The Case for Jewel Box Architecture

Last night I watched a Curiosity Stream video about Julius Shulman, 1910-2009, described as "the best architecture photographer in history." Which would certainly make him the GOAT in that particular niche, for that era, a designation with which I would not argue. His black and white work in particular is wonderful; has an “Ansel Adams in the city” feel to it. Shulman is particularly known for immortalizing the architectural modernism that sprang to life in the deserts around Palm Springs, California in the mid-1900s, sort of 1950ish.  I found myself rather conflicted watching the video (Curiosity Stream: Visual Acoustics). Being a great fan of Ansel Adams, and having taught photography back in the Paleolithic when “rolling your own” meant loading 35mm film into its canister in a totally blacked out darkroom, and later developing prints in chemicals you mixed yourself, etc., etc., I found myself quite taken with the “old school” compositional elegance and the visual purity of Shulman’s work. The problem is I don’t like the houses he often chooses to photograph.

The issue is that much of Southern California Modernism champions reinforced concrete slabs with occasional nods to wood in kitchens and baths, all of which are overwhelmed by floor-to-ceiling-wrap-around windows that make the walls disappear, turning the inside of the house into the outside that surrounds it. I delight in nature, and have always considered Thoreau’s assertion that “in wildness is the preservation of the world,” words to live by - but perhaps not so much worlds to live in.

There are a couple of significant drawbacks to SoCalMod living. You have seen these houses, or at least one - the Bosch house from the tv series of the same name. Remember? Hangs there off the hillside over looking L.A.? Lots of night shots? Gorgeous view.

But back to the drawbacks. First is, that unless you are a one-percenter with the scratch to buy up significant chunks of the surrounding landscape, you cannot  control what the neighbors do. The video points out what happens to the wonderful views from a Palm Springs Modernism home when a big box store moves in next door. Gorgeous walls? Not so much.

Second, if your walls are mostly vast sheets of glass, where are you going to hang the art you have created, or collected and love?  The glass preempts, or perhaps more accurately, prevents your displaying the art you need to make your home really yours.

Third, and less well-known, was the tendency of some SoCalMod type architects - Frank Lloyd Wright in particular - to demand that he designed and placed all the interior furnishings. Hence your home isn’t really your home, - rather it become yet another Frank Lloyd Wright house.

It is my discomfort with these drawbacks that encourages me to propose what I am calling Jewel Box Architecture, maybe JBA. That name may change - this is after all a work in progress.

 

But here is the basic idea. SoCaMo Architecture uses glass to make the walls invisible, inviting the outside - and, yes, perhaps the neighbors - in. Jewel Box Architecture stands that notion on its head by replacing the expanse formerly devoted to floor-to-ceiling windows with more traditional walls allowing the art displayed thereon to become the primary focus of the living space.  Hence, the architectural challenge for JBA would be to create beautiful structures to contain beautiful art. Think, perhaps, of a Tiffany Egg.  Your initial interaction with the egg itself is pleasing.  You can admire the skill, vision, and craftsmanship reflected in the artistic construction. Some of the finest may even take your breath away.  But then you open the egg, and the beauty within stops your heart.

OK, perhaps I exaggerate, I said it was a work in progress, and those are always a little rough around the edges that may need a little fine tuning.  For example, my wife likes to tease me with this slightly twisted aphorism: “Anything really worth doing is worth overdoing.” Encouraging architects to consider a Tiffany Egg as the model for a home could well result in structures that might imply that Frank Gehry just isn’t trying hard enough. Bring on the gargoyles! Make Hearst’s castle at San Simeon an also-ran!

That is not what Jewel Box Architecture means to encourage. Indeed, some of the earlier Tiffany Eggs featured rather unprepossessing exteriors. For example, the exterior of the very first Tiffany Egg, circa 1885, The Hen Egg, looks just like that, a white egg with a narrow gold band around the center. But Wikipedia describes the “promised surprise inside” thus: “The two halves of the outer shell fit together in a bayonet-style fitting which opens when twisted to reveal the egg's "surprise", a round "yolk" of gold with a matte finish. This yolk itself opens to reveal a varicolored gold hen set with ruby eyes. The hen is hinged on the tail feathers which allows it to also open up to reveal still two further surprises, a gold and diamond replica of the imperial crown and a tiny ruby pendant that was suspended within it on a chain, both of which are now lost.”

So to ape the glittering exterior of some of the later eggs, like the intricate Caucasus Egg from 1894, would lead us astray. Balance is perhaps a better way to think of Jewel Box Architecture. You approach a JBA structure and find a plain, simple, yet appealing exterior - much like the exterior of the First Hen Egg. But upon entering the structure you are surprised, and delighted, to find yourself submerged in the world of paintings, sculpture and other furnishings that the owners have decided they wish to live among.

This not an entirely new idea. Step inside any of the Hapsburg castles scattered around Europe and you will find yourself immediately immersed in floor-to-ceiling art. Any wall space left between paintings is often fronted by sculpture, harpsichords, and tapestries. But upon stepping outside one quickly realizes that the one-percenters of the 16 and 17 hundreds were not advocates of JBA.  No way can Versailles or Belvedere be said to present "plain but pleasing and comfortable exteriors."

So what might a JBA home look like today? I really don’t know. I feel most “at home” looking at “neighborhood houses” that were probably built in the early 1940s - pre-WWII, pre-baby boom, that were later turned into 2 or 3 apartments for young couples or college students - which is when I encountered them. And my affection for the style probably stems more from the optimistic “make love, not war” zeitgeist of the era than from the architectural style. Think, the Harry Chapin song, Over College Avenue.

