’re not,” she said, “but, in this instance, I don’t think many people would see these people as free.”

“Isn’t that a pity—if the people moving do not think they’re free, and if we don’t consider that they might be?” he asked.

Sarah smiled.  She was not inclined to surrender to the arguments of others, but the young man was too insistent for her to persist.  Besides, she thought that they were not really talking about the picture: he was using that as an allegory or a sign for something else.

“Could I get you something to drink?” he asked.

Sarah laughed easily, realizing they had been talking about sex, rather than art or politics.  She had several laughs—a giggling high laugh, a deep rumbling and ruminative laugh, a sharp short laugh that held some tension, and a knowing chuckle of a laugh; and her laugh now had both relaxation and self-awareness in it.

“Yes,” she said.

“Wine, juice, water?” he asked.

“Juice, orange juice,” she said.

“You’re trying to be a good girl?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, smiling.

“I’ll be back,” he said, and she took his absence as the opportunity to finish the cookies she had. 

When he returned to her, Sarah had moved to an installation that involved bullet holes surrounded by a brownish red color on a white canvas, indicating bloody violence.

He handed Sarah the medium-sized paper cup of orange juice.

“This is a lot of juice,” she said, looking at the serving table, only to see the server, a large woman with gray in her hair, watching them.

“My name is Mustafa,” he said.

“I am Sarah,” she said.

“Sarah,” he repeated.

“Did you get tired of looking at the naked people?” Mustafa asked.

“I saw them,” she said.

“Why are people tolerant about violence, but intolerant about sex?” he asked.

Sarah was familiar with the argument that in film and on television, and in other image mediums, such as painting, the spilling of human blood was a less discomforting sight than sexual activity, for many people; and she thought that was accurate; but, that did not mean that she wanted every film or television program or piece of art to be pornography. 

“I am not tolerant of violence, or intolerant about sex,” she said.

“That’s good to know,” Mustafa said.

“Anyway, that picture was not about sex—it was about people moving naked through a desert,” Sarah said.

Mustafa smiled at her.

“Hi Mustafa, I like your hair short,” said a petite woman with long dark hair in a little black dress, as the long-haired woman passed behind them.

Mustafa turned, and said, “Hey, Hanin.”  He returned his gaze to Sarah.  “Do you think women and men are different about what they want?” he asked.

“I don’t think they’re different.  Civilization does.  There are thousands of years of commentary on the subject,” Sarah said.

Mustafa laughed.  “That’s not the answer I was expecting,” he said.

“You were expecting an answer?  Are these your typical questions?” Sarah asked.

Mustafa considered her, shrewdly.  “Do I get marks for originality?” he asked.

“And for the attempt at it,” Sarah said.

Mustafa laughed, easily.

“I think about sex all the time,” Mustafa confessed, warmly.  It was as if a light had brightened behind his eyes and his smile.

“Not all the time,” she said, moving to another piece of art, finding it impossible to believe anyone could think about sex all the time even if he wanted to.  Sarah looked at a face that had been created out of news print.  What did that mean?  That identity had become public reputation?

“I like sex,” Mustafa said.  “I like everything about it.  The heat, the touch, the smells, the taste, the thrusting, the release.”

Sarah looked away, wanting to see where other people were in relation to them.

“Doesn’t it get repetitive, and boring?” she asked, looking at Mustafa.  She liked his coloring—the very light brown skin, the black hair, the large eyes with brilliant whites, the sharp nose, the long, slim dark lips.  Mustafa was an attractive man, but sex was not the first thing she thought of when looking at him.  He had a tempestuous air—she could imagine him changing his mind a thousand times, rushing in and out of a room, raising his voice, throwing things.  Was it passion she sensed?

“Sex boring?” Mustafa asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“I don’t think so,” he said.  “Do you get bored by eating?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“Do you get bored by drinking water?” he asked.

“No, boredom has nothing to do with it.  It’s necessary, natural,” Sarah said.

“Sex is too,” Mustafa said.

“Some people go without it,” Sarah said.

“Yes,” Mustafa said, although he did not think she was one of those people.

A woman in a blue silk blouse and blue jeans, with a white scarf on her head walked to Mustafa and asked, “Are you meeting us at Mahmoud’s restaurant later tonight?”

“I’m not sure, Rana,” Mustafa said.

“I hope you do,” Rana said, before moving on.

Sarah, with little more than a glance, was inspired to wonder how the woman could look both simple and mysterious: the woman in blue looked as if she had nothing on her mind but the moment and place she was in, and yet she moved with purpose.  Was the current moment being measured against and reconciled with some greater good?

