Eventually It Comes Down to Legacy

I have already written about Shakespeare's "seven stages of man," and while it may be tricky to parse anyone's life into seven distinct stages I think it is OK to make some assumptions about how our lives change focus as we move along. So I will.

When we are babies we really don't have much to say about what we do with our lives, actually we don't talk much at all. Except for those like my first born who seemed to be making conversational noises at birth.  She is now a lawyer, but I'm not going to go there. 

 

Certainly our parents and other caregivers within the home do their best to give us a solid foundation, from toilet training to manners and other polishing touches of public comportment.  However it isn't really until we begin to spend time outside the house, or nowadays submerged in digital screens of our lives, that we realize there are choices to be made and we begin to make them.

Those early choices are rarely very long-lived - princess, space explorer, dog detective, or teenage mutant turtle bump up against the wall of reality rather quickly. It is primarily when we get into school that some more feasible options raise their heads. I remember taking an "aptitude test," oh, it must have been in 3rd or 4th grade. I filled in all the little boxes and discovered I was meant to be a forest ranger. OK, so not all that accurate, though I have always liked trees and leaves - the whole autumn/Christmas tree thing.

Let us overlook for the moment that I was a university professor, son of a university professor, nephew of a couple of other university professors, who still clung to dreams of professional theater into his 20s. More usually, it is in those later years of school when we begin to look forward to what we will actually "be when we grow up." 

I have seen many of my students change majors five or six times, always asserting that - at the moment -  that each new major promised solid plans. But once we leave the "preparing for" stage and enter the "actually doing" stage - say when we are 20 or 30ish, we begin to become the person who attempts to "become somebody," actualizing plans, maybe even dreams. And we then spend the next 40 or 50 years becoming that person. Dealing with the life we have chosen, job, home, maybe children. Shifting perhaps, reassessing, maybe radically changing, but doing all those things that come to actually define us.

And then - for many of us - you step off the employment merry-go-round, and look around at where we have been, what we did, who we became. And how we want to be remembered as - our legacy.

For some - the .01 percent who have amassed great fortunes - that legacy can be bought. I have touched on this before - but consider the great robber barons of the late 19th, early 20th century - Rockefeller, Carnegie, Frick, Morgan, Vanderbilt. In their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, they ran rough shod over any competition, valuing accumulating wealth and cultural or political power over any other consideration. Yet in their later years, they sometimes purchased a burnished legacy, often through very laudable charitable activities. Many folks my age were introduced to reading through programs at a Carnegie Library.

President Trump, on the other hand, is using his late 70s and early 80s to amass his personal fortune, and burnish what he hopes will be his legacy by attempting to put his name on existing structures - like the Kennedy Center and various hotels - and other structures he has commissioned, like the battleship, the east wing ballroom, and his controversial "triumphal arch." I'm waiting for the rally where he say "Just get rid of the "i", and remove the "hal" and what do you have? Right Trump! The Trump Arch!" From which, I sincerely believe, he thinks he can fire missiles at both Lake, and, The Gulf of, America.

It is more difficult for the average Joe or Jane to rewrite their legacy. More often they, and we, have to consider what is already there. What we actually have done, and what we may still do in the time allotted to us. 

In many ways it is a moment similar to that heady and frightening moment after school - whatever level - when we realized we now were beginning the process of "becoming someone." But the difference is that in retirement we have a few decades of experience to inform those decisions. Hopefully we have planned far enough ahead that we won't have to spend our time as a greeter at Walmart, though any retirement job requiring driving or extensive grocery shopping has become more of a challenge in these days of sky-high gas prices resulting from the "not a war" in Iran and Trump's on-again/off again tariffs. But I digress.

So, again hopefully, employment is a retirement  option, not a necessity. And though I gave some passing consideration to fulfilling my 4th grade aptitude test recommendation as a forest ranger, my wife made it clear that if I chose to follow that dream I would be doing so alone. So I looked elsewhere.

I recall a time when my older daughter, when 5 or 6 years old, asked me "What is your job?" I replied "Daddy thinks for a living." And once you decide to follow a career in the academy that is actually true. You are judged by the product of your mind. In the classroom and in the world of academic publishing. Which can lead to some rather strange tensions.

Many of us chose to follow the path into the academy because of a love of teaching. And that fire burns, to some degree, throughout your career. But I witnessed some more subtle dynamics during my 50 years in various classrooms. There was this not so subtle pressure to get a job in a research I university - read having a graduate school to train other teachers -where you were expected to publish. The old saw "publish or perish" is not a myth.

But here is the weird part. As you publish you are "rewarded" with tenure and the option to teach small graduate classes. And if you are really good you move into administration and don't have to teach at all. Resulting in an environment with too many administrators, and too few teachers - many of whom seek to become administrators. A problematic situation the academy really needs address. Having a father and an uncle who stayed in the university classroom into their 80s and 90s; moving into administration always seemed a bizarre objective - one that was tempting, but counter-productive when you considered the trade-off. So I opted to focus on teaching, lecturing. Which in the late 70s and early 80s also meant playing into the new "distance education" boom, which on our campus meant lecturing on TV.

