Opening Line of the Week
This is the elegantly-phrased opening paragraph of a 1962 short story that originally began as a script for a 1961 episode of the television series “The Twilight Zone.”
Viewing art “as a kind of nerve conduit” is a thought-provoking metaphor, and Serling clearly believed that it was an excellent way to lure readers into his tale.
After the introductory paragraph, Serling quickly moved from the idyllic image of an artist working in her studio to a dark, post-apocalyptic world in which a heated-up planet has made living in cities like Manhattan almost impossible. As the story unfolds, the artist in question—a woman named Norma—and her landlady Mrs. Bronson, are among the few New Yorkers who’ve somehow managed to survive. It’s a grim tale, and, as often happens in Serling’s work, it contains a surprise ending.
If you’d like to learn more about the the television episode—including a number of great still shots—check out this entertaining and informative blog post from a woman who engagingly describes herself as “An Aging Broad with a Scrapbook.”
If you’re a Serling fan, you probably love the way he introduced each episode of the show. Every week for five full seasons (1959 to 1964), he toyed around with an introduction he first laid out in the inaugural episode.
If you’re interested in other great openers from the “Short Story” genre, check out GreatOpeningLines.com. If you don’t find any of your personal favorites in my current compilation, you can nominate them by writing to me at: drmardy@drmardy.com
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This Week’s Puzzler
On August 18, 1943, this man was born in Chicago, Illinois (he celebrates his 80th birthday this week). After graduating from New Canaan (Connecticut) High School in 1961, he spent six years at the Rhode Island School of Design (with a concentration in painting), obtaining a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1967.
After graduation, he decided to try his luck as a comedian, and, by the early 1970s, he was the opening act for a number of established stand-up comics. He also produced several comedy albums that featured satirical songs and song parodies (his “Dueling Tubas” made Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in 1973).
He got his first big break in 1976 when he landed the roles of identical twins Garth and Barth Kimble on the TV sitcom “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” (he also took the Garth character to two other shows that ultimately became cult classics: “Fernwood 2 Night” and “America 2-Night”).
In addition to roles in more than 40 films, he’s made scores of memorable guest appearances on such popular television shows as ‘Roseanne” and “Sabrina: The Teenage Witch.” Despite his show biz success, he views acting and performing as his “day job” and painting as his true occupation. When asked in 1985 why he didn’t pursue painting on a full-time basis, he said:
“Most of us in the fine arts have what are known as day gigs. Instead of driving a cab to get enough money for my oils, I was able to host a talk show and be in films.”
In a 1984 Playboy interview, he also offered one of my favorite quotations on the subject of art.
Who is this man? (Answer below)
What Role Has Art Played in Your Life?
This quotation in this week’s Puzzler is a playfully creative way of describing the essence of art, and it cleverly plays off a number of similar observations that have been made over the years.
All of these observations make the same essential point: art is an attempt to capture something important about the human experience by a kind of getting-at-the-essence process. Art, from this point of view, is neither reality nor an attempt to reproduce reality, but a heightened or stylized reality. Edgar Allen Poe may have described the process best when he wrote in an 1844 essay:
“Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term ‘Art,’ I should call it ‘the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.’”
For as long as human beings have been around, they’ve devised countless strategies to help them survive as a species. The creation of art, though, is not one of them. But even though we don't literally need art to survive, it has such deep psychological and spiritual significance that it has become something we cannot live without.
Over the centuries, countless theories have been offered about why people feel such a powerful desire to create art, but few can top a 1999 observation by Kurt Vonnegut:
Six years later, in Man Without a Country (2005), Vonnegut reprised the sentiment, and expanded upon it:
“Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
This week, think about the role art has played in your life. If you’re currently practicing an art—to use Vonnegut’s lovely phrase—you will likely be able to speak volumes on the subject. The same will also be true if, while not actually engaged in artistic creation, your life is characterized by a deep artistic appreciation.
