Books you may not like: Vincent Van Gogh, The Life

If I sit and really think about it, public schools, of all things, really helped foster an interest in art.  I remember basically three pivotal moments in my schooling that really cemented a love of art.  My entire time spent with art in school couldn't have taken more than 117 hours of schooling out of the staggering 15840 I spent in grade school and college, and yet those 117 hours (a mere 0.74%!) have paid incredible dividends, adding a richness to life that goes well beyond the scant amount of time spent.  Opponents of teaching art in public schools, take note!

Anyway, here they are:

1. I remember being exposed to art for the first time, really, in the third grade, when every other week we were marched off to the art room for an hour.  And one of the paintings I remember seeing was Van Gogh's "The Bedroom in Arles" I don't what it was about it - maybe it was the colors, or the kind of skewed perspective, or the fact that we learned Van Gogh was so crazy that he cut off his ear and gave it to his girlfriend (which, to the mind of a third grader, was kind of cool, but why go through so much trouble just for some dumb girl with cooties), but I liked it, and I tucked it into the filing cabinet for later.  
2. I've mentioned in this blog many times my European History teacher's delegation of teaching art history to "Sister Wendy's History of Painting".  While I have often joked about this, I have to commend him for giving the task to more capable hands.  
3. At Virginia Tech, all science and engineering majors have to take a class called "Creativity and Aesthetic Experience", where basically the head of the theatre department learns us about theatre, art, and music, and we have to go and see some shows and concerts.  It was kind of silly, but it was welcome break from never ending math and it was here that I learned about texture and contrast in painting for the first time, only deepening my appreciation.  

There you go.  A smattering of arts education goes a mighty long way.  

Anyway, as my appreciation grew, I became more and more drawn to Van Gogh's work, and I have to count his landscapes, and even some of his still lifes, as some of my favorite pieces of art.  If I happen to come across one in a museum I can stand and look at it, transfixed, for fully...well, five minutes.  But in this day and age of tweets and instantaneous everything, five minutes sitting contemplating a painting is like an eternity.  You know, kind of like how one dog year = seven people years.  

I even came a little bit to idolize the man himself. My knowledge had deepened a little more - I knew that the had given his ear to a prostitute, not merely his girlfriend, and that he was totally reliant on his brother for money.  Still, I admired the way he seemed to give himself wholly to his art.  But that was about all.  I wanted to know a little more.

So it was natural then that I would pick up a copy of the latest Van Gogh biography, Van Gogh: The Life .  It reads wonderfully well, justifying the claim by many reviews that it practically reads like a novel.  The authors did an incredible job of breathing life in Van Gogh's life and times.  The book is also well illustrated though most of the illustrations are black and white.  Van Gogh painted so many works I found that sometimes I had to go to the Google or to another book I have on Van Gogh to see a particular work being discussed in the book.  

Well written as the book is, its a tough read because it is basically an 800 page study in human misery.  Van Gogh was an odd kid with a strange personality that his parents (a pastor in the Dutch Lutheran church and his very status oriented wife) did not take too well.  He was sent to a series of boarding schools in which he failed, and then the family used its connections to get him a job at Goupil art dealers, at which he failed several times.  He then tried to be a missionary but failed as that at well, and when studying to take entrance exams so that he could go to seminary and be a pastor like his father?  Guess what:  failed those too.  

Vincent's repeated professional failings, coupled with his odd behavior (drunkenness, cavorting with prostitutes, hanging out with the peasants) brought scandal on the family and finally he was basically ostracized.   

And that seems to be the source of Vincent's misery.  For some reason he just was unable to connect with people, he was unable to find a family, and he would try again and again to graft himself into someone's life.  But, as Sien Hoornik, Paul Gauguin, and host of others found out, he did it with such incredibly intensity that it was simply impossible to live with him for more than a few months.  By the end of his life, even the two penny whores of Arles would politely refuse the strange man's company.

What's doubly sad that is tragedy seemed to touch all of those he came into contact with.  One of Vincent's brothers was killed in the diamond mines of Africa; one of his sister's ended up in an insane asylum; one of the only women that seriously loved him nearly killed himself after both her and Van Gogh's family got in the way of the match; Sien Hoornik drowned herself at the age of 45.  

