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Did you ever hear the adage that most of the lessons you learn in college are learned outside of the classroom?

Well, some lessons that you wouldn’t expect are learned inside the classroom, as well. One of those I learned very vividly during grad school: academics can take a beautiful concept, dress it in academic jargon that isolates it from everyone outside of the discipline, and treat it as something meant only for the intelligentsia. Sometimes, I suspect that academics do this to help themselves have an “ivory-tower,” exaggerated sense of self-importance. And, when I say that, I readily confess that I’m just as guilty as any of the rest of them, because the jargon becomes embedded in your psyche after a year or so of study. Soon, you have little “common sense” left and a lot of elitist terminology that leaves people outside of your discipline ostracized from conversation that would only help everyone grow. This happens in every discipline. I guess I just noticed it more doing graduate work in theology, because I secretly suspect that theologians are the worst at this.

But, I digress.

The point of that ramble is to mention a discussion I read over at Transpositions this week on the concept of “high art.” I wonder, sometimes, what determines whether a painting or play or novel is considered “high art.” The post I referenced here (reviewing a book) mentions that art holds a certain subjectivity because it is always seen through a cultural lens. Think about this: what would be considered of a certain quality and declared “high art” in the Western world would possibly not be received as such in Eastern culture, at least not as easily. Think of the differences in European or American music and Chinese or Indian music, for example.

High art is a term derived from the concept of high culture. High culture is defined in opposition to popular culture. Thus, those who gravitate toward high culture in certain art forms tend to eschew popular culture expressions in the same genre. The first time I really experienced this was, after having read exclusively novels that would be considered “literature” for months, I read a mystery novel. Classic literature and modern fiction to genre fiction in one day. I struggled with the change. And I didn’t like myself for struggling.

As much as I can be a total snob about certain pop culture art forms (I’m unapologetically so about “pop music”), I think that we must recognize that popular culture is still culture, and is still just as valid. The same is true of art. What U2 composes is just as valid as any symphony Beethoven ever penned. And it was, as I recall, an Inkling who adored writing detective fiction (what we today consider genre fiction).

I listen to academics and artists lament that there is not literature today like there once was, that our culture is incapable of producing anything of that quality. I don’t think that’s the case; there are many extremely gifted writers producing amazing literature today. There are also many bad writers, and bad musicians, and bad artists. They exist in high and low culture. They exist on a continuum, I think, with “really bad” on one end and “really amazing” on the other.

When (not if, when…I need to tell myself that) I finish the science fiction novel I’m writing, it will be, by definition, genre fiction. I hold no pretense that it will be great literature, and I don’t for a moment believe that it will be considered high culture (most especially because I intend to self-publish). But, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t valid.

I suppose my issue with differentiating high and low art, or high and low culture, is that it gives one group of people an excuse to feel superior to another. Academics do it. Critics do it. Unfortunately, artists do it, as well. As many programs across the nation that work to afford access to art by “the masses” at no cost attest, art is for everyone. It cannot belong to the elite, and its ability to touch lives and inspire critical thinking is not limited to the wealthy.

Some of the best conversations I’ve had about theology has been with people who have no formal education in the discipline at all. I love talking about literature, but I don’t have a formal degree in the area. I’ve worked with amazing actors who have no formal theatre training. And all of those people have come from all different backgrounds. A love for, and subsequent knowledge of, art…any art…can’t be trapped behind a high culture pre-requisite. Doing so is an effort to keep others away from art, which is simply an attempt to own art as a possession.

That’s just not how it was ever meant to be.

A Review of “Incendiary”

Incendiary by Chris Cleave
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Epistolary books aren’t generally my taste, but this one surprised me. As with most books that take me aback, I read this at the suggestion of friends…it was nominated by popular vote in a book club in which I participate. First off, the narrator of the audiobook version adds an amazing amount of depth to the book, even to the point of leading me to pick up on some British humor that I might otherwise not have grasped. The book is a relatively quick read, weighing in at just over 300 pages in paperback, or 8 hours in audio.

And it is funny!

In fact, Cleave is amazingly adept at stepping between dry, witty humor and poignant explorations of loss that leaves the reader wanting to cry. The narrator, during a sexual romp with her lover, loses her husband and son to an al Queda terrorist attack on London. This book is her letter to Osama bin Laden following that attack. As you can see, the premise is humorous from the beginning, and it only gets funnier…and more heartbreaking.

