arts and culture

Live and Let Die

When you were young and your heart was an open book 

You used to say live and let live 

(You know you did, you know you did you know you did) 

But if this ever changing world in which we live in 

Makes you give in and cry 

Say live and let die 

What was originally the theme song to the  James Bond movie “Live and Let Die” in 1973  has more recently become not only a subculture in American society, but law in several states.

http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/states-that-have-stand-your-ground-laws.html

Under the Stand Your Ground law, a person who feels threatened has no obligation to retreat.

(Live and let die) 

Live and let die 

(Live and let die) 

Until recent years, the duty to retreat helped  define what “reasonable” threat meant. Stand Your Ground was seen as an extension of The Castle Doctrine, which allowed people who are threatened in their own homes to stand their ground in their own homes and defend themselves without having to flee their homes. Thus, with Stand Your Ground laws, the concept applied to one’s home has been extended, as long as one is engaged in legal activity.

What does it matter to ya 

When you got a job to do 

You gotta do it well 

You gotta give the other fellow hell 

But standing one’s ground, which of course has it’s place in certain contexts, has become a distorted cultural attitude across the country, as much as an atrocious law leading to the tragic death of an unarmed teen, Trayvon Martin, in the Zimmerman case.  We have stopped considering unintended consequences of behavior, speech, politics and laws.

You used to say live and let live 

(You know you did, you know you did you know you did) 

But if this ever changing world in which we live in 

Makes you give in and cry.

When did we become a culture of “Live and Let Die” ?

Sir Paul McCartney:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK2hKzZss5Y

Leisure Suits

I was born in 1963, just before Camelot was obliterated. By the time I started grade school, sartorial splendor was becoming a thing of the past.  In the 70s, countering the culture largely meant wearing informal, poorly made, unflattering, and often, just ugly clothes.  Changing one’s appearances was meant to denote changing  one’s attitudes. Relaxed fit clothing (before we called a particular style of jeans “relaxed fit”) was supposed to reflect greater freedom, fewer constraints, undoing structures of culture, and a more casual attitude. Adults were uptight; youths were tuning in, turning on and dropping out, which meant building a new harmonious society. Imagine. Then came those horrific Leisure Suits. Even then, I thought they were hideous and silly. The worst part was that Leisure Suits were for dressing up. They didn’t look comfortable or flattering, and came to represent a cheap, synthetic, and middling culture; a culture that was apathetic and confused, low brow and lazy.

A generation later, our children have grown up with a more robust culture. While access to information and communication has been revolutionized in the last generation, there has also been a renaissance of leisure activities and accoutrements. The leisure business is enormous, and people invest great time and money into leisure activities. This has been a terrific boon over the last generation, not only economically, but culturally. Pursuing a leisure activity such as a sport or art is productive. For years I have cautioned parents about over scheduling their children. Children (and adults) need unscheduled free time, but pursuing a hobby or activity (beyond looking at a screen) on a regular basis can provide skills that may go beyond the activity.

When we find a leisure activity that suits us, we strengthen ourselves and can expand. There are all kinds of attributes to all sorts of sports and arts, but the activities themselves often become metaphors for us. I was a great swimmer as a young child, and enjoyed the competence and strength I felt in the water. Many  years later in college, I swam every morning, as it felt like the only way my thoughts could flow in order to write papers. I hardly go to the pool for a swim these days, but I’m very much a swimmer in other ways, and yes, still a lifeguard of sorts. I tend to dive into whatever I pursue. Somehow, I’ve been able to stay afloat, treading from time to time, but mostly propelling myself forward using all my muscles, along the surface of the tide. I was well suited to swimming, and swimming suits me.

Those who are well suited to their work are often quite successful. It’s not always easy to find work that suits us. We often think of work as effort, and leisure as effortless, but there can be joyful effort in both work and play.  Leisure activities are not only ways to  have fun, unwind and relax, but are often ways in which we can more fully realize ourselves and develop our strengths to use in various capacities.  Leisure suits!

reality shows

Reality shows us unimaginable forces. Tornados violently devastating towns, leveling neighborhoods for miles; teachers sheltering children from savage storms and at other times, from deranged  murderers; first responders rushing to save and assist victims; caregivers everywhere attending to needs great and small; love among family members and friends…..These are the images of reality that are continuously shown on our screens in the aftermath of dramatic events. They may be gripping events, and often seem unprecedented, yet it is the reality of the human responses that grips us. We may not know or understand all the facts that contribute to such absorbing incidents, but we have immediate and visceral responses to them. Sometimes those experiences are overwhelming or maddening, but often they are invitations to examine ourselves.

