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Psychology

Seeing Red

Last night I watched a movie, Tár, Todd Field’s 2022 film starring Cate Blanchett (fabulous performance) as a famous female conductor whose life unravels, seemingly, when her past actions catch up with her. Honestly, I cannot describe what I saw with anything amounting to a rational interpretation. It is a labyrinth, proud of its plethora of cues and hints dropped all over that allow for multiple readings of what the whole thing is about.

A story about the evils of cancel culture? A story about the need for calling out perpetrators who then deserve a fitting fate, or an exploration of how rumors and innuendo destroy a life? Is it a ghost story, or a horror story or a warning tale of what happens when you pop too many pills that were not meant for you in the first place? A psychological profile about addiction to pills that might induce hallucinations, or lead to physical falls that in turn might give you concussive brain damage leading to hallucinations? Is it a tale about how lies, ambition, greed and taking no hostages along the way eventually lead to someone’s downfall, greek mythology for the modern consumer in a Me-Too era? Perhaps.

Reviews ranged from drooling (in the NYT,) to scathing (in The New Yorker,) to at least helpful (in Slate) with every single one I read, including the adoring ones from the British media, written by a man. The protagonist, Lydia Tár, originally Linda Tarnowsky, who grew up in a working-class, immigrant household that she has long obscured, is a woman of major talent and equally large appetites, for the good life and young flesh, respectively. There is clear evidence of some seductions of proteges, and more that are insinuated. Conveniently she is depicted as a lesbian, in a relationship with another woman who served her originally to get to her goal to conduct a major symphony orchestra in Berlin, and whose medications (for heart problems or anxiety, unclear) she hoards for herself. Her role as “father” in that couple’s family is enough of a male attribute to allow the viewer to buy into the me-too scenario that unfolds, as if being a cis woman would not suffice to make accusations swallowable.

We see her genuinely passionate about music, interpreting composers, getting the best performance out of her players. We also see her as being transactional in every relationship on the scene, and full of contempt, coldness or scathing for those who stand in her way or won’t do her bidding.

One of her former proteges and lovers who she actively undermined in the professional music field, commits suicide. Weird events start to intrude into Tár’s days that might or might not be auditory and visual hallucinations, or skillfully placed signs by revenging entities that slowly drive her into some form of madness.

Eventually, the chickens come home to roost; not only is she rejected by her newest paramour, but there seems to be an organized movement by many of the victims, competitors or offended people that lead to her down fall. She loses everything, her child, her marriage, her professional standing.

In the last part of the movie she is en route to the only new job she could find, in some unnamed place in Asia. She travels down a river, which might as well be the river Styx, in a tourist boat, and crouches, submerged, in a cave behind a waterfall, cut off from humanity, in what might as well be the entrance to Hades.

In the final scene we see her conducting a mediocre orchestra in front of an audience of fans dressed up and masked in the bizarre costumes of Manga conventions, with a movie about to be screened that seems to be a super-hero or science fiction tale. Whether it is all a dream or the reality remains unclear, but the unraveling is clearly linked in time to when she took a bad fall while fleeing a seeming monster, imaginary or not.

Death is Scandalous. Philosophizing at the Cemetery. (Lecture announcement.)

Is she a monster? Is she a victim? Both? Are there ghosts lurking out there bringing about revenge? Can you tell that I have been thinking out loud, trying to grasp something when I didn’t? Any suggestions are welcome, as is your opinion whether a director of Field’s caliber (and gender) should have devoted his first film in 16 years to exposing a woman in a me-too scenario, without ever committing to a clear differentiation between perpetrators and victims. I don’t know what to make of that.

What I do know is that there went a lot of care into the visuals, with admirable success in creating a gothic, grey, white and black ambience that colored everything in the upper strata of social life: from white private jets to dark-grey tailor-made suits; dark lecture halls for interviews, or restaurants that might have served the mafia dons or members of the House of Lords; cold concrete wall of Brutalist architecture in a cold marital home.

And finally white pants of those who’ll rise as avengers of the oppressed and abused, white blouses for a betrayed spouse.

Red comes in sparingly, and always associated with outrageous action. The hair of the suicidal protege, glimpsed like a ghost from behind, or with her face covered up by Tár’s body, is red.

The luxury bag of one of Tár’s admirers, coveted and snatched as a prize by Tár for a one-night-stand with the groupie, is red. The jacket of a child bullying Tár’s daughter, a child she accosts with unimaginable cruelty and threat, is red. A forgotten toy that leads to the accident at the turning point of Tár’s life, is brownish red. And the number 5, which plays a crucial part in the narrative of Tár’s ascent to stardom in her ruthless pursuit of conducting Mahler’s Fifth as her masterpiece, appears in red late in the film, leading her to be violently, physically ill.

Fiasco

Not a bad choice for a film that scatters clues in countless other ways. After all, red is the color in the visible spectrum that scatters least due to its long wave length (620-750 nm). Scattering refers to light getting deviated from its straight path upon striking an obstacle, such as dust, gas molecules or water vapor. The light is redirected in different directions (said scattering) after hitting the particles present in the medium. Red, then, makes for a good choice when you want a signal that catches attention even when visibility is compromised by obstacles, like fog or smoke (I guess literally as much as metaphorically.) In real life, of course, it serves as a warning signal: think brake lights, traffic lights, red warning flags, flags in bull fights or the ones of old that were wave at the commence of action on the battle field.

Red might also elicit emotions like anger or fear, given that it is often associated with dangerous stimuli, like fire, poisonous snakes, insects or berries, wounds and blood. “Seeing red” is a term that in fact correlates with an individual’s personal traits: people who rate high in hostility see far more red in ambiguous stimuli (colors that are faded and could be either red or blue) and also prefer the color red ( which might bias them towards the interpretation above.) They also engage in more interpersonal hostility, if they prefer the color red over blue. And of course, their anger raises the blood to their face, looking red. (Ref.)

I guess Field (who grew up in Portland, by the way,) has done his homework in the psychological literature or was just intuitively spot on, when he designed his color markers for the film. Alas, despite all visual signals, the meaning still feels scattered. Maybe I simply don’t run on the same wave length….

Music today is another composition that plays a major role in the film: Elgar’s Cello Concerto, here performed by a very young Jaqueline du Pré. It is a sad, contemplative work written directly after WW I, in 1919, echoing a world full of anguish. Elgar was ill, depressed and disillusioned. Fits entirely well with the unfolding of Tár’s drama.


Double Standards.

On days when I cannot control the chaos in my brain, I sometimes turn to my desk drawer and tend to the chaos in there instead. Nothing like a bit of sorting and discarding to make yourself believe there can be order in the world, if only for two seconds.

This time I straightened out an accumulation of calendars; as regular readers know, I create one each year as a fundraiser for Streetroots, a PDX organization that produces a weekly paper, working with the houseless, and I also use them as gifts for the many people in my life who deserve one. Well, that sounds abominably condescending. Scratch it. Calendars make for good gifts, how’s that?

Last year’s calendar, Fusion, was all about showcasing some lovely birds I had photographed over time, putting them playfully into settings where they did not belong, still lives for the most part. Note the word playfully. It has taken me a long time to feel confident enough to work with birds without some intellectual excuse, given that the Portland slogan “put a bird on it” resonates with its sneer.

I had done two series with birds before, both concerned with the impact of environmental damage on avian populations, a serious enough concern to warrant working with birds. There was Dreaming, while snared, of Murmuration which displayed starlings symbolically netted.

And there was Denizens of Climate Change, which I had actually exhibited.

So, Fusion seemed like progress, psychologically, incorporating just something that I found beautiful and not in need of justification.

