Time and Tide

My Mother-in-law is fascinated on occasion by a book, The Rivers Ran East. It's a story about an explorer's adventures searching for a legendary city of gold, and when she gets onto the subject, one is as likely to be entertained by the lengthy and complicated story of how she first encountered the book as a summary of what it is about.

Lately, she rediscovered the book and has been rereading it, stopping daily to urge me to read it and attempting to press her copy on me with the enthusiasm of an evangelist with a brand new edition of the New Testament and a tribe of undiscovered natives to convert. I unfortunately am in the process of trying to finish my own reading project, an old paperback of Joseph Conrad's Nostromo.* It seems the curse of my work and life that I either have a great deal of time to intensely read, and plow through multiple books in short order, or no time at all, meaning I might get through a single page before unintentionally falling asleep, the book slipping from numb fingers as reading glasses droop on the bridge of my nose.

Which gets me, after this overlong prelude, to the point of all this: time.

Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe than time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important how we lived. After all, Number One, we're only mortal.

-Jean Luc Picard

Star Trek: Generations

That's very nice, but I tend to agree with -- or at least feel the same as -- the "someone," actually the movie's villain. He was willing to sacrifice an entire planet and those aboard the USS Enterprise to step into a timeless rift in the universe, freezing himself in any time he chose so as to not be stalked by the predator he feared. Not sure I go that far, but I do have some trouble seeing the grinding passage of time as some sort of amiable companion.

The other day, I heard a book discussion on the BBC with Judith Kerr, the author of When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. It is a novelized version of her own life as a young Jewish girl in Germany during the rise of Hitler. In it, she admitted that the book's title was not where she started, nor even her idea, but it was what struck me very strongly, especially as it was all I knew of her or the book before hearing the rest of the broadcast. It refers to how, in their escape from Germany to Britain by way of Switzerland, the young Judith lost her treasured pink, plush rabbit, left behind in their home. She writes how, as a child, she imagined Hitler keeping the toy himself, as some treasure of his own. But as a parent (and an unreconstructed child) I am tragically struck by the sad loss of a beloved toy.

What Are You Afraid Of?

When I was a child -- or rather a young teen -- the concept of mortality struck me very strongly. It became finally, inevitably clear that there was no escaping death, and there is no clear answer to what exactly death brings. One can choose faith, or perhaps some vague concept of the supernatural, or one can resign oneself to ceasing to exist -- Pop! -- in a terrifying obliteration of self. It frightened me, and there were long periods where, poignantly self-aware, I saw the approaching darkness with dread.

Now older -- more than four times my age then -- the fear has faded, to be replaced by regret and a deep sense of loss. Time, rather being a fearful treadmill driving me to uncertain obliteration, is now a thief, stealing away friends and family, treasured moments and possessions.

I guess this too is a factor of aging. I no longer fear the future (that inevitable knock to come from the Reaper), but a loss of the past. As a teen, there was more future, and I looked forward. But now there's more past, and I guess I cling to the things that give me comfort.


*About the books: This was started ages ago, and I have finally finished Nostromo. I have not finished The Rivers Ran East, a dreary accounting of discomfort, danger, flesh-burrowing bugs, and cannibalistic natives written by a man who intentionally set out with inadequate support, supplies, or money. I have since moved on and read two other books. My mother-in-law has happily also moved on to other books ... though I'm sure my day of reckoning shall came.

The Secret Code of Cartoons

My mother-in-law lives with us. At 90, she is slightly (she would say) hard of hearing, and so generally one can hear what she has on the television. Today, it was "Stagecoach," the classic John Ford Western. And while I of course recognized the music (a compilation of Western melodies and generic period orchestral accompaniment) , it was suddenly the orchestration itself that struck me. I realized it sounded just like the music in a Warner Brothers cartoon.

Carl Stalling, the man behind the music in the classic Warner Brothers cartoons, was a true genius recently appreciated with a collection of his work. As the booklet in the disc set explains, "Stalling's propensity for flat-out quotations of Warners-owned pop songs and public domain folk tunes is evident from the very first." Indeed, as the publication explains, a key part of Stalling's work was his encyclopedic memory of songs available in the Warner's catalog -- music the studio already owned the rights to and could use without cost or limit.

