“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.” --R.E.M.
Ever since I was a child, I’ve had the sense of being caught between two generations, like the gears of a clock. The youngest in an older crowd, I grew up in a small Georgia town that was suspended in a kind of time warp, and as I got older, my appreciation for the antique, retro and vintage increased. I remember summers spent at my great-aunt’s house in Macon, drawing, reading YA novels and flipping through volumes of This Fabulous Century, the Time-Life set of books that provided a photographic chronicle of each decade of the Twentieth Century. While I liked the 1920’s with its pictures of flappers, dead gangsters and deco magazine covers, the volumes I returned to most frequently were the 1940’s through 1960’s. Why?
Of course there were major historical events unfolding, and those iconic Life Magazine photos of key moments, but maybe it was the look of everyday life as well. Something about the interior décor of those years as it evolved from solid earthbound into space-age futuristic. The cars, streamlined and elegant, even with the flambouyant fins of the 1950’s. Black & white TV shows, movies and advertising showed a world as yet uncluttered by plastic bottles, styrofoam and the other detritus of disposable everything. Everyday objects like telephones, ashtrays, coffee pots, cups & saucers, took up more space, had weight & depth. People dressed up to travel, go to town, and clean the house. I was fascinated by the youth culture & style of the years that gave birth to the Beats, Charlie Parker, rock & roll, Elvis, and Janis Joplin. Guys in t-shirts and jeans, smoking cigarettes, riding in cars, girls in Bobby socks, the diners, the popular cartoons (Bill Mauldin’s Army, They’ll Do It Every Time), and the comedians: Jack Benny, Shelley Be9rman, Lenny Bruce. Mid-twentieth century was also the time of an unprecedented and profound worldwide shift.
In the 1950’s, shows like The Twilight Zone revealed the fears and anxieties of the first generation living in the shadow of the atomic bomb through brilliant short narratives, and even through set design. Among the sleek, modern lines of furniture, appliances and cars, are visual cues that reflect an awareness of humanity’s ability to toy with its collective mortality. In the “Third From the Sun” episode, where a middle class family grapples with the imminent threat of annihilation (and yes, there’s a twist), odd, misshapen objects d’art are seen in the background and foreground: figurines of animals and people, part representative, part abstract: art intended to unsettle.
Today, the hot nuclear threat that had waned into Cold War rhetoric waxes again, and like mid-twentieth century’s increasing fascination with plastic and “better living through chemistry,” more widespread technology and faster production (with fewer workers) isn’t advancing the cause of humanity. A world at tipping point on several fronts such as higher temperatures (ie "scorchers"), melting icecaps and mass extinctions, doesn’t require a nuclear war to destroy it; we’re doing a fine job of that on our own, thank you very much. It’s the logical outcome of a “disposable” society where, in the eyes of the powers that be, goods, people and animals are, as ex- newsman-turned-“mad prophet” of the airwaves, Howard Beale, claims in Network (1976), “alike as bottles of beer, and as replaceable as piston rods.”
While some world leaders wreak bloody havoc, and others wring their hands in a state of dithering incompetence, “preppers,” have written off earth's future altogether, building rockets to launch themselves into space. The Brave New World only belongs to those who can afford it, whether it’s a space ship to Mars, or plane to a posh resort that still has clean air & water, and maybe a drive-through zoo called “Last Chance to See!” housing the last of members of over a thousand animal species.
And what about the rest of us? Instead of popping milltowns, we doom scroll on social media, slipping into a solipsistic stupor, numb out on the ‘Net (the lack of which will drive many of us mad when the grid goes dark), and binge-watch TV. Not you, you say? Excellent! Then what are you doing? If you're somehow trying to make the world better, ignoring the wags who mutter about rearranging deck furniture on the Titanic, more power to you. We must arrange these deck chairs (words, notes or brush strokes, etc.) just so, if for no other reason than that somewhere in the universe there's a snapshot for the ages, and somehow, someone or something will know we were doing our best when the doomsday clock hit midnight, or high noon, whichever the case may be. That energy out there in the collective unconsciousness is seeking expression through your work. You have a duty to fulfill.
Creating art is an act of faith in the face of disaster. Again, as seen in The Twilight Zone episode, "The Midnight Sun," Norma (Lois Nettleton) continually paints the sun over the city as an earth thrown off its normal orbit hurtles toward the ever-expanding orb, slowly increasing the temperature to the point of driving the only neighbor she has left (and the radio announcer who broadcasts grim daily reports) to a nervous breakdown and eventual heat stroke and Norna herself to the edge of sanity. The only thing holding her back from the brink is her art.
In a recent re-watching of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film, Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, it occurred to me that today a more apt subtitle might be “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Watch It Burn.” While the world’s richest escape the pull of earth's gravity, the rest of us sit astride a falling bomb with Major T.J. Kong, played by Slim Pickens, whose no-holds barred cowboy swagger, all-American can-do attitude and yes, earnestness, are weirdly refreshing after the semen-obsessed macho posturing and whacko military theories being bandied about in the War Room. (Click here to see the Pickens’ bomb-ride clip—with a young James Earl Jones as the pilot!)
In my bomb-riding fantasy, Kong smells of sweat and delirious enthusiasm as I grip tighter around his chest, holding on for dear life as he fearlessly whoops and hollers (like the former rodeo star Pickens himself was), waving his hat in a state of sheer exhilaration as ground zero rushes to meet us. True, riding a bomb while holding on for dear life is a paradox, but so is the fact that in a post-post-modern world where possibilities are endless, we drag our feet when it comes to our own self-preservation and the very survival of earth itself. Can’t something be done to save us? Yes, but focus and a sense of urgency are required, and again (here in America), hand wringing & dithering incompetence too often come into play, along with denial and endless debate over facts already in evidence.
In Dr. Strangelove, mass murder on a global scale is discussed by the numbers in the exquisitely designed War Room, and so today are various forms of negligent homicide, whether in the board room, private dining room, or anywhere else the world’s richest and most powerful gather to decide the fate of the future. For all our mid-century space-age futuristic ambitions, we're instead experiencing the reactionary vibe of Baron von Metternich, which for most of us is not a good thing. Fear and greed are the two most destructive forces in the world, but even as they run rampant, it helps to remember that from a Marx-ist perspective (Brothers, that is), there’s subversive power in comedy, and in laughter, a certain kind of hope.
Before I slip into the silvery shadows of my beloved black & white TV shows (Perry Mason, et al), and the dark corners of noir films where fate crouches, waiting to grab the next unsuspecting sucker by the ankle, I would ask you to consider Kierkegaard’s advice: "The only intelligent tactical response to life's horror is to laugh defiantly at it."
For those with their hands on the levers of power, the world by the purse strings, and egos bigger than Jupiter, the only fate worse than death is to be mocked. Laughter, like the sublime yawp of the rodeo star, like Molly Bloom's final "yes," is a ray of sun slicing through hopeless gloom.
The court jesters were unafraid to speak truth to power, to tell the King what he didn't want to hear and laugh while doing it. Truth-telling is a risky business that can get one fired, divorced, executed, assassinated, etc., but one we need desperately if this century we're in now has any shot at being "fabulous." Will it get its own set of Time-Life books?
Possibly. If we can hold it together long enough.