"Time Is the Final Currency"

 Noel Paul Stookey once said of his hen-house turned home in Blue Hill, Maine, that sitting on his stairs at 7 in the morning, watching the sun come up over the Atlantic, that he was blessed, having moved away from New York City and all the hustle and bustle.  People thought he was crazy. "There are two ways to miss things," he said, "One is if it goes by too fast, and the other is if we go by too fast.  I've always complained about the bicycles speeding by me as I walk, or the motorcycles, that they zoom down the paths so fast that they miss the beauty that's all around them.  Sometimes it's better to watch the trees grow, and look up into the sky and watch the planes circle and descend toward the airport many miles away.  That time slows down in the rural areas, it's such a wonderful experience.  It's no wonder that people leave the urban areas and go out to the boondocks where they will be away from all the noise and commotion.  I know I would.

There's nothing better in this world than being at my grandparent's lake house in Sulphur, Oklahoma, late at night , looking out the window over the Lake of the Arbuckles, and watching the moon rise, listening to the crickets, sitting in a recliner and letting the world go it's own way.  In quiet reflection I have those memories now.  I don't know if I had them back then.  If I had more money than sense, I'd buy that lake house back. I wrote a blog about it here.

Or perhaps, since I'm in Georgia, I'd go with a house here.  There's a house in Washington County, just across the line from Deepstep, GA, that is a wonderful house out in the woods.  The only people that go by it are hunters during deer season.  Beautiful dark wooden floors and furniture. I found it on Google Earth, and have a mark on it, just in case...  I doubt I'll ever have the money to get a  house like that, but even something similar would be nice.  Something Thoreauish.

I know it's a little early to think about this for me, but it's come up because of my mother's recent heart surgery, and her having to face her own mortality. But she's talked about how she wants to live out the rest of the years of her life. And it got me thinking about the same thing.  Truly, I'm only 36, and I have half of my life left to live, and who knows how the country will go during those years, or the economy, but I do know that I'll make it somehow.  And I also know that, when the time comes for me to grow old, I want to do it away from the city sprawl.  I want to watch the rings form within the trees, year by year.

It's amazing what things will get you thinking about your own mortality.  I guess it's something that's been going through my mind lately.  My mom said that while she knows that God and Heaven await her after she dies, that until then, survival and living are pretty important.  There's a natural fear of death, I think we all have that, but I think the more fearful part is losing control of the life you have left.  I've seen it, through my grandmothers, how dementia and finances and diseases can slip reality away, where dreams become more real than reality, and there are times I wouldn't mind that, but life is so amazing, so beautiful, I don't think I would want to spend the last part of my life stuck in some room in a nursing home, propped up in a wheelchair in some hallway.  I've seen too many old men like this at the rehab place my mom was in, and also at the nursing home my grandmother was in temporarily.  Don't keep an eye on me, dear nurses, take me outside and let God keep an eye on me. He's done that well so far.  Let me see the cardinals flit from tree to tree, and the summer wind ease up gently against my face, and then on to places unknown.  It's better this way.

I also say all this because I've heard some great music lately, a pattern in the writings of some great rock songwriters, as they look at their own lives and see death a'coming.  The advantage that they have is that they can express their feelings (much like I do here in a blog) through the art media that they are known for.  And while they create their works, much like the artwork on the blog above, they release it for us to hear and see and say, "yeah, I get you." Thankfully, with the Internet being what it is, I can put together those works here on the blog.

Bob Dylan took a weekend and wrote all of the songs in Time out of Mind, a masterpiece of blues and introspection that I absolutely love.  I think he, like the other's I'll show below, got to the point where they calmly look at their old age and see death coming, but not quite here yet.  It's off in the future a little ways, but close enough to pay attention to.  The track I love , well, I like all of them, but the one that fits this blog is "It's Not Dark Yet."

 

His tour mate for the past few years, Paul Simon did a track on You're the One that sounded like it would be his last album (he's done 1.5 since (the one he did with Brian Eno was not worth the .5), and it deals with the end.  The image where he can "release [his] fists at last" is so powerful.  Such a haunting song.  And all of these are.  Nostalgic, Raw, leaving the singer exposed without many instrumental backups to keep the voice hidden.

 

Finally, check out David Crosby's new studio album, Croz as a wonderful mixture of introspective songs and lamentations about the way the world is (although not so much that the ideology sticks out like a sore thumb) The first track has a minor key meandering sound, while talking about the city, and it reminded me of the other songs that deal with age and mortality.  His other one that fits this is "Time is the Final Currency" from the album CPR he did with his biological son, but it's harder to find on Youtube.