Now, this meant a lot more when the cartoons were made in the 40s, because these songs were not only owned by the studio, they were well known tunes from feature films, and also pop hits. So when Stalling chose "We're in the Money" for Daffy's celebration of greed in "Ali Baba Bunny," it wasn't just a pleasant piece of music to fill out the audio track.

But what struck me today was the realization that there was a secondary undercurrent in that backmessage. The orchestration itself -- perhaps accidentally, because that's how movie music was done then, perhaps with intent -- also sends its own message. The music coming out of my mother-in-law's room, without the visuals allowing me to pigeonhole it as feature or cartoon, sounded just like the cartoon music.

So the cartoon, given a fraction of the time a feature gets, was able to concentrate its message with a range of cultural references, tune choices ... and they way those tunes were played.

I Must Struggle to Write

I have written before about my irregular habit of posting for this blog, and my desire to do more. But, as I say in the title, I must struggle to write ... as in write more, and more regularly.

Great writers develop habits, like those listed here, and here. I need to make a habit of writing.

As with all things, the problem is time. I've written about time before too, though not in a way useful to this, but it is interesting. The problem is there's not enough time. Like most Americans today, I feel I barely have enough time to do what needs to be done to begin with. (And I'm told I need to accept this as "the new normal," which I refuse to do, but that's another post. Look, I'm ahead of the game already!)

What I need to do is start controlling and carving up my time in some sort of fairly organized fashion. Writing is work too. Treat it as such.

Everyone Is Not a Photographer

Now, with ten million iPhones and fully automatic, digital cameras, everyone can be a photographer, right? Photojournalism can be easily replaced with user-submitted content (after all, we can't be everywhere, while they are) and what story illustration that is needed can be done by reporters with minimal training and smart equipment, can't it? and, as was once said to me by a manager, if you think about it, all the greatest, most famous spot news pictures were shot by amateurs, weren't they?

What crap, and here's just one example of why. Shortly after the bombing in Brussels airport, videos appeared, notably one of grainy, black-and-white CCTV footage, claiming to show the event. But it wasn't. And it wasn't the only example of crowd-sourced deception and fallacy. The BBC in 2012  used a user-submitted photo to illustrate a Syrian massacre. Too bad it was a news photo of bodies in Iraq. (And don't act all smug by pointing out that I'm offering just two examples in four years; I could cite dozens, but just don't have time to do the research. You know this is a problem. Don't be obtuse.)

Quality is usually the argument I make in this area, but it's more than that. It's trust. The entire concept of journalism as we know it today is based on the trust that what is being shown and reported is in some way true, and it's the loss of that trust through technological developments like Photoshop and the self-inflicted wound of wanting more for less and less. Just hire -- and adequately pay -- professionals to do a proper job.

So This Is Lent

In what is one of the most brilliant episodes of an often brilliant show (masquerading as a snarky cartoon), Futurama addressed the question of God. In one sequence, a group of vaguely Tibetan monks, the Monks of Dschubba, appear. They spend lifetimes using a radio telescope, searching the universe for God.

Protagonist Philip J. Fry wants to use the telescope to search for his lost robot friend, Bender, and pleads for a moment with the Monks' equipment.

Philip J. Fry: Come on, you guys have forever to find God. All I'm asking is one measly lifetime to find my friend. 

Monk #2: Master, he speaks out of love for his friend. Perhaps that love in his heart is God. 

Monk #1: Oh, how convenient! A way of looking for God that doesn't require looking through a telescope. Get back to work!

This is just one glorious little gem in the episode, but one which I always look forward to, because it summarizes how many of us approach religion these days, and it's this attitude that Lent is here to help us reorient ourselves.

This is something that has bothered me for a while. As I said in my last post, so many have lightly "adopted" Lent -- or at least the language of Lent -- without giving any thought to its meaning or putting in a real effort.

So what am I getting at? Am I just being an elitist killjoy, demanding others to quit having fun, stop taking stuff with a sense of humor, and while they're at it, get the hell off of my lawn? I hope not, but by the same token, I want us to take a moment to think about whether we have ceased to take anything seriously as we have rationalized and excused ourselves from any spiritual work at all.

Take those who say, "I go surfing on Sundays, because I think I'm more in touch with God out there on the waves, becoming one with nature ..." And so on. Blah, blah, blah. As the Master of the Dschubba might say: "No you're not! What crap! You're surfing." That's like saying, "God wants me to be happy, so a weekend in Vegas, drunk and with hookers, will bring me closer to the Lord." That may be the Charlie Sheen method (and look where that's gotten him), but it ain't religion, or for that matter spiritual.

