Singing the Blues in Difficult Times: Art and Creativity in the Pandemic

Fresno Bee, May 31, 2020

The pandemic has left people feeling numb, powerless, and hopeless. One recent article suggests that half of Americans have the blues. People are out of work and struggling to pay the rent. There is political animosity and racial tension.

Reopening things will get some folks back to work. But the economy is still a mess. Political nonsense continues to flow out of D.C. And a second wave of infections and shut-downs is waiting in the wings. We can’t go back to the carefree world we once knew.

This is a good time to turn to the blues, an art form full of nostalgia and despair. As John Lee Hooker sang, “Hard times are here to stay.” The world is out of joint. We dream of going home. But we can’t get there. So we sing.

Great songs, inspired novels, and new art will emerge from this crisis. Art grows from hard times.

The Great Depression gave birth to Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” for example. At one point in the story, poor folks chip in for a funeral for a child who died of malnourishment. Steinbeck then offers a simple prayer for the common man. “Pray God some day kind people won’t all be poor. Pray God some day a kid can eat.”

The Depression also inspired Langston Hughes’s dream of an America that didn’t exist. In the 1930s he wrote, “Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, the rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, we, the people, must redeem the land, the mines, the plants, the rivers … and make America again.”

These artists confronted the bleakness of their time with a kind of hope. Rather than weep and wail, artists turn suffering into song. And you don’t have to be a genius to participate in the magic of art. Everyone can make lemons into lemonade. The creative urge is deeply human.

Consider the surge in baking that occurred during quarantine. Stores ran short on flour and yeast. Bread nourishes the body. But there is therapy in the culinary arts. Mixing, kneading, and waiting give shape to bread — and to poetry and life.

Life is made meaningful by creative activities. Joy is found in sharing this with others, telling stories, singing, laughing, crying, and eating together.

We sing, bake, and build because of an upsurge of energy. A kind of spiritual leavening occurs in the active and inspired mind, as ideas and emotions ferment and overflow. The vitality of the mind impels it to create and to communicate.

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said that inspired spirits enrich the world out of their overflowing fullness. Art is the expression of will and energy. Suffering becomes meaningful when it is transformed into poetry, prayer and thought.

The blues tradition provides a great example. The blues grew out of the anguish of the African American experience. The novelist Ralph Ellison once explained that the blues express both the agony of life and a toughness of spirit. It offers no solutions or scapegoats. But it turns heartache into song. Ellison wrote, “The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one’s aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it.”

When hard times become art, courage and resilience emerge. Langston Hughes described the blues as sadness hardened with laughter. This requires audacity and tenacity. There are tears and loss. But the artist responds with energy and gives birth to something new that is both melancholy and beautiful.

I don’t mean to suggest that everyone ought to become professional artists. Artists are going to be hard-pressed to make a living these days. But one cure for the pandemic blues is to find solace in creativity, whether baking, singing or writing.

Nor do I mean to say that art can solve our problems. We need scientists to find a vaccine. Economists must tackle unemployment. And psychologists are needed to treat clinical depression. Art does not solve problems. Rather, it helps us cope. Art kneads our pain and causes it to ferment and rise up. And somehow this transforms the deep and lowdown blues into food for the soul.

October 22, 2016November 1, 2016

Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize

Dylan’s best lyrics cause us to think twice and to sit and wonder why

Fresno Bee, October 22, 2016

Some wonder whether Bob Dylan deserves a Nobel Prize. Folk music and rock ’n’ roll are not literature. But if art is supposed to change the world, Dylan’s songs are worth more than any novel. He is the voice of the 1960s counterculture. His songs inspired the Byrds, the Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix.

Dylan’s art is iconoclastic. In “Maggie’s Farm,” Dylan complained, “I try my best to be just like I am; But everybody wants you to be just like them.”

This may explain Dylan’s public silence about the Nobel Prize. As Dylan once sang, “sometimes the silence can be like thunder.” I appreciate Dylan’s reticence. There is something disheartening about imagining Dylan in a tuxedo, schmoozing the Swedish nobility. What does Stockholm have to do with Woodstock?

This is not the only controversial Nobel Prize. When President Barack Obama won the Peace Prize in 2009, critics complained that he didn’t deserve it. Henry Kissinger’s 1973 Peace Prize and Yassar Arafat’s 1994 Peace Prize were lampooned and criticized.

And so it goes in politics, as in art. Genius lies in the eyes of the beholder. One man’s hero is another man’s knave. Judgments about art and politics involve tastes and preferences. One man’s bread and butter is another woman’s basket of deplorables.

