JOLLY DAYS, an artist's journal

In a recent post I refer to the discussion between Carlo Strenger and Robert Wright about feelings of insignificance in contemporary society. I focused on one aspect of Strenger’s point but put aside his emphasis on the rankings to which everyone is subject. These rankings are everywhere on the internet Strenger noted.

As a sidenote: Whether through marks in school, or criticism face to face, or comments on the net, people say what is wrong but often not what is best. Also, often, this frame of mind says what is best by using a conformist’s formula masquerading as an idea — a comparison that the judge thinks will keep him or her safe from judgment themselves.

Yet another tactic: I’ve often read reviews of, for example, a novelist’s book of poems where the critic says, “Her poems are better than her novels.” That is, no praise for either, just one is better than the other. A passive aggressive ranking.

Extending on Strenger’s idea, this article discusses the effect of ranking.

Journalist Jonah Lehrer thinks,

“Numbers make intangibles tangible…They give the illusion of control.”

I don’t agree with that idea, but think Lehrer is correct, with some modification, in saying, ““We want to quantify everything, to ground a decision in fact, instead of asking whether that variable matters.” People don’t want control in ranking something, they want to affirm the pre-approved — what is safely “the best”. This sort of ranking is a form of laziness and cowardice. That “fact” to which Lehrer points — a number, which has the aura of science — is really an instantiation of the elevation of science as being ominiscient and irrefutable. Few scientists would make such a claim, but scientism, as John Horgan calls it, is used in this way.

What are we ranking?

I was a big fan of Michele Rhee who tried to improve her school district and lost her job. She tried to get rid of teachers whose students did not do well in tests; these tests would rank them and determine their future. She felt the teachers should be graded too; they should be fired if they did not bring their students up to the standards of those tests.

I felt she was trying to clear the way for her students. But I had my doubts as well. I never bought into the idea that tests indicate true competence, intelligence or ability. The things that matter in a person are wrapped in that individual’s character and can’t be separated out.

Ranking can be a death to true potential. A person who did not quite do well in math, like say, Einstein, still might be able to do something worthwhile. The math skill, which might be said to be a predicate for physics itself, might not be as important as the person’s imagination, insight and persistence. But how do you measure that?

In this article a writer was quoted about her obsession with the ranking of her work,

“I go to a place where everything has a number. How many advance copies, how many reviews, how many sales.”

A professor adds,

The obsession with numbers…means we don’t trust or even look for the intangibles that can’t be measured, like wisdom, judgment and expertise.

And what matters finally are the intangibles.

Online, an English scientist discussed his discovery as to how children learn new words. Parents seem to know instinctively when teaching a new word, to point to the object and say, “Look at the, um, dog”.

That is, the parent pronounces the word as “thee” rather than “thuh”, and follows it with what the scientist called a disfluency — the um and ers of hesitant speech. This combination, of the pronunciation as thee, a pause, and a disfluency, triggers the child to understand it is being taught a new word; children look with more frequency at the referent when the word is presented this way.

I remember reading about how those who often have to deliver bad news are taught to present. They are told that if the news is serious but not fatal to say, “Your uncle was in an accident but he is all right”. A straight through presentation of the facts.

However, if the news is catastrophic, they are taught to say, “I have some bad news. [Here, a pause] Your uncle has died”. They are taught that after the pause, they are to leave no doubt as to the outcome. The pause is a signal for the receiver of the bad news to prepare him or her self.

In both cases, a baby learning, and the delivery of bad news, the pause seems to be a genetic, primal signal, universally recognized as a reason to take a breath and apply full focus.

Sailing by the muted TV last night I was snagged by the head of the interviewee. Familiar, but could not recall who it was. It was this guy’s head, not his face, that was striking. A sculptural head rather than substantive presence — perfect for TV. It did not hurt that his stillness gave him a Zen priest’s calm. True charisma of the modern kind.

It was the sculptor Richard Serra on Charlie Rose; Serra is being given a show of his drawings at the Met. In the photos flashed before the interview, to establish status markers, there is a shot of the Met with a big banner saying Richard Serra Drawings. The banners the Met hangs to advertise shows is a surrender to Nascar culture rather than a useful addition. It is jarring seeing those banners plastered on a putative house of culture. It doesn’t fit with the architecture and is not suggestive of the reflective nature of art.

The dignity of High Culture (often an affectation itself) has been trumped by the affectations of the Football Hall of Fame and Academy Awards. They can do grandiosity and not be called snobby because they are clearly not high culture — an unwitting irony there.

Serra’s astringent work was a necessary antidote to the excesses of the art of the 60s. An over estimate would have it that Serra was one of those who tried to swing the pendulum from the Dionysian to the Apollonian. The problem is that Serra’s work does not have the poetry of purity which is what minimalist geometric iconography is all about. Ellsworth Kelly is a better candidate if that is your taste.