Well, that was short lived. I am working with birds again, this time for a more complex project where they are no longer the main actors, but part of a larger assembly of concepts that will tell a story. And wouldn’t you know it, the unease of being a woman artist who creates beauty with something that could be seen as cute, or pretty, lovable or simply chirpy, has returned in full force.

Pelicans (2023)

Of course, some multimedia artists seem to have no such qualms. Jamaican artist Ebony G. Patterson‘s powerful new show at the New York Botanical Garden is a case in point. (NYC friends, go see it!) Glitter-crusted wakes of vultures roam the flower beds, more than 400, as it turns out, and there’s a strange peacock to be found.

…things come to thrive…in the shedding…in the molting… points to the transitory nature of things, the uncanny intertwined with the undisputed beauty of the flora. There is no hesitation to use birds as messengers. Then again, the ones on display are quite symbolic birds, and not your garden variety starling and finches, golden or not.

***

Female artists often have to contend with a kind of scrutiny that goes beyond what male artists experience. Their work is also still valued less than their male counterparts’, if you look at the rate of both exposure and compensation. (Ref.) Just look at the titles of what you find in the literature exploring this phenomenon. This is what randomly pops up at a first search about double standards.

Male artists dominate galleries. Is it because ‘women don’t paint very well,’ or just discrimination? (Ref.)

The staggering lack of female artists in America’s museums (Ref.)

Race- and gender-based under-representation of creative contributors: art, fashion, film, and music (Ref.)

The Dam (2023)

I’m happy to report, though, that we have a chance to look at the work of female artists across some part of our region, all in one place, likely to defy the gender stereotypes. If you have no other plans, make sure you go to the opening reception of Women Artists of the Gorge this Saturday, June 17th, at the Columbia River Gorge Interpretive Center Museum in Stevenson, WA. It’s a short and easy drive from Portland and the acres surrounding the museum offer beautiful vistas as well.

I will write about this show next week, when the crowds have dispersed. It is a gorgeous place out there, perfect for visiting, and, I happen to know, for photographing birds.

Music today is about Mozart’s starling. Explanation here.

Addressing Affliction

· Artists processing Cancer ·

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite./For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern” ― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

LIKE ANY other segment of the population, artists have not been immune to cancer. The recent loss of one of our own to this disease, Henk Pander, is a painful reminder, grief still rippling through the community. We know of numerous famous painters, including Artemisia Gentileschi, Rembrandt van Rijn, Gustav Klimt, Marc Chagall and David Hockney, who were afflicted. Photographers not far behind, Dorothea Lange among them as well as Ester Bubley, Arthur Rothstein, Ralph Steiner and Gordon Parks, to name just a few. (Here is a more comprehensive selection from a recent art exhibition at the Hillstrom Museum of Art, MN.)

Medical research indicates that, compared to other professional groups, the mortality patterns among male painters shows an increased risk of dying of cancer, manifesting as bladder, colon and brain cancer, and also leukemia. For women painters, it is breast and lung cancer that is found at elevated rates compared to the non-artist population. The causal mechanisms have not been established, but there are likely links to hazardous substances present in the paints and finishes painters use (Ref.) Then again, it could be the immense stress levels from a precarious existence, shared by many artists, that affect the immune system negatively. Substantially increased cancer mortality rates for photographers are clearly associated with chemicals applied in darkrooms while processing film (Ref.)

Cancer was historically something people did not talk about, an abysmal affliction associated with shame, superstition and mortal dread. You find a few portraits in renaissance art that show women who are likely dealing with breast cancer, but none of the type of work that has begun to emerge, finally, since the last century: visual artists dealing with their own illness, processing their experience through their creativity or using their experience as a means of questioning the stereotypes that surround illness and death. From attempts at personal healing to attacking the metaphors associated with the disease – “it’s a fight, a battle, a crusade” – to simply conveying insights so that others can be prepared or warned, you find a variety of artworks that embody our era’s willingness and courage to expose oneself and/or make the personal political. A late, but welcome attempt to heed Blake’s appeal to “cleanse the doors of perception,” revealing underlying truths rather than keeping them out of our field of vision.

The incomparably courageous and smart artist Hannah Wilke documented her experience with Lymphoma in fascinating and brutally honest staged photographs that were evidence for her unsurpassed talent for gesture. May her memory be a blessing.

Hannah Wilke Intra-Venus Triptych 1992-93

Artists do not just expose their diseased bodies, of course. Some prefer narrative paintings that indirectly alert to what is lost, often for entire generations. I very much relate to the painting below that depicts imagined inter-generational connection when the person is no longer there to talk. If you have cancer when your children are young, one of the bottomless fears concerns what will happen to them, accompanied by an overarching sorrow that they will never really get to know you (or you them) on a more equal footing.

Ofer Katz “Things I wanted to tell you – Mark and Aliza Ainis at The Dead Sea” 2021

(This painting, by the way, is part of a project that has been of enormous help to cancer patients trying to overcome isolation. A national organization, Twist Out Cancer, offers a program called Brushes with Cancer.

“… it strategically matches artists with those touched by cancer to create unique pieces of artwork reflective of their journey. Over a period of 4 months, pairs will connect virtually and their relationships are guided and supported by Twist Out Cancer mentors with the intention of creating a support system for both the artist and inspiration. The program finishes on a high note with our signature celebratory art exhibition, gala and auction.”)

Then there is Prune Nourry’s public art signaling healing, to which I am admittedly partial, even though her Catharsis series skirts the edges of metaphors that I abhor. Amazons are of course warriors, implying an ongoing war with the disease. I continue to be floored by Nourry’s ideas and instantiation of mammoth projects (I wrote about her work I saw in Paris some years back here.) The battle metaphors so lend themselves to focus on winners and losers, victors and victims, survivors and fallen, all of which imply an either/or categorization and a hint of fortitude (or lack thereof) in dealing with the illness. As any cancer patient will tell you, the implications that one isn’t tough enough, fighting enough, optimistic enough, radical enough, tend to add insult to injury.

Here are some images of Nourry’s work processing breast cancer and an explanation from her website.

Catharsis was born in 2018 with The Amazon, a monumental four-meter concrete sculpture with glass eyes, inspired by an ancient marble statue at the Metropolitan Museum of Art representing an injured amazon. Prune Nourry created the sculpture as a cathartic act in her fight against cancer. Inspired by ex-voto traditions, particularly the Japanese mizuko kuyo, the piece is entirely covered in thousands of incense sticks. During a public performance in the heart of Manhattan, the incense went up in smoke to symbolize healing.”

Breast cancer seems to be the dominant topic for artists processing cancer – perhaps because it is so prevalent, has been suppressed as a subject for so long or, importantly, because patients more often than not live to tell the tale. Gallery shows focus on the resilience of survivors, and museums draw attention to the topic, like this ingenious stunt at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum of Art in Madrid in October last year. They featured an exhibition titled “From the skin to the canvas: another take on breast cancer,” displaying digital copies of works by Francisco de Goya, Peter Paul Rubens and Hans Baldung Grien which had been altered to make it look like the nude subjects have undergone mastectomies. (Unsurprisingly, most of the media reports did block out the images – I really had to hunt to find one….)

Thoughts about breast cancer seem to be manageable, compared to, say, lung cancer which has a far worse prognosis and less visible damage, as well as being associated with un/spoken assumptions that it is your own fault because of bad habits (I wrote about this recently here.) Breast cancer survivors’ day-to-day functioning is not as affected by missing breasts (non-withstanding the emotional losses tied to female beauty ideals, or those of sexual pleasure) once you’ve left the cancer behind you, compared to living with the aftermath of lung cancer. The absence of breasts becomes an integrated norm, with all other physical functions intact, allowing you for long stretches to forget the ordeal. That is not the case with a lung removed which affects every step you take, every breath, really. The knowledge that this dreadful beast tends to spread surreptitiously much more frequently makes ignoring your state near impossible. Seen in that light, the prevalence of breast cancer-related art becomes understandable.

