Recovering the Lost Process
Last year another semester ended with large numbers of students either failing or dong significantly well, but with no students in the middle. I began again to think about the problems of teaching and wondering if there was a solution. There are several problems really: the first was best articulated by friend who described teaching as twice removed from reality, something like a synopsis of an abridgment. The second problem is that students focus on the singular moment of the exam where they will learn and regurgitate the only the essential material as needed. Any topic in a class is merely a subject they need to prove they know enough at one particular moment. Never mind tomorrow. The disparity in the success of the students was largely due to each students ability to cram for an exam. Good students had mastered this but bad one’s were deluded into thinking they could somehow pull it off. Almost no one was putting in a sustained effort.
To return to the idea of a process I began developing a radical new way to teach where the students were not called on to learn what I lectured on directly, but instead had to apply the information given in the lectures to a set of materials that were unidentified. Each class after 50 minutes of lecture I would give 20 minutes of time to allow them to methodically go through the materials. They were charged with not only learning the identity of the materials but also the relationships between them. I explained that they were to solve a giant puzzle, one where they were going to have to learn by observing and recording what they knew without always knowing what was important and only later going back and making connections. The random access to the materials created a sense of discovery in the students and reinforced a sense that the content in the lectures had a larger meaning and significance. It has so far been a great success. I see fewer students failing and the level of information that the students are learning is deeper and more sustained than in the past. Gone is the feeling of futility and I and the students are enjoying the process of discovery. I especially like those moments in class when they show me things they have found that I have never seen before. Because I do not limit what they can learn from the materials I am often surprised by the keen observations students achieve.
Bad Drawing in Comics
It seems one of the peculiar traits comics has maintatined is its love/hate relationship with bad drawing. Sure, there have been stellar illustrators in the comics world, but for every Windsor McCay and Harold Foster there are hundreds of artists of the Scott Adams, Kim Casali, Cathy Guisewite ilk, whose work defies any category of aesthetic appreciation and yet have hordes of devoted fans. I must admit my initial aversion to bad drawing in comics is often overcome by the power of the narrative. I become affected by the action and words to such an extent that the bad drawing becomes something that tugs at my perception and I laugh and are amazed by the truth of the comic and the terrible tension it maintains with its awkward existence. Chris Onstad’s Achewood is a classic example of the sort of bad drawing that defies belief. The characters only vaguely resemble some real thing, in this case clumsy stuffed animals, but they carry within their absurd condition something deeply human. I do not identify with their actions or sympathize with their conflicts, rather it is the smallness and trivial nature of the drawing that sums up a pathetic situation that I can only wonder at.
Tragically Flawed
Last week in summing up the differences in dramatic genres for Introduction to Theatre, the discussion turned to the absence of tragedy in the modern world. Though Death of a Salesman purports to fill the bill as a tragic work for the modern times it points out many of the problems that Tragedy has in gaining resonance today. Part of the trouble of Miller’s play is the way it attempts to place the blame of Willie Lowman on the “Capitalist System” and the false promise of the American Dream. Lowman’s Suicide at the end of the play is not born of his personal choice but a last effort to find some kind of dignity, something akin to a samurai performing sepukku, but where the insurmountable humiliation of failure is really no fault of his own but that of the system. Miller disputed in the preface to his play that one of the key ingredients to Tragedy is the fall of a great heroic man, hence Lowman or Everyman can become tragic if only they face an insurmountable force. What is truly missing in Miller’s play is not the dignity of the leading role but the responsibility of that character to take account of their actions and act with understanding with a pursuit toward greater knowledge. Actions can only rise to the level of Tragedy if characters take responsibility for the actions. Without responsibility, the chief results of tragedy are pity alone. We are not prompted to fear the fate of the protagonist who does not take responsibility because they are not as self aware of their problem than we are of theirs. To fear the tragic consequences of heroic action is to see ourselves in the hero, self aware of the implications of action and inaction. The Modern world lacks the certainty to attribute responsibility because, in many ways, we are more aware of the complexity of actions, layers of motives and influences that exist outside anyone’s full knowledge. Nonetheless, there is an unmistakable cowardice in the way leaders use that ambiguity to their advantage to deny any culpability. The consequences of our Tragedy-free world is not that terrible events are reduced in scope to accidents, but by avoiding responsibility for failure we have lost the genuine pursuit of self-knowledge.
