Monthly Archives: September 2013

“Breaking Bad” is Art!

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Well, it is over and we can now rest at ease knowing that the tumult of Walter White’s life came to a more or less acceptable resolution. Yes, BREAKING BAD concluded last night and I did get to see the concluding episode and did not have to sacrifice any small furry animal to accomplish this!

I just concluded reading Maureen Ryan’s column in Huffington Post and she provides a brilliant analysis of the episode and the series. I noted as I read this column that it was almost as if I was reading literary analysis. But then, as I noted yesterday, Breaking Bad has a literary quality to it as it is not merely entertainment but is a work of art diving straight into the heart of human existence. For example, one of Ryan’s points was that White always managed to come out on top in some way even in impossible circumstances, always managing to contrive an exit strategy which would further his interests. And even here, in this final episode in which he dies, he accomplishes his often announced purpose of taking care of his family even thought he had to arrange it in such a way that he will never get the credit for it. So, once again he made a “successful” exit. One could even say, he found a way to beat cancer in that he contrived a way to die under his terms and, in his own words, have a good time in the process. “I liked it,” he said at one point about his career in meth production.

The heart is complicated and these complications are difficult to bring to the page but good writers can do it. And good writers who are also good movie producers can, we are learning, bring the heart’s “beastly little treasures” to the “little screen” as well as the “big screen.” Oh yes, there is all that other drivel. But, if we are discriminating viewers we can find “good stuff” on Tv and Breaking Bad is the best thing I’ve ever seen. I will soon begin watching it again. And I strongly encourage you to read Ryan’s column.

One other thought about the literary quality of this TV show. I just stumbled across a quote from Franz Kafka, “Literature is the ax that cracks the frozen sea inside.” This show is an ax that can wreak havoc on our “frozen seas” if we approach it with a discriminating mind.

“Breaking Bad” is about Ugliness!

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So the big day has arrived, the final episode of Breaking Bad will air tonight on AMC and I’m not going to be able to watch it live, but will have to wait until I arrive home and watch it on my DVR. This is particularly frustrating because I am vacationing in Taos, NM and Breaking Bad was set and filmed in the vicinity of Albuquerque, NM which is only three or four hours south of here. I assumed that Breaking Bad hysteria would be sweeping the state to the point that there would be “Breaking Bad” parties at local bars tonight but I’ve yet to learn of one. And, Breaking Bad hysteria is sweeping the state, and the country, and I am caught up in it though I do not watch a lot of TV and do not tend to get immersed in mass hysteria. But this is not an ordinary TV show. It is extremely well written and well acted and cuts right to the heart like a good literary work would do.

The main character, Walter White, was a high school chemistry teacher who learned he had terminal cancer and was going to leave his family without any means of livelihood. Even though strait-laced and schmucky as he could be, he discovered that he could cook methamphetamine and do so with such excellence that he could make a fortune and leave it all to his family. So, this innocuous high school teacher sets out on an enterprise in which he would “break bad” and these six years of episodes is the story of how this takes place.

This is not a story about drug addiction or even drug culture though each issue is an essential element in the plot. It is a story about how a good man has it in him to be led down a dark path by simple little decisions to a point where he has totally “broken bad.” It is a story about the capacity of the human heart to go places it never imagined it had the capacity to go.

It is a story about human ugliness and it is this ugliness that is the real violence that you will see. Yes, in the course of the six years, there is occasional “blood and guts” but the real violence is seen in the ugliness that emerges when Walter decides that the end justifies the means. This ugliness ravages Walter’s life and the lives of the family he purports to love so dearly and the lives of many other people.

Lessons from my Beloved Dachshunds

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My two dachshunds have taught me so much. There is a sense in which I think they are God’s emissaries, sent to prod me along the path of becoming more human. And I’m being mostly facetious with that point…but not completely!

My wife and I have them with us on our RV trip to Taos, NM and we would not have thought of failing to bring them as they are our darlings. But, they really complicate traveling life, needing a lot of attention and they do seem to have a mind of their own.

I’m going to share one anecdote about them which really has provided a revelation to me. One dimension of their care is that they need to be taken outside to “potty” as they do not have the luxury of doggie doors in this RV. So, that means we have to pay attention to such things as how long we leave them alone in the rv and always have to give them a bedtime “potty” opportunity. This is but one incursion into our plans.

