Beauty, Truth, and News

-- By Tom Phillips  

When John Keats wrote “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -- that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know” it was probably a romantic outburst, the final inspiration of a masterpiece, rather than a thought-out philosophical statement.   But a few years earlier,  the great philosopher Immanuel Kant had laid the groundwork for just such an outburst.  Truth is "the indispensible condition of fine art,” wrote Kant in his “Critique of Judgement.”   Kant saw beauty as the great vehicle of truth and goodness, communicated not in concepts but directly to the senses, available to all.   Beauty has a universal appeal, and for Kant it was the means for moving ideas up and down the social ladder, bridging the gap between an educated elite and the common people, creating a unified culture.      

We experience beauty in nature as well as art, but Kant predicted correctly that in the modern age, art would take the leading role.  In the early years of the industrial revolution, Kant foresaw that “nature will ever recede further into the background,” and future ages will have to search for truth and goodness without a daily experience of it.  Art, he said, will bear the burden of civilization, expressing moral and philosophical ideas in beautiful form.   

That was written in 1790.   In the 20^th century, the fine arts rejected the ideal of beauty, and so lost touch with the people.  Modern art, contemporary poetry and conservatory music may be conceptually brilliant; they don’t speak to the masses.   Still, beauty has a life of its own, it is everywhere in the works of humanity.  It finds its way, and we find our way to it.   

After reading Kant and Keats in college, I graduated thinking I was a poet.   Instead I spent much of the next 50 years writing the news for radio and TV, possibly the lowest form of literary work.   But in my own mind at least, it was a way to serve art and beauty.     

Newswriting is not a fine art.  In Kant’s terms, it lacks the essential element of freedom; one is tied to the facts, and there are strict limits on the imagination.   Still, there is an art to newswriting, and it has exactly the same goal as the highest poetry – to render ideas in terms of the senses, in terms common to all.    

To that end you employ definite, specific, concrete language, whether writing about a street fight or an argument before the Supreme Court.  And it has to sing.  People who listen to the radio expect music.  Every sentence needs to scan, and you dress them up with metaphors and similes, internal rhymes, alliterations, and quotations, preferably with a twist on their original intent.   

Time is precious in broadcast news, and especially on a show like the CBS Evening News, where we used to try to write the first draft of history every day, packed into about 20 minutes of airtime.  Later, when I tried to show students how to do it at the Columbia School of Journalism, one said “this is like writing haiku poetry.”   My favorite lead sentence ever was written by a student, Joanmarie Kalter, on a local story.  Somewhere in upstate New York in November, they cut down a big evergreen to be that year’s Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.  She wrote:  “A tree fell in the woods today..”   

The golden age of newswriting seems to be in the past.  At CBS, vivid writing was once the stock in trade, and you might still hear some echoes of Edward R. Murrow on the Evening News.   But original voices like Charles Kuralt and Andy Rooney are gone and irreplaceable, and a new generation of TV journalists is more interested in the arts of digital imagery than in creating pictures with words.  Most news today sounds like it was written by robots, and some of it actually is.  But beauty-and-truth is always out there somewhere.   These days I look for it in the lyrics of wry, cryptic young song-writers on college radio stations, in independent films and videos, and in the writing of a new crop of essayists and bloggers.   Where do you find it?   

-- Copyright 2013 by Tom Phillips  

P.S.  If anyone wants more of my thoughts on the art of newswriting, I spoke about it at length in a 2001 PBS interview, which they later turned into a lesson for high-school and college students.   You can read the interview at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june01/phillips_06-27.html

References: 
Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Kant, "Critique of Judgement,"  translated by James Creed Meredith.  Oxford World's Classics, 2007.   See Ch. 60 "Appendix"  page 182-3.  

Unfamiliar Quotations

-- By Tom Phillips

Like most people I have my familiar quotations – the 23^rd Psalm, the Lord’s Prayer -- but I rarely use them.  I rely mainly on a small collection of private quotes, proven effective for getting through the day.  None of them shows up in a google search – these are stray quotations, scraps of poems or conversations, possibly misquoted or misattributed, but tried and true.   So here they are:

1. “Most mistakes that people make aren’t that important.”   

This humble truth I remember as the last line of a poem, a lost poem from a defunct magazine of the 1960s, written by a teacher of mine.  The poem was about a bric-a-brac shop full of useless items.  It ended something like, "We should be grateful for these things, because they teach us / Most mistakes that people make aren’t that important.”  The author was Sheldon Zitner, professor of English at Grinnell College.  A Brooklyn native sojourning on the prairie, he later drifted north to the University of Toronto where he became known and loved as a "Canadian poet," though he was about as Canadian as an onion bagel.  When I knew him he was an intense young American poet and playwright, and a brilliant teacher of literature.  For Sheldon every class was a performance – a meticulously prepared improv with students serving as props, foils, dunces, and occasionally co-teachers.   One day he seemed to be holding forth as usual when he suddenly slammed his fist on the desk and apologized --- “I just can’t teach today.” Somehow he felt he was having an off-day, and was furious with himself.   He couldn’t abide anything less than brilliance. The poem may have been an act of kindness to himself – forgiveness for not being perfect.  So when I'm furious with myself in that way, I mumble the last line, savoring its calm rhythm, its modest internal rhyme, its soothing sentiment.  