If you're going to claim a religion, then do it. Actually put in a little effort, for God's sake. And that -- he says, finally getting back to the start -- is what Lent is all about. It's a time to pause and think. It's a time to stop congratulating yourself, indulging yourself, letting yourself off the hook. It's a time to ask: How can I be better? How can I do more? How can I more properly fulfill the spirituality I claim to have?

Or you can go surfing and give up chocolate or something. Whatever.

Uninspired

I once told a friend -- happily a frequent viewer then of this blog -- that I had a hard time finding stuff to say. I needed to be both inspired and inspiring, and I still think I do.

There are some pieces in the works, but writing is hard. To find something worthy of your time (I refuse to be the guy who does the word equivalent of posting a picture of lunch on Twitter) and then to make it something that is readable, something that has writing that makes reading easy and ideally a pleasure ... well, it takes work, and concentration, and time. I find I just don't have any of that. Especially concentration.

What is it about days recently that I not only keep running out of time (I'm stealing a moment here while actually working as an audio technician at a radio station) but more importantly focus? I used to consume books wholesale, take time to read news, come up with the occasional original idea, and maybe settle in for a moment to form what I think is an interesting little piece of writing that might entertain others.

But now it's a treadmill of crisis management; the focus just isn't there. I have never had the most patient personality -- I find things like jogging boring; I've always said my short attention span made me perfect for television -- but now no cohesive thought, no structured story arc or well reasoned argument can settle in for production.

It's a predicament ....

Authenticity

Commentator and columnist H. A. Goodman recently wrote on the Huffington Post: "Americans have never voted for someone they don't like and don't trust, which says something about the Clinton and Trump campaigns. When only one candidate is trusted in a presidential election, and another remembers landing in Bosnia under sniper fire (that never happened), there's only one likely outcome."

"As a general rule, I don't trust many politicians, but I trust Bernie Sanders — the man walks the walk and talks the talk," Shaun King writes in the New York Daily News. "I believe in him, I believe in his team and I believe he can win."

For someone who wrote, back when I first started the experiment of blogging, that I wouldn't do politics, I have been writing a lot on politics lately. But I begin here because an election provides a good, obvious testing ground for what appeals and what doesn't, providing clear metric results rapidly. Politicians must find an image, a simple concept ideally expressed in one word (eg: Hope), that will drive people who don't otherwise pay a lot of attention to the details of government to vote for them.

It can be anything, and you can frequently see campaigns run through efforts to find their theme, and a theme may ring true but not be the one that wins. The successful campaign links that season's Zeitgeist with an image that works.

I think the theme of this season is: Authenticity.

In an age of internet memes (Where's my money from Facebook? What, that's a lie?), "reality" TV, and Photoshopped pictures, it's hard for people to believe anything. For something to be simply true, without hidden agendas or outright deception, seems not just refreshing but unique.

A good example of how it works is the Maroon 5 music video of their song, "Sugar."

It shows the band doing ambush concerts at weddings, surprising happy couples with a special treat. Now, there is some question of just how authentic the video is, but perhaps this makes my point. It has almost a billion views (yes, billion with a B) and has a generally positive response.

When I first saw it, I said it was just the sort of thing the candidates should do right now, while their characters are still being established in the public mind. Once a politician has a fixed storyline (Al Gore is boring, George W Bush is dumb), it's very hard to break them out of their public pigeonhole. No amount of aides saying, "If you only saw him off camera! He's nothing like that!" will fix things.

Maroon 5 comes across as genuine, playful, and appealing, bringing a surprising moment of joy to people who obviously like them. What politician wouldn't do anything for that image? Or, for that matter, what business wouldn't love to have customers feel that way?

And the video brings this across in an almost documentary form, re-enforcing the image by showing it in a form that looks captured on the fly, occasionally peeking behind the curtain (watching them drive to the gigs, setting up the stage, sharing drinks after with the couple) as well as embracing handheld camera work, etc.

In the end, I think people want to know you are what you seem to be, whether you're a politician or a business, and you need to show them that.

Sincerity - If you can fake that, you've got it made.

-- George Burns

(At least I think so; I found it on the internet)