The Troubadour Podcast
"It is the honourable characteristic of Poetry that its materials are to be found in every subject which can interest the human mind." William Wordsworth The Troubadour Podcast invites you into a world where art is conversation and conversation is art. The conversations on this show will be with some living people and some dead writers of our past. I aim to make both equally entertaining and educational.In 1798 William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads, which Wordsworth called an experiment to discover how far the language of everyday conversation is adapted to the purpose of poetic pleasure. With this publication, he set in motion the formal movement called "Romanticism." 220 years later the experiment is continued on this podcast. This podcast seeks to reach those of us who wish to improve our inner world, increase our stores of happiness, and yet not succumb to the mystical or the subjective.Here, in this place of the imagination, you will find many conversation with those humans creating things that interest the human mind.
The Troubadour Podcast
The Aesthetic of Adversity: Tracing the Dance of Struggle in Art and Life
Art and adversity intertwine in a dance as old as creation itself, and we're here to explore each step of their intricate pas de deux. As we close the curtains on our summer series, I, Kirk, alongside Luc and our esteemed guest Don Watkins, unpack the profound connection between struggle and creativity. From Michelangelo's "Rebellious Slave" to the raw emotion of Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto, we traverse the landscape of human perseverance, culminating in a powerful finale that mirrors our own journey through the world of podcasting.
With vivid imagery and personal anecdotes, we take you on a sensory expedition, analyzing the tense engagement of man versus serpent in both sculpture and the real-life parallels of martial arts. Our conversation becomes a palette of emotions as we recall that fateful museum tour where "The Painter's Honeymoon" forever altered my perception of art. Don's insights illuminate the intricate details of a sculpted struggle, revealing the layers of determination and resilience etched into every muscle and sinew of "An Athlete Wrestling with a Python."
But it's not just physical barriers we confront; the invisible walls within society and the human psyche present their own form of strife. Through the verses of Robert Frost's "Mending Wall," we contemplate the boundaries we erect, questioning their necessity and the traditions that compel us to maintain them. This journey through art and life's hurdles is as much about communication and persuasion as it is about the literal act of mending. As we bid farewell to this chapter, we leave you enriched with a new understanding of the struggles that define, divide, and ultimately unite us.
On this episode of Surprised by Art.
Speaker 2:What real philosophers do is they take what everybody takes for granted and they question it and say let's think about it rigorously. And so it's here he's struggling under somebody who won't question the given, who's stuck with the catchphrase that offers final justification and there's nowhere to go. There's nowhere to go unless both people are willing to question.
Speaker 1:Welcome everybody to Surprised by Art. My name is Kirk and I'm the editor of Troubadourmagcom, and I'm going to surprise each of you with a poem.
Speaker 3:And my name is Luke and I'm the author of Touching the Art, a guide to enjoying art in the museum, and I'm going to surprise all of you and our special guest with sculpture this time around.
Speaker 3:But before we begin and we introduce the topic and we introduce our special guest, a couple of quick housekeeping details.
Speaker 3:This is our last show for this summer session 10 episode dive into the podcast experience, and we're going to take a little break and then think about how we want to come back and so be on the lookout for new episodes coming out, maybe in a few weeks or in a month, but we'll let you know how we're going to deploy what we've. I think, kirk, I can speak for you here what we've really enjoyed doing, and this for me, unlike you, kirk, has been my first dive into the podcasting realm and I'd just like to say a big thank you to you, kirk, for kind of being like the, my guide through it all and for doing all the work. So all I've had to do, basically, is a show up, and Kirk takes care, has taken care of the production, he's taken care of the post production, he's taken care of the pre-production, he has conned me through my tantrums so, and he's coached me. So, kirk, thank you for making this a wonderful experience.
Speaker 1:Well, all the great art that you've shared has made it 10 times worth everything I've done. That was the trade off and I almost cried on that first episode when I realized what was going on. And you guys can go back to man's loss of faith when I realized what was going on in that painting and I think, just for that moment all the work was worth it. So you know, feeling is mutual. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3:All right, Kirk, will you introduce our special guest?
Speaker 1:Today we've got Don Watkins on and if you don't know who Don Watkins is, that's a problem, because you need to go to DonsWritingcom and check out all of his work. That's a hub, because you're all over the place. You're on YouTube, you do Facebook, you have LinkedIn stuff and I think you're killing it in social media. You have a podcast called Liberty Unlocked that I really enjoy and I think people should check that out, and we actually met at the Inron Institute quite a while back in the past and anyway, you would do a lot of work in teaching communication skills. As I fumbled through my communication skills, oh hey, nobody fumbles more than I.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you teach communication skills, but the place for everybody to go to check out Don Watkins is DonsWritingcom. So check that out, because that's again a hub for all the stuff that you do, and so thank you so much for being on the show. And you chose one topic and then I chose another topic and people voted. So you chose struggle. I chose leisure as our topics for today and people barely chose yours. I almost got there, Although I think the day after somebody else voted. You know it was actually tied. But the topic for today is struggle, which I'm actually really excited about. I went through. There's a lot of problems about struggle, but I struggle with one with ease.
