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The day we turned purple

4/30/2016

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I love the meme that circulated last week after Prince died, the one in which the Space Needle, the Eiffel Tower, and Niagara Falls have all turned purple. It's an excellent reminder of the ways that the arts can bring people together, in turn reminding us of why we need them. Can we seriously imagine a world in which artistic expression has vanished?  And if we can, would that be the kind of world we wish to live in? 

In this case the art form is music, but I believe this to be true of every other genre as well--poetry, drama, novels, sculptures, paintings, you name it. It's also true of the liberal arts disciplines that form the foundation for the expressive and performative arts: the most powerful artistic works are solidly grounded in such fields as history, literature, philosophy, comparative religion.  We don't necessarily need to be experts in all those areas to appreciate this fact, any more than we need to be huge Prince fans ourselves (though in my case, I am) to recognize his impact. As I incessantly tell my students, "liking" something and "appreciating" it are not the same thing, and our own personal tastes to the contrary, a significant aspect of becoming educated is learning how to appreciate the value of something even when we don't particularly "like" it.

In the case of Prince, he was one of those gifted artists who managed to draw in even people who normally wouldn't be fans--partly because he challenged our expectations by defying the usual expectations of genre. I remember an all-day workshop I went to back in the mid 80s, an introduction to music therapy that I attended because I was considering that as a career path (a dream I still haven't given up more than 30 years later, and I wish I could sign up for a few more lifetimes to hit this and a few others). Our workshop facilitator was, in addition to a licensed music therapist, a trained classical musician. Throughout the day she played classical works that she'd found to be of therapeutic value with many of her clients, in the process covering many of the "usual suspects" when it comes to music that heals --the inspiring final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Barber's powerful "Adagio for Strings" (this was just before Platoon would adopt it for psychological effect), the gorgeous "Agnus Dei" from Faure's Requiem (now one of my personal go-to pieces in times of crisis).

Then, she threw us all off by saying that, while many people who know little about classical music can gain therapeutic benefits by learning more about it, not all therapeutic music has to be classical. "This new piece I'm about to play really speaks to me, as well as to many of my clients," she said--and that was the first time I ever heard "When Doves Cry."

Decades have passed, but when I heard the news about Prince and "When Doves Cry" played on the radio for days, I flashed back repeatedly to that scene from my own past, in the process speculating about what my life might have been like had I pursued a career in music therapy instead of literature. The main barrier to taking that pathway, in my case, was the lack of accredited MT schools in our geographical area combined with the difficulty of changing locations, since I was already an adult with a spouse, a mortgage, an existing career, and the need to self-fund my education. Perhaps I didn't want it badly enough, since passion will often find a way. In any case, the road I've taken has been a fantastic one. Besides, I can't now imagine life without the particular people I've met, the experiences I've had, the places I've been.  It's all good.  Still, there are always the what-ifs.  For all of us.

As I expounded at length in my blog posts on celebrity deaths following the loss of Robin Williams in 2014 (read here for a long meditation on Michael Jackson and here for thoughts on Dead Poets Society), our mourning when celebrities die is never only about the person who's died. It is also about the farewells we all must say regularly: to our own prior selves, to our own what-once-was, our own what-ifs, our own what-might-have-beens. They are also nostalgic reminders of who-we-once-were, and poignant reminders of what-never-again-can-be (there won't be a live Prince concert in my future).

And when monuments from many different places light up in a single color in honor of a great artist, that reminds us of the power of human creativity to create bonds, even across seemingly unbridgeable divides.  That's something we especially need right now, at this moment in history when certain people who have the power and resources to bring about great good are instead choosing to use their considerable gifts to sow seeds of division and hatred by exploiting our prejudices and fears.

Less orange, more purple!

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The Cyclopes: They are not yet dead

4/17/2016

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Another nine-week lag, another straggling blog entry, another round of excuses.  I could plead the usual culprits--lesson plans to prep, papers to grade, department to administrate, family to raise--and it would all be true.  (As an aside, it's also the case that Simon Newman resigned from Mount. St. Mary's a few days after my last posting; let's hope the lessons of that episode are taken to heart by a good many people in positions to make it matter.)

I recently realized that beyond all that, I've been resisting my blog because current events almost scream for someone who writes about the humanities to talk about politics, and frankly, I don't really want to.  Only April and I'm weary of this election year already.  I'm even tired of online political discussions with the people I agree with!  (Speaking in person seems to be a different--and better--story.  There's still something to be said for body language, eye contact, audible laughter, and the power of human touch to transcend ideological barriers.  Something about these screens seems to delude many people into thinking verbal abuse becomes acceptable.)

