My bit on ‘the grassy knoll’

 

I guess every self-respecting historian must weigh in a little bit today on the 50^th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. I am not a Kennedy scholar and while I was alive 50 years ago (just barely! I was only a few weeks old!) I do not have particular expertise about Kennedy’s legacy…however…that hasn’t stopped every other reporter, witness, editorialist, somewhat historian and/or hack from having his or her say about the event and JFK’s legacy…so why should I not weigh in about the anniversary today???

“Fifty years from now, they’ll still be arguing about the grassy knoll, the Mafia, some Cuban crouched behind a stockade fence.”

Those words are ‘lines’ that come from a surreal scene in the Broadway musical, Assassins. Twenty-something John Wilkes Booth, ninety-eight years dead, is encouraging twenty-something Lee Harvey Oswald to shoot President John F. Kennedy.

Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim’s collaborator, John Weidman, wrote those words some time in 1990, around twenty-seven years after that fateful day in Dallas. They’d first be heard publicly when Assassins, one of the most unlikely Broadway musicals ever, had its world premiere production in January, in New York.

And yet, as we today mark the fiftieth anniversary of the first Kennedy assassination, we see that these words, more than twenty-two years later, are still painfully accurate.

Over here in Jordan I get a number of the ABC and NBC news shows, about a day behind airing in the United States, and there have been tributes galore, interviews, and stories about every facet of the fabled Kennedy clan, that long ago November, and of course, that toothy family continues to still provide public servants and grist for the gossip mill.

But very few have commented on the 50^th anniversary of the Kennedy shooting and what connection there may be with Broadway musicals. Don’t laugh. If you google JFK right now (I just did about 10 minutes ago, and there are umpteen articles, natch, and many say what this one headline observed:  “Fifty Years After Camelot, JFK Still Lives In The World’s Imagination.” We are so accustomed to the Kennedy era designated as “Camelot,” that some have forgotten how that designation came to be. It came from one of history’s most astute and savvy history-watchers: Jackie Kennedy.

In case you never knew this story, today is a good day to recount the genesis of the ‘Camelot’ label. A week after her husband’s murder, on November 29, 1963, Jackie called journalist Theodore White and requested he come meet her at Hyannis Port where she had spent a somber Thanksgiving with the Kennedy clan. White had published The Making of the President, a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the 1960 presidential campaign, and Jackie apparently trusted him. She wanted to speak to the American public, she wanted to do so in the pages of Life magazine, and she wanted White to write the article. White recounts that Jackie explained how much President Kennedy loved the then-current Broadway musical hit, Camelot, and she recalled,  “At night before we'd go to sleep … Jack liked to play some records. And the song he loved most came at the very end of this record, the last side of Camelot: ‘Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.’ There'll never be another Camelot again.” Sigh. Jackie very carefully created the line that would become the hagiography of her husband’s legacy. From a Broadway musical…

White and Jackie spoke alone for several hours that night, White later commenting that Jackie didn’t want to leave her husband’s legacy in the hands of historians or journalists. Jackie told White that when Jack was a young boy he fantasized about being a great Knight, like those of King Arthur’s Round Table, and performing great deeds. That’s one of the reasons he so loved Lerner and Loewe’s musical, Camelot.

In the same way that Jack used the media to promote himself and win over voters in the 1960 presidential race, Jackie used the press to help spin the mythology she thought fitting for her husband’s life of public service. She used a Broadway musical.

And of course no one minds believing that they, too, lived in a Camelot in that earlier time of America. That is why this date, this assassination, resonates so much with many Americans. Listen to the reports—how often will we hear of the ‘loss of innocence’ that Americans suffered 50 years ago today?

Indeed, one of my favorite acquaintances in New York is a writer named Peter, and he told me once when he saw the musical Assassins in 1991, he couldn’t even bear to watch that scene of Lee Harvey Oswald. He said to me that he may have been oversensitive, “because JFK was a god to me while he was president. He was elected the year I began high school, and while Lord knows his family was far richer than mine, I nevertheless identified with him because I too was raised Roman Catholic and hailed from Massachusetts.”

The scene in this Broadway musical, John Wilkes Booth emerging out of the darkness with nine others—both assassins who succeeded in their missions and would-be assassins who did not—show up at the Texas Book Depository in Dallas to convince Oswald to shoot the President.

I have watched this musical four times, and played the cast recording dozens of times—who writes a musical about the people who fantasized and succeeded in killing American presidents?????

Yet if art is meant to provoke, well, then my friends, that scene set 50 years ago today in a Broadway musical succeeds. Each time I have watched the show (I have seen it on Broadway, in a high school production, and in community theater renderings) how well I remember the potent silence in the audience as the scene unfolded.  On Broadway, when Oswald actually took the shot, I can still see, in the row in front of me and a bit to left, a theatergoer’s hands involuntarily leap up and cover his face in horror. And he wasn’t the only one.

Besides the obvious, what is Assassins about? Does it mock shooting our Presidents? Not in the slightest, but it is not an easy tale. It begins at a carnival, much like any county fair, at a shooting gallery. The show then moves from the carnival barker’s introduction to a chronological survey of the men and women who have attempted and succeeded at killing American presidents. Composer Sondheim shows a real genius in that each assassin’s song is composed in a musical style popular at the time of the shooting.

But it is the scene in the Texas Book Depository that is the most riveting. We hear Gerald Ford’s would-be assassin Sara Jane Moore tell Lee Harvey Oswald, “We’re your family,” followed by Ronald Reagan’s would-be assassin John Hinckley adding, “I respect you,” then James Garfield’s assassin Charles Guiteau remarking, “I envy you,” and the iconic John Wilkes Booth demanding, “Make us proud of you.” Whoa. They encourage Oswald by noting that tomorrow  “around the world, everyone will know your name.” Celebrity.  A celebrity-driven culture. Fame. This scene stands as one of the best-written scenes in the history of musicals.

If, as I said earlier, art is meant to provoke, the conclusion of the show certainly gives us pause. The number is called, “Another National Anthem,” in which the assassins express their intense dissatisfaction with American life. Stephen Sondheim purposely wrote an ugly, dissonant melody to reflect the anger that these people felt at not having the American dream delivered to them while it had wended its way into other homes. What is it about America that creates this need, spanning a century-and-a-half, to shoot our commanders-in-chief?

This show sparks visceral reactions. In each performance I have witnessed (except the high school production!) theatergoers get up and walk out in a huff. (I often thought, “Don’t you know what this production is about at all???”) In one production the actors saw the four women walk out and I swear, the actors increased their volume, intensified their craziness, played directly to them, stared them down and matched the ladies step for step until the poor souls stumbled onto the aisle, grateful for this ribbon of escape.

“You want to shoot a president?” is among the first lyrics in the show. “How the union can never recover” and “No, the country is not what it was” comes in the second song. And then, in that final number, Booth predicts that the Kennedy assassination will bring “grief beyond imagining.”