In fact, to my knowledge there seems to be no art by established visual artists engaging with lung cancer, although a few rather depressing novels and autobiographies by afflicted authors exist: “The Quarry” by Iain Banks, “In gratitude” by Jenny Diski “When breath becomes air” by Paul Kalanithi , and “Stadium IV” (Stage IV) by Sander Kollaard. Two authors who died of lung cancer wrote poems about their ordeal: Raymond Carver (“What the doctor said” and John Updike (“Needle biopsy”). Illness perception – in this case one of doom and resignation – has consequences, for coping as a patient as much as for the obviously lacking desire or energy to create an artistic representation of the trauma.

***

“A successful work of art is not one which resolves objective contradictions in a spurious harmony, but one which expresses the idea of harmony negatively by embodying the contradictions, pure and un-compromised, in its innermost structure.” 
― Theodor W. Adorno, Essays on Music

PROCESSING the illness experience can have enormous benefits, for artist and beholder alike, regardless what disease gave rise to the art. That point was driven home for me last week when shown the new work by artist and cancer survivor Ruth Ross. I had written about Ross’ thrilling exhibition Red Scare last fall, embroidered fabric and photographic collages about growing up in the shadow of the Rosenberg trials during the McCarthy era, and was curious where she would go next. Once again, her projects fuse the personal with the political, this time embodying contradictions that belie the surface harmony of the portraits.

Photographs of the artist taken during her chemotherapy and transformed into cyanotype prints are embroidered with fanciful, phantasmagorical hats that are often quite beautiful, sometimes resembling overbearingly heavy crowns.

In Ross’s own words:

Marking 11 years out from chemotherapy for breast cancer, I came across a series of stark photos I had asked my husband to take when I was at my weakest and most debilitated. Seeing from those photos how frail I seemed, I created a series of cyanotype prints to silk organdy, a delicate and nearly transparent textile that would reflect my vulnerability.

What if I were to revisit that troubling time with a more tender view? Could layers, image, and stitching, endow that self with what I thought I had lost? Or perhaps with what I never even had? An elaborate hat made of flowers from a far-off paradise. A fanciful silver bird grasping some golden threads. With this work I revisit a difficult time. I can now express joy, self-indulgence. Ignore my judgmental self and invest it with wit, frivolity, and forgiveness.

For me, the work elicited a less personalized interpretation. It embodies contradictions that are structural, not just based in private experience. Hats during chemotherapy are meant to hide the stark nakedness of the head, the ugliness of a skull bereft of one of culture’s (or myth’s, literature’s, religion’s) greatest symbols: hair.

Hair is a powerful signifier of individual identity (lustrous locks signal fertility and health, for example,) as well as gender and group identity – think of hair styles reserved for elites, shorn hair for skin heads but also nuns, indicating celibacy in the latter case, long hair for politically active males in the western 1960s and so on. Women were constrained to certain hair styles before, during or after marriage entering widowhood, cross-culturally so, as anthropologists exploring initiation-, marriage- and mourning rites can attest. And of course, women in multiple religions are not allowed to reveal their hair at all to people outside the family. Hair has a place in witchcraft rituals, and it surely plays a role in the economy: The global hair care market size reached US $82.3 BILLION in 2022. That is a lot of gels, rinses, oils, tonics, serums, masks, dressings, shampoos, conditioners, and sprays, to treat hair to be shiny and voluminous, much to the envy of those of us born with something more resembling chives…

Black hair in this country was also a subject of policies driven by structural racism: only now have we done away with prohibitions of natural hairstyles, like afros, braids, bantu knots, and locs, policies used to justify the removal of Black children from classrooms, and Black adults from their employment. The Crown Act, (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair) passed in March 2022, banning hair-related discrimination.

Hair, then, is public, not just private. Drug-induced loss of hair is to be hidden from the public, however, to spare others the reminders of mortality, and to not call attention to what is perceived as our own decimation in (assumed) attractiveness value. In that sense, chemo-caused hair loss is both a public and private representation of the illness. It can cause individual distress as well as societal stigma (honestly, how do you even separate these two variables?) National Institute of Health data reveal as recently as 2 years ago that up to 14% of women refuse life saving chemo treatment because of their fear of hair loss. Risking death because of internalized beauty ideals imposed by a society that judges women by this standard, and easily dismisses those who no longer conform to it, imagine!

Hats, in this context, serve as a means of hiding visible signs of cancer treatment to protect societal denial of illness, and help avoiding dreaded negative attention. Ross’ hats, of course, do the opposite. All attention goes to these flights of fancy, then extending to the transparent emanations of suffering beneath, forced to confront the ravages and all they imply. The contradictions of joy and pain are inextricably linked.

The assumption of one being in the present, the other in the past, however, is an illusion, just like the possibility that these hats could ever not slip off the bald skull unless artificially glued or pricked by pin needles. You might be cancer free at this moment, but you will never be free of the thoughts that it might raise its ugly tentacles again. All you can do is cherish the here and now that is the potential ante-room – and Ross does that with luminous defiance. The choice of materials that simultaneous imply decay and lusciousness in itself is ingenious, with tropical splendor growing out of the ripped fabric of our lives.

The sobering realization that the exuberant blossoming of the flora echos the relentless proliferation of cancer cells is, alas, inevitably not far behind.

The artist’s expressed intention to create these pieces as a way of ending a hard chapter on a high note are a welcome reminder of healing. But there is an implicit way of forcing us to look at the consequences of cancer treatment for women that is radical in her art: part of the suffering during this affliction has to do with stigmatization, and desperate attempts to escape it and the isolation it imposes are often futile.

No hat, however beautiful (or unobtrusive) can make that fact disappear. Might as well bring it to the forefront, then, as Ross does, with gusto. Her work opens our perception to experiences during illness that go beyond the physical affliction or the psychological realm of dread induced by cancer. We are driven to hide our deterioration from the eyes of a world that has made beauty a commodity and reminders of mortality a taboo.

One of Ross’ collages is part of the group exhibition: Not Just: A World Collage Day.

May 12th – June 9th, 2023

Maude Kerns Art Center Eugene, OR

1910 East 15th Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403

  Ruth Ross Chemo Bird Hat 2023

Ethereal Blues (and Purples.)

I came across Oliver’s poem yesterday, and it spoke to me.

I was privileged in the sense that I was early on instructed by my mother to attend to the less obvious specimens in the floral world around us – just like the poet points to the weeds or small stones, anything but the showstoppers.

Blue Flax – the plant linen is made from.

So much beauty to be found in the borders of the garden, rather than the central beds. (Well, at least in this magical garden created by a true master gardener who is always willing to experiment. Today’s blog is dedicated to you, R.C.!) So many more opportunities for pollinators, too. And that’s before we even get to the wild flowers…

Baby Blue Eyes

Lobelia

Dame’s Rocket

Even the shade of blues in spring is softer, lighter, and there is purple with a hint of pink at times. Summer, of course, gives way to the heavy saturated blues of delphiniums and salvias, but we’ll get to that in time.

Allium

Scabious (Knautia)

Wild Geranium

I have always thought of prayers that give thanks as psychological tools to focus attention( even before I read the poem,) be it to a situation or a feeling, a means of making aware, reminding oneself of the grace that surrounds us at a particular moment.

Desert Bluebell

Not that I expect (or hope for) another voice to make itself known. Acknowledging the beauty or kindness of the world around me is enough. It restores balance for all the fear I’m usually tuned into. It also points to the importance to help the world stay that way, to protect fragility. Acknowledgement, then, paving the path to action.

