Why do I sometimes put a picture at the top of my post that's unrelated to the first paragraph?

Because when I share it on Facebook, Facebook grabs the first image it sees, so I try to put something interesting there.

 

 

Just so there's some context for this: Next time you see a hippie leftover from the 60's or 70's, don't ask how they couldn't keep pace with a changing world; ask instead how the world once found peace and love and managed to lose it.

 

Santorum: Surreptitious Ignorance

Tonight I heard a couple left-of-center pundits on MSNBC's The Ed Show accuse Santorum of being intentionally racist and that his comment in the clip below was evidence of an agenda harbored by some conservative elements.

IMHO that's nonsense. Racist, yes, but evidence of an agenda? No.

What it was, was surreptitious ignorance.

Racism is often so subtle, so incipient, those affected by it don't realize it; and I use the word surreptitious because the ignorance submerses itself, like a neurosis (maybe exactly so), and refuses acknowledgement.

Rarely do racists know they are racist. Mr Santorum is a victim of his class, his station, his color, his family, his wealth, and every person and idea that ever nudged his path one way or the other.

He may indeed have nothing but goodwill toward all men of all colors, but his language, and hence the collective pieces that make Rick Santorum Rick Santorum, unfortunately include enough poorly formed mores that these words were formed by his brain and allowed to leave his mouth.

Is he a bad man? I doubt that very much. Could it have been a linguistic slip because he was recently discussing Black Americans in the context of welfare? Possibly. But it shows an allowance for insensitive wording that shouldn't be tolerated, least of all in public office.

 

Who loves ya, baby?

I'm watching the first season of Kojak. I was too young when this was first broadcast to stay up and watch it, and I suspect my parents thought it was too violent. It's also riddled with gritty portrayals of drug use, prostitution, etc, but those things go over a child's head; violence, however, is digested early.

But that opening theme, it's like a lullaby, an immediate transport to a simpler time, when prime time was bedtime, and a musical capsule meant kisses goodnight and getting tucked in and falling asleep with moonbeams settling into dark corners.

They don't make opening themes like this too much anymore (eg Seinfeld, an extreme minimalist example). Know why? Cutting 60 seconds from a show's beginning and end makes more room for commercials. There are probably music royalty savings as well, but I don't know much about that world.

What they've lost is a Pavlovian[1] event that would serve them well in syndication. A theme song encapsulates memories in a way nothing else does, and it lasts a lifetime. Squandering the time for a few more ad dollars is a mistake.

 

[1]
I heard a buy on progressive radio say Pavlov was discredited over 50 years ago (and he was a noted speaker at an event, not an on-air personality). Not sure what he meant by that, he didn't elaborate. Just try to remember that next time you see a food commercial and get hungry, or smell food and salivate. We all do. No, it's not a universal standard model for human behavior, but it's a good chunk of it.

An Enigmatic Intersection of Parallel Worlds

I got this at Goodwill for $2.50. Half price. I still would have bought it at $5. Or more. The statue is by Rudolph Vargas and produced in 1992, but the design goes back to 1976.[1] It's both troubling and enigmatic (if not a little mesmerizing[2]).

Troubling because it merges sacred and secular universes that many Christians live in but never allow to intersect, and enigmatic because it does it so well, despite the epic mythos of both.

When images like this are associated with uncritical mass appeal, the result might be considered tacky (a la chintz pillows, Elvis paintings on velvet, pink lawn flamingos, etc).

Tacky or not, this little statue has the same power over me as Piss Christ➚; and also an exhibit at Calvin College while I was a student there that displayed dead cockroaches in various contexts, including a crucifixion; it has this power because it portrays such a potentially devout perspective in an unexpected way.[3]


It is primally beguiling.

[1]
Vargas died in 1986.➚ "'His purpose in life was to glorify God and his images,' said the son, an electronics engineer from Alhambra."

I'm glad I bought this, and for more reasons than the compelling attraction of the subject. I'm glad because I learned about a bald little immigrant who's biblical passion found expression in such beautiful and simple ways.

After considerable searching and clicking and reading (eventually "Rudolph Vargas sculpture", page 3, search result #29), I finally learned that the kneeling Santa I have was commissioned by Raymond P. Gauer in 1976 (hence "R P Gauer" on the base).

