3 April 2012
Paul Farmer’s executive priviledge & the peculiar nature of “a calling”
Awhile back I read Tracy Kidder’s excellent Mountains Beyond Mountains, an inspiring portrait of physician Paul Farmer’s work in the area of public health, specifically the pioneering work he’s done in Haiti. FYI, I was not inspired to read it by the Arcade Fire’s charitable giving to the cause, though it’s easy to see, in this book, why they, in turn, were inspired to give so generously of their time, resources and fan attention.
This particularly beautiful passage gives an account of what it’s like to have what they call “a calling” to be driven by that peculiarly human kind of passion, in all of its illogic. When one has “a calling” how it is is, often, just how it has to be. And don’t let my use of the word “beautiful” give you the wrong ideas. The passage is actually rather dry, delivered in the matter-of-fact manner in which, I imagine, Dr. Farmer works & thinks. The beauty is in a person hovering above the mundane efficiencies of 20th century management thinking, who knows that the way to get things done is, sometimes, to just move inexorably toward a goal with a force & intensity that others are simply incapable of maintaining.
- [The former dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, Howard] Hiatt seemed to say, [Paul Farmer] should be solely engaged in the battle against those scourges, and at a level commensurate with their size. “The six months a year that Paul’s looking after patients one-on-one in Haiti, if that time were converted to a major program for treating prisoners with TB in Russia and other eastern European countries, or malaria around the world, or AIDS in southern Africa–it doesn’t matter where or what because you know he’ll do important things. Because look at what he’s done with only part of his time on MDR. Look what he’s done with his skills and his political acumen! I have been urging him to take the role of consultant in Haiti and spend most of his time on worldwide projects.”
Farmer was forty now, and he had the credentials to operate in the way Hiatt envisioned, on a purely executive level. In academic circles his reputation had grown. He was about to become a tenured Harvard professor. He was near the head of the line for the big prizes in medical anthropology; some of his peers were now saying that he’d “redefined” the field. As for his standing in clinical medicine, he’d become one of the doctors whom medical schools, in Europe as well as in the United States, invite to their campuses to deliver the lectures known as grand rounds. At the Brigham the surgeons had recently asked that he lecture to them, a signal honor not often granted to a mere medical doctor. He also sat on a number of councils in international health, and he’d made his views heard. But he didn’t seem disposed to abandon any side of his work, including seeing patients one-on-one in Haiti.
It wasn’t as though Farmer didn’t want to do all he could to cure the world of poverty and disease. He just had his own ideas on how to go about it. Actually, he seemed to be the only person who understood the plan fully. A young assistant of his once said to him, in exasperation, that he had no priorities. That wasn’t true, he replied. Patients came first, prisoners second, and students third. But you could see how the assistant might have felt lost in the details.
…and, for once, that’s all I have to say about that.
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Arcade Fire, Executive Directors, Haiti, Howard Hiatt, Partners in Health, Paul Farmer, The Community Function
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29 March 2012
Internet architecture
No, I’m not talking about packet switching, IP addresses and proxy servers. What I meant is internet-era architecture. I’m talking about this:
These days people believe anything you dream is possible right now — that niche audiences deserve to be served — and that what can be done should be done. I’m reminded of the quote from Brion Gysin: “I could easily blast so much keef night and day I become a bouhali; a real-gone crazy, a holy untouchable madman unto whom everything is permitted, nothing is true.”
But here’s the thing transgression used to be the thing on the edges; now it is the center of our reality.
I’d call the prospect of a building like the one depicted up above to be quite futuristic but here’s the thing, that video is from 2008. Initially it was claimed that this Dynamic Tower would be built by 2010. If it were so, this blog post would probably be more reportage than speculation. But the Wikipedia entry on the building shows that the dreams of the project’s architect, David Fisher, take after the internet in more ways than one:
- In 2008, the designer of the Dynamic Tower said that he expected it to be completed in 2010. In 2009 Fisher claimed to finish construction late 2011. However, construction has not started yet, and there has been no official announcement of the building site. Fisher did not “say where the tower would be built, [...] because he wanted to keep it a surprise.”