Serra’s work is outlier work taken into the main tent. It depends on the negation of what came before. It does however well instantiate an aspect of the art world. That could be expressed, as one critic did at the time, by saying, “Art is not important until I talk about it.” The shameless egomania of post modernism made manifest in critic and artist.

Serra’s art is designed to make you talk about it, to provide obscure grist for the mill — a subservient role for art. It won’t contradict anything you say, because it is content free. Although Serra describes his work as experiential — the viewer weaving his way through plates of steel — the work is seeking meaning ascribed by not offering it. It flatters the audience and at the same time challenges: say you don’t respond, don’t accept the invitation to display-speculate, and you say you are not cool.

Serra’s work does have an elegant assertiveness that fits in well with corporate America however — more noteworthy in its sociological way than the images themselves. No surprise corporate America has embraced such work. Nothing to be concerned about: with subject or personal feelings, a world view or an emotional state, which might trouble a corporate boardroom. They are simply objects of ego and sensibility, now, in the 21st Century, seeming more artifacts of interior decoration than of art.

The recent show given the director Tim Burton at MoMA is more institutionally honest in its subservience to celebrity culture. Burton is actually a very talented fellow. But the large crowds drawn to MoMA by Burton’s show, and the show itself, are products of media culture, not of any desire by a cultural institution to provide its audience with a deeper, meditative experience.

This story has received a surprising amount of attention. The subject is somewhat arcane, but it fascinates.

Scientists have discovered that there are three definable ecosystems of microbes in the human gut. Any one of three distinct forests may inhabit our inner realm, crossing all the divisions human beings make among ourselves.

The scientists,

…found no link between what they called enterotypes and the ethnic background of the European, American and Japanese subjects they studied.

Any group of humans, anywhere, will have one of the three.

The potentials cascade:

The discovery of the blood types A, B, AB and O had a major effect on how doctors practice medicine. They could limit the chances that a patient’s body would reject a blood transfusion by making sure the donated blood was of a matching type. The discovery of enterotypes could someday lead to medical applications of its own, but they would be far down the road.

“Some things are pretty obvious already,” Dr. Bork said. Doctors might be able to tailor diets or drug prescriptions to suit people’s enterotypes, for example

Yet another affirmation, as if one were needed, that we are all of the same DNA soup made.

This fascinating dialog between a psychologist, Carlo Strenger, and Robert Wright, has a stimulating and familiar ring. It is a discussion, like many, both intelligent and ultimately unsatisfying. Maybe all discourse threatens to fall off the cliff as logical discussion can easily become display behavior… but they deserve credit for giving it an honorable try.

Strenger wrote a book called The Fear of Insignificance. He feels the prevalence of ranking and the worldwide media, which he calls the “global entertainment system,” make us acutely aware of our smallness in the scheme of things. We don’t have status and it is shoved in our face. He points out that popularity is valued over achievement. That being known is a value in itself. Not achievement, but simply awareness of self by others.

He expands this to the tribal groups that make up the world, from nations to religious affinity groups, and feels this applies here as well. He feels ultimately it is a fear of death that drives all this. Something of a let down in analysis begins with that obvious predicate of all philosophy.

He feels, and this is where the falloff occurs abruptly, that the answer is a global sense of tribe and a universalist philosophy.

I hope all that is fair to Strenger’s well meaning ideas. But they simply don’t resonate. We will always be tribal creatures, are so genetically predisposed, and the issue is really not individual universalist affinity, but rather that each tribe be open and compassionate to other tribes. You really would not want to live in a world that had a mumbling generalist culture. The heritage of people matters. But that does not have to be exclusive. So this issue is not in individual transformation, but in group self-concept — allowing for an inquisitive inclusiveness rather than defensive isolation. So the focus should be on education of the insulated tribes— many societies just don’t tell the truth to their people.

Wright has an Israel problem that always obtrudes. He identifies with “demands” made by the enemies of Israel, thinking it is logic driving their behavior. And Wright thinks there is some logical solution: do what they want. He feels their arguments are the sole arguments to be acted upon. This is reminiscent of celebrities lolling in Beverly Hills proffering advice to the unwashed; the privileged of course don’t have to deal with the consequences of their advice — they are well away from jeopardy or daily contact with the issues.

The Huffington Post is being sued by bloggers,

bloggers have essentially been turned into modern-day slaves on Arianna Huffington’s plantation…

The dramatic rhetoric aside, this is an interesting issue. Like Juan Williams who learned what liberal now means as taught him by NPR: join the Borg collective or be expelled from the collective with malice.