Truth is I have neither the appropriate “architectural imagination” or tools to sketch what a JBA home would look like. Perhaps you do. Our 92-year old housemate is given to asking “What would you choose to do if you could live your life over again?” I did toy with architecture as a potential career in my youth, but at the time the preponderance of slide rulers and other math-like tools drove my theater major self away. I do, however, now have two stock responses for the “do it all over” question. Both visually oriented, but come at that world from different directions.

First, and no doubt related to the by-the-pixel nature of my own image making, is the idea of art restoration and possibly authentication.  If you are curious about the field, check out the TV series Fake or Fortune? Naturally, I found it on Curiosity Stream, but it is available elsewhere. The basic premise of the series is that an art restorer and an investigative reporter focus on an image - usually brought to them by a client who found it in an attic or a flea market or something like that - and our intrepid team bring in all kinds of experts and technology in an attempt to ascertain if the image is, wait for it, Fake or Fortune! Cool series.  Also, Christine and I came across an art restoration project in progress in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence a few years ago - you could peek behind the screen. Artists in lab coats and headlights. Almost like CSI, also very cool.

A rather distant second, and second primarily because I doubt my ability to meet the professional prerequisites, would be to become a dermatologist. But a dermatologist with a very specifically focused practice, maybe called, Lose It, or On Second Thought, or Sorry Kids. And I would specialize in only one procedure - tattoo removal. I do understand that in some societies, tattoos carry great cultural and historic significance. But I doubt that that was what motivated the bagger at Whole Foods. I mean really. Some of that ink art looks great on young taut skin, but age is inevitable and unforgiving.

I now realize that it is true that very cool advances in computerized digital imagery have actually pulled architecture back into consideration for my fantasy choices of an un-lived future. I’ll have to think about that.

But, as is my wont, I have again wandered sadly off task. The central question in this proposed Southern California Modernism versus Jewel Box Architecture debate is how best to construct the space in which we choose to live. I hope that today’s architects will realize that this should not be an “either-or” proposition. Surely one can design domestic space that can provide sufficient gallery-like space to display the art we have created, or collected, or simply love without denying us access to the calm, and we are learning, vital respite provided by the wide open green and blue spaces of wildness.

I anxiously await their results.

 

The Lesson of the GOATs Who Died Young

As we move through our life we participate in a continual process of personal exploration, social experimentation and the discovery of our own varying aptitudes and skills. It is often a joyous journey. Yet death truncates the process, at least in this our current incarnation. Unfortunately one never knows when the Grim Reaper will come to call!  Perhaps it will be a calm and natural visit after a long and reflective and creative life. Or the eternal footman may appear tragically and unexpectedly; occasioned by pestilence, war, or random violence. It is this unpredictability, this capriciousness of death that should inform us as to how we should live. Let me explain. 

When reading about the lives of the “greats” - our popular culture is currently obsessed with designating the GOAT, aka Greatest Of All Time, in many fields of endeavor - one often encounters an author musing about what a particular GOAT who died young might have accomplished had but they lived longer. What pictures did Caravaggio leave unpainted? Songs Janis Joplin left unsung? Words unwritten by Brontë? Plath? Keats? Shelley? Wilde? Well, posthumous GOAT hunting is perhaps amusing, but ultimately futile. What is valuable is what we can learn from the truncated lives of these various GOATS.

Interestingly the lesson was best articulated for me by the life of a colleague who was something of a GOAT himself. A well-known Communication scholar and administrator during our shared years at North Carolina State University, Raymond Rogers and his wife Peggy Beasley Rogers purchased some riverfront property, oh, maybe 20 miles outside Raleigh. “Undeveloped” would be a kind description. Nonetheless they christened it “The Good Old Days.” And Raymond - who, after fighting a lifelong battle with various maladies, sadly died at the young age of 57 - would always declare, when he had successfully tempted us to go fishing out at the river, “Ah! these are the good old days!”

And that is the invaluable lesson from all the GOATS who died young: These are the good old days. 

We should try every day, not only to find the place in the universe where we belong, but to fill it to the best of your ability. Paint your best painting, write your best prose or poetry, sing your best song, devise your best algorithm, execute your best research design, dance your best dance, be your best parent, partner, lover - everyday!  Because, even if  you really are the GOAT in your particular milieu, well, there is the off chance that you may not get another opportunity.

Question Certainty

 Distilled Harmony changes slowly.  I first began to explore the idea of an existential “theory of everything” back at the turn of the millennium - as 2000 turned into 2001. It was those reflections that resulted in Distilled Harmony - which I guess can be best defined as a “philosophy to live by.” More sophisticated monikers lead to unnecessary semantic quibbling. Anyhow, at that point in time Distilled Harmony rested on three prioritized tenets. 

First, the foundational tenet, Foster Harmony, an affirmation of the seemingly universal notion that we, as individuals, nations, and societies should treat others as we would desire to be treated.

The second tenet, Enable Beauty, advocates for making art - beautiful art, in all its guises, seemingly another universal aspiration for human society. The important issue here is the notion of beautiful art.  Guernica is generally accepted as great art, but isn’t really beautiful except within a specific philosophical context. Distilled Harmony is anchored in a different, kinder, more gentle perspective and philosophy regarding art.  Think Hudson River School, think Ansel Adams, think Vermeer. Art that calms, lowers the blood pressure. Art therapy might encourage an individual to represent negative experiences and emotions, but that is not the task of Enable Beauty.

Oppose Harm, defined in a variety of ways, depending upon the specific harm one is confronting, personal, political, social, environmental, etc., rounded out the three initial tenets of Distilled Harmony.  And so it remained for a decade or so.

However, eventually I came to feel that utilizing these three tenets in seeking the best path to a harmonious existence implied, perhaps mandated, an additional tenet, a fourth tenet fitting most naturally between Enabling Beauty and Opposing Harm. And so Distill Complexity took its place in Distilled Harmony, mandating that we subject any existential assertion to a “tear it down to the studs” consideration and see if it can stand up to a thorough examination of its assertions. 

