R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Aretha and I both hold respect in the highest regard. When I was a child, I remember vowing that when I grew up, I would remember how hard it was to be a kid. I wouldn’t forget how it felt to be dissed or ignored or humiliated by adults who assumed my feelings weren’t as valid as theirs. I would assume that children and teens were honest and friendly until proven otherwise. I swore to my private self that I would not deny kids their dignity. After each fresh embarrassment from adults who casually dissed or ignored me or my friends because of our youth, I would remind myself not to forget the eternal teen inside of me and the real teens around me as I got older. I’ve tried to keep the promise I made to my child self all those years ago.

Before I was a mother, I often imagined what a child of mine might be like. I dreamed of talking to her (I usually imagined a girl) honestly and enthusiastically and sharing my favorite writers, musicians, places, values and thoughts with her. I saw no reason why I couldn’t have a child who could appreciate many of the things I delighted in, even if they were not her own favorites. I reminded myself that a child (or any other person, for that matter) could not enjoy all the things I loved, so I would need to try not to overwhelm her with my enthusiasm for things that didn’t grab her and back off when she needed to have her own opinions or be with her own thoughts. I knew I would sometimes fail, but I knew that as much as I believed in anything, I believed that every child should always feel not just loved but also respected. Even when we disagreed and I had to correct her or refuse her, I hoped she would feel that I took her feelings into account and listened to her point of view. I have always felt that if I accomplished nothing else in life, if my child felt consistently loved, respected and rewarded for good behavior, my life would have been worthwhile.

I always imagined having a teen child whose company I could delight in, despite all of the time-worn jokes about how annoying and difficult people become when they hit their teen years. I saw no reason why I shouldn’t have the pleasure of reading Dickens or Twain, Harper Lee or Shakespeare aloud with my child, since I enjoyed sharing them with my mother when I was young. I looked forward to learning about writers from my child as well, and to having my world open up in new ways as we explored the world together and I discovered new things to love by trying to keep up with her passions. I had loved most of my mother’s (extremely wide-ranging) musical tastes growing up and enjoyed most of the literature she recommended; I saw no reason why I couldn’t keep my ears and mind open and find something fresh in much of the music my child might discover and share with me. I had starry-eyed fantasies of the fun I could have with my teen child someday, and others teased me about them and thought I was being unrealistic. I was determined to prove them wrong.

I have always wondered, who does it serve when we condescend to children because of their youth? And why deny oneself the joy of seeing life anew through a child’s eyes? Why would I close my eyes to my child’s vision of the world? And why wouldn’t I share the things that really matter to me with my child? I swore I could keep my eyes and ears open and listen to what was important to her. I would try to respect it even if I didn’t agree with it, and even if it was difficult to understand her tastes, I would share my passions, but would try to understand if she couldn’t get excited about the paintings of Velazquez or the novels of Thomas Hardy or the art songs of Gabriel Fauré.

I’ve had people tut at my vision of motherhood. I’ve seen wry smiles and rolling eyes from people to warned me again and again that my daughter would become difficult, petulant, self-absorbed and superficial once she hit her teens. Years ago, a total stranger watched my daughter and me laugh together while waiting in line at the post office, and she made sure to tell me, right in front of my child, “It doesn’t last. Wait till she tells you she hates you for the first time.” Just a few months ago a shop owner told me earnestly how all teens lie. I protested but she responded that my belief in my daughter’s honesty was misplaced; it was clearly a sign of my naïveté. She even had the gall to say these things to me with my daughter present. I wasn’t surprised to hear that her own son lies to her regularly, since she clearly has such a lack of faith in him and has long been convinced that dishonesty is simply a universal teen trait. To her, teens don’t merit respect whether they’re present or absent. Thus they learn not to show her respect, either.

If one expects nothing from a child, one cannot be surprised to get little or nothing in return for that lack of faith. What is surprising is that so many children give so much back to their parents and teachers despite the paltry offerings of respect or trust doled out to them. Their parents assume the worst of them, deny them the respect they themselves expect, and they talk openly of their low expectations of their children. Naturally, their kids adjust their behavior to fit the low expectations. If a parent expects a child to make little effort, to be disrespectful, messy, lazy and sullen, it is hard for a child to want to make the extra effort required to prove the parent wrong, since the efforts may not even be noticed.

In the U.S. children who get along well with adults and actually want to please the grown-ups around them have often been called names and considered suck-ups or freaks. If they value the good opinion of those who are in positions of authority, they risk being mocked. Where do they learn this? As much from other adults as from their peers. Adults expect this disparagement of those who try to get along with their parents, teachers or bosses. Adults gossip about coworkers who are “too nice” to the boss, they assume that those who care about the teacher’s good opinion are merely trying to fake their way into favor for good grades. So many adults don’t understand a child (or another adult) being motivated to please an adult out of a simple desire for respect and kindness in return. How sad that politeness and civility have sunk so low in this society.

This culture teaches kids and parents alike to expect and even justify bad behavior; this makes life easier for the kids who aren’t asked to hold themselves to high standards, and for parents who make excuses for their lack of effort with their children. Of course, many parents make consistent and concerted efforts to show their children respect and to expect the same in return, and some are unlucky enough to have teens whose own trials, hormones and emotional ups and downs lead them to difficult behavior no matter how loving or attentive their parents are. One cannot blame all of a child’s behavior, good or bad, on the child’s parents. We have all known people who seem to be extraordinary human beings who have horrible relationships with their children for no reason understandable to the outside world. And how many remarkably kind and respectful people have we all met who were never shown those values and virtues at home? But if little is expected from a child and few expectations are set by a parent, how much more difficult it is for that child to blossom into a friendly, well-socialized and hard-working individual. We cannot guarantee our children’s personalities or strengths, but why not treat them as if we expected them to be worthy of our trust and respect, and give them the best of ourselves as well? Why not assume that our good example makes a difference? Because living as if it matters is what makes it matter.

My mother’s 37-year career as a high school teacher brought her in contact with thousands of teens. Hundreds of them had troubles at home that affected their schoolwork, and many had earned bad reputations from other teachers for being difficult or surly. My mother had luck with many of these kids by pretending not to know of their difficult histories and starting afresh with them. When they failed, she reached out to them and told them why she expected them to do better next time and what evidence of value she saw in them. She let them feel she was personally disappointed when they did not do well, that their successes mattered to her. Some of them had never felt like anyone cared about their work or their successes before; mattering to someone made a huge difference.

My mother was a tough grader but she gave warnings and second chances so students could have more opportunities to earn admiration and taste successes of their own making. When her students got good grades they knew they’d really earned them. Many kids blossomed in her care precisely because she held them to a higher standard. She let them know that she saw no reason why they couldn’t do better no matter what their histories, their home lives or their parents’ expectations were. What made the difference was her belief that they had the power to make things better for themselves, to work harder, be kinder, show up on time, do what was asked. Respect bred responsibility and success. It seemed such a small thing, believing in them, but it gave kids enough respect for themselves that D students managed Cs, cutters began showing up to class, and disrespectful kids learned to hold their tongues or get the hell out of the classroom before they could interfere with the other students’ efforts.

My mother and I were quite close when I was a teen. She trusted me a great deal, and I was eager to prove that her high expectations and her trust in me were well placed. She was an enthusiastic parent who loved sharing new discoveries. Her greatest pleasure came from finding her own enthusiasms and beliefs mirrored in other people, so we got along very well when I shared in her opinions. When I differed from her, things grew very difficult; she needed to be in control and would not brook opposition or variance in opinion. Fortunately, many of our tastes were similar, so I could avoid her wrath by focusing on our areas of agreement. I loved her company, for the most part, and felt she had much to teach me. I grew up thinking there was no reason why I shouldn’t enjoy my own teenager’s company when the time came; the only difference would be that I would be more respectful of my child's differing interests and opinions. I would listen, I would remember, I would understand when she would not or could not be a mirror image of her mother. I have tried hard to live this way.

The glorious result of all my hopes, expectations and determination is that I have been extraordinarily lucky. I have a remarkable child with whom I share many my favorite things. She actually does enjoy Dickens and Twain, Harper Lee and Shakespeare, and she has taught me to love Eoin Colfer and Philip Pullman and J.K. Rowling. She is kind, honest, respectful, helpful, but also open with me about her well-considered opinions. She has a marvelous sense of humor and a wonderful wit. As for being moody or difficult, as I was warned she would be, she is far more even-tempered and empathetic than most adults. Her closest friends are are much the same: polite, funny, thoughtful and deep-thinking.

Of course, I’d love to think that I could take credit for her being so amazing, but as much as I believe in the power of respect, kindness and open-mindedness to breed similar qualities in others, I also know that she is her own amazing self, that children are not blank slates for us to draw on but come with strong personalities and traits, and that there is some mysterious and wonderful good fortune at work here. I am tempted to pat myself on the back sometimes when I see what a delightful person she has turned out to be, but I am also humbled to recognize how differently things could have turned out. No matter how determined I was to treat my daughter as I thought I should have been treated as a teen, her willingness to listen to me and to follow my advice or requests are her own traits, her own choices; she has become the person she is by making one wonderful choice after another and determining how she wants to behave, think and respond. I am grateful every day for my daughter’s love of art and music, her remarkable talent for design, for her passion for poetry and prose, for her willingness to try new things and places, for her generosity of spirit. She repays my faith in her and my belief in the strength of her character daily. She encourages me to believe in other teens’ essential goodness. She proves to me that I was on the right track all those years ago.

