Complicit Support for Stalin Showed Media's Lack of Integrity: Mr. Jones Tells the Story

Over the years I've had a number of writers influence me in significant ways. Upon discovering a writer I resonated with I would dig through their works the way a miner follows a gold vein through a mountain, reading everything I could get my hands on. Hemingway, C.S. Lewis, Jorge Luis Borges, Graham Greene are a few such writers whose works I collected.

Another was Andre Gide (1869-1951), the 1947 Nobel Prize winner who was at the center of the French literary scene for decades. An author of more than 80 books, he exemplified beautiful writing, integrity and original thinking.

At some point in the mid-nineties I read The Journals of Andre Gide, all four volumes, from which I learned much about the writing life and have frequently shared insightful quotes. One incident especially stuck with me, from his 1936-37 journal notes.

While the Great Depression rocked America, economic trauma was also eroding European confidence about the future. As Marxist/socialist idealism swirled through intellectual circles, the notion emerged that over there, in the Soviet Union, a Golden Age was dawning. The workers paradise was being praised and the promise of a brighter future.

Writers were being invited to come see with their own eyes what was taking place so they could tell the story of what was happening. One of these was Andre Gide. He went expecting to see something promising, or at least evidence that something promising was happening. Instead what he saw and learned resulted in a book that discredited what many other writers were saying. His 1936 book of essays began with "delightful approval" but ended up a denunciation.

I'd never read that book, but saw clearly in his journal entries for 1936 that things were not what they purported to be and he could not, with good conscience, parrot what others were saying. His September 3 journal entry begins, "A tremendous, a dreadful confusion." Then he describes a conversation with another who spoke of his "disappointment" with the U.S.S.R.  Gide responds that the word disappointment is not really accurate, "but I do not know what to suggest in its place."

Because he was expected to come away from his U.S.S.R experience with a book that praised Stalin's achievements, he writes in a later journal entry that he must write an introduction that "warns the reader at the outset." It took courage to publish this book so out of alignment with what his peers were saying.

The book he published was titled Return from the U.S.S.R. Here are excerpts from a review on Amazon that offer a snapshot of what Gide saw.

Publicity still from Mr. Jones

The political situation André Gide noticed that now that the revolution had triumphed, those who kept the revolutionary ferment became an embarrassment and were hated by the powerful; worse, they were simply swept from the earth. What the Politburo demanded, was a full endorsement of all that happened in the USSR. 

Attitudes
André Gide saw the inertia of the masses, the complete depersonalization of the individual.

Education
Critical thinking was forbidden and soviet citizens remained in an extraordinary ignorance of what happened in foreign countries.

The Social Situation
André Gide saw the emergence of a new aristocracy ... of conformists. Joining the Party was the first and indispensable step for a successful career.

Art
In the USSR, an artist had to follow `the line'. Art had to be popular; otherwise it was branded as 'formalism'. But André Gide correctly stated that without liberty art loses all its meaning and value.

André Gide expected to find in the USSR at least the beginnings of an anti-capitalist State. But, his hopes were bitterly dashed and he had the courage to publish his devastating verdict. He should be an example for all commentators and writers today, who should speak out and tear the curtain of the virtual world created by the media.

* * * *

All of the above came to mind when I read about a new film called Mr. Jones that has been released on Amazon Prime. I read about it in a review titled The Media's Role in Concealing Stalin's Evils Exposed in Mr. Jones.

The setting is Moscow 1932. The review begins (T)wo reporters are in a venomous argument. One has just admitted to filing false stories attributing miraculous economic achievements to Joseph Stalin while ignoring the fact that he's systematically starving peasants by the millions. Hitler, she declares, is on the march in Germany and, soon, the rest of the world, and without Stalin's help, he'll never be stopped.

"You sound like you work for Stalin!" the other reporter declares in horror.

"I don't work for Stalin," the first reporter haughtily insists. "I believe in a movement that's bigger than any one person."

The convergence of all these things is somewhat striking. The movie that had circulated through European film festivals in 2019 finally came to theaters in February and now to the public right in the middle of a new historical zeitgeist involving clashing cultures and competing worldviews. Notions of right and wrong are being turned on their heads.

A second article from Reason this week highlights a new attitude being proposed by some journalists. The article is titled Journalists Abandoning 'Objectivity' for 'Moral Clarity' Really Just Want To Call People Immoral. There are journalists who wish to abandoned the notion of objectivity. My response is two-fold. First, it's long been apparent that news is not always objective. Second, isn't this why Opinion pages exist so that people can express opinions on whatever is happening?

Maybe the solution to the latter problem would be to make larger opinion pages. As for the former issue, every fiction writer knows that if you want to create empathy between a reader and a character in a story, you hurt him or her. It's a normal human response. So it is that when covering riots, by focusing on rioters being hit, you create empathy for these "victims" of brutality. Why do we never see all the bricks and bottles that have been smashing into the faces and heads of police, sending them to hospitals around the country?

The coverage this past month has not been objective. Neither was the journalistic coverage of Stalin's atrocities.

Related Links
The Death of Stalin
The Media's Role in Concealing Stalin's Evils Exposed in Mr. Jones
Carol Veldman Rudie Sheds Light on Soviet Era Art in Lecture at the Tweed
Local Art Seen: Tweed Spotlights the Art of Russia
Karelia: A Finnish-American Couple In Stalin's Russia, 1934-1941

Influences: How Well Do You Understand How You Became Who You Are?

The book Pretexts by French author and Nobel Prize winner André Gide (1869-1951) is a collection of essays and observations on literature and morality. The book opens with a set of four talks he gave on influence, the limits of art, the importance of the public and the evolution of the theater.

In the first essay he discusses influences in general and the influence of literature more specifically. It's an essay I've read several times over the years, and a theme I've often pondered. I think, for example of how not all things influence people the same way. For example, why does a magnet have such a powerful effect on steel and no effect whatsoever on wood?  So it is that advertising or news stories--fake or real-- stir some people and while others remain completely indifferent.

