(f)Art

Last night, after some wine, dinner and dessert, a conversation about art bubbled up into the room. One of the guests, a man with a boyish face, a mustache, and slicked-back hair only on the top part of his head, proclaimed that art had nothing to do with objectivity. He argued, I believe, that art is subjective and depends completely on the intent of the author. It is an interesting stance, but one that I did not agree with. Art, when it is good, expresses something objective, subjectively. But to illustrate his point, he made use of a hypothetical scenario in which Bob Dylan stood mindlessly strumming chords during a sound check. Surely, he said, this is not art. But isn't it? Perhaps bad art, but still art. Isn't it at least some reflection of Dylan's artistry given he chose to strum those chords in that way for that duration? Is art what the artist does? What if the artist goes as far saying that what he did is not art? Does that invalidate the work? I'd say no, it doesn't, in the same way that an author might be ashamed of his early works and not consider them canon. This doesn't change the fact that they were still artistic attempts, only the passing of time has made them seem more inconsequential and perhaps lacking in artistic merit.

Let's, for argument's sake, use the definition of art provided by the Merriam-Webster dictionary: the expression or application of human creative skill or imagination that is beautiful or expresses important ideas or feelings. This definition is already problematic because it presupposes beauty and importance. I should pause here and note that there may not be an easy solution to this question. This might serve only as an exploratory exercise.

For now, put aside beauty. We can come back to that. But importance is one that's nearly a given, because, if your art was unimportant to you, why would you do it? I think it's safe to suppose that any thing someone does must pass some litmus test of importance or, given the choice, one would simply do something else. Even if the art was deemed unimportant later on, still, during the moment of its creation, it had sustained importance long enough to arrive at completion. It would be interesting to consider works of art that had been started and never finished due to lost interest. For the purpose of this writing let's stick with completed works, because it's simpler.

If we've defined art as the expression or application of human creative skill or imagination that expresses an important feeling or idea, then I think we have something substantial enough to play with. What is an important feeling or idea? There is a great deal of subjectivity here, but most would say there are some ideas we can agree upon collectively; the preciousness of human life, for instance; the ugliness of war; the value of kindness, empathy, love; how we as a culture treat death. In that last example I overtly appeal to consensus. I think this is an important distinction when ascribing worth or value to a particular idea. Why do we as a people decide certain ideas are more worth defending than others? Perhaps it is because ideas tend to amass power when more people hold them. But what makes an idea provocative or compelling enough to imbed itself into a person's belief structure? We tend to assimilate those ideas into our worldview that most closely convey unassailable truths. When a comedian says something satirical and contentious, we laugh because we see the truth in the idea and may even say something like, "it's so true," or "it's funny because he's right." We like ideas that fit into our existing belief hierarchies, and we resist those that challenge them. Because we've grown up enjoying the benefits of a world that seeks to protect and preserve life - because it allows us to live longer, and often but not always, peacefully - most people believe in the sanctity of human life. Most deeply held ideas follow a similar trajectory. They carry with them an odd kind of utilitarian irresistibility. And though we come to understand them subjectively, the truths that these ideas express have become so ubiquitous that they border on objectivity.

If the above is true, then some ideas seem to become important out of necessity, the proliferation of certain ideas following an almost Darwinian organizing principle. These ideas, the more important ones, move in the direction of objectivity as they ingratiate themselves with more and more people. This is what gives birth to a collective consciousness amongst us, even across different cultures and in different parts of the globe. Using the same sensory apparatuses to make sense of our physical and intellectual worlds, we are able to have a shared experience. Tenets of that experience, things like fear, pain, love, sadness, joy, hunger, suffering, loss and loneliness color the lens through which we view the world. This is what enables us to participate in art. It is experiential. We each bring our unique histories to the table when we experience art and this is what generates the feeling of subjectivity. But if we were to look deeper and really consider what's happening when we experience art, the subjective becomes a bridge toward the objective.

Works of art, like people, symbols, and ideas, do not exist statically. They are dynamic. Consider classic works of literature. They are contextualized by time and place and are then further contextualized in time and place. The world changes around the work and imposes itself upon it as the work imposes itself outward on the world. But the works aren't remembered for what is changeable about them, they are remembered for what is immutable and enduring. Most literary scholars are able to agree upon the artistic merit of a work and comment about themes and style and innovativeness in an objective way; there are things that make Steinbeck Steinbeck and Proust Proust. One can say, objectively, that there are differences in their art, that they explore different ideas and in different ways. But even that is not the point. The interesting thing to try and define is what happens when someone reads Steinbeck or Proust. How do they participate in the world the author conjured? What's the reader's role? Isn't the reader also writer, intuitor, the vehicle through which the author paints his vision? The reason that we as readers feel sadness as we come upon the ending of A Farwell to Arms is because the author is conjuring a very deliberate feeling, particularly of sadness, desolation, limp devastation. We as people have experienced sadness so we are able to relate with the character and feel the feeling the author intended us to feel. If art had nothing to do with objectivity, how would this be possible?

