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Getting to the Point Makes Us Dull

Posted by :James Howden On : August 23, 2007
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Category: At First Glance

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No doubt, some brilliant graduate of a university program in Marketing looks out at city bus fleets that are rolling billboards – not just bedecked in ads but painted to be ads – and he stretches and says, eyes moist with emotion, “I thought of that. That’s my contribution!” If you sense a rant coming about universities that offer degrees in advanced consumerism, be very disappointed. I have other scabs to pick at. (But you might want to read Ivory Tower Blues.)

One bus ad that smacks me surly these days is for one of those skinny little newspapers that commuters get for free. In my city, it’s called Metro. Its selling slogan? Get. To. The. Point. The point, apparently, is that any daily paper that doesn’t deliver The News in a quickly digestible text-bite is wasting my precious time, at best, and branding me as a hopelessly out-of-date codger, at worst. There is no time to think, slowhand. Never mind nuance, you old ninny. Understanding is a luxury we can’t afford. Nothing to see here, folks, so keep moving.

Have you read any of these things? It’s certainly efficient, and eminently disposable; just leave it on the seat next to you after four minutes. I suppose I should consider that some reading of yesterday’s news is better than none, slightly more insightful than Hot 108 in your ear-buds, but I’m irritated anyway. In the spirit of Get. To. The. Point. my entry today should have read:

You know those newspapers that sell for free at bus shelters? They suck. So read a real newspaper. So read an actual book. So there.

Brevity is the soul of wit, I’ve heard that too, and there is a lot of bad writing in academic journals and elsewhere that could be improved by any high school English teacher with red ink to spare. Long-windedness is not a virtue, though some of my younger (non)readers might complain that I’m trying to make it one. But Metro would have us believe that we’re fine, we’re doing our Average Citizen Duty – and they’re happy to serve us – when we are easily bored, intolerant of complexity, and content to consider world events as ten-point answers in a workplace trivia game.

IRAQ: Hundreds more dead. Another car-bomb. More important, fourteen American soldiers died in a helicopter crash. More numbers tomorrow.

MONTEBELLO: Harper met with President Bush about some ways to work together. Lots of people protested about something or other, and there was riot gear and arrests. Mexico’s top guy was there, too. He’s the short one.

SPORTS: These teams won, and these ones lost. Joe Football wants more money.

ARTS: ARTS? We’re getting to the Point, remember? But a famous bimbo did get arrested.

Get. To. The. Point. We’re all held at gunPoint, it seems to me, and not just by commuter newsrags. It’s so easy to become hostages to public impatience, to intentional ignorance, and to a sneering adolescent tone that dismisses thoughtful discussion as a quaint relic. Politicians are at gunPoint. Media pundits certainly are. What was once discourse appears as slogan. What could be consultation dissolves in rapid-fire cleverness. And what was intended as a thought-provoking Web log discussion of an admittedly minor social irritant was too long to read for almost everybody but YOU.

(Thanks for staying with me.)

Bill McKibben (art & worship)

Posted by :James Howden On : August 7, 2007
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Category: At First Glance, He Said/She Said

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“Art, like religion, is one of the ways we digest what is happening to us, make the sense out of it that proceeds to action….Therefore it falls to those of us alive now to watch and record its flora, its fauna, its rains, its snow, its ice, its peoples. To document the buzzing, glorious, cruel, mysterious planet we were born onto, before in our carelessness we leave it far less sweet.”          Bill McKibben (American author of environmental and lifestyle warnings and pleas, cross-country Vermont snowman)

In Search of the Real Artist

Posted by :James Howden On : August 3, 2007
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Category: At First Glance

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“So are you a Real Writer yet?” occasionally comes the smirking blonde query.
“Well, no. Not today. That’s a definite Someday,” squirms the wannabe.

Brian Smith is a Canadian portraitist that I’d never heard of. That’s no insult to him, for my knowledge of the visual arts is sparse. And by his own account, figurative artists like him don’t get much cutting-edge attention in the contemporary art world. What I do know is that he speaks well about the arts, especially that important task of de-mystification and encouragement for all those who linger hungrily around the edges of creativity and wish they knew the occult secret.