After lengthy reflection of how life is evolving around us, I think it might be time to add a fifth tenet to Distilled Harmony: Question Certainty. That may seem to be a simple restatement of Distill Complexity, but there is an important difference. We seem to be poised in the midst of a debate - at the ballot box, in the global marketplace, and on the battlefield - between two fundamentally different ways of viewing the world: democracy and autocracy. 

China is perhaps the most currently successful autocratic regime - certainly from a marketplace perspective. Obviously there are some significant social and political “push backs” from pieces of this incredibly diverse nation - but currently “The Party” seems to be maintaining control. Putin would like to claim parity with Beijing, currently by pushing autocracy into the democratic Ukraine. His success is anything but certain, and paradoxically his “Me too!” war seems to have strengthened the democratic resolve of his Western opponents in the EU and beyond.

I am inclined to add Question Certainty because of the political assumptions shared by the two dominant autocratic philosophies in today’s world, which are essentially “trust me based.” Whether Chairman Mao or Marx/Lenin, the political “truth” of an autocracy rests on the unquestionable certainty of the proclamations of a current, or historic, “great leader.” Democracy has, or certainly should have, trouble with that type of assertion. I know I do.

Back in the 1950s Disney aired a TV show starring Fess Parker as Davy Crockett. Davy’s mantra was “Be sure you are right, then go ahead!” At first blush they seem words to live by, and may have influenced a significant number of the program’s youthful audience. However, upon further reflection they underly some of humanities greatest tragedies. The problematic phrase is “Be sure you are right.” And how, we should ask, can we ever be sure we are right? It is quite easy to believe we are right, but certainty regarding the rectitude of would be political leaders - particularly in a democracy - often leads to potentially irreparable damage. 

Both sides in our own civil war were undoubtedly certain of the rectitude of their positions. The result was the deadliest war in American history leaving between 600,000 and 700,000 combined Americans dead. And John Wilkes Booth was no doubt certain killing Lincoln would right some existential wrong. Would that we had left such political certainties in our past. We have not. Yesterday we were driving through a piece of rural Indiana en route between Michigan and Illinois. It is, of course, election season and yard signs were blooming across the landscape. Being from out of state, I knew none of the names, nor their stance on any issues.  But apparently to one homeowner, such ignorance wasn’t important. A hand-painted board, next to the candidate’s professionally manufactured yard sign, proclaimed: “Trump Endorsed!”

Certainty rules. No thought necessary. If my email inbox is any indication, the same is true for “blue state” candidates. Apparently all that is necessary to secure my “desperately needed” contribution to their campaign is to “agree” that the Supreme Court is terribly biased. No thought necessary. Click here regardless of candidate or position being contested. Stay true blue. Send contributions. Certainty rules.

But of course it doesn’t. As we craft our unique and personal relationship to life another’s certainty can never substitute for our own thoughtful consideration of potential beliefs and behaviors. So we need to slide the chairs a little closer together, and make room at the Distilled Harmony table for a new tenet - Question Certainty.

What’s Left at the End of a Love Song?

I always listen to music while drawing - well actually I always listen to music unless I am doing something else that preempts the auditory channel; watching a video, or engaging in conversation - stuff like that. But when drawing I make specific musical choices. Usually I opt for instrumental works, or works like opera sung in a language I do not understand. Otherwise the words seem to get in the way - they sort of block the images that are trying to make their way onto the paper or the computer screen.

But there is an exception to this rule of thumb.  When I have completed the “cartoon” version of the drawing - the black and white outlines and designs within the outlines; when all that is left to do is choose what colors go where - I can listen to “songs with lyrics that I know very well.” It is not surprising that there are more love songs in that category than probably any other genre.  I suppose if you want to slice the big musical “songs with lyrics I know” pie into really fine pieces you could find some “non-love song” categories e.g. sea shanties, work songs, hymns, lullabies, parodies, children’s songs, etc. But if you sift through my Pandora selections - which is my “go to” app for music - you will find more love songs than anything else. That may be reflective of the fact that if you were to ask for all hopeless romantics to raise their hands, I bet I could beat Hermione Granger to the draw.  (Did I mention I am re-reading the Harry Potter books?)

While working on the “tale of two tongues” images that I recently shared with you, completing the areas that sort of turned out looking like Aztec glyphs gave me a lot of hours to listen to love songs.  And I found myself reflecting on a particular facet of the genre: the end of a love song. I realize, as Billy Collins points out in The Great American Poem, that one of the benefits poetry has over prose, novels, etc., is that you don’t have to parse hundreds of pages to get to the important kernel of the work. So how love song's lyrics - given that “lyrics” are simply poems put to music - end is a legitimate area of critical reflection.

So then - on to the ending of love songs.  While there are plenty of “hurtin’” love songs - those “somebody done somebody wrong songs.” There are a surprising number of “things turn out fine love songs.” Those moments when the lovers ride off into the sunset. “The hands that once held a six-gun, are holding their baby tonight,” etc. Find your own favorite examples, there are plenty of “happy love songs” out there. Disney and Broadway are fertile fields for these.  But even in these happy examples what follows after the ride out into the sunset is rarely if ever addressed. There are some - Kisses Sweeter than Wine, comes to mind, but not many others.

Country music in particular thrives on the “bad news love song;” “He stopped loving her today,” “Bury us both deep, and maybe we’ll find peace, And pulling the trigger, she fell cross the dead cowboy’s chest.” “Somewhere near Salinas, lord, I let her slip away.” But even in Country we can find some “happy love songs. “So I walked away from the hangin’ tree, And my own true love, she walked with me.”  And that strange “happy dying love song” Running Bear, “As their hands touched, and their lips met, the raging river pulled them down, Now they’ll always be together in their happy hunting ground.” But here too we never learn how the lovers - particularly the dead ones - deal with any prolonged happiness. Music stops. Story over.

