Moon hung full and fat over the long flat horizon of the Pacific Ocean some fourteen miles to the west of Sunset Beach. She grew large and warm as she hung there anticipating her imminent plunge to the depths of the sea.
Night had been good to her, peacefully absorbing her gentle glow into hills and valleys and trees and rocks, reflecting it softly back from rivers and ponds and the swells rocking gently behind the crashing surf of the great salty beach. But now her time was done. Sun was waiting in the wings to the east, his act rehearsed and ready. It was that magic time of Moon’s cycle when she met Sun for only a few short moments, morning and evening. And remarkably, she was repeating her act for the second time in March—a blue moon.
She gently settled closer to the distant sea, nearly touching it now. The thick, heavy salt air pressed against Moon’s underbelly, flattening it as she settled against the water. Now she should have been sinking into the sea, but a remarkable thing happened. As she dipped below the line of the horizon, she appeared never to actually touch the water. Her flattened underside remained just above the surface while the mass of her body seemed to diminish steadily. Soon her top was all that remained, a small glowing lozenge floating horizontally over the water. Then she was gone, having never gotten wet. Tonight she would return, slightly diminished from her fullness, to repeat the ritual. And by tomorrow morning the blue moon would be waning imperceptibly, and April would be born.
But for now, Sun had taken the stage, calling to Moon from the wings, striding over the dunes with his usual fanfare and flourish. She had smiled toward him as she set, not speaking, as usual, reflecting his radiance with her silver grace until the end.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
shift
I’ve walked by the river,
stood by the sea.
howling winds tearing
and pulling at me.
I’ve stood by the river,
walked by the sea.
dark clouds scudding
and scowling at me.
I’ve run by the river,
sat with the sea.
art surging up
to rescue me.
I’ve stood in the river,
stepped in the sea.
strong deep power
washing over me.
With his divorce had come an unexpected shift.
He had already gone through a few major philosophical transitions in the course of his life. From his junior year in high school through his mid-twenties, he had begun the complex and difficult task of separating his identity and belief structure from that of his parents. It had been a tumultuous and irregular process, proceeding in fits and starts. He had at times found himself wholly at odds with the framework of his family and its community. At other times it had provided security and safety. At 21 he had married and moved 700 miles from home. For several years thereafter, his individuation had proceeded in fairly ordered fashion.
At last, late in his twenties, he had settled on a reasonably coherent world view that was mostly his own. He had successfully broken out of the box of his childhood beliefs. He had wrestled through the inconsistencies and failings of that childhood structure, and had learned to modify and adapt his box as needed. He had discarded old beliefs, incorporated new ones, and in some cases re-adopted the old ones in the new framework. It had been a very successful strategy for 20 years.
But some very deep assumptions had gone unchallenged throughout the years until his divorce was in full swing—assumptions about his own capacity and ability and strength and character. Now these assumptions began to crumble. At first he didn’t realize how deeply the divorce was cutting into the foundations of his world. But as time passed, his ability to adapt the structure of his world view to the disintegration of these assumptions failed him.
No assumption, no closely held belief, no sacred concept was safe. It was not like the process that he had been through in his twenties. Then, he was simply rearranging his box, and perhaps enlarging it as needed. Now, the notion that he could even hope to contain a coherent world view in any conceivable box was out of the question. He had finally come to understand that the world was a very large place without regard for his tidy, well packaged understanding; a place that could get along quite nicely while confounding and contradicting whatever he believed about it. But somehow, through all this, he felt confident and at peace with his own collapse. He seemed to understand that there was order and harmony in the universe beyond his capacity to catalog and arrange his comprehension of it. In a sense, he had reached a place where he could live without a comprehensive world view.
Now he began to see his world as a loose association of objects. His divorce was one of these objects. The world view box from his upbringing was another object. His recently failed adult world view with its flexible, expandable box was still another. His perception of the nature and personhood of God, the tenants of his faith community, the set of taboos his faith community had placed around the tenants of other faith communities, and his political perspective were all significant objects in his new model, and suddenly he found himself questioning and examining all these things with an openness and bravery that he had never before possessed.
He could not dismiss any possibility as simply being outside the boundaries of his belief structure. That belief structure was now modeled on the notion that each object in his world view must withstand scrutiny on its own merits at every turn. There was no room any more to accept anything simply because it was inside a preordained box.
