"Grief is the response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or some living thing that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, grief also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, cultural, spiritual and philosophical dimensions."--Wikipedia
The death of John Lennon broke a lot of hearts. As Baby Boomers came of age, Beatles music accompanied memories for many if not most of us. When the four broke up at the end of the 60s, the music didn't stop. We had the albums and we were also able to latch on to their individual evolving careers. Each took a different path, and none went immediately into hibernation, and many Beatles fans began collecting the solo albums they each produced.
Like the assassination of JFK, most of us knew exactly where we were when we heard the news. I was in Mexico City, standing on the Zocalo, also known as the Plaza de la Constitucion, a large central square where proclamations are made. The Zocalo can purportedly hold up to 100,000 people but on December 9 it seemed like I was the only one there.
Surrounding the plaza are magazine stands with newspapers displayed. As I walked toward the East I was able to read the headlines. In fact, the headline of each paper was so large it filled the entire area above the fold. All carried the same proclamation: LENNON MUERTE.
The book by Keith Elliott Greenberg purports to be about that singular day when Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon. It's actually a retelling of John Lennon's life, but in a format that is probably familiar to you. The story opens at the beginning of December 8, creating a context for the events of that day from commuters on subways to the movies currently playing to the mood of New Yorkers heading into the Christmas season and, naturally, the feelings John & Yoko were experiencing as their newly released Double Fantasy album came out.
And then there's Mark David Chapman.
Here's a summary written by one of the book's reviewers on Amazon.
John and Yoko
In a breathtaking, minute-by-minute format, December 8, 1980: The Day John Lennon Died follows the events leading to the horrible moment when Mark David Chapman calmly fired his Charter Arms .38 Special into the rock icon, realizing his perverse fantasy of attaining perennial notoriety. New York Times bestselling author Keith Elliot Greenberg takes us back to New York City and the world John Lennon woke up to. The day begins with a Rolling Stone photo session that takes on an uncomfortable tone when photographer Annie Leibowitz tries to maneuver Yoko Ono out of the shot. Later Lennon gives the last interview of his life, declaring, "I consider that my work won't be finished until I'm dead and buried and I hope that's a long, long time." We follow the other Beatles, Lennon's family, the shooter, fans, and New York City officials through the day, and as the hours progress, the pace becomes more breathless. Once the fatal shots are fired, the clock continues to tick as Dr. Stephan Lynn walks from the emergency room after declaring the former Beatle dead, Howard Cosell announces the singer's passing on Monday Night Football , and Paul McCartney is lambasted for muttering "Drag, isn't it?" -- his bereavement confused with indifference. The epilogue examines the aftermath of the killing: the considerable moment when 100,000 New Yorkers stood in silence in Central Park, the posthumous reunion of the Beatles in the studio with George, Paul, and Ringo accompanying the recordings of their old friend the unveiling of a bronze John Lennon statue in Fidel Castro's Cuba, and the durable legacy that persists today.
The chief criticism of the book (by those who disliked it) was that they expected more about the day Lennon was killed, but that much of the book was filler with details of John Lennon's life that everyone (they believed) was already aware of. I think these critics are people who have already read everything else about John, so when there was "nothing new" they panned it.
For the rest of us, it's got plenty to like, and when it gets to the shooting itself, the writing does make us breathless as we get a close up view of that horrible night.
The story of James Taylor's experience was brief but tangible. Taylor lived just around the corner from the Dakota where the Lennons lived. He was on the phone talking with a lady friend who was in California when he heard the gunshots. He didn't think much of it since this was New York and police firing guns is not entirely unusual. As they continued talking a news flash crossed the screen and Taylor's friend said, "Someone just shot John Lennon." It was a disturbing revelation and he understood that those were the shots he'd heard.
Earlier this week a friend sent me a link to this interview with James Taylor, who had become friends with John Lennon through his recording experiences with Apple. It's a half hour and you may not have time for all of it, but I found it authentic and worthwhile.
It's been 42 years now. The shooting occurred at a time when Lennon was emerging again. It seemed that things were coming together. But like the proverb says, "Who can tell what a day will bring forth?" It's a reminder to not take our tomorrows for granted.
The Big Apple, from Rockefeller Tower. Photo by Jonathan Riley on Unsplash
The New York Times ran a story this week about the potential disruption that might be caused if large Manhattan firms decide that working in offices is not that important anymore. The link to the full article, titled Manhattan Faces a Reckoning if Working From Home Becomes the Norm, is at the bottom of this page.
When the pandemic full force in March, the first two observable changes were the cancelling of events and the closing of restaurants, bars churches and other places where people congregate. The third change, less visible but widespread, was the emptying of office spaces, getting people set up to work at home. It was amazing how quickly this latter was implemented, and at first it seemed like a temporary adjustment companies were making.
Now that we are two months down the road, Twitter announced that this may be permanent. Facebook, Google and other behemoths have adopted the new work-from-home response as well, the the Times speculates that the impact on Manhattan could become a major problem if after the crisis eases, companies let workers stay home. That would affect an entire ecosystem, from transit to restaurants to shops. Not to mention the tax base.