Making Music Under the Cypress Trees

Soon you will see a picture of the Encyclopedia next to the images of the BetaMax machine and the 1681 demise of the Dodo Bird.  We have several sets that people have donated to the Friends of the Library group here in Conyers, and we can't even give them away.  The reason, much like the decline of books, CDs, and Playboy magazine readers (yeah, for the sports, we know), is due to the Internet.  Wikipedia killed the Encyclopedia, and while teachers will probably never allow a Wiki reference in their research papers, it's essential to the education of kids nowadays (young whippersnappers). They can find any information they want on any subject, and it will probably be fairly accurate (and therein lies the rub).

I say this because I was remembering a painting from my college days, one that Dr. Viau and Dr. Pepetone had used in their Gothic Imagination class, and, as the years extend the tunnel further and further back, I couldn't remember the name or the artist.  So, off to the Internet I go.  It was a painting of someone rowing toward a large batch of cypress trees. So, on Google, I put "Rowing Art Cypress" and instantly, the picture of Arnold Böcklin's Isle of the Dead pops up, along with the link to the painting's article on Wikipedia.  I instantly found out what I needed to know, and learned something (again) in the process.  

Böcklin was a Swiss painter in the 19th century (1800's for those of you figuring in your head), and his style reminds me quite a bit of Caspar David Friedrich's paintings.  This, of course, comes as no surprise to me since I love Friedrich's works, and therefore this one was bound to stick in my head. Like Friedrich, Böcklin used symbolism heavily in his works, although his were more mythological in nature (while CDF used Christian imagery).  The painting mentioned above has a rower taking someone to this island filled with cypress trees, a symbol long associated with death.  The rower himself goes back to Charon, the one who would row Greeks to the hereafter, and the person standing in white, calmly looking toward the trees and the island, would be the person we would identify with. Notice how, like the Traveller, the individual stands facing away, confident that he or she will not fall while the rower rows. He (I'm a guy, it's a "he") looks toward death in a calm manner, just as the traveller does, looking out over the cliffs.   

Böcklin had a very intimate relationship with Death, as he lost 8 of his 14 children in infancy. I found it not surprising that The Isle of the Dead was painted late in his life, while perhaps he was facing his own mortality.  How do artists contemplate Death?  With the paintbrushes that have expressed their lives, of course.  And paintbrushes are metaphoric here, as the same thing applies to artists of all media.  Take a listen to Mahler's Ninth Symphony (his last) and watch the paintbrushes find dark, lonely tones, as an example.  

What interested me, as I listened to my mp3 player in the car, were the aging rockers of the 1960's, and how they are dealing with their own mortality. I've noticed on several albums by different singers tracks that deal with their own deaths, the silencing of that music.  They are haunting works, beautiful, leaving the singer exposed and vulnerable.  I really want to get to that blog, but this one had to come first.  So make sure you click on the links above and go learn some things.  We have Wikipedia here for a reason, to make up for all the education we've forgotten or never received in today's schools.  It's the one thing I refuse to do, to look back with regret, because going forward, there's so many things I can do, so much to learn and experience.  Like the traveller, it's best never to see yourself looking backwards in regret, but forward in anticipation.   

Death and Mass Production (A Book Review and Remembrance)

Book Review: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I must admit that when I saw this book in the stores, and picked it up, I realized it was the last thing I would want to read.  I mean, just another "kids dying with cancer story," depressing and melodramatic. My mind immediately leapt (the autocorrect doesn't have "leapt" as the past tense form of "leap.") to Death Be Not Proud, which most children have to read during high school at some point.  It's a matter of Pathos, I believe, to read these books where kids (or their pets) die, so that it says 1) "Quit Whining, it could be a whole lot worse. and 2) it prepares them for later traumatic experiences.  I swear I'm gonna rewrite Old Yeller , and make it actually have a happy ending.  Of course, you could always give it a sardonic twist, like authors are doing lately, and instead of a rabid fox biting the dog, you could have a mad werewolf biting the kid, so that the dog lives, but the boy dies.... anyhoo, I'm rambling now.  Back to the book.

But as I was saying, I didn't want to read another "Cancer" book.  My grandmother had just recently died of pancreatic cancer, and so why would I have to go through all that again in the pages of a book?  We want to escape reality, not live it over again.

Well, I was wrong.  Turns out that John Green actually realizes that, to twist a Bob Dylan line, "He busy dying goes through a lot of living." Because as I found out with my grandmother, dealing with death is best done as an affirmation, a recollection, of life.  There's no better way to surround the not-so-pleasant times of dealing with medical issues than to bring forth the humor that surrounds us daily.  My grandmother, as she was being prepared for her aneurysm surgery, was asked, "How do you feel?" She, in her wry humor, replied, "With my fingers."  It was the best thing she could have said.

So John Green picks up on this humorous thread and weaves it through the whole book.  He deals with the emotions of the teenage characters very honestly, with more depth than most Lifetime tearjerker movies.  Hazel, Augustus, and Isaac, (ironic that he's called Isaac, (eye-sic), since he's about to go blind) just roll their eyes at most of the attitudes of the adults in their lives.  They make fun of the "strong fighter kid who is always positive even while they lose his/her hair, limbs, etc....," even, when the time comes, they have to portray that image themselves.