Me and My Blowtorch

So, there I was melting crayons onto painted canvas with my blowtorch, when . . . okay, I don't even want to finish that sentence, there's plenty of information in it already. This week I've made jewelry at one of my weekly art workshops with my teen friends at the Ground Zero Teen Center, gathered vintage detritus at antique shops and garage sales for a couple of assemblages I'm working on, and I even sorted materials for a new fabric project. But the coolest material I've worked with lately has to be molten, brilliantly colored wax. The method of melting it is pretty exciting, too.

A few months ago I tried melting crayons on a hot plate in little metal cups and then painting, dripping or pouring them onto canvas, but I couldn't get the effects I wanted and it was messy and slow. I'd been fantasizing about getting a blow torch and attacking crayons with it for years, but I thought it would be too expensive or messy or dangerous. Then I realized I could work around all of those limitations, and I knew I'd never rest satisfied till I'd seen just how a crayon held in a pair of kitchen tongs reacted when hit with mind-blowingly hot, focused heat. Wow, is it fun.

Of course, it spatters, splatters and smells. The crayon vapors are noxious and rather awful when inhaled indoors. And there's the matter of spraying firey butane into the air as well. But oh, it's fantastic to drip, splatter, add materials to the molten surface, heat it all again, swirl the colors gently together and mix in odd textures and things that shimmer, then see what emerges.

My first two pieces remind me of dragon skin (though I'll admit I've not met many dragons in person), and I'm thinking these materials and techniques could lend themselves to a whole series of pieces inspired by fantasy creatures. I'll post my first two pieces in my assemblages gallery tonight; to get there, go to the Assemblages page at my website, lauragrey.com, then scroll down and click on the photo to enter into my waxen underworld.

Terrified and Triumphant

When I was a child I went to an elementary school known throughout Northern California for its excellent children's choir, and I couldn't wait till I got to fourth grade so I could audition for it. I had been steeped in music for my whole short life, listening to records my mom had brought home from the library, borrowed from friends or bought from the sleepy record stores in our then-quiet town, but also singing at the piano with my mom most evenings from the time I was two till I went to college. When I came home on visits during college and for all the years afterwards, one of the first things we did was go to the piano and sing together. When we got together she sang harmony, I sang the melody, and we sang everything from show tunes to lieder, folk songs to pop songs, hymns to novelty hits.

The Portola School Choir was primarily for fifth and sixth graders, but every year the choir director allowed fourth graders to audition too. There was an honor choir assembled from a subset of the main choir, but only one fourth grader had ever been admitted to its ranks. When I went in to try out, the tall, trim, imposingly grim-faced Mr. Kerr had me sing a few intervals and melodies while he sat at the piano. He showed no emotion at all, so I had no real expectation that anything would come of it. However, it turned out that, despite his taciturnity, he was quite pleased with me, and I was invited to be the only fourth grade girl in the honor choir; one boy was also invited. He and I joined the other excited 9- to 12-year-olds in showing up early for school two mornings each week for sectional practices and stayed late one afternoon each week for full choir rehearsals. Within minutes of our arrival at the first rehearsal, it was clear to us that we were in for more than we had bargained for.

Mr. Kerr ran the choir in his spare time; it was an unpaid position but it was also clearly the job he loved best in the world. He was primarily a fifth grade teacher famous for his friend Roscoe, a wooden paddle he kept hanging in his classroom which he was happy to use on the bottoms of children who displeased him. He notched the paddle each time he used it on a child. By the time of my time at Portola, he had to secure the permission of parents before he could smack their kids, but several of the "difficult" kids in my class (including a deaf boy with ADHD) were swatted during my time.

He was also known to put a metal "Constant Comment" tea tin with a long string tied to it around the necks of children who talked too much in class; he put two marbles inside so they would rattle around every time a child moved so he or she could be more effectively humiliated. Unlucky talkers wore the can all day, to lunch and recess and all.

When it was time for the Presidential Physical Fitness Test, he made sure to weigh every child in the class in front of every other and say the weight aloud as he wrote it down, so that those of us who were a bit pudgy and shy about it could be more completely embarrassed and our tormentors could have more specific ammunition with which to make fun of us on the playground during recess. He was a skinny fellow who apparently cared more for cigarettes than for food, and he didn't approve of fat.

When it came to running the choir, Mr. Kerr was no less harsh in his responses to any failure to follow his strict and unwavering laws. If a child showed up late to a rehearsal for any reason, he was not allowed in. The doors were locked and he could not enter. If someone missed more than two rehearsals, she was dismissed from the choir, end of story. When people talked back, they were yanked out of place by a red-faced, bug-eyed, looming Mr. Kerr, dressed down completely and were booted out of the choir.

Yet people were dying to get in.

Discipline was harsh and consistent and we lived in constant fear of his displeasure. But that man was the finest choir director I have ever sung for. He gave me better singing instruction in my three years with him than the two years of private lessons with a Juilliard-trained teacher years later or my six years of middle school, high school and college choirs. There was no excuse for being sharp or flat, for missing an entrance or ending a phrase sloppily. Every eye was on him at every moment. We all stopped at exactly the right moment, held our vowels and only cut them off with consonants at the very last second. Breath was properly supported and there was no whining nasality, there was no swooping up to notes, and there were no "blatty" broad vowels. Phrases were meant to be held no matter how hard it was to keep them going; there were no haphazard ragged breaths. If breaths needed to be staggered, he would tell us exactly how to stagger them through each section so there were never too many people breathing at the same time, and he knew when anyone, anywhere had made an error. Any child taking a breath in the middle of a word risked sudden death.

There were no fidgety hands or wandering eyes, no looking out at the audience, no breaking focus or slacking off on energy until the end of the song when he signaled to us that we could at last stand at ease. Every child wore a spotless uniform of cornflower blue skirts and white blouses for the girls and matching light blue blazers and black pants for the boys. The right hand grasped the left thumb and our hands were held in front of us in this folded position whenever we were on the risers. Knees were slightly bent so that we didn't lock them and faint for lack of enough oxygen flowing throughout our bodies and to our brains.

It all paid off. We were fantastic.

We sang most songs in three-part harmony; our pieces were arranged for high school or college choirs. We sang intricate scat-phrased versions of Bach bourrées arranged for the Swingle Singers, learned many Latin hymns and movements from various major composers' Masses, a score of spirituals, some international folk songs and holiday songs, and the occasional pop song. Each song we sang was explained to us carefully; we had to think about what we were singing and why, what each inflection meant, what each phrase called for in order to get the point across. When we sang "Sinner, please don't let this harvest pass" our plaintive cry nearly made us weep; sometimes we even made Mr. Kerr cry. When we sang "my God is a mighty, mighty man of war," the audience believed it. When we sang in Latin or Hebrew, he made sure we knew what every word meant. When we sang folk songs or spirituals, Mr. Kerr put them in context and explained what place they had in the lives of those who had written and sung them.

We were the top children's choir in our division and we won gold medals and blue ribbons. We sang on the radio and on local television. I sang the only solo given to anyone during the entire three years I was in the choir; I sat around with my family on Christmas morning and we listened to me singing on my aunt's hi-fi set. It was exciting and shocking to hear myself on the radio; I sounded nothing like I sounded inside myself. It was terribly exciting, but Mr. Kerr wasn't about to let it go to my head.

When I was in Mr. Kerr's fifth grade class as well as in the choir, he was determined not to let any favoritism show; I may have been given a solo and special dispensation in fourth grade, but it was clear that I was not to be given any praise or encouragement beyond that. When out of fear I once responded to his telling me that he wanted me to sing another solo with a demurral, he said fine, no more solos ever. He never offered me another. He saw what I thought was a one-time refusal to sing due to nerves as a challenge to him and as an example of my going against his directive: he was my captain and I had refused a direct order, and now I was a bad example for the troops.

I worked so hard for him, but it was never enough. He told my mother that I didn't seem to care about school, though I was his best student and his choir was at the center of my life. I was deathly afraid of letting down my teachers or my mother, herself a teacher in the same school district, so I made sure my grades were better than anyone else's in the class. Yet he dismissed my efforts and brought up how much happier he was with my closest academic rival, Ricky, when he spoke to my mother during a parent-teacher conference. He spoke admiringly of what a boy's boy Ricky was, how he wasn't a "pantywaist" like most other boys in the class. My mother came home, disgusted, told me what he'd said, and offered to move me out of his class. I begged her not to; I wanted to be in his choir no matter what, and I'd live through the humiliation and anxiety I felt every day in his class rather than have him look down on me for pulling out from under his iron thumb.

Mr. Kerr was an angry martinet, but he knew how to get the sound he wanted from his choir. He knew how to make us pay attention, how to make us understand what we were doing and why, how to keep our energy up and finally how to lead us to give captivating performances.

