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. 🤷‍♂️

Harmonic Entanglement

As Monty Python used to say - Now for something completely different: 

Harmonic Entanglement

The known world can be a little boring, and occasionally depressing. So I often find a pleasing respite in indulging in the playground of the unknown.  Back a few posts ago I mused,"While finally drifting off to sleep to the early morning twitters of the birds in the trees beyond my window, a thought came to me: "panphonism" - the notion that maybe everything really is made of music, and maybe someday we will figure out how to listen to it."

Let's pretend we had done that - that we could listen to the vibrations of the strings. That we could hear the music that those vibrations produced. Which lets me stretch my notion of "chord theory" even further than I did in my 2009 book, The God Chord - String Theory in the Landscape of the Heart. Let's pretend that we can that we can "hear" everything. Not just people, but everything critters, bugs, even entities that we consider "insensate" - dumb, things rocks, boards, silverware, paintings, sculpture, everything, because remember everything is made of strings, so everything produces vibrations, that we can now hear.

OK, that is a touch weird - but here in the playground of the unknown we can play with that assumption. So here is what I have fun thinking about. Those weird connections - not just to people we love, but to paintings we love, sculpture we love, forest paths we love, puppies we love, sweatshirts we love - all those connections we now - in the playground of the unknown - realize are the result of harmonic entanglement.

Now we understand, in the playground of the unknown, that harmonic entanglement is different than the entanglement of quantum mechanics back in the playground of the known - that bizarre phenomenon that Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" where two quantum particles were linked so that no matter how distant from each other in the universe , if you knew the condition of one particle you could instantly infer the condition of the other. Piffle - easy peasy compared to the wonders of harmonic entanglement.

In harmonic entanglement any two entities might share string vibrations that result in strong sympathetic ties between the two entities. Another way to think of this is that the two different entities's billions and billions of strings vibrate at rate that create similar chords, which are in harmony with each other. This, now obvious, relationship sheds light on some previously inexplicable phenomena:

The Some Enchanted Evening Phenomenon. This is the "love at first sight" phenomenon that occurs when two highly harmonic entities come in contact for the first time and instantly become "entangled." We tend to think of this with a humanist bias - two human entities meeting. But the phenomenon can have wider applications Picture yourself shopping for a puppy. You go to a pet store, a breeder's facility, an animal shelter where you find a plethora of puppies all wiggling and whimpering, "pickmepickmepickme!" But you see a little one, sort of at the back, just looking at you. Tail slowly wagging and "Bam! Some Enchanted Evening!" "I'll take that one!" The Some Enchanted Evening Phenomenon can also be triggered by just about any entities that share harmonic chords - people, puppies, pictures, books, whatever.

It can even impact with a place. A number of years ago we hired a young assistant professor from a school out on the West coast. She later asserted that upon arriving in her new east coast home, " I just immediately felt at home, that this is where I was meant to be." Apparently harmonically entangled - as she eventually married, had a family, and swiftly climbed the academic ladder. Seemingly still entangled.

The Getting to Know You Phenomenon. By sticking to Rogers and Hammerstein's works, but jumping from South Pacific to The King and I, we discover this phenomenon. In the end the result is still entangled harmony, but it takes a little longer to recognize the harmonic chords. Thinking about this type of entanglement always takes me back to the TV series Frazier, and an episode about Frazier's father Martin's chair. It is a piece of furniture in significant contrast to Frazier's high end furniture which includes an exact replica of Peggy Guggenheim's Paris sofa and many objets d'art. But when Frazier accidentally throws the chair off the balcony and suggests a high end replacement Martin explains why that chair is the only one he every really wanted. He says:

"Okay, I'll tell you what chair I want. I want the chair I was sitting in when I watched Neil Armstrong take his first step on the Moon. And when the US hockey team beat the Russians in the '80 Olympics. I want the chair I was sitting in the night you called me to tell me I had a grandson. I want the chair I was in all those nights, when your mother used to wake me up with a kiss after I'd fallen asleep in front of the television. Y'know I still fall asleep in it. And every once in a while, when I wake up, I still expect your mother to be there, ready to lead me off to bed..."  