Green picks up on the progression of cancer quite well, even talking about the "last good day" that seems to happen to terminally ill people.  I had one afternoon shortly before my grandmother died where she picked up her spirits and we sat there and laughed and she poked fun at me, before she went so far downhill we couldn't care for her at home.  He painted that scene so well in the book.  It was, to some extent, very cathartic for me.

That the title is based on a line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (with all the foreshadowing that it implies), or that the book is filled with references to Eliot's "Prufrock" poem, or Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay,"  are added bonuses for those teachers who will inevitably put down the tired Gunther tome and teach this book to their 10th grade English students instead.
***

One part of the novel I found interesting, because it goes back to one of my other blog posts, was this fascination by Augustus about the Afterlife, be it a Christian based one or those suggested by any of the other religions, or nothing at all.  And it's fascinating because, if we are to believe that the philosophies of the 20th century and the secular material world have phased out the traditional Christian beliefs of Heaven and Hell, then this part of the book, and other references to the Afterlife (see Beetlejuice, or Paul Simon's song "The Afterlife,"  (go to my blog about the Afterlife for these examples.)
) is a desire to fill that void.  When reading this book and reflecting on it, I was pulled to  the band Death Cab for Cutie's song "I'll Follow You Into the Dark."


An amazing song that goes so well with the book, especially the line, "fear is the heart of love," something the singer rejects.  There's so many ways to incorporate songs, poems, TV shows....etc... into this book, it really would be a great teaching tool, if a little controversial.
***

Since we're dealing with these subjects, I wanted to put here that a good friend I had in high school died this past week. Johnathan Ashley Nix passed away from a massive stroke.  I always loved his wry sense of humor, his unique way of looking at things, his refusal to let all the normal people of Heritage High to get to him all that much, even while I shrank inside myself from bullying.  It was perhaps this that kept me from really making friends with, well, anybody. He signed my yearbook, my senior year, with a long, rambling diatribe about anything, writing it upside-down and right to left.  It took me holding it up to a mirror to read the whole thing.  In the middle is his tune about "Mass Production," a Henry Ford-esque march anthem, much like you would hear in Brave New World.  I still remember the tune he used to sing it.  I only wish I could have been friends with him longer, from when we met in the 6th grade...  He took me to see a truly horrible version of Hamlet at an Atlanta Theatre for school credit (the professor was friends with someone there, I suspect), and so he brought over a ton of Fantasy books that he didn't want.  Among them was The Quest for the Faradawn by Richard Ford, a British author.  Truly a magnificent work, and one of the few I've read where most of the main characters were animals.  Anyway.... I'm just telling the few points in my life where his "thread" touched mine, and so hopefully it will be made fuller and more complete.  Outside of any afterlife or immortality that our souls go into, the memories that we have here are what keep Ashley living on here, inside our own hearts.  I scanned my yearbook page and have it below.

B&B: Haley Joel Osment, Data, and DNA.

If there's any one character that is a window into the soul of an author, or of a creator, it would have to be Dr. Soong on Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Gene Roddenberry speaks through that voice, using as the wise, old scientist that created Data.  I love the episode "Brothers," (Season 4, Episode 3) where Data, having commandeered the Enterprise, goes to Dr. Noonian Soong's planet (which, admittedly, looks a lot like Dagobah) and finds his creator, his tutor if you will.  They have a discussion shortly before the evil brother shows up.  He describes the passion for which people will save the old buildings of their town, and asks Data why they love old buildings.  This is to answer, of course, Data's question, "Why did you build me?"  Very few creations can ask this question, since we are either born or are not sentient.  But Data can ask, and the answer is as pivotal an answer to this blog series as it is to Data's birth:

DATA: Why did you create me?
SOONG: Why does a painter paint? Why does a boxer box? You know what Michelangelo used to say? That the sculptures he made were already there before he started, hidden in the marble. All he needed to do was remove the unneeded bits. It wasn't quite that easy with you, Data. But the need to do it, my need to do it, was no different than Michelangelo's need. Now let me ask you a question. Why are humans so fascinated by old things?
DATA: Old things?
SOONG: Old buildings, churches, walls, ancient things, antique things, tables, clocks, nick knacks. Why? Why, why?
DATA: There are many possible explanations.
SOONG: If you brought a Noophian to Earth, he'd probably look around and say, tear that old village down, it's hanging in rags. Build me something new, something efficient. But to a human, that old house, that ancient wall, it's a shrine, something to be cherished. Again, I ask you, why?
DATA: Perhaps, for humans, old things represent a tie to the past.
SOONG: What's so important about the past? People got sick, they needed money. Why tie yourself to that?
DATA: Humans are mortal. They seem to need a sense of continuity.
SOONG: Ah hah!! Why?
DATA: To give their lives meaning. A sense of purpose.
SOONG: And this continuity, does it only run one way, backwards, to the past?
DATA: I suppose it is a factor in the human desire to procreate.
SOONG: So you believe that having children gives humans a sense of immortality, do you?
DATA: It is a reasonable explanation to your query, sir.
SOONG: And to yours as well, Data.