So the historicizing will be strong today. Everyone will assess Kennedy’s strengths as a leader, and the “what if’s” will be especially strong today. What if Kennedy had lived???? Would the Civil Rights Movement have gone differently? Would the United States have pulled out of Vietnam sooner?

No matter what your political stripes, Kennedy is fascinating and inspiring. Kennedy knew how to create “moments.” One of the interesting ones from 50 years ago today involve Kennedy travelling from Fort Worth just a few miles away to Dallas. (The photo above is from a breakfast 50 years ago this morning in Fort Worth.) President Kennedy insisted on flying to Dallas (it probably took 90 seconds!) because JFK said that presidential plane landings always look great!

So today I may play both of the Broadway musicals I associate with President Kennedy. I will also look at Kennedy’s political savvy as a possible guide for U.S. policy in the post-9/11 Middle East. I will look at how Kennedy sought to re-balance hard and soft power and use the superpower contest as a battle for ideas as well as of strength of force. And I will remember how brilliant Jackie created the wistful memory for a nation: ‘Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.’

Is The Week Chasing Me, or Am I Chasing The Week??

 

 

A month ago today, while in New York, I visited the much- ballyhooed Magritte exhibition this fall at the Museum of Modern Art. Magritte is a witty artist, sometimes seen as a “lightweight” in the art world, but like most of his fans, I enjoy his assault on the complacencies of common sense. As I read the entrance text to the exhibit, I hastily wrote down on my MoMA map some of the commentary written about Magritte: “He sought to de-familiarize the familiar and make everyday objects shriek aloud.” (Question to self: Now is it okay to throw away the familiar map since I finally wrote down the words???)  As I walked through the exhibit, seeing many of his iconic images, discovering some new (to me) works, I was struck by how Magritte spent so much of his artistic time warning us against trusting the images and words we think we see and know. Hmmm…is Magritte offering us a cautionary note for the Internet age? Anyway, I came upon his 1928 painting, The Titanic Days (seen above, right there!) and of course I loved the cryptic title, and I thought this is more than just a clever painting about what’s real and what’s not real. The painting is a depiction of a nude woman being groped by manly arms in suit sleeves, yet the man isn’t a separate figure: he appears almost to be clothing that the woman is taking off or putting on. This isn’t a joke-y painting like his Ceci n’est pas une pipe painting—there is some anguish in her face. The painting, and whatever is happening, has consequences.

In many ways, this past week felt like I was caught in a Magritte painting! There is the one where a steam locomotive is blithely coming out of a nice ordinary fireplace. No, that’s not it. But I felt sort of chasing things, chasing the week actually. Advisor reports were due at the beginning of the week (the third of the big writing assignments of the last six weeks, the first being the comments for every student, then the annual parade of college recommendations that must be submitted) and I had been asked to teach class for the headmaster (he thought it would be nice if I did an overview of 5,000 years of propaganda; that is a nice idea, it just takes a little time…) and then there are classes to teach and the professional development seminars to run…it just felt a little more chase-y than usual. Then the try-outs for the Harvard Model Congress came up, and I needed to judge the candidates. Then I needed to write my final exam.  Then the first glances at the piles of resumes for next year’s teachers. Not too much, just a chase-y, chase-y, week—and everything has consequences!

So on Thursday,  just before I was going to sit and wait for some students to take some practice essays,  I pilfered from our library a copy of my favorite magazine, The Week (don’t worry, I returned the magazine after the little invigilating session!). I love The Week; however, it never arrives in Jordan anywhere near the week it chronicled. The sub-heading of this weekly magazine, kind of an intelligent Reader’s Digest, reads: “the best of the U.S. and international media.” The best part of the magazine is when it takes a subject and provides 6-10 perspectives on the same topic. If it covers the default crisis, let’s say, it provides perhaps a dozen perspectives on it. [As a tangent, I learned that Justice Antonin Scalia doesn’t like to get ‘get upset’ in the morning, so he only reads news from sources with which he agrees…what I love about The Week is that it offers exposure to a wide variety of views.]

Anyway, it is Thursday afternoon (our ‘Friday afternoon’ for the Sun-Th work week world), and I want to relax, watch a few students write an essay, and then relax after chasing my week. So I page through the ‘U.S. at a glance…’ section of The Week and am struck at the ridiculous stories going on (remember, this is a month-old issue in the U.S. but hot off the slow-boat-to-China-presses here).

First of all there was the gun massacre at a Navy facility in Washington—what a strange Magritte-like moment. But far weirder was the cannibal plot in Worcester, MA of a man who was sentenced to jail for plotting to kidnap, kill and eat a child. His basement was outfitted with all such equipment, but his lawyer argued that his basement was merely a “theater for fantasies.” Next I read about the boardwalk fire in New Jersey wiping out all or parts of 68 businesses, starting in a store that sells candles. Then I read about the Miss America pageant and the racist insults hurled on Twitter about the new Miss America. She is Indian-American and many on-line called her “Miss 9/11” and “Miss Terrorist.” Historic floods battered Colorado. In Florida a robber stole a cash drawer from a church gift shop, but was caught when his baggy pants slipped down around his ankles.  Then there is a shooting tragedy in Charlotte, shooting an unarmed car accident victim…I paged over to the section on the “Best Columns: U.S.” and read about various rural counties in Maryland, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, and Michigan that want to secede from the United States. This was the U.S. at a glance, but whoa, when people are worried about ME in the Middle East, I suggest they just take a look at the U.S. at a glance.

By Thursday, either the week had caught me or I had caught the week: I had finished every assignment on time, and enjoyed that satisfying glow of a week of items crossed off the all-mighty, guilt-producing To Do List. We had a speaker on Thursday, Mitch Kapor, an entrepreneur whose name I did not know previously. Julianne interviewed Mr. Kapor on our stage, and Julianne could now join the ranks of Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters as a crack interviewer.

Kapor rose through the ranks of Silicon Valley, but what resonated the most with me was his explanations of why you don’t give up, and how you try and think of “the next big thing.” (Kapor invented Lotus 1-2-3, and when he was bought out, he had invented the Excel spread sheet.) He spoke about the genius of Facebook, but when a student lamented that he wished he (the boy) could have invented it (because of the money) Kapor suggested that he look for a problem that hasn’t been solved instead. “The way to strike it rich is not to think about the money, but scratch an itch that you have, a problem that you have that hasn’t been solved.” What a concise and great formula, almost Magritte-style in its simplicity and elegance. And it can have consequences.

He answered questions for nearly an hour, this man worth almost a billion dollars, who has failed in life, dusted himself off, risen again, risked, and then as he said, “I used my son’s time in high school to vicariously do it all over better this time.” Kapor had wonderful words about his high school math teacher. He said he (Mitch) was as socially inept as someone might be, but the most important thing that teacher did was “pay some attention to me.  I knew I mattered to him. Nothing else was as important or profound as that.”