My department chairs were delighted with my choice, while it didn't result in much publishing for me, the department was paid a healthy stipend into its general fund for any "online teaching." This allowed "travel money" for my colleagues who were presenting their research at various conferences, leading - ideally - to publication. But essentially it removed me from the the exciting venue of the classroom, as I was basically "teaching to a camera" viewed by freshmen who I would never see again - and whom I really never saw at all. 

In retrospect a bad choice. However, I have retained some meaning relationships with students from the years I actually spent in the classroom. Students who have become friends.

But also in retrospect that choice led to an activity that might, could, should partially define my legacy. And that is what you are reading now - assuming you have made it this far. I became used to writing a couple of 90-minute lectures every week. Lectures that hopefully demonstrated to my students how they might observe the world around them - the arts, media, politics, whatever; and make sense of them in terms of their own beliefs, attitudes and values. So, the lectures gave birth to The Wall, which, in retirement, lets me continue to share those evolving lectures with you.

There is another activity that I see as part of my legacy. If you looked at my notebooks from any of the couple of decades that I spent as a student - high school to Ph.D - you would discover as many doodles as class notes on their pages. So one of my choices for my "retirement endeavors" was to take my doodles to "the next level." A process you have been witness to via the "Schrag Canvas" posts.  A couple of which came out recently. But they are only a small sample of the myriad images that surround me here in the basement - er, studio. There is however a wrinkle. 

I am more than a little ambivalent about parting with my drawings. On the one hand I have been advised to seek out a gallery that would let me develop a wider audience and attract opportunities for shows, fellowships, profits - and free up space on some of the walls. But on the other hand I don't want to part with any of them. Which ones would I sell? Well, which of my children do I love most? You see the problem. I can't make those choices.  If I figure it out I'll let you know.

Well, I have kept you long enough for now. And yes, some of this will be on the exam.

 

Image Without a Name

I'm sure one will come to me eventually, and I am willing to entertain suggestions. I did most of this image while we were puppy sitting for these two:

The big one is Ted, very old and deaf, but lovable.
The little girl is Claire, who takes care of Ted.

Anyhow the great thing about house/puppy sitting is that you don't look around and see all the little things that need to be done that you see at home. So you can just kick back and draw. Which resulted in my hauling a few dozen markers of various shades and widths over to the house; following the old adage: "It is better to have and not need, than to need and not have." Which resulted in this no-name image:

No Name

I will remind you again that you can click on the image and it will usually pop out into a separate screen that will allow you to enlarge it. The 12-year old boy, who we were tending along with the puppies, showed us how to "cast" images to the TV. Very cool. No rod and reel required.  We are going to try it here at home.

Schrag Canvas: Both And . . .

Hi -

In a previous post - Sometimes First Drafts Work - I closed by posing the question "Should I go ahead and do the big version  or move on to something new. Well, one of Christine's favorite sayings is "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing." So I did both.

Here is the big version of Five Faces."   You can jump back and forth with the first drafts version to see if you can tell the difference. Of course the big version is bigger, 15"x10.5." While the first draft is 10.75'x7.75." Other than that you can pretend it is one those "How Are These Two Pictures Different" puzzle. And no, I don't have an answer to that.

In the moving on to something different column we have this yet unnamed image. The "mask faces" seemed a bit constrained. While obviously I went freeform within the borders of the masks there were borders. First there were the outlines of the masks and within the masks there were eyes, noses and lips - that I chose to leave as eyes, noses and lips. In the unnamed image I decided to relax and let the images suggest themselves - and so we have my standard faces, bottles, glasses and flowers but in a bit larger frame - 11"x15." 

After drawing in those images I engaged in the formal artistic method called "scribbling." In this highly sophisticated method you take a smaller gauge maker and scribble all over the drawing. A rather random process which creates some patterns which I find interesting and playful. Applying color to the patterns is one of those times in which the markers are full partners in the decision making.  This image is obviously in early stages because I was a several hours into it before I thought to send it to you. 

My bad. But I will try to be better about keeping you up to date with the process. 

Climbing Out of a Complex Rabbit Hole

They are insidious. Lurking everywhere on your digital media - phone, tablet, laptop, desktop. They are the nettles of the internet - sticking to your screen, grabbing at your attention: "Hey buddy! Wanna link? Yeah, I got what you're lookin' for - - - sorta'." So you click, and down you slide, down and down, until it is past midnight and you forget what you were looking for in the first place!

I took a bit of a rabbit hole tumble recently. The New York Times ran a puff piece recently about how the past year had been such a great year for New York - athletics, music, celebrity weddings etc. The bit that caught my eye was the couple who scaled the antenna of the Empire State Building to unfurl a banner saying "When the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace." I am a bit , maybe more, acrophobic, so the very idea of scaling the antenna atop the Empire State Building, gave me an unpleasant flutter in my stomach. But the banner - very cool. I wondered if I could find out who first said it or if it was original to the antenna scalers. Yup, slipping over the edge of the rabbit hole.

Chrome attributed the quote to Jimi Hendrix sometime in the late 1960s. But a deeper dive came up with the multi-time prime minister of the UK, William Gladstone, with a date of 1948. Problematic - as several sites reported Gladstone as having died in 1898.  So, maybe, 1848? Gladstone would have been almost 40 then and was known as a powerful orator - so maybe. DuckDuckGo - attributes the quote to Mahatma Ghandi in a letter to Hitler in 1939.  When was Ghandi born? It was then that I grabbed a root sticking out of the side of the rabbit hole and cautiously pulled myself back out. I lay there panting: Why I was following a link leading to Mahatma Ghandi's childhood? Hmmm?