And yet, blithely blogging on without regard to some of what's happening around us feels like it could be misconstrued for apathy.  Well, apathy, it's not.  I think I'm resisting the online political discussion not because I don't care, but because I care too much.  I resist because so much of what I'm seeing and hearing (sometimes, even from people who are ostensibly on the same "side" as me) makes me feel physically sick, and I wonder what's happening to us as a people when some of the public discourse we're hearing is, apparently, now considered acceptable.

All this was swirling through my head earlier this semester as I prepared to teach The Odyssey in my sophomore-level world literature class.  I'd read it many times, first as an undergraduate, and taught it five times in world lit.  But this time, for the first time, the "land of the Cyclopes" jumped off the page at me when I realized they are not mythical monsters from Greek antiquity.  The desire of many to keep themselves apart is still very much alive today:

They have no assemblies or laws but live/In high mountain caves, ruling their own/Children and wives and ignoring each other ...

Blessed with abundance, the Cyclopes either fail to realize, or fail to care, that they would actually prosper more if they cooperated and engaged in cultural exchange rather than remaining isolated, detached from any notion of the commonweal:

The Cyclopes do not sail and have no craftsmen/To build them benched, red-prowed ships/That could supply all their wants, crossing the sea/To other cities, visiting each other as other men do./These same craftsmen would have made this island/Into a good settlement./It's not a bad place at all/And would bear everything in season.

I guess we're not the first ones to invent isolationism, xenophobia, or misguided individualism.  (Whether this realization makes me feel better or worse, I'm not sure.)

Then there is Polythemus, extreme even by Cyclopian standards:  A man/Who pastured his flocks off by himself,/And lived apart from others and knew no law.  When Odysseus and his fellow sailors requested his hospitality and "give us the gifts that are due to strangers" according to the Greek concept of xenia (hospitality to the traveler), Cyclopes responds by eating two of Odysseus' men for dinner, tearing them "limb from limb/To make his supper, gulping them down/Like a mountain lion, leaving nothing behind"--a mere warm-up for the next day's breakfast, when he devours two more. 

Some symbolism needs no further explanation.  "We arrive in a place where the social code says that you welcome 'the wretched refuse of your teeming shore,' and instead of welcoming us, you destroy us."

Most of us probably know the rest of the story--Odysseus wreaks his revenge by using his wily craftiness to get Polyphemus drunk, telling him as he imbibes that his name is "Nobody" before attacking him, putting out one eye.  When Polyphemus calls out for help from the fellow Cyclopes, his scream of "Nobody is killing me!" allows Odysseus to emerge victorious. (Odysseus' own ego leads him to brag about his name before he leaves--ultimately inadvisable  since this is why Cyclopes urges Poseidon to curse Odysseus, making his homeward journey even more vexed than it already was).

I'd always wondered whether Polyphemus actually expected his fellow Cyclopes to help him, given that they lived in "high mountain caves," "ignoring each other."  It always struck me that for someone so disdainful of community, hospitality, and collaboration, as soon as he got attacked, the first thing Polyphemus did was scream for help from others. 

And then I look around and realize: The Cyclopes still walk among us--ranting against taxation yet screaming for help from the fire department when their own houses burn down, rejecting community despite their inability to go it alone, and viewing Others not as humans in need of hospitality but as fodder for their own insatiable appetites.

Nowadays we may not need to build "benched, red-prowed ships," but there is so much we could build if we harnessed our collective talents more effectively: a health care system that actually emphasizes care (and makes a modicum of sense); an educational system that ignites love of learning in people of all ages (and not just for money-making purposes alone); a food supply system that emphasizes health and minimizes waste; a network of jobs, housing options, and mental health treatment that offers meaningful solutions to those who face challenges; and so much, much more. 

Like the Cyclopes, too many of us have lacked the desire.  Too many people have eaten each other (metaphorically) rather than recognizing and implementing the benefits of xenia.  Like the Cyclopes, we've also got the resources.  We could say of our own land what Odysseus spoke when he reached the land of the Cyclopes: It's not a bad place at all/And would bear everything in season.

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    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    The Underground Professor teaches English at a small private university. This blog explores how we might revitalize the humanities in the twenty-first century--and why it's important that we do so, in light of the our culture's current over-emphasis on profitability, quantitative measurement, and corporate control.


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