Critics Who Know Jack Page 11

  I’ve sat with editors who want a certain kind of book. And I’ve sat with traditional record producers who want a certain kind of song. Independence drives them nuts. They run when they hear the word ‘cause there is nothing in it for them as in years ago, and most of all — there is no power they have over you. This is something John Lennon had hoped to do with Apple Corps and Apple Records back in 1968. Some might have thought (and still do) that Lennon was naïve but he gained his power through Beatlemania and onwards, giving the corporate music giants at least a kick in the pants — . . . so an artist doesn’t have to go into your office begging on their knees. (my paraphrase).

  This leaves editors and music moguls shaking at the bank as they are called both immoral and threatened with a shift to their comfort zones of controlling the purse strings. There isn’t an artist (both great and small, highly talented and effective or weak in their expression, popular or outside on the margins), that has not faced the publisher, record producer, movie mogul power of denial.

  With independence, the artist at least sits on the scales and swings balance into the equation. Yet the balance can tip too much towards independence where quality of work has no measurement or standard to go by. This is strictly from an aesthetic point of reference, which in the end however does affect marketability, subject to producers’ and editors’ determination.

  There are very few editors who smile a lot or even a bit, and even fewer record producers who do unless they are getting an award at a corporate or association ceremony. Well, record producers do smile a bit more and often these smiles have to do with imbibing or some kind of “make me happy substance.” Then they say #@$% a lot and thank all their pals and talk about how it could have been the end of the road if they hadn’t worked and fought it out grind on grind. You know somewhere someone still had to cough up the money.

  Take Clive Davis when Whitney Houston died. He was all over the podium at the Grammy Awards letting the world know he was there talking with Whitney day-in-day-out about her drug issues and great voice. He had to let everyone know he was pals with a beautiful young black woman like Uncle Clive but he sounded more like having to talk about his own struggles. Book editors aren’t quite as gross and vulgar. They tend to mumble into microphones at ceremonies. And mostly ‘cause they don’t know how to speak into one.

  But to be fair, let’s not leave here without talking about the skills it takes to be a good book editor or record producer. A good editor can catch you when you are straying from your focus and can guess how a reader is going to go with or abandon your words. A good record producer has to find you a good engineer and set of musicians that bring your tunes to life. MAKE THEM LISTENABLE. The issue though is always taste. Again some Lennon. Sure, someone can make a Justin Bieber sound good but is that the same as someone making John Lennon or Eddie Vedder sound good?

  When one thinks of this on balance, one similarity is that both Justin B. and Lennon became very popular and made loads of money for themselves and others. When we think of the differences, the argument becomes more substantial. One, Lennon, became a musician’s musician and singer-songwriter through both need and the refinement of his raw talent. Listening to the origins of rock & roll and growing into the voice of both the avant-garde and of world peace. Bieber cannot be identified in this manner. Nowhere is there a hint that Bieber will become innovative in the studio, challenging the best record producers to change the medium. Nowhere will Bieber turn a phrase in song lyric that challenges the very foundation of song form and content.

  To be kind, here’s another similarity. Young teenage girls went mad to hear and see them in their different times. Here though is another difference. Lennon worked with three Liverpudlian friends to throw creative ideas off of and be influenced by. Bieber, though seemingly exposed to us in the mediums of iTunes and TV and even concerts of sorts, is more akin to Dick Clark’s idol-making of the ‘50s and early ‘60s when Clark raided South Philadelphia’s Italian immigrant community for good looking young guys who sometimes could and sometimes couldn’t sing. Not a lot of talent musically. Squirmy for young girls. Tedious musical repetition. Superficiality. Vain for no apparent reason. In short — fabricated.

  You might ask what this has to do with record producers or book editors? And, claim rightly, that Lennon was as vain and arrogant as they come. And understand the greatest difference is just plain talent and drive in Lennon, with the added ability to turn his celebrity into a cause for greater good. And sheer vanity in Bieber glowing from every medium possible.

