The Readiness is All…

It has been long since I have been able to sit and compose any thoughts here.  But it’s been worth it.  It’s an amazing transformation to add another child to our family.  The world seems so big.  So full of possibility.  My mind reels at the expanse.  I ache to be a completely devoted father to both of my daughters.  The task is inspiring and daunting in equal measure.  What a wonderful place to be.

There’s no place like…

We are about 90% unpacked. The new apartment is very exciting. Aria is especially excited by her new bedroom furniture. I only have about a million papers to organize. I’ll try to put up some pictures at some point.

Aria’s first snow day…

Making footprints.

The hound of the…

No, I’m not talking about Sherlock Holmes.  I do like me a nice bit of deduction, though.  What I’m referring to is the intellectual hounding that is wearing me out.  It seems as if every book I read, movie I watch, and song I groove on is pelting my brain with ideas.  Most of them are similar albeit angled differently.  I know most of you haven’t read my extensive posting on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (I even need to refresh my memory of some of it), but there was an idea that became very coherent to me during that time.  We are created by and for relationship.  I know I’m not the first or most eloquent to propose this idea, but it’s implication has been following me for quite a while.  The idea that our existence does and should extend beyond not only our physical bodies but also the scope of our influence has led me to think radically about how and why I do the things that I do.  Of particular interest to me right now is a sense of relationship to God.  If I am correct in my assertion, then God wants to live with us.  How do you live with God?  Imagine him chatting with you while you brush your teeth and make your morning coffee.  He’s sitting next to you in the car.  He puts his feet up on your desk at work.  He points out the achingly beatiful sunset.  He laughs with you when your kids are just too cute for words.  He puts his arm around you when the aches of this world break your heart.  He sees exactly what you see when you look in the mirror (and it breaks your heart).

It sounds like I’m describing a cosmic buddy.  Far from it.  I’m feebly trying to touch the ever present longing of a God that jealously wants to monopolize our time.  Even when we want to be left alone.  But you know what?  He created us.  He earned the right to lay claim to us.  You know what else?  We can still walk away.  But why do we want to?  We can’t exist alone and we don’t exist in a vacuum.  We just aren’t big enough to contain this wondrous universe.  The joy, pain, wonder, terror, happiness, horror, detail, and expanse are just too much.  We can’t take it in.  Yet we delude ourselves into believing that we can and have figured things out.  That we can take care of ourselves.

The truth is we “need”.  We need [ fill in the blank ].  The list is so long I want you to let your brain range along the scope of need.  But God needs us, too.  The one who made it all, who understands it all, who sees beyond the end still wants to be with you.  What do you say?  How do you feel?  What form does your response take?  That’s worship.  Our recognition and response to God’s offered relationship.

How do you plan to worship?

The Unsaid…

I watched two movies recently that got a lot of mileage out of what the characters didn’t say.  The first was “Broken Flowers”, the tale of a man, Don Johnston{notice the “t”} (Bill Murray), on a quest.  Ostensibly the quest is to find the author of an anonymous note telling him that he has a 20 year old son that he’s never met, but might meet soon.  I say ostensibly because I didn’t find that to be central or most compelling aspect of the story.  It certainly provided structure, but the storytelling lay in silence.  In between the ill-fated attempts to reconnect with women he wasn’t really connected to 20 years earlier, you watch Don think.  He mulls, he broods, he pouts, he zones…but he sure doesn’t talk.  It almost works really well.  I actually enjoyed trying to get into the character’s head; an interesting bit of cerebral sleuthing.  Unfortunately, the continuity of the storytelling (for instance, he was driving the same rental car after taking a plane to a new city) created a disconnect that robbed some of the silence of it’s potential for poignancy.  It didn’t feel like the moment I was was watching followed the scene I had just seen.  I also hated the soundtrack given to us in the guise of a mix cd burned by Don’s friend.  I would have been much more effective had there been a new track to each time we transitioned to a new place.  It would give a sense of the journey.  Instead, the same song was repeated as if the editors (sound and film) didn’t know where the scenes were really going to fit.  Again, the potential for poignancy lost.  Ultimately, I appreciated the use of silence.  I just wanted it to say a little more.

CHAPLAIN:  But are you sorry that you killed?  (pause)

EDMOND:  Yes.  (pause) Yes, I am.  (pause) Yes.