Now he must question everything, discard nothing, and be ready to turn sharply at a moment’s notice. Now he must be ready to face the possibility that the most sacred assumptions of his life could crumble at any moment; the most heinous heresy could prove to be a valuable source of hope, truth, and inspiration, while perhaps even still proving heretical; the most noble cause could prove unworthy; the most trivial event could transform his understanding.
This shift in his world view was so pervasive, so massive and transforming that he found it almost impossible to discuss with most people. All but a tiny handful simply did not understand it. When he tried to explain, he found people awkwardly groping for a construct from their own box to map his transformation onto. Or they just shrugged it off and changed the subject. He was not surprised at these responses. He knew that only months before he would have reacted in the very same ways.
Georgia air
The afternoon was growing old under the weight of Georgia atmosphere and the monotony of incessant mating calls of countless cicadas. From the porch where he sat, he could see the air out across a hundred acres of pasture to the catfish pond at the bottom of the gentle rise where the house stood. Humidity and grass pollen and dust from a truck that had run up the red dirt road a few minutes past hung full in the air. It was still as stone except for the minions of bugs that swirled and darted and hopped and clicked and buzzed everywhere across the fields and around the pond. A big snapping turtle released a pocket of air trapped in the mud at the bottom of the pond as she rooted around for her dinner. The bubbles boiled up startling a big lazy dragonfly into action from his perch on a reed only inches away.
He was visiting relatives, and had little to do other than socialize and read and sit in the presence of this place whose spirit was so different from that of his California scrub oak hills. It was a welcome break from his routine. He knew all the people on this trip well, but had never spent time meeting the place itself until this afternoon on the porch.
South of the catfish pond and west of the house was a stand of pine and mixed hardwood forest that ran an untold distance off across the countryside. He had been told that the forest was less than a hundred years old, and had grown up on land that had all been in cotton during and after the Civil War. But as he sat, he sensed that the spirit of this place hid in those woods—that it welcomed the trees back to heal the land from the trauma of cotton.
For a few moments that late afternoon, it revealed itself to him at the edge of the woods. It was an ancient spirit. Far older than the plantations; weary of the incessant onslaught of progress, but always resilient to absorb its blows and regroup. It was steeped in communion with the Indians long before the whites had brought their fiddles and ploughs and wagons and slaves. And those whites had brought their own influence to the spirit of the land, as had their African slaves. It was a wild spirit, murky and dark and heavy with humidity and blended with the toil and long striving of its inhabitants; with memories of joy and laughter, of brutality and outrage, peace, prosperity and poverty, sorrow, tranquility, crisis, and immeasurable depth. It carried secrets of untold history, some of which he dared not even to imagine. And it informed the consciousness of the locals at a deep level most would never articulate and of which many would never be aware.
He was visiting relatives, and had little to do other than socialize and read and sit in the presence of this place whose spirit was so different from that of his California scrub oak hills. It was a welcome break from his routine. He knew all the people on this trip well, but had never spent time meeting the place itself until this afternoon on the porch.
South of the catfish pond and west of the house was a stand of pine and mixed hardwood forest that ran an untold distance off across the countryside. He had been told that the forest was less than a hundred years old, and had grown up on land that had all been in cotton during and after the Civil War. But as he sat, he sensed that the spirit of this place hid in those woods—that it welcomed the trees back to heal the land from the trauma of cotton.
For a few moments that late afternoon, it revealed itself to him at the edge of the woods. It was an ancient spirit. Far older than the plantations; weary of the incessant onslaught of progress, but always resilient to absorb its blows and regroup. It was steeped in communion with the Indians long before the whites had brought their fiddles and ploughs and wagons and slaves. And those whites had brought their own influence to the spirit of the land, as had their African slaves. It was a wild spirit, murky and dark and heavy with humidity and blended with the toil and long striving of its inhabitants; with memories of joy and laughter, of brutality and outrage, peace, prosperity and poverty, sorrow, tranquility, crisis, and immeasurable depth. It carried secrets of untold history, some of which he dared not even to imagine. And it informed the consciousness of the locals at a deep level most would never articulate and of which many would never be aware.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
SANDZ67
The cafe was a classic American truckstop. It could have been anywhere in the United States, but nowhere else on the planet. It was in Gilroy. The gravel parking lot poured out onto the old Monterey Highway just before it merged with Interstate 101 southbound to Salinas. It was really past Gilroy. Past downtown, past the train station and the microbrewery, past the skate arena, past the wrecking yard, and even past the car dealerships. He had lived in Gilroy for nearly seven years before he even knew it was there. It appeared that none of the thousands of customers pouring into the outlet mall from all over the south Bay Area every day ever found their way into the dusty gravel parking lot.