Ah, right - the quote: When the power of love beats the love of power the world will know peace. It seems to assert a more inclusive version of the selfless vs. selfish dichotomy that I explored in a previous post. A kind of exploration of selfish power vs selfless peace. Hmm.

If we use the President Trump's disapproval public opinion ratings [66% Reuters, 56% NBC, 61% Fox, 63% Marquette Law School - some recent polls show others in the 66% range.] as an indication of those who prefer the power of love as opposed to Trump's love of power, then love seems to win that comparison.

But something doesn't quite ring true there. If we were to apply that finding to the world at large, we would find a world at peace. Instead we find a world in which Trump and Netanyahu's war on Iran is merely a drop in a bucket - though one that seems to be threatening to overflow. Russia's war on the Ukraine isn't getting as much publicity as it did before Trump's war on Iran, but it too staggers on lo' these many years. Israel's side war in Gaza - no peace there either.

There are over 130 armed conflicts taking place across the globe today, according to data from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). No matter how you parse those data, they do not reveal a world at peace.

You wonder why war seems to dominate, given that the numbers appear to reveal a popular demand for peace. It strikes me that, in all likelihood, it is not the combatants actually fighting the war who started it.  Rather it was the self-aggrandizing politicians whose fiery eloquence and posturing first pulled the trigger. A voice of the people post on Facebook suggests a better option:

"Why don't they rope off a big field. Take all of the leaders, strip them down to their underwear and give them big sacks of manure to swing at each other. The last man standing is the winner, war over."

A lovely, albeit messy, suggestion from the selfless side of the room. And the implication is clear - wars are most often fought at the bequest of, and in the personal interest of, the politicians currently in power. The objective being to increase that power and usually enrich the leader him/her self and their families, relations, business partners, and other complicit cohorts. 

This reveals is a organizational problem. Militaries are usually built around a strict and clear chain of command. You do not question orders. We had a major kerfluffle recently when U.S. Senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin, alongside House members such as Jason Crowe—released a video explicitly advising service members to refuse illegal orders. And, somewhat ironically in hindsight, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth similarly noted in a 2016 video that the U.S. military does not follow unlawful orders from a commander-in-chief.

Putting the onus to "just say no to war" on the back of largely powerless service personnel seems unrealistic. But even more unlikely would be my wish that before undertaking the killing of those entities that their leaders have defined as "bad" or "evil" each soldier could ask "Does this action make my life and the lives of my friends and family better? Does it make my country a better place to live in?" Do I have the right to kill these people?"

I realize the seeming simplicity of this perspective. It is kinda like the contestants in a beauty pageant declaring their desire for a "world at peace." Why do we smirk? Instead I would be tempted to quote Psalms 8:2 "Out of the mouths of babes," but in the context of this example that would seem linguistically patronizing. So, "Out of the mouths of beauties!"

And what could be more beautiful than a world at peace?

 

Self-less Childishness Update

On September 18th, Warren Buffett stepped down as the leader of Berkshire Hathaway, and in doing so reaffirmed his massive charity bequest. I gathered this report fro a variety of internet sources:

"In 2024, Warren Buffett announced that after his death, his fortune would be directed to a new charitable foundation overseen by his three children, Susan A. (Susie) Buffett, Howard G. (Howie) Buffett and Peter Buffett. The 95-year-old’s wealth is now estimated at more than $150 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Adding to the challenge, the legendary investor requested that all the money be given away within 10 years of his death. Another catch: All three must unanimously agree on how to disburse the funds."

The details and processes quickly become complex and, to me, somewhat confusing. But, be that as it may, this is a significant step forward along the "selfless childishness path"discussed in the most recent Wall post.

Yeah, Warren!

 

There's No Reason to Be Hard

Three Dog Night

Three Dog Night sang "It's Easy to be Hard."  Easy, maybe, but unnecessary. That's a perspective that has become clearer to me as I see the big 8-0 looming a couple of years away on the horizon.

The Bard, in As You Like It, famously declared there are seven ages of man, which he defined, in part, thusly:

“Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness . . . “ As though that were a bad thing. Those of you who hustle off to check the quote will realize I chopped off the more pessimistic ending of the line. But that is because it would detract from the narrative I'm exploring - and besides, we have been twisting Shakespeare for 500 years to frame our preferred narrative, so why stop now?

Let us consider this “second childishness” that the brash bard Bill asserts awaits us all (assuming that the seven ages of man, applies to women as well) at the tail end of our lives.  As I observe my fellow Baby Boomers - we started in 1946 - it seems to me that this second bout of childishness tends to diverge in a wood - Frost's two-pronged fork in the forest road. [Being born in 1874 Robert Frost  was part of either The Missionary Generation, The Lost Generation or The Progressive Generation, depending upon to whom you listen.]  It seems that you can either take the hard turn to the right that leads to a selfish childishness, or choose a smoother glide to the left that encourages a more selfless childishness.