The familiar—what we know—shrieking aloud with simple truths. While the week was chasing me, or, did you see this pun coming??? The Week was chasing me, it ended with the utterly simple and profound reminder to make sure we let people know they matter. As the down-to-earth, totally un-smug Kapor reminded us, nothing else is as important…

And it has consequences…

 

Saturday mornings at CCM

 

It is Saturday morning here at KA and I just got back from the gym (isn’t it always more pleasurable to say that in the past tense?!). After I post this I may venture over to the Dining Hall and see what’s for brunch. Today I must finish writing the advisory reports for my advisees and then in the afternoon I will proctor my monthly AP Art History test.

All of that is pretty mundane stuff. But on this Saturday morning, I am thinking back decades ago to other Saturday mornings, when I would go up to the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati and take drama classes. I hadn’t thought about those drama classes or those halcyon Saturday mornings for a while, but through the miracle of Facebook (yes, my sister hates it when I designate Facebook as such!) I have thought about it again this week.

Last weekend I had a ‘friend request’ on Facebook, and the name of Catherine Cajkjdjfjjdjksjksjkaa (some Italian name) didn’t mean anything to me;  I noticed that we had no mutual friends, so I was just about to hit the “ignore” button when I decided for a moment I would go to this person’s page. As I clicked her name, a photo came up that I instantly recognized (the photo above, so I don’t keep you in suspense or make you wonder what salacious thing might have been recognized!) and I also noted that she was from Cincinnati, my hometown.

So I looked at the photo, looked back at the name, and saw that before the long Italian name, was the name ‘Frank.’ Wait…as my mind reeled back the decades, I looked at the photo of the Showboat Majestic, moored proudly at the port of Cincinnati, and for decades and decades the home of home-grown theater. I looked at the name and thought, “Hmmm…this must be Cathy Frank of the Showboat days!” I didn’t hit the ‘ignore’ button and instead sent a quick message to this person and asked if she was indeed that Cathy Frank with whom I had gone to drama class and performed with in shows on that Showboat…was she the Cathy Frank who had portrayed  Mrs. Gloop so mightily in 1978 in our production of  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ?????  A day later I had a response, and I could practically hear the laughter from thousands of miles away, that she was indeed the same person, and “how on earth did anyone remember that role???”

I haven’t asked yet, but I am curious how and why she found me, but what a wonderful opportunity to traipse back down memory lane and think of the days at CCM and the summer days at the Showboat. So I was speaking to my father on the phone, telling him about Cathy (I suppose she is Catherine in her professional life as a dramturg and Drama professor) and said, “You know I should look up Kay King [the drama director and teacher at CCM and Showboat] and see what happened to her.” (We both knew Mrs. King had moved from Cincinnati when she retired from teaching and moved to sunny California to be near her son. Over the years I had half-heartedly thought I must contact her and thank her for her deep significance in my life.) As I am talking to my father, I google Kay King and find in a couple of seconds that only six months ago she passed away at the age of 89.

So I was too late to find her and write her a whole-hearted thank you for her efforts and work on behalf of drama and adolescents. She was brilliant. And just six months ago! But it has been lovely thinking back on Kay King and how she shaped generations of young people and their interest in drama.

I met Kay King when I was 13. She was the daughter of a lovely dowager in my family’s church, and my mother had known of her work with Cincinnati teens and drama.  Since I was now a teen, and loved drama through and through, my mother thought it was time I meet Mrs. King and join her troupe. 13! Much time has passed, certainly, but what a profound moment for me to meet this woman and enjoy the influence on my life. I was probably a little unlike most of the wealthy, east-side kids who populated her drama classes (not really because of the geography in Cincinnati or socioeconomic level, actually) since I was complicated, at least in one way. I loved drama, couldn’t get enough of thinking about it, wondering about it, doing it in school—however, I also had a stutter that plagued me. When I met Mrs. King at her home, I shared how excited I would be to join her drama classes at CCM and then do a play on the Showboat Majestic. But I confessed that as much as I loved drama, the stutter made me nervous—what if  I couldn’t control it in a play??? She put me at ease immediately, and said, “We don’t do plays in drama class. We do what are called, ‘theater games’ and you won’t have to follow any set lines in these exercises. You will learn improvisation and you will be totally in control.”  How she knew exactly what worried me, I have no idea, but from the get-go, this woman put me at ease, watched out for me, and listened to my ideas. She sensed that I had no stage fright, but I feared what the stutter would do in terms of my control. In that moment she had quelled that fear.

Soon I was involved in her annual children’s show on the Showboat, Really Rosie, in that summer of 1977. Again, I was perhaps the oddest child in that company because of my summer schedule. In the mornings I rode down with Mrs. King to rehearse on the Showboat (a haven of super-duper air conditioning during the scorching Cincinnati summer!!!) and then in the afternoons I took the bus up to the University of Cincinnati for an intensive seminar/workshop on how to manage stuttering. Talk about a little strange—in the morning I worked with the most extroverted kids imaginable, and then in the afternoon I spent time with some of the most introverted kids imaginable…a strange combination! By the end of the summer the stuttering hadn’t been cured, but the sessions had helped me manage the stress of it much better, and by the end of the summer, watching Mrs. King, I knew I would love to direct plays!

So since Cathy’s out-of-the-blue friend request, I have loved thinking about those Saturdays at CCM. I spent Saturdays throughout the school year at CCM in drama classes for about five years, junior high and high school. The theater games that Mrs. King had described were exciting, thrilling, funny, dramatic, always energy-charged and original. Mrs. King had been part of a wave of new drama teachers in the late 1950s and early 1960s that pioneered these games as a means to tap into, and release a child’s creativity and imagination. Some were mere games, some spawned scenes, but they all dealt with theatrical invention and authenticity. Nothing else I have ever done has come close to what we did in that classroom.

Not to drop names, but one of the other participants in these drama classes was a goofy girl my age named Sarah Jessica Parker, whose father worked at the local ABC affiliate. Pretty soon, this same Sarah Jessica would be whisked to New York to perform in the Broadway show, Annie. For years after stardom touched her, SJ would credit Kay King in interviews for her strong preparation in drama. However, sometime in the 1990s, SJ then amended her biography and began to describe her childhood as poverty-stricken. Oh, please! Your dad worked at a TV station, and your mom was a kooky, bohemian, stay-at-home mom! Oh well, I am grateful because when SJ hit it big, she did help pay scholarships for some of us in the drama classes, so I am thankful for that. I also kept doing things with her siblings, a boy choir with her brother, and more drama with her sister. Anyway, I digress…

But Mrs. King was always more than a leader of theater games. There were some important moments being in her orbit that have shaped me profoundly. First of all, as we drove downtown to the riverfront home of the Showboat, she often asked me about the play, and I offered some “tips” in how we might sharpen the production. She didn’t bristle and remind me of her decades of experience, or the many awards she had won as a drama educator, she listened, she often shared my “notes,” and she certainly made me supremely interested in the craft of directing. I wish I could thank her in person for the excellent model she provided and let her know I went on to direct 67 shows!