The clientele that parked and ate there was local. Farmers in pickups, families in big old Buicks, truck drivers in trucks. And of course, the lot always had the perfect red mustang with the black rag top, red fuzzy dice, and the vanity plate that read SANDZ67.
He had never been in the Gavilan Cafe when Sandy wasn’t waiting tables. He almost wondered if the waitress and the cafe even existed apart from each other. She was blonde with soft curls a little more than shoulder length and big bangs. She appeared to be approaching 30 from somewhere near 40. She was thin and pretty in a well-worn truckstop sort of country western way. There was an ageless experienced weariness behind the bright smile and lightly-done mascara she brought with her to every table.
Sandy had a way with customers. The first time he came into the cafe was the week before Christmas. While he sat waiting for steak and eggs over medium with hashbrowns, a biscuit and gravy, he watched as she presented a Christmas gift to a small boy sitting with his dad at the counter. It was a battleship game. She played the game with the boy and kept up with half a dozen tables the whole time he took to eat his truckstop steak and eggs. She knew most of the customers by name, and soon had several of them at the counter, engaged in the game. Another time, he sat at a booth next to a family whose small boy was not happy about his highchair captivity. Sandy flirted and teased and engaged the little guy the whole time he was there. That day, another customer cornered Sandy back by the kitchen and gave her a big bouquet of flowers and birthday balloons.
There seemed to be a genuine bond between the cafe and its customers. An energy and purpose, maybe even a promise, that they sensed and loved. As he watched this cafe magic unfolding, so remarkable for it’s truckstop ordinariness, he knew the heart of it was Sandy. He knew nothing about her except what he had observed in the cafe, and what he had heard in a thousand country western songs. She was an icon. The goddess of the American truckstop cafe.
The clientele that parked and ate there was local. Farmers in pickups, families in big old Buicks, truck drivers in trucks. And of course, the lot always had the perfect red mustang with the black rag top, red fuzzy dice, and the vanity plate that read SANDZ67.
He had never been in the Gavilan Cafe when Sandy wasn’t waiting tables. He almost wondered if the waitress and the cafe even existed apart from each other. She was blonde with soft curls a little more than shoulder length and big bangs. She appeared to be approaching 30 from somewhere near 40. She was thin and pretty in a well-worn truckstop sort of country western way. There was an ageless experienced weariness behind the bright smile and lightly-done mascara she brought with her to every table.
Sandy had a way with customers. The first time he came into the cafe was the week before Christmas. While he sat waiting for steak and eggs over medium with hashbrowns, a biscuit and gravy, he watched as she presented a Christmas gift to a small boy sitting with his dad at the counter. It was a battleship game. She played the game with the boy and kept up with half a dozen tables the whole time he took to eat his truckstop steak and eggs. She knew most of the customers by name, and soon had several of them at the counter, engaged in the game. Another time, he sat at a booth next to a family whose small boy was not happy about his highchair captivity. Sandy flirted and teased and engaged the little guy the whole time he was there. That day, another customer cornered Sandy back by the kitchen and gave her a big bouquet of flowers and birthday balloons.
There seemed to be a genuine bond between the cafe and its customers. An energy and purpose, maybe even a promise, that they sensed and loved. As he watched this cafe magic unfolding, so remarkable for it’s truckstop ordinariness, he knew the heart of it was Sandy. He knew nothing about her except what he had observed in the cafe, and what he had heard in a thousand country western songs. She was an icon. The goddess of the American truckstop cafe.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
a woman's place
so delicately she spins at her wheel.
the wool gathers,
twisting his clouded thoughts
into strong threads
from some amorphous mass.
she is an enchantress,
knowing in the ways of deep mystery.
so deftly she works at her loom.
the blanket grows
thread by thread,
drawn up in the making
around his weary heart.
she is a healer,
knowing in the arts of nurture.
so playfully she sings from her heart.
the music falls all around,
sparkling droplets
dancing in sunlight,
bathing him all in fire and inspiration.
she is a Muse,
powerful in the ancient ways of love.
