Arts

19th Century Russia is Current America?

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Portrait of an Unknown Woman - Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoi
Portrait of an Unknown Woman – Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoi

“The liberal party said that in Russia everything is wrong, and certainly Stepan Arkadyevitch had many debts and was decidedly short of money. The liberal party said that marriage is an institution quite out of date, and that it needs reconstruction; and family life certainly afforded Stepan Arkadyevitch little gratification, and forced him into lying and hypocrisy, which was so repulsive to his nature. The liberal party said, or rather allowed it to be understood, that religion is only a curb to keep in check the barbarous classes of the people; and Stepan Arkadyevitch could not get through even a short service without his legs aching from standing up, and could never make out what was the object of all the terrible and high-flown language about another world when life might be so very amusing in this world… He read the leading article, in which it was maintained that it was quite senseless in our day to raise an outcry that radicalism was threatening to swallow up all conservative elements, and that the government ought to take measures to crush the revolutionary hydra; that, on the contrary, ‘in our opinion the danger lies not in that fantastic revolutionary hydra, but in the obstinacy of traditionalism clogging progress,’ etc. etc.”

-Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Soviet Ray Bradbury Animations

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Zdes Mogut Voditsya Tigry

I’m a fan of Soviet-era films and cartoons. The number of ham-handed, ideologically-driven films is not as great as one might think. There are plenty of faithful adaptations of western literature with high production values even on low budgets, and sensitivity to the philosophical and spiritual aspects of the stories. There also many comedies, and things like crudity and nudity are fairly rare. Plus, my wife grew up on many of these, so it has been a great way to bond. Yesterday I came across two animated shorts that I hadn’t seen before. Both are 1980s adaptations of Ray Bradbury stories (there are English subtitles). The plots are altered somewhat. Here There Be Tygers explores the beauty in life, and how our responses to that beauty reveal who we really are. Innocence and self-sacrifice are contrasted with destructive greed. There Will Come Soft Rains changes why the automated house is destroyed, introducing a darker, and more disturbing apocalyptic theme with a religious subtext. This is a good reminder that both animation and science fiction can be very serious art forms indeed, and definitely worth watching.

Kaskade: Global Mormon Superstar

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851 - Kaskade

Brandon Flowers, Neon Trees, Imagine Dragons, Lindsey Stirling, and now another Mormon superstar: Kaskade. Or, as the Daily Beat puts it, The Straight Edge Mormon DJ Taking Over the World. As the article’s lede puts it:

Kaskade has been DJing dance parties for 20 years, and last year was the No. 8 highest-paid DJ in the world, raking in $17 million. But he isn’t like other DJs.

Why is he not like other DJs? Well, because he doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, and is married with three kids. I’m not one of those who cares overly much about Mormon celebrities perfectly representing our faith (who can do that?), but I’m always happy to see someone willing to go public about their commitment to our basic ideals.

“I don’t party at all!” he says. “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. I’m a bit of a freak that way because I’m completely different from what you would think. Look, you can’t put all electronic musicians or DJs or whatever you want to call us in one pot. A lot of these guys live in the night and party, but with me, I’m married and have three children. I have a life outside of this.”

Not that that’s all there is to him; the article goes into his years of struggle and honing his craft to build the career he has today:

I mention the booming business of EDM and what exactly the word “DJ” encompasses these days, since many of the so-called “world class DJs” of today are programmers who don’t actually know how to spin records.

“It’s a little insulting,” he says. “Right now, the landscape of what encompasses the word ‘DJ’ is so broad and vast now. You have guys like me who learned on vinyl, know the technique, and know what this really is. I witnessed the whole rise of it. I was friends with Frankie [Knuckles], and I was going to his weekly parties at Medusa’s when I was in high school in the mid-’80s.”

“It’s changed the landscape of what this is. The entry point used to be so much higher, and there was so much more respect for the art of DJing and what it was. We’ve lost some of that now.”

So, if you’re curious to check out some of his music, here’s the track that Buzzfeed featured in their article, “Let Me Disarm You.”