Great artists shape our desires. No one is born savoring Dylan’s gravelly whine. Artistic genius gives us a taste for something we didn’t know we loved.

Great art also provides a consolation and escape. Dylan asked Mr. Tambourine Man to take him on a trip upon a magic swirling ship so he could “forget about today until tomorrow.” But while most pop music is merely escapist, Dylan’s lyrics are also deep, dank and dark. They linger on desolation row where the world is often tangled up and blue. Or, as he sings, “people are crazy and times are strange.”

Dylan is a master of partial perspectives and disjointed imagery. He channels chaos and dislocation. “Something is happening but you don’t know what it is, Mr. Jones,” he sings. “How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky?” Dylan asks. But the answer is left blowing in the wind.

In Dylan’s universe, thieves and hobos hold on, while time moves like a jet plane. They knock on heaven’s door as storm clouds gather. For a moment, they see a light come shining and are released, finding temporary shelter from the storm. But as Dylan warns, “whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.” He intones, “It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.”

Dylan’s songs are ironic and often playful. He sang, “There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.” The biggest joke is on the masters of war – and maybe also literary snobs – who criticize what they don’t understand.

Dylan’s enigmatic lyrics have literary merit, even if some of his songs are trite (“Lay, Lady, Lay” comes to mind). In some of his best lyrics, he criticizes formal, stuffy art, singing, “Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial.” He continues, “Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues. You can tell by the way she smiles.” Like Mona Lisa’s smile, Dylan’s best lyrics cause us to think twice and to sit and wonder why.

NOVELISTS USE WRITTEN WORDS. SONGWRITERS ADD MUSIC.
REGARDLESS OF THE GENRE, THE TASK IS TO SHED LIGHT.

Dylan hints that the poet’s task is as a mirror to the world. In “Hard Rain Gonna Fall” he explains, “I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it; And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it.” Artists reflect the wonder and horror of the world.

Novelists use written words. Songwriters add music. Regardless of the genre, the task is to shed light.

But to reflect the world, the artist must stand outside of it. In 1964, as Dylan was starting out, the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre refused the Nobel Prize. Sartre explained, “The writer must refuse to let himself be transformed into an institution.”

Dylan’s reticence inspires a comparison with Sartre. The world seduces the artist, luring him back to work on Maggie’s Farm. But artists venture off the farm. They lead us on with enigmatic words and pregnant silences, trying to get to heaven before they close the door.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/andrew-fiala/article109544782.html#storylink=cpy

August 27, 2016November 1, 2016

Music At Glacier Point

In moments of musical beauty, anger melts, hatred dissolves, peace dawns

Fresno Bee, August 27, 2016

WITHOUT HOPEFUL SPLASHES OF JOY, LIFE WOULD BE DULL AND MEANINGLESS.

Last Sunday, the Mariposa Symphony Orchestra performed at Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. Perched on the edge of a cliff, the orchestra played original pieces composed in honor of Yosemite and the centennial of the National Park Service.

As Half Dome blushed in the setting sun, Yosemite’s granite gorges resounded with song. At dusk, a bat danced above the bassoons. After the last echo faded, a shooting star flashed into view. It quickly vanished into darkness.

Beauty is fleeting. It shines and echoes for a moment. Then it is gone. Youthful brilliance becomes old age. Summer sun gives way to winter winds. Music always returns into silence.

The fragility of beauty is a reminder of mortality. But beauty also soothes and reassures. Wonder and joy arouse our better angels. Natural splendor and human art make life worth living.

The concert at Glacier Point honored the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, whose work conserves the wild wonders of our continent. Some Park Service employees also play in the Mariposa orchestra. How cool for those rangers to serenade the park they love.

The arts and Yosemite

One might think it odd to stage a symphony at Glacier Point. But according to Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman, “From the signing of the Yosemite Grant to the present day, the arts have played a significant role in the creation and continued interest in preserving these public places.”

Yosemite sparkles in Ansel Adams’ photos. It is illuminated by John Muir’s prose. Yosemite has a new artistic champion in Les Marsden, the conductor of the Mariposa orchestra.

Marsden composed a complex cycle of four pieces to honor Yosemite and the Park Service. Marsden’s compositions are classically American, reminiscent of Aaron Copland. The music told the history of the national parks. It imitated wind, water, fire and animal life.

As Marsden’s dynamic baton came to rest and the music faded into silence, you could hear crickets chirping and birds singing. I was struck by the thought that human art is a response to nature’s call. The human imagination swells in the presence of Half Dome. Birdsong tickles our ears. Thunder quickens the heart. And Yosemite Falls provokes laughter and shouts.

WITHOUT HOPEFUL SPLASHES OF JOY, LIFE WOULD BE DULL AND MEANINGLESS.

