Soldier's Home

In Our Time was Ernest Hemingway’s first published American book, a collection of short stories written with the force of a boxer’s fist against the side of the head. Reading this book in the late 1970’s was a life changing experience for me because of the power of Hemingway’s prose.

Many of the stories feature Nick Adams and draw upon Hemingway’s experiences during a time of great transformation and shifting values in our early twentieth century. Other stories in this collection capture the emotional disruption caused by World War I. In various ways the stories take us into deep and painful places, showing the impact of the war on what was later dubbed The Lost Generation, a label popularized by Hemingway himself. The first world war was a coming of age experience for America.

The story "Soldier’s Home," with amazingly simple prose, conveys the complex emotions of a soldier returning to his hometown after serving in the war. It is a story of a young man named Krebs who is unable to adjust to the banality of ordinary life after having gone through extraordinary experiences overseas. Hemingway doesn’t dwell on what Krebs went through. We only know that he is changed.

Everything is written with a flat matter-of-factness. "Krebs went to the war from a Methodist college in Kansas." He came back in 1919 after most of the other war heroes had come home and been celebrated. He received no accolades and no one was interested in hearing war stories any more. So the only way to get people to listen was to lie, which he did twice and hated, so he stopped talking about it.

The story goes along with Krebs sleeping in, lying around the house, a hero only to his sisters and mother. Krebs watches the local girls but does not interact. Nothing has changed in the town since he left, but the girls have grown up and things have become more complicated. He has neither the energy or the courage to try to play the game. This is a theme that will extend throughout Hemingway's writing, the manner in which women can make things complicated.

The story moves to an incident a month after he has returned in which his mother says that his parents agreed he could drive the car. It is written with subtle deftness. We are witnessing a painful period in this family's life. Krebs is in such a different place that it is impossible for him to ever convey this to his parents. Moreover, how could he hope to explain himself when he is as yet so unknown even to himself?

His mother's life is ordered by a simple faith, but her religious platitudes reverberate with striking hollowness in the presence of Krebs' internal fatigue and monotony. She believes that if he just kneels and prays with her everything will be better. Like his two lies about the war he lies to his mother in order to get her off his back. In the end he understands he must leave home and go to Kansas City and get a job.

Without ever saying it, the great stories often speak as metaphors for something more. In this case "Soldier's Home" -- and the entirety of In Our Time -- speaks of the disruptive changes that were occurring as a result of both the war and America's transition into the modern era. This tightly composed story forces you to feel its impact on relationships... between men and women, fathers and sons, disillusionment and faith, and the excessive weight of modern life.

The story tells much by focusing on a single turning point in one young man's life, the essence of story. Hemingway proved himself a master of the craft.

Ten Minutes with Painter Juan Farias

He was born in Laredo, Texas in 1950 which resulted in his graduating high school at the heart of the Vietnam War. Juan Farias joined the Army right after graduating, heading off to Infantry Airborne and Pathfinder school whereupon he received his orders to Vietnam, serving with the 101st Screaming Eagles as a pathfinder.

Upon returning from Nam Farias was a drill sergeant. When he left the Army he went to work at a sign shop where he fell in love with the brush and after working for six years as a helper went on his own. Before computers took over, he made a living as a billboard artist. At that time he was doing pin stripping, scenic art, murals and commercial sign painting, all experiences that helped form the foundations for the fine arts career he went on to pursue.

I discovered Juan Farias through Olivia Villanueva's website and learned that the two have painted together for the past ten years. The examples I saw of his work seemed striking, and this interview is the result.

Ennyman: I'd be interested first in learning more about your background. Can you give a brief overview of your career?
Juan Farias: My career started as a sign painter and billboard artist until computers took over. At the age of 42 I took the leap of the cliff, as a full time, self taught artist. I have never looked back and never regret that step. As an artist I have to get up and somehow believe in my self every morning. There have been plenty of obstacles in my art career considering the culture that I come from, being Indian, Mexican and Spanish. Though it has worked for me in a spiritual level, I apply this level in my art and how I see the world.