Interestingly, Gide cites the example of Goethe, the great German writer and statesman, being completely indifferent to Beethoven's music and moved by "the pure and smiling tenderness" of Mozart. He did not understand Beethoven's passion, nor did he comprehend what Beethoven's music was all about as it swelled out of him. The anecdote shows how greatness is not always understood or appreciated.

This is why in our time we have musical genres that inspire some and leave others cold. I think immediately of Dylan and Hip Hop. Some people get it, and others don't.

Even the most common influences influence people differently. An example would be winter weather here in the Northland. For some, the short days, snow and cold leave them depressed. Others get invigorated. "Bring it on," they say, either because of their passion for winter activities like snowmobiling and skiing, or because of the pristine beauty of fresh snowfall and the aesthetic sense which is awakened.

So we see that places and seasons impact people differently.

What Gide suggests is that growing means becoming more open to the wider world, to people and places, to other influences beyond our tiny sphere. He goes so far as to say, "Those who fear influences and shy away from them are tacitly confessing the poverty of their souls."

For this reason, Gide encourages us to explore. Great minds do not fear influences.

This may be why dogmatists become so hardened in their ways. They fear influences, locking themselves within themselves. Foreign cultures enrich us, and reveal other ways of being fully human. Whether traveling abroad (or living abroad for a season) or simply getting to know people different from your own circle, each experience of real engagement provides an opportunity for growth.

* * * *

Centerville All Stars at the Red Mug

I believe many of us are unaware of many things that have been influences on our own lives. The influence of our parents is fairly straightforward, usually. I have these characteristics from my dad, these from my mom. The influence of our neighborhoods is similarly straightforward, usually. Cultural influences, however, are frequently less evident. I will leave you with one example.

How much have you been influenced by African culture? If you are a white American, I'll guess that you don't think about it all that much. I'd also propose that whatever answer you guess, that it is three, four or five times more than that.

When cultures conquer other cultures, the conquered culture is not really destroyed. It is carried within the hearts of the dispersed. From there it seeps out into the culture of the conqueror. Christianity did not spread in Rome by conquering Rome with the sword. As Rome fell, the conquering "hordes" from the North got infected with this "good news" that had begun to pervade the Roman empire, and in turn even the ruthless Vikings became infected with it so that Christianity became vibrant in the Scandinavian region.

In a similar fashion, the ruthless slave trade removed blacks from Africa, transplanting them here where that which was in their hearts similarly emerged. Over time, the music of Africa has come to permeate nearly all facets of Western music.

During the past century music has come to be one of the biggest influences in our culture. Jim Morrison, who became the voice of The Doors, chose to be a rock singer because though he considered poetry his art, the audience for poetry was a sliver of what the audience for music was. When a poem is read, it is usually read once or twice, and occasionally studied in school. But when you produce a hit song, people can hear it hundreds of times.

Who among us has not had music running through their heads at least for a portion of each day?

The first generation of Africans in the Western hemisphere carried African music in the heart, but as their culture and music intermingled with other forms of music all varieties of permutations emerged. From origins such as Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia we had field hollers, spirituals, gospel and country and rural blues. Jazz was birthed in New Orleans through its own set of special circumstances, and as African Americans moved northward, cities such as Chicago, Memphis, Kansas City, New York and Detroit produced new variations on African influenced music, evolving into Swing, Soul and Hip Hop.

Features of African American music that we take for granted today but which originated in Africa include "call and response," rhythmic syncopation, as well as vocal and instrumental improv. Drumming was likewise a central part of West African culture.

The big irony is how this "American Roots" music became adopted by youth in Europe so that we had The Beatles and Rolling Stones seeking inspiration from the rhythm and blues records produced by Chicago's Chess Records. In fact, my first Rolling Stones album (their second) had an instrumental track titled 2120 So. Michigan Avenue, the address of Chess Records at that time. (I love the harmonica riff.)

I've hardly scratched the surface here. Seriously. I myself was only recently introduced to these concepts via a presentation by jazz singer Bruce Henry at a November Magnolia Salon event in Carlton. Bruce is a teacher who has developed an extensive curriculum (20 lessons) that takes you deep into the roots of all varieties of music from military music, ragtime, Dixieland, Gospel, Big Band Swing, civil rights protest music, Afro-Cuban jazz, funk, Motown and rap. You can find more information on this program at www.evolutionofafricanamericanmusic.com

Until you open yourself up, you really don't know how much you don't know.

Life is for learning. Embrace it.

14 Quotes for a New Monday Morning

For most, our two biggest influences are the people we meet and the books we read. Interestingly, I've always felt that the books we read are just the same as meeting people, except we encounter them in another form. Ideas, expressed in words, are inexplicably powerful as they are transmitted from mind to mind.

There is no direct relationship between the various quotes on this page, other than that they spoke strongly enough that I wrote them down. Each stands alone, though some pair nicely with others as well, adding insights by casting new light from a different angle.

"Once you label me you negate me."
--Kierkegaard

"Fiction makes you think; propaganda tells you how to think."
--Amy Tan, from the chapter "required reading and other dangerous subjects" in her book The Opposite of Fate

"I can't imagine being a writer and having others dictate to me what I should write, why I should write, and whom I should write for. And this is the reason I consider myself an American writer: I have the freedom to write whatever I want. I claim that freedom."
--Amy Tan, ibid.

"We live in an era in which appearances seem more important than reality."
--Gordon Marino, The Existentialist's Survival Guide

“I live in my dreams — that's what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That's the difference.”
--Herman Hesse, Demian

“If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.”
― Amy Tan

"It is a mistake to intend to write only very important things in a journal. That is not its justification."
-- Andre Gide

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
--Howard Thurman

"If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him."
~-John F. Kennedy

"The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web."
--Pablo Picasso

"Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone."
--G.B. Stern

"I have no special gift. I am only passionately curious."
--Albert Einstein

"Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us."
-- Wilma Rudolph, Olympic Sprinter

"Your life is what you see in front of you."
--Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

* * * *

And now, it is time to make your mark.