Poetry, painting and music reflect the wonders of the world. Human art transcends matter. Without the soaring responsiveness of the human spirit the earth would be quiet and dull.

John Muir said, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.” Muir explained that gardens and parks satisfy our “natural beauty-hunger.” We plant flowers, tend our gardens, and visit parks looking for inspiration and consolation.

Muir claimed that natural beauty comforts “nerve-shaken, over-civilized people.” For Muir, mountain parks are “fountains of life.” Their sublime wonder stirs the spirit.

Fountains of life

Art and music are also fountains of life. The arts encourage us to savor the world.

One of my colleagues, Thomas Loewenheim, the conductor of the Fresno State SymphonyOrchestra, has confessed his hope that music provides a path toward peace. I think he is right. Music, beauty, art and nature encourage us to transcend our petty differences. They lift us beyond ourselves and bring us together in awe, reverence and delight.

Stand on Glacier Point. Immerse yourself in poetry. Fill your lungs with song. Dig your fingers into the soil. Smell the wonder of flowers. Or simply listen to the birds. The aesthetic mood encourages us to breathe more deeply – to listen, see and feel.

In moments of beauty, anger melts, hatred dissolves and peace dawns. Winter storms will come to the high country. Fires will burn the hills. And madmen rage in the lowlands. But peace is found in beauty. And hope is found in the fragments of color, song, granite and water that we carry in our hearts.

Without hopeful splashes of joy, life would be dull and meaningless. Hallelujah for Yosemite. Hurray for Marsden and the Mariposa symphony.

And thank goodness for the men and women of the Park Service, whose work has preserved nature’s wonders for 100 years. Here’s hoping that the artists, rangers and natural wonders of our world will continue to inspire and console for another century.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/andrew-fiala/article98045307.html#storylink=cpy

February 5, 2016February 11, 2016

Cultural Value of the Super Bowl

Fresno Bee, February 5, 2016

The Big Game is an artistic production
Culture and the arts are playful games
Football isn’t perfect, but it’s fun

The Super Bowl is a high point of American culture. Some snobs view football as barbaric and uncultured. But this year, the halftime show will include the conductor of the L.A. Philharmonic and students from the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles.

This mash-up points to a link between high culture and pop culture, sports and art. The cultural continuum includes the punter and the poet, the quarterback and the string quartet.

Football is performance art. The game has music, costumes, tragedy and ritual set pieces. Like opera, the game includes pageantry, agility and pathos.

The arts are also playful games. We play music. Actors put on plays. Poets play with words. And philosophers play with ideas. Human culture is a process of making meaning through playful activity.

Some think the fine arts are superior. Poets and painters represent things in word and image. Musicians explore time and tone. Art is about abstract ideas, beauty, finitude and the divine.

Football seems less refined. It is physical activity. But there are geniuses and prodigies on the gridiron. And fans find virtue, grace, beauty and transcendence in the game. For most Americans, the pigskin is more meaningful than Picasso or Puccini.

Football’s place in our culture

Football’s importance to our culture is obvious. Our language is shaped by it. We tackle a problem after huddling up. Monday-morning quarterbacks question people’s play-calling. When it’s fourth-and-long, we know things are serious. And sometimes it’s better to punt.

It may seem odd that a mere game is so tightly woven into our culture. But games are part of every culture. An old proverb says, “All work, no play makes Jack a dull boy.” To be human is to play games and amuse oneself. Culture is the accumulated set of games we play. The Greeks wrestled and raced. In America, we play football.

Our Sunday afternoons have been filled with the rhythm of the season and the game, the drama of fourth down, and the heroics of the fourth quarter. After the Super Bowl, we will find new games to fill our time and our conversations.

We need art and sports. Once we satisfy our animal needs, we fill our lives with games. Literature, politics and sports – all are forms of play. Our pastimes can be deadly and serious. But they are recreations and amusements, nonetheless.

Culture is learned behavior. The rules and formulas of dance, music, poetry and football must be learned in order to appreciate them. No one is born knowing a language or understanding the rules of the onside kick. Love of opera or haiku is not innate. Broncos fans are made, not born.

Some critics worry that the hedonistic spectacle of the Super Bowl is a sign of the decline of our civilization. Super Bowl Sunday certainly makes it difficult to keep the Sabbath day holy. Others compare the NFL to the gladiators of Rome, warning of the demise of culture into “bread and circuses.”

But the gladiators marked a high point of Roman civilization. They fought in the Colosseum, its ruins now venerated as a magnificent triumph of Roman architecture. Thriving civilizations have surplus wealth to spend on sports and games, art and festivity. Once we have enough bread, bring on the circuses.

