JOLLY DAYS, an artist's journal

After the NYT indicated PBS was trying to compete with cable in Downton Abbey, or “Downtown” Abbey — my own misreading of the title which didn’t affect the Google search one bit — we thought we would give it a go. Season 1 is online until the 17th.

I can’t say another Upstairs/Downstairs drama from England, a historical drama set in the early 20th century, had much urgency for us, but we thought: maybe they can pull off a Sopranos or Breaking Bad. It’s not that good, but soap opera and all, it is very fine indeed, if overly long.

The best thing: the characters are given space; the direction allows the “human” into the plot. And it is a resonant show, rich with human caring and coldness. The next best thing: TV shows have become gorgeous vehicles; production values for yet another TV show, were terrific, and the acting superb, which somehow you expect from Brit actors.

Apparently a member of the aristocracy (quaint term for anything other than a value judgment) wrote the fine dialog. With the exception of the “dead Turk” subplot, which seemed to be pasted in, the drama holds.

It is soft core history. The working classes, the servants, aren’t shown as they lived, in truly deplorable conditions, treated as objects by a callous elite who earned nothing to deserve their privilege. The fact the servants identified with the system so strongly, out of economics and their own constipated snobbishness most likely (Stockholm Syndrome), doesn’t forgive the arrogant system.

But, it’s TV and close to as good as it gets. So catch up online with Season 1 and Season 2 will be coming at you on Sunday.

Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, an organization which advocates more taxes on those earning a million bucks or more, had its advocate on the Newshour today. It is a fascinating subject. I’ll meander a bit…

The individual doing the advocacy on the Newshour had started many businesses in California. He seemed an admirable man. Not like that ingratiating rich guy who in a public meeting with Obama said, “Please raise my taxes.” Obama himself seemed slightly disgusted by this deferential showboating.

But the Newshour millionaire had more substance. It’s difficult to disagree. Since at least Clinton, America has been drifting into a banana republic. It is hard to have a political democracy and such a level of economic inequality. (But to be clear, the tax raise on the rich is purely symbolic, a cup of money in an ocean of debt. Symbolism though, has its value here.)

This is pretty much what the Tea Party and the Occupy movements are protesting. Lawrence Lessig said that the mistake these movements made was letting themselves be co-opted by the political parties, because those parties are both vitiated with advocacy for privilege. At the beginning, the Tea Party said it was not allied with any party, but the media made sure that was suppressed until partisanship tainted the point the Tea Party was making: we are spending more than we have.

And then there is the exacerbation of the current system: the rich can afford advocates, and those advocates install themselves as counselors and advisors and politicians. And politics is money. So the balance gets further tilted to the advantage of the rich, and of large corporate entities. (Obama’s principal issue in Congress was campaign finance law, which he eschewed as he went off to raise close to a billion bucks. He is doing it again right now. So much for principle.)

The media is all for the tax the millionaire slogans. And, of course, Brian Williams and crew, as a particularly annoying example, are enormously wealthy. But it makes them look good…until you look at their own behavior:

Chelsea Clinton is now at NBC News, playing journalist. NBC is giving her a feel-good role; so it doesn’t seem they have hired someone on the basis of wealth and fame and connections. That’s democracy at NBC, with Brian Williams, Rockstar NewsReader @Rock Center.

Noblesse oblige — the responsibilities of inherited privilege — does not exist as a value for the wealthy anymore. Anonymously given good works have morphed into high visibility public work for charities and photo-ops — more publicity than substance. That is, the very same advantages given to the very very wealthy in the tax codes, is also installed in the popular culture.

Walter Russell Mead:

… the increasing sense that this country is run by a hereditary celebrity class is one of the most corrosive and dangerous forces eating away at our common life.

It is a sorry picture: self-anointed journalist mandarins, bringing us self-replicating privilege rather than rewarding ability or having any discernible set of objective standards; in some cases, joining the very movement they are charged with covering.

My own take: tax the millionaires. Japan, at least at one time, was at a salary comparative of about a 3X ratio of CEO to factory worker. America needs to move toward a psychologically balanced approach to wealth, without destroying incentive. The millionaire on Newshour seemed to indicate such balance would cause no decline in motivation.

But there should be more: inherited wealth should be taxed substantially. Obama, and this organization of rich “folk,” should say, most honorably, my money does not go to my children. My money goes to an organization helping children. Isn’t that what Warren Buffet is doing in his stated intention about the dispensation of his wealth? Wouldn’t that get Americans out of the starting gate at least on the same racetrack? Didn’t Bill Gates state such an intention himself?