CHAPLAIN:  Why did you kill that girl?

EDMOND:  I don’t . . . I . . . I don’t . . . (pause) I . . . (pause) I don’t . . . (pause) I don’t think . . . (pause) I . . . (pause) I don’t . . .

Ahhh… Mamet at his best.  Most people look at Mamet’s writing from the perspective of the old joke:  “A well dressed  man is walking down the street when a homeless man asks him for some money.  The  man replies, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.  William Shakespeare”.  To which the beggar replies, “F U.  David Mamet”.”  And in some ways they are right.  Mamet has a rare ability to create a poetry of obscenity, but I have always been more struck by the unique cadence of his writing.  The distinctive start-stop motion of unfinished lines.  Notice, I didn’t say unfinished thoughts.  That is the great pitfall of acting Mamet; thinking that an unfinished line is an unfinished thought.  If anything it’s a signal to the actor that there is so much to the thought that the words are too big to escape the cofines of the mind in turmoil.  But enough practical aesthetics for now.

I have long wanted to see Mamet’s play, “Edmond”, on its feet and I got to see the movie version with William H. Macy in the title role.  In the story Mamet takes a mid-life crisis, places it in a crucible with monstrous amounts of guilt and self-loathing, and cranks the heat.  What results is a distilled and starkly horrific fantasia of a man who doesn’t know how to live.  He has no control.  And what’s worse, he feels that his lack of control is the result of a systematic surrender he’s been handing over every day of his life.  He’s desperate to strike out, but he doesn’t know how or where.  He doesn’t even have enough control to get angry; at first.  But when he’s pushed once to often, the results are cataclysmic.  It’s raw, stripped down, surreal, and discomfiting.  Each pause and stutter a soliloquy of pain and rage.  Macy is stellar.  The crucial scene with Julia Stiles (I’m not going into much detail if you haven’t seen it) is stunning.  A few of the performance are uneven (they broke Mamet’s first rule: “invent nothing”), but overall it leaves the head buzzing and the insides tired.

It also makes me itch to be on stage soon.  Hmmm… I… I think… if I…. I just…

To be continued…

I set out this evening to write a really interesting post (at least in my head).  But suddenly the words took on a life of their own and turned into this rambling behemoth that I feel is leading to a story that is doing some intense percolating.  I’m trying to divide my intellectual personalities such that I can bestow them on separate characters of my invention; and once residing there they can duke it out and thrash that ghost but good.  It’s a weird feeling to intentionally try to dissect your own thoughts.  It’s also challenging to try and push the dissected pieces far enough apart that they can interact.  So far my search for the characters to house the different intellectual dissections has led me to read about:  entropy, J.D. Salinger, Zoroastrianism, and proper pipe smoking technique.  I hope that the finished product is at least half as much fun as the research has been.

Philojazzophy…

I can’t help it, I’m addicted.  There is something about immersing myself in jazz music and where it grew and what it means that makes my mind race.  As I’ve been watching I’ve been trying to figure out if there is a particular period or sound in jazz that really connects with me more than others.  I honestly can’t find one.  Depending on the day of the week, time, weather, what I had for dinner I can listen to be-bop, swing, dixieland, new orleans, cool, chicago, west coast…you get the point.  I get what they’re all saying and I dig it, man I dig it (I couldn’t resist).

I have often felt that I was born several decades too late.  Although the argument could be made that had I lived at the time of so many of the things that I groove on, I would have lacked the perspective to appreciate them.  Interesting mental exercise.  Pick a decade, cultural movement, or period in history that speaks to you on a deep and visceral level.  What about that time, place, or intellectual intersection stirs you pricks the longing to do a little space/time bending?  Did you hear that call the first time that you encountered the given moment?  Did it take a litte time to blossom, incubate, stew?  Is there an inherent difference in the call you hear and the sound of your everyday life?  What about taking the things that cause you to gaze fondly backward and bringing them forward?  An amalgamation of past and present that makes a new future.