He had grown up among Southern Baptists, and spent a large part of his adult life consorting with assorted varieties of evangelical and charismatic Christians. He was quite familiar with the “proper place of a woman” in these circles. He had worked ten years in the welding trade, and was fully aware of the utter lack of place for women in that world. And he had spent as many years in the high tech industry of the Silicon Valley, and was equally aware of the “liberated” masculinity of the woman’s place in that industry as well. He had studied the roles of women in various third world and archaic cultures, and was familiar with the goddess, mother, and Gaia concepts in the New Age Movement. Madison Avenue was smacked with abusive arrogance on the subject, and Hollywood was spotty, with some of the best and the worst sensitivities of all.
Yet nothing he had seen captured the breadth and depth of strength and character and wisdom and dignity and generativity and nurture and self sacrifice and allure and magical charm and mystery and emotive force that seemed to him inherent and unique in the feminine gender. None of the popular philosophies and theologies adequately addressed this remarkable creature, so different from and incomprehensible to men. He felt nearly helpless to achieve the level of understanding necessary to the task of relating to individual women and the gender at large in a way that was sufficient.
The Christian tradition offered little help. It was salted with popular literature and sermons on the value of a woman, mostly patterned on Proverb 31, and the admonitions of Paul for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, laying his life down for her. These teachings were laced with talk of feminine submission and debates on the proper role or lack thereof for women in leadership. All this was well intended, he supposed, but so heavily steeped in radical patriarchy that it effectively neutralized any encouragement and insight it hoped to offer. He had searched scripture for anything even faintly resembling the femininity that he sought to understand, and found little. The Song of Solomon touched on romantic allure and passion, and was the best, least masculinized accounting of woman that he found in the Bible. Proverb 31 described a competent manager, and could nearly as well have described a man as a woman. Ruth and Esther and the women around Jesus were faithful and heroic, but very limited in their expression of the fullness of female energy. Jezebel and Delilah were diabolical and deceitful. Most other references were about submission and subservience and weakness. Scripture and Christian tradition consistently ignored the deeper complexities of the feminine mysteries. Not much help there.
The liberation movement of popular culture turned out equally insensitive, largely masculinizing women in an effort to achieve what they called equality. While this movement addressed some very important issues of oppression, neglect, and abuse, it was flawed deeply by its efforts to define equality as sameness. He was also disturbed by its frequent tendency to belittle and demean men and masculinity—an extremely juvenile approach, rooted in a level of insecurity that betrayed and undermined its validity.
The New Age movement captured some aspects of the problem pretty well, embracing Native American and Celtic notions of the place and role of woman that were far more complex and well developed than those of western civilization at large. This seemed to be the most promising of all the cultural treatments that he found. But still, the exploration of femininity here was not sufficient.
Finally, he turned away from the study of cultures and philosophies and theologies and focused his attention on women themselves. How did they perceive themselves and their femininity. He was appalled at what he found. Even centered and balanced women bore marks and scars of insecurity, wounding, and weariness deep in their feminine souls. Resentment and distrust of men at some level was nearly universal. He was horrified! What had we done to these most magnificent, complex, beautiful people? What caused society to inflict such torment on them?
He sensed that the key to healing was understanding. For women to grow strong and whole in the full measure of their womanhood, both they and the men around them must first learn to cherish and honor and celebrate all of what the feminine mysteries entail. And he knew that this was a hugh task. He had come full circle to the problem he had started with. He was little closer to a true understanding, but now he had two new things: He saw the gravity and importance of the quest, and he knew that the answers would come from women themselves, and from the men who understood the importance and power of the mystery. He also began to understand how important it is for men to become strong and secure and balanced in the center of their own masculinity in order to step out of the way and give place to the energy and beauty and tenderness so effusive and abundant in women.
He knew far more at this point than he had expected to learn, and yet his exploration and study had hardly begun. His knowledge of the feminine mysteries seemed far smaller with his new insights than ever before. But his foot was in the path, and now he began to hope to encounter a woman who could open doors and inform his steps and help him begin the journey.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
overdrive
His divorce had been inevitable for nearly seven years. He had wrestled long and hard with the hurting and sorrow and anger and frustration, but somewhere along the way these had spent most of their energy and had given way to the dismantling and deconstruction of his world view. At last, that work was nearly done, and he was ready to tackle the now matter-of-fact business of negotiating terms and disengaging his life from that of his once eternal bride, taking care to protect the kids from as much as possible of it, and making it all legal and binding.