Fisher distributed a biography which said he received an honorary doctorate from “The Prodeo Institute at Columbia University in New York”. No such institution exists, and Columbia said it had never awarded Fisher an honorary degree. Fisher acknowledges that he is not well known, has never built a skyscraper before and hasn’t practiced architecture regularly in decades.
Anyway, my favorite section of the project’s official website is this one, wherein there are excellent half-baked ruminations on “the concept of time” and “history and the fourth dimension.” If you are a regular reader of this here blog, you will know I am a great fan of half-baked ruminations.
Then again, reality is often just as surprising as people’s babbling fictions.
Don’t believe me?
Well, a former colleague recently reminded me of the time I did work for these people:
Headquarters of The Longaberger Company (exterior view)
Headquarters of The Longaberger Company (interior view)
This building borrows its the shape from the company’s best-selling product, the “Medium Market Basket.”
Indeed.
Optimism about such blue-sky futures varies from person-to-person. For example, the innovator of the basket-shaped building did not find as much enthusiasm for his dreams among his heirs.
- The basket handles weigh almost 150 tons and can be heated during cold weather to prevent ice damage. Originally, [founder] Dave Longaberger wanted all of the Longaberger buildings to be shaped like baskets, but only the headquarters was completed at the time of his death. After his death, further basket-shaped buildings were vetoed by his daughters.
In summation, I have mixed feelings about these kinds of buildings. I mean, the Dynamic Tower strikes me as the Lamborghini of the architectural world — you should know what I mean by that — but I hope all freakish heart beats strong for a long, long time.
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Brion Gysin, Credit Derivatives, David Fisher, Dynamic Tower, Internet Poem, The Longaberger Company, The Problem with Technology, The Problem With the Avant Garde, Tower of Babel, Wicker Baskets
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26 March 2012
The internet wasteland & a museum to ephemeral feeling
The internet deserves to be treated like a wasteland. I am not referring to T. S. Eliot, mind you — more like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Denis Johnson’s Fiskadoro or, fuck it, Mad Max.
Hell, maybe the internet deserves an even madder Max.
We live in a world which (if the consistently apocalyptic tone of most media reports are to be believed) is quite redolent of Mel Gibson’s breakthrough film — out-of-gas, out-of-hope, ready to abandon our fading settlement upon rumor of a brighter kingdom just past the next ridge. The internet is a perfectly ephemeral medium for this kind of world. By contrast, I remember when I fancied myself more of a proper writer, rather than someone merely capable of writing well & conveying stories and feelings. I treated each word on a screen like letters etched on marble tablets — each one carefully placed, every publication a monument to some kind of pretension. On the ‘net, however, I’ve come to realize words are more like water or, better, something sweeter. Nowadays, I see each new web platform as a honeycomb to be sucked dry until there’s only a husk to leave behind.
And so I’d like to point you toward my latest internet property alechanleybemis.tumblr.com where I’ve gone practically wordless, choosing instead to focus on concerts & photographs. I like to think I’ve opened an online museum to ephemeral feelings, a museum that may close without warning, at any time. But one that’s devoted to featuring some of the more elevating & tipsy-making aspects of our world. Contrast Mad Max with the wild dancing that happens on the edges of darkness.
Two shining examples of the exhibits on display after the jump. Follow me or don’t. If you agree with Drake it’s probably not for you; but if you understand David Foster Wallace’s wiser words, it will make sense to you.
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Alastair Galbraith, David Foster Wallace, Denis Johnson, Drake, Internet Poem, Mad Max, Mel Gibson, Peak Oil, St. Vincent, T.S. Eliot, The Problem With Glamour, The Problem With Nostalgia
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22 February 2012
Music is a universal language
I have…mIxeD FeeLINngS about the TED or TED-like format. As one commenter noted about the presenter in the video I’m about to show you: “This guy is just stroking his psychological egoism on stage.” Indeed, that’s a criticism that can be levied against many of the presenters at these things. Ego is death, and too many of these conferences focus on great, attention-getting presentations without providing a holistic picture or prioritizing what in the world needs doing NOW.
In short: Too much sales pitch. — Not enough context.