Four Lessons on Emotions from Pixar’s ‘Inside Out’

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I’m a huge Pixar fan. Have been ever since 1995’s Toy Story. One of the best books I’ve read this year is Pixar founder Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. The studio’s film quality is highly consistent[ref]There are exceptions like Cars.[/ref] and their latest Inside Out is no exception. This film tackles the complicated subject of human emotions (in the form of a little girl named Riley) and does so extremely well.[ref]I was holding back tears the final 20 minutes.[/ref] Their ability to handle the subject of emotions so delicately and accurately was likely aided by their scientific consultants, one of which is director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. Because the film presents a healthy understanding of emotions, parents should seriously consider taking their children to see it and use it as a teaching tool. Here are four lessons kids (and adults) can learn from Inside Out:

1. Happiness is not just about joy

[B]y the end of the film, Joy [Amy Poehler]…learns that there is much, much more to being happy than boundless positivity. In fact, in the film’s final chapter, when Joy cedes control to some of her fellow emotions, particularly Sadness, Riley seems to achieve a deeper form of happiness.

This reflects the way that a lot of leading emotion researchers see happiness. Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of the best-selling How of Happiness, defines happiness as “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.” (emphasis added) So while positive emotions such as joy are definitely part of the recipe for happiness, they are not the whole shebang.

2. Don’t try to force happiness

Thank goodness emotion researcher June Gruber and her colleagues started looking at the nuances of happiness and its pursuit. Their findings challenge the “happy-all-the-time” imperative that was probably imposed upon many of us.

For example, their research suggests that making happiness an explicit goal in life can actually make us miserable. Gruber’s colleague Iris Mauss has discovered that the more people strive for happiness, the greater the chance that they’ll set very high standards of happiness for themselves and feel disappointed—and less happy—when they’re not able to meet those standards all the time.

…What’s a more effective route to happiness for Riley (and the rest of us)? Recent research points to the importance of “prioritizing positivity”—deliberately carving out ample time in life for experiences that we personally enjoy. For Riley, that’s ice hockey, spending time with friends, and goofing around with her parents.

3. Sadness is vital to our well-being

…Sadness connects deeply with people—a critical component of happiness—and helps Riley do the same…In one the film’s greatest revelations, Joy looks back on one of Riley’s “core memories”—when the girl missed a shot in an important hockey game—and realizes that the sadness Riley felt afterwards elicited compassion from her parents and friends, making her feel closer to them and transforming this potentially awful memory into one imbued with deep meaning and significance for her.

With great sensitivity, Inside Out shows how tough emotions like sadness, fear, and anger, can be extremely uncomfortable for people to experience—which is why many of us go to great lengths to avoid them…But in the film, as in real life, all of these emotions serve an important purpose by providing insight into our inner and outer environments in ways that can help us connect with others, avoid danger, or recover from loss.

4. Mindfully embrace–rather than suppress–tough emotions

At one point, Joy attempts to prevent Sadness from having any influence on Riley’s psyche by drawing a small “circle of Sadness” in chalk and instructing Sadness to stay within it. It’s a funny moment, but psychologists will recognize that Joy is engaging in a risky behavior called “emotional suppression”—an emotion-regulation strategy that has been found to lead to anxiety and depression, especially amongst teenagers whose grasp of their own emotions is still developing. Sure enough, trying to contain Sadness and deny her a role in the action ultimately backfires for Joy, and for Riley…Toward the end of the movie, Joy does what some researchers now consider to be the healthiest method for working with emotions: Instead of avoiding or denying Sadness, Joy accepts Sadness for who she is, realizing that she is an important part of Riley’s emotional life. 

Emotion experts call this “mindfully embracing” an emotion. What does that mean? Rather than getting caught up in the drama of an emotional reaction, a mindful person kindly observes the emotion without judging it as the right or wrong way to feel in a given situation, creating space to choose a healthy response. Indeed, a 2014 study found that depressed adolescents and young adults who took a mindful approach to life showed lower levels of depression, anxiety, and bad attitudes, as well as a greater quality of life.

