Maiden Running Away

Fresco (most likely) painted by Anonymous
Viewed once at The J. Paul Getty Museum

Visiting Los Angeles about twenty years ago, we toured around the sights and hung out with family. In one of those discussions about what to do the next day, we settled on visiting the Getty because of reasons that are long gone. They had some interesting Impressionistic paintings as well as a renowned antiquities collections. Either may have been the draw. Air conditioning and a view of the ocean might well have done it, too.

I only remember one thing clearly. In a little alcove within one of the rooms of ancient art, I came upon a large chunk of plaster removed from a wall somewhere in Italy (though it might have been any Roman influenced region). No more than a foot in length or width, the piece was broken about the edges as if removed with a chisel.

One image, larger than my hand, was visible. A young woman in robes ran away from the viewer, glancing back. I am no longer certain of her expression, but I don’t remember anything inviting. If anything, she wished to increase the distance between us. As I do, I spent a long time looking at her. Unexpectedly realistic and powerful in her solitary presence, I thought that it spoke of insurmountable distance in time and space. In short, it captured the subtle message of all ancient art- that people have long lived thoughtful and rich lives.

In the inevitable gift shop,

I recall some museum catalog with the artwork on the cover, validating my impression that it was a worthy work of art (or at least reinforcing the fact that it had touched someone else). We did not buy the book.

If you have looked over online catalogs for the Getty in the past decade, you will not find this work of art. The museum catalog that I mention may be a figment of my imagination. I can find no reference to a work called Maiden Running Away, nor anything similar. I have no idea what you might call such a fresco.

Then, the Getty has had its share of troubles. Since its antiquities collection has come under such widespread trouble, much of the work has moved thither and you. For all I know, this piece of work that touched me so deeply once upon a time resides in a warehouse between the Ark of the Covenant and Rosebud the sled.

And I begin to ask myself what it could have been, this unremembered state which brought with it no logical proof, but the indisputable evidence, of its felicity, its reality, and in whose presence other states of consciousness melted and vanished. I decide to attempt to make it reappear.

Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past – Volume 1: Swann’s Way: Within a Budding Grove, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin

As much as Proust’s cookies, this one piece of art remains for me a touchstone for a moment and a feeling- a miracle across the centuries, sustained by unreliable memory.

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. 195 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.

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Death of a Salesman

Play written by Arthur Miller

If there is one piece of work at the center of American theater, then it must be Death of a Salesman. Widely hailed as the play that brought democracy to grand tragedy, I think it serves best as a marker on the path to modernism.

The traditional assessment goes like this: theatrical tragedies traditionally covered the death and destruction of royalty. True tragedy could only be measured by the distance fallen. The Aristotlean purpose of tragedy is to evoke fellow feeling leading to a purging of sadness through empathy. Basically, you go, you cry, you feel better about your own life. (The most effective modern corollary is probably the dying-of-an-illness movie. I’m not sure how much of the improved state of mind is actually empathy and not there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I.)

Death of a Salesman succeeds at making us invested in the tragedy of a common man, a low man- Willy Loman, to be exact. Instead of looking at the downfall of the elite in our homeland, we are looking at the downfall of someone much like ourselves. In fact, if you are neither an adulterer nor an uninvolved father, then you might look down on the central character of the story. Really, that is the point of view which makes the play interesting, because most all of us have some reason to think that Willy is beneath us.

Of course, he is not.

We don’t spend much time worrying about the Willy Loman’s of this world, but we all feel ignored and deserted by the world sometimes. In the end, Miller’s magic is in creating a character that touches our heart while pushing us away. His sons prove to be our proxies more than Willy.

So, is it really that first play to present the tragedy of a common man? Elmer Rice, Henrik Ibsen, and many, many others explored these themes. Horatio Alger had done it in pop literature and the American realists had been doing it all along. On the other hand, Henry James, for example, did seem to focus on those who had money to burn.

The evolution of American theater from Eugene O’Neill through Thornton Wilder and Rice to Miller is an unending exploration of what it means to live in this country. Before television, the stage hosted our conversations with ourselves about what it meant to be an American. From this vantage point, Strindberg and Ibsen seemed to worry more about the price paid for success while our playwrights focused on the price paid for striving. You might think the theater reflected national views of the self.

Look to our national art form now: television. We see fear of the other and the unknown. There are struggles with self-identity. None of this is truly forward-looking, any more than those plays in the first half of the twentieth century. Artists may create from a liberal point of view. Yet, marketing demands are innately conservative. Death of a Salesman was an immensely powerful document of a time.

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. 196 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.

Fight the Power

Written by Carlton Ridenhour, Eric Sadler, and Keith Shocklee
Performed by Public Enemy

She had a single in the dormitory and I happily accompanied her to listen to some music and talk. First, she played some music on her little turntable- something popular from the day, I think. I must have looked dismayed, because she pulled something “cool” out of her small stack of records. Knowing better than to act impressed, I could not admit that she had found something new to me.

Then she hit me with the topic of conversation. Would I be interested in attending her church, specifically the Church of the Latter Day Saints? Yes, you got that right. The Mormons introduced me to rap music. For the record, I attended one service and never saw her or the church again.

My initial reaction to Rapper’s Delight was that it was not very different from all the dance remixes that were popular in the day. Bruce Springsteen did it, and not just on Dancing in the Dark. Georgio Moroder was re-mixing every song in Europe and quite a few others. Then, there was Ethel Merman’s disco album. Why, why, why, indeed.

My point is that The Sugarhill Gang did not seem like a big leap at the time. Record scratching and talking over the music looked like a good idea. In fact, anyone who could recite poetry over music seemed like they might be on to something.

Naturally, every one you met thought they could rap, just as everyone previously had been in a garage band. Sure, this made it seem like the accomplishments of Bachman Turner Overdrive were only a few easy days away.

Of course,

the lyric driven nature of the music lent itself to deeper exploration of topics as well as more extensive detail in stories. A writer must be intrigued.

Then, the great divide began. Like all popular music artists, groups explored issues that spoke to their own experiences as well as would increase their marketability. Even if they had higher aspirations, succumbing to even the outskirts of the music industry acknowledges a desire to appeal to more people than can sit in your driveway. Some artists broke out of their local scene with messages of anger, creating music that had the same energy and force of will as the angriest punk.

For me, the anger and musicality never merited question. Honest emotion well-expressed is essential in art. Add in some consideration of the clarity with which you express yourself and you are making great art in my book.

So, where did a lot of rap lose me (and Public Enemy hold me)? Turns out it’s the same place a lot of pop music has lost me over the years, though I can identify the cause a little more easily in rap music (opera, too, now that I think of it). Artists always face the conflict of the individual and the universal. How do you make your experience into something that your audience can appreciate? With the switch to more extensive story-telling as well as a move away from intricate choruses, my ability to relate to an identifiable emotional core can be limited. Public Enemy always seem able to construct their message in a way that I can find a place of commonality, a place where great art sits.

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. 197 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.