On the surface, this is a gripping story about a woman who has lost everything to a senseless act of terror, and, while traveling a grief-stricken journey to determine who to blame, slowly loses her grip on her sanity. At a deeper level, there is cultural critique here: not just on the barbarity of terrorists, but on the barbarity of the civilized world’s response. As Cleave’s protagonist loses her sanity to grief, the world around her (read: us) loses its sanity to fear. The image of a dark, near-future London with balloons hanging over the city bearing painted images of the dead haunts the reader for some time.

The fascinating development of characters runs even deeper, however. The protagonist’s lover’s girlfriend is nearly a mirror image of our distraught narrator, and the juxtaposition of a woman who loses while holding onto her core values against another version of herself who wins through self-serving, opportunistic means is amazingly well done. This, I think, is what stayed with me the longest from this book.

Incendiary is a quick read that will take you through an emotional journey that is well worth your time. The mirror that this novel holds to a post-September 11 world is provocative, and the conspiracy theorist twist at the end…well, let’s just say that it is all too believable.

View all my reviews

You can purchase Incendiary here.

Taking My Cue

This weekend I attended a conference on applied theatre. Applied theatre (overly simplified) is the practice of using the art of theatre to contribute to the social good. For example, theatre techniques can be used as very effective treatment modalities for individuals on the autism spectrum, or as conflict resolution techniques. One of the tracks available at the conference was “theatre of the oppressed.” While this wasn’t the track for which I had registered, I had an opportunity to participate briefly in two of the exercises that this track hosted, and I was moved beyond words.

Theatre of the Oppressed was originated as a concept by Augusto Boal, and is (way overly simplified) a theatrical technique used to draw the actor and audience into dialogue with each other. The exercises place you into someone else’s proverbial shoes, forces you to appreciate another’s perspective. The participator in the exercises in which I engaged this weekend is forced to feel the discomfort of someone in a less fortunate position than he or she is. The participator goes from being comfortable to uncomfortable, and is forced to consider why.

The first exercise in which I had a chance to participate is called “Columbian hypnosis.” With another actor, one holds his or her palm toward the other’s face, and the second actor has to keep his or her face the same distance away from the first actor’s palm (without touching it), regardless of where the first actor moves the palm. Then, the actors switch. Then, a third actor is added to the group, and all three have an opportunity to be leaders. Did I mention there can be no talking? First, I was the second actor. The only thing you can focus on is the palm of the hand in front of you. Some participants felt at ease, others felt discomfort at a loss of control (although anyone feeling any acute emotions, of course, stops the exercise whenever they like). During the three-person variation, a male actor was leading two females, and expressed a feeling of unease at this. One of the female actors expressed something similar initially. I discovered this huge sense of responsibility in leading two other actors around, knowing that they had to go wherever I told them during the exercise. I recognized that I had to take care of them.

In the second exercise, a huge group of people (around 70 or more I think), were divided into groups of three. Each actor began making a specific noise and movement combination, whatever they liked. They then had to “morph” with the other two until all three were doing the exact same sound/movement combination. Then that group morphed with another group of three, and then the larger group with another, until all 70 + of us were doing the same sound/movement combination. This was an exercise in compromise. Each person initially, and then each group, came into each “morph” with something they weren’t willing to give up, and others that they were. In a sense, the final unison of all of us contained a part of each of our original sound/movement choices, and was arguably better than the first. Some gave in immediately and morphed, others held out. In the end, there was respect and sense of commonality among all the actors.

Those two exercises moved me through a sense of humility, to a sense of responsibility, to a sense of respect. Obviously, I don’t have to tell you the implications. These exercises are physical imagery to assist one in appreciating the powerlessness or passion of another, another that one has the ability to impact. We are all in a position of influence or power over another: a parent to a child, a police officer to the violator of the law, an employer to an employee. There are just and unjust ways to exercise that power, and erring on the side of the just begins with appreciating the position, feelings, and humanity of the other person. These theatre techniques assist you in recognizing those things.

As though to come full circle, I listened to a great conversation after returning home about appreciating differences and being human with each other despite those differences. The person being interviewed, Kwame Anthony Appiah, talked about the immediacy of expression in our digital age…how we’re quick to send a caustic email when frustrated with someone else, saying things that we likely wouldn’t say with an hour to cool off (I have painful first-hand experience of that). He also talked about making an intentional effort to talk to people that hold opposite perspectives than yours, and recognizing them as people, regardless of their perspectives. He doesn’t advocate discarding your own beliefs to do so, or to affirm a perspective that you believe to be wrong, but to (in my words) become acquainted with where the other person’s views originate.