In junior high I also enjoyed writing radio shows for competitions. Mrs. King was often called upon to judge those competitions. After I had placed second in one such competition, Mrs. King spoke to me after drama class one day, and said something wise. She said, “You did a fine job on that radio show, but the material wasn’t really original. Do something that is about you, your story—be more daring to be original and tell your own story.” I took her advice to heart, and next year I wrote and performed  a radio show about a kid who yearned to be an actor, but a speech impediment proved a scary obstacle. I won first place that year, and the judge’s glowing comments have always meant even more than the first place finish. I had dared to tell my story, and the writing and producing of the show remains an exciting moment from my youth.

In high school I went to CCM on Saturdays with my dear friend Doris. We had a hilarious time attending class, creating scenes and characters and moments of dramatic fun. Once in awhile, shhhhhh, Doris and I actually skipped drama class and walked around Clifton and the UC campus pretending to be college kids. Doris picked up the love of the CCM classes and the performances on the ‘boat.

Oh the Showboat…the ancient, creaking floors, the tiniest of dressing rooms on the planet, the days when some barge went by and all of a sudden your balance became an issue on the stage! The Showboat was a chrysalis for many a young performer, and from time to time I have gone back to see shows there, most recently this summer to see Big River. A childhood friend of mine and her husband have run the Showboat for 23 years, but just this fall, they have announced that their time has come to an end with the Showboat…I hope someone picks up the lease on the historic space and continues making dramatic magic on that postage-stamp size stage.

But one last lesson from Mrs. King…in our senior year, Doris and I had become estranged. As President of Studio Choir, it fell to me that when our leader, the beloved Mrs. Schneider, needed surgery, I had to teach the Christmas music to our ensemble. As can happen in such situations, a couple of my best friends kind of resented my “elevation” and the friendship fractured. It was obvious on those Saturday mornings at CCM that something had come between us. Mrs. King decided that we should act it out, figure it out, and solve the rift right there. We complied and in the end, tears and hugs. But Mrs. King also reminded each one of us in the class the importance of finding ways to mend broken relationships.

Oh, just a couple more quick stories about the CCM days!  In high school Mrs. King cast me in the one romantic lead of my life! She was doing a show of “Fractured Fairy Tales” and she cast me as the Prince. It wasn’t comic, I swear! I had a big ballad, “You’re the One,” and this has been the one big ballad-y, serious, romantic part of my life! In that play I also met a new drama student, Jill, one those fairy-tale teen-age romances that everyone should get to have. The luminous Jill, she of the ballet stage and ingénue parts, was my prom date my junior year.

Hey, I haven’t heard from Jill in 30 years! Maybe, I could be as intrepid as Cathy and look her up! I would be quite happy to continue remembering those wonderful Saturdays at CCM!

 

Their Capacity to Love

Once a year or so I post a re-run of a previous blog entry. I thought I would do a re-run today, taking a blog entry I wrote on November 4, 2011--on the day of my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. I continue to marvel in the love that my parents shared across decades and am happy to take you back two years as I think about them over the course of their half-century love affair:

Since my last blog entry, an important milestone in the history of the world has passed. No, it wasn’t a Golden Girls marathon, or a chili festival, or a musical about my life. (Nothing about me actually!) In the last few days the world witnessed the birth of the 7 billionth person on our planet. I went and looked up and learned that since I was born, the world has literally doubled in population.

Of all the 7 billion people who are alive now, and the billions before us who have passed into the life beyond our profanus, there are two who really stand out to me: my parents, Kenneth and Mary Martha.

And in the next 24 hours a slightly less momentous event will pass in the history of the world—Kenneth and Mary Martha’s 50th wedding anniversary.

Over the years of blog writing you have picked up bits and pieces about how influential on me my parents have been. Right now is a perfect time to re-visit some of those thoughts and think about what they were doing 50 years ago right now.

Frankly, Kenny and Mare couldn’t have picked a better date for their wedding. Maybe they knew that their first-born would be a history-obsessed being, because they chose such a perfect, November 4th, for their wedding day…wait for it..wait, you don’t know? You can’t see how perfect it was that they chose November 4th? Ahh, maybe you weren’t invited on another November 4th, back in 1842 when resolute Abraham Lincoln married saucy Mary Todd. In my childhood I was obsessed with Abraham Lincoln, and I remember one year thanking my parents for having picked the Lincoln’s wedding day for their own wedding day.

Talk of this glorious November 4th wedding in 1961 was never far from us in my childhood. My mother loved her wedding photo albums and we looked at them frequently. There was a beautiful one, bound in red leather, of the black-and-white shots of the wedding. Then there was a more-expensive-looking album full of the color shots. And from time-to-time, my mother was known to take out the reel-to-reel tape recorder and play the recording of the actual wedding. My sister and I would sit right by my mother, and we heard the recording often enough that not only could we recite the vows, but we knew the exact intonation of that wonderful bride and groom. The bride sounded dreamy and the groom sounded no-nonsense—what a pair, what a combination!!

When I was in 5th grade I inaugurated a new way to celebrate my parent’s anniversary: I would cook them a multi-course meal. This was toward the beginning of my obsession with cooking, and I would get out my mother’s cookbooks and pore over the possibilities of courses. In the 4th grade I made a meal, like, you know a standard, bourgeois meal. But the following year, I planned far ahead, chose stuffed pork chops with an orange glaze as my main dish, and then looked for appetizers and courses and courses to make. I decided to invite my friend Kecia Yee home from school, and paid her $5 to be the waitress for all the courses.

At the end of this extravagant meal I wished them well, and wished them good luck in cleaning up, and went to watch an episode of Rhoda. I announced that none of the great cooks in the world cleaned up. Can you imagine what Kenny and Mare talked about as they cleaned up every pot and pan they owned from their multi-course anniversary meal? Oh, my. Eventually, I did learn to clean up after myself.

These days I like to watch the TV show Mad Men just to get an idea of what those days were like in the early 60s when my parents courted, got married, and started a family. My father even looks like Jon Hamm as Don Draper. But while the fashions and the mores might be similar to 1961 Cincinnati, that is where the comparisons end. In terms of personalities, smoking, and drinking, Kenny and Mare are nothing (thank Heavens!) like the Drapers.

I enjoy thinking what my parents were like in terms of personality. I know them well. But of course much of our family story could be overshadowed by the MS that took hold in my mother. The MS limited us in some ways, and some people would think it would ravage the dreamy-ness of that 1961 Mary Martha. But no, the MS did not deter the resolute Ken, nor rob the dramatic, dreamy Mary Martha of their love and efforts at wedded bliss.