2.    “Now is not the time to be in a great hurry.”   

This is from another beloved teacher, Zen Master Soen Nakagawa from Japan.  In the 1970s he would fly in periodically to lead intensive retreats for the Zen Studies Society, bringing wisdom and spontaneity to the often solemn and plodding practice of American Zen students.  I loved the personal interviews he would give during retreats at our Zendo in the Catskills.  His dokusan chamber was on the second floor; we would line up at the foot of the stairs, and go up one by one as he rang his little bell.  At one sesshin I had so much to say that I would tear up the stairs as if the place was on fire, making a terrible racket.  On the last day, I tore upstairs again.  But this time he sent me back, and made me walk up calmly and quietly.  “Now is not the time to be in a great hurry.”  

3.    “He knows the heart for the famished cat it is.”  

Here is another fragment of a lost poem, also from a little magazine in the 1960s.  All I remember is that one line and my image of a cat foraging in alleyways, desperate for food.  I remember this while walking the streets late at night, with my chronic recurring deficit of unmet needs, “desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope, with what I most enjoy contented least..”  I can’t remember who “He” is in the poem, except that he knows the heart for the famished cat it is.  That lets me know I’m not the only one, in fact we are legion.  “Everybody’s got a hungry heart,” says the pop song, but I prefer my feline image: inarticulate, driven, not just needy but desperately so, famished.      

            

4.  "Steer in the direction of the skid."   

This is from Driver Education in high school---what to do if your car slips out of control on ice or snow.  It was re-purposed by Alan Watts as a way to deal with temptation.  When you feel drawn to one of the seven deadly sins, don't try to yank yourself back in the right direction. You'll just continue to skid, or spin out of control.  Instead, set out to fulfill your desires -- and you will immediately see the consequences you'd been trying to ignore.  Only then can you make a reasoned decision---to sin or not to sin. 

5.  "There is nothing in the world so beautiful as a healthy, wise old man." 
Here is a Chinese proverb, from a culture that respects old age.  I've seen old men whose wizened features glowed with vitality and joy.  Sometimes I feel that way; it's all in the eyes.  W.B. Yeats makes a carving of two ancient Chinese men come alive in his poem Lapis Lazuli:  "..One asks for mournful melodies;/ Accomplished fingers begin to play./ Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,/ Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay."   

5. "What do poets do between poems?  We prepare for our death." 

This last one I associate with Gilbert Sorrentino, another Brooklyn poet from the 60s and 70s.  He was asked that question at a cocktail party, and gave that answer.  The radical simplicity of this lifestyle -- he doesn't even mention eating, drinking, or sleeping -- feels uncompromised.

The founder of Soen’s teaching line, Hakuin Ekaku, had an even briefer, breathtaking summary.  I saw it in an exhibit if Hakuin's calligraphy at Japan Society, a one-word koan, the character for “death.”  

That's all he wrote.  

-- Copyright 2021 by Tom Phillips

Passion and Action in Holy Week

-- By Tom Phillips

Homeless Jesus  -- Cathedral of St. John the Divine

Why do we call it the "Passion" of Jesus Christ?  The answer surprised me.

I always thought "passion" referred to the strong emotions Jesus felt during the last days of his life. But according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word originates in Christian theology, and its first meaning is simply “the suffering of pain.”  Its second definition is “the fact of being acted upon, the being passive.”   

In “The Road to Daybreak,” the late Catholic teacher Henri Nouwen wrote that the moment of Jesus’ arrest in Gethsemane is “a turning point from action to passion. After years of teaching, preaching, healing, and moving to wherever he wanted to go, Jesus is handed over to his enemies. Things are no longer done by him, but to him. He is flagellated, crowned with thorns, spat at, laughed at, stripped, and nailed naked to a cross… From the moment Jesus is handed over, his passion begins, and through this passion he fulfills his vocation.”    

In 1985, In the middle of a successful career as an author -- after teaching divinity students at Yale and Harvard -- in middle age Nouwen found a new home at the L'Arche community in Toronto, living with and learning from people with mental disabilities. At L'Arche, Nouwen realized that though most people think of their lives as what they do, what is done to them is really a much greater determinant.  In the case of poor, imprisoned, enslaved or disabled people, what is done to them is nearly all of life. Their only freedom is how they respond.    