So love songs, neither happy nor sad, rarely manage to tell us what happens after the lovers ride off into the sunset. What happens when the kids get the mumps? What happens when the horse dies? the cattle stampede? the bank won’t extend the loan? one of them gets called off to war? the crops fail? one of them “meets someone”? etc., etc.

But, in truth, “tough love” isn’t the job of love songs. Even the sad ones are supposed to make us feel good - sometimes in a “hurts so good” kind of way. “The phone that rings at midnight ain’t got nothing good to say. She just called to tell you she’s a thousand miles away. Long gone this time.”

So if you want to seriously suffer, to learn all the sordid details of lives and nations falling apart, you might better advised to read a novel, Tolstoy perhaps, or even, shudder, watch the news. Love songs, thankfully, point us in another direction.

Two Types of Tongues II

 And here is the second -new- version.

Two Types of Tongues I

 Hi There -

A bit of history. The first post I am sending is of an image I drew back in 2003. It is called "How We Got Tongues." I am sending the images in two posts because I believe Bogger compresses the images and they are both large.

Hitting from The Middle Tees

 Hitting from the Middle Tees

[Content Advisory: Some of you out there on The Wall also spent time as students in my various classes. Remember those days when I would start out in one direction, move through “What is he talking about?” And end up at “Weird, but interesting.”? Well this might be one of those times. Hang in there. DrS]

While having dinner last night it came out that one family member was having a “milestone birthday,” which, among other things, would allow him to tee off on the middle tees at the golf course up by their lake cottage over in Michigan. “What does that mean?” asked my wife. Not a strange question given that her exposure to golf has been gleaned from quick glances at the TV while passing through the living room, enough to convince her there was no reason to pause.  

Still it made me realize that it was a bit “golfist” to assume that everyone would know what “Middle Tees” meant. Was it like the Middle Ages? Middle Earth? Middleweight? Middleman? And since l am using it in the title of this post, it behooves me to at least attempt a definition. So briefly, here goes. A golf course consists of 18 holes, long stretches of lawn leading from the “tee box” to the “green” where the “flag” sits in the “hole” which actually is a small hole (4.25 inches in diameter) in the ground of the green into which the golfer wishes to hit his or her ball.  Obviously there is more to it than that but that is sufficient for our purposes since we are only with the tee box. 

The tee box is usually divided in three areas each progressively closer to the hole: the “back tees” furthest from the hole and hence reserved for the best players. Everyone on “televised tournaments” hits from the back tees. The “front tees,” which are those closest to the hole - sometimes significantly so - are reserved for participants who for reasons of age, gender, or other issues are deemed worthy of some sort of benefit. And then we come to “the middle tees.” I think of being allowed to “tee off” in this area, often located midway between the back and front tees, as an acknowledgment, or reward for dedication to the game as one often “ages into” permission to tee off from here. This was the case of last night’s milestone birthday - 70. 

So “hitting off the middle tees” in golf - and in life - isn’t so much a case of “try it from up here, old guy,” as it is a reward for having reached a particular plateau, while still realizing that age brings both rewards and rational limitations. Having already passed this particular milestone I occasionally think about instances where pre- and post-middle tees in real life are most obvious. 

One that often springs to mind is a trip to San Francisco to deliver a paper in the early days of my teaching career - so I was in my late 20s or early 30s. I remember hiking up into the hills above the city, and pausing to appreciate the view out across the city, past the Golden Gate to the bay and the Pacific beyond. Part of my appreciation stemmed from the realization that I could walk from my present location to anywhere in the vista spread out below me. I was limited only by time. Now, “hitting off the middle tees,” I realize that is no longer the case. I could probably get from here to there, but it would entail cabs, Ubers, cable cars, or some combination thereof. The legs were just not going to make it. And that was OK. That’s why I was here on the middle tees and glad to have made to this point in life.

There are other middle tees realities that I have become comfortable with - like puppies and parrots.  Let me clarify. We share this domicile with a wonderful 13 year-old black lab named Vito Muso (saxophonist with Stan Kenton in the late 1930s). If you know much about large breed dogs, you know that Vito is approaching the upper limits of life expectancy for the breed. And while we hate to contemplate that eventuality, we are somewhat comforted by the fact that no lab has had a better life. Three humans fuss over his every need, food, exercise, medical. We stop and pet him every time we pass him by. He often blocks my way, lying down, wagging his tale, demanding a longer rub down. I naturally oblige. Or he will camp on the kitchen floor in front of the treat stash until Christine, the official treat dispenser, caves in and gives him his treat - or maybe two. A truly blessed doggy life. But when he does hop off to chase tennis balls in the sky, none of us would even contemplate replacing him with a puppy. 

The obvious reason is that - while no dog could ever replace Vito - even a perfect puppy would be playing from the back tees. Full of Vim, Vigor and Vitality as 3V cola used to brag back in the late 1950s. Christine and I will be playing from the middle tees while Smitty will be way out there swinging from where the 90+ golfers get to tee off. None of us will be able to raise a puppy. 

Parrots come with similar baggage. I have always been fascinated by African Grey Parrots. Smart, winsome creatures. But knowing that they are often smuggled under terrible conditions, and that they can live to middle tee ages themselves - 60 to 80 years! - makes me walk on past the pet store.

Which got me thinking. Back in the late 1960s as Ph.D student at Wayne State one of my favorite classes was Communication Theory taught by Dr. Raymond Ross. In my mind the neatest thing about Dr. Ross’ class was building communication models, when, truth be told, we got to just make up models of how communication worked. While we were often more than a little “off point” it was an excellent way to figure out how we could better understand the process. It is a process I have returned to all my life - and often far afield from just communication theory. 

