OSCAR WILDE vs JOHN WAYNE
As the Olympics come to an end, they leave us with this thought. The distinction between say the Luge and Figure Skating. In effect, the difference in life between raw power and delicate power.
Would it be correct to say raw power has helped tame the world and the animals around us, and that delicate power has then helped civilize that world? It's something like the image of our Wild West first being tamed by rugged individuals like trappers, miners and marshals; later being civilized by rooted groups like farm families, schools and churches.
Today's America has experienced sharp cultural shifts. The John Wayne images have in part yielded to the Tom Hanks images. We still cheer our rugged Charles Bronsons and Clint Eastwoods, but brains and gentility have won equal favor. Intelligence need not take a backseat to brawn; nerds are envied more than ridiculed.
Some call this the feminization of America. Perhaps Oscar Wilde put it differently: "America is the only culture that has gone from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between." Hmmm...?
WHEN EXACTLY DID I BECOME SEPIA-TONED
Society lives not only by its laws, but also by its conventions. Collectively accepted habits whose use shortcut the need for a lot of explaining. The conventions employed in our films are especially interesting, for they not only reflect us. Sometimes they help shape us.
For instance, the convention of conveying the passage of time by the slow fadeout....the convention that in the world of action, men buddy-up...then there's the convention that getting in a car almost always means a wild chase, a fiery crash and bodies flying into the camera...the most enduring convention of course is that no matter how brutal and disastrous the plot line, we almost always end with boy & girl getting each other.
OK, no argument. Hollywood has the aesthetic right to choose it's own conventions; and, I suppose, to leave its audiences motivated to somehow match them in real life.
However, I'm desperately curious about one particular cinematic convention. Whenever any story takes place in the 30s and 40s, we're all in sepia tone! Has a nice visual effect, and by now it rigorously establishes the time frame. But when and where and how did my generation get to be sepia toned?? I just never noticed...
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
CELEBRATING CLICHES
OF ALL THE THINGS YOU WEAR, YOUR EXPRESSION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT
Too flippant...? I don't know about that. Consider the expressions of our favorite movies stars. In some silent, sentient way, these cinematic icons speak to us. Shape us. Often by their expressions alone. Watching them up there on those bigger than life screens, we relate to their facial communication.
Who do we best relate to...? Our choices can be instructive, for they hint at who we are (or want to be):
* Clark Gable > A flair for the confident, cocky and maybe even conniving!
* Jimmy Stewart > A down-home, ah-shucks goodness that feels your pain!
* Clint Eastwood > A strong, brooding silence that's always master of the moment!
* Bette Davis > A compelling, no-nonsense bitchiness cool under fire!
* Marilyn Monroe > An innocent sensuality that fills your dreams at night!
* Diane Keaton > A smart, sauciness that draws you both body and soul!
* Nicole Kidman > A blend of hot and cool in one tasty recipe
Got your own list? Sure you do. Then check your morning mirror to see how much what you like, you begin to look....
A VOICE TO LISTEN TO
I was regretting the past and fearing the future.
Suddenly my Lord was speaking:
"My name is I am"
He paused. I waited. He continued.
When you live in the past with its mistakes and regrets,
It is hard. I am not there.
My name is not...I was.
When you live in the future with its problems and fears.
It is hard. I am not there.
My name is not...I will be.
When you live in the moment
It is not hard. I am here.
"My name is I Am."
Too flippant...? I don't know about that. Consider the expressions of our favorite movies stars. In some silent, sentient way, these cinematic icons speak to us. Shape us. Often by their expressions alone. Watching them up there on those bigger than life screens, we relate to their facial communication.
Who do we best relate to...? Our choices can be instructive, for they hint at who we are (or want to be):
* Clark Gable > A flair for the confident, cocky and maybe even conniving!
* Jimmy Stewart > A down-home, ah-shucks goodness that feels your pain!
* Clint Eastwood > A strong, brooding silence that's always master of the moment!
* Bette Davis > A compelling, no-nonsense bitchiness cool under fire!
* Marilyn Monroe > An innocent sensuality that fills your dreams at night!
* Diane Keaton > A smart, sauciness that draws you both body and soul!
* Nicole Kidman > A blend of hot and cool in one tasty recipe
Got your own list? Sure you do. Then check your morning mirror to see how much what you like, you begin to look....