Borage

The climbers opt for more substantial flower heads, like the wisteria below, about to unfold,

and the clematis.

These photographs, with one exception, were taken on a single day last week. Wherever you look: reason to give thanks for evolutionary pressures to create what we consider beauty. Awareness that there is not just misery in the world. Reminders that we have to act to keep it that way, before the world becomes a hothouse. You might be partial to orchids. But the delicate, porcelain blues I cherish wouldn’t survive that.

Music today is Mozart’s ode to the violet… (below, strictly, are violas.)

Octavia E. Butler, Beacon.

Today’s musings will be all over the map, geographically, emotionally and with regards to content that has preoccupied my brain for a while. It all leads back to Octavia E. Butler, a writer who I admire for her exquisite, creative world building, her focus on in/justice, and her ability to transcend genres. I am even more grateful for all of her modeling of what it means to have courage and persistence, to stick to goals defying racist, patriarchal, professionally closed systems, while skirting existential poverty and loneliness during formative years.

Mural at the Octavia E. Butler Magnet School in Altadena, CA.

All over the map: Let’s start with Trieste, Italy. Why Trieste? I was somewhat condescendingly amused during my 2018 visit there to see flocks of fans follow the footsteps of their hero, James Joyce, who lived and wrote major works in Trieste for years. Selfies with his statue, tour lines in front of his lodgings, photographs of the multiple plaques conveniently placed by the Bureau of Tourism: Joyce walked over this bridge here! More than once!

Well, I was wrong, I’ve joined the multitudes and never should have sneered. Not pursuing Joyce, nor taking selfies, but I am now trying to walk along the paths of someone I wish I’d understand, taking in the neighborhoods and buildings that were part of her daily life, reading about her struggle, and visiting places that keep her memory alive.

Pasadena, CA, then, is next. No plaques here, but a helpful map laying out routes frequently taken by Butler, prepared by people at the Huntington Library which holds the author’s archives. An even more helpful book by journalist Lynell George, A Handful of Earth, a Handful of Sky – the World of Octavia E. Butler, which introduces the canvas on which Butler drew both herself and the worlds she constructed from the insights captured by her daily struggles, the physical environment in which she labored, and the mental landscapes that she traveled while growing into the writer some of us now devour. George describes the author with exceptional sensitivity and intuition, during the years before Butler would go on to become a MacArthur (Genius) Fellow and win a Pen Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as Hugo and Nebula Awards for her trail­blazing work in science fiction—the first Black woman to win both awards.

Butler was born in 1947 in Pasadena, CA, to a mother who worked as a maid and a father who was a shoe shiner and died when she was very young. She was dyslexic, isolated in school and not particularly supported by the majority of her teachers. Later she turned to menial jobs, often physical labor, that did not require much thought so she was free to do her own thinking, and could use the rest of her time to walk or visit libraries, some involving hours on the bus.

Historic center Pasadena, including the post office where checks, manuscripts acceptance or rejection letters might have arrived in her P.O.Box.

Lynell George’s account of these early years is, among other things, based on archival items that Butler saved over the years: lists. And lists. And lists. On scrap paper, or any other expandable surface she could write on, perhaps compulsively constructed to organize and likely ward off a flood of fears that might otherwise prove overwhelming. Shopping lists. To-do lists. Lists to evaluate what could be pawned to head off starvation. Lists of goals. Lists of dreams. Lists of exhortations or promises to Self, or incantations about how the world should be and how to make it so.

An eternally slow start to find her way into publishing, with 2 small manuscripts sold in 5 years, interminable stretches of professional drought, and yet this author went on to write and publish over a dozen books, with artists, play-writes, musicians and film makers increasingly inspired by the work since her death from injuries sustained in a fall at the age of 58 in 2006. Her novels are taught at colleges and universities around the country (well, where there are not yet banned, I should hasten to add…) and you can now watch adaptions of her books on TV. (Coincidentally, this weekend’s NYT listed an introduction to some of the essential works, so you can see for yourself how much ground was covered or where to start.)

***

Many of Butler’s books can be found in a small book store on North Hill Avenue in Pasadena, Octavia’s Bookshelf. It opened about a month ago and offers a range of works by BIPOC writers, and a welcome space to sit down and explore.

Here I meet Nikki High, owner of the store, who is helpful in recommending books when I approach her to pick her brain and perfectly happy to spend some of her valuable time chatting with this stranger. Which brings us to the Republic of Ghana, the west-African country where sociologist and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois resided during the last years of his life and is buried. He died on the eve of the civil-rights march in Washington,D.C., where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream”speech and where Roy Wilkins of the NAACP announced Du Bois’s death from the podium. I mention to Nikki that I am currently reading a thought provoking, beautiful novel by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, The Lovesongs of W.E.B. Du Bois, and she tells me about her recent travels to Ghana to visit Du Bois’ grave and the house he lived in, visibly moved by the reliving of that memory.

Jeffer’s novel revolves around the concept of Double Consciousness that Du Bois introduced in his seminal book The Souls of Black Folk (1903.) So does Kindred, (2003) Butler’s historical fiction/fantasy novel introducing a heroine who time travels between the 19th and 20th century, between the slave plantation where her ancestors suffered and her interracial marriage in 1976 L.A.. The novel has become a cornerstone of Black American literature.

Du Bois argued that living as an African American within a system of White racism leads to a kind of fragmented identity. The double consciousness refers to “the sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others.”

“It is a socio-cultural construct rather than a baldly bio-racial given, attributed specifically to people of African descent in America. The “two-ness” of which it is a consciousness thus is not inherent, accidental, nor benign: the condition is presented here as both imposed and fraught with psychic danger.” (Ref.)

The socio-cultural existence is defined by a racial hierarchy that includes hostility and suspicion, subtle or outright exclusion, a life lived in uncertainty and guardedness. The individual’s identity, both novels argue, is also affected by the historical fact that harm extended beyond the individual to whole family structures and networks of kin. Only when you understand the legacy of historical trauma and merge it into your own sense of self will it cease to afflict you. Past and present need to be integrated to mend a disjointed self.

***

As luck would have it, the Octavia E. Butler Magnet School‘s library celebrates an OEB science fiction festival the next day. Previously Washington Middle School, the institution’s new name (since Fall 2022) honors its famous alumna. Since I have to avoid crowded indoor settings during the pandemic (it is NOT over, folks!), I cannot join the activities, but manage to get a few photos in a ventilated hallway. New generations are introduced to a role model that leaves you in awe for the obstacles overcome.

On to Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, CA, where Butler is buried. It is a peaceful place with beautiful old tree growth, als long as you ignore the coyotes that they warn you about, patrolling in packs, by some reports.

Butler’s grave marker is unobtrusive, not easy to find. The inscription is one of her most frequently cited insights, from the book The Parabel of the Sower (1993), where she turned her attention to climate catastrophe and the subsequent militarization of state and rapidly shrinking chances of survival. Set in 2024, it seems utterly prescient in retrospect, its descriptions outlining the contours of our lived or soon to be lived reality.

Allow me one short digression, and some speculation, you’ll see why in a minute. Butler’s last resting place sports numerous strange grave stones, if you can call it that, artificial tree stumps carved with the emblems of a maul, wedge, axe and dove, as well as markers inscribed with repeat phrases, the Latin motto “Dum Tacet Clamet” which translates to “though silent, he speaks.” A bit of research brought me to Omaha, Nebraska, where one Joseph Cullen Root founded The Woodmen of the World (WOW) in the early 1890s. It was essentially a mutual aid society, a beneficiary order that provided death benefits and grave stones to its members by essentially passing around a hat.

