Thursday, February 21, 2013

Three Levels of Time: Anticipation, Memory and How The Soundtrack of a Life Evolves

"In passing from the past to the future, we pass from memory and reflection to observation and current practice and thence to anticipation and prediction. As usually conceived, this is a movement from the known to the unknown, from the probable to the possible, from the domain of necessity to the open realm of choice. But in fact these aspects of time and experience cannot be so neatly separated. Some part of the past is always becoming present in the future; and some part of the future is always present in the past. Instead of thinking of these three segments of time in serial order, we would do well to take the view of a mathematician like A. N. Whitehead and narrow the time band to a tenth of a second before and a tenth of a second after any present event. When one does this, one understands that the past, the present, and the future are in that living moment almost one; and, if our minds were only capable of holding these three elements together in consciousness over a wider span of time, we should deal with our problems in a more organic fashion, doing justice not merely to the succession of events but to their virtual coexistence through anticipation and memory."--Lewis Mumford (from the book Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, as cited in the epigraph to Harold T. P. Hayes' book Three Levels of Time).

I first read Harold T. P. Hayes' Three Levels of Time when I was in high school; it was not an assigned text but rather a book that I read of my own volition--and it contained more insight than anything I ever encountered in a formal curriculum: the questions that Hayes asks about the origins of life and the future of the human race plus the insightful way that he deals with a variety of subjects ranging from physics to biology to ecology to philosophy are unforgettable. I love reading so much that it is difficult for me to single out just one book but--if pressed to do so--I usually cite Three Levels of Time as my favorite non-fiction book; the title refers to three interwoven stories: (1) the evolution of life on Earth (as described by various scientists interviewed by Hayes), (2) Hayes' travels around the world to interview these scientists and (3) the dramatic saga of John Vihtelic, a man who survived for more than two weeks after being trapped in his car following an accident. The bulk of the book contains Hayes' conversations with several fascinating and influential scientists, including Dr. Archie Carr, Dr. Otto Frankel, Dr. Garrett Hardin, Dr. Hugh Lamprey, Richard Leakey and Dr. Cyril Ponnamperuma; each chapter opens with a description of how the resourceful Vihtelic adapted to various challenges, so the reader gradually and simultaneously explores the evolution of life--an improbable story that took place on a global scale--while also learning about how one specific person triumphed against tremendous odds--an improbable story that took place in a ravine in Washington.

The way that Hayes' narrative seamlessly integrates so many different themes is similar to how Frank Herbert's classic novel Dune is simultaneously a bildungsroman about Paul Atreides, an allegorical tale about ecology/resource scarcity, a meditation on the nature of power/charismatic leadership and an action-packed thriller with unexpected plot twists. An attentive reader of Three Levels of Time learns a great deal about the human race's humble past, precarious present and uncertain future. It is perhaps not immediately apparent what Vihtelic's story has to do with the larger scientific and philosophical issues that Hayes addresses throughout the book but by the end the message is clear: the ingenuity and adaptability that Vihtelic demonstrated in a life-threatening situation is a small scale example of the ingenuity and adaptability that will be required for humanity to save itself and the planet. Hayes makes the reader comfortable with the sometimes complex subject matter by portraying himself as an earnest student on a journey of discovery as opposed to a pedant lecturing a class; while this is a shrewd narrative choice, I believe that Hayes understood a bit more than he suggested, much like the TV detective Columbo was two steps ahead of everyone else even though he acted like he was perpetually confused. Hayes asks entomologist Dr. Howard Ensign Evans a deceptively simple question: "Is the basic point of evolution the tendency of all organisms to move toward complexity?" Hayes self-deprecatingly describes Dr. Evans' response (p. 59): "He looks at me blankly, as though I had slept through the semester. 'The basic direction of evolution is toward adaptiveness to the environment at that particular time. No. It's not toward complexity.'" This exchange unfolds much like the way that a straight man sets up a comedian for the punch line; rather that making the reader feel uninformed, Hayes softens the blow at his own expense. The larger point is that even though human beings are very complex organisms compared to the single cell organisms that constituted the first life on Earth, the success or failure of the human race will ultimately be determined by its adaptability in the face of serious survival challenges; will humanity figure out how to feed the hungry, treat the sick, end war and live in harmony with the other life forms on Earth or will humanity become extinct like so many other species?