Speaker 2:That would have been very disappointing.
Speaker 1:There's no struggle. I love it, yeah, so, but I thought that was a fun one, and usually the way we start these is just a quick, you know, before we look at the paintings. And what the artists have to say about struggle is what each of us think. As a just a quick preliminary about struggle, and I'll just say, like I'm actually just going to real quick for 10 seconds, give just a dictionary definition, because it's kind of a broad abstraction and I think it might help at least helped me in kind of situating in the world of what struggle is. And there's two senses of this word struggle. The first sense is make forceful or violent efforts to get free of restraint, or construction, construction, right. So it's the literal, physical, like the rebellious slave that we saw a couple of weeks ago by Michelangelo, that you're literally tied down. And then another, more broad sense is strive to achieve or attain something in the face of difficulty or resistance.
Speaker 2:So I don't know, maybe, dawn, what do you think, because you chose the topic of struggle, Well, I mean, the reason that it came to mind, I think, is I don't listen to a ton of classical music. I wish I listened to it more. But I remember specifically driving and listening to Rachmaninov's second piano concerto, which in the circles I run in is famous I mean it's famous everywhere. But as it was ending having that kind of like ground shaking aesthetic moment and I asked myself this is the first time I ever asked myself about non-popular music I was like, well, what does this actually mean to me?
Speaker 2:And what I realized that whole piece meant was that you had this just painful like approaching and being held back and then finally breaking through, and it was the ecstasy that comes from succeeding after deep pain. And I realized that that was something I responded to in all kinds of art. Like I love the movie where the hero triumphs at the end, but after the most brutal journey on the way there. Like this is probably not the I don't know why this movie popped into my, but Rudy, for example, right, yeah, and it was just nothing, nothing, nothing. Then the moment. And he makes the most of that moment.
Speaker 3:Oh, and I cry at the ending.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm cheering up just thinking.
Speaker 1:And it's really a short moment, right. So it's all this years of work and it's like what is it? Like two plays or something like that, right, and it's, but it's like that's what it was all about, I think, of the movie Gadica in that sense, like just the intense pain and difficulty if you guys have seen that movie with Ethan Hawke, so challenging for this one goal, and then you know, of course, without and it feels uplifting and despite all of that. So, yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker 2:Well, it just.
Speaker 2:It named for me one of the differences because between like so I'm dabbling right now in fiction writing and one of the things I had to be really honest with myself is my favorite novelist is Ayn Ran, and she had this principle that basically and I might botch it, but like she had this concept of sense of life, but just basically your kind of ingrown, deepest view of existence.
Speaker 2:And she said, like as an artist, you can't go to war with somebody else's sense of life. Even if you think there's problems in your own psychology or whatever, you have to do the best you can with where you are. And so it made me recognize that that kind of like struggle is being really important. It was explicitly not important to her, in fact, like the whole attitude towards life is that that is so unimportant. It really mattered was your values and the achievement, and I realized that, at least at some deep part of myself, the struggle was really central to how I responded to the world, and so that was kind of like a big leap forward to just say, okay, then that's probably going to play much more of a role in the art I create and just, I'm okay with that, I'm not going to try to put on somebody else's you know socks or heart to create what I'm going to create, even if philosophically I'd say that's not the attitude I would work to cultivate.
Speaker 3:Now that's fascinating, don, about how you're able to introspect and to identify what is kind of your overall feel towards life and being able to pinpoint that and the necessity of doing that in order to be able to write your own world, so not to borrow somebody else's view of life, but to tap into yourself and to understand yourself so deeply. And I love that little story of riding in your car and hearing Rachmano's second and feeling the reverberations afterwards and maybe feeling like, yeah, this connects with me. So I was trying to think of how I use the term struggle and also, okay, what. And then, separately, what meaning does that term have for me as a concept that I use in my life? And I hear people use struggle as, oh, I struggle with this, you know, as if they're talking about losing weight or, oh, that was a real struggle, you know, like you're trying to get the garbage out of the garbage can.
Speaker 3:And then sometimes I hear something about struggle, a lifelong struggle, somebody who has a disability, and then occasionally what happens is I also think about something that's more profound and that's an inner struggle that a character has in their soul, and this is something that I've gotten a lot more from literature and movies. I think of Victor Hugo's novels and the characters like Jean Valjean or Quasimodo who have inner struggles. But there seems to be two ends. There's something that's broad and grand, that's over an extended period of time, and then there's something that's more intense, like a wrestler fighting, or one thing I thought you know personally, one struggle I had was a struggle with nature.
