Wait, there's more

Here's another little snippet from the same Jonathan Franzen piece (see below) in the New York Times:

"BUT then a funny thing happened to me. It’s a long story, but basically I fell in love with birds. I did this not without significant resistance, because it’s very uncool to be a birdwatcher, because anything that betrays real passion is by definition uncool. But little by little, in spite of myself, I developed this passion, and although one-half of a passion is obsession, the other half is love."

Passion is by definition uncool. Wow. I think humanity is divided into two groups, depending on whichever side of that statement you fall. You either have passion and are uncool, or the opposite. That explains a lot of what goes on around me, and how I relate (and how I don't relate) to people around me.

Alas, I believe the people who'd rather be cool far outnumber the people who "betray real passion."

Chairs are used for sitting

Here's a shard from an op-ed piece by Jonathan Franzen, published in the New York Times on May 28, 2011. The topic is "liking" in the Facebook sense, and how that applies to stuff we could buy:

"This is, in fact, the definition of a consumer product, in contrast to the product that is simply itself and whose makers aren’t fixated on your liking it. (I’m thinking here of jet engines, laboratory equipment, serious art and literature.)"

So there's a clue -- that serious art and literature should not be preoccupied with you liking it.

Not sure how much I agree with that. Me, I think there's art in creating art that is popular and serious, or at least in creating art that tries to meet the audience at least half-way. To ignore this aspect of art is like being a furniture designer who creates this really cool chair that can't be used for sitting.

A daughter's view of "the freedom to think"

I just read an obituary for Tom West, the computer engineer, who was found dead earlier this month at his home in Westport, Mass. He was 71 and died of either a stroke or heart attack.

Some of the things in the New York Times obit resonate with me. To wit:

His daughter Jessamyn West said he was driven “to understand everything.”

“He knew a million things — it didn’t matter: worms, plumbing, literature. He could give you a discourse. It seemed like he could never rest until he had a sense of control over the things around him.”

And...

“My dad loved routine. He rolled his sleeves up exactly the same way every morning. He went to work at exactly the same time every day. It was what gave him the freedom to think.”

I think that's a key motivator for me in how I structure anything I do. I crave the freedom to think, and anything that takes away from that is a negative. So that's why, I think, I go crazy when software gets updated and you have to learn a whole new interface, etc. It's not that I don't want to learn new things. Rather, I'd rather stick with a routine so that my mind can get the running room to take off.

Whatever it takes

I have few people in my life with whom I can really communicate about the creative process. I guess that's true for most people, so I'm not feeling sorry for myself, just facing up to the reality of it, that's all. Anyway, from time to time I come across things that set it out for me in language plain enough to stick. One such example was from a 2010 essay by Garrison Keillor, who talked with six students at the University of Minnesota and then wrote about academic happiness. He came away impressed, and also inspired (pretty open-minded of him!), and expressed it this way:

"I left Dinkytown and drove home to Saint Paul, resolved to quit fruiting around and try to focus and work harder and make my time count for something. I'm hopeful about that."

Thanks. Weirdly enough, last night (Thursday, May 5) I found that I came quite close to getting a chance to meet and talk with Mr. Keillor, one of the creative people I most admire. He was appearing in his one-man show at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, N.H. on Wednesday, May 4, and for some reason I felt it wasn't worth going (lots going on in my own life), though I'm right now rereading and rereading his 1991 novel "WLT: A Radio Romance," which I love for many reasons.

Then, at a different event just last night, I ran into a friend whose husband recently served as chairman of the board of trustees of New Hampshire Public Radio. And of course she had been at the Keillor thing, and she surprised me by saying that after the performance, audience members were invited to speak with the author, and she and her husband found that virtually no one sought him out backstage. Keillor was curious about this: "Did I go on too long?" she recalls him asking.

Well, so much for a chance to say hi, tell him I think his writing will endure, and even invite him out to the Red Arrow or, even better, the Red Barn for chat. (What is it with the color red? Well, it would have gone with his shoes.) I find celebrity worship utterly repugnant, so I know it would have felt a little weird, but still it was kind of unfortunate that the chance was missed.

Very weird mood lately, getting nothing done, spinning my wheels. Hoping that a quick trip out to Chicago to see relatives and then a very slow trip back (via Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited) will get me back in the zone. Lots of silent film screenings coming up, too, and not sure how that will all work out.

Simply stated

Two things are causing Americans to suffer an inexorably declining standard of living in my generation:

1. No one thinks about the long term anymore. We only think short term.

2. No one thinks about the common good anymore. It's only "How can this benefit me?

Look at any sign that the overall quality of life in this country is declining, and it can be traced back to those two dynamics. Guaranteed.

I'm not speaking of individual citizens. I'm thinking of the leaders that guide the institutions that affect us all: government, business, labor, and so on.

It's what's killing us.

Random post-Nepal thoughts

Lots of good ideas from browsing the latest "Daedalus Books" catalog.

- The lesson from "Timbuktu, The Sahara's Fabled City of Gold," is that a city that prospered 600 years ago by trading in everything from salt to gold, and which then led to impressive schools and libraries, and which then gave the city a wonderous repuation, resulted ultimately in "invasions and plunders that precipitated its decline," according to the book's summary. And there's a lesson for us all. Fly too high, and the bastards will inevitably come after you. It happened in Timbuktu, which today is a sad outpost, even as its reputation for exotic magnificence lingers on in our collective consciousness. I think that's another lesson: with the right name, a reputation can last a lot longer than reality. Take note, marketers.

- Paradox alert: A book titled "The Well-Made Book" is all about an American printer, Daniel Berkeley Updike, who set the standards for book design in the 20th century. So who designed this? What kind of experience was that? Also, kinda sad to see "Outwitting History," a book about a guy who saved a gigantic number of Yiddish books from being lost, now in the remainder bin for $5.98. (Published price $24.95.) We just don't read books anymore, do we? Archaic form.

- With that in mind, I would like to follow through on the notion of creating an extended work of fiction in Twitter, and see how that goes. Add it to the list!

- I am becoming fond of instant coffee. This can't be good.

Nixon in China at the Met

This past Saturday (Feb. 12, 2011), I saw a simulcast of the opera "Nixon in China" live from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. (I was at the Portsmouth Music Hall.) I've wanted to experience this opera in its entirety ever since hearing about it shortly after graduating from college, and this was my first chance.

I find the music of John Adams to be exciting to listen to. I feel that it does capture the American experience in ways that are unique to my time. And the idea of an opera about Richard M. Nixon and Chairman Mao, figures that are from my time on the planet and whom I remember (instead of, say, the Duke of Mantua from 'Rigoletto'), is tremendous, in that it treats contemporary events as material to celebrate the bigger emotions in the way that only opera can.

I would love to hear the music again and again, and probably will. But my first impression of the whole three-and-a-half hour experience was a sense that it can be done differently and more effectively. Somewhere out there, there's a blend of the strengths of opera with the immediacy of, say, a Broadway musical. And as good as "Nixon," is, I thought it didn't do that, exactly.

And that blend is what I would aim for in creating a piece of theater that both speaks to today's audiences but also is rooted in the classic traditions of opera and musical theater. That's what I hope to do with the Pam Smart story, and a few others, once I get to a point when I can.

Right now, silent film music takes up all the creative energy. But making a piece of opera come to life is something to look forward to, someday.