The hard right turn to selfish childishness takes us, most publicly these days, to the Trump White House. One might be tempted to point to the high number of middle-aged members of the administration as evidence that the administration is years away from a second bout of childishness. But that would lead you astray.  First, it is in the middle of Shakespeare's seven ages - so maybe 30, 40 maybe 50ish? - that we find "the soldier" who wikipedia interprets as "Full of fierce oaths, looking like a leopard, quick to fight, and seeking a short-lived reputation even in extreme danger." But Trump's aggressive young leopards are fully aware that their current power depends on total fealty to an 80-year old president who seems to be shuffling down the road to a selfish childishness. And it is he who directs their aggression.

So what does that mean? Selfish childishness? Well, check out any examples in your own life - children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. Whomever you have access to. What are the characteristics of the selfish kids? [Of course, not that any of ours are 😉] Well, everything is about them. Me, me, me. My toys, my TV show, my favorite foods, my cloths, my battleship, my hotels, my golf course, my ballroom, my triumphal arch, my names for bodies of water, my reflecting pool - which, no matter what the contractor says, was torn up by vandals. Oops. I seem to have drifted off into the Oval Office there. But you can't really make that stuff up. He is the poster child for selfish childishness. You may have a similarly afflicted friend or relative that you observe when you visit them at Shady Rest or Golden Acres or some other padded retreat for those in the throes of selfish childishness. You know what I mean.

So who are the poster children for selfless childishness?  The headlines don't provide a lot of names here. Dion also sang about Abraham (Lincoln), Martin (Luther King, Jr,) and John (Kennedy), but they were all young 56, 39, 46, when they were killed - so long before what should have been "the last scene" Shakespeare describes. 

True Mahatma Gandhi was 78 years old when he died. And Mother Teresa was 87 years old when she died. But reports of their renowned selfless childishness do not grace the screens of contemporary media - no matter how praiseworthy. So I will look for less celebrated, but more personally important models. 

For me I will stick to "the ages of man" because three men come most quickly to mind when I think of selfless childishness.  They are my Dad, F. James Schrag who passed at 100, my Uncle Calvin O. Schrag died at 95, and Merle B. Smith, aka "Smitty" who expired at 94. All obviously in Shakespeare's “Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, [ending in] second childishness." I knew them all. Obviously my father all my life, my uncle almost as long, and Smitty for his last couple decades. What they had in common was that they could never do enough for you - or for me. And they did it with a genuine smile. They were all focused on the "other."

That is not, perhaps, unusual for me to see my father and my uncle thus - I was obviously "blood kin" - and their Mennonite upbringing contributed to their pacifistic, caring, outlook on life. Which was something they both brought to their college students in over a combined century in the classroom. I hope my 50 years were a worthy contribution. As I said, the defining characteristic of both Dad and my Uncle Calvin - aka "Kelly" - was that they were always focused on the "other" as opposed to themselves.

And for Dad that "other" was often his students; he was always bringing foreign students home - I have a clear memory of a Japanese student showing us how to make a spider out of tin foil. He continued his "other-based" activities in town, serving on several local groups addressing race relations in the early 1950s. And then in 1959 he moved the family to Vienna, Austria for two years while he ran Quaker House, a joint endeavor with the Austrian government and the American Friends Service Committee to bring refugees from behind the then "Iron Curtain" into the West. As he moved toward the century mark I continued to be moved as I observed his continued gentleness and good humor, and his obvious thankfulness for my sister and her husband who were so much in his life until he passed.

I am not that familiar with how, directly, Uncle Calvin interacted with his students, other than the fact that he often attended our national communication conferences - as his research was well known and highly respected in my discipline. There our traditional "catch-up" dinners were often interrupted by students just wanting to thank him for his work. To me, he was always - in addition to his academic stardom - the young uncle who often came to our house for Thanksgiving dinner and took the time to play whiffle ball with me in the basement. Later, I came to realize that his nine books paved a path to an advocacy of gentleness, love and understanding. A message he continued to bring to his classroom well into his 90s.

Smitty was a different kind of guy. A businessman who eventually ran one of the largest hardwood flooring companies in the country, if not the world. Something I am reminded of every day as I walk over the beautiful floors he created in the home I share with Christine - Smitty's first wife, my second. Yeah, I know - seems a bit weird. But it isn't really.

Smitty and Christine remained good friends after their divorce and it made good, if unusual, sense that when Christine and I would come up from North Carolina to visit her wide circle of friends and family here in the Chicago area we would stay with Smitty. What was less likely was that Smitty and I became close friends. We cooperated on crossword puzzles, played an informal version of "name that tune" with songs he grew up with, which were also the songs my mother had taught me from between the world wars and up into the 40s and 50s. Smitty and I would breakfast together each morning at Blueberry Hill Cafe, feeding any leftovers to his much-loved black lab - named named Vido Musso after an influential jazz tenor saxophonist who was one of Smitty's favorites. Vito was a most convivial lab who would occasionally share the tail end of Smitty's nightly martinis - with a preference for the olives and the ice cubes.

