Ken's Blog

For the last week or two I’ve been working on a software project that I am very happy about. It’s an ambitious undertaking, arguably too ambitious to be tackled by one person, but the challenge is part of the fun.

I’ve been observing how I’ve been wrapping my life around this project and vice versa. Whether or not I go into work, hang out with friends, see a movie, each day I make sure to put in several hours of work on the project. It’s astonishing how much you can get done over the course of time if you devote several hours each day to something.

Of course not all hours are the same. Sometimes I feel tired and distracted, at other times full of energy and focus. So I’ve come up with strategies. When I’m at my best and most clear headed, I tackle the harder parts. But at other times I have a list of “clean up jobs”. These are tasks that really just require putting one foot in front of the other — nothing spectacular, but necessary for getting the job done. In this way there’s always something useful I can do, no matter what my mental state.

And if all else fails, I go to NetFlix and watch a few episodes of some stupid TV show or other. This strategy is always successful in the long run, because sooner or later I realize that I’d really rather be programming. 🙂

In feminist theory there is a clear distinction between first wave feminism — the original movement that led to women’s suffrage and other rights, and second wave feminism — the more recent movement from the 1960s through 1980s that focused more on rejection of pornography and other cultural manifestations of pervasive domination of women by the patriarchy.

We are now in the era of third wave feminism — a backlash against the reductionism of the second wave. The third wave acknowledges the great diversity among women in ethnicity, in culture, and in religious norms, and seeks equality within this more nuanced and expanded context.

I just started watching the TV series “Lost Girl”, in which the heroine is a succubus, and I realize that our culture is in a third wave of what might be called “supernaturalism”.

The first wave was exemplified by the supernatural as monster, exemplified by Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolfman, the Thing and Frankenstein’s creation. These beings could be sympathetic, but they were always, in essence, the Other — our fears and nightmares manifested as a creature from beyond.

Beginning more or less in the 1960s, our society began to embrace what might be called a second wave of supernaturalism: The recognition that the supernatural creature might have its own normative existence — that from its perspective, it was “self”, and we were “other”. And so we saw such pop culture creations as Bewitched, the Addams Family, the Munsters.

The second wave acknowledged that supernatural beings, like any beings, would see themselves as real, even ordinary, not merely as a creation of our own projections. Seen in this light, Tolkien’s Hobbits were an early pioneer of second wave supernaturalism.

But now, in the era of Buffy, Harry Potter, Twilight, True Blood, Lost Girl and other pop culture creations, we have moved beyond even the duality of human / non-human. We are in the age of third wave supernaturalism, where there it may no longer suffice to label fictional beings in such reductive terms.

Newer fictional universes have moved far beyond mere battles of good versus evil (except as a strawman) toward a more humanist view, in which characters may simply manifest aspects of what could be called “supernatural spectrum disorder”.

Our understanding of the supernatural as metaphor for the human condition has become so sophisticated, so integral to our ongoing cultural narrative, that we now invoke it simply as a useful way to illuminate our own infinite complexity.

A friend sent me a link to a video excerpt of this year’s Kennedy Center Honors — in particular to the 22 minute long tribute to Led Zeppelin, who were among this year’s winners.

In attendance were Barack and Michelle Obama and a roster of contributors to our nation’s diverse culture, such as Yo Yo Ma, David Letterman (another winner this year), Tina Fey, Bonnie Raitt and Alec Baldwin.

Watching this video, I was struck by how timeless and universal are such events. Sitting in their box seats, President and Mrs. Obama essentially functioned as the Royal Presence, lending gravitas to the affair. Caroline Kennedy, as the evening’s host, effectively tied the event to an even earlier regal lineage.

Of course the U.S. does not have a monarchy. But the rhetorical framing is effectively the same as in days of old. The State, in the person of its highest representative, presides over and blesses the awarding of high cultural honors.

Watching how tremendously the Obamas were enjoying the tribute to Led Zeppelin, I realized that our President and First Lady represent a generation that grew up in the shadow of this music, a generation whose very soul was shaped by rock and roll.

And I wondered, how different would the scene have been had it been Mitt and Ann Romney in that box? Would everyone have felt the same air of ecstatic celebration when Ann Wilson sang “Stairway to Heaven” so beautifully that Robert Plant wept?

Or would the cultural clash between the Romneys and these children of the ’60s simply have been too strange, too weird?

