There is a point... somewhere toward the end

This train of thought starts a few weeks ago when I came across this quote in the Sundance Summer catalogue:

I miss Gene Kelly.

I miss that rare time in American life when we had a character that exemplified sheer talent, joie de vivre, and can-do attitude. A character that also represented what America was--or at least thought of itself. And all so effortlessly...

Have you seen An American in Paris lately or Singing in the Rain? He could dance, he could sing, and he loved who he was and what America was.

What do we have now? Do we miss this?

Ah well. It is Summer and isn't Summer supposed to be a celebration of color, change and hope? And with a smile?

I miss Gene Kelly.

Robert Redford

Confession time. I had a total celebrity crush on Gene Kelly as a teenager. I watched his movies often. And not in a have-something-on-in-the-background kind of way. I cleared my cluttered schedule, baby. Though I think Redford was trying to make some kind of statement about the state of our great country in the quote above, it got me thinking about my old boyfriend.

I took tap classes in college. I had received a little tap instruction through my musical performance ventures in High School and had always wanted to learn more. Plus, I have always held out hopes that when we get to the afterlife the famously talented from among us will have studios where we can go and learn at their feet. I was determined to have, at least, a time step and a shim sham to my repertoire in preparation. 

But, really. Tap dancing in heaven? I hope so. I hope there is also a back nine on some celestial golf course where I can play a round with my Grandpa W*. And if there is golf course, certainly there will be downhill skiing. Are there troupes performing the most brilliant interpretations of Our Town, or Death of a Salesman, or Hamlet? President Monson quotes plays often enough to convince me of their eternal endurance. Surely the music playing in the heavenly realm isn't on an eternal loop of MoTab and Michael McLean. Do heavenly beings still reflect on LaBohem, or Alexander Calder mobiles, or Frank Lloyd Wright architecture? And if there is art, there must necessarily be interpretation and discussion. Are there critics? Wouldn't VanGough's eternal progress be aided by a critical eye? 

I have always felt that our talents, as well as our ability to gain new talents, are eternal in nature and thus subject to eternal progression. Doesn't it stand to reason that the great creators of the world are still creating?

What a pleasant thought. A Gene Kelly dance studio. A performance hall where Puccini is still cranking out operas. Museums full of postmortem works by da Vinci, Turner and Gauguin. 

So all these thoughts were swirling in my mind anew when I came across the article Our Refined Heavenly Home in this month's Ensign. It is a devotional that Elder Douglas L. Callister gave at BYU a few years ago. He says the following:

If we could part the veil and observe our heavenly home, we would be impressed with the cultivated minds and hearts of those who so happily live there. I imagine that our heavenly parents are exquisitely refined... I would like to peek behind the veil that temporarily separates us from our heavenly home and paint a word picture of the virtuous, lovely, and refined circumstances that exist there. I will speak of the language, literature, music, and art of heaven, as well as the immaculate appearance of heavenly beings, for I believe that in heaven we will find each of these in pure and perfected form. The nearer we get to God, the more easily our spirits are touched by refined and beautiful things.

The article is fascinating- not to mention validating to anyone who has made a study of the arts. Moreover, it motivated me to reevaluate some of my media standards. 

Last night we got the kids in bed and had some quiet time. Cori had a bit of work to do and I turned on the TV. We flipped between the last half of On the Town and a documentary about the orignal production of Phantom of the Opera and then a bit of another documentary about West Side Story. Amazing, crazy, talented people- all of them. It can't be by accident. (And isn't Cori the luckiest guy on earth when I have the remote?)

Where are my tap shoes?

Now, for your viewing pleasure, Gene Kelly tap dancing on roller skates. From It's Always Fair Weather- with French subtitles to help you feel extra cultured:

Thoughts for tomorrow

Some principles that have influenced my political thinking.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have.

Thomas Jefferson

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Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

John Adams

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We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.

James Madison

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Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

George Washington

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The way to have safe government is not to trust it all to the one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to everyone exactly the functions in which he is competent....To let the National Government be entrusted with the defense of the nation, and it's foreign and federal relations..... The State Governments with the Civil Rights, Laws, Police and administration of what concerns the State generally. The Counties with the local concerns, and each ward direct the interests within itself. It is by dividing and subdividing these Republics from the great national one down through all it's subordinations until it ends in the administration of everyman's farm by himself, by placing under everyone what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best.

Thomas Jefferson

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We, the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution.

Abraham Lincoln

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Therefore, choose you by the voice of this people, judges, that ye may be judged according to the laws which have been given you by our fathers, which are correct, and which were given them by the hand of the Lord.

Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law—to do your business by the voice of the people.

Mosiah 29:25-26

I recommend reading the whole chapter

The Human Agonies

AKA the Humanities. AKA the field in which I earned my degree. When I tell others what it is that I studied, I either get a blank smile--because the individual has no idea what the humanities entail, or I get to hit by a joke like this: What's the difference between a humanities degree and a cheese pizza? The pizza will feed a family of four. (This joke was truthfully the response of someone who once asked me what I studied.)

The humanities include the study of the arts at large: visual arts, literature, music, theater, cinema, architecture, and a whole lot of history. It is the study of the human experience in all the ways that mankind has found to express itself. And last night, I saw a show on the History channel that proved to me anew the reason why I find humanities so fascinating.

Undoubtedly, you are familiar with Dan Brown's best seller The Da Vinci Code. You are probably also a little familiar with law suite that was brought against Brown (and ultimately dropped) by a British publishing company. They claimed that he lifted the main ideas for Da Vinci Code from a book they published in the 70's titled, Holy Blood, Holy Grail by authors Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. (Rearrange the letters in the name Baigent and you can spell Teabing. Coincidence?) The show I watched detailed Henry Lincoln's discovery process as he formed the hypothesis that the Holy Grail refers to the continued blood line of Jesus Christ.

The idea first formed from a grave pillar found at a church, Rennes-le-Chateau in France, built and kept by a priest named Sauniere. The pillar contained Latin text which held a coded clue written in French as well as the hidden symbol of the five pointed star. The five pointed star was a medieval symbol for the wounds of Christ, and to the Knights Templar, of the sacred feminine or Mary Magdalene. Lincoln's research brought him to a painting by Poussin, Et in Arcadia ego, AKA The Shepherdess. A geometric study brought to light another five pointed star that touched on geographic landmarks in the painting. (This is getting long, but I'm getting to the point) Lincoln found the sight portrayed in Poussin's painting and mapped out said geographic markers. Markers which were ruins of churches built by the Knights Templar. The mapped coordinates gave Lincoln a specifically measured line which when used on a map as a radius created a circle that connected several other Templar churches. When the same line was used to connect the churches, Lincoln found, again, the symbol of the five pointed star. This was a phenomenon that he found not only in France but also in at least one other site where the Templars built churches. The angles and measurements formed in both locations are unusually exact. They are correct to a 1/100 of a degree in a time when the most advanced technology provided accuracy only to the degree.

I don't intend to talk about the whole Grail hypothesis. I have my own opinions about it. Rather, this show became intellectually engrossing to me when a certain expert from the British Museum said that if the placement of these churches means what Lincoln suggests, then Historians would be forced to change the way they look at the whole medieval era. The history of geometry and surveying would have to be rewritten. The things we build and the things we create say so much about us and our social environment.

This is one reason why I think the arts matter so much. There is information about the human experience that has been preserved through the artistic expressions of each era. In so many cases, the arts act like a lens through which we can correctly interpret factual historical information. I love that there are passionate people who study and ask questions.

Okay, I'm stepping off of my little soap box. Thanks for listening.

So what do the arts mean to you?