That turned out not to work exactly, and so shifted thirty years later to become a regular life insurance company. By 1901 it was the largest fraternal organization in Oregon with 140 camps and a membership of 15,000. Membership conditions: you had to prove yourself in various ways, be older than 16 and – White. A subdivision, Women of Woodcraft, is captured in this photograph.

Women of Woodcraft (likely a drill team), ca. 1910. Object ID: 2011.033.001; Copyright Royal Gorge Regional Museum & History Center

Would Butler be turning in her grave, surrounded by valkyries like these? Likely not. She would point to the importance of the idea of mutual aid, and to change: if you look at the website of the WoodmenLife Insurance Company that grew out of WOW, you find images of Black, Asian, Brown and other faces among the White beneficiaries, carefully assembled to stress diversity. It might only be on the surface, who can tell, but change nonetheless. And in any case – she might stay silent, but her work speaks to millions, in contrast to the wood people of the world….

***

This brings me to the reason why I, an old White European woman who can take privilege seemingly for granted, am so preoccupied with a Black writer who envisioned change and imbued her heroines with strength and refusal to give up, forever pursuing humanistic goals. She instills hope.

I feel like living in an era where, here as well as internationally, change is pursued or co-opted to move us backwards. The powers that be (or wannabe) want to affirm or re-install structures – and I mean STRUCTURES – that go beyond individual racist impulses or acts, to dominate on top of a hierarchy and use that dominance to extract riches and suffering. These forces are insisting that “differences”exists, be they racial, religious, gender, sexuality or simply cultural. Don’t ever believe in equality! Put a value label to these differing categories, with some “better,” others “worse,” with the dominant category, of course, being the superior one. This valuation is extended to an entire group, depreciating not just single humans, but a whole category. “Negative valuation imposed upon that group becomes the legitimization and justification for hostility and aggression. The inner purpose of this process is social benefit, self-valorization, and the creation of a sense of identity for the one through the denigration of the other. And as is evident, the generation and expression of hierarchy run through it from beginning to end.” (Ref.)

Whether you look at the Nazi play book, present-day Hungary, Russia, India or other authoritarian movements, these principles are at work every single time, with the content attached to the “difference” changing according to local need du jour and historical hierarchies, including colonialism. In addition, progressive movements so often weaken themselves by intra-group strife instead of collaborative fighting against a common enemy. I can think of no better explanation of those principles than in Arundhati Roy’s speech last week at the Swedish Academy.

It is so easy to lose hope, to withdraw by feeling overwhelmed, helpless, powerless to achieve true equality. And yet there was a person who faced obstacles beyond description, who believed in hope and the power of community.

Here is someone who put it in words better than I ever could, Jesmyn Ward, a formidable writer in her own right:

This is how Butler finds her way in a world that perpetually demoralizes, confounds, and browbeats: she writes her way to hope. This is how she confronts darkness and persists in the face of her own despair. This is the real gift of her work… in inviting her readers to engage with darker realities, to immerse themselves in worlds more disturbing and complex than our own, she asks readers to acknowledge the costs of our collective inaction, our collective bowing to depravity, to tribalism, to easy ignorance and violence. Her primary characters refuse all of that. Her primary characters refuse to deny the better aspects of their humanity. They insist on embracing tenderness and empathy, and in doing so, they invite readers to realize that we might do so as well. Butler makes hope possible.

Against the backdrop of a legacy of trauma she provided us with a legacy of optimism, that the lessons of successful collective action and resistance in the past will guide us to the right kind of change in the future, with the help of courageous and resourceful Black women.

Pet People.

Have you ever talked to your pet? “I know what you’re thinking! Some more of this sad face and she’ll relent and give you dinner early…quit manipulating!” Or have you ever yelled at your car that wouldn’t start, “Don’t do that to me! Don’t hate me! Not today! You know I can’t be late!” Or have you ever prayed to a God or Gods, with the plea that “You have the wisdom, you have the power, you can decide to act – please relieve this suffering?”

Most of us do this, at some point or another, attributing human characteristics, emotions, or behaviors to an animal, particularly domesticated ones, to objects, or even invisible entities. It’s not something new, just think of fairy tales, the pantheon of Greek and Roman Gods who were believed to share human foibles, enhanced by divine powers to the nth degree. I’ve been mulling about this, though, because it seems that the diet of anthropomorphic animals on social media, from talking dogs to willful emus, is steadily increasing. Admittedly sucking me in at times, too many times, really.

Seeing the third review of decidedly anthropomorphic art by the same painter within the span of a few years in one of the most popular art magazines, I decided to look at what we know about anthropomorphism and why it is so seemingly attractive. Matthew Grabelsky is currently showing the newest iteration of portraits of human subway riders equipped with animal heads at the The Brand Library & Art Center in Glendale, California, until the beginning of March. Riders consists of hyperrealistic oil paintings that are often witty, and appeal with the dichotomy of surrealistic appearance anchored in totally familiar, mundane environments. If you see a few of them they impress, both with painterly skill and the immediate recognition of chosen symbolism, although once you check out a lot of them they start to appear formulaic.

(All painted images by the artist, Matthew Grabelsky)

The artist, who graduated Cum Laude in both, art history and astrophysics from Rice University, explains his intentions:

“I have long been enthralled with the ways in which mythologies from different cultures make use of animals and animal/human hybrid characters to represent the mysterious nature of the subconscious… the paintings are not intended to be viewed as fantasy or as allegory, but rather as a blend of everyday experiences with the subconscious. They are enigmatic and create dream-like worlds that invite viewers to form their own interpretation of the imagery presented.”

Whatever his intentions might be, what are our own when we start to anthropomorphize? (I’ll summarize main points from a long review article by researchers at University of Chicago and UC Berkely here.)

For one, we are a species thriving on social connection. We certainly want to connect to people and we might want to extend that connection to animals or inanimate objects. It is no surprise, then, that the data show that the lonelier people are, the more they tend to anthropomorphize. It also makes sense that we tend to anthropomorphize things more when they already display some recognizable human features – a small kitten or a panda bear are more likely subjects than rats or trees or mechanical gadgets like clocks, although all of the latter can also be objects for our decision that they have a mind of their own – there is simply a gradient.

Secondly, we have a natural inclination to make sense of the world and to find ways to control it, a motivation to be able to explain and predict others’ actions so we can react appropriately. When the world is presenting us with unexpected hick-ups or unpredictably putting obstacles in our way – the car won’t start – we increase anthropomorphizing. Predictably, there is a correlation between personality traits and the inclination to anthropomorphize: people with high needs of control tend to do it more often.

Basically, then, it looks like anthropomorphizing is triggered by distinct motivational states, the desire to connect and the need to find an explanation when a situation is different from expectations.

Are there consequences to anthropomorphizing beyond our appreciation of art or desired emotional connection to pets? Well, if we imbue non-humans with human characteristics, it might raise our empathy levels, for animals perhaps the decisive factors of how well they are treated. It might help us feel protected by a higher power given that we associate them with parental qualities. Also think of the consequences for policies and laws. If you declare a non-human entity (corporations) with person-like traits it can (did) influence legislation around campaign contributions. If you imbue a non-sentient, non-sensory entity like a cell cluster (at conception) with human-like experiencing of pain and emotions, it will (did) affect abortion laws.

It also helps to sell goods. Think of all the advertising campaigns you remember that have anthropomorphic animals in them, geckos included. It also manages, in some cases, to shape social behavior. The most successful government advertising campaign of all times was Smokey Bear affecting wildfire prevention. (Successful, that is, in accomplishing its goal to reduce wildfires. That reduction, it turns out, was a disaster in the long run by adding fuel loads that are now leading to catastrophes.) These days researchers are trying to figure out if providing us with anthropomorphic stimuli of gadgets helps shape social causes like conserving energy. The data are mixed.