A VOICE TO LISTEN TO
I was regretting the past and fearing the future.
Suddenly my Lord was speaking:
"My name is I am"
He paused. I waited. He continued.
When you live in the past with its mistakes and regrets,
It is hard. I am not there.
My name is not...I was.
When you live in the future with its problems and fears.
It is hard. I am not there.
My name is not...I will be.
When you live in the moment
It is not hard. I am here.
"My name is I Am."
Friday, February 26, 2010
THE WICKED WITCH OF WINTER
Invincibility comes in all different shapes, sizes and names. My brother feels invincible right after winning a racquetball game...my sister-in-law right after serving another master meal...my nephews right after making the big score or kiss. Personally, I feel invincible right after nine hours of good sleep. But the message here is all the same...!
There will always be times in our lives -- and in the lives of our leaders -- when the surge of invincibility charges through us. A good and efficacious feeling, but one to be carefully understood before it blinds and consumes us. This is why, for example, triumphant returning Roman Generals always had a slave inside their chariot repeating: "Remember Caesar thou are only a man!" I would presume it's something like what the wives of presidents and prime ministers whisper in their beds at night.
Right now we have a dramatic example playing out before our Chicagoland eyes each new day. The slow yet irrepressible way in which Winter's death-grip on our lives is reluctantly yielding. Yielding to every additional daylight minute, to every additional ray of sun, and to every additional nudge from an insistent green Spring just beneath the white Winter.
The Wicked Witch of Winter is dying.....
When Winter is at its most invincible, we poor mortals wither before its furies. Plunging temperatures and bitter winds can subdue the mightiest of us. Lets admit it -- n any contest between our invincibility and nature's, nature usually still wins. And yet, there are the ineluctable laws of the planets against which even nature itself must bow.
So here's what I'm thinking over my breakfast coffee looking outside at melting Chicago Winter. In January and February you were master of all you surveyed; now with March, you've once again met your match. We call it Spring, and we yearn for its return.
As it does, we are reminded once again that nothing -- neither the seasons, nor the triumphs, nor the tragedies -- last forever. It all passes. What we have to do is wisely wait it out, pick up the results, and go on from there...
There will always be times in our lives -- and in the lives of our leaders -- when the surge of invincibility charges through us. A good and efficacious feeling, but one to be carefully understood before it blinds and consumes us. This is why, for example, triumphant returning Roman Generals always had a slave inside their chariot repeating: "Remember Caesar thou are only a man!" I would presume it's something like what the wives of presidents and prime ministers whisper in their beds at night.
Right now we have a dramatic example playing out before our Chicagoland eyes each new day. The slow yet irrepressible way in which Winter's death-grip on our lives is reluctantly yielding. Yielding to every additional daylight minute, to every additional ray of sun, and to every additional nudge from an insistent green Spring just beneath the white Winter.
The Wicked Witch of Winter is dying.....
When Winter is at its most invincible, we poor mortals wither before its furies. Plunging temperatures and bitter winds can subdue the mightiest of us. Lets admit it -- n any contest between our invincibility and nature's, nature usually still wins. And yet, there are the ineluctable laws of the planets against which even nature itself must bow.
So here's what I'm thinking over my breakfast coffee looking outside at melting Chicago Winter. In January and February you were master of all you surveyed; now with March, you've once again met your match. We call it Spring, and we yearn for its return.
As it does, we are reminded once again that nothing -- neither the seasons, nor the triumphs, nor the tragedies -- last forever. It all passes. What we have to do is wisely wait it out, pick up the results, and go on from there...
Thursday, February 25, 2010
PLAYING THE LAST CORNET
Trumpets are always the hot instrument in a band or orchestra; cornets, on the other hand, are now rare. With the exception of the master player Bobby Hackett, this small horn gets fewer accolades these days. But there's one cornet which gets all my applause. The one my Grandfather used to play...
He migrated to Arizona in 1899 to be part of the immense copper mining industry burgeoning our of its ragged mountains. That was long before Arizona was even a state. Instead, it was Geronimo and Cavalry, saloons and shootouts up until 1912. But while Grandpa Bart carried the inevitable 6-gun, he always preferred playing his golden cornet. Weddings, births, baptisms, anniversaries. Any time there was an excuse to make a happy sound.