… the book, "A Special Place for Santa," states that the founder, Raymond P. Gauer, commissioned the first kneeling Santa in 1976, which combined the two major symbols of Christmas - the Christ child and Santa Claus in a way that connotes their proper relationship - the secular subservient to the sacred… (Williamsport Sun-Gazette➚)

As for Mr Gauer, he owns the trademark for kneeling Santa➚. He was a lawyer or judge or something, as he's also associated with a petition against the now classic porn film, The Devil in Miss Jones.➚

Here's another thing: It took me perhaps an hour or more to hunt down the Mr Vargas and the Mr Gauer named on the bottom of the statue. I immediately of course found many items for sale just like mine and lots of references to Santa and Jesus associated with these two men, but even after quite a bit of searching and reading, I still know very little about either.

So much searching on two relatively prominent personalities, yet they remain strangers to me. How much worse will it go for us one day, the anonymous rabble? (I hold out some hope for myself. More on that another time.)

There is another Rudolph Vargas, alive and working, who did nativity scenes in Ontario last year, but I can't tell from my Googling if they are related. (Southern California Public Radio➚)

[2]
"Mesmerizing" is a delightful example of a word that went from serviceable to cliché to detestable to forgotten (which is also serviceable). If you were around in the 70's, "mesmerizing" showed up frequently in the company of swooning women in pulpy bodice-rippers. I still have a book somewhere given to me by a college friend, Love Island, a slim, disposable romance written when The Love Boat and Fantasy Island were ratings leaders on Saturday night TV. I don't know if the word "mesmerize" is in it, but it's an interesting little memory. Thank you Dave from Canada.

[3]
"Potentially" because all human expression is subject to interpretation. Even the artist's own interpretation has no more validity than our own. You may or may not find Santa and Jesus or Piss Christ troubling; in fact, you almost certainly don't if you have no Judeo-Christian background, just as I have no response one way or the other to a physical representation of Allah (aside from indignation that others should get so uptight about it). Two people can look at the very same thing and respond entirely differently and legitimately.

 

What does it mean to keep Christmas?

Something occurred to me only this holiday week.

I, like many others, more eagerly anticipate Christmas each year, and each year more deeply mourn its passing. Our holiday hopes are increasingly greater, which only means they are dashed from a greater height.

Have you ever read and reread something, over and over, knowing there is some little truth in there, some kernel of insight, but you just can't get at it?
I've felt that way for years about Dickens' final words on Scrooge:

...and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.

What does it mean to keep Christmas? I've come to the conclusion it has very little to do with the preparation and celebration of the season. It's how you observe it afterwards; that is the hard part, and Dickens' tone suggests as much.

The impetus for this conclusion was my son coming to visit this weekend, a week after Christmas, and me of course leaving the tree up and the stockings hung, and asking myself, "Why must Christmas end just because a day on the calendar has past?"

It shouldn't. Most familiar morality tales of Christmas recount permanent changes to characters bereft of love and kindness (as agents or objects): Scrooge learns how to keep Christmas, the Grinch's heart grows three sizes, misfit toys go to live with loving children, etc.

Even so, there is one night out of all the rest that I like to stay up late, alone, the most peaceful night of the year, Christmas Eve, the one night when the world stops, even if only for a few hours, and collectively looks inward for that love and kindness.

Keeping Christmas is the ability to observe its spirit even after the world stops celebrating, when you feel like the party is over and everyone's gone home.

It sounds elementary, and perhaps it is. Perhaps that is why children understand it so well, and why it took me so many years to rediscover what I've known all along.

As it turns out, family events are postponing a formal end to Christmas another week. There remains a stocking stuffed with goodies hanging from the mantle, and the tree still sparkles through the night, a few unwrapped presents underneath lending a legitimacy that otherwise might slowly evaporate after New Year passes. I obtained some old TV shows I'd planned to watch but will wait - odds and ends from the 70s that only those who lived them would find interesting: Donny and Marie, Rich Little, and a little Jimmy Stewart story that's nothing like It's a Wonderful Life and apparently never caught on. I've seen none of them since they first aired.