I guess we’ll never know.

An unplanned evening
With mathemusician friends.
God, I love New York!

Yesterday, like many millions of people, I went to see “The Hobbit”. Visually it was a sumptuous feast. Nearly every shot looked like a finely executed painting. I didn’t like the storytelling as much. Peter Jackson seems to have become, to the principle of “Stretch this scene out as long as possible,” as Quentin Tarantino has become to “Ha ha, made you mad, didn’t I?” and Christopher Nolan to “Worship no other Gods before me!”

OK, that last was a slight exaggeration. No real god would be nearly as self-important as a Christopher Nolan film.

The whole time I was watching the stunning visuals of “The Hobbit” — the chiaroscuro lighting, detailed prosthetic makeup, camera angles, interiors, costumes — it all seemed incredibly familiar. And not because of the recent film trilogy, but because of something earlier.

And then I had it! Some scenes from the current Hobbit film are precise visual echoes of the illustrations from the late nineteen seventies by the brothers Hildebrandt. For example, here, from their 1977 Tolkien calendar, is “The Unexpected Party”:

The lighting and composition form a perfect match to the corresponding scene in the just released movie. If you look at this close-up of the above illustration, you can practically see the actors jump off the page and into the film:

You can also see the Hildebrandts’ style at work in this illustration for “The Sword of Shannara”, also from 1977:

Again, here is a close-up — practically a lesson in what a “Peter Jackson dwarf” should look like:

After scouring the Web for info, I can’t seem to find any official connection between the brothers Hildebrandt and the film^†. But of course Peter Jackson would have grown up with their illustrations in his head.

Now, you might protest: “But isn’t this just what Tolken’s world looks like?” And the answer is no. Until these illustrations came out, the Shire and its environs looked like many things (in illustrations by many artists, including Tolkien himself), but they did not look like this.

As far as I can tell, these two guys, Greg and Tim Hildebrandt, invented what we now think of as “what the inhabitants of Middle Earth look like”. And they did it so successfully that people seem to have forgotten that this was indeed an invention — one that did not exist until forty years after “The Hobbit” was first published in 1937.

†Jackson’s earlier trilogy borrows more heavily from the style of the illustrator John Howe, and the landscapes and cityscapes in all of the films are heavily influenced by the beautiful imagery of Alan Lee.

It’s funny how a big enough piece of news can obscure other news that one would think noteworthy. Imagine, for example, how the devoted followers of Mother Teresa must have felt after she passed away, when all anybody seemed to care about was the death that same week of some young ex-princess from England.

And so today. All around the world people are celebrating, but nobody is celebrating the birth of Sir Isaac Newton (born on December 25, 1642). If the great man had been born on nearly any other day of the year, today would be filled with special commemorations, rituals and ceremonies, in honor of the most influential scientist in the history of the Western world.

But because he was born on this day, nobody thinks of December 25 as “Sir Isaac Newton Day”. Yet imagine if everybody did! Children nestled, all tucked in their beds, would be hoping that Sir Isaac had left a refracting telescope or optical prism in their stocking.

Rosy cheeked carolers would be standing on street corners, singing merrily under a full moon of the universal laws of gravitation. Families would look forward to the traditional yearly meal, where they can discuss infinitesimal calculus and the generalize binomial theorem.

Of course we are a diverse society, and some might argue that a focus on Newtonism could unfairly exclude people with differing cultural orientations. So I’m sure nobody would object, in the name of diversity, if some families chose instead to celebrate December 25 as the birth of Humphrey Bogart or Cab Calloway, Annie Lennox or Quentin Crisp. Or maybe Jesus.

It could be argued that Hollywood stars ascend to the firmament because the culture needs an embodiment of a particular archetype — and the movies are all about embodiment of archetypes.

I’ve written on this topic before: Top Hollywood actors are often the cultural reincarnation of some iconic actor from an earlier era. Which makes sense, for these people are the vessels by which our society expresses timeless psychological themes that weave through the culture.

But yesterday in particular, a friend was telling me that she had just rewatched the great 1933 James Whale film “The Invisible Man”. We discussed Claude Rains’ masterful performance in a difficult role — for almost the entire length of the movie you can hear his voice, but you cannot see his face.