Most obvious and of greatest current importance to me is the model that can depict Distilled Harmony. I have played around with some fancy depictions of Distilled Harmony, but for the moment let this simple straight line model suffice:

Distilled Harmony: Foster Harmony-> Enable Beauty-> Distill Complexity -> Oppose Harm.

Which is just one, prioritized, way to represent the various stages of Distilled Harmony, my model of how we should approach life. To reach Distilled Harmony (Inner Peace, a State of Grace, Nirvana, call it what you are comfortable with) you begin with a general attempt to foster harmony in your everyday life and then pull the other subsequent elements of the model into your life as possible. 

Well it struck me that using the golf tee box as a metaphor for the stages of our life and the kinds of legitimate options each position on the tee represent was really another communication/aka life model or metaphor. And so, as my wife is fond of saying “anything worth doing is worth overdoing” here is my first cut at blending “Distilled Harmony” with the “View from the Tee Box Life Model.”

The first thing that obvious is that the two models don’t line up. That is because Distilled Harmony is by far more encompassing than Tee Box. No surprise there since Distilled Harmony has been “under development” for 30 years or so, while Tee Box just came to me after dinner the other night. But Tee Box does bring, I think, some valuable insight.

E.g. you cannot just “think” your way into another tee box. You work your way there. You spend most of your life hitting from the back tees, learning everything that will be valuable in life, and then putting all that into practice. Inventing stuff, teaching, practicing medicine, studying law, improving agriculture, protecting the environment, doing art, whatever. The Tee Box model gives us a pretty wide range for hitting off the back tees, essentially until you are 70.  The potential blend with Distilled Harmony is the notion that we really don’t come to a clear understanding of harmony until we are approaching what western culture considers “retirement age” - 65 or 70ish. 

So let’s try this on: Hitting from the back tees for 50 years or so enables you to gather a vast amount of information in your field, perhaps in several fields. Starting in the 1600s we used to call folks like these “polymaths.” They are excellent at Trivial Pursuits and Jeopardy. But perhaps not the person you might turn to when faced to serious personal problems. They “might could,” as we say in the South tell you who had written novel A, or invented thingamiggy B, or was the first human to walk on Mars, but would have no idea how any of that worked out. And that is why after spending 50 or 60 years hanging out in the back tees we turn our attention to the issues of the middle tees, because there you increase your chances of finding, not just information, but wisdom.

Let me quickly point out that reaching 70 is no guarantee of finding wisdom. Any glance at the news these days would seem to argue the opposite, but it is in the middle tees that we can find guides, mentors, examples of wisdom that have stood the test of time. It is a more gentle tee box. One less defined by loud harangues of certainty. More inclined to quiet reflection. 

Having now spent a few years hitting off the middle tees I can report that it too, carries no guarantees of wisdom. I occasionally find myself stumbling into some stunning instances of foolishness, and occasional flashes of unintended arrogance more appropriate to the exuberance of the back tees. However, the view from the middle tees does allow one to recognize those stumbles more quickly and to learn from them - perhaps approaching the wisdom expected here on the middle tees. It also can awaken a desire to make amends, if that option remains feasible. Sadly, the view from the middle tees often forces one to realize that sometimes the desire for reconciliation arrives too late. 

So you sigh. You learn. And you trudge along the weary path to wisdom, where, strangely, these awkward insights also reveal the route to Harmony and joy.

They’ll Learn Much More

 I hear babies crying, I watch them grow.

They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know.

-Bob Thiele and George David Weiss

My own experience with these lyrics is hearing Louis Armstrong sing them over the visual carnage accompanying of the opening scenes of the searing Robin Williams, Forest Whitaker, movie Good Morning Vietnam.  For my generation it is a very, very emotional montage. I used to show the movie to my media criticism classes so have watched that scene many times over a couple of decades - in the company of 18 to 20 year-olds for whom the film increasingly became a history lesson. 

I would look out over their faces - some riveted, others bored - and wonder what they will be doing with the awesome opportunities that a university education would provide. There are times when it is easy to despair, what with global warming, NRA enabled school shootings, and the raw megalomania being revealed in Putin’s war on Ukraine and, shockingly, exposed in the reports stemming from various investigations into the Trump inspired January 6th riots in our own capital. 

However, recently I have been regaining some of my natural optimism as I forsake the “if it bleeds, it leads” bias of the most news programs on commercial networks and programs whose bottom line is, well, the bottom line. Instead I am paying more attention to documentaries that demonstrate how various collections of fresh-faced youngsters, removed not many years from those in my classroom, are rolling up their sleeves and reimagining, redesigning, and rebuilding this “third rock from the sun” in wonderful ways - if we; their parents and grandparents don’t trash it beyond redemption first.

For example, Elon Musk wrote a paper in 2013 conceptualizing a mode of transportation now commonly referred as the “hyper loop” which features people/product pods zipping around in enclosed tubes at speeds surpassing “bullet trains” and approaching those of jet aircraft. Then in a seemingly “un-Musklike” move he threw a white paper clarifying the idea out for public development, and sponsored a contest for the best designs. Hundreds of teams of young engineers, designers, and dreamers from all over the globe took up the challenge, resulting in several new start-ups building green, working prototypes of what could be a hugely significant evolution in transportation. 

The Hyperloop story is cause for optimism, not simply because of its potential impact on transportation and the immense knock on implications for the climate change impact on that traditionally “dirty” industry - think SUVs as the single most polluting vehicle in the world - but more importantly as a model for enabling and encouraging young, energetic students in all disciplines to focus on and pursue issues they simply have not have time to think about or encounter. Set a target and turn the amazing power of human thought and creativity loose!