For the first ten years of my art career I exhibited regularly and curated my share of exhibits. I eventually burned out from the same thing. Not being one to follow, I isolated myself. Little did I know I was still having problems with Vietnam. I got diagnosed with PTSD by the V.A. and was considered disabled. I feel it is that part of me that makes my art grab you by the throat or keep you awake at night. I am not an art teacher. I can motivate, inspire and point you in a direction that can wake you up, but dream at the same time.

E: Do you have a philosophy of art or any ruling principles?
JF: This is who I am. I cannot change it and have no plans to but to paint and die. Also, I would advise to document everything and keep track of all your art, especially when you deal with a gallery or client. Control your art. It is yours.

E: How did you first get interested in painting?
JF: The first time I got interested in art was when I saw a sign painter painting free style with a brush. It was in the late seventies. I wanted to be able to have such a skill. I fell in love with painting and the brush and I feel just as in love with art now as I did the first time. I knew I was in trouble, but I knew it was going to be an interesting life, a movie, a symphony, an opera.

E: When did you realize that you were unusually gifted in this way?
JF: In my dreams as a child until now. I have very surreal dreams and nightmares. I can fly by flapping my arms and hands. I dreamed I was Denzel Washington, strut and all, just like Training Day. This has been going on since I was a child, never quietly fitting in, but always dreaming.

E: If you had it all to do over again, what would you have done different?
JF: I would have finished school and gotten an MFA. Spend more time with my parents. I lost both of them last year.

E: Any advice for young and emerging artists?
JF: Document everything that you do as an artist, especially your art. When dealing with a gallery or client, document everything. Ask for receipts. Learn to do without, but believe in yourself. Always try to live and paint like it is the last day in your life. Practice acts of kindness every day, You might be having a conversation with one of God’s angels.

E: Thanks for allowing me to share some of your work on my blog.


CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

Shooting an Elephant

This post is a reprint from November 2008

“As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos – all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.” ~ George Orwell

The past few weeks I’ve been reading Simon Schama’s A History of Britain, Volume 3: The Fate of Empire 1776 – 2000. It has been quite fascinating. To some extent our nation’s history is inextricably bound to that of Britain, from conception to destiny, much like a child reflects its parent. While unique, we are still offspring.

It was once said “the sun never sets on the British Empire.” Indeed, at one time the power of Britain ruled the high seas and its territories spanned the globe. How long ago this was.

Schama’s book is a three part epic. I’ve only tackled Volume 3. The breaking away of the New World to form first the Colonies, then these United States, is but the beginning. The moral challenges, the dark justifications of maintaining power over unwilling subjects, the internal erosion of confidence in its own national mandate… so many fragments of this story resonate with aspects of our own national experience.

Descartes did not trust history as a basis for truth because no historical situation is identical. This does not mean, however, that nothing can be gained from studying history.

George Orwell’s essay “Shooting an Elephant” is not only first rate writing, it is a deeply moving account of the problems Britain had to wrestle with while controlling foreign territories with strangely different peoples and cultures. It is Orwell’s first job away from home, a police officer in Burma. The story describes an incident that occurs during that period abroad as a young man. More than just what happens, the young Eric Blair (Orwell was his chosen pen name) reveals the personal angst he experiences.

The essay begins thus: “In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people – the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me.”

Essentially, there is an elephant that has broken loose and is causing trouble. The elephant’s owner, due to misinformation, is hours away and the damage has been escalating. Orwell, as a representative of the law, must deal with it.

“The Burmese sub-inspector and some Indian constables were waiting for me in the quarter where the elephant had been seen. It was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palmleaf, winding all over a steep hillside,” Orwell writes. Anyone who has seen Third World squalor can picture the scene. Orwell is a stranger in a strange land.

It turns out the elephant now has killed a man. It’s a hideous sight for the young officer. Worse, it starts to become inevitable that he will have to do something about it. The following crowd has been growing, and there is an escalating anticipation.

“But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him. At that age I was not squeamish about killing animals, but I had never shot an elephant and never wanted to. (Somehow it always seems worse to kill a large animal.)”