These bloggers have learned that the egalitarian affectations of folks like Huffington is really a cover story: Huffington is simply an oligarch. She sees others as useful, as a narcissist sees others as tools to their purpose. Those like her want to tell the unwashed, clinging to their guns and religion, what is right and then impose it through shame (you are a bigot if you do not agree) or ostracism via cackling snarkiness.

So Huffington, who did not deign to pay for content as she raked in money, and did not share the $315 million profit (except with her business partners) when she sold to AOL, who exploited celebrity dim wittedness to her benefit, is now making it clear to 9000 bloggers that she disdains her own work gang — as she always had. Privately she thought, “I wouldn’t work for nothing.”

There are so few moderates, so few independents it seems; maybe they just aren’t focused on by the media because there is less heat to attract an audience, and the media knows, you make more money with heat than light.

After a battle with WordPress and obstinate plugins — which resulted in Jolly Days loading as a blank page; and a battle with a cell phone company about its online payment implementation, and not being able to run today —  I’m feeling pecked to death by ducks. Until you realize the context — the greater tribulations of the world — the Arab world in turmoil with uncertain outcome; the devastation in Japan; our president who seems one step behind too often and the Republicans in disarray, the ominous future for the economy if something is not done — it doesn’t make you feel perky.

I’ve been working hard to publish more books at the iBookstore; not satisfying creative work, but rather meticulous, mind numbing work. I’m very proud of the result though:

iPad Sketchbook 3
Ira Altschiller: Works on Paper
Ira Altschiller: A Retrospective

and two more to come: picturebooks is what Apple calls them, which are fixed layout books for a better presentation of books which have an emphasis on images.

I did want to mention a funny link provided at Jason Kottke’s site

Someone at Yahoo Answers uploaded a page of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest as his own and asked for comments.

Rated as the best answer / criticism:

You know your story needs more work, so you don’t need anyone to tell you what you already know.

Comment sections are always pretty funny. Some people don’t like the snarkiness, and I’m not a big fan of that aspect, but often there are interesting ideas and commentary as well. It is the mosh pit after all. A financial journalist at bloggingheads said that she always felt that people weren’t asking questions or engaging ideas  in comments sections of weblogs, they were trying to appear smart.

The idea of sending great literature as if written by sender to an established publisher has been done over the years. Rejection letters for masterpieces like War and Peace leaves one agape — like the audience watching The Frankie singing Puttin’ on the Ritz in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. Saul Bellow stopped sending his stories to the New Yorker after a full of himself young editor told him how he should correct his piece. Bellow had recently won the Nobel Prize.

Joyce’s novella The Dead was made into a movie in 1987 by John Huston, then in his 80s. This was a project of love, with his daughter Anjelica in the lead role. We just saw it in a Netflix rental. The movie begins with a depiction of the long associations of human society and quirks of personality as manifested at a party. You feel the weight of time on these people living in Ireland in 1904. Their characters are all delimited and defined in a way that is a marvel. Like My Dinner With Andre, Huston has taken a minimalist setting and made it something so much more complex. Anjelica Huston is a great actress. Her silent presence in so many scenes gave the movie a tremendous emotional richness.

Underlying it all is the genius of Joyce. His language en-flowers as the story evolves into a meditation on living and dying. At first this human society is mundane, slightly boring, quietly funny. Then on the carriage ride home The Dead opens up into a dark space that makes you shudder, like traveling into a boundless forest. You feel the emotional separation of husband and wife.

When Anjelica Huston tells her husband — a “sensible man” she sneers — of the long lost love of her youth; of her guilt at this young boy’s death, she overflows with grief and finally loses herself hugging, clutching at her husband. But she immediately pushes her husband away — she will not accept even his consolation. Her husband muses over the evening party and falls into a reverie about his life, his beloved wife, and the lives of his friends and family, and then into a reverie about all our lives. It is like a melting into something larger and larger, as Frost defined poetry.

Clearly no one could re-write Joyce in the concluding scene. It has to be repeated and heard in Joyce’s words and so the filmmaker resorts to the slightly awkward technique of voice-over to give full throat to Joyce. Joyce mingles prose and poetry in a great yielding resonance of language and feeling.

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

After Dance Dance Dance, a surreal mystery by Haruki Murakami, we just finished What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. This is a title in debt to Raymond Carver, whom Murakami had translated and for which he received permission from Carver’s estate.

The book is a hybrid of a memoir and running journal. As usual, the fluid and wonderful easy voice — a hard won achievement for a writer — makes a big difference. Murakami recounts his many failures as a runner and some successes. The book really spoke to me because I pretty much do the same thing and for the same reasons. I am not interested in the long distance or competitive aspects of running as is HM, but Murakami’s — and my own motivations — are geared towards health and keeping the “instrument”, your body, in shape so it does not become a hindrance in your work.