Only the beginning?
Before the coronavirus crisis, three of New York City’s largest commercial tenants — Barclays, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley — had tens of thousands of workers in towers across Manhattan. Now, as the city wrestles with when and how to reopen, executives at all three firms have decided that it is highly unlikely that all their workers will ever return to those buildings.
The research firm Nielsen has arrived at a similar conclusion. Even after the crisis has passed, its 3,000 workers in the city will no longer need to be in the office full-time and can instead work from home most of the week.
But now, as the pandemic eases its grip, companies are considering not just how to safely bring back employees, but whether all of them need to come back at all. They were forced by the crisis to figure out how to function productively with workers operating from home — and realized unexpectedly that it was not all bad.
If that’s the case, they are now wondering whether it’s worth continuing to spend as much money on Manhattan’s exorbitant commercial rents.
The the article states that "the number of workers who actually prefer to be in an office because of the opportunity for social interaction is an unknown factor."
The story notes that "Barclays, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley are part of a banking industry that has long been a pillar of the city’s economy, with more than 20,000 employees. Collectively, they lease more than 10 million square feet in New York," which is roughly equivalent to all the office space in downtown Nashville.
How much money does New York City collect in real estate taxes? What happens if real estate values decline as companies abandon this skyscraper way of life?
* * * *
Duluth is hardly a big city, but there are repercussions here as well. Yesterday I was walking on Superior Street downtown and couldn't help but notice the number of signs seeking to sell or lease office space and storefronts "down on Main Street." (Yes, the song entered my head, triggered by what I was seeing.)
Real estate has always seemed like a safe bet for people with money because historically it increases in value. But what if the shift to cocooning hits our own downtown office spaces? What are our current occupancy rates for office space in Duluth? What will they be two years from now?
The bigger variable in Duluth is the reliance on tourism revenue. If you are in a tourist town and tourism comes to a halt due to a global pandemic, then what? Duluth relies on a tourism tax to generate revenue to keep the city operational. That's a 12 million dollar influx of cash from outsiders. That's only the taxes. Think of the millions of dollars lost by businesses dependent on that influx of tourists?
Shelter-in-place means Canal Park hotels and motels have empty parking lots and empty rooms. I believe the Radisson was celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. What happens when you throw a party but no one can come?
In a lighter vein... is there anyone with Photoshop skills who can
place PPE masks on all the faces in this photo for me? I'd love to share it
next week during our Virtual Dylan Fest. I will, of course, give you credit.
This past week Amazon pulled the plug on their planned creation of a second HQ in New York at Long Island City, Queens. Activists considered it a major achievement to have derailed the planned move, which would have generated 25,000 jobs with salaries on average of $150,000 per year.
Depending on what media outlet you choose, New Yorkers lost or won by kicking Amazon out. The anti-Amazon sentiment seemed misguided to me, though. Yes, they were going to get 3 billion dollars in incentives to build a headquarters there and not have to pay taxes. But if you have 25,000 jobs at $!50,000 a year average, this alone is nearly four billion dollars in taxable income, plus when these Amazon employees spend their money in New York stores and restaurants, all that money is taxed as well. It's not like the Big Apple is getting nothing.
The upshot is that Amazon will now invest their resources in the Crystal City section of Arlington, Virginia. (Or split their investments in two cities, with Nashville being another candidate.) "If people even bother to compare the skylines, street life and family and neighborhood stability of Long Island City in Queens, NY, and the Crystal City section of Arlington, VA, in the year 2039, they will be appalled by the poverty of the former and the prosperity of the latter."--New York Shoots Itself In The (Amazon) Headquarters, Seeking Alpha
According to a Washington Post story, "Opponents, including freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), protested that the influx of Amazon employees, to be paid an average salary of at least $150,000 a year, would cause housing costs to skyrocket, drive out low-income residents and worsen congestion on the subway and streets."
OK, this housing cost issue may be real and is the heart of the anti-gentrification movement, but what I want to know is why a solution to this issue can't be found. Why is it an either/or issue? Why can't there be job creation AND low income housing?
"New York City mayor Bill de Blasio and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were among those who hounded Amazon out of a development where the average worker was to be receiving a salary of at least $150,000, according to the Washington Post."
Instead of this being a loss of 25,000 jobs for New York, Time Magazine is spinning it as a black eye for Amazon. "It is a clear loss for Amazon and a wake-up call for all tech companies."
What is the wake up call? That tech companies, if they want to grow, should export jobs to China and Japan? "We don't want jobs," hardly seems like a visionary approach to the future.
What's intriguing is how many big cities have forked over a billion dollars to build stadiums for the NFL franchises, none of which will generate even close to 25,000 jobs that average $150,000 a year.
When you read the articles that spin this as a victory for New York, you soon realize that the actual enemy is capitalism. Successful companies should be penalized is the ethos here. On the other hand, logic says that if you have more jobs, then wages will rise as companies compete for good employees, right? If you reduce the number of jobs, then unemployed people will be willing to work for less because a modest income is better than nothing, right?