Gramps died when I was only seven, but we kept his now-tarnishing cornet. I never could play the darn thing, but loved holding it in my hands. A genetic link with my past, my origins, my pride. However, when the family moved out of the old home, somehow that splendid Tut's Tomb of a relic got lost. Never again to be seen or held or loved.
I report this for only one reason. A warning. When your grandparents and then your parents die -- now suddenly you are an orphan! In all orphanhood's cold emptiness! Your last immediate ties to the songs and secrets of your past have just slipped from out of your fingers. So you will want to remember....
.... any aging photo, wrinkled letter or especially cornet must now and forever be held tight.
He migrated to Arizona in 1899 to be part of the immense copper mining industry burgeoning our of its ragged mountains. That was long before Arizona was even a state. Instead, it was Geronimo and Cavalry, saloons and shootouts up until 1912. But while Grandpa Bart carried the inevitable 6-gun, he always preferred playing his golden cornet. Weddings, births, baptisms, anniversaries. Any time there was an excuse to make a happy sound.
Gramps died when I was only seven, but we kept his now-tarnishing cornet. I never could play the darn thing, but loved holding it in my hands. A genetic link with my past, my origins, my pride. However, when the family moved out of the old home, somehow that splendid Tut's Tomb of a relic got lost. Never again to be seen or held or loved.
I report this for only one reason. A warning. When your grandparents and then your parents die -- now suddenly you are an orphan! In all orphanhood's cold emptiness! Your last immediate ties to the songs and secrets of your past have just slipped from out of your fingers. So you will want to remember....
.... any aging photo, wrinkled letter or especially cornet must now and forever be held tight.
DO YOU REMEMBER WALKING?
Do you remember walking? Not exercise walking, but just easy walking from one neighborhood point to another? But then, like domesticating the horse changed us forever, so did inventing the car. And while I love my car, it's changed me and my little world forever. Often in unfortunately irrevocable ways....
Is this beginning to sound like waxing sentimental about the-way-we-were...? Uh, yeah I think it is!
When the people and places you knew were only a wish and a walk away, some extraordinary little things happened along those ways. Experiences no longer as accessible as we speed in our gleaming steel chariots as fast as we can. After all -- getting there is what cars are all about, right?
It's not always esteemed to look over shoulders in an age which prefers to look straight ahead. And yet, when I do I recall meandering to school every morning with enough observational time to notice those green and growing things you can't quite see and study from a car (or a school bus).
Going to the store -- it was usually a gentle jaunt past neighbors, not a hurried highway trip to the mall. Movies -- they weren't sprawling multiplexes at the end of a long crowded parking lot. Family and friends -- without cars, they tended to cluster close by where they were reachable within walking time versus inter-state time.
Lets be clear. Time does not hold in place for anyone. Nor should it. Still, even the most progressive and aggressive trail-blazers will happily concede that speed has its limits. Slow can often be just as good for us as fast.
Oh, and when it comes to the superiority and splendor of our cars -- my recalled Toyota makes me really wonder about that...!
Is this beginning to sound like waxing sentimental about the-way-we-were...? Uh, yeah I think it is!
When the people and places you knew were only a wish and a walk away, some extraordinary little things happened along those ways. Experiences no longer as accessible as we speed in our gleaming steel chariots as fast as we can. After all -- getting there is what cars are all about, right?
It's not always esteemed to look over shoulders in an age which prefers to look straight ahead. And yet, when I do I recall meandering to school every morning with enough observational time to notice those green and growing things you can't quite see and study from a car (or a school bus).
Going to the store -- it was usually a gentle jaunt past neighbors, not a hurried highway trip to the mall. Movies -- they weren't sprawling multiplexes at the end of a long crowded parking lot. Family and friends -- without cars, they tended to cluster close by where they were reachable within walking time versus inter-state time.
Lets be clear. Time does not hold in place for anyone. Nor should it. Still, even the most progressive and aggressive trail-blazers will happily concede that speed has its limits. Slow can often be just as good for us as fast.
Oh, and when it comes to the superiority and splendor of our cars -- my recalled Toyota makes me really wonder about that...!
