Follow the Money - The New Aggressive Enforcement

The budgetary problems at the State level in California have had, and will have, far-reaching effects on all aspects of public service, from dog-catchers all the way up to the Governor's office. The shrinking American economy is being expressed through the decline in tax revenue at federal, state and local levels, throughout the country. This isn't the fault, in California, of Proposition 13, or irresponsible legislators spending more than they should, though these problems are exacerbating an already precarious financial footing in government. The services which our prosperity funded throughout the so-called "post-War period" can no longer be supported to the degree we've come to expect. Government revenue, expressed as a percentage of our national GDP, will decline in the years ahead, and there is little will at any level of government to address the root causes of this decline.   

As our public services face declining support, some will cut services, others will simply be eliminated, while others will look for ways to make up the shortfall.  

As anyone who drives in our State has noticed, over the last six months, there has been a dramatic change in the way the State Highway Patrol, and local police departments have been enforcing traffic control. I don't know if there are any statistics available, yet, to measure how big this difference is, but there is no question that the word is out on our roads and highways: They've taken the gloves off and are ticketing at a furious rate. On any given day, driving down a typical suburban or urban thoroughfare, you're likely to see two squad cars tooling along on the same block, or to see someone pulled over with the Christmas lights flashing. Arrests are on a steep incline. 

This is no doubt the result of a mandate across departments throughout the state that revenue is down, and whatever potential untapped sources of income there are, need to be milked to the maximum. 

All this flurry of patrolling and ticketing raises the obvious question:  Where were all these officers before? Hanging out at the donut shop? 

It's simply another reminder that police "protection" is all about money. 

Ever tried reporting a robbery in progress, or some other "emergency" via the 911 line? What you typically get, nowadays, is "well, we can't respond right now, maybe an officer can be there in 25 minutes...there really isn't anything we can do...if you wish to file a police report, you can come down to the station." Police are just too busy to fight crime. Why? Because there's no money in it.

I've often thought that if there were no fines to accompany citations for driving infractions or parking spaces, police would never bother. And it's true: Police follow the money. 

Tracking down drug dealers, responding to crimes in progress, conducting thorough investigations--these kinds of enforcement don't produce income, hence they aren't priorities to police departments. 

It's no fun fighting crime. It's dangerous, hard work, and it makes officers cranky and frustrated. How much more productive and self-serving for them to pull suburban housewives over and hit them with $300 fines for driving 28 mph along a neighborhood street! 

I never had illusions about the police. They're unpleasant people doing an unpleasant job, and their priorities were always about money, not safety or property. 

That's never been any more obvious than now, as they hustle to make up the budget shortfalls on the backs of hapless drivers. 

It's all about following the money.  

Michael A. Smith - The Earth is Flat

The earth is flat. But it's not. It rolls over the horizon, its spherical curvature habitually unperceived in our daily round. Historically, photography has focused on a rectangular image whose dimensions were usually no greater than 1/2, which is to say horizontal or vertical organizations of subject-matter were organized around the human field of vision as we typically experience it. Our peripheral vision is mostly for peripheral awareness, whilst our mental concentration (or focal perception) is roughly confined within the 30-50 degree field ahead of us. Normally sighted individuals may perceive visual data up to 170 degrees across the field of vision, but most of this data is "ignored" by the brain.  

On those occasions when we are made aware of the potential extent of our impressive peripheral vision--for instance, when we're raised above the ground or when we look up into the sky--we are reminded at the same time of the breadth of our apprehension of the environment, of the vast array of data which is thus made available for our discernment.

There is a long history of wide-angle photography. Variations in the shape and dimension of the picture plane were explored over one hundred years ago. Throughout its history, some photographers have made images out of "wide" or "banquet" formats. We've all seen the classic "group" portraits of gatherings of people at long tables, on grandstands, "team" photos, "class" photographs, and the like. Pioneer photographers like Art Sinsabaugh (1924-1983) explored "flat" horizontal landscape photography using large wide-angle format (12x20). Sinsabaugh's quotidian Midwestern landscapes ironically emphasized the "flatness" of subject-matter while at the same time celebrating it through the power of his materials.  

Flatness, or horizontal design principles were explored by Frank Lloyd Wright during his "Prairie Style" design periods. It's no surprise that Wright, a Midwesterner by birth and inspiration (Wisconsin, Chicago), was moved to create architectural designs that exploited the undulations and straight lines implied by the flat, subtly inflected Middle Western landscape.

