BRIAN LIBBY

Smile and American Solace

For the last few days I have been listening nonstop to Smile, the “lost” Beach Boys masterpiece finally released all these years later. Brian Wilson had begun it after completing the masterful Pet Sounds in 1966, the release of which the Beatles have said inspired them to make Sgt. Peppers. But he never finished Smile due to increasing mental and drug problems from which he’s only begun to emerge from in the last few years. Music press lately has been all over this story, with its themes of redemption and tortured genius. And the album deserves the attention its backstory has brought.

Even though by today he’s largely mastered his demons, Brian Wilson seems like he’s still missing a few cards in the deck. So there was reason to be skeptical about whether he could cull the assorted master tapes and finally finish this record at a level of quality even remotely approximating that of his original vision. After all, Smile was no mere rock record. It was so ambitious in incorporating a Gershwin-esque blend of classical and jazz that originally many surrounding the Beach Boys (the label, Wilson’s abusive father, perhaps even bandmates themselves) never wanted it released.

At first listen, Smile sounded disjointed. The traditional verse-chorus-verse structure of rock is followed a lot of the time, but the instrumentation and tempo change abruptly as songs go back and forth between sections. Ultimately, though, this was precisely what I came to like about the record. Wilson also does ingenious things to ensure that the album is a unified whole. A melody from one song often re-emerges briefly in another song, for example.

Then there are the lyrics, written by Van Dyke Parks nearly thirty years ago and touched up—both then and now with Wilson’s input—as the complete Smile was finally recorded over this past year (following a successful series of live performances of the album). Although sometimes they can get pretty corny, with talk of “eggs and grits” or their starry-eyed romanticism, I felt moved by the hopeful attitude. This album has something big to say, but it's smart enough to not spell things out. Perhaps the resulting transcendent quality is why Smile seems to resonate so much these days.

I say this because it’s four days before the presidential election. Kerry vs. Bush could really go either way, and the majority of us are passionately pulling for one or the other amid these politically polarized times. Bush voters seem to think he is the Abraham Lincoln for the war on terrorism (I’m laughing as I write this, of course), while us Kerry voters (not to mention pretty much the entire rest of the globe) see Bush as perhaps the most dangerous president we've ever had. My fear stems most of all from Bush Doctrine, which basically says we can invade any country we accuse of harboring terrorists, which became justification for Iraq predicated on faulty evidence of WMDs. That tells me fighting terrorism is under Bush's watch a chance to sucker punch Middle Eastern countries and secure access to their oil fields. Along the way, Bush seems to have almost deliberately fanned the flames of American hatred, especially frustrating to consider when you remember the outpouring of worldwide support after 9/11. But I'm getting off-point.

As happens with Oregon Ducks football--you know, that other life and death concern--I often get nervous enough come crunch time that I have to just tune it out. I stop watching it on TV, and I may even shy away from the paper. In these days before the eletion, what a nice antidote Smile has been. I find its inherent optimism especially attractive considering that this is both a 1967 record and a 2004 record, an odd collaboration between 24-year-old Brian Wilson and 63-year-old Brian Wilson. Smile was begun on the eve of his decades-long mental battles and completed on the other side. Anticipating events like the election, I always feel torn between hoping for the best and fearing the worst. Smile speaks to both sides at once.

Thanks to Richard Avedon

Before his death a couple weeks ago, I had never paid all that much attention to Richard Avedon outside of gazing admiringly at his portraits in The New Yorker each week. I knew he was a legendary photographer, dating back to his innovative fashion photography in the 1950s and continuing throughout a long life. But I happened to watch a series of archived interviews with Avedon by Charlie Rose on television last week, and I found the photographer’s description of his working method to be helpful with some of my own pictures.

Each month I take two or three photographs for a tiny newspaper called Northwest Senior News. I’ve been doing it for a little over a year now; they got my name somehow after I had a gallery show last summer and called. I pointed out to them that the photos in my show didn’t have a single human being in them, but for some reason that didn’t seem to matter. Nor did the fact that I don’t really consider myself a professional at all, at least from a technical perspective. My camera is a consumer-level Sony digital that fits in my pocket, and I don’t have any special lighting equipment or lenses or screens. Still, though, I liked the idea of getting paid to explore portraiture. I always liked the idea of photographing people, especially their faces. But I’ve always been shy about asking them.

Anyway, over the last few months I’d been in a bit of a rut. My editor likes me to capture the subject doing something that helps illustrate what the story is about. If the person volunteers to read to children, for example, I’d be asked to photograph him or her picking out books. But I hate the fact that those photos have to be staged. The subject wouldn’t really be picking out books. That’s just what we would set up. I preferred to just take a simple, honest, straightforward shot of them in an applicable environment but just looking at the camera.