These events become the stuff of history, and therefore lessons. The truths of these events– the forces preceding the events and the forces of the events, as well as the aftermath, become the stuff of art.  In the meantime, we watch and listen to images of reality that force us to imagine what we would be; what we could be; what we should be.

On days like today, reality shows us the art of living.

That Tone of Voice

Those eyes…..That voice……

If I asked you who told us to fasten our seat belts; It’s going to be a bumpy night, would you hear that line in a gravelly woman’s voice? Would you see those great big piercing Bette Davis eyes? You can practically hear a biting comment from looking at her eyes.

Gregory Peck’s rich, soothing baritone voice, one of the most easily identifiable, is also inextricably linked to his performance as Atticus Finch in the movie “To Kill a Mockingbird”.  His voice became associated with warmth and justice, as he portrayed several characters  who represented our best angels and defended democracy. As an actor, he performed in an array of roles. Some, including Josef Mengele in “ The Boys From Brazil”, were the antithesis of his heroes, but Gregory Peck and his voice were primarily associated with benevolence, moral conscience, strength and intelligence on screen and off.

Riddle me this: What post-war actor-comedian appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show doing his impersonations and political sketch comedy the same episode The Beatles first appeared on the show? Frank Gorshin, aka The Riddler on the campy Batman television show, developed a  comedy career as an impersonator of fellow actors and of politicians. His voice was other voices. Impersonation was a popular staple of stand-up comedy in the 1960s and 1970s, and while it is still part of many a comedian’s repertoire, the emphases of comedy have changed. Still, Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin remains one of the great impersonations. It was a brilliant replica of the sound of Sarah Palin’s voice, as well as her vocal tics and mannerisms. Like Gorhsin’s and other comedic political impersonations, political voices as well as vocal qualities are showcased and accentuated.

So many people have paid tribute to the great movie critic Roger Ebert, who succumbed to a lengthy and incredibly difficult battle against cancer the other day. I am among those who listened to him from the 1970s on, and was enriched by his voice as an intellectual, as a movie lover, and as a human being of incomparable fortitude. Ebert lost the ability to use his anatomical vocal chords, but his voice was never silenced.

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton spoke at the  Newsweek/The Daily Beast’s Women in the World conference. Her speech was a call to action: “Let’s keep fighting for opportunity and dignity.”  Let’s keep fighting for freedom and equality. Let’s keep fighting for full participation and let’s keep telling the world over and over again that, yes, women rights are human rights, and human rights are women’s rights once and for all.”

Hillary Clinton, who “found her voice” in New Hampshire in 2008, has always been a voice for human rights, and specifically women’s rights. Whatever your political opinions, she has made audible the voices of those we can not hear.

Artists do the same. Consider Picasso’s Guernica. One of his most famous paintings, Picasso’s Guernica shows the horrors of war and the untold suffering inflicted upon civilians as well as soldiers. The painting helped to bring the Spanish Civil War to the world’s attention, and has since become an anti-war fixture, as a reminder of the tragedies of war anywhere, any time. Picasso’s voice was clear.

 Guernica, 1937 by Pablo Picasso

http://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp

One of the most powerful voices to encapsulate African-American Southern Baptist culture (and history) is told through the entire body. Alvin Ailey’s iconic Revelations is not only still enjoyed as magnificent dance, but as an expression of profound grief and absolute joy. The work was autobiographically inspired (as finding and using our voices always is), but it speaks to universals from a historically and culturally specific time and place using African-American spirituals, gospel songs and  blues. Because Revelations is a dance piece, it’s physicality makes the piece immediate and eternal, as bodies in motion give voice to powerful emotions.

AAADT-in-Alvin-Ailey’s-Revelations.–Photo-by-Nan-Melville.jpg

In honor of those old actors whose birthdate was yesterday, Bette Davis, Gregory Peck, and Frank Gorshin, we salute them and their voices. We grieve the loss of Roger Ebert who lost his ability to use his vocal chords, but never lost his voice.

We’ve become frustrated with the noise of politics, but there are still voices of reason and justice–even in politics. But the arts are often the most articulate and inspiring of voices. Listen (and watch) for those inspiring voices, and use your voice not for shouting or vilifying, but for educating and creating peaceful possibilities.