Martin and his chair had become - over the years, and through shared experiences - harmonically entangled. Think about it. You probably have some thing that you have hung onto over the years. A sweatshirt, a poster or picture of some person, place or thing, maybe a stuffed animal, a childhood book - anything that perhaps started out as just a "thing" but one with which you have - over the years - now become harmonically entangled."

This is all very plausible here in the playground of the unknown, but unfortunately seems more than a little strange out there where the real kids run around in their playground, texting their friends, posting pix on Facebook, TikToking away. All activities that seemed more than a little strange before there were smart phones which now, occasionally, provide tantalizing glimpses of a future in the playground of the unknown.

 

The Elephant in The Room

Having taught courses focused on the media and society for 4 decades I suppose I should share my thoughts on the giant elephant in the room. Well, Dumbo's ears weren't all that big . .  . OK, so not Dumbo. AI. Artificial Intelligence.

Seems like you cannot access any information source these days without encountering some prediction regarding the impact of AI on our lives. Like that lady over there. I tried to hide a bit in fiction and so picked up Dan Brown's 2017 offering Origin. Bad choice. Interesting novel, but all about how humanity will eventually evolve into some sort of human/AI hybrid. Yech.

First point. AI isn't one thing.  AI is simply a new way of utilizing and distributing information. The latest step in a evolution that probably began with hand gestures - "dangerous beast over there." Then speech, writing, printing press, the telegraph, radio, television, and digital media - of which AI is the latest multi-faceted iteration. And it is that "multi-faceted" aspect of AI that makes it an error to attempt to discuss AI as "a thing." It is many things with varying impacts in each environment.

Point two. I make no claim for deep insight into the hard sciences. But from what I have read, this seems to be where AI makes its greatest potential impact by simply reducing the time it takes to perform the multiple iterations necessary to legitimize results in a variety of fields - medicine, physics, chemistry, etc. However, one must keep in mind that human beings must first pose the initial intellectual seeds, the questions, that trigger these various AI endeavors.

Point three. AI doesn't always get it right. Some would assert that AI gets it wrong a significant amount of the time, sometimes with harmful, even fatal results. It strikes me that the error of considering AI to be one thing, might fuel some of these concerns. But we need to keep in mind that all versions of AI spring - initially - from human programmers creating computer code. Fingers on keyboards typing very fast. Then code talking to code. There is a very real possibility of the oops factor creeping in.

Point four. And I'll admit to a personal bias here - there are some fields of human endeavor where AI has, if no place at all, then only a very small one. I addressed this assertion more fully in this previous post: https://schragwall.blogspot.com/2026/04/artificial-intelligence.html 

But I wanted to do a little reprise here. My concern is with distancing the artistic product from the hand of the artist. I freely admit that my own 2D artistic output is compromised by my inability to draw. Took a couple of drawing lessons when I was 10 or 11, but never kept it up. [See previous post: https://schragwall.blogspot.com/2026/07/practice-practice-practice.html ] So I do compromise a bit by sometimes stealing an established piece of art and repurposing parts of it as a canvas for my "doodles." [I'm currently working a piece I cribbed from Hopper's Nighthawks. Coming your way once I figure out just how I turn it into my concept: Skylarks.]

Anyhow, I feel that many of the proposed uses of AI in the arts - music, painting, 3D sculpture, dance, theater - just feel like a bridge too far. To fire up ChatGPT and ask it to create "a forest glade beside a river in the style of the Hudson River School" and have it actually do a pretty good job, reeks to me of the hand of Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor, or perhaps more accurately, a painting devoid of any creative hand. And the same goes for other "artistic" products created by/with AI.