I wandered into a lecture he was doing, after-hours, at the Haliburton summer School of the Arts, held in a sparkling lake district at the base of northern Ontario. It’s pretty here. Every summer, this small town of ball caps, cigarettes and chain saws becomes a stock-up depot for the cottagers and boaters, and a magnet also for those who want to seek out creativity instead of the perfect tan. There’s an unusual number of painters, potters and sculptors in the area, and a fine school for the dabblers and the nervously ambitious makers to enhance their skills and confidence. Confidence is where Smith comes in.

He gives an animated lecture annually at the school, and this year’s edition was a wry but ultimately earnest assessment about what makes for a Real Artist. His conclusions were not surprising, but the road there was fun. (An early video-screen projection: a New Yorker-style cartoon has two gallery-goers, one of whom murmurs, “His work hovers between neo-classicism, impressionism and crap.”) In preparing his talk, Smith had run across a Website that would be gut-bustingly mockable if it weren’t aimed at such a place of human yearning and vulnerability. Apparently, you can call 1.800.REAL.ART, or go to its companion on the ‘Net. A series of questionnaires, which Brian Smith filled out on-line, resulted in an e-mailed letter of fulsome (and ungrammatical) personal praise from the – wait for it – Real Art Certification Board.

I am delighted to congratulate you on…certifying yourself as a Real Artist. All of us at RACB sincerely hope that your new-found vocation will change your life in a positive manner [glad that was clarified!] and expose you to wonderful world [sic] of Real Art…

Smith had gobs of fun with this and other expressions of the antique, exclusivist, fairy-dust notions we have of what makes an artist and what such a creature actually is and does. But his message was plain: art is about INTENTION. He scoffs at dichotomies like high art versus low art, or art versus craft. (I liked the simple truth in his quote from the potter Harlan House: “Craft is what I do all day. Art is what I have at the end of it.” If you’re lucky, Mr. House, I must say. If you’re lucky. And good. Democracy’s a pretty cool concept, but not everybody can be an RA.) To the assembled group of mainly female, mainly grey or greying pilgrims seeking to believe in the art in themselves, he proposed a simple catechism:

Anxious, spiritually yearning question: “Am I a real artist?”
Pragmatic, possibly encouraging but very likely reality-inducing answer: “Did I make any art today?”

When Smith spoke of the importance of art, and the value of allowing oneself to pursue some expression of our creativity, he was preaching to the choir. This was an audience – many of whom were already his fans from previous years – who were more than ready to laugh with him and mine a small vein of courage along the way. I expect nearly anybody would pass the Real Art Certification Board quiz and “qualify” for their specially-priced Internet “master classes”, but even in that crowd of people paying to act like artists for a week, not many would pass Brian Smith’s dauntingly simple test.

Still, I found something of what I was looking for, including chuckles and an excuse to make a little verbal mess like this one. And I liked Brian Smith’s conclusion: When we look at paintings or any media, we are the arbiters. What moves us as art is entirely subjective. We decide what is art, including OUR OWN. Don’t worry about being original. Just be authentic, true to your own vision of whatever it is you’re doing. And MAKE LOTS OF ART, be it good or bad.

Show up at the easel. Be true to your keyboard. Keep your appointments. Fulfil your own promise.

An Eccentric Perfection

Posted by :James Howden On : August 2, 2007
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Category: At First Glance

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The Arabic term “Kamal” means something like perfection. Last night, I found myself among the endearingly odd and tiny Bahá’í community of – hmm, to tell the truth, I don’t even know where I was, though we had a gorgeous view of Baptiste Lake, wherever that is. We had joined them for their Feast of Kamal, a community gathering that combines prayer and study, community consultation and, in this case, gobs of ice cream and fresh fruit. There was sweetness on so many levels.