It echoes Plato's allegory of the cave. The artist's idea is the objective form, and our experience of it is the shadow on the cave wall. Our experience will never be the form, because it cannot be - we can only participate in the artist's expression of it - but there must be something objective of which we are to participate in. Otherwise, it would be inexpressible and we would be left to decipher the shadow of a shadow. Now it should also be noted that the artist, too, is grasping at a shadow that is a only a reflection of the truly objective form, but this does not damage the relationship between artist, art, and its apprehension. During the act of creation, the artist reimagines the form and projects a very deliberate, carefully distorted shadow onto the wall. That shadow becomes the ideal representation of that form to that artist. For an analogy, imagine a master shadow-puppeteer with the ability to beguilingly mimic any shape. Because the puppeteer has complete control and discretion of the shape you will apprehend, you are seeing the most finely polished version of the shadow possible. It is the expression of something objective, subjectively.

“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.”
― Ernest Hemingway

A Telegram From the Sickhouse

I've been working from home all week. I work in an open office environment where the slightest hint of a runny nose, the first choked cry of a suppressed cough, or even the menthol scent of a Hall's cough drop will send surrounding colleagues into a fearful frenzy. They'll degrade, guilt, and then shame you into going home. It's an odd, socially enforced sort of quarantine. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well, which is the reason I got sick in the first place. Every motherfucker around me was sniffling and sneezing, hiding in the bathroom and coughing, blowing their noses and hacking green phlegm surreptitiously into the sink. But it doesn't matter, it is Friday. I'll work one more day from my sickhouse, full of crushed tissues and soggy teabags, decapitated Campbell's soup cans and empty bottles of water, where I'll get hopped up on the tussin, anti-inflammatories and expectorants needed to power through the workday.

Earlier in the week I rented a car and booked a cottage up north to travel to with my lady friend. When I realized I was coming down with something, I quickly took matters into my own hands and made sure I got all the rest I needed so that I would be fit to travel with my rainbow-haired maiden. I'd like to avoid infecting her, if possible. I like her.

I've run out of time.

The workday has crept up on me despite a poor night's sleep. I had sleep paralysis, again, for the second time in two weeks, which is unusual for me. Last night's experience was a bit different than normal though, because I'm pretty sure I was asleep when it struck. At the foot of my bed there was the unmistakable shape of a cloaked, slimmly-armed bear. There it stood, faceless and shadowy, paralyzing me with its evil energies. For anyone who hasn't been lucky enough to have the experience, it's as though your soul is growling with all its might at some unseen terror trespassing at the foot of your bed. And the thing, unfazed in the darkness, just stands and stares, taunting, unimpressed by your pathetic threats, like a bear looking down with irritation at a barking Pomeranian. Seething rage bubbled up out of my profoundly helpless state and I felt my vocal chords frothing and straining as my hands turned into fists. I woke up barking an inhuman fuck you as my body - propelled by frustrated hatred - swung forward and up, ready to brawl with my phantom antagonist. But there was nothing there but the memory of a ghostly and imposing visage. Why am I talking like this?

I have to go to work.

Rainy

The sun had come up early. Wet wheels on passing cars said it had rained during the night. Soon the morning's brightness had been replaced with a flat, wintery greyness. A nearby bird sang a mournful song. On days like this it's easy to fall victim to listlessness. Sunday morning rainclouds are rapey. They force rest. They are for lazy rumination, for lying in bed and yawning. People who live in the Pacific Northwest know this. For them it is a way of life. But days like these are best when they are sparse. Too much causes unhappiness, depression, a sense of inescapable gloom. When infrequent, they are restorative and nourishing, especially to the soil. And especially here in California, where the dry ground thirsts for rain. We need it, for the grapes to grow. What better cure for a rainy day than a bottle of wine? Realize that when you are drinking wine, you are drinking the fruits of rain. Know that each chirping cork singing out from a plugged bottle is a rainsong.

It is too early for wine, for now. Maybe later I'll get out of bed, after a few hours of tossing and turning.