I do realize that my bias seems a bit antediluvian, but fortunately, AI's grandparent, Google, allowed me to find a rather posh, although a touch dated, bit of support:

"Importantly, our report highlights that the creativity involved in artmaking remains beyond the capabilities of current ML [Machine Learning - rls] technology."

Ploin, A., Eynon, R., Hjorth I. & Osborne, M.A. (2022). AI and the Arts: How Machine Learning is Changing Artistic Work. Report from the Creative Algorithmic Intelligence Research Project. Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK.

Yeah. Me too. Still.

Practice, practice, practice

So we took ourselves down into the city to have dinner at The Russian Tea Time and go to Buddy Guy's 90th Birthday Celebratory Concert with Carlise Guy & The Nu Blu Band. Both events were excellent.  At The Russian Tea Time the smoked salmon, caviar and horseradish vodka all got top marks.

The concert was really exceptional for a variety of reasons. First, it was incredibly loud. I have, as many of us have, become used to controlling much of the way we listen to music. I haven't been to anything except classical music concerts since the Woodstock era - circa 1969. I kept wanting to turn down the background music and punch up the volume on the soloists. Carlise Guy & The Nu Blu Band and the other members of the Guy family were excellent, and the presentation of the family birthday cake was a nice sentimental moment. But two solo performances were simply celestial.

Music - both instrumental and vocal - is a freakishly demanding discipline. First, I firmly believe, you have to be very, very lucky to have been born with talent. It's like sports. I could spend hours in the gym and never play in the NFL. Russell Wilson was a student of mine at NC State, and when he went to the NFL the naysayers tis-tisked "You can't coach height." - a knock on Russell's 5'11" stature. But apparently, as his career proved, talent trumps height. A couple of folks at the concert had "off the charts" talent.

First, of course, is Buddy Guy. When one goes to hear a 90-year old musician you are often prepared to be sympathetic. "Isn't it remarkable that they are still performing. S/he used to be awesome." Well, he still is. The truly exceptional world class musicians stay that way - the expected decline just doesn't happen. Guy's voice was never his claim to fame. The blues are inclined to growling, wailing voices, and Guy pulls that off just fine. But he was best known for making a guitar sing, talk, holler and weep. A voice outside the body that defines a whole other level of artistry. He can still do that. That's what I wanted to be able to isolate - turn the other stuff down.

The second instance was a bit of a surprise. Every concert comes with some "down time" while the band noodles around getting ready for the next set. Well, one of the primary "noodlers" was a guy named Dan Souvigny.  Who, I have learned on my computer keyboard, is a musical keyboard artist who has played with every contemporary jazz artist of note. Go ahead search for him on your own keyboard. Play some of his cuts. He can do on his instrument what Guy does on his guitar. He creates an additional voice outside the body. Sweet.

Which brings me to the link with today's title: Practice, practice, practice. To put it plainly, being born with incredible talent just isn't enough. OK, here is how I remember it. [An increasingly fragile facility.] I went to high school with a guy named Steve Hahn. He was in choir, so liked music. But that isn't why he is important. After we had all graduated, gone to college, got married, had kids, etc., we would often try to get together when we happened to be back in town. But Steve was never available. Always taking his daughter to violin practice, contests, concerts. Well, his daughter's name is Hilary, and all that practice has led Hilary Hahn to concert appearances all over the world.

On the other side of the coin is my personal experience with the piano. A friend of my parents was the local piano teacher, so my best friend and I somehow became her students. OK, this is around junior high school age, and to say we became her students is a bit of a misnomer. Rather, we went to her house for lessons. For me, "practice, practice, practice," was more like "pra, OK, maybe later." I remember one instance where my buddy and I were supposed to do a duet at a recital - a piece called a "tarentella - a fast-paced, traditional southern Italian folk dance known for its quick steps." But as Willy Nelson sings in Me and Paul, "I don't know if we went on that night at all."