Some studies found the upper left image to be most effective.

Anthropomorphizing clearly affects us, whether we feel less lonely, are amused, are concerned with animal welfare, find a target for our frustrations, explain the unexpected, get sucked into consumption, change our behavior or be subjected to legislation.

For me, the most important point, however, lies in the fact that people have understood the principles at work in humanizing and have applied them, in inverse order, to achieve effects through dehumanizing. In other words, treating pets like people and people like animals (stealing this from the title of the research paper) gets you something. Some forms of dehumanizing might be related to apathy – you are not interested in other people’s mind outside of your own group or from the perch of a higher societal status, dehumanizing them by thinking of their minds as inferior, or not worth thinking about at all. Some of it might be motivated, linked to hatred, or a convenient tool for scapegoating – think of race relations, strife between religious groups or fascism’s tool kit.

Psychologically, dehumanization is “the perception and/or belief that another person (or group) is relatively less human than the self (or ingroup)”(Ref.) We animalize others, and not just with language that links them to specific animals like rats, or apes, cockroaches or lice, or general groups of animals like vermin or parasites. Dehumanizing also occurs when people categorically believe that members of other groups have fewer developed, specifically human emotions, like shame or remorse or guilt. Animalistic dehumanization is often reserved for ethnic minorities, by racial origin or religion. A more mechanistic dehumanization (e.g. cold or empty, like a machine,) often happens with out-group members that have a different status, either above or below the dehumanizing person.

“Dehumanising discourses and conceptions have been identified in almost all major mass atrocities, prominently including those of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Indonesia, and the Japanese occupation of China. Often, outgroup members (or victims-to-be) are even compared with toxins, microbes, or cancer, suggesting that they are polluting, despoiling, or debilitating the entire in-group—leading to particularly prominent recurring demands to ‘purify’ groups or societies from the supposedly toxifying elements.”

Which brings us back to where we started namely looking at what the social media provide. Ain’t just talking animals. It also provides a deluge of dehumanizing speech, often incited by images like these – and not removed from FB or Twitter, even before the Musk takeover.

Facebook Posting

Value neutral language is often used in the headlines to help avoid detection and removal – the dehumanizing language subsequently erupts in the comments, and shapes people’s perceptions that way. Those lesser than human don’t deserve the same rights and protections. If they breed like animals, treat them like that.

From perceptions to (violent) actions is but a small step.

Too much to think through? I’ll give you a full week – I’ll be taking Wednesday and Friday off for the blog because I have to finish a larger writing project.

Predictably, it’s Camille Saint-Saëns for music today.

.

A Curtain of Clouds

Walk with me. Make sure you bring the rubber boots which I, as per usual, forgot on Monday.

It was a spectacularly beautiful day along the Columbia river, with cloudscapes encouraging all kinds of fantasies and re-interpretations. They also made you wonder what would appear if you lifted them. Were they hiding Mt. Hood, or Mt. St. Helens, or would a peek of Mt. Adams appear? Those speculations relied, of course, on the general knowledge that those mountains are situated in the approximate location you were staring at.

What happens when you lift clouds without having the faintest idea what the background will reveal? Pleasant surprise, useful information, or a wish they’d hung in the air forever given what you discover?

These thoughts were rumbling since I had just read a fascinating new paper by two Yale psychologists, Woo-Kyoung Ahn and Annalise Perricone. In essence their research looks at the consequences of providing genetic information to people, information concerned with their potential susceptibility to mental disorders like depression, Alzheimer’s disease, alcohol abuse or eating disorders. (I’m summarizing below.)

Would you like to receive that information? Hand it over, hey, all knowledge is good! Allows for personalized treatments, specific interventions! What could possibly go wrong?

A lot, as it turns out, and not always what you’d predict. Information can harm you, and curiously enough, both the kind of information that confirms genetic susceptibility to a disease or its opposite, the reassurance that you don’t have the genes that might contribute to a problem.

Let’s say you learn that you have an elevated genetic risk of living with depression. Would you change your behavior in ways that might affect the emergence or severity of the disease? As it turns out, people generally don’t. That failure to do so is closely connected to our general misunderstanding of how genes work: most of us think they are immutable, that we can’t change anything about their expression. “Genes are destiny,” is the assumption. This mistaken belief is called psychological essentialism, where genes are believed to provide the essence for the characteristics observed in a person. Take height, for example. People tie a person’s height to their genetic make-up – never mind that an environmental manipulation, the absence of presence of sufficient nutrition, can stunt growth in any given individual.

Now add prognostic pessimism, our general belief that mental disease is pretty resistant to treatment.

“The extent to which one believes that one’s mental disorder has a genetic origin is positively associated with the extent to which one believes that mental disorders are untreatable or inevitable . For instance, the more individuals with depression attribute their symptoms to genetic factors, the more pessimistic they are about their own prognoses.”

Once you’re in this loop – knowing you have an elevated genetic risk and doubting treatment efficacy, the clinical consequences are dire, since your negative expectations will affect the treatment course.

However, we are able to intervene if we teach people about the malleability of genes, and how genetic expression can be counteracted, even shut down, with environmental interventions. Learning about this, people actually become more optimistic about the prognosis. Lots of clinical programs now use that kind of education to help people understand that genes do not mean a certain destiny.

Unfortunately, even if we are able to help people look more confidently at a future where their genetic risk is not all that counts, we have so far no comparable mediations of how they look at the past. When people learn that they have a genetic predisposition for depression, for example, they start to interpret their experienced symptoms as much worse than they actually were. Study after study show memory distortions of the severity of symptoms once you learn about your genetic risk. That exaggerated belief, of course, affects one’s expectation in therapeutic efficacy, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

___

What about learning that you do not have an elevated risk for a particular condition?

That, too, can produce harm. Let’s say you enjoy drinking, or eating, in ways that border on abuse, or so you fear. Receiving the results from your genetic test that you do not have an elevated risk for Alcohol Abuse Disorder or Eating Disorder can now become a risk factor, as you think you’ve been given green light to continue or even increase your behavior. The feedback affects your interpretation of the seriousness of the harm you might expose yourself to, a false reassurance that can have disastrous consequences.

Lifting the clouds of ignorance? Maybe not.

The birds didn’t care, one way or another. Flocks of snow geese huddled in great masses against the wind.

Sandhill cranes starting their track north.

Harrier hawk, hungry as always,

bald eagle surveying his kingdom,

and ibis and herons doing their thing,

all just on autopilot as their nature demands. No mediations required. No pessimism to optimism. Just BEING.

Debussy on clouds for your listening pleasure.

A Path towards Transformation

On a dry day last week I walked among the cornfields, aware of climate change with the water levels in the ponds still unseasonably low.

A bunch of corn stalks looked to me like a little band of marchers, moving forwards in determined protest. (Yes, my tendency to anthropomorphize has made it into 2023 intact…and you were worried!)

It got me thinking about what I’ve read in the scientific literature about how to communicate climate change for effective public engagement, in preparation for the documentaries I’ve been involved with. One memorable bit of instruction about collective action came from a TED talk by Maike Sippel, a Professor of Sustainable Economics at the University of Applied Sciences Konstanz, Germany.

Her name popped up again this week in an essay full of suggestions about what might help to change the world’s or our own approach to climate action. Her introduction refers to the proposal of the scientists of the IPCC that presence or absence of climate action in our decade will determine the living conditions on earth for the next 1000 year, a claim I agree with. Humanity is at a turning point. (And yes, I know I repeat myself. That, too, won’t change in 2023.)

