What is True
by Dan Senn
June 11, 1994
On National Public Radio
this morning I learned that 250 years ago today J. S. Bach played
music never before heard on a magnificent church organ, and that
just 50 years ago today allied forces levelled the same church
along with the whole of Dresden. All of this was reported in the
context of IBM's decision to finance the construction of a virtual
rendition of this church and that the only existing color photos
had been ordered by Adolph Hitler just prior to the war.
Yesterday, while taking
France for a walk, I came across a crew of sweaty young men heaving
old roof tiles onto a truck. There was dust and rubble everywhere.
As we approached, an older man who was watching the workman told
me that he had put on the previous roof by himself over twenty
years ago. I said that I had put on a roof of about the same square
footage recently and that roofing was definitely young men's work.
He agreed and asked me what I thought it was costing him to have
this one put on. I guessed it to the dollar. Impressed, he introduced
himself and said his name was Jerry Bock. As he spoke the letters
B-O-C-K flashed before my eyes which I then verified by spelling
the letters back to him. He said I was correct and that most wanted
to spell it B-A-C-H. As we strolled on I wondered why I would
first think of the B-O-C-K spelling. Perhaps he reminded me of
a childhood friend and a time not long after the Dresden rubble.
While leaving a concert
in Australia which featured the music of Australia's greatest
avant garde composer, I overheard a young couple say that the
concert hadn't been so bad after all; that they had been apprehensive
about sitting in a room with people and sounds they could not
relate to. They had expected to be angry and now were more cheerful
than ever.
At a party afterwards
I asked the composer what his children did for a living and he
said that his daughter was a housewife and that his son was a
tattoo artist. I said my daughters were angels and that my son
was a cherub. Sensing my play he said that he wasn't a judgmental
person. Rising to a position in the clouds, I replied that we
are all judgmental, even those of us who say we are not; the difference
being that we judge according to different values. That what makes
us unique is the way we react to a first impression. Entering
a trance-like state, I said that when we meet people, or art,
for the first time, the immediate questions are "How free
are you? Are your thoughts your own?" Now, I agree that we
vary in our abilities to detect freedom in others, but whatever
the case, our immediate reaction is the foundation upon which
we establish the complex web of our assessment, and this depends
on whether we believe freedom is good or bad. Whether this person's
clear thinking is advantageous or dangerous. For example, I have
known those within the world of contemporary art who do not believe
that innovation is possible and that all has been said or done
before. That innovators are sham artists or insane people and
that this so-called clear thinking is something which is potentially
dangerous.
As I worked in my garden
pulling weeds, my twelve year old daughter announced from the
garden wall that she had a book due at the library and wondered
whether I would give her a lift over in the car. I replied that
the weather was nice and that she could take her new bike. She
said it had a flat tire. I said that she could take her old little
bike which was still in good working order. At this suggestion
her arms recoiled involuntarily upwards, her head jolted and strained
to one side and a look of terror filled her eyes. While I was
surprised at this, I soon realized what had happened. She had
just been stunned by what happens to kids who break certain unwritten
social rules. There was a chance that a classmate might see her
and the ridicule was not worth risking. The price was too high
to pay. What I had witnessed in my daughter was the palpable energy
force of a society that fancies freedom on the one hand but viciously
punishes unusual behavior on the other. Over the years, my daughter
had gone from a spontaneous and sophisticated artist without boundaries,
one who described her drawings in gestures and vague color descriptions,
to an obsessed drawer of horses with increasing instances of writers
block.
We live in a world where
the avant garde music of other times is performed by musicians
who do not perform the avant garde music of this time.
I was invited to the
home of a New Zealand artist for a meal and to spend the night.
In the morning, his daughter was playing the piano for me in the
living room as her Mother was doing the washing up 'round the
corner. Zoé, who had just turned eight, announced cheerfully
that she had composed a song for me and she began playing a tune
with a dissonant chord in the left hand accompanied by a melody
in the right. Within seconds, her Mother called out for her to
move the little finger in the left hand down a semitone to the
"C" and the middle finger up a semitone to the "E".
Zoé replied, "But it's my song Mumma, I'm making it
up!" Ever so patiently, the good Mother called out once again,
and then again, until she shifted her little fingers to the more
consonant C major chord. After all, there was a chance that someone
from her school might hear her playing the diminished chord. The
ridicule was not worth risking. In the corner of the room there
was a smiley face posted on a door with the inscription "Just
say no to drugs." I mentioned to her Mother that the smiley
face had been invented by some guy who had run for mayor in Seattle.
We live in a world of
music where university jazz departments teach the innovations
of African American inventors who, if they could magically apply
to these programs would not be allowed entry. They would be considered
musically illiterate and lacking in excellence.
As Martha and Jack entered
a friend's apartment they were met by shelves and shelves of books.