50 of the Most Beautiful Sentences In Literature

If you're a reader who enjoys language then you've no doubt had the experience of reading a sentence that so connects with or stimulates something in you that you must pause and read it again, and sometimes yet again. There's nothing quite like a good sentence.

My interest in Andre Gide years ago was chiefly due to the beauty of language in some of his prose. Since he wrote in French, some credit must no doubt be given to the translators. But his mind and soul shone through.

This past weekend, while reading the prologue to David Pichaske's Here I Stand, there were several beautiful sentences that greeted me. Perhaps we'd discover more beauty in literature if we weren't in so much of a hurry all the time, for I noticed that I was reading the piece in a more leisurely fashion than I'm sometimes accustomed to. A good meal is designed to be savored, not scarfed.

Here are a pair of passages that I enjoyed from the Pichaske reading:

“As we grow older, we should have a look at ourselves, see what we have become, how we became what we became, the way our story is really the story of a generation and, perhaps, the human story.”

and a little earlier...

“Perhaps when I drive the back roads of Bavaria or Minnesota, when I track the back paths of either place, I am walking the folds of a rococo drapery. Or the veins of my own aging body.”

* * * *

Thinking about sentences led me to turn back to a blogsite that I used to frequent called The Floating Library, produced by the late Ben Price under the pseudonymous guise of Sineokov, whom I'd always surmised to be an old Russian philosopher, perhaps blind for having stared too long at the sun. It must have been through our mutual appreciation of Borges that I glommed onto the site, sounding it depths, summoning its sources, snake-bit by its mystic power.

And so it is that I stumbled upon this Floating Library post titled 50 of the Most Beautiful Sentences in Literature.

Now to imply that these 50 sentences are the most beautiful ever written is on the face of it quite preposterous. On the other hand, they did not make this claim. They state instead that these are among the most beautiful which is O.K. because it doesn't exclude the manifold hundreds of other beautiful sentences one discovers in the course of a lifetime of reading. There are so many great sentences, sentences tightly coiled with kinetic power, sentences pregnant with radical embryonic possibilities. Some so simple they pierce you like knife thrusts, others so complex they dazzle you in the manner they dance across your consciousness.

Here's an example of a simple set of three sentences that float across the ring and strike you like a series of Mohammed Ali jabs. It's the opening of another Floating Library essay by Peter Birkenhead: "Some people cut themselves, some do drugs. I try to understand physics. Cosmology, to be precise."

In the same way, I try to understand sentences. That is, what gives a sentence its power? What makes a sentence effective? Perhaps it's a mix of word selection, from the manner in which the content is wrapped, as well as the music of the language. And I suspect it comes, in part, from context.

Maybe that is what gives our lives their power, when our lives find their connection to something bigger than ourselves. Why does it take so long for us to find our places in the larger human story, or symphony, that we are part of?

* * * *

Related Links
"I am haunted by waters."
Of Time and the River
Here I Stand, Prologue
Special Topics in Mindboggling Physics
An Interview with David Pichaske

12 Powerful Novellas That Spoke To Me When I First Read Them

"To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him, and travel in his company." --Andre Gide

"We read to know we're not alone." --William Nicholson

* * * *

“But at sunset the clouds gathered again, bringing an earlier night, and the snow began to fall straight and steadily from a sky without wind, in a soft universal diffusion more confusing than the gusts and eddies of the morning. It seemed to be a part of the thickening darkness, to be the winter night itself descending on us layer by layer.” --Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome

* * * *

As they say, too many books, too little time.

For Christmas yesterday one of the three books I received was Ron Chernow's much ballyhooed Grant, an imposing volume of more than a thousand pages that I've been looking forward to since I learned of its appearance. If you're looking for something shorter before you tackle your next massive volume, here are a dozen suggestions from my personal shelves with which you may temporarily divert yourself...

A Dozen Favorite Novellas

1. The Tenth Man, by Graham Greene

“When you reach a certain age you don't care about the future: it is success enough to be alive: every morning you wake with triumph.”

2. Of Mice and Men, by Steinbeck

“At about 10 o'clock in the morning the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side windows and in and out of the beam flies shot like rushing stars.”

Par Lagerkvist

3. Barabbas, by Par Lagerkvist

Swedish winner of the 1951 Nobel Prize whose work was introduced to the larger world by French literary giant Andre Gide. Barabbas, the story of a believer without faith, was his first international success.

4. Theseus, by Andre Gide

I became captivated by Gide's journals after discovering him in the early 90's. 1947 Nobel Prize Winner and author of 80 books, Gide stood at the center of the French literary scene from the turn of the century till his death in 1951.

5. A River Runs Through It, by Norman Maclean

I probably read this book five times (including audio version) and have enjoyed the film based on this story another four or five times. "Eventually, all things merge into one and a river runs through it."

6. Isabelle, by Andre Gide

“Everything's already been said, but since nobody was listening, we have to start again.” Gide is one reason for the expression belles letrtes, the crafting and transformation of words into fine art.

7. Seize the Day, by Saul Bellow

“A person can become tired of looking himself over and trying to fix himself up. You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.”

1929 Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann

8. Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann

“Nothing is stranger or more ticklish than a relationship between people who know each other only by sight, who meet and observe each other daily - no hourly - and are nevertheless compelled to keep up the pose of an indifferent stranger, neither greeting nor addressing each other, whether out of etiquette or their own whim.”

9. The Sibyl, by Par Lagerkvist

“Nothing is more foreign than the world of one's childhood when one has truly left it.” The Sibyl is a strange parable of sorts that speaks to the tragic sense of life.

10. The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis

A response to the moral relativism in Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Lewis takes readers on a tour of the Afterlife by means of a bus that leaves England on a dreary afternoon. A rich, insightful read.

11. Mr. Majestyk, by Elmore Leonard

“It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.” I was introduced to Elmore Leonard by Joe Soucheray at a 1985 writer's conference. Joe was trying to write his first novel and lamented at how impressive Leonard was and his own efforts so inferior. This may not be his greatest book, but I found it an enjoyable and memorable read.

12. Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton

“He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of it's frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing nothing unfriendly in his silence. I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.”

* * * *

Curiosity and a Canary: How Ordinary Events Become Extraordinary

The introduction to a book on Andre Gide and Curiosity begins like this: "In the autobiography of Andre Gide, the 15-year-old Andre is walking down a Paris street when he sees a canary flying toward him like the Holy Spirit. It lands on his head, designating him, he believes, as a writer."

The author describes how the young Andre is both curious regarding the canary, and simultaneously an object of the canary's curiosity. This statement from the book's description especially stood out for me: "Curiosity was a credo for Gide. By observing the world and then manifesting in writing these observations, he stimulates the curiosity of readers, conceived as virtual conduits of a curiosity once his own."

Reading these few lines brought several moments from my own life back into view, the first being that specific moment in time when I myself felt called to be a writer.

Other memories also came to mind of encounters with nature, or experiences in which I witnessed something unusual that seemed to have special significance for me. Like Gide's encounter with the canary, one of these involved an encounter with a fawn. The incident occurred in the fall of my junior year at Ohio University, 1973. I'd gone for a walk with my sketchbook as sunset approached, seeking a place to sit and draw. I found a quiet open space that overlooked a vast expanse to the west, hemmed on both sides forest, delightfully peaceful. I still remember the vivid colors of that red and gold sky, the swoop of the valley's architecture, the silhouettes of the trees as darkness approached.

Drawing, like any creative endeavor, becomes timeless when you've lost yourself in it, and on this occasion I must have been in the zone as it were, quietly absorbed in the moment. Suddenly I became aware of a young fawn that had evidently been creeping along the path, curious about this strange person sitting in her way. Her head bent forward below her shoulders, she kept approaching me, tentative and uncertain. Our eyes locked as I studied her face, each of us expectant, though she was no doubt more wary than relaxed.

Suddenly, two rifle shots echoed in the distance and my curious friend became alert but she didn't run. Eventually she sauntered back to the woods in the direction from which she came.

* * * *

I've been re-affirmed by the presence of a dove.

The incident must have made an impression on me because a couple years later I woke one morning with the first stanza of a poem tumbling and swirling in my head, along with the other images from this experience. The poem that I crafted became As A Young Fawn, I, a retelling of this incident from the point of view of the fawn.

During the night as I lay thinking about these things I was also reminded of the story of the Magi from the East written about in the Gospel according to Matthew in chapter 2. These priest sages who had been students of the heavens recognized a star of major significance and connected it with the birth of the anticipated Messiah spoken of by Jewish prophets. The Bible never says there were three, as the song "We Three Kings" suggests. It does, however, acknowledge a connection between nature and our human story, both individually and collectively. There are moments when something breaks through from Beyond that our modern scientific minds tend to dismiss, disregard, ignore.

Bringing this all full circle, the Magi were men whose mystical inclinations made them curious about the greater meaning of things. How they learned about this miraculous birth isn't explained in this passage, its historically documented that Israel's Northern Kingdom had been overthrown by Assyria circa 720 B.C. and the remaining Jews of the Southern Kingdom taken captive by the Babylonians circa 587 B.C. The Magi were undoubtedly familiar with, and curious about, the sacred texts of these peoples. Their arrival in search of the newborn child was no coincidence. 

Psalm 19 begins, "The heavens declare the glory of God." Open your mind. Sometimes a canary, or a dove, is more than just a bird.

Merry Christmas.

Northern Lights courtesy John Heino Photography.

Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

Despite the accessibility of so many resources by means of the Internet, libraries remain an invaluable treasure. For many years it would be my habit to mine certain sections and take out piles of books, gleaning all and reading a couple. One of the sections I mined for a while was the literary criticism section, somewhere in the 800s, if I remember correctly. One of these volume was a book devoted to the three highest peaks in the mountain range of literary figures in the first half of the twentieth century. These three authors were Andre Gide, James Joyce and Thomas Mann.

Joyce I had been familiar with because the fellow across the hall from me in my sophomore year in college had a whole shelf of books about Ulysses, including 20 various versions or the original (if my memory is accurate.) I set about to become familiar with Gide and Mann by reading their works and reading the journals. I wanted to get inside these writer's minds, and t was a rewarding experience.

The novel that put Mann on the map and contributed to his receiving the Nobel Prize for literature was Buddenbrooks, a novel that outlines the decline of a great family over four generations. Here is a description of the book as presented at Goodreads.

Buddenbrooks, first published in Germany in 1901, when Mann was only twenty-six, has become a classic of modern literature.

It is the story of four generations of a wealthy bourgeois family in northern Germany facing the advent of modernity; in an uncertain new world, the family’s bonds and traditions begin to disintegrate. As Mann charts the Buddenbrooks’ decline from prosperity to bankruptcy, from moral and psychic soundness to sickly piety, artistic decadence, and madness, he ushers the reader into a world of stunning vitality, pieced together from births and funerals, weddings and divorces, recipes, gossip, and earthy humor.

In its immensity of scope, richness of detail, and fullness of humanity, Buddenbrooks surpasses all other modern family chronicles. With remarkable fidelity to the original German text, this superb translation emphasizes the magnificent scale of Mann’s achievement in this riveting, tragic novel.

This novel came to mind as I have been reading three other books about the decline not of a family but of a society. Are declines inevitable?

Historically, all great societies rise and fall. We must ask ourselves, why not America? While reading Charles Murray's Coming Apart, which I will talk more about later this week, the statistical facts are nearly indisputable. The strange thing to me is that he does not have a pessimistic view of the future.

A second book I'm reading is called The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die, by Niall Ferguson. The cover photo shows an abandoned house with the roof partially caved in. It's the price of complacency. I'm not far enough along to see if he's optimistic at the end, but the case is well made that there's much to be concerned about.

Then there's Joseph Stiglitz's The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future. Stiglitz notes that the global economic meltdown that cost us trillions of dollars and from which we have yet to fully recover will repeat itself because the causes have never been addressed. In fact, the one-per-centers were rewarded in the end.