Over the last 30 years, Michael A. Smith, of Pennsylvania, has assiduously devoted himself to expressing visual composition through his 8x20 inch view camera. I first met Michael about 20 years ago, about the time he'd first met up with Paula Chamlee, soon to be his wife and perpetual camera companion (and accomplished photographer in her own right). Michael had already by that time published a landmark collection of images in a two volume monograph of his work (Landscapes 1975-1979). In the years since then, he and Paula have traveled around the world, photographing breathtaking landscapes, and have embarked upon an ambitious publishing venture under the Lodima Press imprimatur, including the collected Portfolios of Brett Weston (in progress). 

In 1999-2000, Smith and Chamlee traveled to Italy, shipping their "camera car" all the way to Europe. The result: A 2-volume set, TUSCANY, Wandering the Back Roads [Lodima Press, 2004]. 

Most popular landscape photography emphasizes dramatic juxtapositions, and hair-raising vantages. Truncated spacial relationships, high contrast arrangements, unreal colors, etc. Serious "art" landscape photography, as well, has largely been preoccupied with eye-catching images, or eccentrically conceived subject-matter. Smith, on the other hand, has been interested in high-resolution "straight" image-making. With the large negatives he uses, contact printing is mostly what you work with--after all, what's the point of enlarging a photographic contact print that's already almost two feet wide?! The great advantage of contact printing (directly from the negative sandwiched with the printing paper), is the extraordinary detail afforded by the lenses. The quality of the detail, alone, is often fascinating enough in its own right, to justify the use of such large, unwieldy, negatives. 

What struck me about Smith's images, from the start, was their apparent lack of initial formal excitement. Obviously, he wasn't interested in "oohing" and "ahhing" the viewer with his over-the-top angles or strained intensities. Smith comes down from a tradition that began with Weston and Adams and Strand, deploying a meditative, quiet vision that has absorbed the meaning of photography as an art, that acknowledges the range of expressive qualities possible to light-sensitive image-making, but prefers to revel in the textures and subtle shadings of straight composition, without blurring, in full light, from panoramic vantages. 

Smith's vision is heroic, seeing in the curved, modulating waves of land, a formal grace and power; in the grainy densities of rock, stucco, wood and earth, an almost spiritual absorption; in the varying textures of fields of grass, of the scrubby, bushy, twiggy stuff of trees, shrubs and vines, metaphysical signatures through the albedo of the sun's wide spectrum, its panoply of arrayed reportage.

Smith has been loyal to his vision, unwilling or unable to compromise it in favor of a more "attractive" style. Smith's new book is Ocean Variations [2009]. I'm looking forward to it.                       

Shane - The Enigma at the Heart of a Classic Western

Shane [1953] holds a special place in my memory of movie history and experience. When I was a toddler, my parents went often to Drive-In Movies, or what we called "motor movies." I was an only child then, and I had place of honor, standing up on the car seat between my parents. Much of the early drama of my imaginative life took place in this position. 

 

The motor movies had a certain rhythm: You drove in through a gate, paid your $2-3, and then drove among the rows of audio speakers on metal stands, deciding upon a place to park to see the big screen. The projection hut doubled as the snack bar, and between features, or during the "intermission" break, customers would crunch back on the gravel lot to the snack bar to get popcorn and sodas and candy. Often there was a "drawing" based on the ticket numbers given at the gate, and the lucky winner would get a side of bacon or a gift certificate at the local 5 & dime store. When the movie was approaching its end, early departing guests would turn on their lights and put the audio unit back on the post. Often, they'd forget to do this and would drive away, pulling the speaker cord off its post. The car became a kind of private world--you could say whatever you wanted, and do pretty much what you wanted in the car. A Lot of heavy petting went on, and it was best not to pay too much attention to what was taking place in adjacent cars. 

Based on the genre novella by Jack Shaefer, the screenplay was written by A.B. Guthrie, Jr. (a successful novelist--The Big Sky, The Way West). Set in the wild newly settled territory of mid-19th Century Montana, it creates the usual dialectic between the tame, civilized rancher-settlers, and the dictatorial outlaw with his band of gunslingers hired to beat back the advance of newcomers, whose smaller claims and subdivisions threatened to end the era of the open range. Schaefer's book holds a unique position in the annals of Western (or cowboy, or "old West") literature. It was the author's first book, and is one of the most sought-after collectible first edition titles in 20th Century fiction. The book starts this way--

"He rode into our valley in the summer of '89. I was a kid then, barely topping the backboard of father's old chuck-wagon. . . . In that clear Wyoming air I could see him plainly, though he was still several miles away. There seemed nothing remarkable about him, just another stray horseman riding up the road toward the cluster of frame buildings that was our town. Then I saw a pair of cowhands, loping past him, stop and stare after him with a curious intentness." 

