Adapting

It's funny, I'm in New Yawk, the literary capitol of the nation, stuffed past the choking point with artists, poets, visionaries, and musicians, and all I can think to do is blog little brain-blurts inspired by Hollywood. I just watched Adaptation. It seemed clever the first time, maybe too clever to really carry its message: that simplicity is stronger than it looks. But on this viewing, I see that the structure of the film itself is an example of that argument. Which movie holds together better: the convoluted, self-referential first part, or the classic Hollywood climax? The booming wall of a theater screen has certain elements that work. You can play other games on it as well, but the old razzle-dazzle never fails.


It is naturally impossible for me to watch a film about a writer and not think about my own status as one. With the exception of this blog and my days as a newspaper editor in college, I am unpublished but hopeful. I've seen a few rejection letters and will likely see more. I have wrestled in the night, like Kauffman does, trying to will the idea to the paper. I know I can put a noun against a verb, and I know that persistence is rewarded. Everything else is fuzzier.


So is it my job to give my fellow solace, or truth? Is truth solace in another form, the solace of tommorrow? And which truths am I supposed to focus on? There are thousands, and that isn't the sophistry of a Pilatus. Look at the news. Some say the war in Iraq is going well, some say it is going badly. A given reporter can find an Iraqi who will say that the Americans are the eaters of Satan's shit, and another who will thank America a thousand times and proudly announce that he has named his son George Bush Hassan Ali or some such. Which one of them has their finger on "the truth"? And where do all these truthes ["e" added deliberately] fit in to the big Truth? And don't fudge and tell me there isn't one, just because you're scared of what a Truth might require of you.


I begin to wonder if art really has anything to do with Truth at all. I read in a thick, matte-cover music mag that likely only prints in NY about how there really is no underground, that when the barnacles of gloss are scraped of a band like the Strokes, all you find is five regular dudes who like playing music. True as far as it goes, but it doesn't go nearly far enough. The same was true of any band or any artist, be it the Holy Beatles or the Unholy Velvet Underground. All the great ones put their shoes on like the rest of us, breathe fear and confidence in the same air as the rest of us. When they do what they are best at doing, good things happen.


If that's so, then what do we need them for? Why should ink on paper, oil on canvas, light filtered through film and glass, a gesture on a raised platform, or thin metal plucked in syncronicity be so important to us? Why should we raise up as Better Humans those that can do these things well? All they're doing is what they've worked on doing, and they're never going to be able to relay a different truth to us than that. So why bother?


We bother because we need to be reminded that reality is real, that simplicity is strength, that dedication is the path. We need it every generation, and every day. There are so many truths coming at us at double-speed every eighteen months that we need to hear that a steady rudder will see us through. Art says so, by its patterns if not by its explicit text. When Andy Warhol painted a Campbell's soup can, he was saying that art is commerce, and he was saying that reality is real, simplicity is strength, and dedication is the path. So was Lou Reed when he pushed guitar feedback through the wall on the Velvet's second album. So was Charlie Kauffman when he wrote the screenplay to Adaptation.


And so am I, one of these days. But for the moment, I'm going to do some push-ups and crunches, shave, and then go walk the rainy NY streets to meet my girl. Life is good.