No Full Stops in India

Book written by Mark Tully

Travel at its best is really setting aside our normal day to day life and observing the world with fresh eyes. Perhaps I flatter myself, but I like to think that it is one of those times when the spectator can become an artist absorbing new experiences and transforming them into pictures and stories.

I grew up in the Midwest, but was born on the East Coast and was raised by parents who held onto many of those East Coast ideas their whole lives. So, I am of two minds about many things. For instance, travel to exotic places can’t be that different from spending a few days wandering around New York City. On the other hand, why would you want to go somewhere that you can’t reach by car?

Three stories from India:

An acquaintance in India (I had known her for a few hours) discovered that my family and I would be travelling around the country by train. She beckoned me to her office and was so concerned for my family’s welfare that she made sure we could reach her and her office 24 hours a day.

Prompted by warnings like the one mentioned as well as the aggressive nature of touts and souvenir sellers, I was wary when we visited the Red Fort in Agra. Using the public facilities, I found myself sitting outside waiting for the rest of my party. This other dad managed to get my attention despite the heat and a language barrier and my wariness. We ended up empathisizing about having to wait by the toilets and had our picture taken together. His daughter (the photographer) spoke English. She explained that he had always wanted to meet an American and his day was made. I realized then and there that I needed to be a better traveler if I wanted to be a better person.

In Goa, I woke early one morning and went for a walk on the ghats alone. The local folks were already busy with their day before the tourists and the heat became overwhelming. At one point, the ghats rise in a shear precipice. I stood there admiring the painting on the wall and listening to the cricket game at the top. Suddenly, the ball came tumbling down and rolled off toward the water. Some young faces peered over the edge and bemoaned the loss. I wandered over to the ball and tossed it back in one go. The praise for my arm and expressions of gratitude…

Guidebooks are as often a pox as a blessing.

It is nice to have a map if you want to end the night in your own bed. At some point though, questions start coming, the kinds of questions that tourist books stridently ignore- a lot of “why” mixed with a pile of “how”. Because you have to start caring about the place you are visiting if you are going to be open to the experience.

Travel memoirs can be useful, but a great journalist that writes in your language and shares a similar cultural viewpoint can be invaluable. The thing about great journalism is that it has an opinion. Yet, it still presents all sides- it does not refuse to look hard at root causes. So, I carried Mark Tully and William Dalrymple around with me and devoured their wisdom.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 217 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.

Jesus Christ Superstar

Opera with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice

What a strange, wonderful piece of work this is… It started out as a concept album utilizing the lead singer from Deep Purple for the part of Jesus. Really, it seems like it sells itself, doesn’t it?

I directed a production of this show many years ago, but long after that was a controversial choice. Imagine that… this show was controversial… because it portrays Jesus and Judas in somewhat human terms. I don’t know if Webber and Rice latched onto this concept with the idea that they would be stirring the pot, but I doubt it. I suspect they had a few ideas for some tunes and pulled it together from there. Besides, the story was pretty much written for them already.

As I was saying, I directed and co-produced a production in the mid-80s in a small college town. My friend, Tim, proposed the idea during a break while we worked on another show. He played Jesus (his brother, Dan, played Judas) and I walked around telling people where to stand. Looking back, we sold a lot of tickets and closed too soon or we might have been in danger of making some money. We also learned that we were not in the production business for the long haul though that was more the result of moving away than not enjoying ourselves.

Truth be told, I owned the original album before I ever went to college, so I was predisposed to agreeing to do the show. What it meant though was that I spent an awful lot of time listening to the recording over and over and staging it in my head. I have a memory of one housemate introducing me to the pair of headphones sitting beside the stereo and telling me that they were my friends.

Of course, I had seen the movie.

I have since seen a few productions. All of them (including mine) have played games with setting and have often attached various extraneous pieces to the show. On a stage, how could you do otherwise? Theatrical sets are never realistic- the more they try then the less they succeed. Just like the writer tries to wring extra meaning from every word, the set designer tries to suggest so much more with every bit of wood and canvas. But then you get the concept show… anyone who has attended college theater has seen Shakespeare transplanted to the wild west or Moliere updated to modern dress. That’s fine and you can even say that the original text provide the reason and value.

Which brings us full circle… who is the creator of the theatrical production? How much right does the director have to mess with the words on the page? For my part, I thought I was making a commentary on how the world dropped everything to follow this man when the cast essentially emerged from people setting up the stage and sitting in the audience. That does not sound too bad when I type it now and I found my excuse in the lyrics. The miracle of live theater is that it is made in the moment and only lives in memory. Those “bold” choices by directors never last long enough to damage a show built to last.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 218 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.

Spirited Away

Film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki

I had seen Kiki’s Delivery Service, but nothing quite prepares you for Spirited Away, arguably the best animation film ever made. That is an awfully hubristic statement to make and I would happily entertain other nominees. Think about it though. The Walt Disney Company, Studio Ghibli, or Pixar probably created anything that you can name. If you include The Triplets of Belleville, then you have probably covered all the possibilities that had wide cinematic release as well as wide appeal.

Critics had already widely praised Princess Mononoke. Studio Ghibli had a distribution deal with Disney, so Spirited Away did not exactly come out of nowhere. Mononoke told a powerful story using evocative images. The seeming post-apocalyptic setting placed the story in fantasy and science fiction territory. Readers of manga or watchers of Mad Max might have felt at home.

A film so firmly rooted in the here and now was unexpected from the creator of Mononoke, Spirited Away. (This probably surprised no one already aware of My Neighbor Totoro.) From the opening with a family driving their car and ending up lost, the film asked for your emotional investment whether you identified with the parents or the child in the back seat. From there, the story leapt into the mystical. Granted, it is so strange and inventive and perfectly tuned that it becomes nothing less than universal. Dangers present themselves, but not nearly as often as joy. In the end, the movie looks like a coming of age story. Even so, it is cloaked in lessons as much for parents and society as any child approaching maturity.

Animation is a weird art form

as it has evolved up until now. Lotte Reiniger has occasionally been credited with making The Adventures of Prince Achmed by herself. The reality had her working with others. Walt Disney had his name above the titles, but no one really thought he was doing all that work himself. Even so, we have a driving need to identify a guiding light- you can see it in our “Great Man” approach to history. Taking nothing away from Napoleon or Julius Caesar, but they had a lot of other people with remarkable talents who accomplished the tasks laid before them, yet we always say so-and-so conquered this place or that. Kings, Emperors, Dictators, and Presidents rely on others to accomplish their great works and their heinous acts.

Large groups form for long periods of time to produce animated works of art. They are prone to in-jokes and story-telling by committee. As viewers, we are subjected to a lot of humor and tales that seem like they might have been a good idea when first proposed. The danger becomes the assembly line approach to art because assembly lines are nothing but automated formulas. In our art, we appreciate a formula that gives us a recognizable structure. Yet, we inevitably grow bored with repetition, redundancy, and repetition. Animation is the art form where craft and quality and creativity intersect across the widest assortment of artists. The fact that we end up with anything fantastic says more about humanity’s capabilities than those few individual accomplishments that Kings, Emperors, Dictators, or Presidents can point to.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 219 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.