Does Art Endure? Does Art Matter?

Terry Rodgers

"Monuments Men" reviewed in the New Yorker, suggests that even in war, even among men like Hitler and Goring, art  matters.  As busy as Hitler and company were organizing the capture and annihilation of Europe's Roma, homosexuals, dissident priests, and Jews, and as much as they became obsessed with bombing and  subjugating their Dutch, French, Polish and Russian neighbors, the movers of the Third Reich, still found time to systematically collect paintings and works of art for their own walls and for museums they planned as plunder for the glory of the Reich, which they projected would last 10,000 years.

Rodgers at Work

 It may seem remarkable that men who would organize the muddy concentration camps, who who reduce towns to rubble, would have a love of beauty as it appeared in the French impressionists.  Of course, Hitler and some of his crowd had wallowed in the trenches during World War I, in that particular squalor, and they used the language of "purification" quite a lot. They loved the blonde Aryan image, which, if nothing else, looks squeaky clean.  So, the eradication of the dark, "dirty" and the embrace of the clean "white" may have been part of the same psychopathology. It is perhaps no accident the famous cartoon, the Sunshine People, which showed little men who rode bumble bees into battle against the dark people, who dropped bottles of milk on the dark villages and transformed them into clean, joyful white creatures--that cartoon was made in Germany.  (Hitler's Luftwaffe did not drop milk bombs.)

Rodgers 

 It is often neglected that Hitler offered more than hate. He offered a vision of beauty, of how life could be "cleansed" and made wholesome and wonderful. Of course, his idea of doing this was to first kill a lot of people who did not meet his idea of beauty. But he was a painter and he had a strong idea of beauty. And he chose an architect, Albert Spear, to plan his beautiful new cities.

Obadiah Youngblood North Hampton NH 

 Some have commented that the master of the Third Reich in stealing art from France and, in particular from Jews, was striving to wipe off the evidence these folks had ever existed, because art survives death. It speaks to us from the grave. We can visit the Parthenon centuries later and here those Greek artists are still speaking to us. It makes us more than dust in the wind. Maybe that's why, as we get older, art seems to matter more than science. 
And it doesn't really matter whether that art is the odd, intriguing but often disturbing art of Terry Rodgers, the traditional art of Youngblood or the spectacular exuberance Van Gogh. Some is better than others, but it's all still coming from a creative urge, somewhere.

Van Gogh

For the Phantom, standing in front of a Van Gogh is thrilling, and the Phantom is aware that same thrill was felt by Van Gogh's contemporaries and will be felt by generations long after the Phantom is dust.

That same is true for music, as much or more. Listening to Beethoven, Ray Charles, Jackie Wilson, Bob Dylan, the Phantom knows that work will be thrilling listeners for as long as there are ears to hear it.

Does art matter? Only if our lives have any meaning in the vastness of the universe. 
God may have created the universe, but Van Gogh created that picture of the sower.

Foyle's Demeanor: The Role of Fiction in the Golden Age of Television

For some reason, the Phantom has little patience for fiction in print, but  he can spend many hours enthralled by fiction on television, in this, its golden age.

Tonight, he started with "Downton Abbey," and was delighted by the depiction of kindness in the scene between the kitchen maid bidding good bye to the man she loves who cannot return her love, then moved on to "House of Cards," with its depiction of ruthlessness, duplicity and Shakespearean scheming to, finally, and most satisfying, "Foyle's War."

With Downton, it was love at first sight; with "House of Cards" it was a wildly consuming fling, could not stop watching, but Foyle grows on you steadily, takes deep root and you marvel, with each episode at Foyle.  

There is a serviceable supporting cast: Honeysuckle Weeks, his driver, is wonderfully understated and deliciously unattractive in the Hollywood sense, but what she does with her voice, her intonation:  A simple, "I don't think so," is a marvel. Foyle's son is important mostly as he reveals an important side of Foyle, but it is Foyle who continues to astonish.  

He is so understated, so expressive with such minimal effort. He says always less than anyone else would say with greater effect than a tirade, a diatribe or any longer expression of self. He simply allows insults, anger, indignation sail past as he pieces together a pathway to the truth. He listens carefully, often impassively, registering little, but by the end of each episode, he is able to summarize what he has formulated with such precision and insight you realize this is a man who only speaks when he has something important to say. This is a man who must be listened to. As people age, they tend to become regarded as  irrelevant, and they are ignored. Nothing they can say could possibly be of any interest. But not Foyle. Everything he says is of interest.

What he provides, psychologically, for any male over the age of 55, is an idea.  His character suggests how one might live one's life with grace and relevance, even after the games of romance, career ambition, the pursuit of wealth are no longer central or even palatable.  With his hat brim turned  up and his humble posture, he makes Columbo look overbearing by comparison.  He is simply curious, observant and kind. No venality, dishonesty, arrogance, cruelty is lost on him. He simply files it away for later use. 

He does not solve every crime or bring offense to a satisfying conclusion in every case. Sometimes, for reasons of state or for reasons of war,  he must allow a miscreant to get away. But he does not forgive or forget, and sometimes a man who did not meet his just desserts in a prior episode gets his comeuppance later, although each 90 minute episode is self contained and can be watched by a viewer who has not seen any of the prior episodes.