There was a kind of sentimental cliche in cinema during the 1950's, of a father and a son, or a father and mother and a child, facing the challenges of life "on the frontier"--withstanding adversity and building a life. Shane was one such movie, the story of a quiet gunslinger (played by Alan Ladd) trying to escape his past, who befriends a pioneer family which has settled out west in the 1880's. He becomes a hired hand to Joe Starrett (Van Heflin) and his wife Marian (Jean Arthur). Shane tries to stay out of the land dispute, but keeps being drawn in and is finally compelled to put his six shooter back on when the ranchers hire Jack Wilson (Jack Palance), a noted gunfighter, to intimidate the farmers.

Another aspect of this sub-genre was adult sexual tension as seen from the child's point of view. In the novel, the narrative action is seen through the eyes of a boy (played by Brandon de Wilde), as recollected in adulthood. Though the boy idolizes Shane, Shane's attraction to the boy's mother threatens his immaturity and family security, even as his admiration for the drifter's grace and courage grows. 

In attempting to understand my own feelings at the time in relation to my parents, and our own little family, I could only intuitively comprehend how the action on the screen related to me. My Mother's first brief marriage was ending just as I was being conceived. My stepfather--a man 22 years her senior--entered the scene at that point and assumed parentage. A refugee from a failed marriage almost 20 years earlier, he had grown accustomed to the freedom of living single, and would prove, as time wore on, to be not only an unreliable breadwinner, but a skirt-chaser as well. I could sense this waywardness, even at age 6, though nothing overt was taking place in our lives at that moment. Clearly, I shared my stepfather's identification with Shane, just as he shared my identification with the boy's innocent excitement at growing up on the frontier. But my bond with my stepfather (I wasn't told about my real parentage until I was 13) was eventually complicated by his sexual instincts, just as Joey Starrett's (de Wilde) love of Shane is complicated by the attraction of the drifter to his Mother Marian Starrett (Jean Arthur). Joey's Father Joe Starrett (Van Heflin) is a staunch, hardworking, trusting husband and father, but much less romantic a figure than Shane. Joey's identification with Shane--his charming manner, his skill with a pistol, his bravery--aligns him with the profile of a sexually charged potential predator. Joey is charmed by him in the same way his Mother is, in opposition to the responsible, stable family unit, the cooperative, community oriented ethic which Joe Sr. represents. Joe Sr. is a bore who wants to hold things together, to make people get along, but he's impotent against the unscrupulous Rufus Ryker, the open-range laissez-faire cattle-capitalist and his band of hired guns. The opposition of potent-cowboy and impotent "farmer" is a key one. 

I could tell my stepfather identified with Shane, rather than Joe Sr. I knew my Mother identified with Marian (Jean Arthur). Marian is conflicted: She too believes in family, and security, and the continuity of settled community, but she's also drawn to the potent drifter. This waywardness in both the parents always troubled me, from my first viewing of the film at age 6, because I perceived the same tendencies in my parents as I saw in the movie, tendencies in them, which would later lead to awkward, and eventually catastrophic developments in our family life. The cliche-ridden cultural paradigms of the 1950's would have assumed that most fathers of that time would fit the Joe Sr. mold. But in my case, I sensed that, despite the overt commitment of my parents to accepted codes of behavior, both of them privately did not subscribe to those values. The modality of ostensible conventionality was one I saw as fragile and vulnerable--beneath the veneer of propriety was an undercurrent of rebelliousness that could tear apart families and make spiritual (if not psychological) orphans of innocent children. That was my fear, and that was, to a large degree, what made my early appreciation of this movie so memorable. 

As a child, I would play cops and robbers, cowboys and indians, and so on--in juvenile tribute to the "games" of genre fantasy, the imaginary fictionalized versions of the American West or crime noir, but the real issues revolved around competing tendencies of behavior, and of the implied insecurity or dangers which lurked close at hand. The movie version of Shane was as much an exploration of the tensions of family, of American middle-class mores of the 1950's, as it was an exercise in platitudes of the Western genre stereotypes.                                       

 

The movie was a standard vehicle for the box-office heart-throb and noir veteran actor Alan Ladd, whose diminutive stature (he was only 5'5"!) routinely had to be carefully camouflaged, lest he appear a midget among men. His popularity isn't difficult to understand--his boyish good looks, mellifluous voice and understated easy-going manner made him a natural matinee idol. Nevertheless, he eventually succumbed to inherited depressive neurosis, dying of an overdose of drugs and alcohol at only age 50!   

               

Brandon de Wilde, the child star who nearly stole the show, also had a tragic life. After starring in another signature Western, Hud [1963], and In Harm's Way [1965] as a young ensign in the Pacific Theatre during WWII, he was killed in an auto accident at only age 30! 