The review for this book includes this: Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz exposes the efforts of well-heeled interests to compound their wealth in ways that have stifled true, dynamic capitalism. Along the way he examines the effect of inequality on our economy, our democracy, and our system of justice.

The decline feels inevitable from where I sit, an attitude that leaves one dangerously complacent about it all. In the end such complacency will destroy us, for it solves nothing. Perhaps that's why so many seem to be on the track of "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die."

Hmmmm. I'll try for something more upbeat tomorrow.

Throwback Thursday: A Tip For Memoir Writers

"It is a mistake to intend to write only very important things in a journal. That is not its justification." ~ Andre Gide

In seeking a theme for today's blog entry, I came across the quote above in one of my journals from the early nineties. Nobel prize-winning author Andre Gide, once significant and pretty much now forgotten, wrote near eighty books. As editor of The New French Revue he introduced the world to many significant writers in the first half of the twentieth century. As a journal writer myself, who once nurtured the hope of being significant in literature, I read the journals of many writers from Fitzgerald and Gide to Thomas Mann and a number of lesser lights. The experience was instructive, Gide's four volumes being the most instructive and insightful.

The Gide quote above was useful for me in the following manner. If you only permit yourself to write thoughts of world class, earth shattering significance, you will in short order become paralyzed by the effort. Sure, it's good to have high standards, and a journal can be useful in training one to capture ideas and emotions that are indefinite and ambiguous, but if today's journal note or blog entry has to be the most significant thing you have every captured in lines, well... it makes you tired. It can not sap your joy, but also stifle you.

As an artist I find this to be a liberating attitude when you don't have to produce a masterpiece with every canvas. Instead of striving to make masterpieces every time pen touches paper, or brush smears paint on a surface, I can take pleasure in the act of creative discovery. I can even throw some of it in the trash.

All this to say, I don't have much that is really burning to be expressed here other than the desire to share a few photos I have taken. And then, to work my way through my "to do" list.

Have a great one. And let the sun shine in.

* * * *
The above blog entry originally appeared here on Novermber 1, 2008.

PHOTO CAPTIONS

Top: Pottery studio ten miles south of Monterrey, 1981.

Middle: Two trains, Superior railroad yards, Fall 2008.

Bottom: Alphabet stencil over current Hispanic magazine. Stencils purchased in Athens, Ohio, 1974.

Dream of the Minotaur

Yesterday’s blog entry about mazes brought to mind a dream I once had related to the story of Theseus and the Labyrinth. What follows is what I recorded from that dream on July 24, 1999.

Dream of the Minotaur

A very rich man leads me behind his estate to where he has a long, narrow bull pen. Its dimensions I would estimate to be 10 to 15 feet wide and 200 yards long. The pen appears to be a maze of fencing with at least three narrow corridors going the length of the pen. At various places there are openings that would permit the bull to go from the interior section to the perimeter sections, and in certain places allow the bull to exit the fencing altogether.

My host leaves and it is my understanding that the object of this little game is survival. As I see the bull approaching from the far end, I begin examining the fencing to see where or whether I can climb over or whether the bull will be kept from me if he charges. It is mostly made of rickety slats and wire. I soon realize that since the bull can leave the maze of fencing, I must be able to enter it in order to escape, and suspect that the bull will be faster than I, so that survival will become a matter of wits for me, man against beast, as well as a matter of endurance, since I have no weapon. As long as I am pursued, I must make plans for escaping the bull's reach.

The central corridor is lower than the outer alleys. As I pass the bull, he is down below and I am safely able to reach and explore the complex fencing at the other end of the pen/cage/maze, which seems more elaborate, with higher fences. I see that I am able to climb up on the fencing here and perhaps find safety somehow.

Suddenly, the bull becomes a man. Another young man arrives, and after a brief hug (they appear to be old friends) they say a few words and this other man departs.

The bull / man turns to me now, a tall red-headed fellow with short dreadlock-like curls. We strike up a conversation. I learn that the rich man at the dream's beginning was the bull's father. He, the bull / man, is extremely interested in my life, my background, and especially my involvement in the arts. He wants to arrange a trip with me to New York City where we can go take in the New York arts scene.

I wake.


EdNotes: Visit Wikipedia for more information about the Minotaur of Greek mythology. For a compelling follow up read, find a copy of Andre Gide's Two Legends: Oedipus and Theseus.

One Minute Book Reviews

Yesterday the notion entered my mind to write a series of one minute book reviews. I arbitrarily selected a set of books off my shelves and will now write for one minute about each. If I enjoy this exercise I may write one minute reviews of top news stories or artists, or U.S. cities.

A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul
Tragic look at Africa's heartland, complex issues in an emerging Third World. Moving story and sad. Naipaul was criticized for his bleak portrayal regarding Africa's prospects as presented in this book.

The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
A book filled with great insights and many quotable quotes. An ordinary longshoreman (if I recall correctly) and a wise man of his times, 1950's. I've quoted Hoffer many times over the years.

A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene
A world-famous architect is weary of the spotlight and hides himself in a remote corner of Africa's outback where he lives in a hut at a leper colony run by priests and nuns. Great story that explores the meaning of life.

Abel Sanchez and Other Stories by Miguel de Unamuno
These short stories moved me when I first read this book in my thirties. I forget the titles of the stories but remember the one about the priest and another about a writer who writes crazier and crazier things.

The Plague by Albert Camus
This was a required reading in our college Existential Philosophy class. The Plague creates a "situation" with no exit to which various characters respond.

The Sybil by Par Lagerkvist
Lagerkvist won the Nobel Prize for Literature. This book is both disturbing and illuminating about God and humanity and the depths of sorrow.

Martin Eden by Jack London
Recommended reading for all who wish to be writers. Tells the story of a poor man who wants to "make it" as a writer and what it takes to achieve his dreams. And the consequences of this success.

The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy
Novella length Tolstoy story that shows the big consequences of "little decisions." Fast read, profound insights about life.

Demian by Herman Hesse
First Hesse book I read in college. Hit me powerfully, the story of a youth in a school away from home for the first time. He meets an exceptional person and... wrestles with life issues.