As Orwell reveals his deepest motivations, we understand that on the pedestal of world opinion, it is not always "right" and "wisdom" that is the driving force behind nations' behaviors. Too often, they simply don't want to play the fool.

“For at that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not afraid in the ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone. A white man mustn't be frightened in front of "natives"; and so, in general, he isn't frightened. The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do.”

These were the kinds of motivations that led to France invading Mexico during our American Civil War. And perhaps the real motivations behind the nations who engaged in that bitter, futile blood bath called World War I. Perhaps, to some extent, it was a driver for the Pentagon's escalation in Viet Nam. And what was that Somalia maneuver all about? And then, even if you win, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, what do we get? Orwell seems to be saying that you get forced into shooting elephants that you really don't want, or need, to shoot.

Osama, Obama and Twitter

There are quite a few news stories asking if the fellow who inadvertently broke the Osama Bin Laden story had created Twitter's CNN moment. Frankly, I do not understand the question. I myself thought Twitter's CNN moment was two years ago in Mumbai* when that massacre occurred which so shocked the world. Twitter got it first that time, too. Unfortunately, we have become so inured by infoglut that we only remember the now and if journalists call this a CNN moment, so be it. In two years some other news story will break on Twitter and no one will remember this one either.

Jeff Moravec states that Twitter can make shared events come alive, but is wholly inadequate as a news organization. Yes, there are journalists on Twitter, and for these the social media site is a fabulous resource. But Twitter's strength lies elsewhere. As far as being a news delivery system, I agree with Moravec's blog entry at the Minnesota Blog Cabin.

Personally, I think Twitter is a great resource for crowdsourcing. If you want an opinion on a hot issue, check out the Trending Topics. I predicted Obama would be president based on the 9 to 1 ratio of tweets favorable to Obama during the presidential debates. I realize this data has flaws because maybe only certain kinds of people are in that scene. It is still useful, however.

Nevertheless, the fall of Tunisia and Egypt has shown us that Twitter and the new media have great power, despite its limitations. Where it all will lead is anyone's guess though. One thing I know for sure, though, is that I want to talk about something else tomorrow.

Y'all have a good day.

*see Mumbai Heartbreak Hotel, http://tinyurl.com/447fwj9

The Algebra of Mystery

The other night I saw that a friend of mine heard Ted Kooser, our nation's 13th Poet Laureate, at a live event. Mike said it was really great. It got me thinking a bit about poetry. For example, I pondered this strange thought: Do accountants receive awards and recognition for being uncreative in the same manner that poets receive awards and recognition for their creative expression? I mean, who wants creative when it comes to balancing checkbooks and ledgers? Anyways, it was just a thought. There is something magical about creativity in others and so we recognize that and honor those who share their gifts with us.

So while flying to Denver yesterday I began writing down lines that would make interesting titles for poems. I have always enjoyed coming up with titles for my paintings anyways, or titling books or creating headlines for ads. Phrases leap into my mind from all manner of sources and are then re-configured. Some are polished, some discarded and others taken whole.

Here then is a poem developed from a list of poem title ideas while on that flight. I liked the first in the list as its title.

The Algebra of Mystery

The geometry of innocence,
the diversity of time,
small portions of infinity
in disparate designs;
magical redundancy
when captured in lines.

A species of prayer
with incense and rhymes,
fragrance, illuminations
engaging minds.

The mirrors reveal
what darkness conceals
and everyone,
ultimately,
eventually kneels
beneath the algebra of mystery.

And to bring closure to today's thoughts, here is a quote from Mr. Ted Kooser.

"Considering the ways in which so many of us waste our time, what would be wrong with a world in which everybody were writing poems? After all, there’s a significant service to humanity in spending time doing no harm. While you’re writing your poem, there’s one less scoundrel in the world. And I’d like a world, wouldn’t you, in which people actually took time to think about what they were saying? It would be, I’m certain, a more peaceful, more reasonable place. I don’t think there could ever be too many poets. By writing poetry, even those poems that fail and fail miserably, we honor and affirm life. We say ‘We loved the earth but could not stay."