Speaker 3:I remember vividly at 2 am in the Strait of Sicily on a sailboat having the night shift while my dad and his friend are sleeping below and going through the Strait of Sicily with the waves crashing against and it's nighttime, and I'm there listening to my last little Hickin' Soundtrack and my earbuds, trying to keep the ship straight to go through the strait. And that was a struggle and that's. I see that it was momentary, it's not lifelong, it's just something very specific and that's I use it in that way. And then there's also the grander way, like what do I struggle with personally in my life? That has been a constant struggle, or what moral struggles have I had?
Speaker 3:So I've gone back and forth on what kind of artwork to pick out. You mentioned Kirk before the rebellious slave. Yeah, yeah, michael Angel, I remember a lot of people were struggling, and then I remember looking at his face in that one and I didn't see much struggle in the face. So I've got an artwork for you guys and I'll be very curious to see what you think. A man is locked in battle with an enormous snake.
Speaker 7:So we got some muscular dude here who's literally naked, holding some massive snake and clearly fighting with it.
Speaker 6:I see a statue of a man who is struggling with what looks like a snake. He has a grasp in his right hand and it is wrapped around his body.
Speaker 4:The snake's body is coiled around the man's, starting with his ankle, up and around his thigh, behind his back and out again from under his arm.
Speaker 7:The dude looks like he's grimacing and just struggling with this snake who's about to attack him, and he's even got some veins popping out of his feet, so he's having a pretty intense fight here. He's got wavy hair, he's got some bulging muscles. He's pretty ripped.
Speaker 6:He seems like he's trying to get it off of him that he's been fighting with it for some time. He is a very strong man, so he looks very capable of being able to do this.
Speaker 4:The man's outstretched hand grips the snake's neck, holding the snake's head at eye level. The man does not look afraid, he looks fiercely determined. His expression seems to say I've got you now.
Speaker 6:He doesn't look scared at all. He just looks like he's concentrating very hard on getting the snake away from him, and that it doesn't particularly look like he's either winning or losing, but he's in the midst of the struggle and that the outcome can go either way.
Speaker 3:John and Kirk, I'd love to hear your first quick title impression before we dive in, and then we'll just describe what you're seeing, either of you, both of you, however you like. Okay, all right, you guys feeling ready?
Speaker 1:I'm ready. I'm going to let Don give the first one and see what he's got and throw him in the deep end here if he's willing.
Speaker 2:Oh, totally. I will happily reveal my true amateur colors. Well, it's a strong, powerful man. He's pulling away a gigantic, powerful snake and, like just, there's a lot of tension and determination in him.
Speaker 3:And the snake I love those words tension and determination, and you're pointing out both the tension and the determination in both the man and the snake. Kirk. What are you seeing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's definitely ferocity. Just now that you put the image on his face, I could see he's determined and the grip on the snake is intense and tight because he's going into the flesh of that snake. You could see him indenting it and the lines on his hand. He's really trying to keep that snake's face, or bite, away from him. Is the snake's bite open? I couldn't tell that at first. On the other angle, I think it's definitely trying to bite him. It's wrapped around him and with all his strength he's trying to keep it away from his neck muscles bulging or he's got that neck vein.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is a good one to look at as a bodybuilder, right Kirk?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, he's intense and he's really moving and getting that thing. It looks like with his other hand he's trying to prevent the snake from completely wrapping around him or maybe trying to pull it out from the side of him. This reminds me and I'm completely blanking on the Victor Hugo novel, the one where the battle with the octopus what's the name of that?
Speaker 2:Toilers of the Sea.
Speaker 1:Toilers of the Sea. Yeah, it's an amazing novel and this makes me feel like that intense battle with that octopus that that guy had in there, where it's life or death and although he definitely doesn't look scared, Don.
Speaker 3:what have you seen in his face?
Speaker 2:Yeah, kirk nailed. What I just noticed when you switched this over is there's not fear, but there's not certainty of overpowering it either. It's just pure determination, mixed with hatred. Off of me, foul creature.
Speaker 3:I love that quote. Off of me, foul creature. Yeah, it looks like his nose is snarling almost. And then the curvature of his mouth the ends are jutting downwards. Off of me, foul creature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I like the foul creature thing because it's definitely like there's a hint of disgust. So it's not like you're mentioning wrestlers, it's not like two wrestlers who maybe respect each other and there's like an epic battle. This is like. This is a disgusting thing. It's slimy all over me and I hate it. I want to eviscerate it from the world. That's kind of the feel I have. And man, I admire those forearm veins right there. Look at that. That is some sexy forearm. This is a strong, this is a grip man. That's a guy that can crush a normal human, but he's up against something that's stronger than a normal human right. This is almost like a supernatural creature.
