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why this is out of date

because I'm following the lead of my fellow MeyerBros, and I'm now doing my blogging (such as it is) over on WordPress at blog.meyerbros.org. Another playground for the MeyerBros.

Carl.ThingsOnMyMind

remember, this is wiki. So don't be shy. Comment away. That's what that edit link is there for. Just don't go deleting things willy-nilly - that's not wiki-polite.

Tony Kushner, historical fiction, and Munich

Tony Kushner (author of Angels in America, which you should see if you haven't, and which New World Players Arts (well, it was NWP back when they put on this production) put on an excellent production of several years back) was interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air last night. Apparently he wrote the screenplay for Munich (which is now on my MoviesToSee).

Terry Gross spent a half hour grilling him about all the various reasons various people are outraged over Munich (one of the more interesting is an ex-Mossad agent - Aaron Klein - who is upset because the movie portrays a Mossad assassin having doubts about his job. Klein says he interviewed fifty-plus ex-Mossad agents for his book and none of them had any doubts). Kushner gave pretty good answers (for instance, that he doesn't see how it would be a credit to Mossad agents to portray them as having no doubts about targetted assassination).

He also said something to the effect that artists who do historical fiction have no responsibility for audiences' misunderstandings about what's "historical" and what's "fiction." Which I thought was interesting. Too facile?

What kind of responsibility do artists have for the realities they create? What difference does it make when it's a movie that says it's "inspired by a true story"?

In possibly-related news, Kushner said this: There's a very complicated relationship between form and content and between aesthetics and politics. Good politics will produce good aesthetics, really good politics will produce really good aesthetics, and really good aesthetics, if somebody's really asking the hard questions and answering them honestly, they'll probably produce truth, which is to say progressive politics.

He says it's a complicated relationship, but then he doesn't make it sound very complicated at all. What makes art honest?

In possibly-related news, eric said this: Art must be identical. It must be full of possibilities and free of assumptions. It must not pretend to be comfortable or pretend that comfort does not exist. It must be able to do anything, but never do everything. Decisions must be made because decisions can be made and without decisions there is no progress. Art that is not reality is part of a system of lies that drives us into gilded despair.

Is 'making decisions' like 'answering questions'? When and why does it become fascist?

In a possibly-related and possibly-incoherent question, how do I make honest art with my job (co-program coordinator of the Mennonite Central Committee Oglala Lakota Nation Unit)? It's reality. Sometimes it's uncomfortable. Usually I have lots of questions. I don't like making mistakes, because they might hurt real people (or make people not like me.) But the alternative to making mistakes is doing nothing, which is devilishly tempting.

Is it time for this post to be over now? Yes.

-carl 01.04.06

nien.

several points:

• the artist's potential responsability to distinguish clearly between fact and fiction is not directly related to their potential responsability for the realities they create. in fact:
• art is not reality. ever. art will never be reality. there is no way to distinguish between fact and fiction in art because there is no fact or fiction in art. there is only art - a reflection on what we see around us. historical fiction is just as false as non-historical fiction. it just happens to be based on a story you already know. another way to say this would be non-historical fisction is just as true as historical-fiction. the truth is in the art, not in the seeming similarity to actual events. the story is only ever a vesel for the art.
• art isn't art without decisions. decision making is not inherently fascist. you can't tell a story without deciding what not to tell and how not to tell it. violent? yes, in a sense. fascist? no. while there is a sense in which violence is inherent to the artistic process, fascism is not. fascist art does not just decide what to include and what not to, but it also decides how you should feel about what you are shown. i will decide how to tell you a story, but in order to do it in a non-fascist way i will try to show you something complex enough that you can develop your own feelings about it. that's why:
• Kushner also says "I think that a character's politics have to live in the same sort of relationship to the character's psyche that people's politics live in relationship to their own psyches. People are never consistent. People will always do surprising things, both good and bad, and the way that people surprise themselves and their audience are the most interesting moments of human behavior. The space between what we'd like to be and what we actually are is where you find out the most interesting things." Recognizing that complexity is why:
  • good art is not fascist.
  • good art is reality.

the point is we always make decisions and we usually contradict ourselves and we often hurt people and sometimes people don't like us for it. that doesn't mean it's all hopeless and we should stop trying. mistakes aren't a choice. you're going to make them. even by attempting inaction. the only choice you have is weather to feel bad about it and beat yourself up for being imperfect, or learn from it and move on. maybe chuckle and thank your deity of choice that mistakes are there for you to learn from. in school they call that scientific method. in church they call that forgiveness. either way, it's a good thing unless you happen to believe in menno simons and all that celestial flesh jargon - in which case you are silly. silly you.