Mustafa smiled, trying to guess if Sarah had a response to having their conversation interrupted. 

Sarah’s face showed nothing.  Sarah looked at the art—the black face against a gray background.  “What do you think this image means?” Sarah asked, not knowing why she was continuing the conversation.  Was she herself bored—or not bored?

“That—it’s a face,” Mustafa said.  “I don’t think it means anything.  It’s something to see.”

“Do you really like art?” Sarah asked.

“I do,” Mustafa said.  “I like all sorts of things—things you can see, touch.  Things are more real than what we think about them, Sarah.  I know some people think things are imperfect manifestations of ideas, but I don’t.  I think things are as perfect as they need to be, as perfect as we need them to be—even if we don’t know that.  Some people are puritans.  Are you one?” Mustafa asked.

“I am not a puritan, nor am I at all promiscuous with my affections or my body,” Sarah said.

Mustafa looked at her.  Had she rejected him?  Or was she rejecting all those other men who might approach her?

“What do you think about what’s happened to the New York governor?” Mustafa asked.

“I am disappointed.  I thought he was a smart man.  Did he really need to pay for sex?” asked Sarah.

“He was paying for the convenience, and the honesty, the lack of confusion,” Mustafa said.

“It doesn’t seem to have been all that convenient,” Sarah said, smiling; and Mustafa laughed.

“True,” he said, following as she moved to the next piece.

“The governor is a whoremonger,” said a Middle Eastern man in a suit.

“He’s just a guy,” said the American next to him, in a jersey and jeans.

“Abdel, Rick,” said Mustafa.

“Mustafa,” they both said.

“Having a good time?” asked Abdel, looking from Mustafa to Sarah.

“Very good,” said Mustafa.

Mustafa asked Sarah to sit down.  She said that she wanted to see the rest of the show, but would sit for a short time.  They sat on folding chairs, old brown aluminum chairs set out for a discussion that would take place later.

“You really like art,” Mustafa said.

“I do,” Sarah said.  “You know a lot of people here,” she said.

“I work in the area,” he said.

Mustafa told Sarah about his work, in his family grocery store.  Mustafa clerked behind the counter, but as he was in the store as much as anyone, and ordered stock and did some of the accounting, he could be considered one of its managers.  He asked about her work, and Sarah mentioned the work she had done in the past, and the part-time work at the college, and what she wanted to do in film.  They talked about the many things there were to do in New York during the summer and autumn.

“Have you been to Palestine?” Sarah asked.

“No.”

“Do you want to go?” she asked.

“It’s not a big thing to me, but, because of my parents, I want to see it,” Mustafa said.

“Here,” said a young woman in a jacket and skirt, “are some sweets for you and your friend,” handing two little plates to Mustafa.  The woman seemed kind but responsible—one looked at her and imagined the generosity and tenacity of a mother.  What had it cost a young woman to assume maturity early?

“Thanks Emily,” said Mustafa, who handed one of the plates to Sarah.

“Thank you,” Sarah said to Mustafa, then to Emily.

Mustafa talked alone with Sarah about the girls he had known, girls from every continent.

“Are you still friends with them?” Sarah asked.

“Some of them,” Mustafa said, smiling.  “They remember me,” he said.

Sarah laughed.  “You’re memorable?”

“Yes,” he said.  “You don’t believe me?”

“You probably are—but I am not looking for new memories,” Sarah said.

“Mustafa, thanks for the quick delivery yesterday.  Tell your mother I said hello,” said a girl in tube top and white shorts.

“I will Nida.  You’re a scandal in that,” Mustafa said, nodding to what she was wearing.

“I know,” she said.

“If my mother saw you, she would talk to you, then she would call your mother,” said Mustafa.

“My mother is here,” said Nida, who pointed to the woman.

Mustafa laughed, as did Nida.  Sarah smiled, and watched the girl walk away; and she saw appreciation for that walk on Mustafa’s face.

“She’s a nice girl,” said Mustafa.

Sarah did not contradict him.  How could she, not knowing the girl?

“Are you sure you don’t want new memories?” Mustafa asked Sarah. 

“I am,” she said.

Mustafa looked away from her.

“If you see someone else you want to talk to, you can,” Sarah said, quietly, sincerely.

“I like talking to you,” he said.  Mustafa looked sad.  “We could have a sweet experience together,” he said.

“I want a lot more than sweetness,” Sarah said, smiling.

