Curatorialist

The site is called Curatorialist, but although I kind of know what that means, I’ve never really bothered to explain it, in full. Maybe because it’s more of a process than a thing. I have a particular way of finding things. It involves, usually, reading something, but sometimes seeing something, or hearing something. But that is not usually the thing that ends up making it here. I am looking for something, I just don’t know exactly what it is until I find it. It echoes the way I write, draw and photograph. The beginning is never the end and, usually, the beginning is even erased. The first sentence, the first lines, the first shot — by in large, nobody ever sees those. I am, in fact, mostly embarrassed by them. When I write, the first thing I write is mostly something trite or said before a hundred times.  I self-loathe over those first lines, written or drawn, all the time. I know others do, too. Working past those initial knee-jerk thoughts is where the work comes in – and the struggle.

Curatorialist is the process of finding something through that darkness. Stumbling onto it through a form of study that I invented when I was a kid, in school. I found it hard to stay on track with books and my mind wandered. However, study time was study time, so I fished around in my room until some kind of connection was formed. I might have a book report to get done, but it was rarely that book that helped me write the report. My inspiration happened when I wasn’t looking at it, but listening to the radio, thumbing through encyclopedias, Time Life books or just day dreaming. The ability to make the two things connect was out of necessity – time was running out. It was either that, or fail.

I was reminded of all this because I felt the same patterns tonight as I was reading a LA Times article about the Asia America Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven’s Ninth this week. Before I could even get through the short article, I went to see about purchasing a ticket for myself online. I was already scrambling about. Hit play…

I came across this Leonard Bernstein-conducted version of it and listened in awe (it was performed after the fall of the Berlin Wall, an amazing side story in and of itself – another hour gone), particularly to the vocal amazingness of Shirley Verrett. That lead to me more videos of her and then wondering what the hell they are singing in Ode To Joy (something I’m embarrassed to say I’d never looked up – the filling in of embarrassing gaps in knowledge is a major energizing force in my process). That lead to reading about Beethoven’s life. That lead to Schiller’s life, the poet who wrote Ode To Joy (actually just called “To Joy”). Somewhere in that reading, I discovered that another of Schiller’s poems was also put to music. Beethoven chose Schiller’s poem because it was great. That was a harder path for him because, in the process of adapting it for music, the challenge would be harder (how do you improve upon greatness?). His darkness.

This lead to a small piece of history about Beethoven appearing on stage, deaf, at the symphony’s debut. He, himself, did not even know the piece had ended and had to be turned around by one of the performers. Turned around to see the five standing ovations – two more than the obligatory three, which lead to a police break up. This Beethoven guy…

I was interested in Beethoven’s process of not just copying Schiller’s text, but adapting it for his needs. It wasn’t just about fitting the words in, it was that Beethoven wanted to change them. He wanted to make them musical, and that’s more than just creating filler. Academics don’t know exactly what his process was for changing them (and he was criticized for it), but I think I do. I think he just felt it needed it and followed his instincts. “What custom strictly divided. All men become brothers.” He added that. He was riffing, but he was also recapping. Reminding us of what we are to take away from this. He was echoing a sentiment that neither of them created, but which the Age of Enlightenment had brought to them and they poetically interpreted. That is, after all, what artists do. But also, he was just running out of time.

Anyway, that was interrupted by an episode of Mad Men (I’m just halfway through the first season), but I was brought back in afterward by a Schiller quote: “Live with your century; but do not be its creature” (appropriate subtext for Mad Men, actually) and a nagging desire to know what the other poem of his was that was made into a piece of classical music. As it turns out, the other poem, captured by Brahms, is the other side of the coin: Nanie (Song of Mourning). It is about the death of all things beautiful. It is maybe the most beautiful piece of music I’ve heard in my life and I might never have found it otherwise. Hit play…

This, I guess, is the best explanation of what my process is. It’s what comes out of the darkness, from joy to mourning. I don’t know if we’re in an age of enlightenment, it doesn’t seem like it, does it?  Whatever century we’re in, though, I don’t feel much like being its creature. But as I scramble about, like the perverbial blind squirrel, this is just how I live in it. So, thanks for crawling around with the curatorialist, enjoy the nuts.