Martha couldn't believe her eyes and cheerfully exclaimed that
they needed to get some of these for their dining room. Jack agreed.
As John watched television
he saw suffering and cruelty everywhere. It touched him so that,
in time, he became increasingly desperate to show others that
he cared and, being an artist, he believed he could do this best
through his paintings. He thought that if he could display suffering
in graphic detail, others would see it and take steps to make
things better.
Denise and I were watching
television and a news story which showed an old woman rescuing
a stranded and terrified child from a drainage ditch after a sudden
downpour in California. As the obese woman strained beyond her
capacity to save the child while risking her life, I was enveloped
by a sudden flush of emotion which I fought desperately to contain.
Had I glanced at my wife and saw her in a similar state, I may
have lost control.
For a period of time
I was obsessed by the writings of Primo Levi, an Italian Chemist
who had survived Auschwitz. After the war, he again worked as
a chemist while writing splendid accounts of workman as they labored
throughout the ages. In one of his later books he wrote that after
the war he began judging others according to whether they would
have hidden him from Hitler. After reading this, I started to
consider relationships along these lines and came to believe that
categorical groupings of people seemed to have little impact on
the percentage of those I believed willing to put their lives
on the line for someone else. Having been raised in a right-win
g conservative family, I knew there were nominal racists who,
when confronted with the face of their enemy, would switch sides
in a moment. Later on, having been liberally educated at the best
of American art schools, I knew there were nominal free thinkers
who would have likewise switched sides.
In an alienated existence,
personal experience is replaced by the remarkable experiences
of others.
So John made his paintings
and they sold and reviewed well and many patrons made a point
of telling him that they were touched by the suffering and he
felt better about it all and thought that it had been worth the
months of labor and now, at long last, he could take a break and
feel at ease with himself and beneath it all he knew he was not
moved for what he had painted was not true for him and therefore
could not be true for others. Had he engineered a fraud? Had his
audience been insincere? No, they had truly wanted to feel the
suffering, but the best John could do was to shop around for a
sad face and a replacement for experiences he could no longer
find within himself.
As I drove from a parking
lot in Seattle I happened upon a sight which jolted me into the
present. About fifty yards up the street I witnessed a small girl
wearing a backpack running and screaming as an Alsatian barked
and nipped viciously at her sides. The child was running hysterically
into the street and my reaction was drive at the dog and knock
it from the child's side. At that moment, however, the dog veered
off and, as it sauntered cheerfully back to its hiding place,
I spied its owner standing behind a screened door. The little
girl continued her frantic escape as she squealed and ran up a
drive disappearing behind a gas pump.
Even without a rigorous
disassembly of John's paintings and intentions, whether or not
we say so, whether or not we have the awareness or language to
voice a deeper knowing, or whether or not our social setting will
allow us to be truthful, what we sense is the distance, the alienation
and the abstractness of the experience for the artist. In this
way, we are untouched. We remain the same.
We are moved by what
is true.
As a group of us were
milling outside a local art center, I saw two youths without shirts
sauntering up the street. I noticed their bare, dusty bodies and
disheveled hair and that they walked with a menacing swagger.
As we chatted about the future of the arts in Tacoma, I watched
as a car filled with teenagers crept by the two who responded
with name calling and fist-like gestures. As the now animated
youths moved in our direction, I mentioned that we should be conscious
of a potential situation here. But the discussion continued indifferently
and as they drew closer, the car filled with teenagers came screeching
around the corner and raced directly at us. In the flurry that
followed, one of our group, a muscular former gang member from
the Bronx, quickly opened the door of the art center and yelled
for us to enter. All but one of the group, a Catholic Sister,
if you can believe it, ran inside where I leaped to the side and
out of the trajectory of bullets. At this very instant, I remember
thinking that I had no concern for the lives of anyone else in
the group. I was out to protect my own ass. As I lay flattened
against the wall behind a marble support, I watched as our muscleman
kept one of the boys from entering the building. He had his arm
pinned in the door and I believed he could have sheered it off.
After a bit, however, he relented and let the pleading teenager
into the building. At this, the rest of us, minus the dazed nun
who was turning circles like a wedding cake bride just outside
glass doors, started to creep further into the building looking
for a place to hide. As we moved we found a gallery where we locked
the door and pulled the shades tight. We knew that at least one
of the gang members was in the building, and that a horrorific
episode was possible. There was a telephone in the area and our
weightlifter friend called the police in a whispered voice. After
twenty minutes or so, we eased open a window just in time to watch
a squad car driving slowly by. All seemed calm, so we decided
to take our chances and leave the building. As we came out the
front entrance, we found the sun shining and our wedding cake
acquaintance as cheerful as ever wondering what had happened to
us all.
©1994 Dan Senn
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