 

The movie also served to cement the growing reputation of character actor Jack Palance, whose face had been disfigured during WWII. Palance's creepy, malevolent black hand portrayal of the "evil" gunfighter litearlly steals the show. Palance in real life was an interesting man, who attended Stanford University, worked for a while as a journalist in the San Francisco Bay Area, after having been in the service, and for a while as a legitimate heavy-weight boxer in the early 40's. If he hadn't been type-cast as the reliably repulsive villain, he might have had a career as a top-grossing heavy. In my mind, he'll always be the reptilian rascal in Shane, oozing malice and an insane derision for his victims.         

Johnny Depp + Roman Polanski = *%#!!

Ninth Gate [1999] comprehends a number of diverse talents to produce a B movie which has all the makings of a cult classic. Since Roman Polanski removed to Europe to evade prosecution for statutory rape charges, his career has been predictably uneven. After Chinatown [1974], and Tess [1979], his output has been severely curtailed. Still serenely gifted (The Pianist won him a well-deserved Best Director Oscar in 2003), he's capable of conceiving of interesting cinema, on a short budget or a large one.

Ninth Gate is loosely based on Perez-Reverte's novel The Club Dumas [1993]. The original novel was centered on a literary "club" focused on the work of Alexander Dumas. Polanski's version, however, delves into satanism, setting up Depp's persona as an unscrupulous antiquarian book scout who becomes involved with a group of devil-worshippers, along the usual Faustian lines. This narrative has special interest for me; as a rare book trader, I'm often tantalized by the machinations of book acquisition and marketing. 

Traditionally, the book trade has been conflicted over the ethics of practice. Polanski exploits the half-serious implications of Depp's capitulation to his mercenary tendencies, in the context of satanic ritual and power. The film on its face is a spoof, but it's played straight-up as a sophisticated horror-cum-mystery film, replete with an evil angel (played by Polanski's real life spouse Emmanuelle Seigner), and a would-be devil's disciple brilliantly played by Frank Langella, a set of satanic twins (played by Jose Lopez Rodero), and a full-fledged would-be witch (played stylishly by Lena Olin).  

             

What if the devil had co-authored a limited edition text in pre-Renaissance Italy, which contained a riddle for the summoning of ultimate super-powers--but which required the collation of three separate, unique copies to complete the infernal code? Depp (Dean Corso) is hired by Boris Balkan (Langella) to travel to Europe to steal the two copies of the book which he needs to complete the set. One copy resides with a bitter, old wheelchair case living in Paris, the other with a gentle old decayed Spanish gentleman book collector living in an empty crumbling villa. People keep turning up dead. The protector-angel appears at opportune moments to save Depp/Corso from his own ineptitudes.    

  

The riddle of the three texts involves the interpretation of a set of engravings, each of which differs slightly--together, they form a magical code to summon the devil's power. Seigner possesses the most hypnotic green eyes in the history of cinema, and Polanski focuses on them to equally hypnotic use in the plot. In the end, almost by accident (or fate?) she seduces him, and we are led to imagine that he will pass through the ninth gate to achieve satanic power. 

 

The movie is similar to the Mickey Rourke vehicle Angel Heart [1987], another Faustian satanic possession flick. 

 

Depp's career has taken some wrong turns since he made Ninth Gate. He's made three Caribbean Pirates movies, and a fourth is in the planning stages--this exploitation stuff really seems beneath him, and you wonder why, given his skills and successes in straight roles, he has to waste time with this stuff, when he could be making movies as good as Jack Nicholson's. Depp has range:  He can do drop dead serious stuff, and he's also capable of comic range (as is Nicholson). But doing campy pirate movies isn't challenging enough. If he were as adventurous as John Malkovich, or Alfred Molina, he might have a career as impressive as the first ranks, like Guinness or Tom Hanks. But for the time being, he seems stuck in a rut. It's often been reported that he reads a lot of scripts and proposals, but has trouble finding decent ones. Certainly, at this point, he doesn't need the money. One of the key skills any successful actor must have, is the ability to intuit what will work for him, and to choose the right parts that both challenge his aptitude and exploit his gifts.  

 

Ninth Gate is one of my top 10 cult classics.  

My Summer in Kyoto

Writing about Philip Whalen this week stirred memories of the time I spent in Kyoto, Japan in 1985. My wife had secured a foreign assignment as a computer software support person at the U.S.-Japan joint AFB in Misawa (Aomori Prefecture) up near the northwest corner of the main island. I had originally intended to work for the local Defense Contractor as a grounds planner, but this fell through and I ended up with unlimited time on my hands. After spending two weeks together in Kyoto, I went back for another month intending to photograph the gardens with my new view camera, using 4x5 Ektachrome sheet film. 