Isabelle by Andre Gide
This book is what the belles letres really means... beautiful writing. Unfolds like a Conan Doyle mystery, but is wholly other. Terrific book.

That's it. Today's recommended reading list from Ennyman.

The Future of Art

With the open house for Red Interactive behind us, it's time to mention two upcoming events on our Red Interactive agenda. The first of these will be a brown bag lunch discussion at the Phantom Gallery on an as-yet undetermined date. (At least it's not an undisclosed location.) The dialogue will center on the meaning and direction of contemporary art. The second will be the official Phantom Galleries Superior multi-gallery event on October 20. (Mark your calendars.)

The question "What is art?" is certainly not going to find an answer within a lunch hour, but we'll try to open it up to something insightful for each of us to chew on. Discussions about art as as old as history and the ancient writings of Greek philosophers and the Bible tell us that art is nothing new, and debates about its role are nother new.

Andre Gide's Pretexts is a collection of essays by the 1924 Nobel Prize winner for literature, with the exception of the four introductory lectures which Gide delivered in the first decade of the 20th century. The first is titled, "Concerning Influence In Literature." Gide argues that influences can enrich us, and that to the degree we restrict influences we are revealing the poverty of our own souls.

A second deals with the limits of art. Where are the boundaries of art? Gide states that the boundaries are inside us, within the artist, not imposed.

A third, and the one I wished to draw attention to was his lecture on the importance of the public. Gide saw a bad trend emerging in the arts, artists who had become unconcerned with what the public thought, who became disinterested in connecting with a public. As Goethe put it, "They behave just as if there were nobody in the theater."

Gide makes his point. "It was a dangerous thing for art to separate itself from life, dangerous for both art and life." And further on, "The artist who has lost a sense of his public is not fated to stop producing but rather to produce works with no destination."

Some might see Gide's comments as an overreaction to modernism in the arts, much like those who fear text messaging will destroy English grammar. And at this point it does seem the second statement is false in many instances, for a large portion of today's artists do produce works with a destination even if not for the public. Their aim is to be noticed by critics who have the power to acclaim their works as "worthy" of the label "art."

And so we come full circle to the real question "what is art?" The follow up question to any answer is, "Sez who?"

Keith Martin-Smith begins his essay "Art, Postmodern Criticism, and the Emerging Integral Movement" with still more questions.

The question “what is art” is both more simple and more complex than it might seem at first glance. Andy Warhol once quipped, “Art is whatever you can get away with.” Is it? His observation raises some interesting questions: How does one go about judging a work of art as “good”, “bad”, or “better than” something else? What standards are used? Is something shocking, like a New York City artist who recently put vials filled with her menstrual fluids on display, art? Or is such a display really something else?

As for the future of art, it's anyone's guess where things will go. The success of shows like Ochre Ghost's Crim City Collective and the Phatom Gallery's Red Interactive hints at a possible future direction for art collaborations that feature works dictated not by a single mind but a group contribution, uncontrolled and permitted to become something no one envisioned at the outset. Perhaps not unlike the Internet, which connects us all while permitting individual expression.

For what it's worth, a few Saturday afternoon seeds... sprinkled over loose soil. Add water if you wish.


Top right: Phantom by Heino
Left: Photo contribution by Andrew Perfetti

Saturday

"It is a mistake to intend to write only very important things in a journal. That is not its justification." ~ Andre Gide

In seeking a theme for today's blog entry, I came across the quote above in one of my journals from the early nineties. Nobel prize winning author, once significant and pretty much now forgotten, Gide wrote near eighty books and introduced the world to many significant writers in the first half of the twentieth century. As a journal writer who once nurtured the hope of being significant in literature, I read the journals of many writers from Fitzgerald and Gide to Thomas Mann and a number of lesser lights such as Julian Green. The experience was instructive.

The Gide quote above was useful for me in the following manner. If you only permit yourself to write thoughts of world class, earth shattering significance, you will in short order become paralyzed by the effort. Sure, it's good to have high standards, but if today's journal note or blog entry has to be the most significant thing you have every captured in lines, well... it makes you tired. It saps your joy.

As an artist I find this to be a liberating attitude. Instead of striving to make masterpieces every time pen touches paper, or brush smears paint on a canvas, I can take pleasure in the act of creation. I can even throw some of it in the trash.

All this to say, I don't have much that is really burning to be expressed here other than the desire to share some photos I have taken. And then, to work my way through my Saturday "to do" list.

Have a great one. And let the sunshine in.

PHOTO CAPTIONS

Top: Pottery studio ten miles south of Monterrey, 1981.

Middle: Two trains, Superior train yards, Fall 2008.

Bottom: Alphabet stencil over current Hispanic magazine. Stencils purchased in Athens, Ohio, 1974.

Daily Mirror

"...leaning over the mirror of our acts, our souls will recognize what we are."- Andre Gide

For nearly all of us mirrors play a role in our morning rituals. Whether for shaving or make-up, fixing one's hair or straightening one's tie, the mirror is a useful tool, presenting to our eyes a true reflection of what is there.

On other occasions, a reassuring glance in the mirror before a job interview or an important date gives us confidence that at least the external things are taken care of - our hair isn't mussed, collar turned right, no food crumbs on our chin.

At the end of the day there is another mirror which is equally valuable to us, and perhaps even more so once we practice using it. We can call it the mirror of our acts. As we quiet ourselves and reflect on the day, we discover that our actions reveal our souls as surely as the bathroom mirror reveals our faces.

The mirror of our acts reveals us as we truly are, giving a more precise picture of ourselves than we may wish to see. For it will reveal not only our strengths, but also our limitations; it will show not only our inward beauty, but also the defects that mar that beauty. When I look back on my day, with honesty, standing before this mirror of my soul, what do I truly see reflected there? Thoughtfulness and sensitivity? Selfishness? Duplicity and deceit? Laziness? Industriousness? Courage? Courtesy? Foolish pride? Pettiness? Carelessness? The character defects we see need not discourage us. Recognizing one's shortcomings is the essential first step toward seeking a cure.