This day had started off with a surprising upsurge of resentment at his wife, who had asked to borrow his cellular phone for a trip to the mountains with the kids. (It was back in the day when cell phones were still a bit uncommon.) It had been a reasonable request, but somehow, set him off. Why was she still taking him and his possessions for granted so long after she had broken off all those parts of their relationship that had kept him committed and eager to share his life and possessions and hopes and dreams with her for the past quarter of a century. How could she be so insensitive to the fact that sharing these things with her was the expression of his spurned love. How could she not see that taking him for granted was a privilege bestowed and sanctioned only by sustained and mutual love. Perhaps women can never understand the assurance and security a man gains from knowing that his mate can fully take him for granted. And that this is only possible within the security of unquestioning mutual affection and loyalty. All this rumbled unspoken through his heart as he handed over the phone and walked out the door to start his day. It was the first day of several in which he would be alone while she and her mother and the kids vacationed at a ski resort at the north end of Yosemite. It would be a welcome if brief trial run of his upcoming single life.
He took the back roads to work that morning, needing the tranquility of the hills and the joy of the winding road to temper the jagged mood already set for his day. As he turned from Watsonville Road onto Uvas Road southwest of Morgan Hill, a low-riding, shiny black pickup with tinted windows jumped out of nowhere to camp on his bumper. His already battered mood dropped into his shoes as he realized that the truck would ride his tail for the next 20 minutes relentlessly unless he pulled over to let it pass. Not feeling up to being pushed and harassed by a tailgater, he pulled over at the first wide spot in the road.
And then it happened; a transformation; an awakening; the birth of a new thing in the core of his being. It was so powerful, and so other, so unlike his normal response, that he knew immediately that he had changed in some way that was profoundly significant.
As the black truck passed his little Honda, he suddenly realized that by passing him, the truck was now at his mercy. He had gained control by letting the truck by, and in an instant, he knew he must take charge. Just powerful enough to take the road at peak handling efficiency, the little car would serve him well enough to make the truck’s driver sorry he had so insensitively broken in on the communion of this once peaceful morning drive. By the time the truck had passed him by, his foot was in the gas pedal and he dropped back into the roadway less than a car length behind the truck and pressing hard. He owned the truck now, and would not let it’s driver off the hook. The race was on and he knew that nothing short of tragedy or interference by traffic or the highway patrol would stop it. At first, the truck’s driver continued to pick up the pace, no doubt confident that he could outrun the Honda that had turned the tables so unexpectedly. But his driving skills were better suited to the highway than the rally, and he could not escape.
As he pushed the truck along the little country road, he knew this was insane! Why was he doing it? Surely it would accomplish nothing useful, and put both vehicles, their drivers, and anyone else who ventured into their way at risk. It made no sense. And it was utterly uncharacteristic of him to react in such a brash, reckless, and aggressive manner. For twenty minutes, the drive surged on up the road unabated, pushing to speeds above 75 miles per hour at times and almost never dropping below 65. The road was designed and safe for 40 to 50. For twenty minutes he marveled and wondered at the insanity of what he was doing, and yet did not care. He owned the truck. He owned the road. He knew every turn, dip, and bank, and optimized his gears and power and handling to push the truck’s driver as far out of his skill level as possible without making him lose the road. Not only did he know the road, and his own limits, but he also seemed to know the limits of the other driver and how far past them he could push him. Why was he doing this! Was he angry at tailgaters? Yes, but not this angry! Was he irritated at his wife for taking him and his phone for granted? Maybe, but again, not enough to warrant this crazy reckless rush!
Finally he came to his turnoff and let the truck go. He would spend that day and part of the next unraveling the drive and its mysterious transforming power and significance, realizing that he, not his wife, or the tailgater, was the key to the meaning of the drive. He was the one who had been pushed; who had yielded passively, to his own detriment, all these years, and he was the one who, in twenty minutes of relentless power driving, had suddenly and decisively regained control of and responsibility for his own life and well-being. Now the time had come to drive his divorce, and his new life, to reality.