But I do know that I am incredibly envious, not only of the great artists like Guy and Souvigny, but also of anyone who can sit down to, or pick up, an instrument and make it sing a little. Gives them a voice outside their body. So parents, no matter how they whine about wanting to go out back and shoot some hoops, or go to the mall, or whatever, make them sit down and "practice, practice, practice." They will thank you for it. 

Eventually.

 

Don't Worry, Be Happy

😁

In every life we have some trouble

But when you worry, you make it double

Don't worry, be happy.

• Bobby McFerrin

A catchy little lyric, that has the ability to get stuck in your brain, keeping you humming as you move through the mundane chores of the day. But surely, you think a bit naive out here in the real world. Just look at the news. Don't worry? Really?

Our house is full of paintings, paintings, sculpture, and books. I do my "stuff," - hate to call it work - in my office in the basement. When I go downstairs I naturally pass a shelf running along the stairs. A narrow shelf barely able to contain all the books we have stashed along there. I sometimes glance at a little book - really little - a paperback 4 x 3 inches and about a half an inch thick. It has a picture of the Dalai Lama on the cover and bears the predictable title The Pocket Dali Lama. I admit I often flashed on a scene in my mind, an Edward Hopper kind of scene: a lonely, disheveled person on a subway, raining outside, forlornly clutching this little book, and seeking solace.

But when I actually picked it up and looked inside an entirely different scene springs to mind: a comfy bench in a sun-drenched park, sitting in the shade, a smiling person gazes out at some kids throwing a frisbee, while a fountain bubbles softly in the background. Because you see, the book is all about finding happiness.

My mother had a oft repeated saying whenever confronted with a seemingly intractable situation: "If I had a magic wand I'd . . . " It was her version of "If I ruled the world I'd do 'such and such.'" As I have written earlier I have a problem with the idea of an interventionist deity who reaches down and impacts our lives. The problem being if you give such an entity this power to do good, miraculous things, it sadly follows that the deity has also failed to prevent that which is equally evil. That reflection, however, does not prevent me from considering what I would do if given my mother's magic wand - if I ruled the world.

I have written earlier that I believe that love ought to be the core of human values. I'm not backing off of that assertion. But we need to keep in mind the fact that love - as addressed in Greek philosophy comes in a couple of different wrappings.

First there is agape - which a quick internet search confirms my memory from Greek classes back at Kalamazoo College in the late 60s - "is the highest, most selfless form of love. Rooted in ancient Greek philosophy, it describes unconditional, sacrificial love that prioritizes the well-being of others without expecting anything in return." And that is an excellent core concept. 

However, the second wrapping is eros - the stem of erotic. Defined, again from both the internet and my memory; "eros is passionate, romantic, and sensual love. Rooted in ancient Greek philosophy, it is characterized by deep physical attraction, intense infatuation, and a desire for emotional or sexual intimacy." [See Dr. Poggi? We did pay attention to those lectures on love.] Anyhow, it is that second wrapping that makes me inclined to swap happiness for love as my first choice for what I would declare as the universal state for humanity - if I ruled the world. World! Be happy!

You see the problem with love - in the second, eros, wrapping - is that it is not a guarantee of happiness. As a matter of fact if we use love songs as any indication, "passionate, romantic, and sensual love" is a heartache waiting to happen. I could provide examples from across a variety of the arts - starting, oh, say with the ancient Greek tale of Alcyone and Ceyx, then later Romeo and Juliet, up through George Jones's 1980 county hit, He Stopped Loving Her Today, and most of Patsy Cline's songs. But you have your own examples from your favorite era and genres. Unrequited love hurts.

Happiness doesn't hurt. Our culture often tells us that a variety of other objectives; fame, money, power, success in a variety of fields, will bring happiness. Still there are many who live simple lives without any of those accolades, yet are happy.