Everyone should go see it.

New SPECTRE Trailer Released

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Finally, the new trailer has been released for the upcoming James Bond film SPECTRE.

This apparent throwback to the old-school Bond films[ref]The organization SPECTRE was the main villain in Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds are Forever, and the unofficial Never Say Never Again.[/ref] not only features Christoph Waltz in a Blofeldish Chinese collar,[ref]Dr. Evil sports a similar outfit.[/ref] but the trailer also uses the theme from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (the film in which Bond lost his bride at the hands of SPECTRE’s mastermind and his right-hand woman).

Needless to say, I’m stoked.

A New Spin on “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

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So, this is awesome:

[BYU grad] Rob Gardner of “Lamb of God” fame has come together with two friends for a new project with a focus on covering iconic pop songs with a full orchestra, a choir and soloists. Gardner arranged the pieces and co-produced the project with long-time friends and collaborators, brothers Drex and McKane Davis…The project is called Cinematic Pop, and its purpose is cover well-known and popular songs using a cinematic orchestral medium to rekindle an appreciation for the value of orchestral music, both in general and especially with younger generations. “One of our goals and passions for this project is to it bring young people, to get them excited about symphonic music, orchestral music,” Davis said. “Attendance to symphonies across the nation has been decreasing over the years, so to be able to bring the younger generation to that music and introduce it in a creative and impactful way is something that is really core to what we’re doing.” …At this point, the producers plan to release 10 videos total, but the project doesn’t end with the videos. Davis said they all feel passionate about the power of experiencing live music, and they plan to take the show on the road.

Here is their version of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit“:

 

Why I Don’t Trust Modern Art or Professional Philosophers

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865 - The Square

There was an article in the New Yorker last month called The Square that pretty well encapsulates why I am deeply suspicious of both modern art and professional philosophers. The eponymous painting is above. A sample of the text follows:

In 1913, or 1914, or maybe 1915—the exact date is unknown—Kazimir Malevich, a Russian painter of Polish descent, took a medium-sized canvas (79.5 cm. x 79.5 cm.), painted it white around the edges, and daubed the middle with thick black paint. Any child could have performed this simple task, although perhaps children lack the patience to fill such a large section with the same color. This kind of work could have been performed by any draftsman—and Malevich worked as one in his youth—but most draftsmen are not interested in such simple forms. A painting like this could have been drawn by a mentally disturbed person, but it wasn’t, and had it been it’s doubtful that it would have had the chance to be exhibited at the right place and at the right time.

After completing this simple task, Malevich became the author of the most famous, most enigmatic, and most frightening painting known to man: “The Black Square.” With an easy flick of the wrist, he once and for all drew an uncrossable line that demarcated the chasm between old art and new art, between a man and his shadow, between a rose and a casket, between life and death, between God and the Devil. In his own words, he reduced everything to the “zero of form.” Zero, for some reason, turned out to be a square, and this simple discovery is one of the most frightening events in art in all of its history of existence.

Here is what irks me: the painting only works within the context of a bunch of fairly esoteric and inside-baseball talk. The picture, itself, represents nothing. It means nothing. It is, more or less, nothing. Not in some pseudoprofound “Zero, for some reason, turned out be a square” nonsense, but in the mundane, “not much to see here” sense.

I suppose you could argue that it’s a matter of taste, and I’m sure to some extent that is true. Some people like art that speaks to them. Others, for whatever reason, prefer art that requires a thesis-worth of material outside the work in question to be able to find a voice. Call me a grouchy old man, but if you listen to a section of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana or stand before a Gothic cathedral or stare up at the Sistine Chapel, you’re going to feel something. You might feel much more if you are a musician, or an art historian, or an architect, but just anybody is going to feel something. [ref]Carmina Burana was finished in 1936, by the way, so I’m not just fetishizing old stuff.[/ref]

And that is what I fundamentally don’t like about modern art. Or about professional philosophers. They are elitist to the point of nihilism. They are belligerent and arrogant in their intentional impenetrability. They are fundamentally hostile to the everyman. And, quite frankly, ain’t nobody got time for that. Give me art, any day of the week, that is actually trying to communicate something to me as I am. Not that is intentionally whispering to only a chosen, select few. Even if I can hear, I have no interest in being part of that anti-humane snobbery.

