Self-Censorship and The Purpose of the Arts

 Back in early December 2021, the New York Times had an article entitled "Writers Tackle the Challenge of Self-Censorship" based on a discussion of the topic sponsored by PEN America, an organization founded in 1922 in support of freedom of expression.

Long considered a basic right in the U.S. as enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, free expression is under threat from both the right and the left at present with writers of all description in the firing line.

This came to mind the other day when I read in the NYT a review of a book called "Authority and Freedom, A defense of the Arts," by Jed Perl. In it, Perl argues art should be freed from the notion that to be valid, it has to address prevailing sociopolitical concerns. 

The reviewer, American composer John Adams, who has had rare success with contemporary opera -- "Nixon in China" and "Doctor Atomic" -- faulted Perl for not giving any examples of art that sacrifices aesthetic authenticity for social relevance. 

"On wonders whether the real reason for his silence here is the now-familiar threat of being cancelled," Adams said. 

I, personally, wouldn't be all that surprised since I have been pondering, in the prevailing cancel-culture, cultural-misappropriation climate, whether I need to change the race of a character in my operetta "Patricia," a work in progress (and one that in all likelihood always will be).

While I personally tend to fall into the "art-for-the-sake-of-art camp," Adams clearly doesn't.

"It's unlikely that 'Authority and Freedom' will change many artists' minds about how they view their work. They will do what they want, and many, if not most, today are ablaze with an intensity not seen since the 1930s to make their art speak truth to power, to heal what they deem the rent in our social fabric," he said.

Perhaps Adams, on his part, can provide some examples of contemporary art that has successfully healed (my emphasis) as opposed to -- say -- addressed "the rent in our social fabric."  

"If you ask them," Adams continued, "they will tell you that art that doesn't address this sense of urgency is not just out of touch with the times, it is irrelevant."

My own sense is that if an artist creates something of exceptional aesthetic value, it will far outlast creations that are first and foremost in touch with the sociopolitical currents of their times although, to be fair, there are examples over the course of history that have successfully hit both targets.

The World of Ballet: Changes Coming to San Francisco

 Today's news: the San Francisco Ballet, the oldest ballet company in the U.S., has selected Tamara Rojo as its first woman artistic director, effective at the end of this year. But, given the long lead time needed for developing programing, just what she has in mind for the company won't be fully evident until the 2023-24 season.

According to a New York Times article, Rojo was rather vague on what that might be, saying only that she was interested in keeping ballet "relevant to a younger audience that sometimes has new values and principles" and that she would be instituting a system of "checks and balances" when it came to casting and dancer evaluations. The latter may be necessary in part because Rojo's husband, Isaac Hernandez, recently rejoined the SF Ballet as a principal dancer, providing Rojo with a built-in conflict of interest. The search committee asked "difficult questions" about that, the NYT said, but not so difficult as to rule Rojo out. 

Rojo also told the NYT that along with focusing on female choreographers, she would bring "new voices to interpret the classics."

In what was probably a foretaste of what is to come on that front, in her current position as head of the English National Ballet (not to be confused with the Royal Ballet), Rojo mounted a reimagined version of "Giselle" created by Akram Khan, a Londoner born to a family from Bangladesh. The choreography was infused with modern dance and Indian dance elements and the story was reset in what has been described as "present-day dystopia."  Instead of peasants, there are disposed migrant workers labeled "the Outcasts" and the underworld is full of "ghosts of factory workers who seek revenge for the wrongs done to them in life" instead of the traditional Willis -- the spirits of maidens betrayed by their lovers dancing in floaty white dresses.

What then will SF ballet audiences see?  Swan Lake set in a Superfund site? Or maybe Coppelia in a highly automated factory with a bunch of out-of-control robots astonishing the visiting children? 

Sunnie Evers, co-chair of the SF Ballet's search committee, told the NYT that the company initially contacted over 200 possible candidates as possible replacements for Helgi Tomasson, who has been the SF Ballet's artistic director since 1985. By last July, when the list had been narrowed down to eight: "we had three people of color and three women in that round," Evers said, adding "there is a lot of talk about ballet being dominated by white men, so I am thrilled we were not."