A couple years ago, in a blog entry, I wrote this about my father: Last summer I read an account of Abraham Lincoln’s rise to national prominence. A New York newspaper characterized the newly minted Republican Party Presidential Nominee: “As for Lincoln, he has all the marks of a mind that scans closely, canvasses thoroughly, concludes deliberately, and holds to such conclusions unflinchingly.” I read that, and thought—that’s my father! Those are the same traits as Ken Leistler. Grappling with my mother’s MS for decades imbued him with strength and human understanding rarely found in people. He has taught us that life-affirming humor and profound resilience will lighten despair and fortify one’s will.

And as for that dreamy-voiced, effervescent bride 50 years ago? Well, they didn’t make it to the 50-year mark here on earth. But they triumphed in nearly 45 years of marriage plus the courtship. Four years ago I wrote of the evening when my father called to relay the news that she had slipped away to Heaven: On that May evening when my father called to relay the news that my mother had passed away, I was on the way to one of my plays I had directed. There were scenes in this play from the myths that Ovid wrote in ancient Rome. My favorite was the last scene, wherein a man and wife begged the gods not to outlive their own capacity to love. In the weeks preceding the performance I had enjoyed this scene anyway, for it reminded me of the love between my parents. In the play, this man and wife stood hand in hand begging the gods not to allow them to outlive their own capacity to love. As I drove to school that night, it was such a natural thing to honor her life by watching this play of mine. She was the one who infused my life to enjoy adventure and excitement, instilled in me a love of imagination and wonder, and taught me that love was the mightiest bulwark. As I watched those two beg the gods, “let me not outlive my own capacity to love,” I knew that I had witnessed the best example I will ever know of a man and wife who never outgrew their own capacity to love.

For many years I would call my parents on November 4th, and ask my mother to remember what she was doing on that day. While her short-term memory became more like vapor, she had a vibrant memory of that day in 1961 when she married her “Special K.” I would ask what she had been doing that November day, who she was talking about, how the plans were going, what she worried about, who she was excited to see at the wedding. I could feel her smile and joy as she re-lived that day for me on the phone.

In a couple minutes I will call my father and ask him some of the same questions, marveling that half a century has passed since he wore that white dinner jacket, dark trousers, and brilliant smile at the end of the aisle. In a couple hours I will be jetting to London for a quick vacation, and who knows if I will get to call tomorrow. I have to relay my congratulations for this momentous event in world history.

In my Christmas letter of 2006, I reflected on the power of my mother in our family’s life and times: My mother’s life and death have been powerful teaching tools for our family. She showed us what deep, abiding faith in God looks like. And yet, she never exhibited a stony stoicism, nor did she cultivate an anger at God for what had happened to her. While some say anger might be appropriate, and certainly understandable, she showed us that we have to imagine other responses. Anger, vengeance, regret, remorse, these only foster a destructive cycle—like Indiana Jones, we may have to make it up as we go along, so in my mother’s opinion, we might as well choose joy. Mary Martha Griley Leistler always looked for something to give thanks for in the midst of what might be troubling and fearsome. She would remind us that we don’t always have a choice about what happens to us, but we always have a choice in our attitude. Refuse to complain. Insist on hope. Expect miracles. Seek peace.

They may not be as famous as the Lincolns; it may not be as earth shattering as the 7 billionth earthling, but what a pair that I have been blessed to know. There is a bulletin from a church service in Tarrytown back in 2004 that I keep in my Bible. The title of the sermon is “The Grip of a Loving God.” I keep it because of the title of that sermon. I look at my parents, the wondrous Mary Martha, the resolute Kenneth, and I think that my whole life has been shaped by that loving grip of my parents’ capacity to love.

What expectations?

Yesterday I finished Great Expectations.

Now, I have read the book before cover-to-cover—twice in fact! The first time was the more memorable time, long ago in 1982 when as a senior at Western Hills High School I was hand-picked to be in Jean Michaels’ special class on Charles Dickens’ novels. I had the legendary and iconic Mrs. Michaels for AP Modern European History (and had had her the year before as well for AP U.S. History) and half-way through the year, every year, she would lead a seminar with about 6 students as they made their way through a number of Dickens’ novels. I did indeed hope I would be in this class!

We first tackled Dickens’ breakout-to-fame work in Pickwick Papers and down the road we explored Great Expectations. Oh, I could spend a whole blog entry waxing nostalgic about all the novels we read, the Dickensian-era dinners Mrs. Michaels hosted for us, the Victorian-era games she taught us—but I digress, I finished GE yesterday!!! The second time I had read the book was in a British Literature class in 1984 in college, and then it was fun to re-visit the book, but not as powerful an experience as that first time with Mrs. Michaels.

However, let‘s get back to my 2013 feat! I finished the book yesterday. I am reluctant, nay, ashamed to say, it is my first Dickens novel in 20 years that I have finished. I read 12 of his novels in the 1980s, and then I taught Hard Times a couple times in the 1990s, but it has been now, sadly, about 20 years since I have finished a CD novel. Why did I read the book this fall, you may ask? Well, my delightful niece Emma, who is 15 and in the 9^th grade in an Honors English class in a new (for her) Catholic girl’s high school, had assigned to her to read Great Expectations this month and I thought I should read the book along with her.

In some ways, this cutesy assignment of uncle and niece reading the same book, talking on the phone about it over our thousands of miles apart, reminded me of film critic David Denby and an assignment he gave himself 20 years ago. Denby, an alum of Columbia University, decided to re-take a humanities-literature class he had taken as a freshman 30 years before and see what he thought of the books as an adult. He wanted to plumb the depths of his memory for what these “great books” had meant to him at age 18, and then assess whether or not the books meant much to him 30 years later. So I am about exactly at the same point as David Denby when he went back to class and re-discovered the western canon.

First of all, as much as I loved reading Great Expectations with Mrs. Michaels as a budding european historian and senior in 1982, I have never been a fan of how many schools across the US assign Great Expectations to 9^th graders. I thought I was the perfect age to encounter the travails of young and impressionable Pip as a senior in high school, but I have had too many peers, and then students, assigned the novel in 9^th grade, detest the density of language and plotting, and vow never to read Dickens again! That horrified me!!! I couldn’t even tell you which one was my favorite Dickens novel! I loved almost all of them so much from our close reading back in the 80s, although I would probably say Bleak House, but then no! Hard Times  with Stephen Blackpool and Jane Gradgrind get me so sad, and then there’s the picaresque and comical Mr. Pickwick and his gang, and who could forget…well, I am not here to rank the novels.  I gave a little rant to my sister about the follies of assigning the book to freshmen. Maybe that’s why I decided to re-read the book so I could play “Dickens Fan” to Emma in case she wavered in any admiration of his 19^th century prose.

Second of all, Emma sends me the schedule of reading. Ohmigosh! We have to read the book that fast????  Within the first five days, I got behind. Great! However, I did have two transatlantic flights coming up, allowing me to spend some more quality time with the intricacies of the plot. I really remembered only the barebones of the plot, and found it fun to get caught up again in the action.