I’m going to break with my normal Wall posts here and stick in another piece that I have been working on for awhile. It was designed to be a separate post but seems to fit nicely here as it could be one of those “unimaginable ideas” that the “amazing power of human thought and creativity” might address. So here it is:

My Marvelous Toy

There are any number of rabbit holes

Ripe for the tumbling down these days.

Dug by youthful techies 

Raised on science fiction,

A plethora of these

Hopeful Hogwarts wannabes 

Have jumped the requisite hoops

To claim labs of their very own.

At MIT, CERN, Google, Meta, and the like.

Not surprisingly these big-brained

All-but-babies have come 

To focus on the brain.

Or some artificial version of

Intelligence creativity artistry 

AI, AC, AA, AWhatever

They are the magicians of the impossible.

Intellectual descendants of those

Who built Steven Hawking’s awesome

Array of prosthetic devices that freed

Thought from his compromised body

To unimaginable rainbows of insight.

They enable the knitting of 

Shattered spines back through 

Silly-putty wired silicon so

Legs could again march about

To the myriad directions 

Of that maestro of intention

The brain.

But even as I read of 

Entrancing marvels ready made,

I cannot help but wonder

Will I live to see the day -

The month, the year, the decade

When the toy I most desire

Finally makes the 

“Name that Brain Game Hit Parade?”

The desire strikes most predictably 

When I suddenly find myself

Caught up in drawing a pattern -

Leaves, or dots, or swirls bright.

All that such and such 

Tedious but vital whatnot

When the brush needs a 

Sewing machine-like repetition.

Dot dot dot dot dot dot dot

Visible if you take your 6X

Magnifying glasses to a 

Carpet painted by Vermeer.

A sleeve stroked by Rembrandt.

And as my mind grows fuzzy

It occurs to me to wonder

What was Vermeer thinking 

As his brush went dip dot dot

Dip dot dot dip dot dot dip?

What was Rembrandt thinking

As his palette knife went

Scoop slap slap scoop slap slap?

What wasÉlisabeth Le Brun thinking

As her brushes went 

Dip soft stroke dip soft stroke dip?

What was Pollock thinking, ever?

What were any of them thinking

In those mindless meditative

Moments when planning is 

Replaced by artistic instinct

In the mind of a genius?

My toy with a marvelous 

Brain would tell us.

All we would need to do

Would be to capture a hi-rez

Image of any picture by anyone

From any place or time now

Floating around out in digital-land.

Free to be clicked upon for

The menu for “reveal thoughts.”

We could then choose

“Text” or “Talk” or “Other” or “Immerse”

And our device would select

The most appropriate modality

To reproduce whatever 

Had been going through 

The artist’s mind/brain/heart while

Creating the image we had chosen.

Now before falling victim to counting the

Unbelievably number of advances

Looming between my marvelous toy

And the experience I chose

Remember, time was when

Symbols required stone

Or clay or skins or paper or screens

When only birds 

And small dinosaurs flew

When we got electricity from lightning 

When phones where tethered to

Permanent cords

And could only reproduce sound.

When cars only ran on gasoline 

When you were only either male or female

When you got music from bones 

Or carved reeds, hollow skins

Or hand cranked record players

When you could have heard

A Nobel prize winning poet sing

“The times they are a’ hanging.”

When the prescient Bard scribbled 

There are more things in heaven and Earth, 

Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Right now I’m dreaming of my own

Marvelous Toy.

As you can probably tell, the old clock on the wall, or more accurately the clock here on my laptop has made its way into the tiny hours after midnight when my thoughts, while still seeming clear and rational to me, tend to make their way into the land of “What the Heck is He Talking About?” So I will bid you goodnight, and see what other dreams might creep into my philosophy.

Masters of Time

Ok, so my hands shake. Big deal. They have done so all my life. Strangely, it seems to be an inconsistent anomaly. Often when I am in an emotionally intense situation, they shake. But if it is mandatory that they not shake, they don’t. Two examples. Back in the days as a theater student when I had to do my makeup and the choice was either stop shaking or poke my eye out, the hand would stop shaking. More recently when creating some of the drawings I share with you, I often back myself into a corner by drawing very detailed designs that must eventually be colored in. The choice in that situation is to either stop shaking or smear color all over the image. There, too, the hands usually stop shaking - but not permanently. I’m good for a couple of hours and then a suspicious jiggle tries to creep in, and I have to stop drawing at least for a similar couple of hours. I have tried to “tough it out” a couple of times, and end up trying to hide errors that, to my mind anyhow, immediately draw the eye to that, usually tiny, part of the image. But I did come to believe in the notion that if I paid attention and rationed my efforts and concentration, I could calm my shaking hands in the service of any task.

Well, tonight that bit of arrogance got kicked to the curb. Curiosity Stream again. This time the series was called “Masters of Time: Independent Watchmakers.” The title is somewhat self-explanatory, the series does feature the works of several independent watchmakers, but that doesn’t prepare one for the intricacies, the detail, the artistry involved. First, least there be any mistaken notion, all of the watches created by these artists are handmade - hand tools shaping metal, wood, wire, etc.  And all the watches have some type of tourbillon in them.  And what, you might well ask - as did I eventually, after pretending I knew what the heck they were talking about, - the heck is a tourbillon?  Glad you asked.  A tourbillon is a little gizmo you put into a watch to counter the affect of Earth's gravity on the isochronal properties of the balance wheel and spring. Right, sure. That means - various sources tell me - that the balance wheel and the spring stay in sync. So these watchmakers and their watches are addressing chronological concerns and variables I have never heard of, let alone thought about. Again for example, one watchmaker addressed these and other concerns, after which the artist then carefully covered the face of the watch with black glass - you could see nothing. The idea, according to the watchmaker, who tuned the, now invisible, internal elements of his watch by holding them against the body of a violin, was to not distract you with looking at the hands of the watch, hence freeing you to concentrate on the far more important task of simply listening to the passage of time. Accurate quote, as God is my witness.