At loose ends in Misawa, I'd begun to explore the countryside in Aomori. Japan is a crowded country, and the Japanese have no compunctions about ripping it up whenever the spirit moves them, but Northern Japan has much unspoiled (mostly) agricultural acreage, and it's farmed in much the same way it has been for hundreds of years, and much of the architecture and rural infrastructure appears much as it would have a hundred years ago, save for the paved roads and automobiles. I spent many days, in good weather and bad, wandering the countryside photographing rice racks, weathered barns, and elegantly shaped trees there. 

I hadn't photographed seriously before this, but the opportunities were inspiring, and I quickly stepped up from 35 millimeter, to medium (square) format, to large format (4x5 with an accordion bellows etc, which required a sturdy tripod, and a big camera bag to hold the film holders, several lenses, light meter, etc.). As tourist attractions, Kyoto, Tokyo and Nara present almost limitless examples of preserved architecture and gardens. I decided I'd focus my energies on Kyoto, rather than try to take in the other sites nearby. 

   

In Kyoto, I stayed in a 500 year old Ryokan (a traditional kind of hotel). Unlike Western lodgings, Ryokans are constructed in the Japanese manner, their room dimensions and amenities laid out according to the tatami mat dimensions; you sleep on the floor with a rice pillow, and you share the bathing facilities; no shoes are worn indoors (all the shoes are lined up outside near the door), and traditional meals are provided. This Ryokan was owned and operated by a family which had lived there through many generations. The structure was original--dark wooden beams and planks which creaked when you walked on them. There wasn't much privacy--you could hear other boarders between the paper-thin walls--there were televisions, but nothing in English! Usually I bathed in the mornings, frequently having to spend an extra 10 minutes filling the huge square tub with cold water, lest I be boiled alive by the steaming hot water the maid had drawn for me!  

Kyoto is a large modern city, but, like San Francisco (bounded by water on three sides), its growth is limited, by steep encircling mountains, where many of the temples are situated. My day would begin with an odd fish-y breakfast (their version of scrambled eggs involved a neat rolling of the egg mass into a rectangular layer cake leavened with pickle peppers). 

I often went out to eat in the evening. Since I had no Japanese, this could be awkward at times. I remember once, strolling around the middle of town, I came upon a big coffee house with dozens of outdoor tables. As I approached the cafe, hundreds of high school and college students in groups or with their dates suddenly turned to look at me in horror! A gaijin! I had accidentally walked into a forbidden zone! I felt as if I were striding onto the stage at the academy awards! Murmurs like a thousand bees! Consternation at my long brown trenchcoat, a giant (I'm 6'4")!   

In all, I visited over 40 gardens, often seeing two in the same day. My primary mode of transport was taxis. The Japanese taxi system is without doubt the most efficient and impressive as any in the world. It's a closely regulated service, the cars are immaculate and new (they're all a pale, polished green color), the drivers are competent and anxious to please, but of course all this doesn't come cheap. And they're ubiquitous--never any fear, unless you're way, way out of town, of finding one. 

          

Kyoto is a tourist center, but unlike many such precincts, it's not been allowed to be cheapened and trashed. The gardens--both royal (secular) and holy (religious)--are visually stunning examples of the management of, and integration with, natural landscape forms. Many of the temples have been, and still are, in continuous use for hundreds of years. One of my best color shots was taken while a group of seated monks chanted morning prayers on the other side of an open porch facing the lush garden view. Many of the temples have become wary of tourist exploitation, and won't allow you to set up tripods on the premises. Many also charge entrance fees, and restrict access to certain designated areas. Some, like Katsura or Saiho-ji, have organized tours and you have to stay with your group. 

Among the most popular is the Golden Temple (Kinkaku-ji), a shimmering gold (real gold leaf!) three-story pavilion set at the edge of a small landscaped lake. The subject of countless tourist pictures, the temple was burned down by a deranged monk in 1950, and was rebuilt. This episode forms the basis of Mishima's novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. One overwhelming problem immediately becomes evident when attempting to photograph it, from across the water, which presents the best views. The pathway which encircles the lake normally is crowded with visitors, and as they pass beside the pavilion, they get in the way of the composition. As anyone who has visited Japan knows, Japanese school children are routinely taken on field trips to these sights; these kids, about age 5 or 6, come in class groups, dressed uniformly in shorts, cotton shirts, and little bright pastel colored hats (almost like teams). As one group passes, followed by a few stubborn stragglers, the next group comes, and the process starts all over again. 

I would set up the composition for the pavilion, and wait patiently as the little yellow-hatted group would slowly pass, then I'd have, say, a second or less, to take the shot, hoping the sun hadn't slipped behind a cloud, before the next little red-hatted group began to pass, until the orange-hatted group took its turn, etc. This went on for hours! I went back twice, but only got a fair shot of the Golden Pavilion.  