Warmth

From the tips of trees the breeze shook free the snow. It fell slowly down, twirling and spreading out in the air. The sun hadn't yet risen, but it would, soon. Distant mountaintops seemed piles of sugar. Cold air rattled loose leaves across a frozen lake. They skittered and blew in spirals until they crashed into a snowy hillside. On the other side of the hill icicles hung like long shark teeth from the mouth of a small cave. In the spotless forest, frosted and pristine, a hungry squirrel rummaged through a campsite garbage can. Nearby, not yet awake, a couple slept inside an orange tent. They'd been in the park for the last two days and had done much hiking. The night before, over a bottle of red wine, they made a fire, roasted marshmallows, and told stories. The stars above twinkled and the sky seemed to pull away from them, making the world swell with mystery. They wore down jackets and scarves, winter hats and waterproof boots. They sat reclined in a chair with a warm blanket draped over them as they spoke. Beside the fire he had her in his arms. She leaned her head back against his chest and smiled. As the wood burned it cracked and popped and the wind kicked off little embers that moved like snow. It was their first camping trip together. Each of them had been to the park independently, and never during winter. The thought hadn't ever crossed their minds. This made them happy, because it meant they were able to share this moment for the first time, together.

The sun began to light up the sky behind the mountains. Slowly the sunlight melted and spilled down in rivers into the valley. When it touched the top of the tent it began to warm. He moved against her in the sleeping bag, shaking off sleep's stiffness as he spoke. Mmmm, she said. They whispered and she kissed his wine stained lips. They felt the cold air against their skin as they poked their heads out from their cocoon. She smiled and said it was too cold to wake up. He said it was too cold to sleep in. They moved and wrestled free of the cold in slow motion. Making love in a tent, inside a sleeping bag, in the dead of winter, carried with it a kind of nordic novelty. When they were done they were warm and happy, hungry. Once the warmth had begun to disappear they quickly dressed and unzipped the tent. It was snowing. Clouds had floated in over the naked forest and flurries of shining snow danced all around them. To the east, over the mountains, the sky was clear and completely blue. Wow, look, she said, pointing, that's beautiful. And it was. A vacillating sky. The morning felt dreamlike and paradoxical, as if it were rooted in two separate realities at the same time.

They each ate a banana while they waited for the water to boil. Hot cocoa, oatmeal with cinnamon and carmelized apples, two bran muffins they'd picked up at a roadside gas station in the middle of nowhere on the drive up. The flurries had stopped and the sky was dusty but bright. Today they would take pictures and play on the lake, probably have an impromptu snowball fight, maybe build a snowman. It seemed like no one else wanted to brave the storm and they had the entire park to themselves. A snow covered Eden. She looked cute, bundled up in her winter clothes, puffs of smoke coming from her mouth as she breathed, her big eyes shiny and wet like melting ice. He wanted to take her back to the tent and pull off all her clothes and climb back into the sleeping bag with her. There was time for that. They should go out, he thought, that's why they were here. No, they were here to be together, to be together here, now. There wasn't anywhere else he wanted to be. It didn't matter what they did, really, because they were here, making a memory. Memories of a split sky, of a morning snowstorm, of marshmallows and wine, of the heat of their bodies, the warmth of her love.

Just then she asked him what he was thinking of.

You, he said, just you.

Mantis

She had an insectoid skull, ant-like, in the shape of an upside down teardrop. She wore her hair up. Her eyes were large and far apart on her face. Taut skin and a high, receding hairline reinforced this aesthetic. In front of a white plate full of bright green salad leaves she sat alone in a booth beneath a lurid white light. The small cafeteria was quiet, and empty. It wasn't quite lunch time yet. Beside her food was a small paperback book wrapped in a dirty, old looking cover. The woman's jaw moved mechanically as she stared off and brought the food to her mouth with a long silver fork. Her hands seemed excessively pale, almost glowing. Her forearms were thin and sharp and, if they had been green, would have looked like the arms of a praying mantis. Occasionally someone would hurriedly walk by, moving between buildings to different floors and offices, trying to finish up any remaining work before lunch time. Everyone that saw her thought she looked rather lonely, sitting there in her prim black dress and shiny black shoes. All around her things started to slowly chatter; the clinking of dishes, the shuffling of feet, the sound of cooks working and moving about the kitchen, the subtle crescendo of conversation.