Third of all, as I re-read the book, taking a tour through the ups and downs of Pip’s life, much like David Denby, I found the book meant way much more than I remembered 30 years ago. My rediscovery and celebration of Pip’s personal odyssey has been an engaging blend of self-discovery, cultural commentary, reporting, criticism, and meditation. In other words, I must tell Mrs. Michaels at Christmas that I have been re-inspired by Dickens’ written word.

Fourth of all, I tried to think about why so many teachers assign this complex book to 9^th graders. I am all for challenges—love them—but I kept trying to think why 14-15 year old adolescents are the right/best audience for this text. I am sure some teachers simply assign what they are told, but I wanted to dig down and think why, why, why, this grade and this story might match well. And yes, I came up with excellent reasons. Hopefully the book is not so rushed, the plot over-emphasized that they don’t think about these reasons themselves, those precious and volatile adolescents.

Now for those of you, dear readers, who have never read the novel, or for whom it has been a seriously long time, let me see if I can give you an overview WITHOUT SPOILERS since that would impede your  desire, perhaps, to pick up the book…okay, in about a half-page here it is:

A young boy named Pip lives on the English marshes with his cruel sister and her gentle and kind husband.  One Christmas Eve, Pip meets a scary, escaped convict in a churchyard. Pip steals food so that the convict won't starve (and also so that the convict won't rip his guts out). Soon after, in apparently unrelated events, Pip gets asked to play at Miss Havisham's, the creepy lady who lives down the street and cannot let go of the past. The only good thing about the mansion, as far as Pip is concerned, is Estella, Miss Havisham's adopted daughter. However, as far as we are concerned, Estella is cold and snobby, but man oh man, is she pretty!

Several years later, when Pip has been apprenticed to his brother-in-law, the blacksmith, a great surprise befalls Pip! He comes into a fortune by means of a mysterious and undisclosed benefactor, says goodbye to his family, and heads to London to become a gentleman. And it's pretty sweet at first. Mr. Jaggers, Pip's guardian, is one of the biggest and baddest lawyers in town. Pip also gets a new BFF named Herbert Pocket, the son of Miss Havisham's cousin. Mr. Jaggers says many times that with all of this money, Pip now has “great expectations.”

That’s enough to tell you. I wouldn’t want to rob you of the fun of Pip’s doings around London and what happens to everyone in the story.

I discovered that I understood Pip much better now,  got madder at him, lost patience with his insensitivity, felt ashamed of his braggadocio, and yearned for him to be a better man and friend. When I was 18 I guess I hoped I might be like Pip—someone would bestow on me a fortune, I would get nice clothes, swept away somewhere glamorous, and wait for my great expectations to do it all for me. I mean, isn’t that what many of us feel? At least those on reality shows! But I don’t think I got so upset with Pip then as I did now.

I looked at Pip along the way and kept thinking, “youth is wasted on the young,” sounding every bit as decrepit as that sounds to utter! Why was Pip not kinder to his ever-patient and reliable brother-in-law Joe? Was anyone more faithful than Joe? And Herbert, his new BFF—why did Pip not appreciate him more? Don’t even get me started on Estella!!!!!!! Estella was as annoying and “mean girl”-ish as, well, as a percentage of the teenage girls I have known and taught over the years. Maybe the biggest reason why a girl’s high school should assign the book is to trumpet: Do Not Be Like Estella! How cruel and heartless and ultimately unfulfilled and empty that girl is.

Once I got through the big surprise plot point—which wasn’t really as exciting and profound this time around—I found that the book took on a poignance and profundity about gratitude and the appreciation of life. I thought of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables and Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. But mostly, I thought of my own dumb Pip moments in life, and treasured the few, truly blessed-to-know people who have helped me the most on this journey.

Isn’t it always wonderful to think of parents who sacrificed for you? Isn’t it always glorious to think of friends who have stood by you, stood the test of time, and continue to stand shoulder to shoulder as we figure out that money and fame and great expectations can be a little hollow and unfulfilling? Not that I have had a real taste of money and fame, but I have seen some who have, and I think about those moments in my non-money and non-fame lifestyle that have made me eternally grateful I pursued teaching the Pips and Estellas and other adolescents of my world.

I don’t want to give away much about the book, but there was a passage that just got to me in much the same way Jean Valjean’s purity of heart in one scene in particular has stayed with me. Let me talk about the theatrical production of Les Miz for a moment: Jean Valjean sings “Bring Him Home,” my favorite song in this show, and I have always found it the first and most genuine moment in Valjean’s life when he pleads with God to take him, and spare the young and noble Marius. Valjean had been told by the priest years and years ago to do good in the world, and Valjean had endeavored to follow those orders. But it felt a little like just the motions of it until this moment when Valjean beseeches God that he should die, and not the heroic Marius. That moment gets me every time.

In Great Expectations, Pip has found out that the seemingly great expectations are maybe less-than-great, or at least certainly not what he expected! Pip finds himself in a situation attacked, and the violence could claim his life. Pip doesn’t plead to live because of the money or the expectations.  No, Dickens writes that Pip thought:

            “My mind, with inconceivable rapidity, followed out all the consequences of such a death. Estella’s father would believe I had deserted him, would be taken, would die accusing me; even Herbert would doubt me….Joe and Biddy would never know how sorry I had been that night…how true I had meant to be, what an agony I had passed through. The death close before me was terrible, but far more terrible than death was the dread of being misremembered after death. And so quick were my thoughts, that I saw myself despised by unborn generations…”

Pip wished he had made things right. Pip wished he had understood what expectations are really about, not the fancy clothes, the fancy meals, the fancy entourage, but later in the book, Pip yearned to make things right. In the end, he felt for those who had supported him. Pip stated at one point, “I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe.” Pip realized his ingratitude and set out to make things as right as he could.

What do we expect from life???

Ah, but maybe the best moment of last night was talking on the phone with Emma, having an intellectual discussion about the book with my niece about symbolism, about the 19^th century English penal system, about Pip’s coming-of-age, about Pip as an entitled misfit. In her 15 years we have never enjoyed such an intellectual and scholarly discussion. It was divine.

So Great Expectations destroys Pip’s great expectations. But the book reminded me of my last 30 years and my own expectations, my own sense of gratitude, and pointed me toward a sense of peace about how to expect, and what to expect from each glorious day. Go read the book and see what you think. Call Emma and have a great conversation.

Faith, Iconography and Power or Decay and Glory

 

Maybe I should have just taught some art that relates to Halloween today. I don’t know, I don’t think I taught  very well today, and that bothers me, but it is always a, shall we say, delicate balance to figure out how to teach well, pedagogically, content-wise, at the beginning of the week, all filtered through our own personal neuroses and miasmas. Good, Heavens!  Indeed, maybe that ghoulish painting on the bottom, a 1973 work by contemporary Austro-Canadian Otto Rapp, entitled, The Deterioration of Mind Over Matter would have been more successful.