This is where I should provide some formula for capturing the illusive butterfly of happiness. Alas, I cannot because happiness is a personal thing. It is like the glib definition of fine art "I don't know what it is - but I know it when I see it." We may not have a precise definition of happiness, but I think we all know what "happy" feels like. You boogie around the kitchen while putting the dishes away. You talk to the dog. You laugh when you miss tossing your t-shirt into the hamper. Silly stuff, happy stuff. So the route to happiness must include obtaining happiness as a goal in the choices we make in all aspects of our life. Choose that which you believe will make you happy. Avoid that which will not.

But and this is a major but - I feel that we must also consider the impact of our choices for our happiness on others. The extent to which our choices make others unhappy must be considered - but still does not automatically eliminate such choices. Too often life moves people into situations that advantage others - but at the cost of their own happiness. The price for terminating those situations may be initially painful - but losing sight of happiness is, in the long run, a deeper pain.

I feel I need to include some thoughts bouncing around in my head about how making "happy choices" may be more difficult for women because of some "cultural norms" embedded in what is commonly called the "patriarchy" - a phrase which I, as a "pater," don't fully understand - but here are my thoughts.

Women have traditionally been seen as the primary caregiver in the household. So "givers" not so much "takers." This role has leached into society as a whole, leading to assumptions that women should choose for the needs of others and not so much their own needs. Well, obviously - I would hope - this throws a big obstacle into the notion that one should choose that which makes you happy. If you are a touch obsessed with making others happy, or how you appear to others, it is unavoidable that you fail to make choices for your own happiness. Don't do that. Choose your own happiness.

However, the nuclear family - mother/father/kids/dog or cat - remains the norm in our society. So having either the man or the woman simply making purely self-serving "happy choices" is a recipe for conflict and unhappiness - leading, at least in part, to our high divorce rate, particularly - according to Pew research - among couples in long-standing marriages, "grey marriages."  Maybe one partner finally opting to make some "happy" choices they felt were missing in the marriage? I dunno. But part of the answer must lie in negotiation. A "happy" family is one in which everyone gets a piece of the "happy pie."

In her 1973 hurtin' love song, I Will Always Love You, Dolly Parton sings: I wish you joy and happiness. But above all of this, I wish you love.

She should have stopped after the first sentence.

 

Whoever Dies With The Most Toys Wins

Forbes tells us that Elon Musk was, for a bit, the world's first trillionaire, until market fluctuations dropped him back in the ranks of mere billionaires. He remains the first among equals in that pond, remaining by far the world's wealthiest person. A title widely reported as both amazing and laudable.

At the same time we have President Trump attempting to explain how it is just fine that he uses the power of his office to line his, and his family's, pockets with billions of dollars while simultaneously spending millions of our tax dollars on vanity projects like the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool debacle, the White House East Wing Ballroom, and his desire for a huge "triumphal" arch.

Taken together these two tidbits of contemporary culture would seem to echo the t-shirt declaration "Whoever Dies With the Most Toys Wins." An assertion that success in America is best measured by the number of digits in one's bank account. It is an infantile perspective, and one that runs counter to some foundational values that have undergirded America in these past 250 years. I refer to the notion that what really defines an exemplery individual is what they have created, invented, or discovered. Not what they possessed.

Now, certainly, bringing those discoveries to the market often came with monetary success. The early robber barons, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt and Morgan were no "woke Dumocrats" to borrow that phrase from the President. Altho' at times - often later in life - altruism became a defining characteristic of some, as seen in The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Libraries. A perspective strongly reflected in the contemporary work of The Gates Foundation.

A couple of questions arise as we consider the implications of the uber-rich in American society - who, as I write this are gathered at the Millionaire's Retreat in the Linton Lodge, where I, perhaps unfairly, assume philanthropy will not top the agenda.

First, and most importantly, is what is the meaning of success in contemporary America. And here I wander into what I consider to be one of the primary dichotomies in life: the creation/consumption dichotomy. The two parts are pretty self-explanatory:

Creation: Making something, often where nothing previsously existed. This is perhaps most obvious in the arts. An artist creates an image, sculpture, musical composition, novel, poem, dance, that has never existed before - a creation. 