And then there's Theo Van Gogh, Vincent's younger brother, who was a success at Goupil and struggled all his life to support Vincent by sending him money, paints, canvases, and trying to sell his works through his art world connections.  Theo was the closest friend Vincent ever had, and yet their relationship was under constant strain from Vincent's never ending demands for money.  Theo and Vincent cavorted together in the whorehouses of the Parisian underworld and both of them contracted syphilis.  The disease drove Theo horrifically insane and he ended his life in a straight jacket and a padded room.  Were it not for Theo's marriage to Joanna Bonger, who did much to give Vincent the recognition in death that he had never had in life, Vincent's art work may have died with Theo.

The question I found myself asking as I read the book is:  was it all worth it?  Was the work left behind worth the price?  Is my five minutes of enjoyment worth a lifetime of unhappy toil?  I don't know.  But it's a dangerous question to pose, because it suggests that nothing is worth ceaseless Sisyphean task of living a life that all of us are engaged in, even if it is something that a good number of us engage in with more happiness and success than Vincent Van Gogh.  Then again, perhaps Van Gogh's work points to an answer.  Maybe it is our mission, our vocation, to pull something beautiful out of the jaws of life, steeped in suffering though it may be.  

  

Olympics Survival Tips for Twitter Addicts

It has come to my attention that people, including both Mike Greeney AND Mike Golic, are complaining that because of the way NBC is broadcasting the Olympics they already know who won a certain event before they get the chance to see the network's tape delayed and edited broadcast in Primetime.  The culprit: social media.

You know how it goes.  You are kicking back in the man cave.  You're reclining in your giant leather chair and you got a six pack on ice sitting next to you.  You are getting ready for some hot beach volleyball action in Primetime when you check your Twitter feed and see that your buddy Smitty has sent you a...ugh...."tweet"....saying that Walsh and May-Treanor thrashed the Russians to get to the next round and they looked sooooo good doing it.  Of course, you watch it anyway for the obvious reasons, but knowing they won (though, honestly, it would be truly shocking if they lost...) takes some of the fun out of it.   And you think "God, this would be so much better if I didn't know the outcome".

Well, America, never fear.  I, Nick Marickovich, Mr. Tape Delay himself, is here to give you some pointers on how you can never suffer the same fate again.  I assure you that I am extremely well qualified.  As an avid soccer fan, I often record key games on the DVR and watch them late at night, hours after they have been completed, without knowing the result.  It's as if it was live, even though...you know...it's not, and it leaves me with the rather unsettling question every time a goal gets scored of what exactly I am celebrating in regards to the space time continuum.

There are three simple steps...though I guess maybe the first one is a little complicated.  You'll see what I mean.

1.  Media Blackout.

If you don't want to know the result of a match or event, limit your information.  The severity of the blackout depends on the magnitude of the sporting event.  If, say, you want to watch Aston Villa v. Torquay United  in the first round of the FA Cup, you can probably limit the blackout to soccer websites like  www.AstonVilla.epl.net and www.HeyguesswhatTorquayhasafootballteam.com.  But if, say, you can't watch the Super Bowl live because you have a bunch of TPS reports to file, well, you better avoid TV, radio, Internet websites of all kind, and naturally all social media outlets.

Sadly, the Olympics is one of those times when its best to just shut it all down.  No radio, no TV, no Internet, and of course no social media.  You never know when NPR, or CNN, or FOX News, or The Bugle, is going to make a tweet or run or a story about the athlete who recovered from cancer 4 times while fighting to get his mother out of prison and went on to win the gold in Fencing even after losing an arm not three months ago in a tragic potato chip incident;  You never know when your best bud, moved by a sudden outburst of patriotism after seeing a US gymnast just barely eek out gold on the parallel bars, will tweet "WHOO! We Gymnasticated the fucking shit out of everyone!  USA USA USA #USA!" 

So when it comes to the media, just turn it off.  Don't take your chances.

The approach of a total blackout also helps put things into perspective.  Are you willing to go without Twitter  for a few hours so you can watch the Olympic duck duck goose finals?  If not, then maybe you aren't as interested in the event as you thought.  Or maybe you are so addicted to Twitter that you need serious help.

2.  Tell everyone that you don't want to know who wins.

Hey, it's a free country.  You may be in blackout mode, but your friends will not be.  If you find yourself at work or out with some friends during the event that you cannot watch, make sure you tell everyone you don't want to know the winner because you are going to watch it later.