I still resent him for reducing children to tears, screaming at us and calling us names, for hitting us and humiliating us. It was wrong and it was damaging. But when I consider the lessons I learned from him about how to put a song across, how to follow direction, how to support a tone and project it, and how to work with a large group as if we were one entity—he was able to teach these skills like nobody else I have ever seen. Partly we worked as hard as we did out of fear, it's true, but mostly it was because of the intensity of his focus, his dedication, and his teary-eyed ecstatic face when we performed as he knew we could. I hated his methods and don't know whether on the whole he did enough good with his amazing choirs to balance out the harm he did to so many fifth graders cringing under his tutelage. But all the kids I knew who studied music under him knew what it was to be real musicians.

Barack Black Eagle

Today Senator Barack Obama became the first American presidential candidate to visit the reservation of the Crow Nation. That in itself was shocking to me; I have trouble understanding how so many presidential candidates have gone all over the country for so long and not bothered to visit such an important reservation along the way. The most touching part of this story is that as a result of his show of respect and inclusion, he was adopted into the nation under the Crow name "One Who Helps People Throughout the Land."

He was adopted into the nation by his "new parents," Hartford and Mary Black Eagle, making his new name among those assembled Barack Black Eagle. He said he liked it and stated, "That is a good name!"

According to an engaging story in the Washington Post, Obama told the gathering that he intended to acknowledge the "tragic history" of Native Americans over the past three centuries. He said they "never asked for much, only what was promised by the treaty obligations of their forebears," and he promised to honor those treaties and to bring "quality affordable health care and a world class education to reservations all across America. That will be a priority when I'm president."

The visit also brings Obama political benefits. The members of the Crow Nation vote as "a close knit bloc," according to Darrin Old Coyote. "Now that Senator Obama is part of the family, that is where we will go."

Would you like to see some wonderful photos of the event? Click here. Perhaps you'd like to view a video of the event and see him give shout outs to other tribes? Here you go.

Sunday on the Pot with George

We've all seen ghastly paintings and prints at garage sales and thrift shops—sad clowns, unflattering portraits, homely florals and trite landscapes—and wondered not only why someone could have considered hanging them in the first place, but also who in the world could have wasted time making such things?

Most bad art is regrettable but forgettable, something we look past rather than at. But some masterpieces of bad art are so remarkably awful, so tasteless, awkward or outlandish that they deserve to be displayed in all their horrific glory. Pieces that bad deserve to hang in a museum of bad art. Happily, there is such a place, just outside of Boston.

The Museum of Bad Art is an actual physical place and is also a wonderful virtual space with its own highly entertaining website. Established in a Boston basement in 1993, MOBA moved to Dedham, Massachusetts, and has expanded and grown into one of the most entertaining sites on the Web. Their collection runs the gamut from shockingly bad portraits to awkward landscapes to disturbing animal pictures. MOBA's website states, "The pieces in the MOBA collection range from the work of talented artists that have gone awry to works of exuberant, although crude, execution by artists barely in control of the brush. What they all have in common is a special quality that sets them apart in one way or another from the merely incompetent."

Oh, they're special all right. An early acquisition and one of two masterworks in the collection is "Lucy in the Field with Flowers," a vivid and stirring portrait of an elderly woman whose head looks uncomfortably like Norman Mailer's. Lucy prances through a field of flowers, her legs arrayed as if seated but her body clearly in motion. Her breasts sway in opposite directions under her bright blue dress, which appears to be floating off to one side for no apparent reason.

"The Athlete" features a discus thrower described by MOBA's curatorial staff as "A startling work, and one of the largest crayon on canvas pieces that most people can ever hope to see. The bulging leg muscles, the black shoes, the white socks, the pink toga, all help to make this one of the most popular pieces in the MOBA collection." I'm also quite fond of "Peter the Kitty," a painting found in a Salvation Army store, which is, I agree, "Stirring in its portayal of feline angst. Is Peter hungry or contemplating his place in a hungry world? The artist has evoked both hopelessness and glee with his irrational use of negative space."

Of all the pieces in the collection, my favorite has always been a pointillist tour-de-force done in homage to the genius of George Seurat, whose "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" was the inspiration for the beautiful Stephen Sondheim musical "Sunday in the Park with George." MOBA's "Sunday on the Pot with George" features an rotund older gentleman wearing naught but Y-front underwear sitting on top of what is either a chair swathed in thick blue folds of fabric, or perhaps a melting blue toilet. George's sagging flesh drips slowly toward his nonexistent feet in cascading red and peach colored blobs of paint, the canvas sizzling and jittering before our eyes. The painting has a lively, psychotic quality. I love it so that I've enjoyed it in book, calendar and notecard form—items from the MOBA online store make excellent holiday gifts!

Much as I love the images, the oh-so-serious "interpretations" of the pieces are equally enjoyable. Here's the caption from a pastel and acrylic piece titled "Inspiration": "The organ master stares, transfixed by twin mysterious visions: the Neanderthal saint in the setting sun and the Gothic monk proceeding out from the cathedral's sanctum, each framed by a halo of organ pipes, reminiscent of #2 pencils."

MOBA truly lives up to its tag line: "Art too bad to be ignored."

Panic at the Funplex!

In the early 1980s I saw a bunch of classic New Wave musicians (and a few major punk ones) live in concert, and I’ve always been so glad to have had those experiences. Joe Jackson, the Pretenders (whom I saw before half the band died of drug overdoses and Chrissy Hynde went through her born-again phase), Elvis Costello, Devo, Bow Wow Wow and the Ramones gave amazing concerts, full of energy, pop and fizz. I also saw the fun-but-nothing-special bands that were good for a laugh but had limited staying power, like Split Enz, Flock of Seagulls and Sparks, and I heard some who should have made it bigger, like San Francisco's Romeo Void and Bonnie Hayes. I remember that period fondly, cringe a little to think of the dance clothes I wore, and smile to think of bouncing around in tiny clubs or huge auditoria for hours, carefully avoiding the mosh pits and drunken elbow-flingers. (I didn't drink so my reflexes were pretty good.) After the silliness of the disco era, it was great to hear lyrics with a bit of cynical wit, and to hear the angry young men and bouncy young women talk about what mattered (or didn’t), shake people up, and then laugh at themselves when they got too serious. Some early eighties, over-synthethized music is just laughable today, and the poseurs and big-haired, big-shouldered singers in the videos from that time are a hoot to watch, but a lot of the music is still quite fresh and delicious.

One of the biggest, brightest and best bands of the early eighties was the B-52s. They sounded like nobody else, and their campy wit, the harmonic warbles of Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, Fred Schneider’s nasal sprechgesang (spoken-song) delivery and the magnificent, neverending energy and bounce of Ricky Wilson and Keith Strickland’s instrumentals made them one of the best dance bands of all time, period. They were fearless and embraced the ridiculous. In fact, the name of the group comes from the extra-tall beehive hairdos Kate and Cindy used to wear on stage; they resembled the noses of B-52 bombers. I had the great pleasure and good fortune to see them twice in the early eighties, and those concerts remain among the most delightful in my memory.

In 1985, Ricky Wilson, older brother to Cindy, died from complications from AIDS, and the group went quiet for two years. They had a resurgence in the late eighties and actually gained their biggest mainstream commercial successes after that; “Love Shack” and “Roam” are hits from that era, and while I enjoy those songs a great deal, they were a little more polished than the early B-52s I loved so well and had a bit less of the raw, wild energy that made them so great to begin with.

When I heard they were releasing their first original album in sixteen years this spring, I was both delighted and trepidatious; their early works were so original, unselfconscious, witty and, most of all, danceable, I hoped that they would stay true to their roots, and not go all serious and sensitive on me, like Debbie Harry and Cyndi Lauper did for a time after their big bold New Wave beginnings. All four of the remaining B-52s are in their fifties, and I hoped they hadn’t grown up too completely and hadn’t learned to be afraid of the ridiculous.

Hooray! They haven’t. Their new album, “Funplex,” is strong, tightly produced but still fresh, and the B-52s still sound like, well, the B-52s. Their title song, “Funplex,” mocks America’s love affair with the shopping mall and our emotional attachment to spending money and seeking out instant pleasure with a credit card, but between Fred’s shouting out “Misery at the Funplex!” and Kate and Cindy’s lines about breaking hearts at the Taco Tiki Hut are addictive riffs and kitchy, catchy hooks.

My daughter Lily and I particularly enjoy “Funplex,” “Keep This Party Going” and “Juliet of the Spirits,” but the whole album is quite listenable and, of course, danceable. That’s why we’ll be seeing them in July when they come to Seattle with Cyndi Lauper, Joan Armatrading and others on the True Colors concert tour, which will benefit the Human Rights Campaign, an organization which advocates on behalf of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender/transsexual rights. We figure we’ll be dancing all day so we need to work out our dancing muscles regularly before then. Our current regimen includes dancing to “Funplex” and their 1983 “Whammy” album during after-dinner firefights with our atomic blasters (foam rayguns that shoot air-propelled foam projectiles). If someone had told me in 1983 that I’d be listening to fresh B-52s tunes while screaming, dancing and dodging my teen daughter’s foam missle attacks 25 years later, I would have been so happy. Sometimes dreams do come true.