There are several of these moments and intersections that come to my mind as I try to answer these questions for myself.  Maybe I’ll try to visit some of them over the next few weeks and create a little bit of a philosophical time machine.  I have to say that I’ve been feeling rather Socratic recently.  I keep finding myself pausing, taking stock, checking my direction.  I can’t help but try to reach out in response to the tug of beauty and art.  As I do, I keep examining my thoughts and perception.  Trying to ride the wave of awareness and perhaps deepen the currents of thought that would love to stay broad and smooth flowing.  It’s really exciting to truly get inside your mind.  Unfortunately, my ability to cohesively express the currents is lacking.  Perhaps that’s why I’m writinig more often.  I’m trying to hone the edge of communication so that I can place a little order on an action that thrives on its rambling nature.

If you’ve made it this far, well done.  I don’t expect you to understand this post.  There’s a lot more about it unsaid than said.  It’s rather Monklike (Thelonius not monestary).  Stick around and tune in, we’ll find the beat.

Meet food…

Is Art necessary?  Once again I am responding to Ken Burns’s “Jazz”.  Wynton Marsalis made an interesting comment where he claimed that he didn’t consider Art to be necessary.  Food and drink sustain life, Art just makes it worth living.  Fascinating thought considering Marsalis is undoubtedly supported by the longing for art.  He hits upon a theme that has churned in the bellies of artists for centuries:  do I have to make Art.  Would society be the same tomorrow without the colors that art spreads upon the palatte of human existence?  What does the artist contribute to the everyday life that a person lives?  According to the bill in Congress, not very much.  There is actually a codicil that prevents the current stimulus from supporting a theatre (or aquarium, bastions of waste that they are).  I even read a comment that essentially states that the only purpose of higher education is to get a job.  Education to get a job.  Smacks me in the face.  Why on earth do I read the books that I read?  Thomas Pynchon, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Friedrich Nietschze, and Donald Miller aren’t going to pay the bills; but can I set their books down to collect dust for that reason?  In a backhanded way I think that Marsalis is purporting the necessity of art to making a civilization and culture thrive.  There is something fundamental in wanting to reach beyond the everyday and mundane.  If our life consists merely in  nine to five pursuits, then why continue?  In the film I’m watching, people would save their pennies  so that they could visit a club at the end of the week to hear and experience something more than what their daily life was capable of produciong.  The perilous call of beauty constantly circles our consciousness.  Yes, beauty is perilous.  The reaction to beauty is where the peril lies.  It is very difficult to enter the presence of something, anything, that you find beatiful and walk away the same person that you were when you entered.  That is not necessarily bad.  Just dangerous.  Perhaps that is wrapped up in what Marsalis was saying.  As I said in my last post, we are very protective of our safety.  We become quite combative when that safety is threatened.  But Art is often in direct contrast to that safety.  It is a reaching for connection from a place that isn’t known or safe.  If we reach out and touch Art we risk.  We risk finding ourselves in a place we’ve never been and that might not be in accord with places that we have heretofore resided.  Personally, I would really like to pay the bills, put food on the table, and clothe my family.  But I can’t ignore Art.  When I find myself in the presence of Art time stops, my insides deepen, and I sense how big the world truly is.  So what am I saying?  I want us to chew on the things that aren’t comfortable.  We need to look beyond the things that seem to be necessary in life to thingst that fulfill life.  And when we look, realize that simplicity and harmony can lift us beyond the mundane.  I think that Aria creates some of the most amazing stories I have ever heard.  She has no illusion about the intention of her story and simply becomes entranced and transported by the wonder and transformational quality of the story.

Here is the driving spirit of Art.  Aria brought home a box that she had made and decorated during her after school program.  Suddenly, this is more than a box.  It’s a dream box.  When you wake up, you whisper the sweet dreams that you had the night before into the box.  That way they stay safe, don’t fly away, and have a chance to grow.  If your dreams fly away, where is Art?

Whisper in your dream box and make your life bigger.

Take this man to the Blue Spot…

He wants to hear some “Good Jazz”.  I recently borrowed the Ken Burns film “Jazz” from the library and I have to say, I’m in hog heaven.  There are many musical styles that capture me but jazz keeps trying to be the favorite.  It’s really fascinating to trace the roots of the music and glimpse the personalities that drove and shaped the art form.  It’s also interesting to hear the struggles and tensions that surrounded the growth of the music.  Sounds like a lot of the same struggles and arguments that people still have.  One thing that can not be separated from the history of jazz is the role of race.  The  music unquestionably cut across racial, social, and economic lines; but did so before the culture was ready to cross those lines or in some cases even acknowledge the importance of the lines.  The theme that I hear repeated over and over is a sense of belonging and posession and the importance placed on that feeling.  “It’s black music” or “it’s white music”, when the music obviously speaks profoundly to everyone.  Most of the musicians privately dismissed these thoughts (just look at the famed midnight jam sessions), but the sense of establishing an identity pervaded the culture.