The work on the top, a 6^th century very precious and rare icon of the enthroned Virgin Mary, was at the centerpiece of today’s art history lecture. Okay, sure, which one of these art works would probably have generated more heat and action in the classroom??!!! But, in a survey as expansive and rushed as the AP Art History curriculum, we really don’t have time to stop and just “have fun” like with the diabolical, surreal Rapp piece. And that icon is from the coolest monastery in the world—St. Catherine’s at the base of Mount Sinai, in Egypt…yes, I have been there!

So, why didn’t it go well today? A parade of Byzantine icons is always a difficult “sell” to any audience, yeah sure, but there is an exciting urgency to this week. This week I call “Our Encounters with the Divine” week and in this four-day week (one day is given over to a school-wide PSAT test, yeah, great)  we careen through the visual imagery of Byzantine Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. I try and frame the art as a way to reveal the beliefs and practices of each faith, also hoping the quick-connect-the-dots students will see universalities among and between these major world faiths. But today I saw more yawns and anxious looks at the clock (hey, it was right before lunch!) than in a month of Sundays (slight religious pun intended!). So I thought it might be fun to write a blog entry about a tough day in class and a day that did not engage as well as I had hoped.

Gee, writing about a bum day in class…sounds like interesting reading, huh??!!

But actually, this period of art is fascinating, and I wanted to reclaim it for myself tonight, so read on dear reader! Byzantine art has been described by one of my textbooks as “about paradise—meaning it is everywhere and nowhere.” That alone is a fascinating assessment. If you check out one of the study guides for AP Art History they reduce almost two millennia of these images as simply, The Four F’s: flat, frontal, formal and floating. Okaaaaaaayy…well, that works as a mnemonic device in discerning a Byzantine work with a cool  little F trick, but oh, there is more beneath the surface!  Like really all religious art, these images are meant to serve as a refuge from the real world. Increasingly in this historical time (which would be from about 550 and for the next thousand years, but even continuing in many contemporary Orthodox churches) there would be no art images in their real world, and one would visit a church as a refuge and solace from that everyday world. You step inside one of these churches, and the gold backgrounds and the jeweled colors and the images of an all-mighty Divine One would envelop and embrace and stun you.  But beside the image as refuge, one can’t escape how the works are not made in a vacuum—they are against the landscape of the tumult of real history. That dichotomy ought to set your pulse racing!

From Crete to Moscow to Constantinople to Cairo, these icons faithfully represented the same reality. This reality was not depicted by the image but contained by it: icons held the “presence” of Christ or the Virgin or the saints, as if in a kind of limbo, waiting to be activated by the fervor of the faithful. That is why they are difficult for us…if they seem “boring” it is because we have not stepped into its world of infinite reflections and crossed that threshold into what you fervently long to get, that glory beyond the glory that you see. You can see how easy it is for our 21^st century eyes to resist such a vision.

Let’s add on top of this the “tumult of real history” I tempted you with earlier! In 726 Byzantine Emperor Leo III felt the tremors not too far south of his capital in Constantinople the incursions of a new faith, Islam. As I mentioned in class that this is one of the first instances of a Christian reacting to the rising surge of Islam, I fumbled to find the right verb, and Rami, a student far more engaged today than maybe I deserved, Rami said, “This is when Christianity and Islam first collided.” Great verb Rami!

I noted that Leo worried that Islam, with its rather daring ban on representations of human form, decided that the faithful in his empire should therefore destroy the icons like that one from Sinai above! Some obeyed and some did not. Ohhh, it gets rather interesting and kind of class warfare like: the rich defend the precious, expensive icons, and the poor have at it and destroy away! For 150 years there is this debate over icons, their use, their veracity, their idol-like control, and that is why the icon above from St. Catherine’s is so precious since very few survive from this time. We have a Christian icon, a source of refuge, that is very much caught between the storm of Christianity and Islam. Wow! And still I managed to be on the dull side today!

Yes, I suppose the ghastly Rapp painting would have been more fun today, and it also stands for some of the same feelings of iconography and power, but I like the little lesson on icons as well. Faith—and its ability to inspire the most soaring of visions, the most rarified of craftsmanship, as well as the most zealous attacks on non-believers, is the underpinning of this week’s exploration. The icons tax our 21^st century attention spans, but they also allow for a peek at the tumult of history and the way it can lead to an astonishing cross-pollination.

On Friday night, the night our school celebrated Halloween, I was on my way to the school’s Haunted House. A student, a captivating, compelling, quixotic young man came to my door, and wanted to talk about good and evil in the world. Great. One trip would have been easy (um, to the Haunted House) and one taxed my mind as he explored whether or not history has been inevitable about evil…oh, my, nothing really weighty is ever easy, and so I think about today’s class, look at how it is a difficult lesson, and kind of chuckle as I ponder Ralph Waldo Emerson’s semi-Halloween saying, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”  Let’s just leave it at faith and glory.

Wunderkammer!

 

Last night I returned from a quick week-long trip to New York. Of course it was marvelous. How could that glimpse and taste of my old life in New York not be wonderful? And as I thought about the trip on the plane ride back across the ocean, I realized it was just that: wonder-full. My time in New York is always exciting and invigorating because of the friends I see, the old haunts I visit, and the curiosity and energy of that metropolis. I had a lot of time to think on the flight back since the computer system had malfunctioned and there were no movies or maps to watch during the long flight. Oh well. No matter! I thought of several upcoming blog entries! But most of all, I decided that New York, for me at least, is like this delightful old German word, a wunderkammer. Hmmmm…say it a couple times to yourself, ja? And make sure you say a ‘v’ sound on wunder and not a ‘w’!!

What is, or, was ist, a wunderkammer, you may ask? It is literally a cabinet of curiosities, of wonders, about art and the world. In Renaissance Europe such wunderkammer became quite popular—each nobleman aspired to have an encyclopediac collection of objects whose eclectic categorical boundaries were hard to define. These charming curios of curiosities conveyed symbolically the patron’s control he had of the world around him. These “cabinets of wonder” are the precursors to our modern museums.

In reaction to my usual verbose self I decided to sum up in a phrase or two why I love New York so much. I decided that I go to New York to refresh my sense of awe with the world. (Now since I have devoted a whole blog entry to this discussion, I don’t suppose I have avoided verbosity in the least!).  As corny as this sounds, when I am in New York, I find myself gasping in wonderment at all that is around me—the theater, the restaurants, the friends, the museums, Central Park, and I find lessons that can be gleaned so easily from all that is around me in New York. So I decided to look back into my wunderkammer of last week’s trip to see what curiosities dazzled me especially. Art, like the heart, can sometimes defy logic, and it is often the most ordinary things in New York that remind me of beauty. Beauty is often where you don’t expect to find it; that it is sometimes we may discover and also invent, then reinvent, for ourselves; that the most important things in the world are never as simple as they seem but that the world is richer when it declines to abide by comforting formulas.

