A hundred years is forever when we are young, but as my own life span now covers three quarters of that period, my earliest memories are touched by those now dusty newspaper headlines of that day This brings a realization that history is shaped by such adventitious events as Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his lone assassin each independently having spent four hours, one giving speeches the other in a dark saloon, that would culminate with their paths crossing at the bridge that provided a second shot - this one precipitating three decades of genocidal world wars that continue to shape our world.
Any moment in time is fraught with potentials that inhere in the hearts of people, their hopes, their dreams and their deepest fears. Events that only in retrospect can be isolated from the din of the day are seen to be so clear, so ominous, so malleable -- that those looking back can't believe that preventive action was not taken when it was possible. Today, I'm looking from my own singular vantage point, 4 AM in the morning of July 4, when all Americans are charged with feeling patriotic, with waving flags and in the glow of exploding fireworks to relive the glory of our nation. It is an orgy of patriotism that every public figure must engage in under threat to his continued public existence.
Part of reaching my age is being in touch with those who lived that war that was triggered a hundred years ago with that unlikely gunshot in Sarajevo. Years ago I read the book "Johny Got His Gun" that by articulating the most horrible results of industrialized warfare -- exposed a reality that is masked by the fifes and drums, ginned up patriotism that turn horror into heroism. America no longer has an anti-war movement because war is fought differently, only by those who choose to participate. And we have reached a point unprecedented in human existence, where carnage can be imposed on others without any individual risk by the initiator. We are so surrounded by the din of immediate events -- elections, scandals, exposes of excesses of power -- that the ability to visualize, then formulate the shape of the forces around us is impaired.
"Johny Got His Gun" is a novel that showed how glorious battles leave a residue of silent excruciating suffering, in this case, with no release in even the howl of pain that brings hope of comfort, a part of our primate heritage. Dalton Tumbo's novel conveyed the thoughts of someone so damaged by war that he was trapped in his suffering, with no means of communication, an image so disturbing for me that it's lasted for a half century. So, if this book isn't art, then what is? A rather profound question but not for those in my small city where our elected officials have decided to invest ten percent of the year's revenue into land that may provide for an "arts center" a concept so desirable that to ask exactly what that means is depicted by the then Mayor as an act of "sabotage."
Our current world more and more runs on such vague concepts that broach no questioning of their substance or meaning. We do know some things about "Encinitas Art." It will not be gross, or shocking, or revolutionary, or obscene, or blasphemous. It will not be overly disturbing to our ninety-nine percent Caucasian upper class citizens where one women described herself as "church going" in a presentation against allowing a growth of bars along main street -- using this term that was understood as an indicator of solid-citizenhood. We will have an arts center, or something just as good for the city officials, which will be a piece of land that is dedicated to this idea. Actually, while they will not talk about this, this project identified by the purchase of an unused elementary school called Pacific View only works in concept, as once it is turned to even sketches, much less real buildings, it requires answers for the selection who gets subsidized space, the city will be in the business of defining art.
Is art's function to suspend intrusion of ugly realities, to provide a vision of a benevolent world graced by the infant Jesus which was the standard of early Renaissance paintings. Is it experiencing the ecstasy of a symphony orchestra's rendition of Beethoven's Eroica with acoustics created for connoisseurs to savor every phase by each instrumental section. Or is art to be that of the fascists of the last century, with the purpose of idealizing the perfect "volk" that is cleansed of all decadence, both in creators and their creations. I like this definition of art: "that which allows just enough of the raw sensation of life to be acceptable by the existing order of society." So, we limit films showing the carnage of war to those depicting past ones, and then only to a two hour sitting. We welcome touching on the inherent contradictions, even the tragic injustices of our own country, but in small doses that are couched as humor to be dissipated in laughter -- made juicier when the fools are those in the other partisan camp.
"Encinitas Art" allows those who promote it to believe that they are cultured, sensitive people who can engage on an ethereal level that does not have to be defined, that is beyond the understanding of those with coarser sensitivities. This self perception allows avoiding certain harsh realities, including one that occurred a few days before this is being written near another city like this one less than a hundred miles away, Murrietta, California. This event, this real life drama, does not lend itself to the savoring by aficionados of a given artistic genre as time does not allow for the novel to be written or the paintings of the alternative realities of this event to be composed. There are two mutually exclusive titles for this naturally unfolding art. A: An angry right wing mob prevents frightened children from reaching the safety of our country; or B: Americans take to the streets to protect the borders that separate us from a world of misery, enforcing laws that our President refuses to do.