Wizard World
I made a suprize visit to Wizard world yesterday in Chicago. Though the throng of attendees were in no way suprized to see yet another middle aged man rifing through piles of comics, it was a suprize for me as I had only learned of the convention that morning while reading the local paper at a hotel near O’Hare that I happened to be staying at. I made a few hasty calls to change my morning plans and drove to the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. I have been researching comics for several years now and never before have I attended a convention where people dress up as their favorite corporate logo and wait in long lines to fawn over aging celebrities such as the original Lois from the 1950s Superman TV series. Wizard World was a colorful event in a huge hall with enough room to land a jumbo jet. it was daunting though not unexpected to see the noisy eyecatching video games, mountains of action figures, endless stores of yellowed comics. However I made my way to the long back tables to look for the work of the lesser known artists and it was there I found a few real treats. I was very pleased to rediscover a comic I had originally found at Isotope comics in SF and thereby was able to complete my collection of Ouija Interviews by Sarah Becan. I was also taken by buzz comics by Corinne Mucha and Return Me to the Sea by Sam Sharpe. Later I picked up some discounted copies of older more mainstream comics, such as Frédéric Boilet’s Yukiko’s Spinich, Frank Miller’s Ronin, and Marc Bell’s Shrimpy and Paul. On the whole it was great to find these treasures but it was also a little disconcerting to see so much similarity. I am not the only one who has bemoaned the vaccuum that constitutes genre diversity in American comics, but it seemed an absurd condition blown all out of proportion in the mega-Chum Bucket convention. It seems the industry has learned nothing in the last two decades and continues to pump out garbage that appeals to the easiest coustomer: young white men. There were some manga, though suprizingly little considering its growing popularity, nothing from Europe, very little that constituted comics for and by women. The whole adolescent collecting mania that seemed to self perpetuate the delusion that there really are devoted readers seems unchecked.
The One That Got Away
Last Memorial Weekend I attended with my wife and family a conference at the Maharishi University on creativity and Transcendental Meditation billed as “Catching the Big Fish,” titled after a book by the Keynote speaker David Lynch. It seemed like an interesting pairing and I must admit I was perversely drawn to the possibility of seeing the David Lynch, especially if he were to hold forth on the subject of creativity. My wife, Jenna, a long time practitioner of TM was also intrigued and we shared one seat at the conference trading opportunities to attend sessions and swim with our boys at the hotel pool. The conference was really a celebrity media event with film cameras everywhere that seemed to function only to intimidate attendees and create the aura of newsworthiness, as if every moment needed to be captured for posterity. I actually found it easier to watch the conference on the giant flanking rear projection screens as they seemed to offer a more satisfying experience than the people seated in front of me who, slightly bored, reiterated sound bites to the attendees’ questions. Lynch did not give any talk at all instead used his sessions to answer questions from the audience while he let fly his pearls of wisdom.
My sarcasm betrays my deep disappointment as the questions were far more interesting than the answers, which seldom offered any real personal insight, often obfuscated details, and frequently avoided critical issues. In the first question to Lynch a woman asked about how it was possible for everyone to make use of their ideas, some ideas might contradict the needs of other ideas, and that perhaps not everyone can find a way to cook and eat the fish they catch. Lynch punted on this rather than concede the truth of the matter–that material needs do limit ideal creation–he insisted ideas will find a way into being when they are fully understood and beautiful. Prior to this conference I was greatly impressed by Lynch’s evident creative resourcefulness, especially when he directed a short film using a simple Lumier Brother’s style camera for the documentary Lumiere & Company (1995). His film was a brilliant and complex narrative that challenged what was possible within the narrow technical means of a single focus hand crank camera. At the conference he contented himself to talk like a spiritual guru on a high mountain that must make every utterance universally applicable to all questions. The result was a wash of platitudes and empty advice that was no better than his skimpy self-help book on the same topic. After one session with Lynch I decided skip the other two planned events with him as it was clearly more rewarding to do my fishing at the hotel pool with my kids.
Hurly Burly Bali Gamelan
In writing my dissertation some time ago I argued that it was inappropriate in my study of wayang performers improvisation in Java to try and understand a performing art by becoming a practitioner. In any learning environment, I argued, the accommodation and innovation alters the original and distorts one’s perceptions of the original tradition. Furthermore, I wrote, “I no longer feel certain that a “co-aesthetic” participation is a genuine possibility in ethnographic research because it assumes there is a mutual aesthetic that is the basis for the intercultural understanding” (30). By which I meant any attempt to understand a performing tradition by learning how its done assumed that it was possible to share some common artistic objective. At that time I did not see how it was feasible to accomplish some understanding when any performance that I made would be for different reasons and objectives than one made by a traditional performer.
I mention this all now because I was wrong and I was forcibly made aware of how very wrong I was when I watched I Ketut Gede Asnawa’s Balinese gamelan recital with students from his various classes at UIUC last Saturday. Watching the UIUC students approximate Balinese dance and music it was possible to see the flaws and the omissions or to simply say it’s done better in Bali, but these comments would miss the point because they miss what counts most to qualify as an authentic expression of Balinese art. My experience in the gamelan concert was like the Grinch looking down on Whoville, my small heart grew three sizes that day as I came to realize it is not the form of the dance, the look of the costume, or the sound of the gamelan that made the show Balinese, though there were penty of flashy costumes and dazzling sounds. Nor was it Bali gamelan because of where it happened, why it was done, or even who did it. It is Balinese gamelan when it expresses a certain hurly burly, exiting, dazzling fun, which is summed up in the word ramai in Bali. To Asnawa’s credit performers were certainly accomplished enough to put on a great show, not because they were comparable to a Balinese performer in skill, rather they were skilled enough to make it look fun. They were not quoting or approximating some more genuine performance elsewhere, they were doing it for themselves and each other and enjoying themselves while doing it. There was not a sense the group was struggling or straining to keep up, they were having a good time and it made you want to join in and dance and make music.