What I’m inspired to work more diligently toward (appreciating others’ perspectives) by the interview, the theatre exercises had already motivated me to begin. In spiritual language, we call that “convergence.” The theatre activities that I experienced this weekend were profoundly moving, and I believe I’ll be adding as well as giving up during the rest of the Lenten season: endeavoring to add patience and respect to those relationships in which I find myself in a position of influence.

Because, if we all took our influence as a more sacred obligation, we just might make this whole experience a little better for everyone.

Photo Attribution: Steve Snodgrass

Abbreviating Ourselves to Death

I remember my first graduate course. Specifically, I remember looking though the pages and pages of the syllabus until I reached the term paper assignment. I think most former grad students remember that moment. It’s traumatic, after all. My eyes grew wide and my complexion grew pale as I familiarized myself with the requirements of that one assignment, one of many. I remember well the sentence on the syllabus that said “…qualities valued will include brevity…” How exactly does one achieve brevity in a paper that size? The point was that the professor wouldn’t tolerate any padding or fluff. Every idea and point of that paper had to stand on its own, and there had to be enough of them to make the work cohesive.

Well, I passed. Ever since, though, the word “brevity” has been etched into my brain. It sprang to mind again when I read this op-ed piece over the weekend, in which the writer argues for using shorter (much shorter) writing assignments for his undergraduate English students. He uses the word “concise” instead of “brevity,” but he’s arguing for something similar to my first semester grad school professor. Cut the cliche, cut the filler, and give the facts. Only important material should be in the paper. After all, the writer argues, we live in a culture that values the ability to succinctly communicate your thoughts in a few words. We don’t have time for essays in our day to day lives.

My fellow blogger Jan over at The View From Her asked this week if anyone else was growing “bored with the whole blog thing,” pondering if ideas weren’t communicated that way any more, or at least that most of us didn’t have the energy to say them in that format. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard the question asked. Is blogging dying? Certainly the blogosphere looks different, and is arguably less active, in our current culture of frequent status updates and 140-character sound bytes. Remember when Facebook wasn’t a real-time stream, but a place to communicate with your friends (before it attempted to copy Twitter)? Many have left blogging behind, preferring the quicker stream-of-consciousness that is the status update world. Quick and concise thoughts, without the elaboration.

I’m concerned by this. My initial reaction is that blogging is too valuable a medium to let die, both as a snapshot of the thoughts of the masses and as a game-changer for journalism. Sure, there are bloggers who just write about what they did that day and ate for dinner, the same as there are vloggers that waste YouTube’s bandwidth talking about their haircut. Those, I think, have gravitated much more easily to shorter mediums. There are many, though, who have something to say, something that requires more words to effectively communicate their thoughts.

We’ve all read books and reached the last page groaning about the verbose writing of the author…you know, the writers who take pages of non-fiction space to say what we could have said completely in three paragraphs? That’s one thing. And as much as I love the idea of every thought standing on its own merit, there has to be room for the complete thoughts, as well. I’ve heard it said that, in prose writing, every thought must stand on its own, while in poetry, every word must stand on its own.

Perhaps, if we were moving more toward the poetry, I could more easily accept the idea. Even if we were, though, embracing poetry doesn’t eliminate the need for prose. And, at the end of the day, we’re not embracing any sort of increasing literacy…a fact that is glaring us in the face every time someone uses “2” instead of “to” or “lol” in a tweet (those abbreviations barely even have a place in text messages in an age when many phones have full keyboards). Not everything can be abbreviated effectively, and doing so not only robs the idea of some of its coherence, but works toward the degradation of the language in which the thought is being expressed.

I think of my professional life as an example. I don’t look good on paper, at least not when I’m reduced to a few succinct sentences. Given a seven page CV, I shine, but on a one page resume, not as much. There’s more nuance, more complexity, to anyone’s life than that. Should I find myself applying for a specific position that requires a specific skill set, then that can certainly be achieved in one page. There is much, though, that must be left out, and those things that are left out are important.