Yet I knew the pictures needed something more—more animation, more that showed the personality behind whatever it was they were doing that got them in the paper. And that’s where Avedon comes in. Talking with Rose, the photographer described how important it was to talk at length with his subject and really get a sense conversationally who that person was. As they were talking, Avedon would begin to snap photos. I know from experience when you do that, you get a lot of terrible shots of someone talking. Chances are whatever syllable they are pronouncing when the shutter snaps will get their mouth frozen in some seemingly awkward position. So I’ve shied away from snapping as people talked.

But after listening to Avedon, I decided to give it a try. And while I’m not saying that the results were at that legendary artist’s level, I’m happy with the results and, more importantly, a believer in the process. My first subject was an 87-year-old retired doctor named Grant Hughes, who is pictured above. Sprightly and vigorous for his age, Dr. Hughes preaches the values of optimism, and I enjoyed snapping away as he talked enthusiastically. I feel like a couple of the shots I got really capture his vitality, and thus really stand for who he is. And I have to thank Richard Avedon for that.

Bergman and Mankell

Although my thoughts have often been focused on western Europe ever since we returned from our trip to England, France, Belgium and Holland, a coincidental combination of film and literature now has Sweden on the brain. In the last week or so I’ve seen five Ingmar Bergman films: Cries and Whispers, Monika, The Silence, Winter Light, and Shame. I’d seen a few others in the past, most notably Persona, a surreal masterpiece of morphing identity that’s always been one of my favorite films. I’d also seen The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries years ago, but only now do I really feel like I have a real sense of him. Bergman was of course a huge cultural/artistic phenomenon in the 1960s and 70s, but I feel like he’s fallen off the radar just a bit in years past, at least in comparison to someone like Fellini. I think the morose nature of Bergman’s work is such that (like fellow 60s director/icon Michelangelo Antonioni) people are less likely to want to give him a try now that papers and magazines aren’t so full of discussion about his films. They don't enjoy the thought of all that negative energy. But the films I’ve watched have been absolutely stunning.

In particular I was struck by The Silence, which concerns two antagonistic sisters vacationing in an unnamed foreign country (on the verge of war by the way) who become confined to a baroque old hotel when one sister, a cerebral, frigid college professor, is bed-ridden and apparently dying with what seems to be tuberculosis. The other sister is beautiful and sexy, killing time with one-night stands. The two seem like two sides of one personality, which of course must have been the point. The sexy sister also has a young son (about nine or ten I’d guess) who provides a much-needed spark of humor and innocence as he engages the few others in the hotel: a pack of performing midgets (who are actually the sanest people in the movie), and an aging hotel clerk. But the most interesting thing about the movie is how it’s filmed. This is one of Bergman’s “chamber pieces”, as they’re called, and it is shot completely inside a studio, giving it an otherworldly quality that is both eerie and gorgeous. Despite all the negative emotions put out by the sisters, the environment also never feels stifling, because cinematographer Sven Nyquist has a lot of gracefully moving camerawork—a welcome antidote to today’s “monkey cam” style of jagged digital video shots.

At the same time, I’ve discovered Swedish mystery writer Henning Mankell, whose series involving homicide investigator Kurt Wallander I understand is quite popular and acclaimed. I’m reading one called One Step Behind that is deeply resonant emotionally, and yet is such a page-turner. As with the Bergman films, Mankel’s work embraces mankind’s greatest demons: suicide, atheism, sexual dysfunction, secrets and lies. But it is done so lyrically, and conveys such truths, that you couldn’t possibly call the work depressing.

I can’t help but wonder how much Mankel and Bergman’s art really represents the Swedish national character. Or to put it another way, why does a country with such a proud history of art and benevolent social policies—not to mention damn nice furniture and cars—seem so depressed? Or is that just a stereotype, like the way some non-Americans assume we all are cowboys carrying guns? I hate to think that the overriding characteristic of Sweden is one of such negativity, but I also wouldn’t have it any other way if that’s what it took to be a breeding ground for the work of Bergman and Mankell.

A Yankee Fan's Dilemma

Ever since 1981, when as a fourth-grader I first started following the World Series avidly and aligned myself with Reggie Jackson, Goose Gossage, and Craig Nettles, I’ve been a New York Yankees fan. I’ve always believed in choosing a sports team to follow and then sticking with them in good times and bad. Of course with the Yankees, there have been decidedly more good times, but keep in mind that after losing the ’81 series to the Dodgers (amid “Fernandomania”), the Yankees did not make the playoffs again until 1995. I did, however, get to experience in person the joy seeing New York win the World Series in 1996 over Atlanta. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

But aside from the Yankees, I’m more used to rooting for underdogs. My favorite team, of course, is the Oregon Ducks, who have enjoyed more than a decade of consecutive winning seasons but are not a classic team in the mold of Notre Dame, USC, Penn State or (more recently) Miami. And it’s a similar story with the Portland Trail Blazers, who until last year made the playoffs something like 19 years in a row, but have not won the NBA Championship since 1977 and do not enjoy the mythic status of the Lakers or Celtics.