The Relevance of Shakespeare

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It was deeply fascinating to watch how strikingly contemporary American audiences from coast to coast found Shakespeare’s Othello — painfully immediate in its unfolding of evil, innocence, passion, dignity and nobility, and contemporary in its overtones of a clash of cultures, of the partial acceptance of and consequent effect upon one of a minority group. Against this background, the jealousy of the protagonist becomes more credible, the blows to his pride more understandable, the final collapse of his personal, individual world more inevitable. But beyond the personal tragedy, the terrible agony of Othello, the irretrievability of his world, the complete destruction of all his trusted and sacred values — all these suggest the shattering of a universe.

I was reminded of these words after reading Dana Dusbiber’s post on why Shakespeare should not be taught. In a nutshell, he is difficult, white, and long dead. How could someone like that be relevant in today’s diverse classroom? The words at the top of the page were written not by any white academic in an ivory tower, but by Paul Robeson, the singer, athlete, actor, and black activist. Growing up, Paul Robeson was a hero to me. I always felt a little out of place, and though Robeson died before I was born, his story was inspiring. He had talent, courage, and conviction, speaking always with a profound dignity. Electrifying. The man was like a king. His lifelong struggle was to create a society in which all people were treated equally because he knew how awful the alternative was. Robeson was the first black actor in the twentieth century to play Othello, using the role to break down barriers against integration both on stage and off it. In the play, Othello is at the top of his profession. He is a key man in Venice, is wealthy, and has married into Venetian society. Despite all that, Othello feels insecure because he is an outsider, and his rivals use that insecurity to destroy him. Why wouldn’t such a play be relevant to “very ethnically-diverse and wonderfully curious modern-day students?” Even if you share the majority’s skin pigmentation, why would Othello not have anything to say to the kid that never feels that he fits in, no matter his accomplishments? I was that kid. Let’s not hurry to dismiss Shakespeare just because he happens to be white and dead.

Brandon Flowers as Role Model

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891 - Brandon Flowers

I’ve written several times before about the tension between a desire to create something great and the feeling that all the greats were kind of crazy people with seriously unbalanced lives. Read enough bios and you quickly get the impression that the muses–artistic, scientific, or other–require jealous tribute. You don’t get to have a comfortable, stable family life and make a masterpiece. You must be tortured in order to be a genius.

Even though I’m not sure I’ll ever qualify to make that decision, and even though I’m pretty sure it will not ever be distilled into an actual moment-in-time choice; I’ve still decided to make my mind up preemptively. If I ever get to choose between making something great and my family, then I choose my family.[ref]Which, just so we’re clear, doesn’t guarantee that I’m going to do a bang-up job of that any more than if I made the choice the other way it would guarantee the Great American Novel would be mine for the writing.[/ref]

Does this preclude me from doing good artistic work? I hope not, and folks like Brandon Flowers give me hope. Here he is talking to NPR’s David Greene:

GREENE: So you’re sober. You are a devout Mormon. You’re family man, three kids, yet, you know, you’re pulled by the spirit of Elvis. You, yourself, have, you know, a rock and roll kind of image, you know, and that you’ll show onstage. I mean, these seem to be conflicting impulses here.

FLOWERS: They are. I mean, I’m not without temptation or anything like that, but I – you know, I also feel like I learned a lot in the early days, having that contrast of knowing what I felt, what made me feel good and then trying to fit into this role of a – you know, of the lead singer of a rock band. You know, because I’ve had both of those experiences, it made it easier for me to decide which road I was going to take.

Clearly there’s a lot more that separates me from Flowers, and rock musician has never been my particular dream. (Too noisy.) But it’s great to have a role model out there who is putting out great work, doing it without turning his life into a melodrama worthy of Greek tragedy, and acknowledging that it’s because of a choice he made.