Now Showing at a Gallery Near Me: My Art

Through May 4, eleven of my canvases are currently part of a group show at Form/Space Atelier, an art gallery in Seattle’s Belltown district. The gallery is chock full of tasty art, with 187 pieces lining the walls, hanging from the ceiling and covering the windows. You'll find everything from ethereal sculptures created painstakingly out of toothpicks to vibrant photography, exciting paintings of all sorts, iron-encased cow skulls, giant pastels, tiny jeweled canvases, even a FrankenBarbie monster. Subject matter runs from the solemn to the whimsical, from the sublime to the ridiculous. The gallery is open each week from Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 4 p.m.

What a pleasure it is to be involved in this exhibition. I've spoken to several of the other artists in the show, and I feel fortunate to be hanging my work alongside theirs. If only I could afford to snap up their work before others do! Many thanks to curator Paul Pauper, who runs the gallery, for his support, fine eye and good humor.

Dyed in the Wool

I’ve been a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat since I was just a tyke. I remember jumping on my friend Tracy’s bed and shouting “Humphrey! Humphrey!” with her repeatedly on a hot August night during the 1968 Democratic convention when Hubert Humphrey became the nominee after front-runner Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June. Our parents were crowded around a 12-inch black-and-white TV in the living room with a bunch of other adults watching the convention. I was only five, but my friends and I were already aware that Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated that year, that there were riots breaking out in major cities, and that the world felt like a dangerous place where people, presidents, cities and whole countries were on the edge of death or madness much of the time.

We lived in a safe little suburb but were only 45 minutes from places like Berkeley and San Francisco, where Governor Ronald Reagan was gassing students for speaking freely on college campuses. Black Panthers based in Oakland were shouting about black power issues on the TV news, Mario Savio led the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, and issues of race, class, gender equality and other hot-button issues were discussed all the time on TV, radio, in magazines, even at Tupperware parties. Most of my friends were also the children of educators, so we were raised in little progressive intellectual greenhouses. We’d be dragged to parties where our parents would drink sangria and smoke a lot of cigarettes. (There were cigarette burns on almost everybody’s coffee tables when I was a child, made when a filter-tipped True or Pall-Mall or Salem cigarette burned down too far or got knocked aside and left a charred black oval that would later be covered by a bowl of mixed nuts.)

Our parents would discuss gender politics and racism too loudly, somebody’d get too earnest and two dads would go out on the patio to talk alone for a while as they hashed out the finer points of foreign policy. Then somebody would put on Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and we’d all dance. We kids would all stay up too late, eat too many Bugles or Fritos or Beer Nuts, sneak peeks at some dad’s stash of Playboy magazines in the master bedroom, and then eventually we’d pass out on beds and sofas and be dragged home by our parents in the wee hours after the parties died down.

By 1968 the country had been at war in Vietnam my whole short life, and the students my young mother taught in her high school English classes were graduating, some going straight to Southeast Asia. Worry about the war was on everyone’s mind, on posters, cars bumpers and sung about on the radio regularly. In retrospect many people may think the time only seems as if it was especially politicized because of all that’s been made of it in movies and books since then. But even to me, a child on the verge of kindergarten, life really was politicized; even as little children were aware of big political issues. All my little friends and I hated President Nixon just as much as our parents did. We were inculcated with political beliefs that had been passed down from parents who threatened disinheritance (perhaps seriously) if we considered straying from the Democratic party line.

So the Democratic Party is in my blood. I get disgusted with elements of the party’s politics at times, of course, because of the way it gets bogged down, bloated and politicians get bought by special interests. But I believe in the core values of my party as I see them, not just because I grew up being told they were right, but because, time and time again, I’ve watched the core values of the Republican Party damage the fabric of our nation and the people in it. The core values of my party have echoed the values that I was taught to cherish when I was at my grandmother’s knee. Things like respecting and fostering diversity. Showing mercy to those in need. Valuing diplomacy over unnecessary force. Fighting for others’ rights to express themselves in ways that I don’t necessarily personally agree with. Remembering that we’re part of a world community and wanting everyone to do better, not just ourselves and our friends. Being willing to sacrifice a little personal comfort for the benefit of the greater good. Of course, these are not solely Democratic values, but I believe the Democratic Party has done a better job of emphasizing and exalting these values, while the Republican Party has done a great deal to undercut them.

I have some dear Republican friends with whom I get along well because we stick to issues that we agree on, for the most part. When I make new Republican friends they are often surprised to learn that Democrats can have strong family values and attach huge importance to self-reliance, discipline, honesty, integrity and honor, too, just as their families do. Somehow millions of Republicans have been led to believe that those are conservative traits that accrue only to Republicans, and that Democrats are necessarily permissive, careless, amoral at best and immoral at worst, and disrespectful of private property and personal boundaries. Partly, this is because easily offended ultraconservatives who don’t approve of people who engage in activities they don’t personally enjoy will often note one example of iffy behavior by a Democrat and tar all progressives with the same brush. There’s no way to have thoughtful, fact-based, rational dialog with people who jump from one logical fallacy to another and refuse to look at facts.

But not all Republicans or independent voters are like that, and we Democrats have to be honest and respectful, too. It’s easy for us to paint all Republicans with labels like selfish, militaristic, judgmental or unforgiving. We Democrats believe that because Republicans vote for a party with, yes, a selfish, militaristic, judgmental and unforgiving party platform, they must believe in all the tenets of that platform. But they may just be afraid of being taxed beyond their ability to stay in their homes or to save enough to pay off their credit card bills. They may believe that waging big wars is the only way to save their grandkids from being blown up by religious zealots. I disagree with them, but they’re sincere and many of them do want the best for the greatest number. I think they’re seriously misguided, but they don’t have to be monsters just because they’re not Democrats.

In my twenties I spent a great deal of time with young, almost exclusively male, members of the Libertarian party. Most of them had Stanford graduate degrees, which they believed proved that they were intellectually superior in every way and that their political beliefs must therefore be perfectly and unassailably logical. (They did not understand that getting perfect SAT math scores does not guarantee that one is wise, logical or insightful.) I had hundreds of debates with them on the limits of a totally free-market-based government to ensure a clean environment, build safe roads and neighborhoods, redress grievances or oversee product purity, among a million other things. They couldn’t bend me to their beliefs, and I couldn’t be swayed to theirs. But I learned about a different way of thinking and saw how even very smart people can fall prey to logical fallacies based on emotional factors (even if they swear to Ayn Rand that that they’re above all that). It was great mental training to argue the permutations of their belief system, and I learned how to get them to listen to me more carefully by proving to them that I would listen to and understand their ideas, even if I did not agree with them. And that’s a start. I believe in respectful discourse; one must listen closely to the opposition and be polite enough to get them to let down their hair and speak honestly to glean enough information to counter their arguments effectively. Sun Tzu was right: know thy enemy.

What I find saddest is political infighting among people who are of the same party and who share about 95% of their beliefs, but who backbite, attack and take each other down based on the remaining 5%. I am so frustrated with my party now when people like James Carville publicly attack someone like Bill Richardson and call him Judas for having the timerity to stand up for the candidate he believes is best for the country (in this case Barack Obama) rather than pledging himself blindly to someone whom he feels cannot win the election or serve the country quite as well (in this case Hillary Clinton). Carville believes Richardson’s guilt at feeling politically beholden to Hillary’s husband should trump Richardson’s doing what he believes to be the right thing for the nation. Disgusting. The mud-slinging, name-calling and low-blows being delivered during this campaign have sickened us all. The saddest part is that it divides the party, alienates those who are independent or undecided, and weakens us in the eyes of those who will vote in the November election.

We shoot ourselves in the foot when we engage in public intraparty backbiting. And then we end up with people who say, “I’ve been a Democrat all my life, but I’m so angry at [the candidate other than my own] that if that nasty [other Democratic candidate] is nominated, I’m not going to vote at all. Or I’ll just go and vote for McCain!” I’ve heard Hillary supporters say if people aren’t smart enough to line up behind their woman, they’ll be too disgusted by the nearsighted sexists all around them to vote for Barack. Yeah, letting the party that represents everything they say they’re fighting against win—that’ll show ’em! And I’ve heard even more people say that they think Hillary is so much in the thrall of behind-the-scenes power brokers and special interests and has moved so far to the middle and done so much damage to her party’s image, she’s essentially a Republican now, so voting for a straightforward Republican would be better than voting for a stealth Republican like her.

Wait a minute!

I totally understand disgust and anger with the current situation. I wonder at times whether Hillary and Bill are engaging in some sort of horrible political murder-suicide pact, seemingly trying to destroy the Democratic party and the country (and their own historical reputations, ultimately) by dividing the country and damaging the one hope the country has to save ourselves from slipping further into the cesspool W has dragged us into. Several journos even suggest that Hillary, knowing she can’t win the nomination, is trying to taint Barack so completely that McCain will win—and then people will be so horrified after four years under him that they’ll be thrilled to give her another shot in 2012. I think this is a wacko conspiracy theory, but so many wacko behind-the-scenes political maneuverings have been uncovered in the past decade that I’m loath to dismiss anything as impossible now.

But listen—

A Democrat who refuses to vote is, to my mind, essentially voting for McCain. Remember the Latin maxim: “Qui tacet consentire videtur.” He who is silent is assumed to give his consent. If you refuse to provide a vote for the alternative out of a devotion to lofty principles over pragmatism, you aid the other side. Unless Democrats lift our voices against Republican candidates, we give them our tacit consent, and that’s the message we send to the whole world, not just to the 5% of the world’s population that happens to live in the U.S. If we can’t be bothered to exercise the right to vote that people died to secure for us, and which people around the world are willing to die for even today, we’re lazy and careless and deserve what we get.