  What does this have to do with book editors and record producers? Two things are of note: 1) market and 2) taste. Marketability is more predictable than taste. Editors and producers are involved in both. Which force is greater? The ability and structure to sell or the taste of the audience? And can one influence the other? Market determines taste in the Justin Bieber case. In Lennon’s though, while it could be argued that putting on jackets and neat haircuts affected taste, there was a refusal at a certain point to continue the masquerade and the hint was that the music was good. Real. Original and substantial with failures and successes.

  The artist (Lennon) wanted us to know that it was a masquerade and even went so far as to condemn his and his band’s prior work in order to break through to new artistic ground. Record producers (i.e. George Martin and Capitol Records) had to go with it as Lennon and his friends earned the freedom from their earlier period. Because of that phenomenon, attempts to re-invent that scenario were pursued by millions of wannabe artists. More importantly, many record producers and Artist and Repertoire representatives have since tried to recreate the scenario.

  Is the difference the depth of talent between Lennon and Bieber? I don’t know anyone who would argue that Bieber has the talent of a Lennon. The question is: Why do as many people, if not more, know of Justin Bieber than John Lennon? MARKET DRIVEN IDOL-MAKING. And independence propped up when in reality it is a method through which to gain attention (fame) and laugh all the way to the bank (fortune).

  OSTRICH

  She walks into the gallery tall and slender with a face that would attract the brushes of Modigliani or Michelangelo. She throws a slow soft smile your way, suggesting that she is into talking with you but not in a crowd. You tilt your head, signalling — Let’s talk outside. She nods with a yes in her eyes.

  So begins a movement of attraction and possibility. You meet her outside and arrange to call her. She has invited you to see her gallery and you are enthusiastic even though the night you visit it is a dreary November evening, raining and blustery as you try to straighten your umbrella to the gusts. As you enter the gallery space her sister greets you with a look of mild wonder. You look enough like someone else to her. The lady you have come to see takes you by the arm and walks you through an assortment of contemporary abstract art and the not unusual frames of landscape paintings by local and lesser known artists. You are not impressed yet you don’t show it. What impresses you is your hostess’ beauty. Her smile and movement is more alive than a thousand repetitive landscape frames.

  But you get the feeling she would love it if you purchased one. You suggest a cup of coffee. She seems gracious yet pained. She tells you of her father who is not doing well and in the spaces left you mention you lost yours a few months before. She tells you you remind her of hers. You can’t help but think of Freud. You know, every man is looking for his mother and every woman is looking for her father. But she is close to your age and you wonder if Freud’s dictum still fits? She touches your arm and as the night goes on and comes to a close she tells you she’s had fun. You agree to call her again and see a film at a local rep theatre. A week passes and you ask her how things are going when you meet for the movie. “It’s the economy. Nobody’s buying and everyone is careful with their money.”

  You soon realize you are a diversion from her strife. That what this woman wants is security and financing. She wants to meet people who will buy and support her paintings and her galler
y. For this, you buy her a ticket and a membership to the film and theatre. You’ve even bought her popcorn and a meal later. She seems to be suffering and all you can offer is conversation and a late night kiss. Somewhere in her pain a smugness seems to exist. She tells you she is vital and her ex was not. She is tentative about the kiss. On the basis of your first encounter you miss the point of your second but call her again and detect a decline in her enthusiasm. Here is where you think of ostriches. The moment when the head goes into the ground. Where the possibility of love, let alone passion and romance, becomes reclusive. You wish that when her head goes into the sand she finds an egg of gold or whatever it is that ostriches find when they do that.

  She is tall and slender and informs you that her back hurts. You notice the bit of weight around her mid-section, slight as it is as she moves her arms to hide it. Her head starts dipping and you can feel it go downwards as you eat the last part of your meal. Whatever was or is in her that was or is attracted to a man fades in her fatigue. She wants to be cared for and may well be yet would be bored with the person who would care for her. You think to yourself a few days later that ostriches are beautiful. Their big eyes and long necks aside they hunt under the sand. You wish her luck as she disappears and consider what other animals you might meet that find you a more impassioned script or narrative. You touch wood and go on dreaming. You promise yourself to never stick your head in the sand. Whatever is to be found there?