           

Another great attraction is the Saiho-ji, or Moss Garden (Koke-dera). In order to visit this, visitors are required to attend a kind of short seminar on Japanese brush calligraphy. Following a brief lecture, you have to sit on the floor and copy out a page full of Kanji characters with your black paintbrush. Everyone tries to hurry through the task, in order to spend as much time in the garden as possible! 

It should be noted--with respect to the moss--that Japan is a humid country! After a while, you don't mind it too much, but it's important to be aware of the consequences. Typically, in Japan, you'll find a light bulb fixture sticking out near the floor in closets--this is intended to mitigate the growth of mold inside your shoes--which I was astounded to discover one morning when I reached for my dress bucks--filled with hazy grey-green mold! 

Nevertheless, this humidity provides the basis for the growth of moss, and the Japanese have learned to exploit its intensely green carpeting aspect to enhance the look and tactile sensation of their garden compositions. The Moss Garden--pictured above and at the top of this piece--is probably the best example of its use. Its primary drawback is the difficulty of maintenance. Dry leaves and detritus are continually falling upon it, which must be groomed meticulously on a daily or twice-daily basis by moccasined monk gardeners using crude (but soft) grass brooms, in order not to damage the delicate moss covering.   

      

The best way to visit the gardens is to allow yourself adequate time to appreciate their meditative calmness and atmosphere. Many of the smaller, less popular ones, allow guests to sit and meditate, and will even offer you free tea. Small donations are appreciated but not demanded. I spent many happy moments basking in the peace and relative solitude of a perfectly sited and constructed garden. It was late Summer, early Fall, and the maples were orange and yellow--like tomatoes--and they would oscillate and bend gently in the stirring breezes.      

I have a big cache of hundreds of 4x5 chromes of Kyoto, which I need someday to get printed, probably by the silver-chrome emulsion process (Zibachrome). I went to considerable difficulty to make them, but under the most wonderful of circumstances. I will never forget my month in Kyoto in the late Summer of 1985. In another post soon, I'll discuss the Ryoan-ji or sand garden.      

Whalen Again - Portrait From Another Direction

You can talk about the writing or you can talk about the man. Does a man's writing stand for the man, or does the man stand beside his writing (taking full credit and responsibility for it)? Whalen might have said that selflessness is close to godliness, in that we are mere vessels through which divine inspiration may--or may not--come. Whalen was a man who never seemed to take his luck for granted. Many of his poems come roundabout to a provisional conclusion, wary of satisfaction, respectful of fate, and modest in expectation. 

Haiku, for Gary Snyder

                               I S

Here's a dragonfly

                              ( T O T A L L Y )

Where it was,

                           that place no longer exists.

                                                                                    15:i:60

 

This is a poem from Braincandy 1962-1965, a section of poems from On Bear's Head [1969]. It's a very simple poem, which is why I chose to talk about it (long poems use up a lot of space in a blog, and are likely to put people off, is my take).

We've all had the experience of watching a dragonfly light on a twig or a rock nearby, or just hover nervously in mid-air. Dragonflies are among the most primitive of living things that still survive; they've been around since the dinosaurs, in fact they were around 100 million years before that, so you could say these little guys are a talisman of duration--the perfect formula to carry the DNA of life through time's adversity. 

They're also extremely agile in flight, can hover, change direction, land and take off, with astonishing speed. They're carnivores of the insect kingdom, eating smaller insects than themselves. In their nymph form, they live in water, and breathe through gills in their rectum, and can rapidly propel themselves by suddenly expelling water through the anus (a neat trick!). 

You can be looking at a dragonfly hovering beside you, its twin sets of wings quivering, and suddenly it's gone--they're that fast, your eye can't follow them. Metaphorically, this astonishing speed suggests a form of transubstantiation, or the instantaneous transfer of matter from one place to another, without literal apparent means. 

Is the poem a true haiku? Well, that depends. Classic haiku, the three lines, traditionally defined 5/7/5 syllable scheme. Given a little latitude, one could almost call any short English poem of this approximate length a haiku, especially if it functions as one--that is, through the juxtaposition of two things (as, an image and a comment upon). Clearly, Whalen's self-conscious decision to make a haiku poem implies a Zen content, and is well within the haiku tradition as it comes down to us through translations in the West. 

It differs, however, from its antecedents by not simply setting up a contemplative observation, but in some sense enacting what it describes. It is not simply static, but a live current to transmit energy! This notion of an energy construct is a post-Modern idea, one which Charles Olson referred to in his essay "Projective Verse" [1951]. The embodiment of an energetic charge--or linguistic discharge--is crucial to much of post-Modern poetic theory. 