During one of these “potty” events in Taos not long ago, it was very cool and wet with a steady mist coming down. I didn’t really want to take them out but my wife had knee problems and it was my duty. I debated just skipping the chore and taking my chances on cleaning up doggie “business” in the rv the next morning. But, I didn’t do this as Elsa and Ludwig are house-trained and have a sense of propriety about matters like this and will go to great pains to not “soil their cage.” And, I just could not be comfortable with knowing they would have to be so uncomfortable.. (Yes, I am “co-dependent” with them, but don’t tell anybody as I am still a licensed mental health counselor who spent years providing treatment for those with that ailment!)

So, on this occasion I asked myself, “Why are you doing this? Why don’t you pressure them to “do their business” quickly so that you can get back to the comfort of your mobile hearth and home?” Well, the answer was instantaneous, “I care for them. I care for these doggies deeply. Yes, I ‘love’ them like I would love children if I had had the courage to vote with my feet that this world was a good place to be. (Ok, actually, the “voting” would have required another part of my anatomy!)

I remember clearly when these would have been merely “damn dogs” to me; or, actually, back then, they would have been “dang” dogs! I’d have liked them or I wouldn’t have had them but I would not love them. That is because back then I was “separate and distinct” from the whole world and even, in some subtle esoteric sense, from myself. I was lost in the world of “literallew” in which I saw doggies, friends, families, the world, and even God as “out there” and not been able to feel a one-ness with them, not been able to “love” them.

And, these doggies are part of God’s providence in bringing about this transformation in my heart. They have taught me to love. Now, of course, I realize it is much more complicated than this, that the passing of time, emotional and physical maturity were involved, and certainly my marriage to my lovely wife who really led to the opening of my heart. And yes, in deference to one of my cyber friends, neurophysiology was hard at work in bringing about this change.

Now, “literallew” was not a cold-hearted beast! He cared for people and for the world and even for doggies. But he did so with great reservation as his heart was not yet “petal open” as Toni Morrison so vividly described in her novel BELOVED. My heart was not filled with “penetrable stuff” but was still “bronzed o’er with damn custom,” as Hamlet once accused his mother. I had not reached the point in my evolution where I was willing to relax my boundaries, put “literallew” out to pasture, and learn to swim in the spiritual depths of human experience.

2nd Try Re FYI Re Blogging…

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I have not been posting very often the last few months but intend to “gird up my loins” real soon and resume my verbal sojourn in the cyber world where I have met so many friends.

I’m now vacationing in Taos, NM and when I return home and organize my photos I hope to post a few observations about this fabulous mountain village and include a few photographs. It is a special place and my wife, and two lovely dachshunds, trek out here at least once a year to enjoy the mountain air, the lovely art and architecture, food, and people. And, I am always captivated by the knowledge that one of my literary heroes, D. H. Lawrence, also found the place enchanting and lived her for several years in the early 20th century.

I am posting this item by e-mail as I don’t have access to my WP account out here due to my technical lameness re WP. So, bear with me on any formatting awkwardness that you might note. And, on the general theme of this “awkwardness”, I would appreciate any feedback that you could offer regarding the technical aspects of this operation. I constantly run into problems which I cannot figure out and cannot find anyone local who can tutor me in person. Several of you have already given me a hand on this note and I appreciate it. And, of course, continue to give me feedback on the “literary” efforts of this enterprise. Just make sure you always agree with me. (wink, wink)

Emily Dickinson’s Cloistered View of the World

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I love Emily Dickinson. I love her cryptic, almost awkward use of words to describe the human predicament and reveal her own complicated, conflicted soul. She lived her life cloistered in her father’s attic, preferring the solace of her intricate verbal world over the “dog-and-pony-show” of her day. I identify myself with her cloistered view of the world but my “cloistering” has mercifully been metaphorical.

One of her poems that has always grabbed me was about attention, the tendency of our “soul” to fashion a world that it is comfortable with and then “close the valves of our attention like stone.” I love that image and can almost hear those valves “closing like stone.”

Here is the poem:

The Soul selects her own Society,
Then, shuts the door;
To her divine Majority
Present (or obtrude) no more.
Unmoved, she notes the Chariots
Pausing at her low gate.
Unmoved, an Emperor be kneeling upon her mat.
I’ve known her from an ample nation choose one
Then close the valves of her attention like stone.

I had often come up with the same observation about life but until I read this poem I could only offer “we believe what we want to believe”, not having the gift of poetic expression as Dickinson did. And, though this insight came with the price of “detachment,” I’m glad to have paid that price as it has helped me to remember to appreciate and value my perspective on life but to remember that everyone’s “valves of attention” creates unique viewpoints.