  MY EDITOR HAS A GOITER AND WANTS TO EAT MY BOOK

  Yes, well not the editor of this book. An editor at a publishing house who wants a book on dysfunction and pain and all those nasty things that her press says readers love to ingest. She has taken a bit of time to look at my manuscript and loves the writing yet believes it could be a series of short stories or essays placed in various journals. SNORE CANADIANA big time! Her job is to find material she can sell to her marketing people that in turn can sell it to a public weaned on New-Ageism and pseudo-psychology, self-help mass-market books.

  She suggests memoir, which is kind of a cool idea but that’s not what I’m writing. I understand supply and demand but I want to bring something different to the table. I want the reader to move from page to page without the tedium of psycho language and pretension of narrative. I don’t want to have to turn every person I’ve every met into a motif or character to create my inner thoughts. I want the reader to enjoy language and determine meaning (if there is any) for themselves. I don’t want to create sympathetic or evil, wicked characters. Nor do I wish to be known as an old fart writing the last pages of his life for a half-illiterate society. If she wants a memoir she will have to wait. Though there are many writers who would jump into this pool and believe their indulgence worthy of high literary honour.

  The goiter. Well, I don’t know how you get those but I think it’s a thyroid thing. I remember this editor loved to drink red wine a lot. She couldn’t get happy unless she did at least three glasses. Is that interesting? Not really unless I delve into why she seems to need more than a drink a day. She also says she wants to move to a small town. I could make an answer up as to why. But that again is a kind of snooping around. All I know is that she didn’t have a goiter when I knew her years ago. How do you get one of those? Means you have to hide your throat and feel weight gain no matter how smart you are.

  I guess I could write a short story a la Flannery O’Connor and title it “The Goiter in the Eves.” That actually sounds more like Nathaniel Hawthorne? Or is that Nathanael West? Hmm? I think Hawthorne, and no less burdened. I could write it spooky and have the whole town peeking from behind trees in October air (around Halloween) as gossip grows and grows and as each person who gossips about the goiter they are peeking through the window to see, grows a goiter too. The whole town soon has people walking around with a variety of scarves to hide the growths. Now the question is what to gossip about besides the goiter? How about the editor sleeping with the town mayor who is married to a Vietnamese pole-dancer? They say a good book can be described in two sentences. That’s like saying a reader wants to read blurbs and not a book. Now, back to my story . . .

  . . . so the dancer from Vietnam has three brothers who she has recently managed to have come over to join her in her New England town. This first lady of Smalltown (let’s call it that for now) is quite the babe in the modern sense. She can’t cook and has more pairs of shoes than Imelda Marcos. And on top of that she’s been looking at pictures in a book about Amelia Earhart. When she has her first child she will call it Amelia. And if the child is male she will call it Kito. Well, Mrs. Mayor goes on to have Kito as her first born and we move the story on to have Kito flying a kite over the Boston river wondering why his uncles have not shown up. They were supposed to teach him all the manly things. Thing is, if they ever arrive, the manly things they have knowledge of would be worthless in Smalltown. So there sits Kito lamenting his plight and lonely as a kite in autumn . . .

  I take this beginning scenario to my editor with the goiter. She is surprised. She says: “I didn’t know you were in Vietnam?” I say: “I wasn’t!” She moves her scarf up. She coughs twice and breathes in deeply. She’s loads of fun when she does this. I feel big words going around in her head but don’t know what they are. Finally — she coughs it up: “I like creative non-fiction. There’s a place for it in the market.” “Then we will do that,” I say, ordering her the finest red the restaurant has to offer. Goiter — get it? — waiter — red wine — order — get it.

  SHE SAID: “I LIKE IT THAT LEONARDO PAINTS ...”