That said, they’re usually inspiring — and we live in a world where inspiration is sometimes in short supply. So, without further adieu, an example of how music makes things possible and how it is, indeed, the universal language.
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: British Paraorchestra, Charles Hazlewood, TED, The Problem With Glamour, The Problem with Originality, The Problem with Technology
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11 February 2012
Authenticity, alter egos and Bon Iver: a short attention span essay
I find Bon Iver’s records eminently listenable. But I also find they lack some unnameable quantity of soul. Or maybe the better way to put it is that they intentionally emulate (or aspire to capture) the most soulful bits of a soulless era for popular music, the 1980s. At the time, increasingly digital-sounding music was considered a good thing — progress rather than an abomination. Perfect sound forever!
Need proof?
Viz the massive success then enjoyed by Bruce Hornsby and his Range, probably Bon Iver’s most oft-cited influence.
Well, eventually “perfect sound forever” (that sales slogan was used to convince people of the necessity of the compact disc) met “Perfect Sound Forever” — and the (supposedly ascendent) indie rock aesthetic was born…
But that’s an entirely different blog rant.
What I’m here to talk about right now is how/why Bon Iver as a live proposition is such a different sounding thing than he is on record. I mean fuuuuuuuuck, look at this:
“Perth”
Whoa!
What do we think of this band?
Uh, here’s a hint: We think a whole lot of this band!
Actually let’s break the narrative for a second and realize that the above didn’t even feature Justin Vernon’s band — rather it was a collaboration with The Roots — and let’s furthermore call a spade a spade. None of these people playing behind him are a band; in each case, what they are, is his band.
(Oh, geez, no pun intended with that phrase — this kind of thing will get you in trouble these days:
End parenthetical.)
Point being the records by the “band” Bon Iver are masterminded by Justin Vernon & then re-created by a very capable (emphasis on the VERY) live band. The major falsehood of these albums is the band concept. Even the game show Jeopardy is on to this ruse:
But perhaps the falsity is what he’s going for?
Let’s consider the vehicle of a band as one more way that Vernon is able to plot out creative space for himself. It’s allowed him to dabble freely in groups such as Gayngs without the high stakes expectation for his Bon Iver records; and, eventually, it will allow for the inevitable solo albums which will follow when/if a backlash against Bon Iver sets in, or when boredom (his own, his fanbase’s) sets in. (That process may begin this very weekend if he happens to win a Grammy on Sunday night…)
(There is plenty of precedent for this. If Tom Petty & Bruce Springsteen & Palace Music (aka Will Oldham) can go solo even though everyone already thought they were solo artists, so can Vernon. Hell, to extend the rock-historical lineage into speculative history, maybe it would have made more aesthetic sense if some of Neil’s albums were credited to just plain Crazy Horse.
Songs like that are more than Neil Young, alone. End parenthetical.)
Anyway, I’m rambling again! It’s my blog and I can do that if I want to, but I know it gets kinda snoozy & hard to follow, so let’s take another awesome music break:
“Holocene”
Basically, what I want everyone to consider while reading this post is the notion of authenticity. Does such a thing even exist in the performing arts? I’d argue it does not. There are just different depths of falsehood.
Some related admissions: I kind of liked Madonna on last weekend’s Super Bowl halftime show. (She seems to be simultaneously stealing MNDR’s thunder, quoting Toni Basil & engaging in the deeply self-referential self-promotional hijinx of hip-hop.) And I don’t get why people are so pissed about Lana Del Rey. (It’s kind of like being angry about blue Gatorade. Everyone can agree that in the right mood it can taste pretty delicious. But did anyone really ever think it was natural?)
To summarize: real vs. fake = whatever!
Good vs. bad = priceless.
Good music always wins out in the end. And, right now, think what you will about the records he makes as Bon Iver, Justin Vernon in the live sphere is operating at a place of goodness so far beyond his indie rocking contemporaries, ya’ gotta just let your tongue hang out & your drool pool where it may.
“Beth/Rest”
Note: That song wasn’t as good as the other two of his that I posted. Sorry not to end on the highest note.
Happy now?
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Alex Trebek, Bon Iver, Bruce Hornsby, Good Music, Jeopardy, Justin Vernon, The Problem with Intimacy