Smitty's "others" included his business acquaintances with whom he was generous to a fault. But, without a doubt, the others he held most dear were his family. Whenever we ate out with his extensive family in the area, he would take offense if anyone else pulled out a wallet. A family outing - maybe a dozen of us - to the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulfur Springs, WV for a week, was all on Smitty's tab. It wasn't just that he did those things, he loved doing it - and confided to me once while sitting before the fireplace, over those martinis that Vito shared - that he was worried that he couldn't do more for the family. And it became clear that Christine and I were considered part of that family when Smitty's will, after generous bequests to his kids, declared that while his home would eventually revert to the trust he had established for his family, until that time Christine and I were granted permanent residency until both of us had passed. Complete selfless childishness.

I would be remiss in this discussion were I not mention my mother. She died, way too early, at 72 - so a couple decades shy of the guys I discussed. But she was another example of "selfless childishness." When too young to be in her final chapters, she started the "Friendship Toy Shop" in our basement in Ohio. While I am fuzzy on the details, I think she wanted to sell toys made in the Third World to give those artisans access to markets in the West. The endeavor, again as I recall, was short-lived because of her blithe inattention to the tax implications of running a retail outlet. However, I do clearly remember "The Flower Cart," a sheltered workshop for developmentally challenged young adults that she founded when Dad took them off to Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia for the final years of his teaching career. Hence, with those two influences in the home my bias for the "selfless childishness" perspective is unavoidable.

So those who turn down the path of "selfish childishness" spend their final chapters harshly seeking to increase their wealth, property, and power; those who take the road - perhaps less traveled - to "selfless childishness" seek to give to others that which makes life easier for those they love, and often to others they may not even know, but who are in need.

It is encouraging to note that some names from the news are taking the "selfless childishness" path. The Gates Foundation springs to mind, as do the Lilly Endowment and the Ford Foundation, and those contributors who march across the screen after PBS programs. But sadly they most often appear with far less public attention than the blaring reports detailing the latest boondoggle from the "selfish childishness" path favored by those in currently in power.

 

Sometimes First Drafts Work

 Back in the day when I was requiring written essays from my students - AI being alive only in science fiction - I followed the time honored advice: Get your best thoughts down in a first draft, then go back and edit, edit, edit until you are communicating those best thoughts with your best writing.

Well, I try to follow that advice in my art as well. Find what I feel is now the best image to play with. Design the rough outline. Refine the outline - the maquette if you will - to create the boundaries of the final image.

So Five Faces started with this image of five masks I had cast in porcelain:

The next step was to turn the photograph of those 3D pieces into a 2D image that could become the final image. I did that and added a background I had painted several years ago for this piece called Tequila Sunrise:

Which brought me to this final 15x10 inch image to serve as the base for Five Faces:

But then a strange thing happened. I ran a couple of 8.5x11 copies to test some design ideas. So I started drawing on one of those smaller images and suddenly I was really having fun. So I completed the "first draft." Here:

Five Faces

I'm going to go ahead and mount this version, checking with Michael's to see if the flimsy paper will need double backing. The question now is do I return to the 15x10 version and finish what was supposed  to be the "real" image, or stick with this First Draft  and move on to something else?

 

Stranger Than Fiction

 OK - 

I have sent you a number of my drawings under the heading Schrag Canvas.  When people ask me things like: "Who influences your drawings?" "What 'style' is your artwork?" I respond, quite truthfully, - "I don't know. Sometimes I see a another thing - painting, sculpture, piece of a building that I like and "remake it" into one of my drawings. Other times the images just sort of spring to mind and glasses or faces or flowers just seem to grow on the page. I often claim to be a "doodler" since many of my drawings had their roots in just doodling. I dunno."

However, I never thought that genetics entered the picture - until my older daughter sent me an image that her daughter - my 10-year old granddaughter - had drawn. Yeah, yeah I know. Doting grandparents can witness some action of their progeny and see greatness, by squinting their eyes or filtering their hearing aids they perceive what they desire - not what is actually there. Or - "she has your eyes, Uncle Jake's hair, Grandma's dimples." We see what we want. Some evidence that our "lineage" will persist - perhaps even achieving greatness.

But sometimes persistence is enough. Consider these two images:

One was recently created by my almost 10-year old granddaughter, the other by her almost 78-year old grandfather. I haven't removed the artists' signatures, but without them it would be hard to tell, right? 

Long live the Doodlers!!

P.S. Yes, you can see faces and critters in each :-)

The Flaw in the Well-Made Play

 Gustav Freytag isn't a name that pops up in dinner conversations very often, but back a few decades ago when I was teaching media analysis at NC State, I spent a lot of time with him.  You see back in 1872 he wrote a book called The Technique of the Drama, which gave us Freytag's Pyramid or the model of the well-made play.  It looks like this:

I'll unpack it in a moment, but first let me explain what brought me to this post.  Here at home we tend to stream either "continuing series," like  Professor T and Reacher or "limited series" like those Harlan Coban shows that have a few episodes. It is in those programs that the flaw in the well-made play rears its frustrating head. [Interesting aside. I just saw on some site or another, that Coban has just published a book called Plot Twist in which he discusses his writing process. I look forward to checking it out.]

