I've always had a symbol that's brought me great peace simply by looking at it, and I'm not sure if this is a positive byproduct of my Catholic upbringing or what. That symbol is the circle with the cross in the center, extending out evenly in four quarters to touch the circumference, very much resembling the Holy Eucharist of Communion during the Catholic mass. I've always written it at the top of pages, in the margins of journal entries, just to set my mind at ease. The significance has always been that it represents my life, a large circle with everything inside, and a cross in the center holding it all together. Everywhere I see this symbol, and by that I mean not scribbled of my own doing, I stop to regard it and wonder if possibly it's a sign that that's where I needed to be at that moment. I had this experience almost a year ago when I re-entered the workforce, going in for an interview at an office where in the conference room, there was an entire window of this design. After getting the job, I snuck in there when no one was looking and snapped a picture. I've been on the lookout ever since. My job is in Homewood, Alabama, and I don't know if maybe there was some city-appointed architect assigned to keep certain themes going in some of the structures, but I came across the symbol again in one of the most appropriate and eerily telling places that Ted Torres could ever find it. In a library, the Homewood Public Library, a building that I found this week, eight months after I should have. It is as beautiful and inspiring as the Hoover Public Library, very similar in its design, and in the main study area -- where tables are spread out under the glow of individual lamps -- there is a high window that is a circle with a cross in the center. That is all. I wanted to say a few things here about some recent news items that I have very strong opinions on, not that any of what I'm about to say hasn't already been said. I just want to go on record about where I stand on them. Some stories just don't have a shelf life as far as I'm concerned.
First I'd like to say something about the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman and the incredible backlash I've seen on social media about his being just another privileged star who killed himself and so on. Quite simply put, I see my friends when I see Philip Seymour Hoffman. I see an artist that has fallen victim to a very real addiction that no one has any right to judge the validity of in any way. And that's simply because he made good art. I also see a man who in death doesn't need to defend himself from a group of people who are finding the need to politicize it, making divisive claims that fit into a weird Christian agenda that sees both sides posturing according to their beliefs. I have people on my Facebook and Twitter feeds that are Christians, and most of them are raging alcoholics, yet they don't consider themselves addicts nor do they care about an artist that has done what artists do. Artists die. Call me a lifelong Romantic, but there really are such things as tortured artists. Historically, what has tortured them is substance abuse. Addicts that were able to somehow compartmentalize their addictions to entertain us in some way created some of our favorite books, films and music. Which brings me to one of my idols, Woody Allen. As artists, we can only dream to have been able to produce the body of work that this man has produced while simultaneously having to compartmentalize and navigate through a culture that is more than willing to be the judge and jury. I don't care what he's done, if the claims are true, or if Woody Allen is not only guilty but a heroin addict like Hoffman. Unless we're going to do background checks on all of our artists and then judge their art accordingly, I suggest we learn to compartmentalize their personal lives much in the same way the addict does. Compartmentalizing seems to be one of Woody Allen's many talents. And after all of this, I can only hope that he can continue to produce the work that he has in this his postcard years (I call them this because all of his movies are like little postcards from around the world lately). That's it, really. No main point. We're all addicts, we've all done shameful things, and the art is mutually exclusive and really all that matters in the end. As I celebrate my 41st year as a part of this universe, I consider myself fortunate to have had such an experience as I've had this past week. You see, I've found where wonder still exists. And it's this wonder that keeps those of the creative temperament firmly rooted to the unreal, real word of their imaginations. There are many tricks to getting older, and depending on what it is that you do in the universe, approaching these transitions is different for everyone. Of course there are the medical problems, the sore and aching backs and shoulders, the eyes and ears that gradually lose their factory settings. But these things are all usually treated with medicine and exercise and procedures that are designed to get you through to the next year of dedication to whatever vocation you have been fortunate enough to discover. Jobs are jobs, and I have had many and long to have more, but my vocation is my writing. And when the wonder starts to go away, in yet another more undetectable symptom of aging, there are places like Universal Studios in Orlando to apply once daily. In my case, it was once daily for two days. When I was a kid, my family used to visit Walt Disney World in Orlando every year for what I am only estimating was seven years in a row (the number seven is arbitrary in my mind, as it may be the number of bikes that I'd had stolen as a boy). So I have a pretty good frame of reference as to what a theme park should be, and I mean down to the smells of the place. Disney has a "facility" smell, a maintained world that is heavy on technology and the research of "vacationing" that all add up to total escapism. It is why when I first got to the first of the two parks that make up Universal -- the section simply referred to as Universal Studios -- I was feeling as though it was all a bit ineffective. I'm almost certain in retrospect that it had all to do with the sequence of what we'd chosen to ride or walk through first, because when we got to the "E.T" ride, I was reminded of what this was all about as I sat in a car hanging from a track and drifted past speakers and animatronic figures that told me I had indeed arrived. The day picked up momentum as we went to all of the attractions we could jam in, including "Men in Black," "Twister" and "Despicable Me," and every one of them was more thrilling than the next. I felt the wonder again, regardless of knowing that there was an entire world beyond the facade that as I kid, I knew nothing about. It all worked, and it all brought back feelings of what I now refer to as "accessible wonder." But it didn't stop there. The next day we visited the second of the two parks, the aptly named Islands of Adventure. And it is here that we turned a corner and saw what you see pictured above, "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter." Just the walk to this area of the park was amazing, but as we walked through the recreation of Hogwarts to get into the ride itself, I realized that the technology has become heavy on the melding of CGI and motion-simulated cars that are no less real than the real thing. I was flying through the school, on broomsticks with Harry and his friends during a rainy Quidditch match, and I had the motion sickness to prove it. The rest of the day was a total surrender to the freedom of moving around inside of one's own imagination, as we used our Express Pass to explore "Spider Man" and "Jurassic Park" and other sights and sounds that quite honestly put me in a trance. I knew when I'd had enough. I was exhausted and satisfied. Maybe I just needed a vacation, a reminder that there was such a thing as a vacation where people go and do things during times away from their lives. It was a very hectic week as I went to my first hockey game in Tampa right before our Universal whirlwind tour, and right before that I'd done three shows in two days in two different states with the Eskimos. But I couldn't have had a better time and gone to a better place, a place where not only was I able to reintegrate with my fellow humans and do this strange thing they called "vacationing," but also where I could remember a part of the universe where "accessible wonder" can still be found and even stored away for later use. |
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