  “I think he was a guy?” she says reflecting deeply on The Mona Lisa. “You know, in those days guys wore long frocks too. Leonardo probably painted himself at your age.” This is another conversation at a gallery. We are actually viewing a Picasso exhibit but her mind keeps going back to Leonardo. “Just think of it for a minute.” And I do. (I notice my gallery pal is fairly tall for a woman and somewhat slight-torsoed. Has a pretty face. Maybe if I put my glasses on I can detect some chin shadow?) “Well, I don’t know. She (Mona Lisa) looks like some sort of nun who has found peace,” I say. I wait for a response to see if my gallery pal’s voice deepens in emotion and argument. “Gwad! She’s a he at a younger age,” she emotes with the voice I was expecting.

  I turn quickly from the Picasso and get my reading glasses on. Finger on chin as if in a pensive mood, I glance over at her chin slightly and there it is — “five o’clock shadow”! “Do you think Leonardo had to shave at a young age if he was doing a self-portrait like you say? How about these Picassos? Do you think he’s doing the same thing? He seemed to have a sense of humour with all those shapes and angles?” Covering her face with a cough she half squeaks to thin her voice and says: “I think he really didn’t like women. That’s why all the figures are distorted.” “Hmm?” I respond.

  Flashback . . .

  This gallery pal was standing in front of one of the Picassos and I said excuse me as I tried to see the details in the painting. That’s where our conversation started up. She had long blonde hair and wore floor-length black with shiny boots. Hair held back with a black Nike headband. I noticed first thing how big her hands were. And the dark-wine nail polish. She didn’t move when I asked but turned her fairly wide shoulders away from my voice. Then she said: “Leonardo was a trickster. A magician. An alchemist with paint and inventiveness.” I said: “What’s Leonardo got to do with Picasso? I’m not following what you are saying?” “Just think of it,” she said. “All those fine artists were living with suppressed sexual desire.” “Geez, I don’t know. I guess they painted some pretty randy stuff over the centuries,” I offered. “By randy you mean men hungry for women, I suppose.” “Well, yeah. It was guys and babes,” I respond and inform with a bit of a smile. She takes what I say as an affront. Says again that Leonardo painted good. By good, I gather she means to her pleasing as there is no aesthetic consideration in her words. This is not the first “woman” I have met that has some heavy “Y” or “X” chro
mos happening. She moves most slowly into corners where men are. In fact, she makes a point of it. Moves her shoulders like a linebacker scanning an offense.

  So, as she stares down Picasso’s distortions of females and his loves, I think to myself that maybe, just maybe, Leonardo did some transgender shuffles. Why not? Who would know if he didn’t paint himself in a younger year and called it Mona Lisa? Sure, there might be history saying she was this and she was that but we don’t have a photograph and I don’t think he ever wrote about it. Question I have is why this painting has sustained a reputation as one of his greatest works? There is something about Art History and then again something about Historical Fiction interpreting History. The latter seems some kind of desperate desire in our culture to connect with the past almost like going the route of adapting Eastern Incarnation practices and beliefs. Yet if history is this flexible why not say Mona is a guy in drag?

  Someone will surely feel included in the movement of the centuries if that’s the case. Even if it isn’t, the same people will feel included in the re-arrangement of hard history. What is the need in our culture to make history fiction? What is the result of this re-assignment? The need? Vanity for many a writer and artist indeed. Other than that, a need to maintain a sense of questioning, though this might not be a conscious intent. The result? Confusion certainly. And entertainment on the level of reality TV shows. A lot of half-baked theories and books about ancient alien visits to our planet. And of course, interesting conversation with your next art gallery pal.

  JOE KAPP, ANGELO MOSCA AND ZINEDINE ZIDANE

  In Canada in late November, the annual Grey Cup football week is held. One year, the organizers thought it would be a blast to bring together two old foes, now in their seventies, to make up over an incident where defensive lineman Angelo Mosca piled on a vital half-back and knocked him out of the game. The opposing quarterback of that game, Joe Kapp, fumed at the time in 1965, and fumed about it ever since in spite of a pretty decent National Football League career with the Minnesota Vikings.