I find much distasteful about Hillary’s recent behavior, and her chance of securing the nomination is now minuscule. However, because Democrats are now so polarized we risk having a significant number of her supporters simply bow out of further political participation out of petulance. I hope that they will consider this: there are a huge number of reasons why either Obama or Clinton would be infinitely better for the nation (and the world beyond our borders) than McCain. Here’s the number one reason:

McCain would appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court who would continue the wholesale attacks on civil liberties and the general war on good sense that we’ve seen under Bush. That would be a tragedy.

McCain has made it increasingly clear during this campaign that, overused and misleading “maverick” label aside (he’s one of the biggest insiders there is and he toes the conservative line—he’s no maverick), he is nothing if not a conservative Republican. He would appoint people who would continue to undercut our civil rights in dozens of ways, as the court has done under Bush. Corporate America would get a free pass to continue environmentally disastrous behavior, like opening more pristine areas to drilling, removing protection from threatened species and dragging behind in setting guidelines for slowing global warming. Conservative judges will continue to narrowly interpret the constitution to support big businesses and intrusive government that puts ruthless administrative expediency before your rights. (Recount legitimate votes? Naw, toss them out and anoint the man with half-a-million fewer votes! Miranda rights? Who needs them! Habeus corpus laws? They don’t apply when the administration doesn’t want them to. And on and on.) Reproductive rights could keep being diminished until even more people end up having back-alley abortions, since legal ones and RU-486 could become so hard to secure. (In hundreds of counties across the U.S., access to legal, first-trimester abortion is already hard or impossible to obtain, even for adult women with ready money, under the current administration.)

McCain says he would leave the troops in Iraq. He thinks watching millions of people lose their homes to foreclosure and glutting the market with homes that nobody takes care of that are sold as-is at auction makes more sense than urging the companies that got rich on their irresponsible mortgage lending decisions to find ways to help irresponsible mortgagees restructure debt and help keep the housing market afloat. (A misguided desire not to show mercy to people who’ve made mistakes may seem more “fair,” but helping them find ways to keep their homes means saving the industry from free-fall and helping the housing market keep more of its value, which benefits us all.) McCain would continue our belligerent foreign policy, making sure our name continues to be mud around the world, making us more prone to terrorist attacks and harming us economically as well by showing indifference to other cultures and using force instead of diplomacy. Hillary voted for funding for the current war, but she knows now what a disaster it was; McCain still supports it.

I believe that Hillary Clinton would be less progressive, less diplomatic and less proactive on the subjects I just listed than Barack Obama, so I support his candidacy over hers. But she and Obama agree on most of the important things. Their health care plans are very similar, they agree in their opposition to continuing the war in Iraq, to stopping the mess in Guantanamo, to ending the violations of habeus corpus and stopping the disregard of the Geneva Conventions. Many of their economic plans are similar, too. Their ways of expressing themselves differ vastly, of course, enough so that I think it would make a great difference in their ability to get the country to go along with them and to get the rest of the world behind us. So yes, it matters to me a lot that Obama be our nominee and win. But with all her faults, Hillary would be a much better choice for our country than McCain, the hypocrite, who’s all big talk about not being in lobbyists’ pockets while being in their debt, who voted to continue waterboarding (so much for all his fancy words about it being torture a few months back), and is famous for his nasty temper and bullying manner.

There are myriad reasons why I feel we would all be better off under a Democrat than a Republican, but the number one reason to vote for Democrats is because of the decades of horrible influence that Republican presidents would have on the future of the country because of their power to nominate Supreme Court justices. We have several justices on the brink of retirement right now; the next president could have as many as three new seats to fill, since Justice Breyer, an introvert who hates living in Washington, is aching to retire and leave D.C.; Justice Ginsberg (my heroine!) is almost 75, has had colon cancer and is rather frail; and Justice John Paul Stevens turns 88 this month.

Right now we often have a 5-4 conservative majority of the court, but swing votes sometimes save us from the worst decisions, and the strong voices of reason on the moderate left still on the court at least make important arguments that become part of the record that is reviewed when these issues come back before the court later. Their dissenting decisions are influential, if not now, then later. If the conservative majority becomes lopsided, they not only get their way on every decision, and choose to decide more dangerous cases because they know they’ll get away with whatever they want; they can also quash dissenting opinion and the open airing of other points of view. They fill seats with people who may serve 20 or 30 years and damage the fabric of our lives and our Constitution for a generation.

Please, fellow and sister Democrats, don’t even THINK of staying home when a Republican has a chance to put another civil rights-hating conservative on the bench.

What Do Shimmering Winks Look Like?

I've been quite busy in my studio this year, and have already completed a number of new paintings and assemblages. Several of them are available for viewing via lauragrey.com. To see what comes of messing with antique clock and watch parts, shimmering glass stones, metal mesh and sheer acrylic paints, just scroll to the bottom of the Assemblages page and click on the photo of my artwork. Then you'll see my online gallery showing over 60 of my paintings and assemblages, including a few inspired by tiddlywinks. (Yes, really. Can pick-up sticks be far behind?) About a dozen of my drawings are also available online; just go to the Drawings page at lauragrey.com. I update the gallery frequently; more pieces will be coming soon!

Stendhal Syndrome

When Stendhal, the 19th century French author, visited Florence in 1817 he became so overwhelmed by the city's glorious art that, overcome by a surfeit of visual splendor, he had a temporary psychological breakdown. He's not the only one to react to extreme beauty in this way. Art lovers have found being in the presence of tremendous beauty so moving and emotionally taxing that they've suffered confusion, tachycardia, dizziness and hallucinations in art museums frequently enough for psychiatrists to give a name to this cluster of responses: Stendhal Syndrome.

Tourists occasionally experience breakdowns while overcome by the beauty of Botticelli's paintings in the Galleria degli Uffizi or at the foot of Michelangelo's David at the Galleria dell'Accademia. Some are sent to Florence's Santa Maria Nuova Hospital's psychiatric ward for evaluation. The syndrome was named in 1979 after an Italian psychiatrist observed more than 100 cases among tourists in Florence. Apparently American tourists are not known to suffer the syndrome as Europeans do; some say that perhaps this is because as a culture, we don't experience the same immersion and attachment to masterworks of art as Europeans. As a rule, Europeans believe we derive neither the ecstatic joy in being surrounded by profoundly beautiful and important masterworks, nor the psychological trauma of being overwhelmed by it. When they find an American who is deeply touched by their heritage and art, most Europeans are surprised and delighted. I have found that many will go out of their way to help a visitor enjoy immersion in their glory.

Most U.S. tourists visiting Europe simply lack the frame of reference and familiarity with European art and history that Europeans have, and without such a frame of reference there is less build up of anticipation or depth of understanding, and these are the underpinnings of emotional reaction. Faced with the exhaustion of travel, the unforgiving pace and the breadth of new experiences that most packaged tours provide to Americans overseas, the majority of my compatriots can be forgiven for being too numbed and overwhelmed by the fatigue and novelty of European tourism for great meaning to sink in. It's not that emotional reactions to beauty and meaning are lacking in our makeup, but that most of us have simply not been exposed to either the depth or breadth of art historical experience and understanding that many Europeans enjoy. This is, of course, partly because of our physical distance from the majority of masterpieces of Western art, and also because of the relative novelty of our national history and treasures.

While the U.S. has many European masterworks in museums, one must make an effort to visit them. We are not surrounded with them as most urban Europeans are. Turn a corner in any major European metropolis and you may find that treasure troves of art and architecture await you. In Italy especially, the sheer volume of exquisite historically and artistically important works is staggering. In Rome or Florence, it seems as if nearly any random block offers a world-class repository of culture to rival anything Americans could muster. One city after another (not to mention little villages and gorgeous hill towns) boasts ancient treasures, Roman monuments, priceless works of every kind. So it is no wonder that people steeped in stories and photos of such masterworks who enjoy and remember their history should be overwhelmed when immersed in the glories of Europe's cultural centers.

I have never had a nervous breakdown in a museum (or anywhere else, for that matter), but I have several times been moved to tears and wonderment before a work of art which I have studied and loved from afar. Here is my favorite example.

When I was 21, my mother and I spent several hectic weeks traveling through the art centers of Italy together in honor of my having completed college. For both my senior theses (I wrote one for my history major and my art history minor) I wrote on art historical subjects. One essay was on 15th century Florentine architecture; the other compared the impact of different sources of patronage (e.g., Italian popes, Spanish monarchs, Flemish churches, Dutch merchants) on the styles and subject matter found in works painted or sculpted by major 17th century Italian, Spanish, Dutch and Flemish artists.

I took night school classes in Italian, since Mills College didn't offer that language, to enrich my art historical studies. When I went to Italy with my mother two months after graduation, all my art historical research and Italian language studies were still fresh in my head, and I was aching to see all the pieces whose photographic representations I'd spent four years swooning over. I had been to Italy on multi-country package tours of Europe in my teens, but this time we were focusing on one country alone and spending days on end in magical cities where we had enough time to seek out the tinier churches that tours usually missed. We were women on a mission.