Murakami is an unusual man. He is a very hard worker, very dedicated. He has the heart of a marathoner in all senses. He started writing when he was in his early thirties and was a success pretty quickly. He wrote his first book while running a jazz club. He is a translator. He admires an eclectic crew: Fitzgerald, Ken Follett, Raymond Carver. His preferences for music are for older rock and easy jazz. He is not burdened by what might be cool, or in, but what he likes. He is free of the snobbiness of pop culture — a contradictory aspect of contemporary life. Murakami is an instance of a true cross cultural sensibility. His narrative voice is American / Russian novelist, but as a person he is neither. He is an artist.

The contradictions in the present book were irksome. He presents as an extremely self-critical and self-deprecating individual. He seldom expresses anger towards others but is often furious towards himself and almost excited to tell you about his goofs. But he also has an ego the size of the great outdoors. He often brags although it is folded into an aw-shucks voice. There are enormous and unresolved conflicts in his self-descriptions: he says he is not a very likable person, but says later that friends travel hundreds of miles to watch him compete in marathons. He says he is not interested in competition, ostensibly all the training is for self-improvement, but there are leaks springing everywhere: he is deeply competitive. He has a retrograde attitude towards exercise: he thinks pain is good and you have to run through it. This does not sound like a health regimen, but a Spartan affectation — a very jock thing, but of another time really.

Is Murakami disingenuous in his modesty? Is he really as confident and uncaring about public response as he claims? Does he really feel he is an unattractive and unlikable person? There is a simple answer: Murakami is a contradictory human being, simply being honest, and an engaging writer.

Science writer John Horgan is the kind of curmudgeon we need more of. Horgan’s review of media-physicist Brian Greene’s new book starts with self-deprecation but quickly gets to the point that Greene:

… has become a cheerleader for the descent of theoretical physics into increasingly fantastical speculation, disconnected from the reality that we can access empirically.

Horgan is right of course. His outrage is warranted, caused by the shallow media flow which elevates randomly and without grounding.

The exaggerated status given scientists is a product of contemporary skepticism about organized religion. Who else do you turn to? Scientists are ostensibly on a search for objective truth. And their discoveries have made the contemporary what it is — many wonders and improvements in our lives.

But when media folk come running to them for their judgments about issues they have no expertise in, nor could possibly have verifiable proof for, they will answer. They will exaggerate, claim certainty where there is ambiguity, and generally discredit themselves. It would be hard to resist; admiration is an inebriating brew few can push away.

Science has done wonders, but we are still deeply ignorant. It is a terrible mistake for society to take Richard Dawkins types seriously beyond their expertise. Often their cackling tell you all you need to know, if you are willing to pay attention.

There is the issue of character. With many notable exceptions — scientists with genuine character — these techno-oriented sci-workers need to remind themselves of what they do not know. And be honest about it with the public.

In his new book Greene takes us even further away from reality, asking us to consider not just hypothetical particles but entire universes that lie beyond the reach of our instruments. Multiverses are old hat, of course. In a 1990 article for Scientific American on cosmology I included a sidebar, “Here a universe, there a universe…,” about speculation that our universe “is only one in an infinitude of cosmos.”

Obama’s difficult task is to travel to the center without overturning the cart held aloft by his supporters. He seemed to get it in his Tucson speech, pulling back from the opportunism of the left in ascribing the act of a lunatic to political rhetoric on the right. A morally despicable assertion, instantiating the very virulence that was supposedly being condemned. Hypocrisy squared.

Obama cast aside those easy arguments, at least for now. If he can adhere to his assertions, use whatever skills he has accumulated the last two years, and see himself as a leader rather than allocator, he will benefit America enormously.

Obama noted, expectedly but still most welcome, the importance of education and innovation. His telling point, that teachers must be respected for there to be meaningful education, was probably a high point. A culture of entitled narcissists isn’t going to cut it. His rousing assertion of the freedom of America as opposed to the constipated command economies of other nations was especially welcome.

Internationally, instead of wanting to “talk to” the worst actors, as he had early on bloviated in a grandiose confidence in his ability to charm and convince, Jimmy Carter like, Obama emphasized the competitive capitalism that drives the world now. A grounded stance — rejecting the bad actors and affirming the future possibilities. The world is not a member of cult Obama he learned and noted after an Asian visit. Those were anti-American cheers he was hearing in foreign climes.

The speech was watery but, in a contradiction, filled with a desire to inspire. It was good to watch him in that body of politicos. It was even more interesting before it began and the cocktail party of Congress intermingled. Human interaction, even when formalized, is always a fascination. An exceptional system is the American system — Obama is correct.

Football playoffs end with players of the opposing teams greeting and hugging. Baseball playoffs end with one team celebrating in the center of the field while the losing team sits, staring petulantly in their dugout. We need some football mind now.