…and don’t forget campaign finance laws to keep the system about more than money.

The pop culture is really the commercial culture. It is business by other means. But because talented and clever people get involved you periodically get really good results — work that surpasses the defaults and becomes something special.

That is true of Gin Wigmore. Wigmore is from New Zealand but lives in Australia, which, from what I can tell, is California without the pretensions. You tend to form mental maps of places to which you’ve never been.

So how did we hear of Gin Wigmore? Searching for who sang the song in the Lowe’s commercial. The TV version of that commercial, with the dancers morphing into old age, is beautifully directed and choreographed and edited. And then they choose a great song, beautifully rendered.

Wigmore’s father died of cancer when she was sixteen and she wrote the song Hallelujah to tell her family she had finally accepted the loss of her beloved dad.

Here are Gin Wigmore’s heartfelt lyrics for Hallelujah:

Take your last step towards heaven and its glow
Take your last breath of sunlight, don’t let it go
Take your last look to remember, so that you know

I wont let you fade from no mind
I wont let you fade from no minds
I wont let you fade from no minds

Hallelujah for these eyes to see your painted life
Hallelujah for the touch of skin to skin with mine
Hallelujah for this mind that keeps our souls combined
Hallelujah for this life that let me be your child

Have your mind, have your strength to stay alive
Keep your eyes open with mine

You followed the road for the angels and you left me behind
A face without words can last a lifetime but it’s never the same
So, don’t say goodbyes that last forever just for a while
Because I’ll be by to see you some day soon

Hallelujah for these eyes to see your painted life
Hallelujah for the touch now of skin to skin with mine
Hallelujah for this mind that keeps our souls combined
Hallelujah for this life that let me be your child

Hallelujah, to be a part of your life
To see inside of all your smiles
You’re a traffic light of fire
You’re a man who I believe will never die

© Lyrics And Music Composed By Gin Wigmore

The enormous response to the death of Steve Jobs is remarkable. For a public figure, a man who ran a corporation, to have entered the emotional life of so many is an affirmation of Jobs beyond his industry. People are grateful for the tools he made. For the enjoyment and possibility those tools have brought. The tools he made, or made possible, have opened so many possibilities for me in my work.

He was more identified with his multi-billion dollar corporation than people who run small businesses who have their name on the door. He didn’t push himself forward to gain fame; he was up front making presentations because he loved the products he was so involved in creating. He never felt a salesman — always an enthusiast who shared his audience’s pleasure. He had an aesthetic response to objects and tools. He was proud of what he did.

His signature quote: He didn’t give people what they wanted, he gave them what they didn’t know they wanted. That quality of breaking the mold and believing you can accomplish your self-set task is an essential of true creativity.

It also seems likely that the outpouring of sadness over the death of Steve Jobs has to do with his personality and the times. His body frail, but his spirit vigorous, even at the end; he had an optimism and belief in the future. A vibrant, creative individual at a time where there seem no leaders, no easy answers.

PBS broadcast a talk David Brooks gave at the Miller Center last night. It was not a recent broadcast – Brooks was speaking about our social selves and by indirection promoting his book, The Social Animal, as part of the project. The book had been published back in March. I don’t mean it was a cynical presentation, but it shows how discussion is framed in contemporary society.

I’d never watched Brooks in an extended presentation so it was interesting to see more of his character, beyond his gnomic assessments of politics. The generosity of his presentation struck me. Brooks wasn’t, as is the default, laboriously making a few points — the ideas spilled out of him — he wanted to give the audience an understanding about the ideas which excited him; he showed admirable wit and a warm, if a sometimes uncomfortably ingratiating side. This ingratiating side of Brooks is always in evidence, actually. Since he is a man of opinions, the self-deprecating demeanor can border on passive aggressive understatement.

The ideas he discussed circled the preeminence of intuition, emotion and what Hume called sentiment. Brooks quoted many studies as evidence of the primacy of our intuitive selves. All that we are grows out of that core of our intuitive life.

This is not a new premise, but in the current religio-science environment, that is, where science is seen as a religion, where people equate science and Truth, it had a cathartic quality. Science describes our best understanding about physical reality at the moment. It presents a small subset of human consciousness, or better, of being human. It provides no moral context nor meaningful insight about how to live a life. It simply helps set the stage for serious thinking. It does scare off the completely wacky, but too often welcomes the over wrought estimate it receives in a world where ideology vitiates the air. Unfortunately, science itself is subject to the same ideological bias (plate tectonics, “big bang” theory), and is not really meant to be the last word at any rate.