Here (in German) are her 12 ideas to aide transformation, loosely summarized and translated by me below.

  • Think of yourself as part of the world, embedded within a community, but also within a timeline. Our actions need to be considered in the context of multiple generations to come.
  • Be grateful. A sense of gratitude to be alive and part of a larger whole can immunize you against the constant push to consume, to own, to search for novelty. Gratitude, perhaps captured in a diary or expressed in other forms of regular communication, can make us more content, and plays a role in how we treat others: it increases a sense of connectedness and generosity amongst ourselves.
  • Acknowledge pain and grief. Surveys reveal that 60 to 90% of respondents admit to climate anxiety – the burden of hearing about ongoing disasters, the fears about an uncertain future and the sacrifices that have to be made. If you talk about your own reactions with others you are strengthened by not being alone, being part of a community that shares both feelings and goals.

  • Base your actions on your values. This will be hard. Our behavior is entrenched, our joys often derivative from sources that are not climate friendly (think consumption of meat, or flying and driving, among others.) Listen to the unease that cognitive dissonance – I want x, but I’m doing y – brings about, and figure out what you can do.
  • Remember that change is possible. Social movement have historically been successful in ways nobody had anticipated. Things now are in flux, with many organizations, scientists, politicians and even international structures starting to call for and implement change.

  • The handprint matters. We all know about our climate “footprint,” the way our individual behavior contributes to noxious emissions. Personal decisions, however, take place within a framework of conditions, set by societies to influence choices, often in favor of industries that call the shots. Price regulation (flying is cheaper than taking the train), food availability (cafeterias are not offering vegetarian fare), social and legal covenants of acceptable behavior all constrain what the individual can do. Individual or collective efforts to change these structures are “handprints” – complementary efforts to the restriction of “footprints”. Individual contributions (fight for meat-less Mondays at your office, join groups to make the cities partly car free, engage in efforts to re-direct subsidies to industries that are not fossil fuel based, etc.) towards more climate friendly, structural conditions might have transformative results.
  • Use tools available for transformational processes. There are lots of leadership trainings available by people who have successfully helped groups with climate projects, for example Art of Hosting and Collective Leadership.
  • Seek out Good News. Fight the click-bait, over-representation of bad news to give your brain a break from permanent stress.
  • Talk about climate change. Not necessarily about the science or statistics, facts and morality, but about your experience with engagement and action, your own, personal way of dealing with the challenges.
  • Consider it an adventure. Transformation is not a walk in the park. You will encounter obstacles and resistance – just like in a real adventure. As heroes and heroines in this story we need courage, and, of course, allies. We will experience growth by overcoming obstacles, and we will persist without knowing if we will ever meet our goals. Every single human being bent towards transformation across history had to live through this, consider yourself in good company.
  • Take care of yourself. Everyone of us is needed for change. It’s imperative that we engage, invent solutions, and join the process with courage and positivity. All that is only possible if we are mindful of balance, and don’t overdo it to the point of burn-out. Too many balls in the air? Consider which one can be safely dropped. Stick to what’s most meaningful for you and is sustainable.

Music today by one of the most talented young cellists around, an arrangement of a Welsh song and excerpts from a classical Elgar concerto. Sheku Kanneh-Mason is a name you will remember and part of a generation that is spearheading change.

A Plea against Narrowing

“And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that did not exist before, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, expectations and impositions; and let us see to it that we learn to tackle all that without dropping too much of what it has to bestow…”

„Und nun wollen wir glauben an ein langes Jahr, das uns gegeben ist, neu, unberührt, voll nie gewesener Dinge, voll nie getaner Arbeit, voll Aufgabe, Anspruch und Zumutung; und wollen sehen, daß wirs nehmen lernen, ohne allzuviel fallen zu lassen von dem, was es zu vergeben hat […]” – Rainer Maria Rilke Letter to Clara Rilke 1907.

Walk with me. On one of the last days of the old year, as it happened, a stroll through downtown that was a deserted place on a grey Friday morning, the quiet ruptured only by loud screams of a houseless person, the wailing echoing in the canyons between the high-rises. The few pedestrians cautiously crossed the street away from the misery, avoiding eye contact with the tent that looked wet, cold, forlorn.

Photographs today are all from a downtown PDX walk between the Portland Art Museum and Pioneer Square, going north on 10th Ave and coming back South in the park blocks.

And now 2023 already here. No New Year’s resolutions for me, since I know from long experience I won’t keep them in the first place. Although IF I would claim some, they would be echoing this British advice:

Get slightly older each day – Eat more cheese – Discard old socks – Drink the same amount of tea (ok, coffee for me) – Never run out of biscuits – Say “getting there” a lot – Muddle through.

Yet I do have a wish: to have the courage to witness (and report on) what is happening in the world, no matter how deep the darkness goes.

I want to continue to fight against the gentrification of the soul, the self, that comes with aging and privilege. It is so easy to narrow your focus when you become overwhelmed by the suffering in the world, to declare that turning away from the darkness is an act of self protection, when it is an act of choosing comfort instead.

Comfort that is not available, much less granted, to the people exposed to war, oppression, subjugation, or exploitation, by mad men in power, governments, institutions or their neighbors. If the people of Ukraine have incomparable courage to live through bombardments and invasion, the people of Iran facing gallows for desiring liberation, as do their Afghan brothers and sisters, if the Kurds have no allies in the world, nor the Palestinians any protectors, if they all summon this courage daily to live, I might at least have the courage to look. To witness, fully knowing my solidarity amounts to nothing other than emotional discomfort over the experienced helplessness.

Empty squares, with the houseless crouched in corners, and a lone city worker blowing fallen pine needles that moved in small waves and eddies.

We don’t just have to look abroad. There are plenty of discomforting sights close to home. So easy to narrow your eyes and blink the “blight” away, turning to more uplifting views. Don’t get me wrong – I embrace the powerful offerings of nature and art, literature and science as happily as anyone to make me feel better or console me, perhaps even to bestow some hope for a more just world, as my regular readers know full well. But not at the expense of the minimal tribute I can pay by witnessing what else is going on in a nation filled with racism, inequality, culture wars and drifts towards authoritarianism, even or particularly when I have reached an age where active participation in a fight for change has become harder. Maybe my reporting can encourage others who still have energy to get engaged.

Age imposes a narrowing of our lives through the declining powers of our bodies or the restrictions of disease, all multiplied to the nth degree by living in a pandemic era. It is understandable that that narrows the heart as well, the capacity for compassion when preoccupied with your own making it through the day.

It need not narrow the mind though, as long as we are mindful of how and where we apply attention and if we make sure we stretch towards learning. American-Serb poet Charles Simic once said: “The attentive eye makes the world mysterious.” I never understood that, still don’t. For me the attentive eye is all about learning about the world, de-mystifying what we are told to believe. The Jewish tradition with its intense focus on learning has always struck me as something that provided more than just tools for professional advancement, or, more importantly, understanding. It is such a thrill when you realize there is an infinite potential for growth, both of knowledge and as a person, every day, even when the potential for your body is decidedly limited.

For 2023 that means my steady diet of junk novels and movies will continue to be supplemented with stuff that is hard to read and topics that require intense familiarization.

It is somehow fittingly ironic that the question about liberty and justice for all is raised at the Louis Vuitton store. The brand’s trade tag is “Truth. Live and love truth.” No clue why a manufacturer of luxury goods comes up with that, but I don’t exactly think they’d like to hear the truth about the effects of capitalism where the consumption of luxury items plays a large role, if only as marker of the class that can afford the luggage.