Jesus was a poor Jew -- powerless politically and economically within the Roman Empire, which almost casually crucified him as a troublemaker.  The gospel stories agree that he offered no defense to the charges against him -- that he had called himself a King, thereby disrespecting Ceasar.  His response was not to dispute, but to declare the existence of a greater Kingdom -- one "not of this world."

In doing so he placed himself beyond the reach of Ceasar -- and his victory over earthly tyranny is part of what we celebrate in the Resurrection.  The African-American theologian Howard Thurman wrote that Jesus recognized "anyone who permits another to determine the quality of his inner life gives into the hands of the other the keys to his destiny...  It is a man's reaction to things that determines their ability to exercise power over him."     

Thurman saw Jesus in the poor, disinherited masses of the world -- people who live with their "backs against the wall."  Jesus was a poor Jew, lacking status or even citizenship in the Roman Empire. Like Black people in America, the Jews of Palestine were a small minority in the midst of a dominant and controlling empire.  Their essential problem was survival -- not just in terms of life and limb, but as a culture, a civilization, and a religion.  

Jesus rejected both armed resistance and subservience to Rome, preaching instead a radical change in the inner attitude of people.  He told his disciples to be prepared for persecution, torture, and death -- and that none of this could defeat them.  

Fast forward to today, and Black Lives Matter, even lives that have ended in torture and death at the hands of the authorities.  After the resurrection, Jesus spoke to his disciple Peter about the kind of death he too would die:  “When you were young you put on your own belt and walked where you liked; but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” (John 21:18)  

Thinking about our own lives in terms of passion rather than action puts them in a new light.  The test of character is not so much what we've been able to accomplish, but how we respond to what happens to us.  

-- Copyright 2013 by Tom Phillips

Just Say What?

-- By Tom Phillips

When I was a little boy, my mother told me about a sacred syllable with mysterious psychic powers.  “Om” or “Aum” was said to be the sound of all sounds, rolling up from the deepest recesses of the throat, echoing through the cave of the mouth, then closing with a meditative hum as the lips closed, sealing in its secret wisdom.   

In my twenties and thirties, at the Integral Yoga Institute on 13^th Street, I chanted “Om” assiduously.  The instructors said chanting it could produce a state of perfect peace, and it seemed to work, at least within the confines of the yoga institute.  However, the effect faded as soon as you hit the street.  I tried walking on 42^nd Street, the busiest, noisiest, most colorful and seductive street of all, looking neither right nor left, inwardly chanting “Om.”  It could be done, but it felt stupid.  This was a way of willfully devaluing the hubbub around me, and clinging to my calm center, but it didn’t really block anything out, just placed me at a psychological distance from my surroundings.  It was the aural equivalent of navel-gazing.   

As a Zen student in my thirties and forties, I chanted Buddhist sutras and prayers in circular, repetitive form.  These greatly calmed the mind, and invoked powers of compassion and insight, and determination to drive on toward enlightenment.  But given the great complexity and subtlety of Buddhist philosophy, there could be no one syllable that said it all.   

As a harried worker and anxious father in my forties and fifties, I copied Homer Simpson’s “D’oh!” This provided temporary relief when frustrated or exasperated.  It was like an explosion, a blowing off of the whole impossible situation.  It amused my co-workers, but had little or no spiritual value.   

During these years I was not consciously looking for a one-syllable answer to life’s problems.  But something in me was still scanning the vast universe of sounds and letters, like a beachcomber waving his metal wand over the innumerable sands, searching for a lost gold ring.  And one day, reader, I found it.

Cuisine Soignee a la Brigitte

-- By Tom Phillips

My wife is a Presbyterian minister, the solo pastor in a thriving, active suburban church. Many days she comes home from work in late afternoon, then heads out again across the George Washington Bridge for an evening meeting.  My job is to keep her nourished, healthy and happy, and let her know how much she is loved and appreciated at home.  All this can be accomplished with a delicious home-cooked dinner, dished up on time.  I take this as a duty and a delight, in the spirit of the woman who taught me most of what I know about cooking, and who blessed our marriage from the beginning, in more ways than she knew.  

If you think I’m talking about my mother, you couldn’t be more wrong. She hated to cook, and never learned how.  “Food is fuel,” she fumed, refusing to put any more than minimal thought and care into her meals.   No, the woman who taught me was Brigitte Catapano, proprietress of Chez Brigitte at 77½ Greenwich Avenue, the smallest restaurant in New York, where I dined alone most evenings in the 1970s.   

A Talk With My Doctor

-- by Tom Phillips

My doctor was mad at me, I could tell, when I called him last summer.  He could hardly remember who I was, because I hadn’t been in to see him in two and a half years.  What have you been doing, seeing some other doctor?   No, I said, I just haven’t been sick.   That was no excuse.  You’re over seventy years old now, he said, calculating from my chart.  You should be practicing preventive medicine!    