So back to the pyramid. The exposition these days is usually provided by the opening montage - that series of visual clips featuring the main characters accompanied by the theme music. Most shows, thankfully, give us the option to skip the exposition and jump right to the inciting incident which is when the caper begins - the body is found, the diamonds are stolen, whatever - something disrupts the lives of the protagonists who are called into action.  The rising action or complication  traces the protagonists actions necessary to catch the bad guys - which happens at the climax, shoot-out, fight, clever capture, etc.  The falling action, resolution and denouement are the bits of action and dialogue that returns us to the calm of the exposition, ready for the inciting incident that will open the next episode. 

It works. Go ahead and plot the next episode of your favorite show. See?  And that is the flaw. It works too well. We get hooked on a particular show and we don't want it to end. So the producers just keep 'em coming! To steal some examples:

• Daytime Soap Operas: Shows like Days of Our Lives (streaming on Peacock) and The Young and the Restless have tens of thousands of episodes spanning multiple decades.

• Long-Running Animated Series: The Simpsons has over 760 episodes [0.5] and streams via platforms like Disney+.
• 
  
• Primetime Procedurals: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has over 500 episodes and is widely available across multiple streaming apps like Hulu and Peacock.
• 
  
• Grey's Anatomy: Among popular binge-watched primetime serialized dramas on Netflix and Hulu, Grey's Anatomy leads with well over 400 episodes.

and

1. The Office (US): 201 episodes, streaming on major subscription services.
2. Friends: 236 episodes, available on platforms like HBO Max.
3. Seinfeld: 180 episodes, streaming online.
4. Supernatural: 318 episodes, available to stream.
5. Criminal Minds: Over 350 episodes, streaming on Paramount+.
6. The X-Files: 218 episodes, available on streaming platforms.
7. Lost: 121 episodes, available on various subscription video services.
8. Gilmore Girls: 153 episodes, popular for re-watching on demand.

OK, you get the idea. But here is the problem. You get to know the pyramid the writers use as well as they do, and soon you know pretty much how each episode will unfold right after the initial incident. Boooooorrrrring!  So you hunt a new series, which also gets boring after the first 30 or 40 episodes.

So you give up and try actually reading books in the same genres.

• De Cock Series by A.C. Baantjer & Peter Römer: 86+ novels following Amsterdam police detective Jurre de Cock. Baantjer wrote the first 70 books, and Peter Römer took over the De Cock Series after his passing.
• The Amelia Peabody Series by Elizabeth Peters: 20 novels (plus companion books) following the intrepid Victorian archaeologist and sleuth Amelia Peabody across Egypt.
• The Hercule Poirot Series by Agatha Christie: 34 novels (and 50+ short stories) featuring the famous Belgian private detective.
• The Hamish MacBeth Series by M.C. Beaton: 36 books about a laid-back Scottish Highland police constable.
• The Stephanie Plum Series by Janet Evanovich: 30+ books following the lovable New Jersey bounty hunter.

And:

Harry Bosch Series 24+ Books: Written by Michael Connelly, this series follows Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch, an LAPD homicide detective.

The In Death Series written by J.D. Robb (the pseudonym for Nora Roberts) is one of the absolute giants of the police procedural genre, currently standing at 63 novels.

The Aloysius Pendergast thriller series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child consists of 23 primary books starting with Relic in 1995.

And my beat goes on - and my sister could give you more!  

I never thought I would recommend the Harry Potter series for its brevity! However, I would also recommend Rowling's mysteries - written under the name Robert Galbraith. There are 8 of them - but compared to the lists above that shows admirable restraint.

So why do we do it? Why do we seek out these repetitive narratives? Why do we follow these fictional protagonists through their increasingly predictable lives? Will Susie Glass and the Duke finally get together in season three of The Gentlemen? Oops. [I digress, but I'm thinking yes.] So why will I watch? Because it is comfortable.

There is a sub-genre of mysteries called "cozies" which Wikipedia tells us are: a lighthearted sub-genre of crime fiction featuring amateur sleuths, small close-knit communities, and zero graphic violence or explicit content.

I would assert that all the programs and novels I mention in this post are cozies. Not because they fit Wikipedia's definition - as many of them, particularly in the "hard boiled" and "action-thriller" sub-genres - do not. It is their predicability - as revealed by Freytag's model - that makes them "cozy." They are old friends. We know what will happen - not the specifics, but the steps that will unfold taking us from the inciting incident to the resolution. Like a roller-coaster our author will toss our protagonists through some engaging plot twists, but in the end we pull into the platform from which we departed - perhaps a bit bloody, but unbowed - ready for our next ride.

One might think that, tired of the chaos, we might turn to another sub-genre - the single work, the stand alone novel. One story, one protagonist. I have tried it with several "stand alones." And even if the work is excellent, at the end, part of me starts humming that old Peggy Lee song, Is that all There Is?

Wondering

🎶🎶 I suppose it might be  because I spent a lot of time watching Mr. Roger's Neighborhood with my young daughters. Or maybe the excessive time spent prepping my 1990 book Taming the Wild Tube: A Family's Guide to Television and Video - but I have always been a bit more comfortable in The Neighborhood of Make-Believe than in the "real" neighborhood outside my door. 

It's not that I do not enjoy and appreciate the wonders of the world in which I live. I do. I am constantly staggered by the beauty of this world. But I am occasionally chagrined by the necessity to distinguish between a fiction and non-fiction view of the world. 