The building was old but newly renovated. The walls on the fifth floor were paneled with reclaimed driftwood, lending them an elegant, rustic look that was subtle yet showy. Lots of workplaces were doing this now, refinishing and refurnishing, reinvesting, to conjure a sense of wealth and worth. Companies in this part of the country were so prosperous they couldn't spend money fast enough. They threw expensive parties on Friday's, fully catered with beer, liquor and wine. On every floor were makeshift bars stocked with all varieties of top shelf whiskey, bourbon, and gin. Refrigerators bookended each hallway and were stocked with cold craft beer. Lavish spending took place to adorn the common areas with comfy modern couches and plush chairs. Some wondered whether this was a prudent way to invest in the company. "Y'know, you'd think they'd take all that money and use it to increase salaries, to pay better wages, to expand healthcare for menial workers." The common rebuttal was, and always will be, "we're looking into it."

The more knowing among them whispered in back rooms, behind closed doors:

"So much energy is dedicated to keeping up with appearances. People do this. And because companies are made of people, companies do this, too. Instead of sportcars and high fashion, it's risky acquisitions and arrogant product decisions. It's insidious and wasteful and narcissistic."

"Insecurity masquerading as strength."

"Misplaced ambition has a tendency to hijack sensible discretion. It cripples and warps foresight."

Outside the building the company physically alters its environment. It displaces people. The neighborhood slowly gentrifies. Minorities are pushed out. So are the poor. The rich move in. Bars close down, boutiques too. High end cafes and restaurants replace vacant storefronts and housing costs begin to soar. All of this sparks tension in the streets. The city’s poorer inhabitants grow resentful of what the new people represent. Slowly, a war begins.

Hallowent

The weekend was a smash. In every sense of the word. We saw a funky performance by a group of misfits calling themselves The Thrillpeddlars. It was a play in the style of le theater du Grand-Guignol. That's French for "theater of the great puppet," which is a sort of theater specializing in naturalistic horror, blood splatter and gore. The perfect fit for Halloween. As we tried to locate to theater, we walked around in circles in a sketchy part of town populated with homeless encampments and factories. Eventually we found it, and the group of actors prepping for the show outside. When we walked in, just on time, a character I can only describe as "ghost dick" stood holding a clipboard and waiting for us. Wearing only a sheet - with eye holes cut into it - and a long, fleshy dildo protruding from a hole cut in place for his penis, he said our names. I asked him how he knew and he said, "because we've been waiting for you." As he escorted us to our seats I saw that everyone was already there. It was a full house. We were to sit up in our very own private booth, plush and equipped with elaborate ancient artifacts and a silk curtain to be used for privacy. We were a veritable Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, with the best seats in the house. They warned us of impending gunfire and I wondered just how much we looked like Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln. The play was great, full of blood, murder and mayhem. The piece seemed to borrow a bit from Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Antigone, incorporating incest, murder, a blind prophet, and a good old-fashioned eye-gouging.

We left the theater and continued our tradition of making out in the street, at corners, stop signs, in doorways, under traffic-lights hanging like mistletoe, against parked cars. I flashed my dick and saw it looked formidable and proud. Someone saw me and I said it was a prop, part of my costume. Everyone knows jackrabbits like to fuck, c'mon. We talked about dancing, but worried we'd quickly overheat while wearing our giant animal onesies, so we got into an Uber and headed to a local neighborhood bar. Frozen cocktails were consumed. This produced considerable groping and public displays of affection. We were photographed kissing inside a coffin. The photographer said she would put them up on Instagram. Terrific. Seeing as we were no longer able to control our libidinous desires, I decided we should travel back to my apartment, where it was safe. I nearly got into a fistfight with Chun Li and Guile from Street Fighter after he yelled sonic boom too close to my ear.

We got back home and did the mash. We did the monster mash, twice, with a smoke break and a lavender oil massage in between. What followed was the most awful night's sleep of my life. Terrible heartburn and an intense sensitivity to sound produced a near perfect sleeplessness in me. The whole night I probably only slept for an hour or two. Once the sun rose I gave up all hope and decided to wake sleeping beauty. There's nothing like sweet love in the morning, followed by a shower and lots of food. After wandering around the city in a sleep deprived daze, popping into stores while looking for an easel, we took the long way home and stopped off to drink beers on a patch of sun in the park. Back home we napped like cats.

Later, I stopped off to see T and he cooked a delicious pasta. I met a man named Uncle Mihal. He was an interesting Irishmen, a painter, with many stories to tell. The bottle of wine I brought singed my throat with every sip. It burned so badly I could have sworn my esophagus had melted. We tried in vain to figure out the intricate workings of an old transistor radio on which we would listen to the end of the World Series. We never could get it working though. The rain came and I called a taxi home.

Sleep took me almost instantly.