Greetings!
It is often said that art imitates life, but I would argue that this adage sells art short.
I think art explains life by revealing new perspective. It helps us meet challenges, experience joy, and move forward. For this reason I dedicate as much time as I can to experiencing and creating art.
For example, if I want to understand political events (which I do) I find mainstream news does little to explain and plenty to inflame. Instead I turn to art. Podcasts, theater, even street art all explain things about politics and they can be quick to digest. I like all those media very much. Although, measured by time and understanding, books continue to be my main source of information.
Non-Fiction Delivers Shortcuts
Although books may seem long, I believe they offer shortcuts. For instance, each chapter in Madeleine Albright’s Fascism: a Warning, a cogent, well-informed view on political patterns of the last century, is easily worth a thousand news cycles. It filled in blanks between the headlines, while reminding me that headlines are the least of our worries. Rather it’s our collective, day-to-day behaviors that will matter at the end of the day.
Burrowing deeper into the rabbit hole of human behavior, I read Masha Gessen’s
The Future is History, about Russia from around 1984 onwards, which takes one of Albright’s chapters and turns it like a kaleidoscope. Understanding how people behave under different political circumstances feels crucial right now, so I am grateful for these well-researched shortcuts.
Fiction And Music Are Truthy, Too
Speaking of Russia in 1984, fiction also plays a key role in explaining life. I had the pleasure (or pain, if I’m honest) of seeing a performance of George Orwell’s
Nineteen Eighty-Four earlier this year. This fictional story felt like documentary.
About last week. In multiple countries.
Taking a completely different tack, I came upon this wonderful song and video by Amanda Palmer singing about author Judy Blume. In a somewhat meta twist, this is art explaining how art explained something. Palmer sings:
“… go on and think how you want,
you will not be alone with your thoughts,
well you will, but you won’t in a way,
’cause a girl thought it too
in a book that the library bought…”
There is so much to love in this music. Yes, I am comparing a song by an alt-rock punk cabaret singer to George Orwell. And I am better informed as a result.
Taking And Making Art
So I am going to keep drawing from art to inform my thinking, and to flow this as visibly as I can into spaces where I think it’s insufficient, as with this thread on twitter that connects understanding racism with the future of business. I will put what I can out into the world, and absorb from others in return. A sort of thought lending library, if you will.
I am going to keep making art, too. Sometimes it will be subversive knitting that flies under the radar to unsuspecting recipients. Sometimes I will place it above the radar like this in-flight journey that inspired my first official foray into YouTube. And I will lean into the pitch process for my own book which is complete except for the chapter about global warming — for that part I’m still working out what happens next.
Taking a page from Amanda Palmer’s TED Talk, The Art of Asking, I’m also going to ask for something: if anything I put out there is worthwhile to you, it would be helpful if you could share, like, comment or even — in the case of this new YouTube adventure — subscribe. That signals that this work matters to you. I am not aiming for viral cat video status (though I do love a good viral cat video) but I am aiming to contribute to the sense-making of life.
May 2019 bring more art that moves us deeply, and perhaps even moves us forward.
Yours in connectedness,
Lorraine