It’s Going to Be a Long Fifteen Minutes: On Lady Gaga and Her Generation

Lady Gaga, Born This Way

Interscope, 2011

“I’ve had to shout for so long because I was only given five minutes, but now I’ve got fifteen.  Andy said you only needed fifteen minutes.”

—Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga, who has a popular song (“The Edge of Glory”) making its way up the music charts, seems, like Madonna before her, to have commandeered her own fifteen minutes of fame and that of millions of other people.  She is one of an emergent generation that has acquired great attention in the last three years or so; among them, Taio Cruz, Jason Derulo, Ke$ha, Bruno Mars, Travie McCoy, Owl City, Katy Perry, Mike Posner, Rihanna, and Taylor Swift, performers whose songs do possess a certain seduction, an energy and personality that are first irritating, then persuasive, and finally irritating again.  There are distinctive and frequently fleeting qualities that one can hear in the work of youth—charm, confidence, exuberance, irreverence, sensuality—and if an artist is particularly aware, gifted, or lucky the listener can hear intelligence and moral conviction, but usually one does not hear depth, experience, or wisdom.  Much of the confections that Bruno Mars, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, and those other musicians are serving are sugary and fattening, below the established standards for good nutrition, but one’s energy does spike and the resulting spastic movements can be confused with dancing.  Standards do matter, even when we are inclined to ignore them; in fact, they matter most when we ignore them.  Of course, there are artists in classical music, jazz, indie rock, and world music that are making very good music, such as Julia Wolfe, Awadagin Pratt, Jeremy Denk, Build, Eric Reed, Rene Marie, Death Cab for Cutie, Bright Eyes, Angelique Kidjo, Mamadou Diabate, and Vieux Farka Toure, but they get less attention.  It is telling that Lady Gaga, quoting Andy Warhol on fame, gave an inexact if not incorrect interpretation: Warhol said, and is widely understood to have meant, that in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes; and that, in light of the pervasive and promiscuous nature of publicity, fame may come for a good reason, any reason, or no reason, but the fame, in all probability, will be fleeting.  It is not surprising that Gaga’s grasp of that should be faulty, as she often uses culture in shallow and self-serving ways, attaching provocative images to pedestrian songs, to the delight of many people who are clueless about the real sources of her images and sounds.

            I love literature, film, music, painting and other arts, and prefer work that has complexity, depth, and originality.  I had heard of Gaga before I heard her music, and when I heard her music, I was mystified: is that what all the fuss is about, the recycling of other people’s music?  The obvious references were to the work of Madonna and Annie Lennox, but Gaga’s catalog of influences is, from Grace Jones, Prince, and Boy George to Klaus Nomi and Isabella Blow and including many others, too large a list to be documented here.  It is important to remember that we all have ambition, and ambition can be infused in anything, from cake-making to singing to becoming a priest or president.  It can be achieved honestly or dishonestly, or with a mix of methods.  Lady Gaga is nothing more than the contrived image of an ambitious New York girl named Stefani Joanne Germanotta, the daughter of upper-middle class strivers.  “Her father ran a company that installed Wi-Fi in hotels, and her mother worked for a time as a V.P. at Verizon,” reported Vanessa Grigoriadis in New York magazine, April 5, 2010.  Stefani Germanotta went to a Catholic school, and was drawn to the arts, playing piano and acting in school plays; and she looked like a normal girl, healthy, sensual, and warm.  She had a reputation for being nice and she worked hard, playing in clubs and collaborating with other songwriters, but when a music industry contact suggested she needed to change her look, that is what she did, dying her very dark hair blonde, with other changes to follow.  She became a reader, or misreader, of Warhol, taking on his use of the term superstar.  Warhol’s “superstars” seemed to have one look and limited talent, and were like the remembered images of famous actors and actresses, rather than being vibrant artists or people.  The popularity of Stefani Germanotta’s self-construction as Lady Gaga is fascinating, at once a triumph of imagination and will, but also of artifice and ugliness; and her willingness to introduce ever new changes to that image, like Madonna before her, will keep a fickle, large, and tasteless public interested.