I’ve always thought we are principally emotional beings. Brooks’ tactic, of using reason to convince the audience that emotion is preeminent, and feeling the need to quote scientific studies to prove his point, can be seen to contradict the argument itself. The truth is that many studies about the more complex aspects of human nature are incredibly shallow and misleading. Sometimes they are cynically tendentious. The credulity Brooks ascribes to these studies speaks to media shallowness — the pool in which Brooks swims.

Brooks is a very decent individual, who values demeanor a bit too much, and puts way too much store in status markers. If you really want to understand the human enterprise read Shakespeare.

Jimmy Kimmel’s tribute to his uncle Frank was truly touching. It did not have to turn out that way…

The popular culture forces the audience to develop a cynical, thickened skin. Too often celebs claim great sympathy with a cause or person, but you end up feeling they are celebrating their own celebrity goodness. It’s about them. It’s about their agent telling them they have to have a cause. It’s about received notions repeated by a not too bright individual to win the approval of a political affinity group.

Kimmel is not like that. Actually he never has been a conventional talk show host. He mixes enormous confidence and self-deprecation. When you consider all the ways any talk show host can go wrong, with so much air time over a long stretch, Kimmel has managed to run the gauntlet with few glitches. He is easily the best of the talk show hosts. Kimmel appears to like people, without judgment or pretention.

That isn’t true about many in the media. Letterman has gone from a bright light to a pinched, sour performer; Leno is a disengaged performer, a craftsman. Craig Ferguson’s appearance after the death of his father rightly evoked sympathy in the audience, but Ferguson has less depth as a peformer, and in the end you felt his producer was right in telling Ferguson not to go on the air so soon after the loss of a loved one.

Don Rickles’ appearance on Kimmel underlined the moment. With Rickles’ unsympathetic comic persona, the antithesis of sentimentality, Rickles’ praise had special weight: “you made them laugh, but you moved the audience,” was a perfect summation. “You were magnificent,” said Rickles. It should not have worked, but it did.

Finally, something watchable on Netflix. Breaking Bad is a Weeds derivative. But a good one. In fact, better. Weeds is a trifle coy.

Brian Cranston is the lead on Breaking Bad. He was Whatley on Seinfeld; the dentist who converted to Judaism for the jokes. Wonderful actor. He reminds me of Martin Mull in appearance  if you squint your eyes until they are almost shut.

Unlike many awards, the three Emmys Cranston has won for his portrayal of a high school teacher turned meth dealer are deserved. His character has lung cancer. His son has cerebral palsy. His wife is pregnant. He has a prognosis of two months without treatment. He was in line for a Nobel but something, as yet unexplained, derailed this life changing recognition.

It might therefore sound strange to say Breaking Bad is too grim. But it’s true: the show longs for better dialog. Structurally funny, like Weeds, but without the snap of humor and liveliness that it might have. What show, given the plot line, more needs the extravagances of graveyard humor?

Betty White was right when recently on Tavis Smiley she deflected compliments and said it is all in the script. It is. It gives the actors and directors room to display their wares. Writing is at the top of the heap in actual value, if not in consensus acclaim in media land. Who would think Hollywood could get their values’ hierarchy so wrong?

The world’s largest aggregation of B movies is raising prices and that is causing an online to do. Probably the distributors wanted more for licensing and Netflix had no choice. But they can’t say much because they don’t want to offend content providers. That is all a guess. Or DVD mailings are just too expensive. Or, who cares.

Netflix could have done a better job of introducing the changes. Long time subscribers should have been given some consideration. Corporate culture is such that when it leaves its hierarchical fort it treats the public the way it does its employees. By fiat. Corporations don’t know any better — they are big dumb beasties. Our streaming/DVD plan is going up 60% in September. Still the best deal around — around the rancid edges. We’ve been debating what we will do. Probably cancel out before September 1, wait for the DVDs of shows we would like to see, like Justified (Season 2) and Boardwalk Empire and Curb (Season 8), then rejoin.

The formula seems to be: TV is better than the movies and special effects are better than the TV shows they enhance.

Once in awhile Netflix, seemingly by accident, yields a good one. We found such in, God Is Great and I’m Not. Unpromising title, and chick flick admittedly, but sweet and diverting.

It is a remake really. It is Annie Hall with Audrey Tautou as Diane Keaton. Would the two movies had been merged with Audrey in there. Keaton was excellent but failed to communicate the warmth and human appeal of Tautou. Woody Allen captured the humor and melancholy of relationships; Tautou inhabits the part and makes it more. She smiles and laughs as she argues. A real charmer.