Well, that's pretty much where it's at these days if one spends much time reading the NYT.  When it comes to the arts, just who created something -- their gender, color and sexual orientation -- is more important than what actually gets created. In the case of Khan's "Giselle," one could argue it was a case of cultural misappropriation, but that is apparently only the case in a reverse situation -- a white artist making use of something stemming from a non-white culture. The Western canon, if not cancelled, is up for grabs.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" Wins NYT Best Book Contest

 Last October, to mark the 125th anniversary of its Book Review section, the New York Times asked readers to nominate the best book published in a variety of different categories during that time frame,

In its Dec. 29, 2021 edition, the Times announced that after tallying more than 200,000 votes from all 50 states and 67 foreign countries, the winner for fiction was "To Kill a Mocking Bird," by Harper Lee.

I've written about "To Kill a Mocking Bird" (and arguably its very different first draft, subsequently published as "Go Set a Watchman") here, here and here. 

Those interesting in taking another look at "Mockingbird" might find it interesting to consult what I have written about it before doing so.

By the way, back in 2012, "To Kill a Mockingbird" came in second on a 200-best-books list offered by the British Broadcasting Company -- just after Jane Austin's classic "Pride and Prejudice."   You can find that list here.

Thanks to Amber and Mary for Rating "Gina/Diane" Highly

 I would like to take a moment to thank two women -- Amber and Mary -- for giving my novella "Gina/Diane" five-star ratings on "Goodreads," where Kindle versions of the book were recently awarded to 100 applicants in a promotional giveaway. 

I thought this might be a good time to promote the book because it is about the consequences of a then-illegal abortion. While it is inspired by something that actually happened, it is a work of fiction.

As readers surely know, the U.S. Supreme Court is currently in the process of revisiting the issue of abortion rights currently enshrined in its 1973 decision known as Roe v. Wade. Given the makeup of the court, abortion-rights advocates have expressed fears at least some individual states will return to the sort of environment that adversely affected my heroine.

"Enjoyed this storyline and read," Mary said about "Gina/Diane."  I'm grateful for her having taken the time to do so -- and I'm grateful that Amber took the time to rate the book as well.

The Methodology of "A Lot Of Things Have Happened"

 One of the age-old questions is: should a work of art, such as a short story, be able to stand on its own, without explanation, to be valid? In other words, if its creator has to explain it, is it a failure?

In general, I think that's a good general proposition, but there are exceptions, and such is arguably the case with respect to "A Lot Of Things Have Happened," a short story by Adam Levin in the Dec. 27, 2021 issue of The New Yorker. It's a string of awkwardly unpleasant, or downright disgusting, incidents that take place over a period of years to a college instructor, first with a girlfriend and then with his wife.

Curiously, he is named Adam Levin, or at least that's what his parrot calls him -- sometimes just "Adam," other times just "Levin," but in the last two words of the story: "Adam Levin." The complete name out of the parrot's beak seems to imply that we now know everything we need to know about Mr. Levin. The preceding set of incidents in the story paint him in full -- as someone who, if you don't happen to know him, you don't need to.

In the usual New Yorker author interview, Levin (the author) is asked how he went about constructing his story and this is where matters get more interesting.

In reply, Levin, a seasoned writer, said that he had recently gotten more interested in trying to figure out how to put anecdotal material together without "artful transition." 

"With this particular story, the first thing I did was write a handful of fictional, largely disconnected, first-person anecdotes as sparsely and impactfully and comically as I could, each one in the same voice. Once a certain number of these anecdotes accrued—a greater number, to be sure, than appear here, in “A Lot of Things Have Happened”—I began to notice some commonalities between the anecdotes (example: tools kept getting misused) and adjusted the volume on those commonalities so as to make the anecdotes more continuous with one another. In the course of doing that, I began to discover what the larger story wanted to be (or what I wanted it to be), I cut away the redundancies and distractions as best I could, and rearranged the order of the anecdotes till (hopefully) they fell into the sequence that best served the whole."

Interested readers can decide for themselves whether Levin was successful in putting together a compelling work of fiction, but his methodology is worth thinking about. I think one often stumbles across, or comes up with, a vignette that seems worthy of writing up, only then to wonder: "What to do with it? "

Goodreads Giveaway for Gina/Diane, a Book About Abortion

 

Above is the cover of my second novella, "Gina/Diane," first self-published several years ago. But because it is about abortion, I thought it might be a good time to make a small promotional effort, given the U.S. Supreme Court's current agenda and very recent deliberations.