Christy, my intrepid partner-in-wonder-for-all-things-New York, and I went to an unusual theatrical event together. It was part improvisation, part walking tour, and part detective procedural show. In the Lower East Side we met others in a dingy bar and learned about an unsolved crime of a brother and sister in 1873 “Five Points” in New York. We then had a map and a bag of clues, and set out to find the suspects, all of whom were walking around the neighborhood, and we questioned the suspects about motives and alibis, always trying to crack this case. After a couple of hours each group got to state who they believed the murderers were and why. What an exciting way to spend an afternoon exploring and researching and reliving a bygone era of New York. The actors did a remarkable job fielding our questions, speaking in long ago idioms and prejudices and reminding us of the social history of the late 19^th century Bowery.

On another day I went with my former student Talal to the Met. I had looked forward to this since Talal is one of the most exciting students I have had in art history. How fun to go through and see some of the works we studied. But I also wanted to look at a work that is rather new and contemporary, one we hadn’t studied in class, and that might excite a certain amount of wonder. I chose a work by contemporary Japanese artist Kohei Nawa, an artist under the age of 40.

Nawa has developed an original technique and term called “Pixcell” in which he works. The term Pixcell is derived from both “pixel” and “cell”—the most basic building blocks of the digital and the organic. Mr. Nawa has been working with his unique artificial glass medium of Pixcell beads since 2000, using them to address the discrepancies between exterior and interior, what is perceived and what is actual. Take a look at the top of the page at art work Talal and I encountered. What do you see? 

Hundreds of crystal clear beads coat a once living, now taxidermied deer, complete with a full and proud rack of antlers.

It is a strange sight!  The Pixcell Deer stands in a room, surrounded by ancient Japanese screens that are coated in natural imagery. Nawa’s Pixcell Deer (from 2011) is a solitary figure emanating a cool, silvery light in an otherwise warm, golden room. But its magnetic attraction becomes weird when I realize what lies beneath the bubble-covered skin. A deer, once living, breathing and feeling, is now stuffed, frozen and silent! From afar, the stag deceives viewers into believing that it is simply a sculpture, an inanimate object that was made from nothing into something. The realization of being tricked, as well as being confronted with what is essentially a carcass, is very strange.

But strange is okay. Strange is usually also about wonder. Nawa invites us to look, to wonder, to learn, and then to be a little more confused. It is obvious that the Pixcells reflect what is around the room—but every image is upside-down!!?!

From the wall text I learn that a deer is traditionally considered a messenger for the deities of the Japanese Shinto faith. Nawa repurposes the ancient Kasuga Mandala (the compositional motif of a white deer turned toward a mirror that sits on its back) to create his own harbinger of deception, which communicates the release from physical reality in preference for images. Kawa is quoted in the wall text:    “By covering a surface of an object with transparent glass beads, the existence of the object itself is replaced by a ‘husk of light,’ and the new vision ‘the cell of an image’ (Pixcell) is shown.”

His focus on the space between perception and reality, or what might be called illusion, inspires ominous feelings. The outer layer of things, the skin, is the most immediately attractive portion of the work, but it also physically and metaphorically distorts what lies beneath it. A single bead, similar in size to a fortuneteller’s crystal ball, rests in the slope of the deer’s spine. As the largest Pixcell it is the easiest to peer into, but grotesque fun-house-mirror images form within it. My own twisted and bent reflection mixes with the contorted features of the deer into a vortex of light and color. The glass eyes of the stuffed animal are near human eye-level; a dark and piercing stare hangs beyond the fractal divide.

Reflections force a viewer to both look and be looked at. But this often leads to forgetting the divide between what is presented and what is seen. Knowing that I was both staring at, and being stared at, forces me to reevaluate the relationship that was forming between this art object and myself. Is then this deer that lived into adulthood before being killed, stuffed and sold, still a deer? No. Now this animal exists solely as an image—pixels made of light and color created by its new, artificial skin. The living animal was translated to an image on a website, repurposed into a sculpture, and then recreated as a hybrid physical-image. Nawa’s use of the Pixcell beads on everything great and small, living and dead, imposes a sense of wonder that breeds uncertainty in my mind. What is nature in the technological age? Are we people or are we images of people? And finally, will the human eye eventually lose the ability to tell the difference? I wonder…

I could go on and on, because it seems every episode in New York lends itself to a beauty and wonder for me. But just one more little drawer in my wunderkammer will I share today…about another play. Christy and I went to see a new (only days since it had opened!) and splashy musical on Broadway called Big Fish.

I approach the art of theater in the spirit of an amateur. I mean amateur in the original sense of the word, as a lover, someone who does something for the love of it, whole-heartedly. Big Fish was a delight! I went to see it simply because of four names attached to the show (It was a 1990s movie by Tim Burton, but a film I never saw). The three leading actors and the director are well-known in the New York as consummate pros and outstanding theatrical animals.

Big Fish is a musical built around the tall—or at least well-stretched—tales  of an Alabama-born traveling salesman, Edward Bloom who has a penchant for embellishing his life. With his stocky build, short stature, and thinning hair (wait! Am I starring in this???), lead actor Norbert Leo Butz is an unlikely leading man, but he has the loose-limbed energy and charisma of a young Dick Van Dyke.  For the most part, though, Big Fish finds theatrically inventive ways to reel audiences into its central love story. In this case, it isn't boy-meets-girl but father-hooks-son. And Edward Bloom is quite a catch. But not every critic took the bait (stop me!!! I could on and on with the fishing puns!!) One critic wrote last week: “A lot of loving craftsmanship has gone into this musical, and it delivers satisfying entertainment for those who don't mind being emotionally manipulated.”

Don’t mind?? I have no problem with something that tugs on the heartstrings!

Wholesomeness gets a bad rap on Broadway these days, usually regarded as the kind of unbearably sweet and inoffensive entertainment that sophisticated theatergoers must endure while taking their conservative grandmas out for a night on the town...But Big Fish displays no fear in plopping its unabashed wholesomeness right in your lap. Its spirit is steeped in Rodgers and Hammerstein decency that propels an evening that's adventurous, romantic and, yeah, kinda daring. It was an imaginative and heart-tugging evening, just the kind of wonder I adore.

 

I guess what I love so much about my wunderkammer trips to New York is that I find art really everywhere in that city. There is the accidental masterpiece in lunch with Kate, catching up with Harrison, visiting with a friend who has suffered a tragic loss, enjoying a walk in the park. The art is certainly on display in one of the gazillions of museums in New York, but it is the wonder of discovering it, enjoying it in an Irish suspect in old New York, in a dead deer, and in the hopes of catching a big fish. Time to close the drawers of the wunderkammer but boy I can’t wait to open the cabinet again!