The poem sets up a dialectic between two sets of narrative. The ostensible "poem" (or traditional haiku) is in the lines "Here's a dragonfly/Where it was,/that place no longer exists." This is a fairly straightforward, if somewhat predictable, haiku sentiment--the transitoriness of nature, of matter in any temporary form, or the ephemeral nature of visual perception, or of the mystical "disappearance" of an observed "moment" in the continuum. It's a Bergsonian idea: that Duration is unextended yet heterogeneous, and its parts cannot be juxtaposed as a succession of distinct parts, with one causing the other, thereby making determinism an impossibility and free-will pure mobility, which he called Duration. Perception of instantaneous fleeting moments suggests that we can capture frames or images from time, like putting an insect on a pin, but our sense of the continuous flux of "everything" proves that this is an illusion. Nothing stops. Nothing stands still. Everything is moving. Everything is irretrievable. 

The other half of the dialectic is the capitalized simultaneous parallel words "I S" and "( T O T A L L Y )". How do these two juxtaposed words function within the narrative of the poem? They're both "inside" the poem and "outside" it. You could say they represent a sort of deus ex of the world will (or universal spirit). Everything simply "is"--beyond human agency or blessing. This "is"-ness is totally encompassing (the universe), not limited either by our perceptual apprehension, or by the means of expression (language, mental processes).

The poet's perception of the being of the dragonfly--its "being"-ness--represented by its physical body existing in one place, then vanishing--inspires the realization that matter and empirical observation are illusions. As we sit on the earth, studying this hovering dragonfly, we're upsidedown, spinning around a planetary gyroscope, in an elegant dance of multifarious energy and matter of which we, the dragonfly, the twig it rests/ed upon, the air and the light and the moment in time, are all an involuntary, accidental part. 

This superconsciousness of awareness of the universe is a very Buddhist concept, not altogether alien to Western thought, but difficult to express except in formulaic terms. This poem is another example of the concise equational quality of the best short poems, which can express things that 1000 pages of dense philosophical analysis can't. It's like a summary of one of the important points of Wittgenstein's Tractatus: That in signifying what can be said, it will signify what cannot be said. 

Whalen's poem is an attempt to say the unsayable. The simultaneous hovering analagous capitalized letters (words) are symbolically linked to the hovering of the dragonfly: The moment in time which seems to hover precariously, and then vanishes before our eyes. The "I S" is an expression of the pure energy of the body of the insect--the energy which holds it together as a formal structure, the energy by which it throbs and flits decisively through the continuum, and of the flux of everything else as well. "( T O T A L L Y )" functions as a modifier but it is really unnecessary. Whalen could simply have titled the poem IS and perhaps have had the same effect; though lacking the enactment of the juxtaposed parts, it probably wouldn't have signified as clearly what he intended. The dragonfly probably is the "I S" which hovers above the poem proper--it's in the poem, or hovering just above it, both in and out of time, in and out of the poem.

Before such illumination there is no choice but to accede. All effort, all struggle, is encompassed within the continuum of the universal flux.    

Philip Whalen Tribute - Better Late Than Never

I could certainly write at least a dozen blogs on Philip Whalen, a poet who was once as important to me as anyone I could name. During my early youth, I tended to idolize individual poets--we'd have a sort of honeymoon during which I would buy all their books, read everything they had written, and gather as much biographical data as could be had (in those primitive times, you couldn't simply "Google" a person's name, you had to dig for bits and pieces of information from stray sources). While I was still an undergraduate at Berkeley, Harcourt, Brace & Company had unexpectedly and improbably published On Bear's Head, in hardcover only, at $16.50 a throw. As Whalen once remarked, the story was that "you were supposed to steal that book," since no one he knew, or any potential fan of his work, would have had the necessary cash to plop down to legally buy a copy at that price. I remember taking something like two months to put the necessary money together to buy that book. (My other major purchase during this period was Larry Eigner's another time in fragments, which was, if memory serves, $6.50 (from Fulcrum in England)).           

I had already read Every Day [1965] and Like I Say [1960]. Whalen's work was very accessible--and I understood instantly what he was talking about. He seemed to have no pretensions, except possibly about Zen Buddhism, but even so, the argument and atmosphere of his poems was perfectly clear. He was a white American male who'd been in the Army, was reasonably cheerful, had a perspicacious mind, and sounded almost as abnormally normal as a poet could expect to be.

    

Beyond my easy identification with his persona, was his clarity of mind, and flat, but witty, American speech patterns. He was a colloquial writer, but with a broad range of reading and interests. His easy-going approach gave me hope that I wouldn't have to write like W.B. Yeats or Robert Lowell in order to be considered a serious writer.

   

Whalen had worked as a forest look-out. When I was just a teenager, I'd been encouraged to consider doing that very thing. My stepfather had even driven me up to Modoc County one Spring day in 1963 to interview for work with a Summer fire crew job. By that time, the look-out jobs were considered plums, and only those with political connections could get them. As it turned out, the fire crew was being manned by juvenile delinquents anyway, so that never worked out. 