Play Ball

Yesterday afternoon I finished watching Ken Burns' ten-plus hours of documentary devoted to the game he loves called, simply, Baseball. As reviewer Dave McCoy at Amazon.com puts it, "Burns doesn't just detail the great players and the memorable plays and games; he also presents baseball as a cultural and social mirror, reflecting the beauty and hypocrisy of the nation that created it."

We love our heroes and we love our distractions, and we love the feeling of being part of something that has a long history, a continuity that precedes us and will extend beyond us as well. No matter what is going on in the outside world, baseball marches on. The game never stopped for World War I or World War II, the Korean War or Viet Nam, though for a moment on 9/11 it did pause for a few days. Nevertheless, for the most part baseball lives inside its own bubble. Salary disputes couldn't kill it. Strikes didn't kill it. Scandals haven't derail it. And based on the dollars flowing into the pockets and bank accounts of both players and owners one wonders how it can continue to so bedazzle this nation of fans.

When talking baseball I have to interject at least one personal anecdote, and his one came to mind because of the some of the new ways a player's value is determined. In Little League I was a star, one of two from our team to be invited to the All Star Game. But the following year, I had a very different experience. Being a late bloomer and not as fully developed for my age, that first year in Pony League proved, well, challenging. And I had a most unusual batting record.

I was a good infielder, so I got to play, but for some reason I had trouble with the faster pitchers. At this level there were some kids actually being scouted by major league teams, so you know what caliber of pitchers I was up against. All this to say I actually went an entire season without ever hitting a fair ball. To my credit, I had a good eye and discipline, so even though my batting average was zero my on base percentage was .500. That's right, I struck out 13 times and walked 13 times. As they say, a walk's as good as a hit. Fortunately my high school numbers only got better from there.

Needless to say, here are a few more quotes on The Game, courtesy QuoteGarden where they were assembled.

You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time. ~Jim Bouton, Ball Four, 1970

People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring. ~Rogers Hornsby

Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer. ~Ted Williams

I'm convinced that every boy, in his heart, would rather steal second base than an automobile. ~Tom Clark

You gotta be a man to play baseball for a living, but you gotta have a lot of little boy in you, too. ~Roy Campanella

No game in the world is as tidy and dramatically neat as baseball, with cause and effect, crime and punishment, motive and result, so cleanly defined. ~Paul Gallico

There are three things in my life which I really love: God, my family, and baseball. The only problem - once baseball season starts, I change the order around a bit. ~Al Gallagher, 1971

I don't want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it. ~Rogers Hornsby

Enjoy your day, and cheer for your team if you have one. Tonight, being in Denver, I will cheer for the Colorado Rockies.

Homegrown Opens Tonight

Duluth's Homegrown Music and Art Fest opens tonight here in the Northland. The first of three art openings will be celebrated downtown at Pizza Luce. Curated by Jeredt Runions, I have three pieces here for the month of May.

(On a dour note, it was snowing this morning when I woke. I am still hoping the IT team can get the Spring weather program installed before Summer gets here. I guess we can be grateful not to have tornadoes. No one here is complaining about being too hot.)

Jeredt himself had an opening at J. Lydia Salon this past Friday night, which we attended. Jeredt enjoys curating shows, but is himself an avid painter as well with a whimsical style that is engaging and entertaining. The pictures here on my blog today are by Jeredt. There was live music as well, and Jessica, who opened the salon last year, seemed quite pleased with the turnout and the energy that was present.

There was a nice spread of food as well, all of it perfectly suited to the discriminating palate. One item was especially interesting. It looked like those little wieners wrapped in bacon, and I think a lot of people thought that's what they were, and it did not grab much attention until I discovered it was dates wrapped in bacon. They were tasty.

You can see Jeredt's work throughout the month of May at J. Lydia Salon, 12th Avenue East and Positively Fourth Street.

Hope to see you at Luce tonight for the kickoff of Homegrown. If you can't be there, I hope you're dancing somewhere and listening to some good music.