In my opinion, I was practicing preventive medicine.   I exercise daily, eat healthy foods, don’t smoke and drink only in moderation.  Every morning I take a low-dose aspirin to guard against heart attacks.  And I stay informed about medical issues.   The more I read, the more wary I was about his version of “preventive medicine’:  that is, vaccinations against commonplace diseases like flu and shingles, and periodic tests looking for early signs of cancer.   The worst shocker was the news that the PSA test for prostate cancer, which he had administered without asking me if I wanted it, was far more likely to lead to unnecessary, harmful treatment than to save me from death by prostate cancer. 

Still, this was “my” doctor, and as far as I could tell he was competent and professional.  I didn’t want to break ties with him, because some day I will need a doctor, and I didn’t want to go through the trouble and uncertainty of searching for another.   So I decided to follow the advice of countless counselors, and “talk to my doctor.”  I worried a lot about it, fearful that he would refuse to listen to a layman’s opinion on medical issues, and dismiss me as a patient for putting my wisdom above his. I made an appointment, without citing any specific reason.   Just in case, I brought along an article by a professor of medicine, one of a number of doctors who are now warning against excessive testing and screening. 

As soon as my doctor entered the examining room, he started checking my body and its vital signs, until I interrupted and asked, “Can we talk?”  To my surprise, he seemed amenable.  He put down his stethoscope and listened to my spiel, the burden of which was that I was more worried about the risks of “preventive medicine” than I was attracted to its benefits.  He made no objection to any of my arguments, saying he could only suggest courses of action, and it was up to me to decide.  He did say he’d like to see me more than once every few years, to keep a record of my bodily functions as a baseline.   

He agreed to drop the PSA test, but recommended a colonoscopy, as I hadn’t had one for several years.   I said I was agonizing over it, after reading about studies that cast doubt on the effectiveness of this nasty, risky procedure, especially among the elderly.  He didn’t press it.  He offered shots for flu and shingles, which I declined.  No argument.  He then proceeded to take my blood pressure, perform an EKG and take blood to be tested for cholesterol, etc.  After this he shook my hand, and for the first time ever, called me by my first name.   

When I called a week later, he said I was in excellent health, and I should just “keep doing what I was doing.”  I made a mental note to see him every January, to keep in touch.   

I don’t know about your doctor, but mine turns out to be OK, just a little harried and hurried most of the time.   He worries about his mostly elderly patients, afraid they’ll hang back and avoid treatment until it’s too late.  I told him not to worry, if I think something’s really wrong, I won’t be shy about coming in.   

So we have a deal, mutual respect.  All I had to do was demand it.  Doctors can suggest, but it’s up to the patient to decide.   I’ll keep that in mind when it comes down to the end game. 

Copyright 2013 by Tom Phillips

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A New Way to Walk

-- by Tom Phillips

I got a new way to walk!   I made it up myself, incorporating tips from Pilates and various types of dance.  It’s fast, efficient, and easy on the joints.  Of course, the online world is already well stocked with tips on how best to carry on this simplest of human exercises, so much of what I suggest may be familiar.  But I checked, and nobody else puts it together quite this way.  So here it is, my new way to walk:  

Lift your gut, drop the tailbone, and soften your knees.  Tilt slightly forward, and glide.   

To expand: 

Lifting the gut doesn’t have to be strenuous, just enough to get some weight off the hips.  The more weight you can carry upstairs, the less pressure on the lower joints. 

Dropping the tailbone means bringing the upper body into a vertical line, in preparation for moving.   Softening the knees is not really bending them, just not locking them.   A locked joint is a poor shock absorber.  

How to start moving?  Rather than use muscle, just tip the whole body slightly forward, leading with the sternum, and one foot will glide out to prevent a fall.  Want to go faster?  Pull the gut up higher and lean more forward. Don’t lengthen your stride in front, just push a little harder off the back foot.  Swing your arms gently in opposition.   When you really get going you can speed up by extending your arms in front, with a soft punching motion, out and in. 

Don’t walk with both hands in your pockets!  I did this last year, tripped over something and landed on my chin.  Eight stitches.  Try my new line of walking gloves, keep hands warm while swinging them in opposition!   Just kidding, this is not a commercial scheme, just an old man hoping to share his latest self-discovery.   

I always disliked walking as an exercise until I discovered this technique.  Now it’s a pleasure.  Walking briskly like this gets the heart rate up and keeps it there for as long as you want, but doesn’t make you pant or sweat.   

Try it, you might like it.  Lift the gut, drop the tailbone, soften the knees.  Tilt slightly forward, and glide.  As Miss Piggy sang, I got a new way to walk, and my new walk suits me fine! 

-- Copyright 2013 by Tom Phillips