2016 Moving On

HAPPY NEW YEAR, 2016!

I have written one hundred four blogs in the past one hundred two weeks. I’m excited for another blogging year. Originally, I decided to write a blog, 1) In order to encourage myself to begin and finish a thought on paper in a more efficient and timely manner. Also, 2) writing is largely a solitary adventure, and I wanted to feel part of something more public. I am grateful for one thousand, two hundred, thirty seven hits I’ve received from six hundred thirty three of you this year, in thirty-two countries. Especially a huge THANK YOU to all of you who have taken the time and effort to comment on my blog. I love to get comments. I hope we’ll meet here again next year. Cheers!

 

Merry Christmas

When Julian of Norwich (1342-1416) wrote Revelations of Divine Love, it was commonly believed that evil spirits hovered around the death bed waiting to capture the spirit as it left the dying body.

The Nativity
Petrus Christus

Petrus Christus, the fifteenth century Flemish painter has included angels in his interpretation of The Nativity. It’s an interesting problem to include the invisible in the visible. I remember the rustic paintings of an Eastern European woman, whose name I cannot remember. This woman included the future Nazi occupation in her hometown as the color black lurking in the night sky, invisible to the townspeople, but already present. We humans cannot see the future. Petrus Christus painted physical angels into his nativity painting. Angels aren’t necessarily invisible. The Bible says, “Be careful how you treat strangers. You don’t know when you might be entertaining angels.

A few months ago, I mentioned contemporary writer, Annie Neugebauer. Neugebauer writes horror stories because she believes the most frightening things in our world are invisible. Even if that’s true, beautiful and comforting things are also invisible.

Christian faith is built on trusting invisible things. Merry Christmas.

A Small Discussion about the Purpose and Justification of Art

 

from OxfordWords blog
11 July 2015

Here’s something. I found the above quote of the day recently when I was looking for synonyms online. I’d never heard of Glenn Gould. So, I read about him online, as well. Compare the quote above to the one highlighted below, used in Wikipedia and taken from the book, Extraordinary Canadians/Glenn Gould, by Mark Kingwell. The highlighted and underlined words match the quote above. Do you think the yellow and black poster properly capture the full quote below?

“The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.”

Katie in Paris
Photo by Russell Anway

Here’s an interesting definition for art from Urban Dictionary online, one I that has given me something new to consider. To paraphrase Paul O’Neill, www.pauloneill.org.uk/curatorial/information/

The reason for art is to elicit an emotional response from the viewer, and there are three kinds of art: bad art, good art, and great art. Bad art elicits no emotional response, good art creates an emotion you have experienced before, when you are reminded of a memory or thought from your past. Great art allows you to experience and understand an emotion you have never experienced before.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Art

It’s interesting to think about the role of art in culture, the justification of resources invested in the arts on both personal and cultural levels. The artist, curator, and educator, Paul O’Neill goes beyond Glenn Gould’s serenity and wonder. O’Neill’s definition includes the broader spectrum of emotion. Both men agree that the desired result of exposure and attention to art alters and improves our human condition, as individuals. And, in the broader sense, improves our living conditions by providing we the people with a broader and, hopefully, more compassionate nature.

 

 

A Matter of Time

I took a Hamline University summer writing workshop from Robert Olen Butler in the summer of two-thousand-four. I was very excited about the opportunity to be in a class taught by such a great writer. I devoured Olen Butler’s Pulitzer Prize winning short story collection, A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain. It remains one of my favorites.

Except for two writers among us, Olen Butler disliked what we wrote. He was merciless. He almost exclusively used his own work and practice to explain how to correct our many flaws. Many of us were finishing the last stages of MFA Degrees at the time. Students were furious.

Toward the end of the week, we all got an individual, Ten Minutes with the Author. I remember almost everything Olen Butler told me then, and I would be way ahead of myself had I followed his outline: 1) Do your writing first thing every morning, as soon as you wake up. 2) Have a writing place that is used for nothing else. 3) Don’t do anything else besides your creative writing on the computer you use for that purpose. 4) Go ahead and get your MFA if you want. But remember, you’re probably going to have to take time to recover from it later.

I once met a woman about my age who had recently published her first novel. The novel took her ten years to write. I said, “Oh no! I don’t have that kind of time left to spend on a novel.” I think that might have been ten years ago. I’m still plugging away on the first draft of my novel. I’m sorry the poems dried up. I enjoy writing my blog every week. I’ve spent years writing volumes on paper, stored in boxes: poems, essays, failed novels I am now sifting through and mostly shredding. What were those funny things the kids said? How did the dog’s fur feel? What was life like for my mother and my father on that mountain back in 1945?

Here’s a question: A couple of years ago on PBS Masterpiece, I watched what I considered to be a horrifying story, Breathless. A friend told me that if that story effected me that much, then I needed to figure out why. It took me a long time, but I finally solved the puzzle. The script included one terrifying line, “As far as I can tell, there is really never anything but now.”

 

Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Sorkin

Scriptnotes, 210: One-Handed Movie Heroes (linked below). Screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin, discuss the fact that when a television series airs over a number of seasons, space is available for characters to sustain conflicted feelings. But, it’s difficult to create movie characters to successfully manage more than one clear opinion base. In this way the movies have negatively impacted our culture by creating a population that tends to expect clear answers in all situations.

During their discussion, John and Craig briefly discuss screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, who includes conflicting views in his movies by creating different characters with single-minded and unyielding opinions. Craig Mazin: They may be resisting. And oftentimes, they are resisting a truth. And so what they are articulating is the opposite of what the bravest version of themselves would do.”

http://johnaugust.com/2015/scriptnotes-ep-210-one-handed-movie-heroes-transcript

According to the website vulture.com., “Sorkin won’t be writing Avengers: Infinity War anytime soon, and he isn’t going to make $1 billion worldwide. But if you let him do what he’s good at, i.e., write high-profile, reality-based psychodramas in which everyone speaks like Aaron Sorkin, chances are you’ll make your money back, your movie will get nominated, and everyone will come away feeling prestigious and content, if maybe a little shell-shocked by the whole experience.”

http://www.vulture.com/2015/10/aaron-sorkin-box-office-bankable.html

Recently, when Russell told me about Aaron Sorkin, I realized that what Russell said confirms what I wrote last week in the Ten Thousand Hours. When we invest enough energy, time, and resources into our creative work, we come out at the other end, recognizable as ourselves.

Aaron Sorkin writes successfully in numerous venues. Screenwriter: film, television, and theater. He accomplishes the most difficult trick because his characters always come across as themselves. But, they are also identifiable as Sorkin characters.