Random Thoughts: Form and Function

I think for any artist, it is a mistake to think that improving form will automatically improve function.

Consider the career trajectory of a rock musician. The upstart rocker is young, raw, and still developing technical skills on his or her instrument. Sometimes a band will release an album that “takes the world by storm” before its members can read a line of music. What most fans will consider their best album is often an album created from what the band members profess as “little knowledge of what they’re doing.”

An aged rock musician may say, “My skills have improved drastically since my first album.” Though the technical skills may improve, the quality of the music diminishes. The earlier albums had a rawness that lacked sound form, but walloped with effective function. Resonant art requires feeling. A fast solo does nothing without emotion embedding it.

I’m sure the band members of Metallica can play circles around their past selves. They can hit every old solo blindfolded. That does not mean that modern Metallica music is better, however. If anything, the music has objectively staled (almost no one would argue that Death Magnetic is a superior album to Ride the Lightning). Where rock music counterpart Megadeth has an advantage is their continued sense of urgency. Every song is still imbued with feeling. The fifty-year-old has the same attitude as his 18-year-old self. There is still pain, triumph, and loss behind the song structure. The quest continues, and therefore, so does the art.

The issue is similar for a writer. A writer’s prose may improve over the years, but that says nothing of the story he or she may wish to tell. A writer may edit a sentence a hundred times, but each successive edit does not necessarily improve the sentence. The master of syntax is by no means the master storyteller. That first drafted sentence, the impulsive one, may be grammatically worse, but it also may pack more punch. Even if embarrassingly poor in structure, it probably impacts the reader more than the hundredth edit. By the hundredth edit, can it even be said that the writer still maintains the intention of the original sentence? After all, the first sentence was probably written on feeling. The hundredth sentence is often written to impress an audience. Something was lost along the way.

My point is that effective art requires work, but it is a mistake to believe that function requires perfect form. This should be good news to any aspiring artist because it gives him or her permission to be imperfect, so long as they have something to say and a fiery means of saying it. It should also illuminate why a guitar virtuoso is often not the writer of a hit single.

The Weekly Plunder: Week 12 - Cold Rides

Most people hate cycling in cold weather. The frigid and dry winter air bites with sharper teeth when you’re on a bicycle. Fingertips go numb quickly if they aren’t well-insulated. There’s an art to dressing for a winter bike ride.

I find winter cycling to be pretty awesome. The cold gives you something to fight against—an element to conquer and a challenge to navigate. We need challenges in life to overcome. They verify that we’re alive.

Outside of cycling, I have laser focus on rehabilitating my right foot. Getting the foot to 100% health is proving to be a trying process; I have essentially re-learned to walk again over the past few months, and now I have to strengthen a lot of very weak ligaments.

Currently I am regaining stability in the foot by practicing balancing on it, walking on the ball of it, and standing on toes. The foot stability left me on that fateful 36th birthday weekend. But like the seasons, sometimes parts of us die only to later be reborn, albeit reborn with a different set of leaves.

I am seeking a physical therapist to help me with this portion of my recovery. There’s a slight chance I’ll be able to manage a brief jog later this week.

What I’m listening to: “Revelations” by Judas Priest. This is, in my opinion, one of their most overlooked gems. It’s a swirling epic about Nostradamus and his prophesies. The band tries a lot of synths and strings on this album; though it isn’t one of their strongest albums, it has some standout tracks such as this one.

What I’m reading: Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen. Whoa, this is a long book. There’s another powerful section about an aunt who dreams of acting (but fails to “make it big”), lives in New York City, and shuns the suburban family life. She dies of cancer at a young age and with few friends, a real-life Eleanor Rigby. There seems to be a message that our aspirations don’t define us, nor do they ultimately matter much.

What I’m watching: Clint’s Reptiles on YouTube. Reptiles get an unfairly bad reputation when in fact most of them are a tiny fraction as dangerous as dogs (I don’t believe most species of reptiles pose any danger whatsoever unless threatened… but why would you threaten them?). I really enjoyed the video this week on the best “uncommon” pet reptiles. The emerald tree skinks look especially fun.

What I’m doing: I’m standing on one foot, my bad foot, and trying to strengthen it. The road to “100%” is a long one, and it will likely require external help. Sometimes we have to suck it up and ask for help. It ain’t worth attempting the journey alone.

What I’m thinking: I’m thinking of Shenandoah, when I was sleeping in a tent more than 4000 feet up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the dead of night I was awakened by a sudden clang. Something was trying to break into my steel food box outside of my tent, and it was more than likely a black bear (admittedly it could have been a very strong raccoon, though black bears were prevalent in the area).

At the end of the day, we all want the same thing. You, me, the Blue Ridge mountain black bears, and the spiders that hang in the corners of our window frames.

The Weekly Plunder: Week 11 - Off Road

The beauty of the gravel bike is in its lack of limitations. While a road bike has the advantage of speed, it’s also bound to pavement, and therefore subjected to most of the rules of the road.