Foyle, as played by Mr. Kitchen, provides hope for men slipping into the autumn of their years, or perhaps their own winter.  His struggles and his acceptance of his place backstage,  while the most important action is happening dramatically under the bright lights on the war front,  is nothing short of inspiring.

As men in their fifties and sixties discover, they can no longer play on the big stage. They cannot take the field, hit the home run, charge up the hill, ride the Derby winner or pick up the pretty girl. They are simply no longer in the game as they once were. 

But Foyle is still in a game.  And that game is important enough.

In one episode Foyle has the opportunity to become a player on the big stage: He is offered a post in British intelligence, but he ultimately sees he would be shoved as a round peg in a square hole in the larger bureaucracy of British intelligence, and he is actually more effective and more important in the "minor leagues" of British sleuthing, the town of Hastings, where murder, adultery, theft, selfishness still play out, despite the war.

So add Foyle to "House of Cards," "Game of Thrones," Downton, "Breaking Bad" and whatever may come from "The Killing."  We are living in the golden age of television. Even after "The Wire," there are wonderful things to see on TV. 

Of course, like Shakespeare, "The Wire" really has no peer. But there is no reason to make the perfect the enemy of the very good.

Roger Angell: A Man in his Nineties Makes Life Brighter for the Rest of Us

Roger Angell and dog

Roger Angell has written a surpassing piece on life in the tenth decade which will probably leave every twenty and thirty something wondering why all their parents love this essay so. That they will not understand it, that they will not be able to see why it resonates so with their parents is a stark indicator of what it means to be in different places in life. 
He wends his way through elder sex and how the very thought of it unnerves and disgusts the young--there was a great scene in Mad Men about that, when Peter has to face his mother's amorous side and he is revolted by it. 
Angell talks about everything from the wrenching effect of the death of his dog, to the loss of his wife. And he talks about the loss of good friends and the loss of one after another of all the people who made up his life. 
The Phantom has not yet quite got to this stage of life, where the leaves start falling off the trees rapidly, and you are the one still clinging to the branch, but the Phantom can see and feel it through Angell's eyes. 
Mr. Angell  is by turns funny and morose, complaining and exalting and he talks about elderly folks going on line in search of some new intimate love.  He quotes Lawrence Olivier, who said, "Inside, we're all seventeen, with red lips."

Hampton, New Hampshire

 The Phantom finds this idea exasperating and disappointing. He knows many people move on beyond the idea of boy-girl love. He's seen it in so many people here in New Hampshire. Men who have been married to the same woman for 50 years and they say they haven't had, haven't wanted to have sex with their wives,  or with any woman,  for twenty years. Don't miss it. Have moved on.
But  moved on to what is the big question. Locally, the answer seems to be ice fishing, snow mobiles or building furniture.

North Hampton from Plaice Cove--Obadiah Youngblood

Hampton, New Hampshire 

 The Phantom has discovered, with new enthusiasm, music.  And art. He can hear music better now, having started piano lessons, which have given him the atavistic pleasure of struggling at something, plunging headlong into incompetence, again, and he knows that Japanese pleasure of the struggle. 
He has also been thrilled by looking at masters like van Gogh and John Singer Sargent. Having tried to paint, he understands how difficult it is and he can marvel with greater fervor over those who can do it masterfully. 
He has found local artists who see the same seacoast but in such different colors.

North Hampton, December--Obadiah Youngblood 

The Phantom knows only one thing at his advanced age: He is just as clueless as he ever was--he is simply more aware of his inadequacies now, and, fortunately, less disturbed by them.

Unconscious Incompetence, Conscious Competence and the fate of America

" I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

--John F. Kennedy addressing a White House dinner for American Nobel prize laureates.

The Phantom's older son, watching his younger brother work his way through a series of opponents at a wrestling tournament shook his head in wonder. "I will never be as good at anything in  my whole life as he is right now at this."  The boys were 13 and 11 years old. 

Of course, the older brother was quite wrong about that. He became a masterful kayak competitor, and for one shining moment, during a set of Olympic trials, he found himself in the number three position. He did not make the Olympics, but he was a masterful kayaker and more importantly, he went on to become a musician of great competence.  He now teaches piano in New York City.

That may not sound like a parent's dream, but as the Phantom struggles through his weekly piano lesson (by Skype) and he realizes each week just what it means to become an accomplished musician, what it means to gain mastery over anything. 

  A two year old dances to music, enjoying the sound, unaware she is not in time or really dancing. She has "unconscious incompetence."  When she tries to actually learn to dance, in time, in sync with the rhythm, she discovers she is incompetent and has to learn; that is the next step, "conscious incompetence." The Phantom has progressed from "Unconscious Incompetence" to "Conscious Incompetence." It is an uncomfortable place to be, a place of struggle and frustration, but it is necessary to achieve the third phase, "conscious competence," where you know you are doing it correctly, with great concentration and effort.