The comical aspect of all this is that Time's story states that the people of New York do not want this, whereas the Washington Post article stated that 70% of New Yorkers did want this. Unfortunately, a militant vocal minority got in the way.
The deal was already signed in 2018, but before the ink was dry a surge of activist groups got riled and used their animosity to produce a change of heart in the world's largest retailer. The Wall Street Journal explained it like this: After getting mauled by a mob of unions and politicians, Amazon on Thursday cancelled plans to build a second headquarters in New York City. It’s a testament to New York’s toxic business environment that even $3 billion in subsidies wasn’t enough to keep the company in town.
According to a Bloomberg article, Governor Cuomo "predicted that Amazon would hire 40,000 workers within 25 years and that the city would reap as much as $27.5 billion in tax revenue—a great return on a $3 billion enticement. They had won the game, 'doing what mayors and governors have done for time immemorial, which is to get companies to locate in their region,' says Margaret O’Mara, a professor at the University of Washington who has studied the history of Silicon Valley and other technology hubs."--How Amazon Lost New York, Bloomberg
Stephanie Denning, writing for Forbes, reiterates these estimates, expressing it this way: "From a purely economic point of view, Amazon was expected to generate $27.5 billion in tax revenue over a 25-year period, 9x the $3 billion government incentives offered. Anyone arguing that $3 billion was an overly excessive offer accidentally chased out $24.5 billion from the city. And that is just the first-order effect." --Why Amazon's Decision To Pull Out Of NYC Is A Loss
The Dems who pulled off the rout will now work overtime to spin it as a positive for New York. Their fans will swallow this line, but the truth will out. Fifteen years from now it will become apparent that Arlington was the beneficiary of New York's foolishness.
Yes, it's the Beacon. Photo courtesy Nelson French.
Nelson French, Duluth Armory board member whose brother lives in the Hibbing home Robert Zimmerman grew up in, sent me a number of photos last week of the Beacon Theater where Bob Dylan performed in November.
For those unfamiliar with the layout of the city that never sleeps, The Beacon is a historic theater on Manhattan's Upper West Side at West 74th and Broadway. It's a handful of blocks from the Museum of Natural History to the Northeast and the Dakota, where John & Yoko lived, to the Southeast.
Entering the Beacon. Courtesy Nelson French.
The Beacon has nearly 3,000 seats, opening as a movie house in 1929, the earliest days of the Talkies. The Marx Brothers's Cocoanutes and Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail, his first film with sound, were released that year. Today the theater is a live entertainment venue owned by the Madison Square Garden Company.
Not the grandeur of The Beacon or The Roxy.
For Ritz in Hibbing you head over to the high school.
Reading about the Beacon brought to mind how Bob Dylan's early life was undoubtedly touched by the movies. When the Zimmerman's moved from Hibbing to Duluth in 1947 his uncles--Max, Julius and Sam Edelstein-- built the Lybba theater at 2135 1st Avenue. The theater, incidentally, was named after Bob's grandmother Lybba Edelstein. The theater closed in 1982 and has since become the Sunrise Deli.*
Growing up going to the Lybba may have in part been behind Dylan's surprise move to purchase the Orpheum in Minneapolis in 1979. Dylan would have been nine when The Gunfighter came out starring Gregory Peck, one of my own favorite old-time Westerns. Gregory Peck appears years later in the Dylan song "Brownsville Girl" on his album Knocked Out Loaded.
Well, there was this movie I seen one time About a man riding 'cross the desert and it starred Gregory Peck He was shot down by a hungry kid trying to make a name for himself...
Peck played the role of Johnny Ringo, a gunfighter who was tired of being on the run, never able to settle down because every kid show-off wanted to make a name for himself... Alas. Dylan was more likely to have seen this at the Lybba than years later on Saturday Night at the Movies on television. He very likely saw Moby Dick there as well, another Gregory Peck feature film, when he was 15, a novel itself would later be cited in his controversial Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
* * * *
Inside the Beacon. Courtesy Nelson French.
Inside the Beacon. Courtesy Bev Martin.
* * * *
The 1977 termination of Dylan's marriage to Sara may have contributed to his returning to Minnesota for a season. His interest in the power of theater birthed in him a desire to purchase the Orpheum which was itself birthed in 1921 on Hennepin Avenue, the main drag in Minneapolis.
I can't say how much time Dylan spent in Minnesota at that time, but I know he had a place on the Crow River west of Minneapolis next door to his brother David. On one occasion a friend of mine at that time had a dentist appointment and was in the waiting area a while. When he went in, he saw Dylan getting his teeth worked on in one of the other rooms there. Proof once again that all these stars we admire are just as human as we are.
* * * *
A Brief History of the Edelstein Family and Hibbing Theaters By David Edelstein* The story begins around 1922. My grandfather Julius was a poster hanger at the Victory Theater that was on First Avenue about three blocks from the Homer Theater.
The Homer Theater was next to the Homer bar. Today the Homer Bar is still open and there is a building next door with an awning — it may have been the theater but my Dad isn’t sure — it may have been in the empty lot to the left.