This day had started off with a surprising upsurge of resentment at his wife, who had asked to borrow his cellular phone for a trip to the mountains with the kids. (It was back in the day when cell phones were still a bit uncommon.) It had been a reasonable request, but somehow, set him off. Why was she still taking him and his possessions for granted so long after she had broken off all those parts of their relationship that had kept him committed and eager to share his life and possessions and hopes and dreams with her for the past quarter of a century. How could she be so insensitive to the fact that sharing these things with her was the expression of his spurned love. How could she not see that taking him for granted was a privilege bestowed and sanctioned only by sustained and mutual love. Perhaps women can never understand the assurance and security a man gains from knowing that his mate can fully take him for granted. And that this is only possible within the security of unquestioning mutual affection and loyalty. All this rumbled unspoken through his heart as he handed over the phone and walked out the door to start his day. It was the first day of several in which he would be alone while she and her mother and the kids vacationed at a ski resort at the north end of Yosemite. It would be a welcome if brief trial run of his upcoming single life.
He took the back roads to work that morning, needing the tranquility of the hills and the joy of the winding road to temper the jagged mood already set for his day. As he turned from Watsonville Road onto Uvas Road southwest of Morgan Hill, a low-riding, shiny black pickup with tinted windows jumped out of nowhere to camp on his bumper. His already battered mood dropped into his shoes as he realized that the truck would ride his tail for the next 20 minutes relentlessly unless he pulled over to let it pass. Not feeling up to being pushed and harassed by a tailgater, he pulled over at the first wide spot in the road.
And then it happened; a transformation; an awakening; the birth of a new thing in the core of his being. It was so powerful, and so other, so unlike his normal response, that he knew immediately that he had changed in some way that was profoundly significant.
As the black truck passed his little Honda, he suddenly realized that by passing him, the truck was now at his mercy. He had gained control by letting the truck by, and in an instant, he knew he must take charge. Just powerful enough to take the road at peak handling efficiency, the little car would serve him well enough to make the truck’s driver sorry he had so insensitively broken in on the communion of this once peaceful morning drive. By the time the truck had passed him by, his foot was in the gas pedal and he dropped back into the roadway less than a car length behind the truck and pressing hard. He owned the truck now, and would not let it’s driver off the hook. The race was on and he knew that nothing short of tragedy or interference by traffic or the highway patrol would stop it. At first, the truck’s driver continued to pick up the pace, no doubt confident that he could outrun the Honda that had turned the tables so unexpectedly. But his driving skills were better suited to the highway than the rally, and he could not escape.
As he pushed the truck along the little country road, he knew this was insane! Why was he doing it? Surely it would accomplish nothing useful, and put both vehicles, their drivers, and anyone else who ventured into their way at risk. It made no sense. And it was utterly uncharacteristic of him to react in such a brash, reckless, and aggressive manner. For twenty minutes, the drive surged on up the road unabated, pushing to speeds above 75 miles per hour at times and almost never dropping below 65. The road was designed and safe for 40 to 50. For twenty minutes he marveled and wondered at the insanity of what he was doing, and yet did not care. He owned the truck. He owned the road. He knew every turn, dip, and bank, and optimized his gears and power and handling to push the truck’s driver as far out of his skill level as possible without making him lose the road. Not only did he know the road, and his own limits, but he also seemed to know the limits of the other driver and how far past them he could push him. Why was he doing this! Was he angry at tailgaters? Yes, but not this angry! Was he irritated at his wife for taking him and his phone for granted? Maybe, but again, not enough to warrant this crazy reckless rush!
Finally he came to his turnoff and let the truck go. He would spend that day and part of the next unraveling the drive and its mysterious transforming power and significance, realizing that he, not his wife, or the tailgater, was the key to the meaning of the drive. He was the one who had been pushed; who had yielded passively, to his own detriment, all these years, and he was the one who, in twenty minutes of relentless power driving, had suddenly and decisively regained control of and responsibility for his own life and well-being. Now the time had come to drive his divorce, and his new life, to reality.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
art
“Art is the sex of the imagination.”
—George Jean Nathan
He had always liked that statement, although he felt that it was missing the point just a bit. Art is really the foreplay of the imagination. It teases and torments the artist, driving him or her onward, but never reaching consummation. And at the same time, art is the residue of the act of making it—the husk of the creative act. Art is heaven and hell all rolled up in a tangle of joy and frustration and pain and bliss and peace and torment.
