Friday, November 23, 2007

Hermann Hesse

I've never made my peace with Hesse, though I've tried throughout several of his novels, from Demien, to Siddhartha, to The Steppenwolf. I don't agree with his belief that salvation is uncovered from within the self-realized individual, nor with the resulting disdain for religion, but I relate to his disgust at societal convention, and the general sense of separateness and isolation that modern life breeds.

It is Hesse's poetic style that impresses me the most. There are times when the reader feels more like he is holding a book of poetry than a novel. Here is a passage from The Steppenwolf, a book so powerful that one of my closest friends has a Steppenwolf tattoo on his upper arm:

"There is much to be said for contentment and painlessness, for these bearable and submissive days, on which neither pain nor pleasure cry out, on which everything only whispers and tiptoes around. But the worst of it is that it is just this contentment that I cannot endure. After a short time it fills me with irrepressible loathing and nausea. Then, in desperation, I have to escape into other regions, if possible on the road to pleasure, or, if that cannot be, on the road to pain. When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so-called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my rusty lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the most devilish pain burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to commit outrages, to pull off the wigs of a few revered idols, to provide for a few rebellious schoolboys with the longed-for ticket to Hamburg, to seduce a little girl, or to stand one or two representatives of the established order on their heads. For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity."

Saturday, November 17, 2007

"The Holidays"



As The United States approaches "the holiday season", I feel my psyche begin to harden (as it does every year) in large part due to my anticipation of the abundant arrogance and emptiness that our culture will express through rampant consumerism over the next several weeks. Put another way, I am a Christian, and I hate the "celebration" of Christmas precisely because the two have so little to do with each other. For the sake of all that IS good in the world, Christmas as we know it should be driven out of existence.

These shouldn't be radical ideas: This Thanksgiving, try telling people how thankful you are for them. It's not easy, but loved ones are too precious and too easily lost. For Christmas, direct your gifts toward people who NEED, not those who WANT. Give creatively and generously (and anonymously, if you can) to the poor, and share a drink with the rest. For Christians, "The Spirit of Christmas" is summed up in John 3:16, not in dollars. You can convey that love without stressing out, without spending a dime, without fighting the crowds, and without becoming part of The Problem.

To be clear, I am a market capitalist, but no like-minded economic theorist sees unchecked capitalism (or utilitarianism, for that matter) as a pure good. Mill and Bentham both, for example, assumed one such limitation when they presupposed the individual possessing a principled set of moral values and skills that fundamentally governed his behavior. Even in the face of aggressive pressure, these foundational notions would bring about balanced, rational decisions in the marketplace. Without this cohesive set of external and primary beliefs, we get what most people call "consumerism", which is a self-referential set of principles derived from the material goods themselves. This is what makes me hurt.

Regret

"Melancholy" (1891), by Edvard Munch

Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Pablo Neruda

It took me less than half a lifetime to realize that regret is one of the few guaranteed certainties. Sooner or later everything is touched by it, despite our naive and sensless hope that just this time we will be spared its cold hand on our heart. Jonathan Carroll

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. Sydney Smith

If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world. Mercedes Lackey

Accept life, and you must accept regret. Henri Frederic Amiel

To regret deeply is to live afresh. Henry David Thoreau

My one regret in life is that I am not someone else. Woody Allen

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Only connect...

The first time I found a home in literature was when I read E. M. Forster's "Howard's End" in 1992. In this work, I discovered a link to eternal truths that I did not know existed. Here was a writer that could be all at once humorous ("... he had no guiding principle beyond a certain preference for mediocrity"), cutting ("The more people one knows, the easier it becomes to replace them"), practical ("Money is the fruit of self-denial") and profound ("Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him... Squalor and tragedy can beckon to all that is great in us"). I was completely undone by the complex beauty of his poetic prose, and the essential clarity of his thought. It may have taken me three months or more to crawl through the 250 page novel - my original copy is overwhelmed by yellow highlights and margin notes - as I contemplated every single word, but the experience of reading this book was transformational. Here are two of the better known passages:

"... she might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it, we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it, love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his friends shall find easy going... It did not seem so difficult. She need trouble him with no gift of her own. She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own soul, and the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die."