My mother was as crazy for 16th and 17th century art and architecture as I, and as determined to cram as many masterpieces into our free days as I was. On one swelteringly humid July day in Rome, she and I visited so many churches we lost count. We crisscrossed the city on swollen legs and blistered feet, determined to get one more painting in, view one more astonishing Bernini sculpture, admire another set of volutes or one more baldachin or another monument or reliquary or crumbling edifice. At last, dehydrated and aching, we dragged ourselves into Santa Maria del Popolo in search of a painting neither of us wanted to leave Rome without seeing: Caravaggio’s Conversion of St. Paul.

We hobbled all around the church looking for the chapel we sought, so overwhelmed by pain and fatigue that we had to poke each other to make sure we admired and appreciated the other masterworks all around us. Then we walked around a corner and into the Cerasi Chapel only to find St. Paul lying on the road to Damascus before us. The painting was darkened by time, covered in dust and obscured around the edges by layers of cobwebs. With one of the greatest paintings anyone will ever paint before us, enormous, filthy and exquisite, we simultaneously burst into tears and hugged each other in relief and delight. This painting alone was worth every blister, every step, every night of study, every set of endless marble steps we had climbed throughout the city for six long, hot days.

Finding my way to this painting distilled all I love about art into one perfect moment, just as Caravaggio distilled all that was important about Paul's conversion into one perfect image. For Caravaggio, the moments of most pathos and meaning come when holy figures are brought down to their most elemental humanity and humility. He humbles Christ, the Virgin Mary (whom he painted as bare- and dirty-footed and swollen in death) and St. Paul in his paintings to bring their essential humanity closer to us, so we see that as we are now, so once were they. Unlike someone like Rubens, who elevates powerful human beings to lofty heights, Caravaggio brings holy personages down to the human level so we can empathize with them and love them in a more completely human and heartfelt way.

As painted by Caravaggio, Saul becomes Paul while lying in the dirty, dark road, nearly trampled by his oblivious horse. He is literally knocked off his high horse and blinded so he can be humbled enough that his soul might be exalted in times to come. My experience in making my way to the piece was similar on a small but meaningful scale; my little pilgrimage exhausted and humbled me so that in the midst of all the glories around me after days of being bombarded by the endless masterworks of Rome, I could still be touched profoundly by one old, dusty and perfect painting.

Other works of art have moved me to tears, but I think no first moment with any work of art can surpass the joy I felt in the perfection and purity of that moment with that work of art. Unlike Stendahl in the Uffizi Gallery, I did not need to fall to the floor with arms outstretched in my ecstatic moment. Paul did that for me in his eternal ecstatic moment on the wall of a dark Roman chapel.

But Is It Art?

I take art seriously, and often have very strong opinions about it. There are artists whose technical skill, taste or vision doesn't match mine but whose work I can still respect and admire in some capacity. And there are a few whom I find so weak, irritating or vapid that I'll admit to expressing some scorn for them in private. But while their work may not feel like it merits being described as art according to my internal art-o-meter, I am willing to be liberal in my acceptance of the use of the term "art."

Multiple times, upon learning that I am an artist, I have had people tell me with big smiles and bright eyes that their favorite artist is Thomas Kinkade, and each time I bite my tongue and agree that his works are, um, quite cheerful. We can agree on that. Kinkade, the self-proclaimed "Painter of Light," is less an artist than a kitsch commercial illustrator with massively impressive marketing skills. He does not provide what I look for in an artistic experience, but he moves others, so when his admirers tell me how much they love him, I do my best to show them respect. I may find his work personally offensive in its soft-focus, Kleenex-box-like style and subject matter, but he touches people with his paintings, and their emotional reactions are real and important to them. Kinkade prompts pleasing visceral reactions in them that bring them joy and comfort. So, much as his work turns my stomach, even it is art.

Essayist Joan Didion wrote, "A Kinkade painting was typically rendered in slightly surreal pastels. It typically featured a cottage or a house of such insistent coziness as to seem actually sinister, suggestive of a trap designed to attract Hansel and Gretel. Every window was lit, to lurid effect, as if the interior of the structure might be on fire." I must admit to laughing and nodding in agreement when I read those words.

The glowing houses, churches and street lamps in Thomas Kinkade's paintings are so extraordinarily popular because they evoke an instant and comforting emotional reaction in so many people. His imitations of light are meant to bring to mind thoughts and feelings of an idealized old-time American home life: clean, cozy, quaint, old fashioned, oozing charm and warmth. As a nation our taste often runs to the sweet, the peppy, the saccharine, and we admire and appreciate those who serve up our stereotypes in the most sanitized and friendly way. A man who sells reproductions of his paintings in the hundreds of thousands, many touched up with selected highlights by worker bees so that they look more like actual paintings than the cheap copies they are (so they can be sold for hundreds or thousands of dollars each instead of the ten dollars they might be worth), Kinkade understands his market and has grown rich by never underestimating the public’s desire for clichéed and emotionally manipulative imagery. According to Wikipedia, he is estimated to have made $53 million from his art works from 1997 to May 2005 alone. Yikes.

His subject matter, style, technique and execution give me the willies, but his work is art, albeit bad art. Some would disagree with me, saying that merely evoking a cheerful reaction with one’s creations doesn't make one an artist. Art is meant to provoke thought and emotion, to make us ask questions, to inspire discussions, to challenge, to confuse or reward or transform us, some say. Sure, it's meant to do all of that. And Kinkade's work does indeed challenge, provoke and confuse me. But not every piece has to accomplish all of those goals. Art can also exist merely to delight, to embellish, to decorate or to express whatever thought, feeling or impression the artist wishes to convey.

Good art can elevate, or soothe, excite or inspire. A lot of works that I personally revile are still, in my estimation, important art because they successfully innovate, surprise or make me think. Beauty speaks to the soul, and each of us finds beauty in different forms. We seek out things that please our eyes and our hearts. Art does transform, but it can do that through humor or subtlety, elegance, spareness or outrageous joie de vivre. Art can also be kitsch, and sometimes that's a lot of fun. Takashi Murakami's pop-art pieces are terribly popular now, and though my favorites among them look a lot like the vinyl flower power stickers found all over beat-up VW beetles circa 1970, they're fun, fresh and freeing. They're real art.

Art asks questions, but it doesn't need to be in our face and ugly about it; it can also ask us sly and amusing questions. Art provokes, yes: it provokes anger, excitement, disgust, questions or tears. It also provokes laughter or thoughtfulness or merely prods us to stand still and feel. It is not a bad thing to feel comfort or joy or simple pleasure. Schmaltzy art may not be high art, but it is still art. Obvious, twee, soulless wrapping-paper-style paintings and prints may feel like caricatures of landscapes to me, but they bring joy to millions. I look down on an artist's decisions to use his or her technical ability in the service of creating sub-par paintings with trite subjects with no aspirations to be anything more than derivative dreck. But whether I like it or not, it is still art.

Someone like Thomas Kinkade achieves something that many artists of integrity cannot: he manages to evoke strong feelings in many people who view and enjoy his work. Just because those of us with art history degrees may look down on untrained eyes as having inferior taste doesn't mean that the feelings of those without our training aren't real or legitimate. We may denigrate Disney's homogenized, dumbed down and sexist animated fairy tales for blandly pandering to the lowest common denominator, but the fact remains that the technical quality of their work and their theme parks is usually superlative, and their understanding of the needs and desires of their market segment has been remarkably keen for 80 years now. They evoke genuine strong emotion with imagery so powerful that indelible icons come to mind when we think of Disney.

It is upsetting when inferior versions supplant the more elegant, subtle, powerful or beautiful versions in our minds. Disney's Winnie the Pooh animation is nowhere near as gorgeous as Ernest Shepard's original illustrations for A. A. Milne's books are, for example. But Disney's work is still art. It may not be high art, it may not always be good art, but it is valid art, as is Andres Serrano's “Piss Christ” or Robert Mapplethorpe's S&M nudes (or his exquisite flower portraits) or Picasso's “Guernica” or Jeff Koons's ridiculous, goofy and disturbing sculpture of Michael Jackson and his chimp Bubbles. Even Koons's images of himself having sex with his real-life porn star ex-wife Cicciolina (who was, incidentally, also a member of the Italian parliament) are works of art, though not art I'd want to own. The art world is more complex and ridiculous than we even know. Just like the real world around us.

Obamarama

Washington state still votes for presidential candidates’ delegates via the antiquated caucus system, and I hate it. It requires that all participating members of a precinct show up at the same time in the same room for 90 minutes or more in the middle of winter, be subjected to statements by anyone who chooses to speak (no matter how ill-informed) and vote publicly, and sometimes repeatedly. Each of these conditions makes it less likely that people will make the effort. People who are working, traveling or ill cannot participate. People without transportation or the money to arrange for it are disadvantaged. Shy or private people have a disincentive to attend, since they’re subjected to argument, crowds and publicity for their closely-held beliefs whether they want to engage in such public displays or not. Those with immune deficiencies because of illness or medical treatment (such as those undergoing chemotherapy) put themselves at risk to attend. It’s inconvenient, coming right in the middle of Saturday, the day we look forward to. Caucus locations don't match polling places and the websites which provide location information get overloaded and go down when they're needed most. It takes determination to be a part of the process.