Both titles, like those gestalt paintings that show either an old lady or young girl, are true. Reality is multifaceted and it is the viewer that chooses what to perceive, whether to put himself with those inside of the bus or among those who will not let it proceed to the safety of the facility in their city. Yet this art metaphor can only be pushed so far, as reality unlike art, lacks a frame created by an artist. Unfolding-reality defies encapsulation, freezing conflicting dynamics for others to contemplate; rather it exists in this case in the actions of the individuals in the mob and the President in the White House. At a given moment we can't know what will shape history, that the driver of the Archduke's car would take the wrong turn to lead him to the bar that the anarchist Gavrilo Princip was just leaving. We don't know what will happen to the children in the bus who have risked their lives to get to his country.
Living life is an art with no critics to define quality, no marketplace to assign monetary value, no scholars to put into historical context. While the Encinitas city council and the people living here are joining in creating a monument to "the arts" it has managed to ignore the choices that this precludes. Those buses that passed within a few miles of the city on the way to being refused entry bring to my mind another event, one now beyond the memory of those who "govern" this city, about another group of refugees, those not in a bus but a ship, one called the SS St. Louis. Like those on the bus, these people were seeking refuge from a place where their lives were in danger, in their case from the government of Nazi Germany, in the current case from the chaos of a lack of effective governments in their Central American countries, where the probability of a short brutal existence is quite real.
And like the rejection by every country including ours of the refugees on that ship in 1938, not a single of the ten thousand cities in the United States has stepped forward with a way out of this dilemma. (By the end of July, a few have done so) In this case there is no solution possible by a federal government paralyzed by partisan warfare, yet a city could intervene, not by laws but by welcoming these children This city is spending ten million dollars of taxpayers money for promotion of "the arts" the simulacrum of reality in all its forms. Doing this means ignoring that this money, in various incarnations, could become a lifeline to those on the bus, perhaps a place for housing and protection where they could experience the benevolence of a country that has been blessed, by either God or chance- take your choice. This money could provide a stipend for those who open their homes to these children and young adults, giving them comfort and ability to develop skills that they could someday take back to their country of origin to perhaps lead them out of the chaos of a failed state.
These children on the bus only got a shot at staying in this country because of a quirk in the immigration regulations. Had they been from Mexico, they would have been immediately returned home when caught on this side of the border, but having traversed the long dangerous path from the even more violent central American countries, this expeditious return is not done. They are given a parody of due process, released after three days of processing, with a court date that is rarely kept as they are free to live in this country as undocumented immigrants. Their refugee status is real, as described in this LA Times Article :
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America, are among the poorest and most dangerous countries in the hemisphere. Plagued by ruthless street gangs and a growing presence of Mexican drug traffickers, the countries have seen homicide rates grow by 99% over the last decade, with the current rate five times that of the United States, according to a new study by the British-based Action on Armed Violence.
Yes, these children live in Hell and want to be in our Heaven, but so do hundreds of millions in this hemisphere, and billions throughout the world. We can only let in a relative few, a problem that exists among every advanced country here and abroad. Is it cruel? You're damn right it is, but the cruelty is in the random luck of birth place, that cosmic crap game where all of us in the USA are winners compared to much of the world.
This is what Encinitas could be known for, a first rate act of courage rather than a second rate center for the arts. Yet, this is highly unlikely, as this would require something that no longer is even part of the imagination of those who have become used to the sensation of engaging real issues as depicted on a screen, carefully edited for a single siting and then closure, where there is no danger of actual failure, harm to the body or soul, as we can always walk out of the theater or change the channel if it is no longer entertaining.
Municipal art by definition must be anodyne, tepid, as anything more will beyond it's scope. The city couldn't even handle the posting of an anonymous mosaic mural on city property that depicted a Madonna on a surf board, as offense to Atheists or devout Catholics was equally feared. Our Arts Center will be a similar can of worms, a political nightmare where every exhibition will have to pass the test of conveying nothing offensive.
The fireworks capping this day are about to begin. In a few short weeks this city will have "Saved Pacific View" the school, and not even thought about having done nothing to save refugee children, and by such unprecedented action, maybe deflecting the growing mutual contempt by Left and Right that could yet tear this country apart. Unlike art in all its forms, where someone else is the artist and we are the audience, with real life the course of history is shaped by us all.
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