My grandfather Julius and his first cousin Louis Deutsch worked at the Garden Theater until about 1929. At that point talking movies came out and the Garden closed due to the cost of sound conversion. They had amateur night at the Garden and Frances Gumm (Judy Garland from Grand Rapids) and her sister came over and performed in 1927. Louis Deutsch moved to Virginia and owned the Granada. The Homer and State Theaters were owned by MACO (Minnesota Amusement Company — part of Paramount Publix, I believe, until the divestiture mandated by a Supreme Court case). In about 1936 Julius and his brother Max decided to reopen the Victory. Around 1939 MACO offered Max and Julius the job of running the Homer and they closed the Victory.
The Garden was converted to the Gopher around that time and they also ran the Homer. There were other people running the State Theater at that time. Ticket prices at the Homer were 15 cents, Gopher 30 cents and State 40 cents.
Max Edelstein also ran one of the Chisholm theaters with Bob Berquist and may have been a part owner.
In 1948 the famous Paramount case was decided by the Supreme Court and the studios had to divest themselves of the theaters they owned. Around this time the Lybba opened, it was originally built in cooperation with MACO, but they weren’t playing fair, so the family split the Lybba off from them. The State and MACO were bought by our families in 1964.
Things are looking up. Inside the Beacon. Photo courtesy Nelson French.
As for other places to watch movies, Nelson French sent these additional remarks: "I don’t know who originally built the Hibbing Drive-in, but the family bought it from Stan McCullough about 1967.
Mann Theater Corp. from Minneapolis bought the State, Lybba, MACO and Granada theaters around 1978. We held onto the Hibbing Drive-in until 1980 and I think it was torn down in 1985."
Ah, but those were the days.
* * * *
* David Edelstein was son of Mel Edelstein, who owned and managed the State and Lybba Theaters, and later went on to manage the Orpheum in Minneapolis for Dylan and his brother David.
Here's one more beautiful theater where Dylan has played, the Cadillac Palace in Chicago. This one was built in the Roaring Twenties, and it looks like a jewel.
Photo here is of Dylan at Newport two years later. Not an
attempt to suggest that this was Gerde's.
I once posted a short list of things I learned in college, one of which was learning to play the harmonica. Early in my first semester at Ohio U a bunch of guys were sitting or lying around talking, getting acquainted by sharing stories, interests, and whatever else guys talk about. One fellow happened to be a guitar player, and as it later turned out he had a brother in Cincinnati who played harmonica. He suggested it would be easy to pick up and encouraged me with the admonition, "Chicks really dig harmonica."
Whether this be true or not, I will never know. What I do know is that people always seem to enjoy harmonica. It's like an accent that adds flavor to any piece of music being played.
After becoming as familiar with harp as I was able on my own, the next piece of advice was this: "Go listen to John Lee Hooker and learn some riffs."
On this day in history, April 11, 1961, Bob Dylan got his first major gig in New York City, as opening act for John Lee Hooker at Gerde's Folk City. Whether Gerde's made Dylan famous, or vice versa, I can't say. The moment seems to have been mutually beneficial.
Three Dylan tunes come to mind when I read about this period in Dylan's life and career. The first mournfully begins, "I was young when I left home // and I been out a-ramblin' round // but I never wrote letter to my home..."
The second, one of the two songs he wrote and recorded on his first album, was titled Talkin' New York, which gives a hilarious glimpse at Dylan's blending of observation and pointed humor. Notice, especially, all the ups and downs in the song.
Talkin’ New York
Ramblin’ outa the wild West Leavin’ the towns I love the best Thought I’d seen some ups and downs ’Til I come into New York town People goin’ down to the ground Buildings goin’ up to the sky Wintertime in New York town The wind blowin’ snow around Walk around with nowhere to go Somebody could freeze right to the bone I froze right to the bone New York Times said it was the coldest winter in seventeen years I didn’t feel so cold then I swung onto my old guitar Grabbed hold of a subway car And after a rocking, reeling, rolling ride I landed up on the downtown side Greenwich Village I walked down there and ended up In one of them coffee-houses on the block Got on the stage to sing and play Man there said, “Come back some other day You sound like a hillbilly We want folk singers here” Well, I got a harmonica job, begun to play Blowin’ my lungs out for a dollar a day I blowed inside out and upside down The man there said he loved m’ sound He was ravin’ about how he loved m’ sound Dollar a day’s worth And after weeks and weeks of hangin’ around I finally got a job in New York town In a bigger place, bigger money too Even joined the union and paid m’ dues Now, a very great man once said That some people rob you with a fountain pen It didn’t take too long to find out Just what he was talkin’ about A lot of people don’t have much food on their table But they got a lot of forks ’n’ knives And they gotta cut somethin’ So one mornin’ when the sun was warm I rambled out of New York town Pulled my cap down over my eyes And headed out for the western skies So long, New York Howdy, East Orange
* * * *
A third song about his journey to the East was called Hard Times in New York Town, which no doubt circulated in bootleg collections and was later released on Bootleg Series #9: The Witmark Demos, displaying his familiarity with the Big Apple, as well as the creativity and earnestness of a very young Dylan. There's a live version, also, on Rare & Unreleased.