"Gina/Diane," inspired by what happened to a woman I once knew, looks back to a time -- not that long ago -- when abortion was illegal in the U.S.  This is not that woman's story per se. It's fiction, set in an entirely different location: an out-of-season North Carolina beach community. But the more poignant aspects of it are all too true with respect to at least one life, and I suspect others as well.

The promotional effort took the form of a Goodreads giveaway for books available on Amazon's Kindle platform, which is to say either on a Kindle reader or on a computer or a smartphone equipped with a Kindle app. 

One pays about $120 to have Goodreads, an arm of Amazon, run a month-long promotion of the type I purchased.  Results were reported to be as follows: 533 people entered the drawing of which 100 were awarded a free Kindle edition of the book and 465 people supposedly put it on a "want-to-read" list. 

 Based on the results of a similar giveaway I ran for my first book, "Manhattan Morning" back some time ago, that doesn't mean much, if anything at all.

(By the way, if you click on the link above, you can now get a free, illustrated edition of "Manhattan Morning" in an easy-to-read PDF format. As Manhattan is changing, the book is gradually becoming a document of some historical relevance as well as a good story for those disinclined toward violence, weird sex, etc. etc. And the ending closely tracks a real-life incident.)

In my experience, a Goodreads giveaway is a poor way to market a book (the best way is to somehow become a member of the Literary Industrial Complex at which point the New Yorker may publish an excerpt masquerading as a short story and interview you with some softball questions. But a Goodreads giveaway is easy, leaving one plenty of time for other pursuits.

As for "Gina/Diane" itself, what can I say other than: "I highly recommend it!" 

The Nature of Women, and Sociopolitical Observations

 "What do women want?" is an age-old question and one that is particularly relevant for writers of fiction -- male authors in particular, I suppose.

With men it is easy: they want power, money, sex and celebrity in no particular order since one of those objectives often brings all or most of the others along with it.  Endless books revolve around such themes. 

With women it has been more of a puzzle, but two articles in the Nov. 11, 2021 New York Times may be of some help. Both -- one in the arts section and the other in the sports section -- involve violence on the part of women toward other women.

The arts section article concerns "Yellowjackets," a film about to appear on "Showtime" that depicts first what happens when a place carrying a U.S. girl's soccer team crashes in a remote location and then what happens to the survivors. Essentially, as the NYT article suggests, it's a gender-reverse version of "Lord of the Flies." Instead of young boys turning against each other in a sadistic fashion, this time it is girls.

"It argues for the savagery of girlhood -- with or without an aviation disaster -- and how that savagery reverberates throughout women's lives," the article says.

Let's pause for a moment and consider a major current of sociopolitical thought these days: that white males are responsible for most if not all of the world's ills.  Suppose the patriarchy is successfully toppled; what sort of a world are we in for next?

"The show abounds with strong women, none of whom you would want to share a bottle of chardonnay with," is one observation contained therein. Another is: "There's a very specific feminine way of brutalizing each other."

But even before the plane crash, some of the girls are depicted as malevolent at home in up-scale suburbia. One betrays a friend and another grievously injures a teammate.

Which brings me to the NYT sports section article. It reports on the arrest -- and subsequent release -- of a French professional woman soccer player suspected of being instrumental in the beating of one of her teammates by a couple of thugs who concentrated on injuring the victim's legs while stealing nothing from her. The accused woman was described to be an understudy of the victim and, indeed, replaced her as a starter when the victim, a French national team veteran, was unable to play in a subsequent match.

While no charges have been filed, an investigation by French authorities is continuing,

It is now necessary to pause for a second time and consider another prevailing sociopolitical issue: racism.

The two NYT articles on the incident -- reporting the arrest and then the release -- did not mention the race of either of the two women, but large photos accompanying the pieces showed clearly that one -- the suspected perpetrator based on names in the caption -- is black and the victim white.

Let's think about that for a moment. If this incident had occurred in the U.S. and the race of the victim had been black as opposed to white and the alleged perpetrator white rather than black, this incident would have been trumped as another example of the endemic racism that is said to characterize American society.