But sometimes one overlooks other incredibly creative fields. Thomas Edison had 1,093 U.S. patents - obviously including the lightbulb, and is often credited with "inventing inventing" in his Menlo Park laboratory. I write these Wall posts using a combination of software and hardware that result from a long chain of creative acts. Architecture, engineering, the hard sciences are all creative activities.

Consumption: We constantly consume. There is no way to avoid it. Follow yourself through the day and it is often simply a trail of consumption. We get up. We consume breakfast, either at home or on our way to work. Maybe while driving or riding to work we consume music or information from a variety of possible sources. When arriving at work we consume our work load - which may be creative, but perhaps something made possible by consuming the information provided by other sources. At the end of the work day the consumption process is simply reversed.

Our life consists of this blend of creation and consumption. Success is defined, personally, socially, or culturally - in the Musk/Trump model of success - by monetary consumption, as in the acquisition of treasure.

Musk can argue that the creative aspect of his life - PayPal, Tesla, Space X, xAI, neurolink - undergird his financial empire. But his involvement in these ventures quickly became administrative for which he was richly compensated, either in salary or in stock provisions. [In a somewhat meaningless aside - Musk, one assumes, named his electric vehicles after Nikola Tesla who - despite having bested Edison in the "war of the currents" thus assuring us of the AC current that powers all the outlets in our homes - died alone and penniless in a New York hotel at age 84.] 

The Trump model is more nuanced, one in which political power and intimidation become the tools with which financial rewards are acquired through "no bid" contracts or other "friendly" relationships and contracts for himself and family members.

The point, I believe, as individuals in this current social climate, is to remember that it is our choice to balance creativity and consumption in our own lives.

The American Dream, as I understand it, was never to become fabulously wealthy no matter what the cost. Rather the dream was the ability to live in a free and equal society, to do meaningful, pleasurable work, and to provide for ones family -  the end result of which, and the primary goal, was happiness. For me, while realizing the inevitability of daily consumption, I have always found my greatest satisfaction, my most enduring happiness in creativity, whether crafting lectures at the university, doodling/drawing, or authoring these sometimes rambling posts for you.

For a broader social perspective - one that might provide some bench marks for assessing the Musk/Trump examples - we might consider the "give or take" yardstick. What did an individual give to a society, and what did they take from that society. Using these tools, success looks rather different than when measured soley by personal wealth.

Musk can point in the "giving" column to the aforementioned technological businesses. However those must be measured against the "take" column of amassing more money than anyone else in the world. And also in the “take” column one must include his time as a senior advisor in the Trump White House and co-lead of the "Department of Government Efficiency" which led to thousands of non-millionaires losing their jobs.

The Trump tally is quite fraught, with promises and claims in the "give" column seeming in stark contrast with actual results. In the "give" column were assertions that he would end the still-continuing war in Ukraine on "day one."  There was also the claim that as a "peace maker" he would eschew any involvement in foreign wars. Currently the war in Iran, which Trump started as an ally of Israel, is in its fifth month costing, according to pentagon sources between 80 to 100 billion dollars, 416 American injuries and and 16 American deaths. 

In the "take" column, according to Forbe's magazine "Donald Trump has brought in an extraordinary $2.4 billion in total business revenue and asset sales during his recent year back in public office," and has spent hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars on the vanity projects mentioned above. Over all, even ignoring using the office to attack his political adversaries and pack the government with "yes" men and women, not much give and an incredible amount of take.

So, in my mind, neither of these two incredibly wealthy and powerful men actually define success. Rather they demonstrate a venal and grasping lifestyle more to be censured than emulated.

But what do I know? I'm just - as I'm sure our President would call me - "a woke, low IQ, dumocrat, who prefers windmills to oil wells and coal mines!"