because the written word needs my help

Alright, the title is intended with irony. I kind of thought in my head I would title this post "in defense of the written word," but when I came to type it in, it just seemed hopelessly pretentious, especially since I don't really pretend to have any original thoughts here, hence the ironic title instead.

Anyway, here's what happened to inspire this little missive. I was serving jury duty last week and, like many prospective jurors, brought a book because if you only know one thing about jury duty, it's that you're going to sit around for a good chunk of at least one day so you might as well bring something to read. Or at least, that's what people in my generation know about jury duty. That was before smart phones. I read most of one chapter (a chapter which I still haven't finished), but that was only after I'd spent a good hour, maybe more, on Twitter and Google News--mostly catching up on what I'd missed by not watching the Golden Globes Awards the night before--and at least half as long checking email and texting. It's not as though I thought at the time this was a horrible waste of time, either, and couldn't wait to get to my book. In fact, I even tweeted to that effect:

Last time I had jury duty, I didn't have internet access with me. This way is better, even if I never get around to the book I brought.
— KingTor (@KingTor) January 14, 2013

That wasn't my first tweet of the morning and there were 5 more before I even thought seriously about the book. And that's when I got to thinking about it. It was pretty obvious to me that the time I spent online was less rewarding than the time I spent reading my book, and yet I still chose willfully to tweet instead of read.

And here's the sad thing: I'm not the only one who lost out in that experience. There's a whole society built around the written word, and we humans have been building that society for literally thousands of years. Well, maybe the time before the printing press is different enough that it should be counted as a separate era of society, so say hundreds of years. No matter, it's been going on for awhile. I'm not really worried about ebooks destroying that society, although I've never really read an ebook, so maybe I will be worried about that some day. But not that day. On that day, I started wondering how much reading was lost to "smart" phones every day, and started wondering about the cumulative effect on society--not so much on the publishing business as on the collective knowledge we possess, and our collective capacity for literary truth/beauty.

So I don't know if I'm going to do anything differently because of this mini-epiphany. I'd like to say I will, but it's pretty telling that I still haven't even finished the chapter I started that day, a full week ago, and I only had 2 short paragraphs left.

the mockingbird

I can't quote it from memory, but Tom Robbins refers to the mockingbird as nature's first artist--I think it was in Skinny Legs and All. That's the one with the spoon and the dirty sock and the RV shaped like a giant turkey leg, right? No matter, I got to thinking about the mockingbird earlier tonight when I was thinking about professional chefs--the high end chefs who many consider to be artists. I suspect most of them cook to their own palate because how can you cook to anything else? To translate that to my own experience as an artist (if I really am an artist... but that's a topic for another blog), I have things which I find pleasant to my ear, certain styles and sounds which resonate deeply with me. Sure, I feel more comfortable when I'm working within those sounds, but I really stretch my legs and grow when I step out of that comfort zone and do something different. One of the best ways for me to do that is to imitate someone else; take someone else's style and apply it (to the best of my ability) to the work I'm doing today; be a mockingbird.

Driving me where?

Perhaps this is a case of expectations being too high, because I've been hearing nothing but glowing "you must see" reviews and recommendations for the movie Drive since before it came out and only ended up seeing it the other day. It's hard for any movie to live up to that lengthy a period of increased expectations, and I'm sad to say this one did not succeed completely. I did appreciate the movie very much: the acting is brilliant (Bryan Cranston and his relationship with Albert Brooks struck me as particularly great), the editing was great, the music weird and moody in a perfect kind of way, the sound design and mix downright brilliant--especially in the things we didn't hear and the use of silence. I just couldn't figure out why. In the end, it seemed to me to be a waste of impeccable production values, because the story didn't stand out in any way as being worthy of the polished effort of those involved.

art is a depiction of the gods within us

That title came to me as I was driving this morning. Art shows us god(s) and godly things. It's not always pretty--after all, if you believe the universe was created by some god, you probably believe the same god created the ugly things as well as the beautiful ones. This simple truth about art is why I feel so blessed to work in a creative field and to be able to create art (on the good days) and collaborate with some truly inspirational artists--Kat, Scott, Brooke, Dave, Stuart, Justin, so many others.... I get to spend a lot of my days viewing the divine, both as it exists within me and as others see it. What a treat.

Wise words, Ira.

9/11

I spent a great deal of today contemplating what happened in this country 10 years ago and how those events have changed my life and my outlook on life. I'm certainly not alone in this introspection, far from it. We spent most of our afternoon going to a concert at Cleveland High School (beautiful concert hall, by the way) with a packed house of people who all came to remember the same events and implications. For starters, it's almost an hour drive away from our house, and Kat and I spent a lot of that drive talking about our own perspective on what had changed in our lives. I had been stuck this morning while listening to NPR by really how much had changed, seemingly overnight, 10 years ago. The way we travel, the conversations we have with people from other countries, the way we feel about being an American and what that means.

The concert started with Fanfare for the Common Man, which rarely fails to move me and certainly didn't disappoint today. There were readings and a few other pieces, but the big showpiece was The Armed Man, which is quite an epic piece. It's a very ambitious exploration of war, not written specifically for this occasion, but an interesting exploration on this occasion. I found myself longing for more to discuss, though, than the military and militaristic aspects of this topic. There's so much more to my feelings today than the Global War On Terror or Al-Queda's War On Westernism, or whatever it should be called. I scrawled down the following during the concert:

It's not that I don't respect my brothers and sisters in uniform, because I do, but the memory of 9/11 means so much more to me than armed conflict. Today I remember a brave group of misfit passengers who decided their deaths were going to mean something; the rescue workers, in uniform or not, who looked for survivors, then bodies, then cleaned up the mess--some who gave their lives so the rest of us could continue ours in peace; civil libertarians who have recognized these 10 years as vitally important to keeping what's dear to us; artists who have continued on their lifelong quest for beauty, ignoring the ignorant who told them the search was futile; journalists and documentarians who stood fast in their quest for the truth, no matter how unattainable it has seemed; everyone who continues to hope for a better world despite evidence to the contrary.

I tried to paraphrase and expand on what I'd written at the time, but didn't like it as much as what I was feeling in that moment.

So if you're going to talk about the armed conflict which happened before, on and after September 11, 2001, I'll be happy to talk with you about it. There's a lot of good conversation to be had and a lot of opportunity for us all to grow in that conversation. I highly recommend The Armed Man, and I hope you managed to see one of the many live performances of it today. It's very moving, and a very interesting exploration of all kinds of armed conflict.

I'm still craving more discussion about the other things.

Shrimp Greens Pasta--better recipe than name.

I made an impromptu dinner last night and Kat liked it so well that she requested it again tonight. Tonight she requested that I not forget that one, so I thought what better insurance against forgetting it than to blog about it.

Get the pasta going. Put some cleaned & dried shrimp in a bowl with roasted Hatch (New Mexico) green chile and garlic. Sauté a bunch of fresh greens (rainbow chard and tot soi were the key ingredients but it could work with a lot of them) in olive oil with a splash of apple cider vinegar until barely wilted. Ideally, the pasta should be about al dente at the same time--drain it when it is, drizzle it in olive oil, and set it aside. Put the shrimp mixture in the sauté pan, sear it on both sides, and turn off the heat, mix the pasta in there, toss it all and serve with Parmesiano Regiano.

Yum. I'll try to remember to take a picture next time I make it.