            Lady Gaga is the icon of the moment, and she has her defenders, low and high.  Some manage to say things about her that her actually true, though the truth does not always matter.  In a June 2011 Vanity Fair profile of Katy Perry by writer Lisa Robinson, featuring lovely photographs of Perry, entertainment writer Perez Hilton is quoted as saying, “In many ways, Katy reminds me of a young Gwen Stefani.  Gwen’s been away from the music scene for a while, doing the mommy thing and taking her time to make new music with No Doubt, and Katy has filled that void—much like Gaga has filled the Madonna void.”  The void is not merely one of entertainment, but of money-making; and the industry requires things to sell, and Gaga, like Perry, like Rihanna, is obliging.  In 2010, Gaga was reported by Rolling Stone (February 4, 2010) to have sold fifteen million digital tracks, and Time magazine (May 10, 2010) put her on its cover as one of its one-hundred most influential people.  Her newest album, Born This Way, featuring a cover in which Gaga is presented as part human and part machine, a symbol that may be a confession, continues Gaga’s selling power, though some well-placed critics remarked on the confusing messages in some of the songs.  Has Gaga influenced anyone but drag queens (who, really, would seem to have influenced her)?  Recently, music critic Nitsuh Abebe (New York, July 18-25, 2011) argued that the self-affirmation of artists like Gaga is the political gesture of women and minorities, but almost everyone is inclined to self-affirmation, for good or ill. 

Questions remain: what does that self-affirmation inspire one to do?  What are the ideas and values in one’s work?  What does one’s work achieve in the world?  As evidence of social awareness, some may point to Gaga’s support of gay rights, which are certainly in the interest of a significant number of the people who buy her recordings.  She affirmed the rhetoric of aggressive gay politics with the song “Born This Way,” though science is rarely certain when it comes to defining what human character or orientation is at birth—one reason for the long existence of the nature/nurture debate.  There is something ironic to me about people attempting to achieve greater liberty by arguing that who they are is determined by biology, as most arguments for freedom are based on the desire for more choice.  Yet, I suppose if you are perpetually told that what you want is not natural, you will insist that it could not be more natural.  However, civilization is about choices—what we choose to be, think, and do; what we choose to create, protect, and transmit.  Civilization is about the transformation of nature; and the question is, Is nature being transformed by knowledge or ignorance, in the name of life or death, and on the behalf of decency or decadence?  Has the musical world or the social world been made better by giving so much attention to Madonna, and will either be made better by giving great attention to Gaga and her generation? 

It was amusing to hear Ryan Seacrest on his top forty radio singles show introduce the British singer Adele’s song “Rolling in the Deep” and realize he had no trivia to add to that introduction, as he does with the work of Gaga, Perry, and Rihanna, and then to hear the Adele song itself—an eloquent song inspired by a genuine experience, full of passion, with a beautiful arrangement and thunderous rhythm—and how it made everything around it, including the work of Gaga, Perry, and Rihanna, sound silly.  Hearing good music is the only standard one needs by which to judge all music, if one does not want to be intellectual about it.   

            One generation can pursue classical form, and another experimentation, folk, or industrial customs.  One generation can pursue duty, and another pleasure; and each has its strengths and weaknesses.  To be fair and prudent, I must note that it is not wise to bet against youth: those who are young now will have a lot of time in which to pursue their habits, ideas, and goals; and many people change, deepen, and grow—often unpredictably.  Yet, fame, even the fame of youth appealing to youth, can be used for admirable purposes, though it is important to remember that good intentions cannot justify mediocre art.  On the 9^th of August, 2011, Lady Gaga with many other performers utilized their Facebook pages and Twitter feeds to reach millions of people on behalf of Save the Children, to raise funds for use in East Africa.  I am glad to hear that, though I would like to hear a lot less of Gaga’s music. 

Leonardo: The Court Genius, Born Outside Law

The Life of Leonardo da Vinci, Part 1 and 2

(A 2-disk, five part documentary-drama by Renato Castellani)

RAI, 2003

Leonardo of Vinci was born to a lusty, successful father who claimed him and a peasant girl mother who was kept from him; and the claim of Leonardo's father was not embraced by the man’s other children, Leonardo’s ten brothers and two sisters, and those siblings used Leonardo’s illegitimate state to keep Leonardo from the estate first his father then his uncle willed to him.  The solitary Leonardo had a desire to learn and a talent for drawing; and he seemed to need to build a genuine knowledge base in order to proceed with his work, whether it involved art or engineering.  He studied nature, particularly the human anatomy, even dissecting corpses.  Religious paintings—such as his “Last Supper”—brought and sustained his fame.  The Italian Renaissance master had popes and princes for his patrons, and a place at court, something that must have given him some assurance and pride.  Yet, he seems to have grown up without the security in home that many people take for granted, and the political fortunes of his patrons—sometimes high, sometimes low—affected his own state; and those shifts in position could have renewed a sense of vulnerability.  That may have affected him: it may be part of why he did not finish many of his projects.  He had the curiosity and passion, but did he have the discipline and focus?  If you do not receive lasting commitment from others, you do not have a model for it, or even a reason for it—it does not seem real.  That insecurity can have an impact even upon things you imagine will be transcendent—at least that is what I am inclined to think, in general, and in particular, having watched the multi-part motion picture by Renato Castellani on the life and work of Leonardo, who painted the “Mona Lisa” and imagined air flight, underwater boats, and armored tanks centuries before others did.