I was thinking these thoughts during the Joged dance as they brought audience members down to the stage to dance, and I was feeling very sorry that no one had invited me. It was easy to be envious of the dancers and musicians on stage and it was this feeling of wanting to belong I recognized from my brief time in Bali and when I remember seeing Balinese performances in the past. I recalled then that Balinese art has that effect on people. We just want to belong there, be accepted in the dance, be allowed to make music just like they do.
Brecht’s Bears and Rattlesnakes
Mr. Puntilla and his Man Matti is one of the few comedies Brecht wrote and it contains many ideas in fun that are explored elsewhere in dead earnestness. For example, in one choice scene the four jilted fiancées of the landowner Puntila complain about how easy it is to be duped by wealthy landowners and accept their promises at face value. The Telephonist among them reflects, “we’re too stupid for their jokes and tricks and we fall for them every time. Know why? Cause they look the same as our sort, and that’s what fools us. If they looked more like bears and rattlesnakes people might be more on their guard” (scene 8). Throughout his career Brecht expressed his hostility to realism and realistic acting and here he has once again reiterated the reason for his aversion: it is too easy to be duped in to believing and accepting the real as an extension of ourselves and indiscriminately direct our sympathies toward real acting and real characters. Brecht would rather have us see bears and rattlesnakes acting as human beings, to keep us on our guard and not allow ourselves to be duped by what we see.
The Theatre of “Theatre”
Much is made of Pere Ubu’s first line in Ubu Roi, “merdre,” and while it did indeed start a riot, the scatalogical reference was not the most startling aspect of the performance. Ubu Roi was envisioned by Alfred Jarry as a puppet/human show were people performed as innanimate objects and puppets stood in for people. The original production in 1896 was a unqualified fiasco, but it frightfully set the stage for a new kind of theatre that took the theatrical condition, actors on stage speaking lines from a play, and made that the subject of the play. By reinforcing the artificial conditions of theatre rather than the illusion, Jarry made the audience uncomfortably aware of the shalllow stupidity and empty artifice that constitutes the basis of theatre. For his efforts in “laying bare the device” (obnazenie priema), Alfred Jarry can be seen as the first modern theatre artist to see theatre concretely, that is he saw theatre as “theatre,” where the devices and conventions of the stage were not the given circumstances of the performance, but that they communicated as conventions and the illusion of the theatre was made evident in their appearance. From this point on the modern theatre became the theatre of “Theatre.”
Getting Twisted
The kabuki were originally rōnin samurai who lost their feudal lord who had some education and instruction in courtly manners, but were now destitute and rebelious, living in the city, and looking for some fun and trouble. The word kabuki litterally means “twisted” and these rōnin went about with a swaggering gait and a contorted posture to demonstrate their disdain for military custom and stiff courtly manners. Wih their outlandish dress and wild ways they were no doubt the most extravagant and outrageous characters in the new city of Edo. They were certainly the subject of great fascination, because they became the subject of Izumo no Okuni’s play acting, which became the basis for the new kabuki theatre. These early skits by Okuni were object lessons on how to get twisted. She would dress up as one of these city ronin and swagger about with a sword at her side and flirt with a courtesan on stage. Their courtly love dialogues were interupted by a rustic bumpkin who would interject crude humor and contrast the fashionable ways of the lovers. In an important way the performance was a way to teach the common merchants who were flocking to the cities how to behave, how to talk to a courtesan, how to swagger like a kabuki. This pattern of dramatic action has appeared elswere and at other times on the world stage: commedia dell’arte, ludruk, burlesque, and MTV, to name only a few. In each instance the audience was invited to abandon bounded rural and domestic values and for a while learn to twist a new way.
Foot Binding Unbound
At the AsiaNetwork conference this morning there was an illuminating talk on Chinese foot binding by Dorothy Ko from Barnard College. Now that footbinding is entirely a thing of the past she argues that a more balanced look is due to this now universally dispised practice of crushing women’s feet into a three inch shoe. Ko’s analysis is based on the material culture surrounding the shoes themselves as most of historic commentary that has survived is from the perspective of the male anti-foot binding crusaders who were wholly indifferent to the cultural meanings these shoes had for the women. Ko very quickly established the complexity of the topic by pointing out the variety of styles and functions that these miniscule shoes had as expressions of personal handiwork, regional ethnic identity, social gift exchanges, and religious offerings. Furthermore, there were styles and forms of shoes that seemed especially designed for outdoor wear. So, contrary to the common description of shackled and subserviant women unable to anything outside the domestic sphere, foot binding became a vehicle for self expression and status that women attempted to negotiate in order to exert some modicum of self control in their very bounded lives. The highlight of the talk was when a white male conference attendee agreed to have his foot bound. The shoe was very generously proportioned compared to the miniscule examples she passed about, but the effect seemed evedent as our curageuos volunteer wobbled in the painful constricting position. It was very heroic of him to make the effort for our edification, it must have taken supreme self-control to and self-sacrifice to be on bound feet for life.