And in this poem note the soul’s response to her stately “visitor”. This soul, comfortable in its own private little world, turns its nose down at a visitor who should be graciously welcomed. It makes me think of Hamlet’s pining to escape his “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” by “fleeing to a nutshell” where there he could be “king of infinite spaces.”

This poem reveals that Dickinson knew she lived detached in a private world and the body of her poetry suggests that she found a comfort there in her solitude. Emotional isolation can easily be a “private hell”….as it is when one is the “king of infinite spaces”…but the gods can afford comfort there if it happens to be one’s lot in life. And without Dickinson’s acceptance of her “lot in life”, our world would be deprived of her poetic riches.

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Thank you for your response. ✨

A Van Gogh Observation about Christ

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I think that Christians can learn a lot about their faith from people from outside of the fold, people who have not been “Christianized” into their faith much like a machine-line product. Those of us raised in a Christian culture have to be careful that our faith is not merely something that we have imbibed from the atmosphere of our life much like other parts of our identity—gender roles, political affiliation, affiliation with the “local sports team”, etc.

Now I am not at artist though I am married to one and have learned a lot from her as I have had to recognize and learn to live with someone who looks at the world differently than I do. She also brings a different perspective to my faith from time to time, not having been “Christianized” as I have been. And I receive weekly emails from another artist, Robert Genn, who also has interesting things to share about space which are often relevant to spirituality. Today I want to share with you an observation about Jesus made by Vincent Van Gogh which I found really interesting. He saw Jesus as an artist but an artist whose medium was the human spirit and life.

I can well understand that you were a trifle surprised to hear how little I liked the Bible, although I have often tried to study it more thoroughly. Only its kernel—Christ—seems to me, from an artistic point of view, to stand higher than, or at any rate to be somewhat different from Greek, Indian, Egyptian, and Persian antiquities, although these also stood on a very high plane. But, I repeat, this Christ is more of an artist than all artists—he worked in living spirits and bodies—he made men instead of statues.

(This quote shared by one of my favorite bloggers, a Quaker who lives in England, whose blog is titled, “Finding God in 365 Days”)

Neuroscience and God…Again!

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Adam Gopnik, in the current edition of The New Yorker magazine, offers a review of a spate of recent books on neuroscience many of which appear to be having second thoughts on the notion of “matter over mind”, i.e. the idea that neurochemistry is the source of all thought and that any ideas such as a “god” might need some attention after all.

I am glad to see the discussion of the subject thought my strong impression is that “science” still holds sway as being the prevailing myth of the day. Of course, given my stubborn and unenlightened habitual way of thinking, I still childishly hold onto the notion of God. I can’t help it! “My neurochemistry makes me do it!” which is some version of “the devil made me do it” as I could never in a million years just declare that I choose to.

But facetiousness aside, I am certain that we are here and that we have carved out a “reality” fictitious thought it might be. And, sociologically and anthropologically, it is fictitious. Just ask Peter Berger. But we are here! It is easy for some people to get consumed with their explanation of how we got here and get so carried away with their pet theories that they actually have ill-will at those who feel differently. When I meet someone like this, I admit I toss them into the “ideologue” category and try to give them a wide berth, regardless of how noble and well-reasoned their argument is.

And, given the fact that we are here….or the “fantasy” that we are here if you want to get really far out…I feel it is very important what we do with our brief time “strutting and fretting” on this beautiful stage. Personally, I deem it important to speculate about questions such as the above but it is also important to live my life responsibly and meaningfully in my social context. And, how I go about this does have an impact on the world though, admittedly in my case, the extent is infinitesimal and what it is I will never really know.

For example, this verbal “stuff” that I’m going to toss out into the void in a moment with the punch of a button is important. The importance might be that I feel it was important. It might be that someone will appreciate it. It might be that second later I will read over it and suddenly in horror, tell myself, “Lewis, get a life!” and quit wasting my time. It might be that suddenly the whole world will happen to check in to “Literarylew” and as a result the Millenium will come tomorrow and suddenly I’ll be rich and famous, no longer merely a small clod of cholesterol in the mainstream of life! My point is that life is made up of little insignificant events and gestures and we have no idea what their result will be. Memories of my life are replete with nameless individuals whose small and insignificant gestures has made my life much more rewarding.

But it is important that each day we show up and report for duty. Or, given the approach of fall and the baseball playoffs, let me put it this way, “It is important that we step to the plate each day, bat in hand, look for a good pitch to hit, and then hammer it into the outfield hole. Oh, heck, let me get grandiose and conjecture, “It’s out of here. A homerun…”

Who knows? You never know.