We four city-dwelling vacationers had wandered, not quite aimlessly, down country roads, through near-villages, past lovely lakes and the key turn. We were finally guided by cellphone along ever-smaller lanes to the Feast, whose size we nearly doubled, and were charmed by the beauty of the scene and the homey welcome of the host friends. Our program of writings, treating on the perfections of creation and the potential perfections in human beings, had been hand-printed and photocopied. No clergy, of course, in a Baha’i gathering, but I was touched, amused and impressed by the great care our hosts took in distributing the readings. We read aloud to the accompaniment of sunset sparkling on the lake, wind in the poplars, the occasional burst of laughter from the neighbouring patio or their kids squealing at the waterfront, and the tail-wagging, bumping visits of Max, the golden Lab next door.

It was too hot to be inside, and too beautiful to pay much heed to distraction. I’m sure we were something of a distraction to this elderly, close-knit band ourselves. But they never let us feel that way. Everyone was sweet to my seven-year-old Sam, the only person under 40 present. It was sweet to hear the words of Bahá’u’lláh in the sunlight and the wind. The raspberries and blueberries were bursting with sweetness. And the ice cream was, well, it was ice cream. Perfection, indeed, thanks to Slim and Mary Lou.

Too Much Honey on the Bagel, Honey

Posted by :James Howden On : August 1, 2007
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Category: At First Glance

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It’s the silly season for angry men, namely this one. Object of my double-plus un-equanimity this morning? A Wonder brand square bagel. (No wonder I was pre-disposed to out-of-proportion rage: what overwhelming consumer need led to this creation? Who decided it was essential to our civilization’s contentment that we jam a rectangular innovation into a round tradition? And so on. Mumblegrumbleargh…) The Princeling wanted a second honey-coated, microwaved WonderBagel. The Princeling is not ready to do the basting himself. (Allegedly.) I was the nominee and, it’s true, I had been given my instructions.

“Make sure there’s not too much honey, okay Dad?” (Can you do this as well as Mummy, old codger?) I dutifully halved what I would’ve slathered on a dry, whole-wheat brick like this, and humbly presented it to my four-and-a-quarter-foot petit prince. He looked like he was sucking on a sourball. “Too much honey!”

“Just eat it, bud. We gotta go. I had enough with the battle over your clothes this morning.” Whining engines revving. Eyes scanning for Mummy’s second opinion. “Two choices. Eat quietly, or I’ll be glad to eat it myself.” Dad the Stern and Impatient. This-or-that. Simple. Luckily, Just and Compassionate and Eminently More Practical Mummy sailed in just at this moment; otherwise I wouldn’t have a thing to write about on a sun-baked vacation day. A truncated and partly imaginary transcript sort of follows:

Oh, yuck. That IS too much. No princeling of mine…
No fuss. He’s hungry or he isn’t. Simple. By the way, who asked you, beloved?
Honey’s too sweet. Knife. Scrape. End of problem!
Now the whining volume is higher. Thanks. Don’t you have to pack the car?
Such a big deal about honey. Why so stubborn?
Why intercede? Why undercut your parenting partner?
But it’s so easy to solve!
But you make a bigger problem than what you solved! Pickiness. Privilege, and the never-ending negotiations over meals. This is why. Case in point. This is exactly the problem. Paradigm! And so on.

Square bagels are fine for throwing, or at least I was burning to test out that impetuous theory. Didn’t, but I muttered in my head. Fifteen minutes of pressure cooking, introverted flame. Sheesh. Control freak…why contradict me…why argue when I’m right…no surprise the kid can debate…angry over bagels, for cryin ‘ out loud…gotta be mid-life…symbolic of our differences…my father’s frustration…kitchen equality…this bird don’t fly…apologize…for her error?…you’re brooding over bagels, idiot…square ones, too…tough turf to defend…must be other battles…hostile…ten-dollar feelings in a five-cent frame…head-shaking time…maybe there’s a stream of contentiousness I can harness…word power…two dogs converse in a New Yorker cartoon: I used to have a blog, but I’ve decided to go back to pointless, incessant barking…

Good morning. Today’s intransitive WOOF has been brought to you by the new HBO series Desperately Frustrated HouseGuys: The Oedipus Complex is Killin’ Me! and by Wonder Bread — for the modern Little Prince at your house.