Why did I decide to see a film on Leonardo?  I realized that, other than an ad for a distant museum show, I had not seen or heard his name recently and had not thought about him in years—and was beginning to forget him.  I am ambivalent about biographies and memoirs, thinking their concerns more likely to be gossip and self-indulgence, rather than significant fact, or true insight; and that the distorted perspective found in many biographies and memoirs can have a detrimental effect regarding the understanding of artists, writers, and thinkers, with the emphasis shifting from philosophy and practice to psychology.  When Leonardo’s “Last Supper” is considered, Renato Castellani’s film narrator points to the centrality of Christ in the picture, and the high place of an early loyal disciple and the lowest place given to Judas; and these are appropriate and relevant (aesthetic and ethical) notes.  Leonardo’s biography is not a theme in the painted picture.  Often the concern of people with an artist’s biography has to do with their inability to deal with the artist’s greatness—they want to bring the artist down to their level, and prefer to look at the failures in his private life.  However, it cannot be declared too frequently that an artist’s greatness is often rooted in his pursuit of his own values and visions, and ability to win support for those; and his failures in life often exist because the people in his life refuse cooperation (compromise of artistic principles can endanger work, but compromise of personal principles can be the thing that allows a relationship to survive).  Not much is known of Leonardo’s erotic life, so his childhood familial life is looked to for obvious personal conflict and drama.  It seems to me that Leonardo was lucky to have a father who recognized his creative talent and found an artist with whom the precocious boy could apprentice: that is a rare life-making response, rather than life-destroying one.  Yet, a biographical and historical documentary, such as this, presents a strong sense of the world in which the artist moved.  Some of the scenes are historical, informational, and others are acted drama.  The locations, costumes, casting, and acting do bring the viewer close to the time in which the man and painter lived.  (I liked the landscapes and buildings, and found myself wondering about the temperature in the rooms, and how men could go about in such heavy jackets, and about the practical implications of their tights.)  It is impossible not to conclude that whatever continuity existed in Leonardo’s life began in his own imaginative mind and questing spirit. 

Documentaries get less attention than fiction feature films, but remain important for intellectual and political purposes.  They offer a concentration of analysis and experience, a fundamental seriousness, that does not have always a large place in the culture; in reading literature, the thought of the writer meets the thought of the reader, and in seeing documentaries the thought of the filmmaker and his subject/s meet the thought of the viewer.  It is rewarding, but also demanding.  We are far from the time when the major television networks presented documentaries as a regular part of their mission; and the films and videos that get theatrical release and critical attention tend to be on controversial subjects.  Home viewing on personal equipment augments that.  I still recall one of my favorite documentaries, many years after seeing it in a downtown Manhattan theater: the original civil rights series Eyes on the Prize; and appreciate the other documentaries I have screened recently, including America’s Castles, Art of War, Barack Obama, Daughters of Afghanistan, King Arthur (His Life and Legends), Men Get Depressed, Muse of Fire, Opera Stories, Shakespeare’s Soliloquies, and Why Shakespeare?  I thought Charles Ferguson’s recent documentary, Inside Job, on the origin of the banking crisis was great—beautiful, smart, and useful.  In watching actor Philippe Leroy as Leonardo in the documentary-drama, and seeing the artist’s exploration of art, science, and even philosophy, something of Leonardo’s life and work were restored to me, an accomplishment that provides a foundation for further exploration. 

 

The painter Leonardo’s competition with the younger and angrier Michelangelo, a great sculptor, was interesting, as well—for the differences in their personalities and work; and it reminded me of other, later competitions, possibly inevitable competitions, among artists (writers and singers too) of different generations, philosophies, and styles.  Everyone wants the space in which to do his or her own work, the space, the respect, and the reward; and an emerging artist often sees older masters as gatekeepers and threats—and sometimes bores.  I did find myself wondering what Leonardo’s work would have been like if the questions he asked—the knowledge he sought—had been provided already, had been inherited.  Would he have been more productive, or less?