This got me thinking about all of the ways that we identify and categorize ourselves.  There is a very fundamental need in us for “identity”.  Often that identity involves belonging and association.  When we feel that we belong we’re safe, not alone, understood, and have worth.  Not necessarily a bad thing.  But those identities also serve as divisions.  Just consider the rancor and animosity of sports fans.  Because I root for a team (that I don’t even technically belong to) and you support my rival, I can dislike you and insult you and your intelligence.  I find this attitude baffling and saddening.  Most people are only fans of a team because of geography, a little piece of latitudinal luck; not because there is some inherent superiority to this group of athletes.  Sounds silly, but we do the same thing with identifications of greater import as well.  What about politics.  I know people who would be appalled if I claimed to be a Democrat.  They would find it difficult to talk to me.  They would be so schocked and horrified they might wonder about one of my other identities, that of being a Christian.  It’s unconscionable.  I think that we become threatened when we perceive our safe identity threatened by someone who doesn’t identify with us; who may even challenge the very aspects of our identity that we love.  Consequently, instead of engaging the other person we denigrate, insult, marginalize, and dismiss their value.  In doing so we make our world a little smaller.  And quite frankly, we invalidate the very identity that we have cultivated and love so well.  If your identity can’t stand scrutiny, then what is it but a mask of clay just waiting to be shattered?  It’s a hard thing to be an individual while at the same time claim a corporate identity.  Likewise, it is difficult to recognize the individuality and corporate identity of another person when you feel the grating and tug of conflict.  We must nevertheless rise to this level.

The character that I’m espousing calls to mind one of my favorite postulates.  I remember trying to wrestle with the idea of conflict and how Jesus claims to bring a peace that passes understanding.  I went round and round before I decided that not only is conflict inevitable, but in way necessary.  What we are called to is a new definition of peace.  I like to define peace not as the absence of conflict, but the ability to stand firm in the midst of conflict.  The person who has found peace has found identity, has claimed their small part of the universe, acknowledges that the universe is bigger than themselves, and accepts that everyone else has a right to their piece of the universe as well.  Moreover, they realize that there will be intersection of these identities and that while that intersection will seldom be neat and clean, it actually makes their part of the universe that much bigger.  Pardon my late night philosophising, and meditate on who you are and what makes you “you”.  Consider which of those things are most important to you and in what ways you show it.  Now imagine if someone were to try and take that from you.  Is your response combative?  passive?  humble?  educational?  probing?  What would you do not only to defend your identity, but also validate it in the eyes of this other person?  Where is your peace and your identity in the midst of this swirling conflict and uncertainty?

And all this started with Jazz?  The human brain is a wonderful and wondrous thing.  Creation and Art have  a power that inspires beyond the immediate sensory moment and touch us where we don’t think that we want to be touched.  Listen to to some Good Jazz and get touched.

V. – A Novel

Where do I begin to describe the wandering wonder of Thomas Pynchon’s fiction?  Having done a little cursory research, I am hardly the first, or most literary, to find myself attempting to describe a book that seems to exist to defy description.  The most telling comment that I can make with regard to the novel is that a description of the plot won’t help you understand or appreciate it.  I hesitate to even try; so I won’t.  Suffice to say that the sprawling narrative and colorful characters provide a lush and intoxicating backdrop for an odyssey of the mind that will leave you reeling.  Time and place aren’t nearly as important to the story as image and symbol and a satirical/ironic juxtaposition of opposites that would be exhausting to list.  Consequently, the prose is dense; make no mistake.  At times I found myself not reading as much as hearing the book.  As passages would ramble fom place to place, allusion to allusion, symbol to symbol, big word to bigger word I would let the music of language flow through my mind’s ear and I was entranced.

I’m still trying to decide whether I want to wade into the meaning and implication of the book.  Having just finished it this afternoon, I feel my thoughts would be best served percolating a little longer before being written.  But I urge anyone out there to pick up one Pynchon’s novels and give it a whirl.  It’s a worthwhile challenge that you won’t soon forget.