(news)letter
"Say the thing with which you labor."
Thoreau
from the porter.micro.press
Volume 1, Number 4 February 7, 1994
_________________________________________________________________
I would like some submissions: tell me what you want me to read,
what you have read, any artworks you have laying around, etc. We
have fine artists who read this (news)letter, and your
contributions would be most welcome.
Please send suggestions, submissions and subscription requests to
CTPorter 117-A S. Mendenhall St. Greensboro, NC 27403
or e-mail
[email protected]
Your input is appreciated.
This week's reading has been dominated by Sinclair Lewis' Elmer
Gantry. I read this book because of an editorial I found in the
paper, E J Dionne Jr's "Avoiding the Gantry Trap," which makes a
Bill Clinton - Elmer Gantry comparison. I didn't read the
editorial first because I wanted to get my own impression of
Elmer Gantry. Now that I've plodded through the book, I find the
article quite wispy, hardly worth rebuttal.
Elmer Gantry is not a bad book. Coming after the excitement
of Sudden Fiction I might have been less than eager to read its
archaic prose and out-dated sentiments. The life of Elmer Gantry
is quite funny at times, but the reader wonders, about halfway
through, when it's going to be over. Elmer is a preacher who
loves the power that his oratorical skills bring him, and has no
spiritual feelings whatsoever. So of course he becomes quite a
powerful demagogue, going from pastorate to pastorate (with stops
as a traveling salesman and evangelist on the way), seducing
ladies and giving his favorite stock sermon on love: love as the
morning star and evening star, music as "the voice of Love!"
(100), etc. Elmer is such the cad that the reader wonders when
he's going to be brought to his knees. He treats his wife like
dirt, he takes up causes just because he knows they'll make him
more famous, and his only friends are allies, those who can help
him get what he wants. By the end, Elmer Gantry has national
power. Along comes the woman who's going to do him in, finally,
and there's a certain satisfaction to realizing that Elmer's
power days are numbered. Sure enough the woman blackmails him:
the story hits the papers but Elmer doesn't fall.
Elmer's allies are more powerful than his enemies. The
blackmailers sign a confession that proclaims Elmer's innocence
and blames the charges brought against him on another factor (the
liquor industry). The book ends, then, with another Elmer sermon,
the church full, people cheering their hero, a pretty woman
catching his eye, his ringing words sending shivers through the
reader: "We shall yet make these United States a moral nation!"
(416).
E J Dionne's article stresses that the Republicans are going
to try to paint Bill Clinton as an Elmer Gantry -- one who will
promise anything without being able to deliver. There is really
nothing new to this -- Clinton's opponents have been saying this
for a long time. In a head-to-head comparison with Elmer Gantry,
I personally think that Clinton wins because I believe that he
does have intelligence. Bill Clinton has his own ideas and Bill
Clinton drives Bill Clinton, while Elmer Gantry is driven
primarily by the idea of power and riches. His enemies will enjoy
portraying Clinton as Gantry, and it will probably work, but
after reading the book, I don't think it's a particularly apt
comparison.
One point that came from the article that did ring true was
the idea that Clinton "needs to address his opponents'
criticisms, else the public may come to distrust him." I cannot
remember one time that the President has done this. In
interviews, when faults are brought up, Clinton blames them on
the press and "perceptions." Perceptions got him elected and if
he doesn't realize that, they will get him un-elected.
But does America really care about its demagogues? It seems
as if the public could care less about the character of a man
unless he does something really wrong, unless he has the bad
manners to get caught with his hand actually in the cookie jar.
I watched The Age of Innocence this past week and had a little
trouble with the ending -- what does it mean? To backtrack a
little bit (if you don't want it spoiled for you, don't read
this): Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) is engaged to May
Welland (Winona Ryder); enter May's cousin the Countess Ellen
Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer), with whom Newland falls in love.
Ellen is a lively young woman who could care less about the
constraints that the 1870s New York City high society would place
on her. Newland marries May, who pales in comparison to her
cousin. Newland then becomes a total cad, lying to May, treating
her like dirt, the usual Elmer Gantry-style relationship
building. Ready to travel to Europe to join (michelle), Newland
is stopped when he discovers that May is pregnant.
The years pass: May has died, all of the children are grown,
and one of the kids takes Newland to Europe. There he has the
chance to meet the Countess. The kid knows this about her: May,
on her deathbed, told the kids that she stood between Newland and
his greatest love, her cousin. In the end Newland does not go to
meet Ellen. Why? It's not that I can't take the mystery, because
that mystery enriches the movie. I just want to see if my theory
holds water: I say Newland was being loyal to May by not meeting
Ellen; another theory holds that Newland was ever the cad and
wanted to keep his memory of the Countess sacrosanct. Are there
any other ideas?