"The business man who assumes that this life is everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail, on this side and that, to hit the truth. "Yes, I see, dear; it's about halfway between," Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No; truth, being alive, was not halfway between anything. It was only to be found by continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to ensure sterility."

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Beer

A dear friend of mine concludes her story about how she came to realize and accept her attraction to other women by pointing out that this occurred long after her graduation from an all-girl's school. Or, as she puts it: "What a waste."

I feel that way about beer.

In this spirit, I quote the immortal words of Homer Simpson, who once said,

"I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and my homosexuals flaming."

I went to a college at which beer was literally cheaper than water. In fact, William Faulkner wrote that,

"At Harvard they teach you how to go for a swim at night without knowing how to swim, and at Sewanee they don't even teach you what water is."


... but I didn't like beer. In the years after school, many of my closest friends tried their best to intervene on the side of beer (I was a cider, bourbon and wine drinker - no, not at the same time), but I still couldn't make my mouth cross over. For reasons lost to the ages, I never tried to develop a taste for beer until the summer of 2006, at which time I undertook a very intentional training exercise in Bali, Indonesia. Over the duration of that trip, I had one beer a day for several weeks (well, it was one beer a day until the idea caught on, and then it was... more than one) and came home with the love. Now, I get it. At present, my beers of choice are Blue Moon, Bass, Harp, and many of the Mexican beers. Certainly, there are dangers to this love affair, but I mourn all those wasted years...

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Edward Hopper in DC

"Room in New York" (1932), by Edward Hopper

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, is hosting an exhibition of Edward Hopper's work until January 21, 2008. This collection contains my favorite Hopper painting.

This past Thursday, I was able to sneak into the exhibit with only 35 minutes before the museum closed. (It's unjust that the National Gallery closes at 5 in the afternoon, the exact time that many taxpayers get off work, but I digress further.) Because of the late hour, I was unable to hear the audio tour, nor watch the overview video, which is narrated by Steve Martin. No matter. It was still the most extraordinary 35 minutes I've spent in many weeks - some thrilling combination of sensuality and wonder. I will be going back as soon as I can.

The Flying Karamazov Brothers



I began to love juggling as I watched Steve Russell perform twice a week (for sixteen weeks) when I worked for American Hawaii Cruises. It wasn't long before I found myself drawn to The Flying Karamazov Brothers, a truly amazing group of entertainers / jugglers. If you have an opportunity to see them perform, take it. They will be in Atlanta in January.

Monday, November 5, 2007

William Henry Channing

"To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion;
to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich;
to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart;
to study hard;
to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never;
in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common
-- this is my symphony."

Painting: Andrew Wyeth's "Christina's World", 1948.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Adventure Cycling

I took up road cycling about three years ago when I lived in Annapolis and have loved every minute of it. I don't think I'm any happier than when I am on my bike and heading out on a long ride (here in Atlanta, that's usually on the Silver Comet Trail). One of my life's goals is to cycle across the United States, and when I pull it off, it will be because of the good folks at Adventure Cycling. I have been a member of Adventure Cycling since I bought my current bike, and have found their website and publications to be first rate. I'm afraid that now the weather is such that I won't be riding outdoors anymore this year, but I do have a set of rollers that keep me ready to hit the road (and scared to death of falling off).

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Leo Kottke



Leo Kottke is the first guitarist I ever cared about. His impact on the genre of acoustic guitar since his debut "Armadillo" album in 1969 (actually titled "6 and 12 String Guitar") can not be underestimated. Often referred to as "a guitar player's guitarist", Kottke's playing has to be seen to be believed (otherwise, you might presume you are listening to more than one musician). This particular video, as I understand it from the original YouTube posting, is from German television in the 1970s. It's worth every second of the 5:51 running time, as it builds and builds until your mind pops. Here is a link to another video (one of poor quality) that will give you a good idea of what it's like to see him in concert.