My recent post on Harmonic Entanglement -

https://schragwall.blogspot.com/2026/08/harmonic-entanglement.html

defines one of my favorite spaces in my personal Neighborhood of Make-Believe so I thought I would share a bit of a ramble through the issues that "harmonic entanglement theorists" would have to confront once that became an established technology and academic discipline. Like all sciences, these theorists would be guided by things they "wondered about." So I'll go that way.

Remember to be “Harmonically Entangled” (HET) means that the string-based chords of two entities are sympathetically linked, a close personal relationship.

I wonder if: Folks who are physically related as evidenced by shared DNA, like siblings cousins, etc., are more prone to be harmonically entangled than entities with no such physical relationship.

The argument of "nature versus nurture" would follow us into the world of Harmonic Entanglement Theory. Does the intense weight of shared DNA enhance the possibility of Harmonic Entanglement [HET]? At the moment I'm inclined to believe that shared DNA increases the possibility of HET. So I'd say probably. If we consider that our DNA permeates the vast majority of our cells, and our "blood kin" share varying degrees of that DNA it is logical that those shared DNA structures would vibrate harmonically in those related entities increasing the possibility of entanglement. Which might shed some light on the "special relationship" that often seems to be the case with twins.

However, it is important to realize that physically related entities often share a close common "growing up" environment - where that "nurturing" element occurs - which can result in competition and conflict which might actually reduce the inclination toward entanglement.

I wonder if: Familiarity breeds harmony? Or, do periods of extended proximity. enhance the possibility of HET? Again I am inclined to think so, assuming that the folks in "extended proximity" are there because they want to be. For example, college roommates who started out strangers, but eventually decide to move off campus to a shared apartment - not a romantic relationship, but "close friends" who have become HET. Similarly, folks who work together for extended periods of time - particularly if they work together to solve mutual tasks. The potential downside of this possibility for HET is competition. If the co-workers are in competition for advancement or rewards then the odds for HET decline.

I wonder if: HET can exist with other "lifeforms." Again, I think so. Our pets are the best examples. I'm a dog person. And dogs are often cited for their ability to provide unconditional love, which could be seen as code for HET. Contrarily, I am not a cat person - and cats are often cited for their "independent nature." Maybe code for not inclined to HET with me. Although, I am sure cat people would strongly object to my assessment. But their inclination to reverse the perception re cats and dogs, would not argue against the possibility of HET with other lifeforms.  I'm sure there are folks out there who would speak up for hamsters and ferrets.

I would, however, point out that HET with non-human life forms is a two way street, which, I assert, should rule out exploring HET relationships with non-domesticated creatures. There are sad, and terminal, examples of those who sincerely believed they were harmoniously entangled with wild carnivores only to belatedly discover that they were - when push came to shove - dinner.

I wonder if: HET can exist with non-sentient entities. This is where things can get rather strange. First, I would define non-sentient entities as entities without biology - which conveniently avoids some of the fascinating communication that occurs between plants, insects, etc. I, tentatively, would further divide non-sentient entities into entities created with communicative intent - aka the arts. And pragmatic entities - entities intended to serve our pragmatic needs - shelter, clothing, etc., Maslow's physiological and safety needs.

First, those entities created with communicative intent. Here is a good place to remind ourselves that Harmonic Entanglement occurs at the string level, when the strings that create and define one entity are harmonic - play a symphony that is in tune with - the strings of another entity. So here we are considering the relationship between us - our dominant chord - and the strings, the dominant chord - of a creative/created artifact - paint, stone, clay, etc. My, delightfully data-free personal inclination, is to assert that such a harmonic relationship - an HET - can exist between a work of art and an individual. And possibly an indirect HET between artist and observer facilitated by the art work.

The "evidence" for me is in my reaction to art forms that literally move me - either internally or physically. Music that calms me, helps me sleep - or gets me up to clean the kitchen or down to the treadmill to do my "steps." For me the paintings from the Hudson River School are the visual equivalent of nocturnes - they calm me. My own art - which makes me chuckle or sigh.. . .  I could go on, but we are in the realm of the purely subjective here and you need to supply your own examples.

Second, those pragmatic entities - "things" created to serve our physiological and safety needs. It will probably not surprise you, but I am going to assert that HET relationships are possible with these entities. Perhaps it is because I look for them, that I think I see them. My daughter's relationship to her lost stuffed bunny, my stuffed panda that holds my head at the perfect angle to read my iPad in bed, a family member's affection for an aging car, rarely driven but cherished, my wife's affection for her extensive collection of cookbooks, my red sweatshirt with its perfect pockets and familiar hood. 

These are all manufactured entities - but that does not mean they are not, in every element of their construction made up of [at the tiniest most fundamental level] strings - those minuscule vibrating elements that manifest a chord that may, somehow, strike a responsive chord with us.

I wonder how: We can become harmonically entangled with those pragmatic, non-sentient entities. I'm saving this for last because it is probably the strangest. I think the best analogy is RFID tags - radio frequency identification tags. I'm going to steal a couple definitions from the FDA website. In RFID -

1. Every tag contains a microchip (integrated circuit) to store data and an antenna to send and receive radio signals.
2. Communication: An RFID Reader emits radio waves, which trigger the tag to transmit its stored information back to the receiver.