What I get a kick out of, besides the storytelling, is how the rhythm of the lyrics fits so neatly into Flatt & Scruggs' Beverly Hillbillies theme song from the TV show, 1962-1971
Hard Times In New York Town
Come you ladies and you gentlemen, a-listen to my song Sing it to you right, but you might think it’s wrong Just a little glimpse of a story I’ll tell ’Bout an East Coast city that you all know well It’s hard times in the city Livin’ down in New York town Old New York City is a friendly old town From Washington Heights to Harlem on down There’s a-mighty many people all millin’ all around They’ll kick you when you’re up and knock you when you’re down It’s hard times in the city Livin’ down in New York town It’s a mighty long ways from the Golden Gate To Rockefeller Plaza ’n’ the Empire State. Mister Rockefeller sets up as high as a bird Old Mister Empire never says a word It’s hard times from the country Livin’ down in New York town Well, it’s up in the mornin’ tryin’ to find a job of work Stand in one place till your feet begin to hurt If you got a lot o’ money you can make yourself merry If you only got a nickel, it’s the Staten Island Ferry And it’s hard times in the city Livin’ down in New York town Mister Hudson come a-sailin’ down the stream And old Mister Minuet paid for his dream Bought your city on a one-way track ’F I had my way I’d sell it right back And it’s hard times in the city Livin’ down in New York town I’ll take all the smog in Cal-i-for-ne-ay ’N’ every bit of dust in the Oklahoma plains ’N’ the dirt in the caves of the Rocky Mountain mines It’s all much cleaner than the New York kind And it’s hard times in the city Livin’ down in New York town So all you newsy people, spread the news around You c’n listen to m’ story, listen to m’ song You c’n step on my name, you c’n try ’n’ get me beat When I leave New York, I’ll be standin’ on my feet And it’s hard times in the city Livin’ down in New York town
What is it that gives a bowl its usefulness? It's the vacant space where there is no bowl, no substance. That's where you pour the cereal or the milk, or whatever.
What makes the wheel useful? The vacant space where the axle goes through.
A room is essentially a vacant area within a building. Imagine a doll house that was a solid block of wood with no spaces within the exterior walls. Kind of a strange picture, but you can probably grasp it. The vacant spaces enable a child to put doll furniture in place, and re-enact imaginary scenes.
I recently spent a day in New York City. What a bundle of energy! I have to believe that to survive in such a place one needs to create voids, spaces to close oneself off from all that frenzy of human interaction.
In the business world we've become increasingly aware that computers and technology are not lightening our workload to give us more time. Instead, we have more connections, more emails, voice mails, tisks and tasks and tusks twisting our time into a torrent of energy-draining output.
In order to survive, we need to create voids, little spaces where we can hibernate, even briefly, to recharge our emotional batteries. Let's not be deceived into thinking that doing more and more is the way to accomplish more. The truth is sometimes counterintuitive. By doing less we may accomplish more because we are not just busy, but busy doing the right things.
Make sure you carve some space for yourself today. You'll be a better person for it, and will likely enjoy a longer, fuller life. Featured eBook of the Day: The Breaking Point and Other Stories
This blog entry has been recycled from March 2008.
“Let us consider two important factors, the two poles of the creation of art: the artist on the one hand, and on the other the spectator who later becomes posterity.” ~Marcel Duchamp
In 1957 Marcel Duchamp gave a speech at the meeting of the American Federation of the Arts. The roundtable consisted of several other notables from Princeton and elsewhere. Duchamp referred to himself as a “mere artist.”
Whereas today there is a kind of leveling going on where we find voices exclaiming that every artist’s work is important and significant, DuChamp came down heavy on the other side.
“Millions of artists create; only a few thousands are discussed or accepted by the spectator and many less again are consecrated by posterity," He said.
“In the last analysis, the artist may shout from all the rooftops that he is a genius; he will have to wait for the verdict of the spectator in order that his declarations take a social value and that, finally, posterity includes him in the primers of Art History.”
Duchamp concludes, after refining and defining the “art coefficient,” that the creative act is not performed by the artist alone, but rather that the spectator brings the work into a new place in the world by “deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.” Ultimately, posterity itself gives a final verdict “and sometimes rehabilitates forgotten artists.”
It's now more than fifty years later, and the verdict regarding Duchamp is unchanged. His "significance" according to art historians, is paramount. How did this happen? Like many things in life, it's partly who you know, partly where you go. Hence, actors and actresses flock to Broadway and Hollywood. As Sinatra sang, of New York, "If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere."
This is why pure conceptual art must be mediated in order to win over what might be an otherwise confused public. Art critics help explain what the work means, why it is important to the person creating the piece and why it was important enough for this gallery to house it. Art journalism helps broaden the reach of an artist as well. Art magazines, and now online artist communities, help explain the foundational ideas that support the artist's work and put that work into its larger historical context.
Every creative act, birthed as it is within a context, has significance. But not every creative expression is created equal. The picture of a robin scribbled in a fourth grade elementary school art class may show excitement and even a measure of giftedness in the youthful student, but it cannot possibly be said to have the same importance as Gaugin's "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?" The mother of that student may disagree, but Duchamp stands on the other side in this matter.
