“A Matter of Perspective”

Art installation in Chicago from June 2023. Oversized bags were in vogue that summer like never before.
The Miniature Room exhibit at AIC. At the upper right, and bottom left, you can just make out the glass reflection. I wonder about the book titles. Maybe one has a cut-out hiding a pistol or some poison! And are there ashes in those urns?
A balconied room overlooking Paris… or maybe Kings Dominion near Richmond, VA. Did I hear the doorbell?

I have a theory. I’m still working it out, but here goes. It’s actually two related theories or perhaps simply flip-sides of the same notion. The first is that while the human mind can become enthralled with things that are large and/or vast, it often quickly short-circuits. Think of the Grand Canyon. Okay, now what?… Or consider dinosaurs and that rogue meteor that felled them. Coolio. And then?… Maybe consider the darkest depths of the Mariana Trench. Really fucking dark and many translucent creatures that don’t understand you. Or the wide stretch of the Milky Way galaxy. Got it??… As Douglas Adams put it, “Space is big!” Maybe it’s the lack of opportunity to meet other people that so alienates (the same goes for social media!). Next, try pondering the full expanse of all recorded and unrecorded time since the universe began. Jesus H Fuck! Where does it end…???

I think that for most of us, our initial fascination gets overwhelmed by a lack of detail and granularity. Unless you’re a science fiction writer, how long can you ponder the notion of distant Europa, the fourth largest moon of Jupiter? Too much to get my head around. They had to invent the concept of “hyperspace” as a mental short-cut in that genre. Contemplating a black hole might be a terrific insomnia remedy, come to think of it. The point being that even killer shit like dinosaurs are fleeting in our imagination, unless you make them more tangible. Cinema does this trick, as in “Jurassic Park,” by integrating them anachronistically into the human world. Stanley Kubrick reduced infinite space by spending much of “2001” on the ship where it was man-vs-computer (A.I.!!), first at chess and then in a fight to the death (HAL’s run ended with him pushing out “Daisy”!). One might do better if things were scaled down to the size of children’s toys — placing them in arm’s reach, allowing us to mix the dinosaur and the space ship and and the GI Joe and the Batmobile. Now you’ve got the makings of a pretty damn good STORY…

Humans require specificity, which is hard to come by in outer space (where they’ll never hear you scream!). A human body, in this case a dead one from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” is a tangible thing that keeps the mind moving forward rather than stupefied, overwhelmed by the sheer scale and the inaccessibility. Are you really pondering what’s happening on that third star from the top left? I’m wondering about the mechanics of shitting in your space suit.

On the other hand, things rendered small and with fine detail seem to have an inordinate power over the human imagination. Questions come quickly and possibilities pour forth like a gushing pub tap carrying fanciful storylines right along with them. For example, I felt a bigger jolt from “Fantastic Voyage” than with “Interstellar.” And I would venture that Gulliver found the world of Lilliputians more intriguing by multiples than the other way round. This is also true for model train sets with their hyper-realistic signage and little carved people who wave hello and goodbye at regular intervals. These tableaus have a mystical quality that have enraptured many, including the brilliantly uncanny lyricist Neil Young, who saw Lionel trains as a way to communicate with his two severely disabled sons. The short and repeating train ride is warmly evocative in ways that depictions of space travel struggle to match. William Shatner reported back after his 11-minute space flight, saying that it filled him with an overwhelming sense of grief. Philosophers call this the “overview effect” (an existential crisis about our transience and cosmic insignificance secondary to celestial “shock and awe”), and maybe we get the opposite feeling when we scale it all down.

The Miniature Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) invite another mind journey, racing back in time and delving into the nooks and crannies of our own inventiveness. Spread across centuries of styles and countries, they evoke notions about each specific place and era, but also of the people who may have lived there and what their stories might have been. Simply put, we have questions. So, so many questions. Very detailed and site specific ones that lend themselves to story, biography, and to a shared history. I think that as humans we like to think that we think really BIG, when in fact we are much more comfortable playing small-ball. Ground level stuff. Visible and palpable (that is, not neutrino-small). As Guy Clark would say, “The stuff that works. The stuff that holds up.” Specificity and story: two of the primary nucleotide building blocks in our creative human DNA.

A giant typewriter eraser by Claes Oldenburg at the sculpture garden of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. I mean, it’s cool and initially surprising, but where does it take you next? And they won’t let you climb on it. I’m just not getting any story here…
Just look at that wainscotting. What a great house for a party! I’ll bet they have a bidet. And what’s happening upstairs??

I’ll end it with a few good words to live by, as an exuberant Steve Martin suggested back in the day, “Let’s get SMALL!”