One issue that might be affecting my view of the movie's
ending is a short story by Michael Laser in the winter issue of
The Massachusetts Review entitled "O Nosso Amor" (505-518). In
this love story, David finds too many things wrong with his
current girlfriend, Alice -- among others, "Pompous speech
(sometimes). Simplistic psychologizing. Affected, dowdy clothes"
(506). Once he leaves her he can't live without her, but Alice
will have none of it, she won't have him back. David goes on with
life, and after some years becomes engaged with Ruth. He's
comfortable with Ruth, but she isn't his ideal. "The hardest part
of the decision, for David, was giving up the dream of the true
mate" (515). He comes to realize that after time he's creating a
new existence with Ruth -- "he notices the pain has left him.
That's when he begins the more ordinary part of his life, the
part that the tellers of the myth leave out" (518). It's that
"ordinary part" of life that David learns to appreciate and that
Newland came to adore.
Some People aren't Busy Enough
I found this article in the Fall 1993 issue of The Journal of
Popular Culture: "History from Below: Women's Underwear and the
Rise of Women's Sport," by Janet and Peter Phillips. It just goes
to show, I guess, that somewhere there's something for everyone.
"Death Don't Have No Mercy"
While in Charlotte this weekend I went to an exhibit at The Light
Factory, "Evidence of Death." Several artists confront the theme
of death, including Andres Serrano, whose "Piss Christ" so raised
the ire of Jesse Helms a couple of years ago. His morgue
portraits are quite spooky, beautifully photographed images of
the dead body in various stages of damage and decay. One picture
of a white person gone black contrasts with another image of a
black person going white -- in death, these pictures tell us,
we're all the same.
Lucinda Devlin's photographs of the instruments different
states use for capitol punishment show the range of attitudes
towards that punishment in different parts of the country. One
state has a gallows for hanging; another has a stretcher (used
with lethal injections) which is hidden behind a simple green
hospital curtain; yet another state has a hermetically-sealed
chamber with huge straps on a bulking chair where the convict
will breathe the gas that will kill him. As much as we hide our
public executions, it's little wonder that the tools of death
would fascinate us so.
Elizabeth Reslin's contributions provide a more intimate
look at death. Her multi-media meditations on her parents' deaths
are more mundane: her mother's dress swathed in plastic (as if to
cheat death for when will the plastic decay?); memories of her
father's daily habits that became too much for him (he would have
to lay down to rest after dressing for work). Even the white
gloves provided with the reading material bring to the fore the
issue of decay. Death is everywhere, especially in the everyday
objects of a loved one gone.
The Light Factory, for all the low-rent bohemian image that
it likes to cultivate, or even because of it, continues to put on
surprising exhibits. I don't know whether that's because there
are so many fine artists in the world, or if the Light Factory
has connections to the lesser-known artists who provide a lot of
power to their work, but whatever the case, The Light Factory
continues to be a pleasant surprise in Charlotte's cultural
scene.
Another image of death was encountered in last week's
Village Voice (2/1/94) with its cover photograph of the lynching
of two young black men in Marion, Indiana, 1930. This is a
haunting picture less for the gruesomeness of the victims than
for the glee of the mob. The menacing tattooed man pointing at
the bodies as if the photograph needed more emphasis; the young
ladies with the smug gentlemen shirtsleeved and arrogant; the
older, more dignified woman who turns her back on the bodies.
The story that accompanies the photograph, C Carr's "An
American Tale: A Lynching and the Legacies Left Behind" (31-36),
is about a black man who survived that night, and an author whose
grandfather might have taken part in the ugliness. C Carr
confronts the monster in her past by giving voice to the one who
got away. Inexplicably the mob let James Cameron go just as they
were to string him up, and his energies now go towards a museum
devoted to the history of lynching in America. It's a disturbing
article -- it reminds us of what we are capable.
Quote of the Week
Found in Richard O'Connor's biography of Sinclair Lewis (page
90), a reference to a sermon the author gave while researching
the novel Elmer Gantry:
[Lewis] attracted a lot of publicity by climbing into the
pulpit of one Kansas City church and delivering a sermon in
which he defied God to strike him dead within fifteen
minutes, thereby hoping to prove that God was not as
wrathful as fundamentalist preachers claimed.
This was reportedly bettered by another, who gave God three
minutes because "I haven't got time to wait."
Happy Anniversary to my parents, Bob and Mary! 35 years and
better than ever.