Here is my thinking as to how to translate that into my notion of how we become harmonically entangle with pragmatic entities:

All entities - bees, bears, and boards and beer - have within them a "chord" by virtue of the vibrations of the strings that underly every atom of their make up. Those quiescent chords are the "tags."

We are the "readers" that, as we touch, hold, observe, interact with the quiescent pragmatic entities, triggering the tags, awakening the chord of the pragmatic entity and make the HET possible - hence we become entangled with bunny, our MG, a red sweatshirt.

And that, were I an Harmonic Entanglement Theorist when such things were possible, would be my story, and I'd be sticking to it! 

 TTFN.

A Penny for Your Thoughts

A Penny for Your Thoughts

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  I wrote, oh, it seems like a long time now, that I was going to flatter Edward Hopper by imitating his Nighthawks by casting it in a more optimistic tone. I was going to call it Skylarks, as an upbeat version of Hopper's work.

Nighthawks - Edward Hopper, 1942

But after I had messed around a bit with it and sat down to compose the newly created blank spaces my markers colluded with the paper to say "Not so fast, Roberto. We have some other ideas. So, I listened to them and this is the piece that came out.

We call it A Penny for Your Thoughts:

A Penny For Your Thoughts - RL Schrag 2026

 

Three Little Words

The Professor

Depending on which particular site you choose to believe, there are somewhere between 180,000 and a million words in the English language - and it is usually listed as either the language with the most words, or at least up there in the top three.  Yet, if you stream "neo-noir" movies, war flicks or limited series on your screen - you might guess at a much smaller number, with various four-letter words heavily over-represented. But I digress. 

Point is that when you opt to communicate in written or spoken English you have an incredible number of words from which to choose.  And the ones we choose to use say a lot about who we are and what we think, what we value. Parents wait breathlessly for baby's first words - debating whether the kiddo was addressing Mom, Dad or the family pooch. Then they have to endure - 10 or 15 years later - the phase when their teen disappears into a language which is really a code designed to make their communication with their peers indecipherable to their parents. Eventually, hopefully, they get a job, a home of their own - and a new "language of their profession" shared and expected by their occupational peers. And that is where I am headed with this post.

I officially entered my dominant "language tribe" in my early 20s when - having completed my PhD - I took a job as an Assistant Professor up in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. And it is the second part of that title that draws my attention to the implications of its etymology - itself an interesting word that means the history, meaning, and evolution of a word. "Professor" - most simply means "one who professes - to declare to have skill or expertise in, to claim to have knowledge in." So, some kind of "truth-teller."  And over the next 50 years, in New Mexico and mostly in North Carolina, I moved through Associate Professor to Full Professor - a title which once prompted me to inquire of my fellow "Fulls”  - what is a Full Professor full of?" 

More seriously, within the academy, and among the students, often the perception is that a Full Professor is full of truth. Debates did arise within the community as to just how this "truth" was best disseminated. A couple of points from that debate:

I have often heard the old self-deprecating cliche employed by some of my fellow professors: "I learn more from my students than they learn from me."  To which my - usually unspoken - reaction was "Then they ought to sue you for malpractice." I mean really, we were teachers, for crying out loud. We were being paid to share with our students the information and knowledge we had acquired in our decades of reading and research.

A more nuanced version of the discussion considered the question of whether it was best to be "a sage on the stage," or "a guide on the side." There were solid points to be made for either perspective - but regardless of where you chose to stand, the bottom line was you were the "professor" either providing your students with, or guiding them to, the truth.  A notion that brings me to the title of the post - "Three Little Words,”  that really should have a completing phrase - "and what makes them so hard for professors to say."

Outside my professional community, people would probably vote for "I love you" being the three words in question. But not really. We say them easily to babies, to puppies, kittens, etc., to celebrities should we meet them. So we have a lot of practice with those three words.  It is when we find ourselves faced with the scenario in which we feel moved to speak them to another person, with whom we would like to spend our lives, that they may become a bit of a stutter. But somehow we muddle through.

For those of us who spend our lives in the academy the stuttering phrase is different - and while difficult - actually should be the foundation of our community. 

The phrase is "I don't know."

It reflects a state that is difficult to admit, because in our continuing role of "profess - er," -  one who professes, a "truth-teller" we are suppose to know. That is our job - knowing, professing. To say "I don't know" seems tantamount to saying "I'm not doing my job." 

Actually the opposite is true. The real job of every "professor" is to discover what - at the end of their lengthy education - they do not know. And then seek to address that deficiency. Bring new depth, more data to that which they profess approaches truth. If we are to function as guides then the task is to guide our students along the path that takes them with us to what we don't know, and then encourage them to help find the next step, the next answer.

Both within, and outside of, the classroom there are linguistic structures that can simultaneously address the uncomfortable reality of "not knowing" and the accompanying desire to acknowledge and value all that one has learned. For example:

"I don't know. But if I were to guess I would guess that . . ." 

Or "I don't know, but we might figure it out by . . ."  

Or "I don't know, but it seems that . . . " 

Or "I don't know. But [some credible source] appears to imply that . . . "

It's a bit of a semantic balancing act, but it might work. What do you think?

I don't know. 🤷‍♂️