Which works out well, since although Rains is a pleasant enough looking fellow, his speaking voice is one of the great wonders of the cinema. You can probably still hear in your head Rains’ perfect reading, as Captain Louis Renault in “Casablanca”, of the classic line “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”

And I suddenly got a twinge of recognition. What current Hollywood actor is not all that much to look at, possesses a magnificent voice and diction, generally plays highly self-assured characters on the side of the devil (always with a mordant sense of humor), has a tendency to be cast in roles where you can hear his voice but not see his face, never gets the girl (you don’t even think he wants the girl), and is easily able to steal scenes away from major stars when he feels like it?

Why, Hugo Weaving of course.

“Palindrome” is not a palindrome, which is very sad indeed,
Because then we’d have “Emordnilap”, but that is not a word.

Acronyms can resonate, offer namesakes, yet mislead.
Could there an acronym for that?   (there is, I’ve heard)

And what could be the basis of hypocatastasis?
You may find it to be nothing more than “Cart before the horse.”

But try to lead that horse to water! My friend, it’s no oasis.
You realize I’m speaking metaphorically, of course.

Why is “onomatopeia” not onomatopoetic?
(I’ve pondered this since early adolescence)

Yet one word in the ether matches meaning and aesthetic:
“Quintessence” — it’s the quintessence of quintessence!

Still floating in the lingering contrails of last night’s Leonard Cohen performance, I went to YouTube to listen once again to “Famous Blue Raincoat”. And I ended up playing it over and over, just for the shifts in Cohen’s voice, in his guitar, and in the way he uses these subtle changes to convey the most exquisite shades of emotion.

It’s a beautiful recording, sort of infinite in its way, with layers upon layers of meaning drifting below the surface.

This song might be the purest distillation of a view of things that could be called “Leonard Cohen Zen”. It’s the idea that our life is precious not merely because it contains moments of beauty, but because we know that these moments will not be ours forever.

He reminds us that we need to pay homage to sadness and loss along with ecstasy, because these remind us that our connection to each other is never easy, and never free. The pain that inevitably shadows our happiness is, in fact, the measure by which we can know the value of what we cherish in each other.

Saw Leonard Cohen last night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. We had third row seats near the center, which means we were quite close to the man himself. The tickets were not cheap, but they were easily worth it.

I would have gone just for the sacred privilege of seeing Mr. Cohen, standing on stage with his acoustic guitar, singing “Famous Blue Raincoat” (for my money the greatest song ever written). But there were also many other classic songs in the line-up, including “So Long Marianne”, “Everybody Knows”, “The Future”, “In My Secret Life”, “I’m Your Man”, “If It Be Your Will”, “Anthem”, “Bird on the Wire”, “Tower of Song”, “Dance Me to the End of Love”, “Chelsea Hotel #2”, and of course “Hallelujah” and “Suzanne”, as well as a nice selection from the new album.

All around me the audience was a sea of ecstatic faces. The concert was nearly four hours long, and it felt like it was all over in a flash.

You may know that Cohen once spent five years in seclusion studying Zen Buddhism (he is an ordained Zen Buddhist monk), and it shows. He somehow manages to be calm, playful, reverent and joyful all at once. This quality seeps into not just his singing but his entire stage presence, and flows out to the audience.

But the strangest thing to me was the completely unexpected emotional effect all this had upon me. Having seen Leonard Cohen in concert before, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had felt elated, or peaceful, or, you know, some kind of New Age-y sort of floating thing. But my reaction wasn’t like that. No, nothing like that at all.

Rather, as I watched this remarkable seventy eight year old man take us through his decades long playbook to revisit songs of emotional wisdom, my mind went to another place entirely.

I thought of people I have known — those I have tried so hard to please, and others who have been kind to me. I thought about the times I have been so desperate to be liked by the former, while taking the latter for granted. And watching this man who has so unerringly followed his own inner voice, I asked myself “what the hell was I doing?”

It’s a bit hard to put into words, but the core insight is this: Leonard Cohen, for all his veneer of graciousness, is fierce — he is a warrior. And he didn’t get that way by caring what anybody else might think, or whom he might need to please. Rather, his body of work is a commitment to asking, about hard emotional questions: “what is real, here before me?”, rather than “what would I like to be real?”

As I absorbed this insight, I felt myself reassessing my own priorities, letting go of people whose good opinions I have vainly coveted — in my mind I could feel myself walking away without a backwards glance — and shifting that energy toward cherishing those who have been truly there for me.

If that’s not a kind of enlightenment, I don’t know what is.