In the meantime, if you get a chance, tomorrow evening there's an art opening at Ochre Ghost, Irresistible Sorcery: new work by Jessica Liszewski, 6 p.m. till ten. Hope to see you there.
“Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.” ~Ludwig Mies van derRohe I was eight years old when I first pondered the meaning of the homes we lived in. I was swinging on a swing set in the playground behind Stafford Elementary School in Maple Heights, Ohio. My inquiring mind had made the observation that most of the animals in the natural world lived in holes in the ground or in trees or places where they could hide, blend in and not be seen. People, on the other hand, at least the ones in my neighborhood, lived in houses painted white or bright colors and very much out in the open. As I wondered about this, it seemed to me that the animals lived in fear and thus had to be wary, whereas the people here were not afraid. They lived in houses right out in the open. It was a very interesting sequence of thoughts.
Thus did I first reflect on how the spaces we occupy reflect the character of those who occupy these spaces.
In my recent readings a statement was made in passing as regards the building of the skyscrapers in New York City and how some people took offense because they dwarfed the cathedrals which were once dominant in the skyline there. There was a time when the cathedrals were the ultimate structures in every town in the Christianized world. The meaning of this depends on who interprets, of course. For some it is a clear example of exploitation in the name of religion. For others, these are monuments to the most vital component of the culture.
But in modern times this all changed. In the 20th century, as a result of advances in technology and building materials, skyscrapers emerged. Interesting term. Buildings that scraped the sky.
Not everyone thought this wonderful. Henry James thought of skyscrapers as “soulless commercial tributes to America at its worst, utterly inhuman in scale, objects that bullied rather than adorned their surroundings.” The central character in James Baldwin’s In Another Country compared the skyscrapers of New York to phalluses or spears.
Whatever the interpretation, New York’s churches and cathedrals were dwarfed by these vertical outcroppings of glass, stone and steel. It’s quickly evident that the former pre-eminence of the church has been symbolically replaced by the pre-eminence of the mighty engine of Capitalism.
I think also of Las Vegas and the extreme decadence of the Strip. The Bellagio, Venetian, Wynns. One billion, then two billion dollar casinos, built by the generous contributions of willing dupes throwing it all away for a moment of pleasure and distraction. These extravagant monuments also say something about us.
What this says about the pervasiveness of shantytowns throughout the world I’m not quite sure. Do our monuments to progress help people forget their plight, or only serve to mock them?
“The sole difference between me and a madman is the fact that I am not mad!” ~Salvador Dali
Without doubt he was talented. And an individualist with enormous ego. Said Dali, “At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.”
Was Dali’s bizarre style a put-on to increase his marketability or was he simply a madman whose talents brought him critical acclaim, despite his ludicrous behavior?
According to the Masterpiece Paintings Gallery website, "Dali's ego and need for attention were never satisfied. His thirst for scandal was unquenchable. And 'the thought of not being recognized was unbearable', he said. He used to walk through the streets of New York ringing a bell whenever he felt people were not paying him enough attention. 'Every morning when I wake up I experience an exquisite joy -- the joy of being Salvador Dali -- and I ask myself in rapture what wonderful things this Salvador Dali is going to accomplish today.'”
As an art student I found Salvador Dali’s sensational work remarkably invigorating and inspirational. Inspirational on two levels… first, his extreme attention to detail and the skill of his painterliness, and second, for the evocative quality of his imagery.
Steve Martin, in his autobiography Born Standing Up, in passing mentions an incident during a visit to the Museum of Modern Art in New York whereupon he comes across Dali's Persistence of Memory. Martin was quite surprised at how small it was. Like Martin, the first piece I saw in person was this famous painting of melting clocks. At the time, Picasso’s stunning Guernica was on the wall just before I reached Dali’s piece. Guernica is enormous, and impressive. Just around the corner Dali’s Persistence of Memory was, in contrast, a tiny little thing, yet astonishing in its detail. When you look at plates of paintings in art books, both paintings might take a page of the book, and your mind just doesn’t quite grasp the reality.
My second Dali was the shocking/fascinatingSoft Construction with Boiled Beans - Premonition of Civil War which hangs in a private collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This is a wonderful museum, with the Dali piece accompanied by some of Marcel Duchamp’s most significant works, a great place to hang out if you are a masterpiece.
But if you seriously want to take in more than a piece or two, I strongly recommend you visitthe Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida which is wholly dedicated to this icon of Twentieth Century Surrealism.
While visiting the Dali Museum two springs ago, a tour guide told us a story about small sculpture composed of a lobster sitting on an old fashioned telephone rack. Dali, while dining, threw the lobster over his shoulder and it landed on the phone after knocking the handheld part off the receiver. He loved the look and made it “art.” Crazy or creative?
But the story that sealed my impression that he was a bit mad was when the tour guide said he went through a brief period in which he refused to say any two sentences in a row in the same language. So he would say something in Spanish, then French, then English, then Spanish, etc. This went on for days, maybe weeks. You can imagine the conversations that followed… or didn't.