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
THE BIRTH OF MYTH
A fascinating thing happens when you personally know a few Oscar, Tony and Emmy award winners. You're suddenly and palpably made aware of the enormous difference between the person and their new public image. In a way, you're present at the birth of a myth...!
Myths are not really lies, rather they are the powerful, collective beliefs by a society in something or someone that takes on an important life and truth of its own. Every society has them. Here we have everything from the Puritan Thanksgiving myth to the Founding Fathers myth, from Lincoln to Jesse James, from Charles Lindbergh to Neil Armstrong, from JFK to Elvis. In my case there are such additional family myths as my grandparents and parents migrating to America where with courage and conviction, they grabbed a piece of the myth we call The American Dream.
There are even those who would go so far as to say this is how God came into being -- the human race imagined him into mythic existence as the great parent we need in a violent, uncertain world.
Here's the point. Joseph Campbell was perhaps our generation's greatest student of mythology, and he examined its causes and consequences in delicate detail. But whenever he was asked if any particular myth were true or not, he would simply smile and say: "Yes."
The fact that my friends are still my friends even though they have now become living legends makes me suspect the issue here isn't whether or not we can empirically prove our myths. Rather, can we share them in our common pursuit of the good life together.
All of which leads me to this curiosity. I wonder over lunch what George Washington, Jesse James, JFK and Elvis would have to say to one another...?
Myths are not really lies, rather they are the powerful, collective beliefs by a society in something or someone that takes on an important life and truth of its own. Every society has them. Here we have everything from the Puritan Thanksgiving myth to the Founding Fathers myth, from Lincoln to Jesse James, from Charles Lindbergh to Neil Armstrong, from JFK to Elvis. In my case there are such additional family myths as my grandparents and parents migrating to America where with courage and conviction, they grabbed a piece of the myth we call The American Dream.
There are even those who would go so far as to say this is how God came into being -- the human race imagined him into mythic existence as the great parent we need in a violent, uncertain world.
Here's the point. Joseph Campbell was perhaps our generation's greatest student of mythology, and he examined its causes and consequences in delicate detail. But whenever he was asked if any particular myth were true or not, he would simply smile and say: "Yes."
The fact that my friends are still my friends even though they have now become living legends makes me suspect the issue here isn't whether or not we can empirically prove our myths. Rather, can we share them in our common pursuit of the good life together.
All of which leads me to this curiosity. I wonder over lunch what George Washington, Jesse James, JFK and Elvis would have to say to one another...?
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
FAME vs FUNDAMENTAL
Very often there's this problem distinguishing between fame and fundamentals, between those who are briefly famous and those who become fundamentally important. Learning the difference could save us a good many mistakes. The pages of history bulge with examples...
A quick test: Can you remember Marcus Coelius, Caravaggio, Thomas Crapper, or Francis X. Bushman? Now can you remember Buddha, Aristotle, Shakespeare or Einstein?
Actually the first group were remarkably more famous in their lifetime than after their death. Coelius a brilliant Roman general...Caravaggio a celebrated Renaissance painter... Crapper a highly successful inventor.... Bushman the most popular film star of his time. Today hardly any remembered.
What the first group had in common was their fleeting fame. The second, their enduring concern for the fundamentals of life and living. How helpful it would be if we were more adept at making these distinctions before rather than after the fact.
Oh wait....! Thomas Crapper's temporary fame has become memorable. He invented the flush toilet, and to this very day we remember him whenever we shout the universal expletive: "Oh crap....!"
A quick test: Can you remember Marcus Coelius, Caravaggio, Thomas Crapper, or Francis X. Bushman? Now can you remember Buddha, Aristotle, Shakespeare or Einstein?
Actually the first group were remarkably more famous in their lifetime than after their death. Coelius a brilliant Roman general...Caravaggio a celebrated Renaissance painter... Crapper a highly successful inventor.... Bushman the most popular film star of his time. Today hardly any remembered.
What the first group had in common was their fleeting fame. The second, their enduring concern for the fundamentals of life and living. How helpful it would be if we were more adept at making these distinctions before rather than after the fact.
Oh wait....! Thomas Crapper's temporary fame has become memorable. He invented the flush toilet, and to this very day we remember him whenever we shout the universal expletive: "Oh crap....!"
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