As we "get ourselves right" we are making the world a better place by at least a little. Personal reflection can also help us become more effective in helping others. Taking time for reflection at day's end can be a useful tool to help us achieve these ends, improving our selves and making a positive impact in our world.

The New Influencers

"A great man does not have only his own mind, but also those of all his friends." ~ Nietzsche

I've begun reading yet another book on the new social media, on blogs and blogging, this one by Paul Gillin called The New Influencers. Gillin begins his introduction with a confession. In a column in 2003 he forecast the death of blogging, stating that it had crested now and was on its way out. Sort of reminds you of the Decca records exec who rejected the Beatles because guitars were on their way out. Or the writer of this blog who in May 1994 declared the World Wide Web would never catch on because it was "too slow." (Netscape didn't exist then, and bandwidth was an issue.)

Today there are nearly a quarter million new MySpace users a day in this cybercity with a population near the size of Mexico, the world's eleventh largest country.

Gillen's book is a marketing book. Or rather, Gillen is trying to help marketers understand the new media.

One thing for sure, the blogosphere has influence. It helped unmask Dan Rather and brought down Trent Lott. But in manifold smaller ways it is creating new communities, and eroding the power of those power brokers who funneled news and information through the networks. It's also creating new rules for businesses who have marketing messages they want to share.

In the old model, and we're all too familiar with this, a message was created and during breaks in the action of what viewers are watching these one-way communications are shoved into your sockets and blasted into your ears. We've all noticed how the volume rises when many commercials hit the screen. Ouch.

In the new model, Gillen says, marketing must become interactive. Consumers want to dialogue about your product, not be "informed" or preached to or told what to do. In the new media, consumers must be respected. Interaction is the highest form of respect. It says, "I am willing to listen to you. What you have to say is important to me because you are important."

Interactivity is not the only benefit of the blogosphere. Depth of content is available here. I remember an incident about twenty-five years ago when I listened to a speech by a newscaster in which she essentially said that if television is your only source of information, you essentially have a very shallow understanding of what is going on. "After you take away time for sports, weather and commercials, we only have eleven minutes to deal with everything that is going on in the world." In short, if you want to be informed you need to read the magazines.

Well, that is how magazines became influential in the first place, they could and did cover stories in greater depth. But now, with the blogosphere, many magazines are finding themselves challenged as info junkies can skim a virtual universe of resources for news that is more personal, more diverse in its interpretations and more relevant. Our local newspaper, the Duluth News Tribune, has been forced into layoffs and is now even cutting journalists as readership drops and the old model of news distribution is challenged by the rising costs of paper and fuel.

At the beginning I cited a Nietzsche quote that is especially relevant in the media. As new communities form, we develop new relationships that help us become more multifaceted in our understanding, and thereby more influential. The more we are enriched by others, the more we can in turn enrich others.

I agree with Andre Gide who wrote, "Those who fear influences and shy away from them are tacitly confessing the poverty of their souls." We do not know where this will all lead, but I believe it will influence us all.

Ars Longa, Vita Brevis

“And so it is… Art is long and life is short, and success is very far off. And thus, doubtful of strength to travel so far, we talk a little about the aim – the aim of art which, like life itself, is inspiring, difficult – obscured by mists.” ~ Joseph Conrad

So many of today’s magazines and books on writing focus on the process of writing, with the subtle message that if your words dazzle and sing you will be a success. Too often, they overlook the fact that a writer needs to have something to say, a message worth printing, a story worth telling. Even when this is so, there is no guarantee of success, for “the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but time and chance happen to them all.”

Nevertheless, we press on. We speak because we are impelled to speak, write because of an inner necessity. And at night, on our beds, we dream dreams.

My story Terrorists Preying, like many of my stories, began as a dream. The dream became the story’s seed, and as I breathed on it the breath of life it grew. Gide once wrote that his best work was produced little by little, rather than in great bursts of energy like Asimov, who sprayed more than 300 books into existence.

They say writers would do best to write about what they know. Sometimes the struggle is in part to identify what we know and don't know. Where does knowledge and knowing come from? And where do you stop once you start asking questions like "Who am I?" and "Why am I here?" And how do you establish your significance as a person? Terrorists Preying is one man’s struggle with these issues, with these kinds of questions.

“The person who appreciates a great work of art has the feeling that the work grows in him as he becomes involved in a prolonged capturing of emerging marginal meanings. He feels that he, too, is creative, that he himself is adding to his experience and understanding. Moreover, he wants to confront the work of art many times. He is not easily tired of it, as he would be had he read a purely logical statement. He realizes that the work of art does not merely transmit information; it produces pleasure.” ~ Silvano Arieti

What you've just read here is from the introduction to my second self published booklet called Potpourri. The first included Lu Lee and the Magic Cat, The Young Messenger and An Introduction to the Story of Samson & Delilah. The second Potpourri was the longer Terrorists Preying.

I love the Arieti quote. It explains why we never tire of the movies, poetry, art or music that we love. On my next Short Story Monday I will share the beginning of Terrorists Preying. I invested a lot of myself into that one.

And in the meantime, carpe diem. Seize the day!

Harry Gold

It’s Monday again already, and our short story hour is upon us. Today’s original short story is actually a crock of plagiarized material, refined and reconfigured for my own storied purposes. It was inspired by a literary incident ten or so years ago involving a novelist whose book turned out to be half plagiarized.

I forget the actual details, my safe haven being a poor memory when it can be used to my advantage. What I recall is that in response I wanted to try to write a story that was 100% plagiarized. My version, however, involves taking sentences from a variety of sources, mixing it into a stew in which there is the appearance of design and intent. Like much abstract or surreal art, or a Rorschach test, the mind synthesizes the details and images to infer meanings that are likewise self-revelatory.

Obviously for continuity’s sake I had to use the same name throughout, so I did alter a couple of the sentences to insert my primary character, Harry Gold. In retrospect I wish I had identified all my source sentences, but alas, I recall these few. A couple lines from Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry. A sentence from something by Gide. A sentence from Eric Hoffer’s True Believer.