• and to conclude: you don't want to make your job into art. let art be art, let your job be mcc. you want to be righteous, and that's a complex thing, as jesus pointed out (see below). it has to do with relationships. those happen to also be a complex thing. your going to get it wrong. think of it like rook - assume your doing well if you get set 1/3 of the time. otherwise you're bidding too low.
  • my little brother once said if he didn't get at least a page of line notes from a stage manager he obviously wasn't into it. he's a smart man.

-eric

Learning wxPython.

Specifically, writing a nice little program in wxPython that will manage all our digital photos. At the moment I'm calling it PicMan. Yes, that's a dumb name. Sue me. And why am I writing a program when there are roughly a bazillion digital-photo-managers already out there (and everybody seems to love Picasa, because everybody seems to love everything Google does - it's kind of sick, really)? 1. It's fun (geek alert). 2. I haven't been able to find any that meet my feature list. If you know of one, let me know. (No, don't go scrambling for my email address. This is wiki, remember. Just click edit and tell me all about it right here. Thanks. That's great. Yep, right there. No, no, anywhere is fine. Really. I mean it.)

carl 01.02.2006

The parable of the 'dishonest manager'

Something I wrote to vinifera recently:

Maybe it's just because I'm in a job right now where I'm being asked to make decisions about spending MCC's money that I don't think should be mine to make, but I've been thinking a lot about the parable of the dishonest manager (Luke 16). Take a moment to look it up quick if you don't remember it - it's high on the list of Jesus' more confusing parables.

It seems to me that the parable should be read in the light of everything else Jesus had to say about the structure of 1st-century Palestinian/Jewish economics, particularly about debts and debtors. Even though it's not stated outright in the parable, I think it has to be assumed that Jesus considers all of those debts owed to the master to be unjust, part of an unjust economy. So to me, it seems to be less of a parable about dishonesty, and more about how we interact with an unjust system, particularly when we find ourselves in a position of some power and privilege in that system (which all of us on this list do). And to me, the lesson from the parable is to not worry too much about what's considered "honest" and "responsible" within the unjust system, or to overdose on guilt for being in the system, but to simply do what we can with the resources we're given to pass them into the control of those who have more need for them than we do.

carl 01.02.2006

an attempt to comment on something already in italics by adding a subheader

the point is i just wrote a play based on this parable (and our own mother's interpretation of said parable, which she ought to post). we (me and our mother) agree with you entirely. that's what makes it worth telling - it re-examines the meaning of honesty in a dishonest structure (or at very least a misguided one). i love it. my drama doesn't do it justice, but i did get paid to write it (thank jesus). -eric 01.03.06

Mom's comments on the parable

I like where both of you are going with the parable in terms of its meaning. I think it would be more fair to the original parable to drop the word "honest" in talking about it. The Greek word that is translated "dishonest" in this parable is translated as "unrighteous" in most of the surrounding chapters of Luke. My understanding of the parable is that the manager had full discretion over his master's accounts - what he chose to do may have been surprising or looked foolish, but it was not, as most Westerner's assume, dishonest. I think Jesus is making a contrast between righteous and unrighteous here (which is what Lk chs 15-16 are all about if you look at them closely). According to my interpretation Jesus is saying that although this manager was acting in his own self-interest (hence "unrighteous", like the judge in Lk 18), he ended up making the righteous choice by forgiving debts and trusting in relationships rather than money for his long-term security.

I'm going into this at some length because unfortunately the only digital copy of this paper crashed with my computer a few years ago, so unless I find a way to scan it in, I won't be posting this paper soon. I could send a paper copy to anyone who's interested.