***

What I learned on the first day of 2023 came about because I wondered why the sound of human misery is so deeply afflicting when you walk by, half scared, half upset. My search found, instead, a splendid analysis on a related topic: Why do Rich People love Quiet. The Brooklyn-based author of Puerto Rican descent, Xochitl Gonzales, was just made a staff writer at The Atlantic. She describes how she and her cohort of students of color experienced their lives at an Ivy League Institution and then again when White young professionals’ arrivals started to gentrify the traditionally non-White boroughs of NYC.

“The passive-aggressive signals to wind our gatherings down were replaced by point-blank requests to make less noise, have less fun, do our living somewhere else, even though these rooms belonged to us, too. … In those moments, I felt hot with shame and anger, yet unable to articulate why. It took me years to understand that, in demanding my friends and I quiet down, these students were implying that their comfort superseded our joy. And in acquiescing, I accepted that.

For generations, immigrants and racial minorities were relegated to the outer boroughs and city fringes. Far, but free. No one else much cared about what happened there. When I went to college, it was clear to me that I was a visitor in a foreign land, and I did my best to respect its customs. But now the foreigners had come to my shores, with no intention of leaving. And they were demanding that the rest of us change to make them more comfortable.”

The essay then explores the regulation of noise from above, the various administrations, mayoral office and NYPD, through laws and by moving noisy venues like nightclubs out of gentrifying neighborhoods like Chelsea and the Lower East Side and into Brooklyn. That borough, now thoroughly gentrified itself, racked up the most noise complaints of 2019 to the city hotline, the majority of them grievances about lifestyle choices: music and parties and people talking loudly. One culture’s preferences demanding acquiescence from another.

The Apple Store is barricaded behind steel net fences, with only one entrance ramp controlled by police. Moats next? Tiffany, on the other hand, let’s you peek into the window under the watchful eyes of no fewer than three security guards for the one storefront.

Gonzales’ recent novel Olga Dies Dreaming was named a Best of 2022 by The New York Times, TIME, Kirkus, Washington Post, and NPR. On my ever expanding list to read. The title is taken from a stirring poem by Pedro Pietri (1944-2004), Puerto Rican Obituary, linked here because it is too long to post. Don’t want to go overboard with the first blog of the year. Read it, though, if you have the time, it expanded my narrowing view of the world, offering glimpses into a culture so close and yet so far from my experience.

The park blocks offer a strange assortment of sculpture. The museum declared itself “indigenized” – whatever that means – during an exhibition by a Native American artist, Jeffrey Gibson, who produced timelines recording important events for indigenous and non indigenous Americans alike. How will 2023 be added? Since I still do not go inside museums and galleries I cannot report on the show.

Music today offers some classic Puerto Rican Salsa by Héctor Lavoe and, if you want to stretch yourself, the song Titi me preguntó, by Black Bunny, Billboard’s Artist of the Year. “Titi” is Time Magazine’s best song of 2022 pick, the voice of someone who acknowledges and tries to break with his toxic masculinity. The rapper’s music is ubiquitous in NYC right now.

No Black Bunny, but a bronze sculpture of an English bulldog, ridiculously dressed like the doormen of the Heathman Hotel where she resides outside, flagging the pet friendly policies of the establishment.

Gifts!Gifts!Gifts!

The season is upon us. Gifts needed. Gifts hoped for. Gifts dreaded.

What to get? Where to get it? How to escape consumerism, when you, like I do, love giving and receiving gifts? How to hide disappointment and lie successfully when well-intended gifts don’t hit the spot, as to not hurt the feelings of the giver? How to hide the embarrassment when funds are so stretched that gift giving can no longer occur? How to avoid credit card debts when caution is thrown to the wind? How to give freely while wanting to discard unspoken reciprocity rules and assumptions, and not be overbearing? How to feel not obliged when flooded with unexpected presents? How to say no to receiving when longing to break the cycle without breaking the underlying relationship?

I thought I’d do a quick survey of the psychological literature to figure out what we know about gift giving. Wouldn’t you know it, the first things popping up in the search were ubiquitous articles in consumer research publications, about gifts and philanthropy among others – how to rope in donors by giving them something (hear me, OPB membership drive???) and ways to surreptitiously force people into expanding gift giving in ever widening social circles.

The next large area was anthropology: how did cultural contexts determine gift exchanges, a custom as old as history and universal across different cultures? As a form of reciprocity it was assumed to integrate societies, and to communicate in symbolic ways about social dimensions of power, status and/or desire for connection. It greased the gears of economic exchange, consolidated political power (note that women were given as “gifts” into alliance marriages, slaves were given as “gifts” to appease conquerers,) solidified peace treaties, and created obligations ($2 billion for Jared Kushner’s equity firm from the Saudis ain’t just good will, one might speculate.)

Last but not least, from an anthropological perspective, gifts were universally used to socialize. Want that toy – better behave! Even charitable giving, seemingly without hidden motive, can be transactional as well – just think of greenwashing or the tycoons who give to museums and concert halls, trying to distance themselves from their role as merchants of death – just ask the Guggenheim or the Tate about the Sacklers. Or New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Mayo Clinic and the Guggenheim who accepted millions of dollars from tycoons aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including several who are the targets of Western sanctions.

In cultural contexts, then, gifts are a form of contract and a way of shaping behavior and expectations. Reciprocity is generally assumed and needed to keep the cycle going. Giving too much, too little or too late can strain relationships to the point of cracking.

So what’s up with the gift giving in our own lives, at this fraught time of year? Current Directions in Psychological Science tells me that we have to look at what givers and recipients, respectively, focus on and how alignment in those two perspective matters. For one, people often prefer to receive gifts of potential experiences, rather than objects and consumer goods. Secondly, people really prefer gifts that they explicitly wanted (go to that couple’s registry at Target, don’t surprise them with an unrequested gift, no matter how extravagant!) while gift givers think the surprise would be a smashing success. Gift recipients don’t care as much about the price of a gift, while givers think it matters.

Givers also assume that a gift that reflects its recipient (I give her a gift card for Powells, she loves books!) is a great hit. Recipients disagree, on the whole, preferring versatility (give me a Visa gift card I can use anywhere, for what I need most.) And, surprisingly, since it is opposite to my own experience (which once again goes to show n=1 is not a successful scientific predictor,) gift recipients are not particularly fond of socially responsible gifts like donations to charities. Givers might think that it is appreciated, but recipients experience little ownership value in this and would prefer traditional gifts. (Think about that for the next Bar Mitzvah in your life. Then again, our bookshelves still hold umpteen copies of the book ” The Jews of Oregon.”…) Last but not least, gifts that confer value over an extended period of time, rather than make for a brilliant splash at the moment of delivery are by far the most appreciated. That boring wooden salad bowl for the newlyweds WILL score, when still around on your 40th wedding anniversary!

I make my own gifts these days where retirement allows the time and leisure to produce needle work – knitting has turned out to be an effective therapy for frayed nerves. And the photomontages from across the year usually find their way into a calendar. I do appreciate receiving self made gifts, given that I am surrounded by so many talented friends who excel in creativity. But that requires privilege, and people should not add to their stressful lives by investing time that is already a scarce commodity. A friend and I who experienced 30 years of lovely exchanges, decided that from now on its going to be books for the other’s grandchildren in lieu of our own pleasures, to build libraries for the next generation. There’s a way to break the cycle without bad feelings and only fleeting regret since I loved her presents.

It’s still true, though, that gifts – the ones given and the ones gotten – CAN provide a lot of joy, a sense of connectedness and enrichment beyond the material value. Not everything has to be transactional, or part of structural pressures that want to stratify social relations. Just make sure there are no strings attached.

Music contains words about the Magi, the three Kings who brought gifts to Bethlehem, in the classic version – Bach’s Christmas Oratorio Cantata 5 and 6.