All this has been on my mind since the Yankees lost Game 7 of the ALCS to Boston, the latter being baseball’s poster-child (along with the Cubs) for baseball frustration because they haven’t won the World Series since 1918. Of course I was rooting for New York to win this recent ALCS-deciding game, but I knew Boston deserved it more. Yet supporting Boston is of course easier said than done. Not only are the Red Sox our arch rival, but aside from the sympathy their so-called “curse” generates, I also don’t find either the Red Sox players or their fans very likable—especially that Johnny Damon: get a hair cut, caveman!

Nevertheless, I’m rooting for Boston to win the World Series. I was actually rooting very hard for the Red Sox in 1986, when they famously choked in Game 6 against the Mets. (Incidentally, I don’t believe it was entirely Bill Buckner’s fault. The dam had already begun to burst before then.) It comes down to simple fairness, something that rarely seems to happen in major league sports where money is king. Much as I love the Yankees, I’m always aware how much their advantages not just in money but in location and reputation resemble the pro sports team I despise more than any other: the Los Angeles Lakers. The Red Sox are more like the Trail Blazers, the often-talented team that nevertheless virtually always becomes the punching bag in a one-sided rivalry. So go out there, Boston, and take the bouquet for all us bridesmaids.

Why Joe Sixpack Chooses the Dark Side

Partisan as I may be regarding this presidential election, as a writer I also find interesting on an intellectual level the issues of Kerry and Bush communicating—or failing to do so—with the voters. An op-ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times by David Brooks nicely summarizes the conundrum undecided voters face with respect to the messages they hear from the two candidates:

“Kerry thinks obsessively about process questions, but can’t seem to come up with a core conviction; Bush is great at coming up with clear goals, but is not so great about coming up with the process to get there.”

I’m a pessimist at heart; I prefer to expect the worst with issues out of my control, as a kind of self-preservation mechanism. So it should come as no surprise that I don’t like Kerry’s chances right now. But the reason I think Bush will win, despite overwhelming evidence of countless lies, a fundamentalism cut from the same cloth as the terrorists, and countless domestic policy horrors, is that in this post 9/11 era, the average American is looking above all else for someone to say bluntly, “I will do whatever is necessary to protect you from terrorists.”

In terms of communicating their message, Bush-Kerry is like Reagan-Mondale or a lot of other Republican-Democrat contests. The very thing that makes the political left a better choice, with its intelligence, rationality and diverse tent of followers, is what hampers it from communicating a simple and concise message. Kerry has done better than, say, Dukakis, when it comes to fighting back against Bush’s attacks, but he continues to seem wooden, not very personable and—worst of all—unable to reduce his message to simple, vital terms that resonate with voters.

I hope I’m wrong – I really, really, (later that same day) really do. And I do believe Kerry still has a chance. He has a track record of finishing strong, and Bush is of course vulnerable in light of countless offenses. But I think it’s hard to stop Joe Sixpack from reasoning that it’s better to stick with the steadfast cowboy with resilient, clear intent than to take a chance on the latest cerebral Democratic bore who has the audacity to see the world in more than black and white terms.

Walthamstow, Victorieplein et al

During much of our current Europe trip, which has consisted of visits to London, Paris, Bruge (Belgium) and Amsterdam, Valarie and I have found ourselves staying outside of the city center. In London, for example, we stayed with friends Neil and Bridget in their more suburban home of Walthamstow. Here in Amsterdam, we are in the city but about six or seven tram stops south of the center. (Bruge we were right in the middle of things, and in Paris we were in the less interesting Right Bank but still able to walk everywhere.) At first staying further out in England and Holland seemed like a small burden (in London however it was more than compensated for by friendship), because instead of being able to roll out of bed and into the heart of the urban area we'd come to see, with all its museums and restaurants and such, we would always be traveling on some kind of mass transit for awhile. But ultimately we've come to enjoy being a little further out.

In Walthamstow and outer Amsterdam along the Victorieplein, we have come to embrace and enjoy the scene. It's enriching to see where people live and go about their daily lives, far afield from tourist attractions. And unlike in the US, more suburban areas here are still oriented toward pedestrians and trains for movement and corner shops to patronize on foot. There aren't strip malls or chain-dominated businesses, and while cars are indeed present, they never dominate the environment.

On the train from Belgium to Holland a few days ago, some we were chatting with said the US government once commissioned some European firm to analyze their transit system and what it needed. The recommendation was to raise taxes on petroleum and use the proceeds to pay for improvements to the mass transit system. We all know this isn't going to happen, but even as my car is costing an unprecedently high amount of money to fill its tank these days, I would happily pay considerably more if I knew there would be more MAX lines in Portland, more prevalent and speedy Amtrak trains to take me between cities, and suburbs that could be accessed without a car. But there are other advantages to being American, and from the vantage point in Holland, imagining this culture transported back home is admittedly a case of chasing windmills.