“Trivialities”

It begins with “The Bear.” I get it that some people just don’t get it. Yet, at least. Fine. I quit “Mad Men” after two episodes before later discovering the layered complexity and its occasional pure joy — such as the wonderful song and dance homage bit done by Robert Morse after the death of his character, Bert Cooper. The good shit always rises (it’s the fat content!). “The Bear” has terrific characters, acted superbly, and ones that I actually give a damn about. It pays homage to the Second (and best) City. The soundtrack is also excellent (if predictably Tweedy-heavy). And the show has great emotional range, whipsawing from the anxiety-inducing chaos of the “Seven Fishes” to the Zen-sublime of “Forks.” The characters evolve but also stay true to their native DNA — unlike the preposterously horrid reboot of “Sex and the City” called “And Just Like That… (It Sucked Ass!),” which we now enjoy hate-watching. For my money, “The Bear” is well worth any damage to the undercarriage for the stretch of smooth, open road that is your rich reward.

And living in Chicago, we decided to pay a visit to the fine-dining establishment EVER, which was used to film the “Forks” episode that had Richie Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) honing his craft at a world-class restaurant under the tutelage of uber-calm Chef Terry (Olivia Colman). The food they served was highly inventive and quite delicious. Although for a long time I was an anti-foodie. Fuck all the pretentious foam and the portion-to-price inversion, etc.. But I’ve come around over time (Alinea finally clinched it!), and for the culinary experience alone I’m glad we went to EVER. The bonus was in obliquely connecting us to the show we love. Maybe you’d get a similar jolt from visiting the bar that gave the world “Cheers.” Or for fans of “Slumdog Millionaire,” dropping from that outhouse into the underlying cesspool. Whatever floats you…

Even in the bathroom!

And that provides a nice, clean segue to another aspect of EVER that was pleasantly surprising. Around mid-meal, I excused myself to use the facilities, which was a series of spacious and clean private washrooms. As I was closing the door, I heard a voice but couldn’t exactly localize it. Was it coming from the adjacent restroom? It was a man’s voice, soft and calm, and it sounded vaguely familiar. Hey, is that Matthew McConaughey?? It is! Wait, is he HERE?! Noooooooo, he wasn’t. At least not in person. It was an audiobook of his memoir “Greenlights.” And I have to say, it was perhaps the greatest bathroom experience I’ve ever had (at least to date), and I was in there a good 5 to 7 minutes. Whether you are just freshening up, checking your texts, emptying your bladder, or having multi-staged spasmodic ass-plosions, it is so relaxing to hear a familiar and soothing voice talking about their own life’s journey (a close second might be David Attenborough discussing marine life, which might have you pondering where your biological effluvia was heading and its overall effect on the chain of life that unifies the planet). It had me thinking that ALL toilets everywhere, whenever feasible, should employ Mr. McConaughey’s melodious vocalizations in this way. The world would truly, undoubtedly, be a better and more joyful place! I’ll never forget it.

“Alright, alright, alright!”

“Who’s on in your toilet?”…. taking callers now.

“Mad Men and Troubadours”

The peripatetic life of the journeyman folksinger has seen our man Tommy Treacle wearing sundry musical hats. From his bid to write horror-movie themes to reworking heavy metal songs into folk ballads to a foray into political tunes, he has generally eschewed the conventions of the touring troubadour. While he’s seen his share of dive bars and roughneck saloons, enough to earn a few scars and sordid tales from the road, he always looked for ways to find new audiences. During one particularly fallow stretch, he took a stab at writing product jingles. In this first example, you will hear an old ad spot from the 50’s for Ban Deodorant, which is followed by his own demo version done in the early aughts. The irony here will not be lost on his friends and family since Tommy rarely ever used deodorant himself.

Tommy even shopped his wares around Madison Avenue but to no avail. He watched the entire series of “Mad Men” and did find inspiration (saying he looked more like Bert Cooper than Don Draper) but grew dispirited when he discovered that Secor Laxatives is not a real product. He claimed it was his best jingle (I’ll try to uncover it!). Our second ditty is his take on FLOMAX, which dates from 2007 and follows an actual product advertisement for the same. And, for the record, he always contended his urinary stream was stronger than Secretariat’s.

There were a few others, including for Preparation H, but I’m not sure the world is ready for that one. It’s pretty graphic.

“My Menagerie”

My friend TH lovingly used A.I. in crafting this image of me as a Talosian from the Star Trek episode “The Menagerie” (1966). They were a society of humanoids with brains 3x that of man. After the devastation of nuclear war, the survivors went underground and developed heightened psychic abilities, but ultimately fell to an obsession of creating illusions and distortions with their minds. And in that way the parable runs parallel to Trump and his MAGA horde — although their brains are, on average, about 1/3x.