If you've never been and you're anywhere near Tampa/St. Petersburg, you owe it to yourself to visit the Dali Museum. In contrast to Persistence, you will see fifteen foot high paintings like the Hallucinogenic Torredor, along with many rooms of other major works. The Torreador alone is worth the visit.
Although among the Surrealist Movement's brightest lights in the 1930's he was eschewed by these famous artists who composed the Dada Movement because Dali was a capitalist and they were socialists. As it turns out Dali mastered the art of making money, which contributed to his legacy. On the flip side, his mass production of prints of his work resulted in scandals that in some circles has damaged his name. It may be because his definitions of truth and ethics are as ambiguous as his motivations.
Here is a YouTube film that reveals the character of Dali's mind: self absorbed and over stimulated.
One of the things that set Dylan apart when he emerged on the scene was his grittiness. At a time when the airwaves were alive with sweet little love ditties and cheery faced folk singers, Dylan approached subjects too nakedly and unsettling. This line, "Hey, do you want to make a deal," from Like a Rolling Stone has a context. It's cold. Like the scene in Ironweed where Streep, reduced to being a street tramp, has to produce a sexual favor to get a needed place to sleep out of the cold... in an abandoned car. It'ugly, but it is an indignity experienced by women on a near daily basis in this world.
Film noir was a style of Hollywood film in the 40's and 50's that sought to expose and exploit that dark side of life. Themes were ambiguous, often not pretty, and occasionally considered scandalous. I just finished watching Port of New York, a movie about smuggling drugs into the Big Apple. Yul Brynner stars as the lead bad guy, the top of the food chain. Ever smooth, careful, calculating and ruthless. He's even got hair.
An old fashioned black and white, the film opens with a narrative along the lines of the Dragnet television show, something akin to "This is the city." The narrator has that serious deadpan, no funny business approach, implying a serious topic is being discussed. In this instance, narcotics being smuggled into New York through its ports. It's a good B-movie for entertainment value, but what a contrast to films on this same theme to films of a more recent vintage. All good guys and bad guys are in suits and ties. You never see anything related to the effects of the drugs themselves. When the final sting occurs, what a small quantity of dope to be getting in such a lather about. The entire shipment was in a satchel.
French Connection with Gene Hackman broke new ground for earthiness and realism. Same theme, intensely different.
But today's drug trade films really bump it up. American Gangster with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe shows the whole drug scene with such vividness it blinds. Blow, with Johnny Depp, likewise shows a full panorama and puts the drug world into a perspective. Yes, there is glamour for some but at great expense in human suffering. Customers of the drug dealers are harrowingly desperate. One must have a cold ruthlessness in the heart to be a player in that game.
Which leads us to Anton Chigurh, the ultimate personification of evil, and relentless pursuer in No Country For Old Men. A brute? Not quite the right word. Disturbing? Definitely. He is a by-product of the times and someone you don't want to mess with. I've encountered his kind a few times, people with no conscious, dangerous and unpredictable. You meet these people when you're somewhere you don't belong. And they are out there.
For a "dark" movie, Port of New York was pretty clean and easy, a short, tight little package of 82 minutes. Like Scorcese'sThe Departed, the plot involves placing a cop in the inner circle of the gang that controls the ports. It's hard to get too emotionally entangled in the film because it is more about plot than character, unlike Gangster where you actually feel empathic toward both Crowe and Washington because you understand their motivations, understand where they were each coming from.
What's your favorite in the oldie from Hollywood's film noir school? Double Indemnity is a classic that still holds. I had a friend who liked D.O.A. What about you?
About three years ago I wrote an article about synthetic motor oil designed to answer the question, "Are synthetic motor oils too expensive?" In the article I started by comparing the price of bottled water, which does not require a great deal of complex chemistry, to the process of making synthetic motor oils, which involves a variety of raw materials -- from base stocks to additive packages -- and a host of complex formulation issues.
So when the press release regarding an upcoming PR campaign against bottled water slid into my inbox yesterday, it caught my eye. At first blush, I wondered if I were seeing the front end of another Alar scare. But upon checking into it, there were some interesting and thought provoking facts brought up. I decided to pass this along and see what others think.
The campaign is called "Lying in Advertising." Being an ad man myself, campaigns need a theme, and this one does catch your attention. The headlines in the ads are all lies. For example, the first ad exclaims, "Bottled Water Makes Acid Rain Fall on Playgrounds." I'm like, "Huh?" How does bottled water cause acid rain. The next says, "Bottled Water is the Primary Cause of Restless Leg Syndrome." I guess I never knew that, but I never heard of RLS either.
The third, again over-the-top, announces that "Bottled Water Causes Blindness in Puppies." What! Kids, do NOT put our bottled water in the puppy dish, please. Finally, in a page from the global warming playbook, "Bottled Water: 98% Melted Ice Caps. 2% Polar Bear Tears."
Well, I bit, just like most readers who see these ads will probably bite. Because each headline has an asterisk. The askerisk leads to some fine print which says, *if bottled water companies can lie, we can too. Followed by links to two websites:tappening.com andstartalie.com
The first is a blog about the project. The latter is a game, obviously intended to be fun, but not a lot of fun if you are marketing manager for a bottled water company.