No game is perfect

There are other reasons to criticize football. It is a brutal game. It causes brain injuries. Players risk necks and knees. But ballet is hard on the toes. And other sports are dangerous – climbing, skiing, for example.

Football is also sexist. News about the Super Bowl as a haven for prostitution is alarming. Gambling, commercialism and alcoholic fans are also concerns. And pacifists will note that football mimics warfare.

But no game is perfect. Chess is warlike and horse racing is hard on the ponies. Our games, sports and arts are our own creation. We can remake them according to our own interests and concerns. And each generation does rewrite the rules of sports, art and culture.

We are lucky to have so many games, sports and arts to choose from. We could live without these amusements. Football is not life. Nor is opera or poetry. But art gives zest to life. And football spices up our Sunday afternoons.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/andrew-fiala/article58662308.html#storylink=cpy

September 6, 2014September 8, 2014

Contemplating the arts

Take time to contemplate the arts in this trivial digital age

Fresno Bee September 6, 2014

Poetry, philosophy, literature and art are uniquely human activities. Other animals play, sing and even dance. But no other animal contemplates its own existence.

IMG_1346 - Version 2 — Philosopher Contemplating Death

In our quick digital era, one wonders whether there is time for contemplation. Speed and multitasking can undermine focus needed to study a poem, observe a work of art or digest a philosophical insight.

Our digital tools give us unprecedented opportunity to explore the humanities. We can download the great works of literature and philosophy and carry them with us in phones and tablets. We can publish our own reflections with the click of a mouse. Art works are easily copied and forwarded.

This could be a golden age of philosophical reflection and poetic insight. There are hidden backwaters of the Internet where poetry, philosophy and art flourish. But much of the mainstream flows in another direction. The Internet deluges us with foolish factoids, meaningless memes, pornographic pictures and vicious videos. The rising tide of trivia can easily sweep us away.

Our attention is divided by the pace and flow of information. Even conversation suffers: We text instead of call. We dread the spiraling buffer sign and multitask while we wait. Our attention bounces along among scattered bits of quickly moving data.

Speedy multitasking is not all bad. In some cases, a brief text is all you need. When you only want data, a quick download is great. The trivia passing through our gadgets can be surfed and skimmed.

But careful, slow and deliberate attention is important. Life’s most meaningful moments deserve our time and undivided attention: falling in love, giving birth, growing old, dying. Unhurried, sustained reflection is a mature human ability, as is the ability to listen, read and think.

It takes time and concentration to understand Shakespeare or Plato or Picasso. Deliberate, undivided effort is needed to write a poem, construct an argument or analyze a work of literature. The same intellectual skill is needed in the sciences, in law and in other fields. But the humanities are unique in forcing us to slow down, breathe deeply and contemplate.

Shakespeare once compared his love to a summer’s day. That’s a fact (download Sonnet 18 and you’ll see). But what does it mean? Summer days are slow and luxurious. Unfortunately, beauty fades, as does summer. Is there hope? Shakespeare hints that poetry holds beauty in place against the ravages of time.

Does the Internet also preserve us against swift-footed time? You could post Shakespeare’s sonnet on your website along with your other pictures and memes. But copying and pasting is not understanding. Meaning cannot be downloaded. There is no app for insight.

Good poetry is precise. Haiku can be inspiring. Shakespeare’s sonnets are 140 syllables long. Concise communication is a useful art. But we’ve shaved this down to tweets of 140 characters. And we’ve compressed the time we need to reflect upon the meaning of things, while filling the void with data.

Data transfer is to thinking as sex is to love. Human beings could exchange DNA in a quick genetic data dump. But love is much more than this. Love is a mysterious communion of souls haunted by a whiff of eternity. It involves contemplation: You linger, savor and dream about your beloved.

The same is true of poetry, philosophy and other attempts to fathom the human spirit. Lingering, savoring, dreaming and contemplating are the modes and moods of the humanities. Through them we rise above the manic din of data exchange and hover for a moment in defiance of swift-footed, devouring time.

Our electronic exchanges are like quick splashes of water that run off dry land without sinking in. Philosophy, poetry and the arts are stickier, gentler and denser. When given time and attention, they provide deep irrigation for the human spirit.

It is not surprising that the value of the humanities is best expressed in metaphor. Metaphors force us to slow down and think. It is not enough to simply state that the humanities are valuable in themselves — that’s a fact to be posted, tweeted and repeated. We also need to see that poetry, philosophy and art provide an oasis of contemplation in a desert of data.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/09/05/4107180_ethicstake-time-to-contemplate.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy