Thanksgiving is the gateway holiday

Holidays were always bittersweet. I have memories of about 2 Christmases with both my parents. After they split up, my dad wasn't around much. Ever. The last actual Christmas I remember seeing my father, I was 9. I was in the hospital at the time.

I grew up poor, but not impoverished. I was always encouraged to use my imagination, to play. Many of the Christmas or birthday presents I received were based on creativity. A miniature potter's wheel and clay. Art supplies. A collection of children's musical instruments. My mom was the master of no-money-fun. When I was growing up, the museums and the conservatory, (an arboretum, actually,) were not very expensive or were free. The library and museum being connected was always a wonderful thing, to me.

I never really felt deprived in the sense of not getting what I wanted for Christmas. I didn't really envy my schoolmates in terms of things.

I don't think I even realized we were poor until junior high school. Clothes became the demarcation line. Even going to catholic school and wearing uniforms, there were the Benetton sweaters and the Ralph Lauren Polo Shirts that I would never wear.

Over time, I understood that my mother didn't understand the things I wanted for Christmas, (yes, she always made me make a list.) I wanted books or music. Getting clothes was like torture. My grandfather once gave me a bible for Christmas. I was 7. It weighs 15 pounds. Um... Not so much.
My mother and I have very similar tastes as adults, but could not have been more different during my adolescence.

I rebelled by not rebelling. I became a good little preppie, whilst she got spike purple hair. Confused? So was I.
Eventually, I just started asking for gift cards. Then I started asking for nothing.
Why?
Because the level of misery I saw all around me during the holidays began to make me sad. I happened to work for more than eight years on the edge of ground zero for the holiday frenzy: a quarter mile from the mall.
No one ever looked happy. Everyone seemed frayed at the edges at best, on the verge of an emotional breakdown at worst.

Even when I was still practicing the religion I was raised in, I experienced cognitive dissonance at what the meaning of the holiday was supposed to be, compared with the way it was, "Celebrated."
Celebrating the promise of redemption for humanity by spending obscene amounts of money?
What?
My standard answer has become, "There's nothing I need, and anything I want that I don't have is because I can't afford it, therefore you can't either."
What do I want for Christmas?
Peace on earth, goodwill towards men, women, furry creatures and all living things, including the planet we live on.
Serenity. Stillness. Love. Justice. Hope. That's what I really want.
You say, "C'mon, don't you want presents?"
Presents matter less to me than you'd think. I think that after many years of utterly disappointing birthdays, (4 weeks after Christmas, dead of winter, everyone's sick, it's football season, etc.,) during which I was ignored by a majority of my party guests, given thoroughly un-thoughtful presents and generally miserable, I stopped caring so much.
A truly thoughtful present is delightful, but an evening spent with people I care about, having a good time, is better.
I learned that if I really wanted something, I was better off planning for it myself.
That said, yes. Of course there are things I want. A netbook, a 1TB external hard drive, a new MP3 player, (leading contenders are Creative Zen and iPod Nano,) a trip to New Orleans, a trip to Paris, a new car. Someone at my beck and call to repair my house.
I don't have a sugar daddy and I don't have the money.
So what?
It doesn't make me unhappy. Happiness isn't something that can be derived from possessions. Happiness is found in connecting to other human beings, being loved, loving in return. Happiness is part of who we are, or it's not.
I'm happy when I do something I love, talk to someone that listens and to whom I never need explain myself in order to be understood.
I find myself wondering if we weren't bombarded with images and messages of consumption, would we be a healthier species? Of course we would.
I like Thanksgiving. I get to take a breath and look back on all the things I'm grateful for.
I also look forward to the blank slate of a new year approaching.
The month of December represents a helter-skelter of marketing-induced envy, guilt, and shame.
Not being able to afford things doesn't make you a bad person. Saying no to things you can't afford isn't a cause for guilt. That diamond necklace or XBOX isn't going to make you happy. Things don't equal love.  Love is the most important thing.
Always.
Breathe.

The last time I saw my father near the holidays, was when I was 30. He gave me a bracelet I've never worn, a couple of CDs I've never listened to and a language-learning audio course.
When I was 9, he gave me paperbacks of David Copperfield, Jane Eyre, 2 language books and an umbrella.
He knew me better then.

Thanksgiving was my Pap paps' favorite holiday. We always did Thanksgiving at my mom's parents. Christmas was at our apartment. I remember when our apartment was so small that my bedroom was literally the cupboard under the stairs and we had no room for a tree. My mom made a tree out of tinsel garland on the back of the door. I remember when we had real trees and we would decorate it together on Christmas eve. I remember when I believed in Santa and swore I heard sleigh bells on the roof. I remember my grandmother making fried dough, (plain, w/raisins, and ugh, w/anchovies,) and unwrapping presents. I remember having the flu for the umpteenth time on christmas. I remember my family around a table, happy.
The memories are what matter. Not the things
I miss my grandparents.
I miss the wonder of childhood.
Experience the wonder and let the stuff fade into the background. You'll remember more and enjoy it for longer.
As for me, I think I'm going to watch The Polar Express this weekend. For the wonder of it.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Art, commerce, fear and the creeping spectre of censorship

Artists make art. Sometimes commissioned, sometimes with the intent to sell, sometimes for ourselves. Censorship abrogates a fundamental right to free expression. When the state censors expression because it does not like what artists create, we see the strangling repression of ideologies in action. Just because you don't find Robert Mapplethorpe's photos, or Andres Serranos' Piss-Christ to your taste, doesn't invalidate them as expression.

 Art can be difficult. Sure, some art is deliberately difficult, for the shock value. I'm not a fan of  a lot of art, because I think it's pretentious twaddle. I'm allowed to think that. Am I better for having seen the pretentious twaddle nonetheless? Yes, I am. The ability to make aesthetic choices and  express ourselves through the art we make or choose, requires development. All art, whether we like it or not, whether is makes us want to retch in revulsion or transports us to a state of bliss; contributes to society. Art isn't just about beauty, though.

  The intersection of art and commerce is a grey zone. Art becomes a commodity. If someone wants to pay us for it, there's a temptation to repeat ourselves. Performers become product, the product of an artist's work becomes an object instead of the subjective experience it's often meant to be.

The problem is: When art and commerce collide, sometimes the people with the checkbooks think they get to tell artists what is and isn't acceptable art.

(There are occasions when this is true, but they are narrowly defined. A commission is one of them. Performers, depending on milieu, are often contracted to perform in a specific fashion. As I said, narrowly defined.)

When the people with the money try to tell the people responsible for creating what they like to call, "Product," what that product should be, a line is crossed.

Whether it's a canvas or a script, a book proposal or a sculpture, if you agree to what the artist either proposes or has already created, that's the end of the story.

 At least, it should be.

We live in uncertain times. Publishing houses are running in the red, reality television reigns because it's cheaper than paying writers, and god help you if you're in a non-traditional form. Visual artists and sculptors are hanging on by a thread, in most cases.

Those that pay for art or the creation of art want known quantities and familiar aesthetics. They want stability and stagnation in lieu of the real.

Risk means the potential for loss. The people with the money, don't want to lose it.
It's completely understandable and completely useless.

Art is always a risk. Always. If you're doing it right, it's a walk on a wire without a net.
Art is about exploring and revealing the soul. It's the journey. It's the surprises and horrors that we confront every day. Art is a point of view, shared. Art is bleeding on the page with grace in order to express something. Art is always subjective and it's not always pretty.

Homogenized and sanitized creation is product. It's not art. Is there a place for it? Yes.
You want a Thomas Kinkade print to put on your Grandmother's bedroom wall, fine.
You want Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys, (or whatever the equivalent is,) for your kids, great.
You want the next sequel to the blockbuster, I'm cool with that.
It's not art.
It's entertainment, etc. It's product.
It has its place.

Think of this: A museum, filled with Thomas Kinkade and Anne Geddes pictures, Cherub mantle-hangers... Do I need to go on?
A library or bookstore filled with nothing but R.L. Stine, the Princess Diaries, Twilight and Novelizations of films and TV shows.

We need ART.
The human consciousness, spirit, soul... whatever name you put to it, we need Art.
It transports us, allows us to transcend the drab little lives we sink into out of necessity.

Great art can show us the passion and fury, the grief and joy, the beauty and horror that lie beneath the surface in all of us. They reflect our humanity like a magic mirror. How we see and interpret art is like a Rorschach test of the soul.
It teaches us, it moves us, it inspires us. Real art can lift us out of ourselves and show us worlds we never allowed ourselves to dream of.
The making of and embracing of art is an act of fundamental rebellion.
It is standing up in front of the machine and saying, "NO. No, I will not be crammed into the convenient boxes and definitions you want me to conform to."
It is fearlessness transcribed into poetry and prose, splattered on canvas and filtered through a camera lens, it is film and theater where performers are stripped down to the bone.

Art isn't imitating life, it is reflecting it.
We need it like oxygen, like water, like food and love and shelter.
Without it, we become dry and empty husks in the shape of human beings.

The current economy and the vampiric shadow of the morality police, (i.e., the ultra-conservative, ultra-religious noisemakers,) threaten to create an environment as oppressive to art and expression as Savanarola, the Inquisition and McCarthyism.

It is economically convenient for the distributors of art to impose limits on art, for the marketplace. That doesn't make it right. In fact, expediency is often a sign of what is most definitely not right.



The accountants are always in the wings with their anxiety-chewed fingernails and a tally sheet telling them the risk is too great.

There is no place for censorship in art. Not even when commerce is involved.

Especially when commerce is involved.

Art is not a product.

Remember that and act accordingly. The future of our culture and consciousness is at stake.