A gravel bike can handle roads and much more. You can ride through forest, desert, and mountains. You can venture where most dare not walk. You set your own rules when you leave pavement. This gives gravel bike riders a true sense that the world is at their fingertips. Cycling across a country suddenly becomes possible.

Needless to say I’m really enjoying my gravel bike.

What I’m reading: Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen. As far as I can tell it’s a book about shame. There’s a passage in the beginning that I found particularly interesting, about a widow whose husband recently died. A pastor who has romantic interest in her suspects that she will only stay alone for a short period of time out of emotional loyalty, but that what she primarily misses is simply the feeling of companionship. After all, the pastor reasons, we tell ourselves that we will never replace our dead pets, but in due time we find justification for a new cat or dog.

This brought to mind a story I heard of a man whose wife died of cancer. He was back in the dating scene within a short period of time. What a dark epiphany about human nature.

What I’m watching: The Circle on Netflix, season 3. It’s just trashy reality television that kills time. I shouldn’t watch it… but then we shouldn’t do a lot of things that we do anyways.

What I’m listening to: “The Scarecrow” by Avantasia. What a dark, nostalgic, and poignant song. Jorn’s vocals are among his best on this one. As far as I can tell it’s a song about a lonely person who sets out on his or her own strange and twisted journey. Along this person’s journey, there is someone else trying to destroy the person’s belief system. I find it interesting; it brings to mind the transition out of school.

What I’m doing: I’m planning some pretty epic bike rides. I’ve also been searching for a physical therapist for my ankle in hopes of getting it healthy enough to run again. I’d like to run before 2021 ends and am faintly optimistic that I can get there. You don’t expect an injury to take you out of the game for so long, but you have to play the cards you’re dealt.

I also finally bought a skateboard. Why? Because I believe there is incredible value in constantly leaving my comfort zone, in seeing new places, in learning new skills, and in trying new things. I’d rather embrace being a beginner and enjoy being awkward while braving the unknown than remain in predictable territory.

I aim to disrupt my own routines when I can. It’s not about “cycling really far every day” or “running really far”. It’s about moving with a smile. That’s why I got the skateboard.

Suffering, the Precursor to Art

I was reflecting today on why old Soviet literature encompasses a large portion of my favorite novels.

Most of my favorite works were written under iron-fisted bureaucracies (or shortly prior to their arrival), within systems that repressed and compressed the human soul. I find it interesting that from a system that mashes the individual spirit into flattened dough, some of the finest breads were baked.

Soviet writers and painters were forced to hone their crafts within the narrowest boundaries, and despite not capturing what they likely dreamed of capturing, they created something magnificent within the confines of what was allowed. It was a negotiation in some sense, but then almost all art is. Artists were given a litany of things they couldn’t do, and so they perfected what they could.

This reminds me of modern Hollywood film, in a sense. The best works are created with minimal money and resources because the artist must focus on the visual aesthetic and storytelling as a craft. The added skill compensates for a lack of money. Contrarily, when films are given a limitless budget, they often materialize into disaster.

The Master and Margarita, one of my favorite Soviet novels, was not published until well after the author’s death, and several censored version floated around prior.

Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, though written before Lenin, was a product of a rapidly changing time. The aura of the morally degenerating Marxist youths of the time are woven through the book’s pages.

It led me to think that great art requires limitation and perhaps even the total destruction of stability. Confines, therefore, are a precursor to great art, and art is always a negotiation between artist and society.

Yet in America, the best literature was often written in a much different system. I think back to Faulkner, Hemingway, and T.S. Eliot, and the Roaring 20s, and the crash that ensued.

It seems as though with affluence and fame and minimal limitations or censorships, great novels still arose, just with vastly different themes. There were still cultural criticisms to be found, but perhaps the artists themselves, with relatively less censorship, found ways to bring their own demons to the forefront. American authors had a propensity for gluttony and nihilism, and consequently a deep knowledge of the darkest parts of the human soul. Everything good, as shown both internally by the act of alcoholism and drug use, and externally by the Great Depression, will inevitably be destroyed.

Whereas Soviet artists constantly battled their system, the Americans battled their inner demons. Hemingway died of a shotgun wound to the head after decades of chronic alcoholism. Eliot and Faulkner were similarly fond of the bottle. All had ample turmoil within themselves, though of different types for each, which inevitably manifested in their pages.

Therefore it can be assumed that it is not necessarily a repressive system or set of limitations that sets the stage for great art, but rather the act of suffering itself, which can take many forms, both societally and internally.

It is suffering which gives art its meaning because to truly be sustainable, art must tell us something about ourselves that we did not otherwise know, or could not put into words. And to accomplish immortality, the artist must sink into the darkest nether regions of the human soul, and return sane enough to tell what’s down there.

Every artist, regardless of era or upbringing, is sacrificial in some sense because of this.