So what happened this year? Did attendance suffer? On the contrary, caucus stations were filled beyond capacity. People parked a half-mile from the school that held my local caucus. The crowd was too large for the school auditorium in which we assembled and had to spill into the gym. People at stations around the state ran out of ballots and pens. And the vote went overwhelmingly to Barack Obama. Hope may not spring eternal, but it sure as hell got the vote out. Hope, and disgust for our current administration.

I’ve heard a lot of people refer to Obama supporters as Obamabots because so many of his followers do seem to have drunk the Kool-Aid and been mesmerized and hypnotized by the man. For some, devotion borders on the fanatical, and it makes me uncomfortable. But not all of us Obama supporters are voting solely on feel-good platitudes and gut reactions. There are strong reasons to vote for the man that are based in rational thought, and even those who subscribe to a realpolitik-style pragmatism must admit that there are compelling reasons to believe that he can help to wash the U.S. of at least some of our sins in the world’s eyes by leading his fellow citizens in taking responsibility for our actions, remembering that we do not own the world and only make up 6% of the world’s population, and being willing to talk to and consider the ideas and needs of other leaders while standing up for our principles at home. I believe he may be able to help us build a stronger and more admirable foreign policy which allows the rest of the world to approach us with a more conciliatory and friendly stance. After these years of adversarial arrogance, a leader who is willing to listen to and consider other countries’ needs and concerns honestly and see our country as others see us could do us a world of good in the eyes of the rest of the planet. He could make us feel more pride in our place in the world based not on some “America, right or wrong” stance, but because of positions that follow our laws and consider international law as well.

Many people complain that his constant harping on the theme of hope leaves their brains feeling bludgeoned with meaningless buzz-words. I understand. They say they fear that he has no real positions because he does not always mention them in his speeches. But look at the extraordinary following he has built based on this (very clever) choice to emphasize feelings in his public speeches, while providing concrete and strong positions on his website and position papers. When asked directly how he stands on various issues during the debates, he has made clear cases for his positions, but most potential voters don’t want to sit still and watch or listen (or read online or in the paper) the answers to these questions. I have been made uncomfortable by the amount of ardor and excitement people have expressed for the man based on how he makes them feel after beautifully delivered but not always deeply meaningful speeches. I myself have complained to friends that, while I admire him for his actual positions and have heard him speak ardently and eloquently on all manner of subjects for some years now, the text of his most popular speeches rarely stands up to the power of the delivery. I felt nervous about the Oprahfication of his campaign during his tour with Ms. Winfrey in January; it seemed that people who attended his appearances were so hungry for hope and so thrilled to be in the presence of celebrity that mass hysteria was taking over.

I understand the thrill of seeing an ardent, excellent speaker with whom one agrees; I don’t blame people for falling for him after spending time in his presence. It takes a hard heart to hear a speaker of his grace and skill (and political positions!) and not be moved and thrilled. But choosing wisely takes more than a good gut feeling. I fear people voting on their gut reactions because that leads to people voting for people like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, too. A lot of people loved the idea of voting for screen icon Arnold Schwarzenegger in California before they knew anything about his politics because they loved the way he made them feel. Millions find even Mike Huckabee refreshing and charismatic, which leaves me dumbfounded, as I find him vindictive and ignorant.

Fortunately, I like Obama’s manner as well as his stand on most issues. But I fear people loving him because Oprah says to, or just because they think it would make them look good to support a black man. I don’t have trouble with people, all candidates being equal (which they aren’t, but if they were), wanting to vote for a woman or a black man as a way to show societal support for groups that were disenfranchised for so many years, and which still face bigotry and stereotyping, and which could bring fresh perspectives and new international respect to the office and the nation. I’d love to be able to vote for a woman I could feel good about, and if I can vote for a strong, brilliant black man with wonderful values and a solid track record I’ll feel terribly lucky.

It makes me sad that the first viable female candidate the Democrats have been able to offer (with apologies to the late Shirley Chisholm) is a centrist pragmatist who angers huge swaths of U.S. society, who blames “vast right-wing conspiracies” when it's convenient and seems willing to let those in her campaign play dirty while pretending not to. I find it sad that there are 150 million females in this country and she’s the most viable female candidate we’ve ever had. I’m not saying Hillary Clinton isn’t extraordinarily bright, savvy and politically gifted. I will certainly vote for her if Hell (and Texas) freeze over and she is somehow able to end what looks at this point like an Obama juggernaut, since she would be endlessly better for this country than John McCain’s conservatism could ever be. But given the choice between a woman so entrenched in Democratic National Committee-style centrism and a devoted, energetic and extraordinarily articulate (read his latest book if you want proof) man who asks the country to stand up tall, live up to its principles and sacrifice when necessary to do the right (and progressive thing), it’s easy for me to stand up for Barack Obama.

Hillary Clinton’s husband’s presidency (which all agree she had a strong advisory position in) promised so many progressive improvements but that administration frequently reneged on its promises (don’t ask, don’t tell, anyone?), pulled the country to the center and bogged down in the middle and sat there, losing momentum. The state of the country, the economy and civil rights were all much better then, of course, and I’d trust her far more than any Republican of any stripe to lead us to a more stable, constitutionally-run country, but given the choice between her and Obama, my choice is clear.

I’ve been sad and embarrassed to hear feminists like Gloria Steinem imply that women who vote for Obama when they could vote for Clinton are traitors to their gender, and that as a group women have it worse than black men in this country. I’ve considered myself a feminist since I was a child and I read every issue of Ms. Magazine (which Steinem, long one of my heroines, founded in 1973), from the first issue until I was in my mid-20s. I loved Ms., I went to a women’s college, and I was a member of NOW for many years, until I came to believe that they had gone off track and no longer shared my beliefs. I stood up to sexism at work on multiple occasions, and I love that both my senators (and both of the senators from my birth state of California) are female Democrats. I would love to vote for a woman I admired for president, but more than that, I love that I do not have to vote along gender lines, but have the choice to vote for the best person for the job. I love that I do not have to choose allegiance to my gender (or race) before allegiance to my principles and to my beloved Constitution.

To me, feminism is a branch of humanism; I approach people of either gender (and any race or mix of races) as deserving my respect unless they prove otherwise, and all the work of feminists (and other civil rights activists) who came before me and paved the way to a more just and equal society helped me to believe that I could put the humanity and decency of others before not only their gender but also their race or sexual orientation. I am relieved that if I cannot feel best voting for a woman, I can at least vote for a black man, which makes my choice not to support the strongest-ever female U.S. presidential candidate less painful.

I’m delighted to have the chance to vote for a black man and to show the world, especially Africa and the Middle East, that we can see someone who isn’t just another white man of Northern European descent as worthy of elevation, leadership and admiration. There is so much resentment and anger toward us, especially in Muslim regions, it would be exciting and I think hugely beneficial to show the world that a man of African descent whose father’s family was Muslim is not automatically denigrated or denounced in our country, despite the huge numbers of bigoted fear-mongers among us who fear Islam and see it only as a source of violent anti-Americanism. I also admire his emphasis on treating others (be they individuals or nations) with respect and diplomacy. A great man or woman, like a great nation, listens to others and engages with them in a manner that honors their humanity. Others will not take heed if they don't feel there is a core of respect for them. We don't have to agree with them, but we should not be so arrogant as to refuse to listen.

Obama himself is Christian; sadly, he would be unelectable in this country otherwise. And he’s actually half-black and half-white, which is pleasing in that he himself would be a wonderful symbol of the intermixed, interracial makeup of our nation. He chooses to identify himself as black, and our country has a long and sordid history of considering any amount of “black blood” a taint so foul that for several hundred years anyone with a single black great-grandparent was considered completely black as a mark of inferiority and shame, and his or her rights were accordingly diminished to the same state as a person of fully African-American parentage. I admire his desire to consider his blackness something to be so prized and honored that he chooses to consider it one of the most salient characteristics in defining him, much as I wish it didn’t matter so much to the populace.

No, I don’t think Obama’s perfect. I do wish he had more experience in national office. But I do think he’s run a cleaner campaign than his primary rival, I think his record is strong, his long history of public service exemplary, his ability to determine the crux of the issues keen, and his awareness of our place in the world and his desire to be a good world citizen as well as a good American citizen laudable. I desperately hope that our next president, whether Obama or Clinton, will have the chance to choose Supreme Court justices whose decisions will help to bolster our sagging civil rights and undo some of the damage that has been done and will continue to be done to us by Bush appointees. While I do think there are distinctions worth noting between Obama and Clinton, and I do feel his platform is closest to my ideals and goals for the country, I recognize that they are quite close in their opinions over all, and this gives me comfort and hope. Either one would be a huge improvement over the disgusting administration we’ve suffered under these past seven years.

The next time someone tells you there’s no difference between parties and that it doesn’t matter who’s elected president, politely mention that the makeup of the Supreme Court determines their day-to-day rights in thousands of areas of daily life. Presidents determine the composition of the court and all sorts of rights, from habeus corpus to abortion to adoption to marriage to the death penalty to income taxes, depend on those nine people. When they tell you presidential party doesn’t matter, ask them whether they think Democrats would have started the war that’s cost trillions of dollars, perhaps a million Iraqi lives, harmed or killed tens of thousands of American soldiers and damaged hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens’ families. Which party has the most members who don’t believe in global warming? Evolution? The Geneva Conventions? Not my party. It matters.