Three Levels of Time contains many great quotes, which is a tribute not only to the brilliance of the people who Hayes interviewed but also to Hayes' ability to ask the right questions at the right time; an interview is very much like a duet and a great answer is often the product of an insightful question. Here is what Dr. Frankel tells Hayes about humanity's future (p. 168): "This is a difficult world, and we really have stacked the cards so heavily against ourselves! Probably we have always done that, but now the system has become so complicated. In some ways maybe we'll muddle through. There is a quotation [E.F.] Schumacher has at the end of his book [Small is Beautiful]--that no problem is ever solved, but we find some way of dealing with it. Not solving it but just nibbling at it."

Dr. Hardin echoes the complexity theme (p. 180): "The basic concept of ecology is that the world is a vast, complicated, interconnected system. You can never do merely one thing, so whenever you do, you do a bunch of other things. This means that if you're concerned about the total effects of what you do, you carry out ahead of time a technology assessment--you try to predict the secondary, the tertiary effects of what you perform. You have to follow the philosophical principle of 'guilty until proven innocent.'"

Three Levels of Time instantly captured my interest with the intriguing Lewis Mumford epigraph cited above; it is not only true that our lives are delicately balanced between anticipation and memory but it is also true that our memories are constantly shaped and molded by subsequent events. Think about the soundtrack of your life, the songs that remind you of special times and/or strong emotions; your perspective about the various songs in that soundtrack evolves as new memories supplement older memories. I don't remember the first time that I heard Steely Dan's "Peg" but I know that I was very young, that it immediately became one of my favorite songs and that it has remained so ever since. Only later did I fully understand the technical mastery of the song, as detailed in this video:


The Making Of PEG by Steely Dan by righteouskarate

Prince often contrasts "real music by real musicians" with the artificial, lifeless, synthesized sounds that too many pop stars rely on now. One of the things that I most like about Prince and about Steely Dan is that they are craftsmen and perfectionists--but as a child I just enjoyed the catchy melody of "Peg" and the way that the voices and instruments are layered on top of each other. For some odd reason, a memory sticks out in my mind of "Peg" being used one time in the early 1980s on "Entertainment Tonight" as the background music when that day's celebrity birthdays were mentioned. I also remember trying to figure out exactly what the lyrics mean; what is a "pin shot" and what does the "favorite foreign movie" have to do with anything? All I grasped as a child is that the song seemed somehow simultaneously upbeat and wistful, perhaps suggesting that Peg had become a star but lost something during that process.

A new "Peg" memory formed when De La Soul sampled the "I know I'll love you better" refrain in their song "Eye Know":


Erika Klotz and I listened to the "Aja" CD during our tour of Troy, Michigan and "Peg" was one of the songs that played as we journeyed from the Lloyd A. Stage Nature Center to Barnes & Noble. Many memories and images now collide when I hear "Peg"--grooving to the song without understanding its meaning, learning more about Steely Dan and their attention to detail, hearing the De La Soul sample (which then brings to mind various memories of my high school and college years), the great "Making of 'Peg'" video and the newest memory: riding around Troy with my friend Erika (which reminds me of how much my mindset changed during the summer/fall of 2012). One song takes me on a whirlwind tour of my childhood, my young adult years and my current life; the song has always been the same, yet the ways that I perceive it (and myself) have changed over the years, as have my feelings about the various memories that flood to the surface the instant I hear those distinctive first few bars.

 "Brass in Pocket" by The Pretenders is another song that elicits a wide range of memories:



I liked the song as an eight year old when it first hit the charts, so hearing it takes me back to being a second grader--which evokes a host of both personal memories and also memories of things that were happening in the world at that time, ranging from rooting passionately for the "Kardiac Kids" Cleveland Browns team to watching Walter Cronkite talk about the Iranian hostage crisis that dominated the news for more than a year (yes, I followed international politics as an eight year old). I remember Faye Grant covering "Brass in Pocket" during an episode of "Greatest American Hero," which was one of my favorite TV shows at that time (her version is overdubbed with something random on the show's DVDs because of licensing issues). Shortly before I traveled to Michigan, I heard "Brass in Pocket" while I was working out but this time it not only conjured up childhood memories: the lyric about "driving/Detroit leaning" had a special meaning, heightening my anticipation about my upcoming trip and the experiences I might have during that weekend.