Perhaps the issue is that we’re too rushed and impatient to read the depth of anyone’s thoughts. Perhaps the issue is that we’ve forsaken depth in favor of fast-moving trends. Perhaps the issue is that we’re permanently re-wired. Certainly, all of those things are true. Whatever the case, I see the larger issue being the impatience and unwillingness, leading not only to a failure to express our thoughts at length, but also to a failure to entertain others’ thoughts at length. There’s probably something to be said for the narcissism of always wanting to be heard, as well.

Expressing something in its entirety does not mean expressing it verbosely.

Expressing something while valuing brevity does not mean reducing it to a rapid-fire tweets, either.

Should blogging actually be dying, then I think its death is a statement that we aren’t wise enough to recognize the difference.

Photo Attribution: ilovebutter

The Galvanized Grump

It’s so unjust, you know? A little pragmatism and you get the reputation for being a grump. There’s just some things that I tend to get passionate about, is all. And…well…I have difficulty shutting up when friends get on those topics. And then, well, I suppose I might get a little negative about them…perhaps even monopolize the conversation a bit. But a grump? Never.

As Lent arrived this year, I began pondering what it is about my life from which I might choose to abstain for several weeks. All of the immediate answers that I was hearing from friends and connections felt contrived if I tried to apply them to myself. I mean, abstaining from caffeine and the Internet and various other things are all perfectly valid spiritual exercises, don’t get me wrong. I just wasn’t feeling any passion about any of those things. I didn’t see how they would cause any forward momentum in me on a spiritual level.

So, with concrete actions failing me, I started moving into the realm of the abstract. I think what works to make me a worse person (at least lately) is that I get angry. I get angry at social injustice, and I really get irritable when I think about politics lately (it doesn’t help that I live in an area in which I’m surrounded by a very, very conservative political climate…a climate in which I am certainly an alien). It had began altering the way I see friends…causing me to apply stereotypical judgements to them. Knowing that anger and frustration and irritability is always cancerous to one’s soul, I decided that I what I needed to abstain from for Lent was things that brought this out in me. I needed to detox. And, while that would certainly take the form of a great deal of political news, I wasn’t sure what else it would entail.

So, a few days ago, I indicated by way of my Facebook status that I was “giving up negativity for Lent.”

Amazing how a semi-humorous remark like that can spark a comment chain that takes on a life of it’s own. Hilarity ensued. Friends that I haven’t spoken to in a while (and who apparently perceived me as the aforementioned grump) moved from asking me if I could really do it (and alluding to pessimistic but hopeful wishes for my success) to wanting to reconnect with each other. The end result was the planning of a party. I suppose you can’t do much more to combat negativity than that.

There’s been other interesting effects, though. Sometimes detoxing from things that take up too much of our emotional energy leaves empty spaces, and those spaces can then fill with much more important things that require our consideration. It’s like a chamber filled with stale air has been vented to the outside world, and suddenly fresh air comes rushing in to fill the space. That space has to be filled with some sort of air….and positive thoughts are always better than negative.

The things that came rushing in to fill that void keep me up at night sometimes. I spend so much emotional energy being frustrated and anxious about things that I didn’t do when I was younger, things that I needed to do but that honestly just didn’t occur to me. Other things that I just wasn’t motivated enough to do. Things that I said I would do later. Now it’s not only later, but it’s beyond later. I’ve been spending so much time catching up and trying to re-make these passive choices from earlier in life that I’ve neglected things that I need to be taking care of now. Practical things. Important things.

I’ve often hypothesized that I reach emotional milestones late in life. That’s become more than a hypothesis now. I feel as if I’ve been living the last ten years of my life perpetually thinking that I was twenty years old. Recently I’ve awakened, and realized that I need to be dealing with things that I’ve sorely neglected in the present because I’ve been expending valuable (and finite) emotional energy regretting the past.

Replacing that negative vibe with a positive vibe has led me to a conclusion. I need to grieve over those decisions, and let them go. There is a present and future (involving a family) that require my attention. I’m not giving up on correcting some choices that I’ve made…I still think there’s room for maneuverability there. I just can’t let that consume my entire thought process.

Essentially, I can no longer approach it negatively, when there’s a positive way to approach the situation…one that doesn’t require forgoing the present. There’s so much more freedom when I look at it in that way…like a sculptor seeing the shape within the negative space.

Amazing what seemingly random and abstract Lenten practice can do for our emotional states. Here’s to hoping for more productive epiphanies.

Photo Attribution: cameraworx