It matters, it matters, it matters.

The Verb "To Pimp"

A couple of weeks ago, television commentator David Shuster got into trouble for asking on MSNBC’s Hardball program whether Hillary Clinton had “pimped out” her daughter Chelsea by putting her to work as a fresh new face and spokesperson for her mother on the campaign trail. Hillary was outraged by the use of the term, found it offensive in the extreme and called for his head; MSNBC responded by suspending him temporarily. This episode brought up several issues: one is whether it’s fair of the press to follow Chelsea’s private life now that she is acting as a shill for her mother; the other is what is an appropriate use of the word “pimp.” Guy Branum wrote an interesting article on the first topic in Slate.com on February 11; Jesse Sheidlower discussed the second topic in a separate article published in Slate on the same day. I’d like to address both issues.

Let’s address the question of the appropriateness of dragging Chelsea Clinton into the limelight. All her life her parents have been extremely tenacious of her right to have a private life and have gone after those who intruded on Chelsea’s personal space and private activities like bulldogs. Most people have found this admirable; we don’t like to see parents trotting their children out and using them as tools to garner public sympathy.

But Chelsea is no longer a child; she is 28 years old, and she has chosen of her own free will to appear in public on her mother’s behalf. If the Clintons see fit to trot her out, it can only be because they feel she is an appealing and attractive surrogate for her mother who demonstrates that Hillary Clinton is not only successful in her public life, but has raised an exceedingly bright, successful, polite and socially astute daughter. It is exactly because she is a symbol that the media want to learn more about her: is she an appropriate symbol? What can we learn about her parents by examining her? If she and her parents have decided that she should play a public and ongoing role in the campaign, it is only fair that members of the press ask about the reasons why. When Hillary Clinton presents her child to the world in her stead, we must ask what the point is, and if she won’t tell us, we have the right to express the question.

David Shuster’s cynical and ugly terminology was totally inappropriate, and there seems to have been a nastiness to the idea behind it as well. I believe he used the objectionable term “pimped out” solely to convey the idea of displaying or using the charms or talents of another person for one’s own gain, but even as he made the comment, he was hedging and implying that he realized the term was loaded.

However, the idea behind his badly-worded comment was valid. Cynical, but valid. I believe that question is, What is the point of using Chelsea on the campaign? Furthermore, why is it suddenly okay to do so now? Why have the Clintons decided that it’s appropriate to put their daughter on constant public display now when they know full well her personal life, behavior, friends and opinions will be even more thoroughly scrutinized as a result? They have always contended that anyone who pried into her life was beneath contempt, but in using her in this way, they have to be aware that they’re opening her life up for even more sustained attention. It is, of course, her right as an adult to help her mother out in this way; I find Chelsea Clinton admirable for being willing to make the personal sacrifices necessary. But for her family to pretend that as a 28-year-old out on the hustings for her mom she’s as far off limits as she was as a 13-year-old is ridiculous.

The primary historical use of the verb “to pimp” means to solicit sexual partners for someone else and to benefit financially from the exchange. As a parent, if someone accused me of pimping my daughter, even in a purely metaphorical sense, I would also be outraged and incensed. Though she is much older than I, Hillary Clinton and I both come from a time when we knew of no attractive or appealing usage of the word “pimp.” Every possible meaning she and I were exposed to was offensive and ugly.

Since the Shuster dustup, I’ve heard a number of people under 30 complaining that they don’t get what the fuss is all about. They’re so used to seeing “to pimp” in a whole new and positive context: to decorate, to make more attractive, to show off one’s desirability or power. When they think of “pimping” they think of showing themselves or their possessions off in high style, and think of television shows like “Pimp My Ride” where cars are overhauled and go from blah to wow—at least according to those who admire a high bling factor.

The new use of the term is so common that millions of young people don’t realize how recently its meaning changed, and how loaded and offensive the term is to most people born before 1980. But David Shuster is 40 years old; he should be aware of how loaded and offensive the term is. There’s no excuse for his resorting to it when there are more precise and appropriate ways of getting to the root question.

I disagree that the word “pimp” is now so commonly used that the age-old offensive sexual meaning no longer competes with more recent meanings. Kids may believe that the term no longer carries offensive sexual overtones, but to most of the populace the first meaning of the verb “to pimp” remains an ugly one referring to people who benefit financially from the sexual degradation of others. Many people don’t mind using “pimped out” or “pimp my ride” in mixed company because they think of it as a term implying over-the-top fashion or a youthful hipness that they’d like to co-opt for themselves. It’s obvious that legions of people no longer give thought to the fact that the term has for centuries referred to (and continues to refer to) a man who subjects women to humiliation, duress and physical, legal and psychological dangers for his own gain. But millions haven’t forgotten the meaning of the word just because an alternate meaning has become popular over the past decade.

Even among young people who admit that the first use of the word refers to someone who procures customers for a prostitute, the term has lost its sting because so many younger people no longer see pimping (that is, making money as a procurer for sex workers) as offensive. They now see sex workers and those in their orbit as becoming ever-closer to the mainstream. Over the past decade, our culture has embraced a certain pimp and ho chic; pornography may not be completely mainstream, but it’s so pervasive and such a lucrative, easily accessible and popular form of entertainment now that hardcore porn style and terminology are now freely accessible and attractive to middle-schoolers. Disturbingly large numbers of teens are quite knowledgeable about porn, from its techniques to its accoutrements.

Many girls now compete to look as much like professional sex workers as possible, not only on reality television shows but also when they choose the clothes they wear to school or select the entertainment they provide at sweet sixteen parties. It's no wonder. Britney Spears’ earliest videos showed her vamping for the camera in extra-short schoolgirl clothing in a blatant appeal to pederastic fantasists. Christina Aguilera and other hot young singers vie for spots on the Pussycat Dolls stage, dressing like hookers, bumping, grinding and stripping as a way to build their public image and sell more CDs. And it works. Porn style becomes more pervasive all the time: breast implants and Brazilian waxes are now commonplace enough to discuss over suburban brunches.

There are some who view this as pro-sexual empowerment of women: “Look at me! I claim my sexuality and am not afraid to flash my crotch to show you how powerful I’ve become!” Pole dancing and faux-lesbian bumping and grinding are now commonplace concert and video cliches. They’re packaged and presented in a way meant to sexually excite men and play to their fantasies, but the only power women get out of it is the power to tease—to excite and then deny satisfaction. Their power is only an extension of their desire to trade sex for what they want. Nor is it even the power to demand their own sexual satisfaction. It is solely the power to prove that they can elicit a sexual response in others, then not fulfill this promise unless they get something of commercial value in exchange.

This kind of perpetually-titillating sexualized social interaction encourages women to believe that their power rests in their ability to focus on and then frustrate those who wield real power. It encourages men to continue to see women as sending mixed messages, to believe that maybe no doesn’t really mean no, and to believe that sex is all about what men want, and that satisfaction requires considering only their own needs and denying women their power. It’s about playing games to heighten excitement, but where do we go from there? And how does that spill into other ways that men and women interrelate in the rest of their lives? I fear that hypersexualization of young people and the presentation of sex as something women promise and then deny in order to gain power (and that men overcome women’s will to get) is a huge step backward for women and men both. Selfishness, force, game-playing and denial all build frustration and walls. And they’re not that great for sex, either.

I’m not against people acknowledging their sexuality. I have no problem with adults reveling in the pleasure of exercising their sexual power with other consenting adults as they see fit. I’m not even against legalizing prostitution, disturbing as I may find the concept personally, since legalization would allow women who have chosen that work to stand up for their rights to represent themselves and not to have to rely on pimps for “protection” from the law or from others who would harm them. They would be more likely to seek proper health care, which would keep themselves and their tricks (and their tricks’ partners) safer, and they would have legal recourse when threatened.

But our odd American puritan streak has so strangled healthy, honest sexual awareness and communication that lust has had to work its way up and out in convoluted forms and formats. It’s disingenuous and dangerous when a culture denies and demonizes people’s basic sexual underpinnings yet at the same time incorporates them into its youth culture so completely that everything is sexualized but no one will admit it.

Advocating abstinence-only sex education and denying teens the right to easy access to contraception and health care is hypocritical and unrealistic, and is totally insufficient preparation in a world which whets sexual appetites and debases sexuality at the same time. Girls are told at home, in houses of worship and even sometimes in their classrooms that they’re weak-willed, dirty sluts unless they’re abstinent till marriage, and they learn that it’s a sin to acknowledge their sexual feelings. If they want to show that they’re basically “good,” they learn not to prepare themselves properly for sex or follow safe sex guidelines when they put themselves in situations where they’re likely to be sexual.

They’re also taught by different but equally persuasive segments of society that their most valuable commodity, which can be traded for power and money, is their sexual attractiveness. If they get “carried away” and end up having unprotected sex, then somehow they’re not as slutty as they would be if they thought ahead, acknowledged what they wanted to do, and had a supply of condoms with them. Meanwhile, the songs, TV shows, websites and movies they like tell them they should be teasing men like whores; their families and houses of worship call them bad if they think ahead and admit that they’re actively sexual creatures.

Talk about mixed messages!