Of the making of many books there seems to be no end. Not everything has quality, but there’s plenty of quality out there. And many great sentences. Reading the great writers is somewhat akin to watching a magician. I’m constantly impressed when I read a simple sentence that is constructed in a manner I just never would have thought of myself. It may be vivid or vague, but it carries a latent spark of dormant kinetic energy that is explosive, and sometimes even profound.

Sometimes there is nothing so wonderful as a good sentence.

Harry Gold

The rule of "nothing unessential" is the first condition of great art. --Andre Gide

After dinner Harry Gold reads us the last two chapters of his La Nuit. The next to last especially seems excellent to us, and Gold reads it very well. Being rich is an occupation in itself, particularly for people who arrive at it via parachute in middle life.

We go out for a walk -- William Williams, Gold and myself. Never has it seemed such a long way to the top of this hill. The road with its tossing broken stones stretches on forever into the distance like a life of agony. It is hot as a furnace on the street and we sweat profusely.

I bring up the question of ownership. "Who owns language? Can a man words? Sentences? The turn of a phrase?"

Gold's face becomes agitated, defiant. "It's mine now. No matter what they say, it's mine."

It occurs to me that Williams doesn't like this reply, but there are no others to turn to and we are forced to accept it. Gold feels guilty because his work is heavy with borrowing. Ideas, phrases, sentences, even whole paragraphs have been shamelessly appropriated, pilfered without attribution, plagiarized.

Harry adds, in a low voice, "The will of man is unconquerable. Even God cannot conquer it."

I can not bear to see him like this. To myself I think, Why do you do these things? In human affairs every solution only serves to sharpen the problem, to show us more clearly what we are up against. I consider how sages of the future will describe this historic day.

Things I'd Like to Write About

There just aren't enough hours in a day. Once you get your pump primed, and the flow flowing, there are so many directions you can go. Some of the things flitting across the skydome of my mind that I have been wanting to write about this week, if I had more time, include an exploration of the implications of our celebrity-enthralled culture, the miscellaneous fads that have exploded on the American pop scene over the past fifty years, unshared poems I have extracted from my journals, reflections on my experiences during the 1971 May Day protest in Washington, profiles of various inmates of Puerto Rico's Bayamon prison when I was doing ministry there once a week in 1979, and a few topics I find too controversial to even dare write about. Oh well. We do the best we can.

There are some truths we can't get away from. The more we run from them, the more we run into them.

Quotes from my Notes

"I do not write for a select minority, which means nothing to me, nor for that adulated platonic entity known as "the masses." Both abstractions, so dear to the demagogue, I disbelieve in. I write for myself and for my friends, and I write to ease the passing of time." ~ Jorge Luis Borges

"A man's life is his image. At the hour of death we shall be reflected in the past and, leaning over the mirror of our acts, our souls will recognize what we are. Our whole life is spent sketching an ineradicable portrait of ourselves. The terrible thing is that we don't know this; we do not think of beautifying ourselves. ...We flatter ourselves, but later our terrible portrait will not flatter us. We recount our lives and lie to ourselves, but our life will not lie; it will recount our soul, which will stand before God in its usual posture." ~ Andre Gide, Journals, Jan 3, 1892

"It seemed to Scobie that life was immeasurably long. Couldn't the test of a man have been carried out in fewer years?" ~ Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter

Blue Notebook, Purple Fire

More Journal Notes from my Blue Notebook, July 1990-92

1. Began outlining possible re-telling of story of Samson. Mann wrote 4 volumes on Joseph & His Brothers. Gide wrote Saul. I shall tackle the interplay of forces (soverignty and free will, grace and desire) in the life of this amazing man of God.

Two issues in Samson's life:
1) How his self-determination inter-relates with God's sovereignty and purposes
2) How he develops false confidence in his own autonomy and self-sufficiency

2. Read/finished Gide's Pastoral Symphony last nite. The writing is so fine, so rich, so simple... and the story painted so realistically. Gide is a master. His ideas are so well woven into the fabric of the story... it all fits so nicely together.

An essay on Gide mentions that he paid for the publication of his first 23 books himself, and he sold very few of ANY of them. If nothing else, he learned how to write books.

3. Completed re-write of Terrorists Preying. Need to print, edit, get feedback. It feels good to complete a story I've worked hard on, but my happiness after New Color TV* was short-lived. Maybe it was premature (more re-working needed?) or simply a good feeling because I was "done with it."

Still reading Gide -- about him now... The focus of many is on his life and his message. What about his craftmanship? His ability to re-create realities, to build believable people in believable situations, is superb. I am inspired by this master.

Two other aspects of Gide's appeal for me:
1) He deals with ideas, not simply action. His characters all have depth -- rather, his heroes do, and he masterfully probes this depth via first person viewpoint.
2) He legitimizes 1st person viewpoint, and brings new methods of achieving story effects. Is this not the way we usually hear a good tale? It's told in first person or written this way in a letter or letters. Gide understands story telling.

4. Morning thoughts focus on Samson. He led Israel for 20 years. Virtually nothing is spoken of that portion of his life. Did he ever marry again? Did he do other incredible things? The record is silent. It would seem his years were filled with relationships with friends, family, action... What did he do with those 20 years? Regrets about first marriage? Where did he live? How did he "lead Israel"? What did he do with his time? Let's imagine... He helped people. He was not totally selfish. Was he a people person? Or did he prefer being a loner? Or mixture? What did he think about? Stories of Moses, Joshua, Gideon... He thought about God... He also thought about women. Must have been about 40 when he met Delilah. He'd seen her many times before. If she was married, he didn't pay attention. with her husband gone... or did he see her growing up? Was she a young beauty? Or a more matured woman? The chapter begins with Samson's visit to a prostitute. Is Delilah a loose woman as well?

FOOTNOTE
* The story New Color TV cited above later went on the win the five state 1991 Arrowhead Regional Fiction Competition under its revised title, The Breaking Point.