Very clever. So who are these people and what's their motivation?
Evidently Tappening was founded by two guys whose aim is to encourage the public to drink tap water whenever possible, thereby sending a message to the bottled water industry about its unnecessary and extreme waste of fossil fuels and resultant pollution of the Earth.
Mark DiMassimo and Eric Yaverbaum are New York PR guys. DiMassimo says, "We’ve spent these two years using our marketing and public relations abilities to un-sell bottled water hype. But I still see cascading waterfalls on labels that do not list the source of that water.”
Yaverbaum adds, “This creates an illusion that it is superior to tap water, because that’s what billions of dollars of bottled water advertising has claimed or implied. The thing is, that's simply not true."
For the record, I am not a bottled water guy myself, though not for environmental reasons. I am essentially a cheapskate. (Frugal is the nicer way to say it.) Thus I have had a lot of non-bottled water over the course of a half century, and frankly, some tap water tastes pretty bad. My experience is, however, that if you have ice on hand even the worst water is palatable. I'm fortunate in that the well at our rural home produces wonderful water. (Except every fourth year for about two weeks during the spring rains at which time the flavor takes on a hint of hydrogen sulphide, famously associated with the smell of rotten eggs.)
DiMassimo and Yaverbaum are sinking $535,000 into this campaign which will include what they call "wild postings" in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and Las Vegas. By means of Twitter, TappeningFacebook and MySpace groups, and Friendfeed they expect more than 100,000 of their viral ads to fly around the Internet within 24 hours of release.
While we're on the subject of bottled water, did you know that there is magnetically energized water from a spring in Japan’s Magnetic Mountain that purportedly makes you resistant to disease and gives you longer life. At $99.95 per milliliter, or $10,000 a liter, you won’t want to spill a drop. That's no lie. (Not the part about healing, but the latter part, about not wanting to spill a drop at 10K per liter.)
Well, I hope I've given you something to drink about... I mean, think about. What do you drink? I mean, think. Am I all wet?
Sunday's Parade magazine featured the What People Earn story, which has become an annual event. The contrasts of megastar salaries with working class salaries is always bound to stimulate discussion by the office water cooler.
This year Jennifer Aniston is front and center, a 40 year old actress pulling down a cool 27 million. The smiling face of baseball player Alex Rodriguez is on the upper right of the front page, his 34 million dollar income displayed below. By way of contrast, sports blogger Josh Bacott to his left is making $10,700.
Barbie, the doll from Malibu who turned fifty this year, is pictured here as well. $3.3 billion. And by way of contrast, Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York, has an interesting expression on his face, with his one dollar salary listed for this assignment which carries fairly hefty responsibilities I would guess.
Others listed inside include Guv Sarah Palin at $125,000 along with rapper Jay-Z at $82 million. But there are a lot of ordinary folks here, too. A library director, a truck driver, website manager, probation officer, carpenter, sales rep, tugboat captain... there's a whole range of occupations listed here. I guess we value our celebrities and sports stars 'cause we sure pay them a lot.
According to the article, weekly income rose 2.5% in 2008, and personal savings increased as well. But in another place, one finds less thrilling stats. Unemployment for high school dropouts is over 12% and even college grads are seeing layoffs. This undoubtedly accounts for the shift in attitudes among many for the time being. According to an employment consultant quoted in the article, people are more concerned about job security than they are about job excitement at this time.
Personally, I can't tell whether these kinds of articles help us or hurt us. I can imagine that for some, these salary comparisons only stir up envy and jealousy. They don't show the sacrifices many of these people made to achieve what they've got. Though on the other hand, in many instances the rest of the story has not yet been told. Most of the images are of smiling faces, but we can't always see what's behind the smiles. In the end, we do get an interesting picture of what has value in our culture today.
What is it that gives a bowl its usefulness? It's the vacant space where there is no bowl, no substance. That's where you pour the cereal or the milk, or whatever.
What makes the wheel useful? The vacant space where the axle goes through.
A room is essentially a vacant area within a building. Imagine a doll house that was a solid block of wood with no spaces within the exterior walls. Kind of a strange picture, but you can probably grasp it. The vacant spaces enable a child to put doll furniture in place, and re-enact imaginary scenes.
Yeserday I spent the day in New York City. What a bundle of energy! I have to believe that to survive in such a place one needs to create voids, spaces to close oneself off from all that frenzy of human interaction.
In the business world it seems that computers and all this technology are not alleviating us from work to give us more time. Instead, we have more connections, more emails, voice mails, tisks and tasks and tusks twisting our time into a torrent of energy raining output.
In order to survive, we need to create voids, little spaces where we can hibernate, even briefly, to recharge our emotional batteries. Let's not be deceived into thinking that doing more and more is the way to accomplish more. The truth is sometimes counterintuitive. By doing less we may accomplish more because we are not just busy, but busy doing the right things.
Make sure you carve some space for yourself today. You'll be a better person for it, and will likely enjoy a longer, fuller life.
Which leads us to Anton 