There are two responses your friends will have to this:

• they will either be really considerate and not mention it even if they do get some kind of sports alert on their smart phone that tells them that, yes, Hector Rodriguez of Mexico won the duck duck goose final after the early selection of the heavily favored Nico Stepanovic of Croatia as the goose.  
• Or your friends will be total dicks and tell you that, yes, Rodriguez won as the early selection of Stepanovic caught the Croatian completely off guard and Hector was able to make a run for it, forcing Stepanovic out with three overs and a half jug.  Having eliminated his best competition, Rodriguez picked off the rest of the field with surprising ease, winning by the score of eleventy seven to twelve.  

3.  Convince yourself that if your friends to tell you the result, they are just messing with you and, to continue an example, Rodriguez really didn't win that final.

Apply a little deniability and delusionality.  To guard against the devastation of learning the outcome of an event before it happens, inculcate the belief that everyone talking about it is in a grand conspiracy to mislead you as to the winner.  Why they are doing this you don't know, but you never liked them very much anyway, and the situation definitely bears watching.

So there you go.  Turn off the Twitter for a bit, go about your business, and enjoy NBC's Primetime coverage of the Olympics in the full, sweet bliss of total ignorance.

On the Dark Knight Shootings

I think Charles M. Blow's excellent Op-Ed in the New York Times puts it pretty well:

"It is on days like this that we are reminded of how much more alike than different we are, when we see that tears have no color, when ideologies melt into a common heart broken by sorrow".  

The only thing I would add to that is that I find it sad that the only time we can come together as a nation is in the wake of tragedies like this; that the only time a staunch conservative and bleeding heart liberal can stand by side on a stage with common purpose is when it is time to mourn.  

Of course, it won't last long.  Already we are in a sharp skirmish over gun control laws.  But if I were to place my bets, I wouldn't place them on having some kind of sober national dialogue that actually changes anything.  Neither presidential candidate is likely to make gun control a plank in their campaign platform, and soon we'll be squabbling over Romney's tax returns and Obama's birth certificate once more.  Normal service shall resume.  

But let's focus on the current debate, however briefly it may last.  The arguments are familiar.  One side says if we simply outlawed all guns, the deranged perpetrator of these shootings would have never had access to the weapons he used and the shooting would have never happened.  The other side says that if someone had been carrying a gun in the theater they might have been able to take this guy and maybe save some lives.  

As with most purely ideological stances, both are arguments I find to be impracticable.  You simply can't ban all guns.  Our nation does have a gun culture (whether you like it or not), and if someone wants to have rifles for hunting or shotguns for home defense, if some old lady wants to carry around a 9mm in her handbag because it makes her feel safe, well, more power to them.  It's their right to do so.

On the other hand, when does somebody's right to own weapons infringe on another persons right to feel reasonably safe walking down the street or going to the movies without one?  While I readily recognize the fact that we have a gun culture, I also believe that it is out of control.  The argument that a citizen carrying a gun can thwart an event like this makes me think that the gun lobby really wants our nation to resemble the wild west.  Thanks, but that's really not a society I want to live in (though I'll take the hats and mustaches).  I'd really rather not have to lock and load just to go to the library.  Also, I wish to point out that it seems to me a person carrying a handgun in this situation might be a little outmatched by a man wearing tactical armor and carrying an AR-15.  Just an opinion.  

So, Government:  I would like to see more sensible gun control laws, please.  I think a good place to start would be a ban on assault rifles.  The only reason to have one is if, as the name implies, you are going to actually assault something.  Private citizens should have no need to do so.  And sorry, I don't buy all that stuff about how an armed citizenry safeguards democracy.  The implied threat of open violence against the government laced within such an argument is just a little frightening.  This isn't 1776.  

It's impossible to completely prevent tragedies such as the Dark Knight Shootings, April 16th, or Columbine.    I have to believe, though, that banning assault rifles and 100 round clips (or at least making them very, very hard to obtain) would lower the heartbreaking frequency at which these acts of depravity occur.  And when they do happen, maybe the lives lost will be less.  The police may be able to move in faster knowing a suspect is more lightly armed than they.  Maybe even that granny with the 9mm in her handbag would actually stand a chance.  

But there is no way our nation would ever be so sensible.  No way that the gun lobby, safe guarders of liberty and keepers of the peace, would be okay with giving up a freedom we really don't need so that the rest of us can actually be a little bit safer as we pursue our own happiness.  There is simply too much money, and votes, at stake.  

And so it goes.