But that was not what convinced me that the very least of the tasks performed by these incredibly skilled artists was far beyond the abilities of my poor shaking hands. It was, in large part, the fact that their measurements and tolerances were routinely measured in tiny fractions of millimeters, and if you missed the mark with your tiny little tools, minuscule screwdrivers, wrenches, etc., you simply scrapped that piece - sometimes a large part of the watch - and started over. Arrrrgh! But finally one of them copped to what was really going on: “I am trying to create the smallest mechanism that can be built by human hands.”

Oh. Now I get it. And I realize that I will never get it. 

Schrag PPP: A Pair of Roses

 Hi there - 

Some of you might be expecting pictures of Andrea, Sam, Maya and Ellie - Roses all, branches of the family and worthy of pictures. But these are roses of a different bloom. The first image, call it Big Rose, I have been working on for the last week or so.  Big Rose because it is 22 x 16. The second image, oh, let’s call it Small Rose is 13 x10.

Now, how there came to be 2 different Roses.  The first step in any of the PPP images is a lengthy browse through an embarrassing huge mass of photos from decades of digital images. That is, of course, the problem with digital photography - there is no film and if you, as I do, backup obsessively you end up with thousands of images. And I came across this Rose picture. Cool, I thought. I think I’ll work on this.

So I did. Then several days and multiple steps into the image, as I was going upstairs for dinner or a basketball game or something, I happened to glance up at a corner of my “gallery.” And, oops, there was Small Rose. It had no date on it, so I pretended not to see it, and went on to finish Big Rose. I have now acknowledged Small Rose, and am glad that, although they are obviously sisters, they are different enough that they are the result of different artistic moments.  Anyhow, here they are:

First, Big Rose:

 

And now, Small Rose:

Probably wise to point out that although they look the same size here Big Rose is, well, Bigger.

Precision Napping

If I knew how it was done, or why it happens, I would tell you. But first let me explain what it is. I’m not sure where you stand on napping, or to what extent your life allows you to indulge in “nap time.” If you are, or were, the primary caregiver of little ones then nap time might well be something you seek to impose on others in order to claim some time for yourself - for napping or reading or catching up on any number of the myriad chores that caregivers are heir to. Been there, done that. You have my heartfelt sympathy. If, however, you believe that adults should not nap, you can skip this post and click over to Amazon and take some personal shopping time.

The rest of us are currently in the midst of a debate regarding to what extent wage earners are free to determine their own nap time. Elon Musk, whose wealth and business acumen apparently makes him some sort of authority figure on all things, has declared that Tesla employees must be “in the office” for the traditionally requisite 40 hours a week. The fact that he feels that there is an immutable relationship between being in the office and being awake, calls his credibility - at least in this area - into question. What is true is that in many cases adults do have a certain amount of control over when they nap. Being retired gives me a great deal of control over my nap time, and I think that is quite important for precision napping - aka PN.

My ideal nap time begins between 2 and 3pm. Sometimes life does intrude; medical appointments, auto repairs, pizza deliveries, and other significant life events. But I try to keep those to a minimum. When nap time rolls around I arrange my technology to support PN. First, for me, PN is supported by a couple of digital apps - a timer and access to audio support. I access both of these through either my iPad or iPhone, though similar support is available through other sources.

First I set my background audio. Ideally, I blend two sources on my iPad. One is called Naturespace, which features a wide range of - as the name implies - nature sounds; rain, wind, surf, cicadas, birds, etc. The cool thing about Naturespace is that you can “blend” it with other apps, so I “blend” it with Pandora’s meditation or classical music options, giving me a variable blend of tranquil audio.

That done I set my timer for 15 minutes, recline and spend 15 minutes reading a novel, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, or poetry - just about anything that is not focused on politics, mass shootings, global warming, etc., in short, the news. It is not that these issues are unimportant, it is just that they are counterproductive in the PN arena. When my 15 minute timer goes off, I add an additional hour to the initial 15 minute setting, bringing the PN total session to an hour and a half - 90 minutes. You can see why being retired is a significant PN advantage.

But now here is the strange part, and why I call it “precision napping.” The second timer almost never goes off. I awake, seemingly automatically, with 2 or 3 minutes left on the timer. So have I “conditioned” myself to that 90 minute cycle? I have no idea. And if I were able to do that, one would think I could exercise some sort of similar control over my “normal” nighttime sleeping regimen, which is anything but normal. 

You may recall that in a number of these posts I refer to “the tiny hours.” Like with PN, I am referring to 2 or 3 o’clock - however in those instances I am talking about 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning when, unfortunately, the ideas, poems, etc., that end up here on The Wall strike me. And, yes, I realize that there may be a connection between a 90 minute nap in the afternoon and a period of uncontrollable wakefulness at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. And I further realize that omitting PN might also eliminate the tiny hours wakefulness.

But what if that isn’t the case? What if eliminating PN leaves the tiny hours wakefulness unaffected!? When, then, do I sleep at all! Horrors!

Making Magic

I read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett yesterday (published in 1911). I had polished off The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (1908) a couple days earlier.  Both are commonly defined as “children’s literature” and never have we needed them more. With the occasional exception of Toad’s forays to recapture Toad Hall from the shoats and weasels, Wind in the Willows is remarkably free of any taint of violence - even those skirmishes produce only bumps and bruises, no one actually dies. The Secret Garden is a prototypical green novel, perhaps the archetypal example of the genre. For those of you who haven’t engaged in this joyful read in a decade or more, in The Secret Garden, a group of preteens employ the “Magic” of the renewal of spring growth in a long neglected garden to restore the physical and emotional health of two of their “secret group.” Their recovery is facilitated by a new, unexpected, powerful identification with, and appreciation of, the flora and fauna living in the garden.  The transformation is most obvious in the character Colin, who largely through what he identifies as the “Magic” of the garden, transitions from believing he will soon die, to the firm conviction that  “I am going to live forever!”

