250 Words on Artistry Unleashed

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I’m fascinated by artists whose creativity runs amok toward the end of their lives. Not just those who start when they’re old or work steadily until they die, but artists whose motivation seems to suddenly turn to pleasing nobody but themselves. It’s self-indulgence that can be baffling and even off-putting, but it’s also always interesting.

Beethoven was 55 and deaf when he composed his late string quartets, including Die Grosse Fuge (“the Great Fugue”), in 1825 and 1826. He died in 1827. The pieces were discordant and difficult to play. Audiences were bewildered. Critics called them “indecipherable uncorrected horrors” and “a confusion of Babel.” To modern ears they sound like Jazz a century before its time, and are now considered among his greatest masterpieces. 

Charles Schulz was no Beethoven, but I think he had a comparable late Renaissance. His comic strip, “Peanuts,” began in 1950 and became a cultural juggernaut in the 1960s. “Peanuts” was good in the ‘70s and ‘80s, but I think Schulz’s creativity reawakened in the ‘90s until his death in 2000, producing some of his most personal, thoughtful, and formally inventive work.

I’m also reminded of director Francis Ford Coppola’s recent movie “Megalopolis,” which he funded himself when no one else would. Critics’ reactions ranged widely, but all agreed they’d never seen anything like it. 

I think you can get the clearest distillation of a master’s artistry when they have nothing left to prove and don’t much care what anybody else thinks. That’s the pure spirit.

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Gornpyramide

 I made this.

It's my take on a German Weihnachtspyramide, a candle-powered carousel that is a traditional Christmas decoration in both that country and ours. Except instead of the Christ child in a manger or jolly Santa in the sky, I recreated the classic battle between Captain Kirk and the Gorn from the "Star Trek" episode "Arena" (1967).

Note the carefully observed details, including the Enterprise in orbit overhead, the Gorn's handmade weapons, and Kirk's bamboo cannon, diamond projectiles, and chemicals he found to make gunpowder. Also enjoy the scenic and iconic Vasquez Rocks, the shooting location of many "Star Trek" episodes and countless TV shows and movies, separating the combatants.

My tiny Enterprise, made of dowels and toothpicks.

The reptilian Gorn, with his silver eyes, gold toga, snare net, and obsidian dagger.

Our hero, James T. Kirk, smug in the knowledge that he has everything he needs--bamboo cannon reinforced with native fiber, diamonds, charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate--to defeat the Gorn.

My glorious inspiration.

I don't know how the idea came to me but I've wanted to make it for a long time. Like, for years. Finally decided "Just do it already!" It was a tricky build--you have to optimize for mass, balance, and friction, and I basically had to build it twice to learn from my mistakes and get those right. Even still, it needs enormous vanes to catch enough candle heat to keep moving.

But, to quote Galileo, "It moves."

My wife, Karen, says she's never been prouder, but sometimes she's sarcastic and I can't tell.

I'm just happy in the knowledge I've created something that has never existed before in the history of the universe. Isn't that what Art is all about?

250 Words on Mythology

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

Do kids still love mythology?

I remember mythology—Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian—being a big deal when I was a kid, but I’m not sure if that was just my particular experience. I loved myths and read every book of them I could. My lodestone was the classic Mythology by Edith Hamilton, which has been in print since 1942. 

Myths illuminate us as much as the people who created them. What we fear, what we value, what we admire. Poseidon was volatile and cruel because the sea could be volatile and cruel; the sun god Ra was also the god of order because nothing mattered more to ancient Egyptians than the constancy of the sun. Gods were arrogant, petty, violent, vain. We know people with those flaws, and it’s easy to imagine the havoc they’d wreak with limitless power.

I loved mythology for its potent combination of superpowers and drama—soap opera on a cosmic scale. I was drawn to Marvel comics because they made the connection explicit: Thor and Hercules were the mythological gods AND superheroes, fighting alongside Captain America and Spider-Man. Marvel might as well have injected narrative nitroglycerine directly into my veins. 

Do young adults raised on Disney’s “Hercules” believe that Zeus was a faithful loving father? Do people accusing others of narcissism know who Narcissus was? Do they know Thursday is Thor’s day? Myths are our linguistic and cultural heritage, as much as Shakespeare or the Bible. I hope they’re still loved and taught these days.

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250 Words on Being in the Sports Zone

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I have never been a natural athlete—except once.

In seventh grade, age 12, our PE class did a track and field unit. Coaches were scouting for talent. They set up all the equipment, and on that particular day I was the best high jumper in my middle school. Better than boys who were two years older than me. My form was perfect. It felt smooth and effortless. I floated and flew. I was in the zone.

What a tremendously exhilarating feeling!

The coaches urged me to join the track team, so I did.

And never came close to duplicating that spectacular performance again. 

I competed in high jump and long jump for three seasons, and stayed stubbornly mediocre at both. Whatever magic I’d had that day was gone. 

I did notch one triumph I’m proud of. Track meets are scored on a point system. The team that tallies the most first-, second-, and third-place points wins. At one meet, I was warming up to do poorly in the long jump when I noticed an 880-yard race about to begin with only one runner, so I ambled over and checked in. 

My competitor shot off like a caffeinated jaguar, while I plodded out the half mile choking on his cloud of dust. My coaches and teammates did a double-take, then cheered me on! I earned the second-place points for my team! A heroic heads-up play!

To this day, coming in second in a two-person race is my greatest athletic accomplishment. 

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250 Words on Gray Divorce

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

There’s a social trend called “gray divorce,” in which older people who’ve been married for decades split up, to the astonishment of their families and friends. Often the couples seem happy, faithful, settled, comfortable. Why upset the status quo? Why not just run out the clock?

I don’t want a gray divorce but I do think I understand it. As I get older, the idea that I have a finite and shrinking number of days on Earth grows more insistent, and I sometimes ask myself:

“Do I really want to put up with this for the rest of my life?”

“This” could be almost anything: Socializing with people I don’t like. Traveling to places I don’t want to go. Eating food I don’t want to eat. Caring what anyone else thinks. Enduring the hundreds of little obligations we all bear, many of them optional. 

There’s a perception that people lose their inhibitions and get cranky as they age. I don’t think their personalities change; I think they just drop their masks because they don't need them anymore. Sometimes that reveals an angry bigot, but more often, I think, it frees them to be who they want to be, do what they want to do, and fly their freak flags in all their colors. 

I’m no psychologist, but I imagine many gray divorces happen when one person looks at their spouse and thinks, “The obligation I really don’t want to put up with for the rest of my life is you.”

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