Sometimes a single word can bring forth many memories; "Ostend" used to conjure images of early 20th century chess tournaments but now it also makes me think of Marvin Gaye--and Gaye can be connected back to Three Levels of Time through his song "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)," a powerful lament about some of the environmental issues Hayes explored:


Gaye's reference to mercury poisoning brings to mind David Seltzer's Prophecy, a novel that I read not long after I read Three Levels of Time--and the way that a train of thought can zip around from Ostend to Marvin Gaye to Harold Hayes to David Seltzer conjures up "Kull Wahad," a phrase from Dune that is translated as "I am profoundly stirred!" That phrase caught Erika's eye when I showed her the "Terminology of the Imperium" appendix in Dune, which brings everything back full circle to the memory of listening to "Peg" on the way to Barnes & Noble. Such connections between seemingly disparate memories and concepts are fascinating and add texture to one's life but, while it is fun to remember and reminisce, it is also important to savor the present moment as well:

When we're young, we dream about being old. We sit beneath trees and dream the days away. We dream about the future, about how much better it will be when we can drive, when we can get a job and spend money on whatever we want. We can't wait until our parents are no longer around to say we can't eat ice cream for dinner. We want to get out of our hometown. We want to look upon the whole world, mouth agape in ripe wonderment. But don't worry, we say, one day our lives will be so much better. One day, we tell ourselves in the shade of that tree, we will have freedom.
 
When we're old, we dream about being young. During our daily commute to work, we reminisce about the past. We look back on the days when we could afford to just dream the whole day away. As we idle in that traffic, our seatbelts slightly pinching our waist, we long for the days when our parents cooked us a hot, healthy meal every night. We miss when the cul-de-sac was the whole world, when the forest across the street was a dark, foreign land just begging to be explored. We want to look upon the world once again with mouth agape, filled with the raw wonderment of youth. What happened, we ask ourselves, our lives used to be so much simpler. What happened, we ponder in that hot car, we used to have so much freedom.

I wish that there were a time in our lives, maybe only a passing moment, when we are perfectly, fiercely content with the present; when we are looking neither backward nor forward nor inward; when we are just looking around.

The soundtrack of a life evolves as anticipation and memory combine to enrich familiar lyrics and melodies, but, even though it is exciting to think about the future and even though it can be enjoyable to reminisce about the past, it is important to be fully present in the present, to appreciate the good things in your life instead of thinking that the best has already happened or is yet to come.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Marvin Gaye's Artistry

"An artist, if he is truly an artist, is only interested in one thing and that is to wake up the minds of men, to have mankind and womankind realize that there is something greater than what we see on the surface."--Marvin Gaye, speaking in Richard Olivier's documentary "Marvin Gaye: Transit Ostend"

Marvin Gaye's timeless, soulful voice is a finely tuned instrument that is appreciated by music experts and casual fans alike; Julius Erving once declared, "To me, Marvin Gaye is the greatest singer ever. You know what I mean? You listen to Luther and all of these other great singers, but when Marvin comes on, I gotta stop! He moves me. I gotta stop and say, 'That's the man.' Now someone may come along and lay 10 or 20 tracks and get the job done. You know, one of the ages, a classic. But it's not Marvin, who is the standard for me."

This is Gaye's unforgettable rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" prior to the 1983 NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles (Erving scored 25 points and won MVP honors as his East team defeated the West, 132-123):



Marvin Gaye died by his father's hand on April 1, 1984--less than 14 months after that passionate performance and one day before his 45th birthday--but his music is eternally fresh and relevant. Gaye's career followed a twisting path dotted with shining successes and stunning setbacks. He started out with a do-wop quartet called the Marquees in the late 1950s before signing with Motown to do some session work. His first solo album, "The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye," came out in June 1961 but did not reach the charts. Gaye's first hit was the single "Stubborn Kind of Fellow," which made the Billboard Hot 100 and reached the Top 10 of the Billboard R&B chart. In 1965, Gaye had three Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 singles ("How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)," "I'll Be Doggone" and "Ain't That Peculiar." Gaye began singing duets with Tammi Terrell in 1967 and they released a string of hits, including "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "Your Precious Love," "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" and "You're All I Need to Get By," the second and final chart-topping Billboard R&B single for the duo; whether or not Gaye and Terrell were lovers off stage, you believe that they were lovers after listening to them sing that song:




At the same time his partnership with Terrell produced those classic Motown hits, Gaye's solo career also took off: he had his first Billboard Hot 100 number one single in October 1968 with "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," a song that was later recognized by the Grammy Hall of Fame for "historical, artistic and significant" value.