And what, you might ask, has turned my attention to these two “children’s books” from the previous century? Not really a difficult question. The motivation for this double dose of kiddy-lit Valium is the recent horrific dosage of the murder of school children here in America. Aside from the fact that the guns in the most recent bouts of carnage were purchased “legally,” the other common element appears to be that the murderers believed that they were acting from a position of moral certainty and that their victims represented a threat to a preferred society anchored in their own moral certainty.  I have also recently watched a couple of documentaries on Curiosity Stream about the rise of Hitler and fascism in the early decades of the 20th century. The parallels between the fascists of history and our current domestic crop are obvious.

I find it sadly curious that my two comfort children’s books were written as the world was sliding towards the “war to end all wars,” which turned out to be anything but.  Still there is, I do believe, an ethical component to existence. But I am much less sanguine regarding the notion that we have stumbled upon it.  Louis Pasteur said "Chance favors only the prepared mind."  While he was addressing the necessity of preparation in scientific investigations; I would assert that it would not distort the axiom too greatly to consider its application to ethical and moral considerations: Ethical and moral clarity favors only the open mind.  I view with significant skepticism those hucksters, religious zealots, and politicians on the right and left fringes who assert they have found the “truth” and conveniently close their minds to options and ideas they have yet to encounter or consider.

The comfort I draw from both Wind in the Willows and The Secret Garden is that they both, perhaps naively, take place in a world where compassion and gentility are more valued than power and coercion. True, it is a world seemingly alien to the one in which I actually live, but then the great religious and philosophical texts of our civilizations also seem to depict realities still seemingly beyond our grasp. 

An interesting experiment. Contact your representatives in Congress and inquire about their feelings regarding the state of current gun legislation. If they assert that current legislation is sufficient, you will have learned two things about them; one a probability, the other a certainty. The probability is that their election campaigns are supported by meaningful contributions from the NRA (the National Rifle Association, for those of you lucky enough to reside beyond their nefarious influence.) The certainty is that they are wrong. If they wish to cling to their belief that there is nothing amiss with current gun control legislation you might suggest that they visit cemeteries near to these locations:

ROBB ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

OXFORD HIGH SCHOOL

SANTA FE HIGH SCHOOL

MARYSVILLE-PILCHUCK HIGH SCHOOL

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA

SANDY HOOK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

OIKOS UNIVERSITY

NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY

VIRGINIA TECH

WEST NICKEL MINES AMISH SCHOOL

RED LAKE HIGH SCHOOL

COLUMBINE HIGH SCHOOL

There they will find the graves of the 169 students, from elementary school to college, for whom, since Columbine, the current legislation did not suffice.

Enabling Hatred

Since we seem to be unable to implement the idea of “love one and other” perhaps it is finally time to stop enabling hatred. It should come as no surprise that here in our totally technology dependent nation that we need to focus on controlling the technology that enables our inexcusable, world leading, rate of death by firearms - guns. According to the New York Times, the US counts 45,000 annual gun related deaths. I don’t think this is a statistic that should have anyone chanting “We’re number one! We’re number one!”

 Yes, I have heard the old NRA inspired excuse, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” That is in some strange way true, but it ignores a vital lesson from history. The evolution of technology enables everything we do, everything we know. It was not so long ago - in the rather short history of humans on earth - that we believed we were the center of the universe. Uniquely blessed creatures on a uniquely favored piece of real estate comfortably located close to the one and only sun. And then Hans Lippershey invented the telescope back in 1608, and all bets were off. The constant evolution of optical and electronic telescopes since that point in time have brought us to the James Webb space telescope of today, peering back over light emitted 30 or 40 billion years ago, past countless stars and galaxies to help us understand the nature of our universe. Flip the telescope over and you have the microscope that revealed tiny creatures swimming around in blood, dirt, etc. A discovery that allowed us to shed the mysticism of shamans for the insights of science as we confront disease in the human body. 

Make no mistake about it, technology enables the capabilities of humanity - and we never voluntarily revert to last year’s model unless we discover that “the new way” carried unseen faults and danger. Albert Einstein - a world renowned pacifist - signed a letter, in August of 1939, to President Roosevelt encouraging the development of nuclear weapons to blunt Nazi efforts along those lines. After witnessing the previously unimaginable devastation caused by the bombing of Hiroshima, Einstein deeply regretted what he saw as his intellectual complicity in that desolation. But the atomic genie was out of the bottle, constrained only by intricate international agreements to stave off mutual self- destruction. Agreements whose fragility is being revealed by Putin’s raging. 

So technology is essentially culturally neutral, constrained only by legislation that defines its place in society. Now we have plastic guns that can be printed on 3D printers in the privacy of your own basement. We have legal kits to convert “legal” semi-automatic weapons into illegal fully automatic weapons. And, of course, we have the legal weapons used in the most recent atrocities at Robb Elementary School - deep in the heart of Texas, a state with some of the most lax gun control laws in the country. 

Now, again from the President to the coach of my Golden State Warriors, we are hearing cries of “Enough is enough!” It is time to reign in this deadly technology that is obviously out of control. I hope this latest round of indignation finally translates into meaningful legislation. But it is a hope I have hoped before. 

 In the meantime parents, teachers, pastors, rabbis, imams, big brothers and older sisters, teach the children well: Foster Harmony and Enable Beauty.