The idea of having all that time to oneself, alone, atop vast vistas of wild country was endlessly attractive to me in those days. Go up there in the clouds and write! 

Whalen's great friend and contemporary Gary Snyder, whom he had attended Reed College with, also had been a look-out. It all seemed to me then a very (what we would call today) green thing to do. In the context of Whalen's and Snyder's interest in Eastern religion and mystical attitude towards nature, I felt a special kinship with the shape of their lives: West Coast men fascinated with the Far East, intellectually proficient but practical and pragmatic about the tasks and duties of ordinary living. Politically Left, but unpretentious and easy-going as comrades. 

          

By the time I'd caught up with his work, Whalen had decamped to Japan. By the time I myself had begun to write seriously, he had started on his path to Zen monkhood. I was never much interested in religion: My parents had made me go to church for about five years as a boy, while they never went; my stepfather said that it was important for me to "have the experience" of religion, to see what the whole thing was about--but in reality I think it was probably just a way of getting me out of the house for three hours each Sunday so they could have uninterrupted sex. I had had a Catholic roommate in college, and what I saw of his devotion and habit of mind didn't encourage me to explore that angle any further. I've always been an agnostic/atheist, but Whalen's attachment to Zen Buddhism seemed to make a certain amount of sense, in that it furnished a practical habitual approach to health and attention which is a fine antidote to the selfish-go-getter-anxiety of American Puritanism. I never felt the need to "escape" from society, though in the late 60's and 70's the pull of hippy ruralism intrigued me.         

In most of the interviews and statements Whalen made in later life, he tried to present himself as the hapless flower to whom things happened, as if he couldn't summon the gumption to get up in the morning. This is of course only partly true, though his passivity is a big component of his Buddhism, accepting and acknowledging, rather than striving and overcoming.    

I always found his poetry to be nicely balanced between these two tendencies--the desire to make and build, and the need to wait and watch (submissiveness). He seems to have found in the practice of Zen, a discipline that gave shape and meaning to a rather haphazard approach to living. Another expression of this balance, is his native humor, which counterbalances his keen intellectual curiosity. Like all closet academicians, Whalen tended towards the erudite and complex, but his modesty (one might even call it lack of self-esteem) usually kept him from taking himself too seriously. In the poems, this had the effect of infusing the writing with a kind of nutty energy and unexpected elisions. His work is never laborious, or unrelieved.     

After On Bear's Head came out, Whalen continued to publish more books of poems, in much the same style as he had since the early 1950's. 

The other side of his production was the two novels, You Didnt' Even Try [Coyote, 1967], and Imaginary Speeches to a Brazen Head [Black Sparrow, 1972]. These two fictions in many ways provide a deeper insight into Whalen's mind than any of his poetry, since they address actual relationships and situations, without being limited by the more formal manner of his poetry. Basically, they are "bohemian" narratives of young artists living and working and loving in the Bay Area during the 1950's and 1960's. This is subject matter which has been explored by many other writers, such as Herb Gold, Alice Adams, etc., but Whalen's approach is more insideout. In one sense, all of the characters in his novels are different aspects of himself--simply expressed through different "bodies" and "heads." In a sense the "imaginary speeches" are the verbalized versions of what any person thinks or wishes to say as a declamation of identity or belief. Anyone who is so inclined, spends much of his/her life composing such speeches as a form of self-expression or argument. It is the eternal dialogue that humanity carries on with itself and history.    

When Whalen's collected poems appeared, it felt like an anti-climax to me. Whalen had always said that On Bear's Head wasn't a collected poems--and, given his compositional style--there was every reason to believe that there were a lot of unpublished poems in his closet. But the collected poems didn't bear that out. 

Perhaps one of the most revolutionary aspects of his work, which has never been given its fair share of attention, is his calligraphic/illustrated holographs. Highgrade [1966], Monday in the Evening [1964], and The Diamond Noodle [1980] are limited examples of his notebook compositions, and they present tantalizing evidence of what might have been a fully developed enterprise of quasi-Eastern painting-poems, had anyone had the energy and money to do it. With the demise of the manual typewriter, and the advent of the personal computer, poets continue to be alienated from the means of textual production. Whalen's preoccupation with Eastern texts, and his own calligraphic practice (which he picked up, along with Snyder, at Reed College where Lloyd Reynolds was teaching it), are crucial interlocked components of his sense of the act of writing. 

When I lived in Japan for a year in 1985, I had the opportunity to explore some of the same sources of inspiration that Whalen and Snyder had years earlier.  My next post will address some of that experience.