However, if art is currently playing only a minimal role in your life—or no significant role at all—this may be one of the reasons you’re not feeling the satisfaction or fulfillment you’d like to be experiencing. If this is true for you, this might be the perfect time to do something about it—something that just might help enable your soul to grow.
As you approach the subject, take a few moments to peruse this week's selection of quotations on the theme:
“Life beats down and crushes the soul, and art reminds you that you have one.” — Stella Adler
“Art and Religion are, then, two roads by which men escape from circumstance to ecstasy.” — Clive Bell
“Art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness that characterizes prayer, too.” — Saul Bellow
“To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art.” — E. M. Forster
“Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way around.” — Stephen King
“I think of Art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning system, that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.” — Marshall McLuhan
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” — Thomas Merton
“We have art in order not to die of the truth.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
“Art is a form of catharsis.” — Dorothy Parker
“We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.” — Pablo Picasso
This 1923 observation is one of my all-time favorite oxymoronic quotations, perfectly capturing the essence of all artistic creations. And, while we’re on the subject of Picasso “art” quotations, you are probably also familiar with this one: “Art . . . washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”
This is one the Internet’s most popular quotations, but it’s highly unlikely Picasso ever said or wrote anything like it. If he had, he would’ve been guilty of plagiarizing a thought about music from the German writer Berthold Auerbach (1812–1882).
The Picasso connection first showed up in Francis Carr’s European Erotic Art (1972), where he attributed (without any source information) the following fuller observation to Picasso:
“Art is the best possible introduction to the culture of the world. I love it for the buried hopes, the garnered memories, the tender feelings it can summon at a touch. It washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”
I’ve recently learned that this observation also lifted key phrases from L. E. Landon’s 1831 novel Romance and Reality. I now view the so-called Picasso quotation as apocryphal, and leaning toward the erroneous.
For source information on these quotations, and many others quotations on the subject of ART, go to Dr. Mardy’s Dictionary of Metaphorical Quotations.
Cartoon of the Week
Answer to This Week’s Puzzler:
Martin Mull
Mull, who turns eighty this week, is best known as an actor and comedian, but he’s been an artist for decades longer than he’s been an entertainer.
In 1995, just after the publication of his coffee-table art book Martin Mull: Paintings, Drawings, and Words, Mull offered the following thought.
Mull’s point was that his goal as an artist was (a) to rid his creations of anything that is literal or verbal and (b) avoid any kind of consciously intelligent thought process in their creation. As a result his works have a mystical, ethereal, even other-worldly quality that can be mesmerizing. Here’s an image of “Sanctuary,” a 2010 painting.
In the art world, Mull is now widely regarded as a first-rate artist, but for years his work was appreciated mainly by other entertainers. Steve Martin was an early fan, and now has well over two dozen Mull works in his private collection. A few years ago, actor Bob Odenkirk of “Better Call Saul” fame described Mull’s work as “Stunning, moving, and strange…it makes you feel like you’re watching a dream.”
Dr. Mardy’s Observation of the Week
Thanks for joining me again this week. See you next Sunday morning, when the theme will be “Imagination.”
Mardy
Dr. M....this one and last week's have knocked it out of the ballpark for me (and I'm not even a sports fan!!!) Three years ago, I lost someone who had been my 'love' for 48 years....His favorite song was 'besame mucho'....and he was the BEST kisser I ever knew. And since I was a pre-teen, I have been 'doing art' although my 'art' has now turned into more of a three-dimensional creative series. So this week's newsletter also had great relevance to me. I can hardly wait for next week!! As an educator, I have always tried to instill in my students both imagination AND creativity. I can hardly wait to see what you serve up. Thanks for ALL you do....It wouldn't be Sunday morning without Dr. Mardy!!!
Another marvellous read. I’m getting on but am still somewhat naively amazed by the sheer amount of material which I am unfamiliar with. Always a treat. Thank you.