The Phantom has been stuck in this phase when it comes to hitting a baseball. He goes to the batting cages religiously, works on his footwork, his hip movement, his eye on the ball focus, his arm mechanics. He can hit the fastest fastball he will see in his league, but it's through deliberate, conscious training and effort. He has not reached the phase of "unconscious competence" in baseball. 

He is probably there when it comes to seeing patients. He has heard the patient histories  so often over the years, in so many iterations, he can recognize a story for a diagnosis with great ease, almost without effort, and he knows what is not a story for a particular disease, just as important. 

Go on youtube and watch the videos of people teaching you how to play music and you will get an inkling about the vast, deep and impressive level of competence which abounds in our world; watch a boogey woogie musician on line or in New Orleans and you will be astonished anew each time. These are the people who make one marvel at what human beings are capable of. 

Now consider our political leaders. Whether you are watching "House of Cards" or simply watching the local TV feed from the Town Council meetings or simply talking to a state legislator, you perceive the difference immediately.

In New Hampshire as in Maryland, state legislators are not likely to demonstrate much competence at anything. In Maryland, where the position is worth about $40 K a year, it is a job which is either the best job the legislator can hope to ever get or it is a sideline for a lawyer or realtor who is hoping to enhance his own business through making connections in Annapolis.  In New Hampshire, where a seat among the 400 plus House of Representatives pays $100 a year, the citizens of the Granite State get what they pay for. 

One of the delegates from Hampton insists building more roads will be good for the environment, better than building bicycle paths, because the more roads, the less congestion on those roads, less idling at traffic lights, which saves gas. Good for the environment. This man is not a bright light. Not the sharpest blade in the drawer. But he is typical of the New Hampshire legislature. Sadly, he is likely typical of many state legislators.  

Members of the United States Congress are not much better. There are some bright people in Congress, but, in general, the Congress reflects the bell shape curve or what is out there in the country, and that means mediocrity. 

We accept lesser minds in our government and in our teachers, because we simply do not think what they do is important enough to make the effort and to accept the expense entailed in upgrading these people and the institutions they degrade by their incompetence. 

We hope we can simply detour around the logjams bad legislators and poor teachers create. 

The Phantom wonders whether this is true in Japan, England, Germany and China.

Reincarnation: Where Do Beliefs Come From?

Why do people believe in Heaven? Why do they believe in Hell? Why do some people believe God created every living thing and others believe in evolution?

Sometimes, people believe things because it's to their advantage to believe them: As Upton Sinclair said, "It is hard to bring a man to understanding if his income depends on his not understanding." (Or words to that effect.)
So the Reynolds tobacco executive who testifies before a Congressional committee he believes cigarettes are harmless is easy to figure out. 
But consider afterlife: Apart from some the preacher whose livelihood depends on convincing people he knows the mind of God and the rules God has laid down, for most people there is no advantage to simply believing in an afterlife, other than the comfort factor:  I will see my mother again in Heaven. She is not permanently lost to me.
The Phantom reflects on his own belief about what happens to us after we die, and he cannot quite figure out where it comes from, but maybe that's why is seems so persuasive. 
When the Phantom was about eight years old, he overheard a discussion between is older brother and his father. His brother said that everything in the universe was cycles.  The earth revolves around the sun; the seasons cycle; every organism has a life cycle. His father looked at his older son with an expression neither of his sons had often seen--one of genuine interest in something one of his sons had said. The father said, "That is a real insight you have there." 

Sometime after this, the Phantom was awakened from a deep sleep--sat bolt upright in bed, from a nightmare. In the dream, the Phantom had gone to bed and died. But the dream did not end there. The Phantom died, but almost instantly was reborn in his brother's room, as a new child. He was a baby, screaming his lungs out, frustrated that he'd have to start all over again, to learn to speak, to walk, back to square one.

And ever since, the Phantom, in his heart of hearts has believed that's what happens to us. We do not go to heaven. Our souls are simply recycled.  Everything else on this planet seems to be recycled, one way or the other--the preservation of energy and mass. What was profoundly sad for the Phantom was in his new incarnation, he had no memory of his old family, of the world he had left. He was simply returned to earth, to start anew, with no memory, no past, no connection to those he had loved before. It was just ruthless. 

There is no way to test this theory, as far as the Phantom knows. It just is. Just a thought. A belief. 

Another experience, a mind game, from a dream, this one a recurrent dream. The Phantom had recurrent dreams he could fly. He would simply flap his arms and rise up into the air and hover above the trees and look down on people below, who never noticed him, never looked up, but the Phantom was very worried someone would and he would have a lot of explaining to do, so he swooped back down to earth. But it was excruciating, to have to land, although the landing was always soft. It was excruciating because it was such a thrill flying. 

Now, the aging Phantom walks along the shore at North Beach, Hampton, and he sees men doing what he had done in his dreams:  They go out on surf boards with sails attached to a harness and the wind catches the sails, and they lift off above the waves and are gone. They rise into the air and become little more than a speck in minutes, sailing aloft,  out to sea and then they turn and return to shore. 

The Phantom, of course, knows some day he must try to  learn this. 
But the Phantom is not keen to die quite yet.