We’ve also been trudging through Season 3 of True Blood. A favorite in Season 2, with its maenad (Seinfeld) Big Salad actress. Season 3 meanders and in later episodes degenerates into Hollywood’s idea of deep-thinking politics. They have Vampires talking global warming. Vampire kings despising how badly humans have failed. The creators of True Blood think this is an ironic hoot, but they are confused in their message. Little do they realize the satire shifts to the makers when the irony falters…Why do people who manufacture entertainment think they are doing serious work and need to educate those who cling to their guns and religion? Can’t they focus on the entertainment? (One discovery in Season 3: Mariana Klaveno as Lorena Krasiki, a character who is now gone — a striking, charismatic presence.)

For a show affecting sophistication True Blood sure has an infantile obsession with slime, guts and faces smeared with blood. Season 3 is all about Sookie, but she is finally told what she is rather than discovering it. Isn’t that politically incorrect?

Charlie Rose repeated a March 2011 interview with David Brooks last night. Brooks was promoting his book, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement. The book, as Brooks described it, is an allegory. Two fictional characters illustrate ideas. The ideas are drawn from psychological and sociological academic studies.

Some reviews indicate Brooks did not inhabit the characters, did not bring them to life, and the science might not be fully explored either. However, you don’t read such books for depth, but to get a feel for the landscape: a bright man trying to open a curtain so you can see what is being thought about in the realm of human behavior.

Brooks’ sensibility is quite appealing. He is someone who is “nice” without seeming weak. Brooks gives nice a good name. Brooks has underlying beliefs but sees no reason why arguments have to ensue. This is somewhat quixotic, as many people just want to argue, which often seems more the point for them, and so ideas are put aside no matter what someone like Brooks might wish. But to a remarkable degree, in the adversarial left-wing environment of the NYT, as it is now constituted, Brooks appears to be accepted and liked by the partisan community. Brooks has been damned as the conservative that liberals like. It isn’t really a condemnation at all, but rather a tribute to the man that he can force focus on ideas in the roiling emotional pit of public life.

I have to admit, and this is a bit unfair to Brooks as I have not read his book, but the ideas he discussed on Rose sound very like a New Age Benjamin Franklin redux. Work hard, care, come from or find a good environment, and you too can make it. Making it, prestige seeking, is one of the most off putting things about the NYT actually. The NYT and MSM in general have a conformist, career centered focus — rather than a values based or true achievement focus. Too often achievement is measured by salary (even, weird as it seems, inherited wealth), truly slimed by fame or popularity metrics, or simply defined as rising in the chosen bureaucracy — without questioning the cohort’s nature. I often have the same doubts about Brooks — a conventional, unquestioned deference to honorifics you could call it.

Brooks draws a larger circle than most commentators, seeing that the mysteries surrounding us can’t be easily formularized. Things are complicated, which is obvious, but in a meme loving, consensus culture, it is salutary to hear that things might not be so easy to understand or fix. Lopping off the ambiguities to fit the purity of idea doesn’t work in art, in life, or in serious thinking. At least Brooks gives complexity a try.

We only saw snippets but that was enough. In an orgy of self-indulgence Oprah has left the stage in an extended goodbye. A tribute to self.

Kimmel and Boyz II Men give their take:

Oprah did seem to make people feel good. Her shows early on were of the familiar stir-the-pot variety but of late she has been trying to be helpful, healthy and New Age wise. An American success story.

The world has not ended but I’m sorry to say Supernatural has for the season. The ratings were not good for the finale although it is one of the best shows on TV. Like all herd metrics ratings are meaningless indicators of the quality of a show.

Witty and cleverly plotted, the stories have real characters and surprising turns. The special effects on Supernatural were never distracting, but supportive of the story line.

On the other hand, Smallville has ended with a thud. It followed a strange bumpy arc as a show. Starting out poorly — the family setting never worked, nor did Lana Lang — it seemed to climb out of the doldrums and for awhile was fun to watch. The special effects were among the best integrated on any show on TV, or the movies for that matter.

But then in the last season it suffered character bloat; inevitably the story line got lost in the ever enlarging cast. It was a poorly cast show. Erica Durance, Michael Rosenbaum and Justin “Green Arrow” Hartley probably the best of the the group. Not sorry Smallville is gone. (It was always amusing to see “Crazy” Joe Davola’s name in the credit crawl.)