What he did not factor into the idea of immortality were the emotions that lie behind them. Why do people value old things, or procreate, in some desire to achieve immortality?  There are several emotions that intertwine in the desire to create.  In brief, it is the fear of death, the desire for fame after death (immortality through memories), and the desire to share this world with others, through affection.  Underlying all pretenses of religion, of creation, of this thing we call life is a fear of death.  Fear of the Unmaker that we see around us all the time.  That we might cease to exist, as if blotted out from the universe.  But more importantly, that we might not exist in other's minds and memories.  I think, for most people, that if they died at any given point in their lives, that would be acceptable if they were remembered by the people around them. 

My mother looks, every night, at the Obituaries in the Daily Oklahoman, to see if anyone she knew had died.  Sometimes she finds fathers of old friends, or co-workers at the bank, or church members, or whathaveyou.  Most of the time, the people are just strangers to her, people that she never knew, their lives simply a paragraph in the middle of some newspaper.  What if, then, the name did mean something to more than just family members.  What if the name was someone that everyone knew in that town, or state, or internationally.  How long would that obituary need to be to tell the tale of your life?

I think Orson Scott Card talked a lot about this in his novel The Speaker for the Dead (the sequel to Ender's Game.  In this book, Ender becomes someone that travels to different people's homes, when called, and tries to discover the life that was led by the recently deceased.  Through loving who they loved, and feeling the pain and the joy around that person's life, he became a storyteller, as it were, that could take the emotions behind the story in the obit and make it real to everyone who heard it.  He became a bard for ordinary people.  

Some people need more than an obituary to harbor their memories in others.  They need a physical structure.  They construct in their own image something that will stand for their lives when they pass on.  The Pyramids of Egypt, the Taj Mahal, the stadium in Dallas that houses the Cowboys, owned by Jerry Jones (which is why most people call it "Jerry's Palace.") They are all monuments to the people that constructed them, markers that said, "I was here, and I lived a magnificent life that all shall remember."  It was more than just song that they intended to inhabit, but a place as glamorous and spectacular as they foresaw themselves.  Perhaps this is one reason behind the construction of the monument in Dakar, Senegal.
 
Another example... David in A.I. (Artificial Intelligence, 2001), played by Haley Joel Osment, was an android character created by Professor Hobby, the head of a robotics corporation that made human-like automatons for human use, pleasure...etc. But David was, like Data, unique, because he had the ability to express emotions, like love.  Hobby's desire was to replace his son, who had died earlier (this plot line sounds almost exactly like Astro Boy, which I could have used as well.) It was not the Professor's own immortality that he desired, but that of his son.  The truly horrific part of this was when David finally gets to the office of his father, it is filled with prototypes of David himself, for plans for everyone to have a son identical to him, so that everyone would love his son.  A mixture of Pinocchio and Frankenstein (with an ending that happened about 30 minutes prior to the ending of the movie, but that's for another blog), the bizarre twists of devotion to a child and the intense desire to achieve the ultimate goal for man.  To create life.  To become God, or like God. 

(side note: It is interesting to note that David has the same name as Michelangelo's sculpture.  Note Soong's example above of Michelangelo's feelings about his creations.  As something that comes from within, that already exists.)

In the most imitative act we can do, we create someone in our own image, through the DNA structure that lies within our cells.  We have children (at least, most of us have children), to bring into the world a life force that we can share the joys of living with.  This is what we should try to do, but as the Unmaker can use creation for his own purposes, sometimes children are created without that desire for love.  Sometimes, they are simply the by-product of sex, unplanned and unwanted.  To unprepared adults without the self-awareness to bring up the miracle that is life.  We are, at that one moment, God-like, as we have created life just as God did Eve from Adam.  Would that we all understood this, and appreciated it more than simply a one night stand or an extra dependent on a tax form, an extra body to get welfare and social security. 

In the last blog entry of this series, I will look at one more instance of creation.  That of Dr. Craig Venter and his bacterium created in the lab, the beginning of man creating his own life forms, which is creating life to reach new levels of knowledge, new frontiers.  Like Frankenstein and the scientists in Jurassic Park, Venter is trying to reach the top of the Tower of Babel, to borrow a reference.  I want to look at whether this is a good or bad thing, morally, and what the consequences would be if the Unmaker gets a hold of it (think Stephen King's The Stand).