He had heard it said that pornography is degrading and demeaning because it reduces its subject to a mere sexual object, stripping away the rich fullness of the person behind the body, and leaving only the suggestion of a sexual act out of context. Art, especially art that deals with human expression, whether overtly sexual or not, is just the opposite of pornography in this respect. Art enlarges the physical object of human form to capture a meaningful expression of the fullness of the human condition. Art takes the simple physical form and finds within it an expression capturing the heart and soul of the subject. Perhaps it is this procreative upsurging of living energy that accounts for the powerful sense of the sexuality of art. Perhaps art is the flirtation, the act, and the artifact, all engaged and entwined in an irreducible compound.
—George Jean Nathan
He had always liked that statement, although he felt that it was missing the point just a bit. Art is really the foreplay of the imagination. It teases and torments the artist, driving him or her onward, but never reaching consummation. And at the same time, art is the residue of the act of making it—the husk of the creative act. Art is heaven and hell all rolled up in a tangle of joy and frustration and pain and bliss and peace and torment.
He had heard it said that pornography is degrading and demeaning because it reduces its subject to a mere sexual object, stripping away the rich fullness of the person behind the body, and leaving only the suggestion of a sexual act out of context. Art, especially art that deals with human expression, whether overtly sexual or not, is just the opposite of pornography in this respect. Art enlarges the physical object of human form to capture a meaningful expression of the fullness of the human condition. Art takes the simple physical form and finds within it an expression capturing the heart and soul of the subject. Perhaps it is this procreative upsurging of living energy that accounts for the powerful sense of the sexuality of art. Perhaps art is the flirtation, the act, and the artifact, all engaged and entwined in an irreducible compound.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
the molotov jellybean
The driver and his Ghia had cruised through the hills at the eastern edge of the central Coast Range several times a week for the past seven years. But now they had cruised their last.
The beautiful licorice jellybean car had somehow developed a fatal gas leak in traffic, and had gone up in flames at a stoplight somewhere in the middle of greater San Jose. A passerby dedicated his jacket to the desperate cause of beating back the flames that darted and flickered from the air intake grill in the top of the engine lid. Then a police officer expended his tiny fire extinguisher into the grill while waiting for the fire department to arrive.
By the time two engine companies arrived on the scene and casually rolled out their hoses, the entire engine compartment was fully involved in roaring flames. Burning gas dripped in a puddle under the car. Finally the fire crew sprang into action. When they had finished, everything consumable in the rear part of the car was gone. Hoses, belts, electrical insulation, plastic parts, battery casing, and aluminum carburetor were all reduced to a crumbling mass of charred and melted rubbish. The engine lid was warped and devoid of paint and primer. Brake lines were burned through, but remarkably, all the tires were still standing.
The Ghia was dead. It was dead in the way of old Volkswagens. Out of commission but still recognizable; still able to receive parts transplants from even less fortunate Bugs and Ghias that had sustained irreparable collision damage. It would live again in the fond care of some kid looking for a project to transform by a labor of love into a first car. But for this driver, it was dead. The midlife crisis that had spurred him on to buy it was fading fast, and the joy of working incessantly to keep an antique car running had finally begun to fade.
He would find a young savior to resurrect the Ghia. But in the mean time, he would buy a Honda.
The beautiful licorice jellybean car had somehow developed a fatal gas leak in traffic, and had gone up in flames at a stoplight somewhere in the middle of greater San Jose. A passerby dedicated his jacket to the desperate cause of beating back the flames that darted and flickered from the air intake grill in the top of the engine lid. Then a police officer expended his tiny fire extinguisher into the grill while waiting for the fire department to arrive.
By the time two engine companies arrived on the scene and casually rolled out their hoses, the entire engine compartment was fully involved in roaring flames. Burning gas dripped in a puddle under the car. Finally the fire crew sprang into action. When they had finished, everything consumable in the rear part of the car was gone. Hoses, belts, electrical insulation, plastic parts, battery casing, and aluminum carburetor were all reduced to a crumbling mass of charred and melted rubbish. The engine lid was warped and devoid of paint and primer. Brake lines were burned through, but remarkably, all the tires were still standing.
The Ghia was dead. It was dead in the way of old Volkswagens. Out of commission but still recognizable; still able to receive parts transplants from even less fortunate Bugs and Ghias that had sustained irreparable collision damage. It would live again in the fond care of some kid looking for a project to transform by a labor of love into a first car. But for this driver, it was dead. The midlife crisis that had spurred him on to buy it was fading fast, and the joy of working incessantly to keep an antique car running had finally begun to fade.
He would find a young savior to resurrect the Ghia. But in the mean time, he would buy a Honda.
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