A cancerous brain tumor killed Terrell in 1970 and her death devastated Gaye, plunging him into depression, but he emerged out of the darkness in 1971 to release the landmark "What's Going On" album, a tour de force both musically and culturally--Gaye's passionate cri de coeur against racism, war, poverty, drug abuse and other societal problems. Gaye openly defied Motown chief Berry Gordy, who wanted Gaye to stick to singing love songs--and the vindication of Gaye's view ultimately is not the commercial success of "What's Going On" (even though it was very successful commercially) but rather the enduring message it so eloquently expresses both lyrically and musically. The concept album opens with the title track--which reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Billboard R&B chart--and includes two other singles that topped the Billboard R&B chart: "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" and "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)."

Martin Johnson summarized the album's greatness: "'What's Going On' is a deeply humanist work that acknowledges the desolation and turmoil but calls for a marshaling of human strengths to build a better tomorrow. That optimism amid grim circumstances is what has made the recording a timeless work" (November 25-26, 2006 edition of the Wall Street Journal). Alexander Solzhenitsyn's brilliant quote about art in general applies in this specific case as well: "A work of art contains its verification in itself: artificial, strained concepts do not withstand the test of being turned into images; they fall to pieces, turn out to be sickly and pale, convince no one. Works which draw on truth and present it to us in live and concentrated form grip us, compellingly involve us, and no one ever, not even ages hence, will come forth to refute them."

Gaye followed up "What's Going On" with two Billboard Hot 100 number one singles ("Let's Get it On" in 1973 and "Got to Give it Up" in 1977) but he suffered a series of personal and professional setbacks in the latter part of the 1970s. Gaye and his first wife Anna Gordy (Berry Gordy's sister) divorced in 1977; he then married married Janis Hunter, who delivered him two children before she and Gaye divorced. Tax problems and drug addiction also afflicted the tormented Gaye when he sojourned to Ostend, Belgium in early 1981 seeking tranquility and peace of mind. During a conversation in Belgium with David Ritz, Gaye expressed frustrations about his failed relationships with women and Ritz told Gaye that Gaye needed "sexual healing"--a close, loving relationship with a woman to heal Gaye's troubled soul. That phrase formed the basis for Gaye's last hit (the extent of Ritz' contribution has been disputed but Gaye's estate eventually settled a lawsuit with Ritz by granting Ritz partial songwriting credit); in 1982, "Sexual Healing" reached the top of the Billboard R&B chart, peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned Gaye the first two Grammy Awards of his career. Gaye may never have found the healing that he sought but his daughter Nona offered an interesting take about love in the March 2002 issue of Esquire: "You know, we're allotted three soul mates in a lifetime. So don't give up hope when you think you found your soul mate and it doesn't work out. You get three. I don't know if you always find all three."
Here is an intimate look at Gaye's Belgian interlude, from the Richard Olivier film "Marvin Gaye: Transit Ostend":


Remember Marvin Gaye - Transit Ostend by rixduke
As a chess player, the name Ostend always conjured up for me images of the famous tournaments held there in the early 20th century but now when I see or hear Ostend I think first of Marvin Gaye seeking refuge there before making one last ascent to the top of the music business. Without the brief Ostend respite we may never have received the gift of Gaye's "Star Spangled Banner" or the aching yearnings he expressed in "Sexual Healing"--and if Gaye had stayed in Ostend instead of returning to the United States maybe he would still be alive and would still be creating music like his contemporaries Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen. The way that Gaye played the piano with such unbridled joy (starting around the 6:00 mark of the video) is beautiful--and particularly poignant considering that those talented fingers would soon be silenced forever. You can also hear part of "What's Going On" starting around the :40 mark.

Despite his suffering and his torments, Gaye lived up to the artist's mantra that he stated in the opening moments of "Transit Ostend": "What's Going On" issued a clarion call to wake up the minds of "mankind and womankind" to societal ills that must be addressed in order for our species to survive; Gaye's brother had fought in Vietnam, Gaye had witnessed poverty, racism, suffering and ecological problems and his thoughts/feelings about all of those issues just poured out of him. Neither his depression about Tammi Terrell's death nor Berry Gordy's objections could contain Gaye's urgency to produce his masterpiece and that is the essence of great art: powerful thoughts/feelings that a genius does not merely want to express--he needs to express those sentiments creatively as much as he needs to breathe, to drink and to eat and he cannot survive without doing so.
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