Speaker 3:Zana Kirk, I really enjoy how you're describing kind of the tactile quality too. That's maybe a slimy creature and, Zana, I'm wondering what kind of movements would you see if you were to push play on this? What kind of movements would you be seeing here?
Speaker 2:That's a really interesting question. I forgot to say this at the beginning, but this is so relevant to like what I'm experiencing now, which is visual art, including sculpture, basically left me cold for most of my life. And the way I met you, luke, was I think it was 2006. We were in Boston at the same time, or maybe it was 2008. I don't remember Somewhere in that frame and you gave a tour I think it was one of your first official museum tours, to be great and you would ask us to basically go through this process of hey, describe what you see and ask different questions to elicit observations. And I just remember my vocabulary at that time and ability to pay attention to detail was such that we were looking at the painter's wife is it called?
Speaker 2:or the I forget the exact title the painter's honeymoon, the painter's honeymoon and I think it like my reaction was oh, it's a guy reading and there's kind of a he's with a girl, and that was more or less the level I was going to get to it.
Speaker 2:But as we went through this process that we're going through now and I'm not evading the answer, by the way, to your last question, it was going from looking at something, going, oh, it's nice to like I'm having, you know, a profound, profound moment and I just love that you're bringing that to people kind of now on a mass scale.
Speaker 2:But so you know, thinking about the actual movement that's, I'm finding that actually hard to envision. I see it much more as he doesn't look at all like he's in any position this is counting on my martial arts knowledge more than anything else Like he's not in a position which is not that deep but to overpower it now, like this is not, he's about to do the final thrust that gets rid of it. Like I totally see you play it forward and Snake is coming back and squeezing in and I like I don't think he's at the moment of finally breaking three with three, which I have the feeling he will. But this is like this is, this is a this is sort of the point the it's darkest before dawn point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's what I almost feel. Like with that that other arm he's going to try to like put it over him or something. I think this is only yeah, so like he's going to try to put it over his head or something like that, because the I think his only way out of this is if he could like step on this thing and move it away from him right, while keeping the head with one arm away because it's curling up one leg and it's it's yeah, so it's actually on both legs. So he's kind of trapped like that and you know, I wonder, in the snake doesn't really have anywhere else to go either. It's kind of like, you know, I mean this is perfect for struggle, because it's like even the snake is struggling.
Speaker 1:Who can last the longest is almost the feeling that I can get at this point. Like, is it going to be man who can last long enough of holding it away that he can tire this animal out and get rid of it, or is the animal going to tire the man out and just bite him down right? Because if I mean, imagine holding that thing while it's trying to pull towards you, I mean that's that's intense, that's a lot of challenging physicality.
Speaker 3:Now, Don, you suggested before that he'll he looks like he'll overcome this. So, Kirk and Don, is there anything that you see that suggests that the man will be the victor in this, in this struggle, I mean?
Speaker 2:the. So in a sense there's not because I don't see too much weakness in this, in this, in the snake, but you're not seeing, like I don't see evidence at least of him starting to break under the pressure, like he's solid and he's the one who's extended the snake away from him, he's the one who's created space right. So in a sense, like he's, he's got the best kind of positioning in this sort of struggle and if, like the face, the snake has sort of like anger, but he has that pure grit, determination, and so to me that's the only slight edge that I see there for human is that like he has this determination in his soul and in a kind of even battle where you know it's the first person who gives in, that seems like it's gonna carry the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's my sense as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, mine too, and that's one of the reasons why this one really resonated with me as struggle. It's because it's in that balance it's not quite clear yet whether or not he's going to win. I have, I mean, there's some details that I look at. You guys, that's the face, that determination, and then, kirk, you point out those veins. I think you might choke that son of a bitch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's. I mean because it's really going into his flesh. I mean, the question is can a snake choke? That's what I don't know. I don't know, I don't know how to look that up. Can you choke a snake? Yeah, if anybody could choke a snake. This guy could choke a snake though.
Speaker 3:All right, so you guys wanna know the title. Yes, it's not exciting. I like your title better, Kirk, about connecting it to Victor Hugo's Tours of the Sea, and maybe this is kind of a grand. You know, a meta mythological scene. It could apply to a lot. You know, you can see Heracles taking on some something or other mythical heroes and this is simply an athlete wrestling with a Python. All right, so before I talk about the artists, I'm wondering can you personally connect to this?
Speaker 3:Well, I never wrestled on Python, but I'm not surprised Looking at that bare skin rug behind you, kirk? I was wondering if there was a story behind that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just a story. I tell people that. It's a myth that I tell people. But I mean there's definitely been times when I've you know, like Dom was saying like done some kind of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and you're in these moments where it feels like you're equal for a moment while you're struggling through it. So I mean that's probably where I would get the most thing is like some kind of physical challenge and you're kind of matched right and there's that equality matched, or even that you're gonna get beaten. But it's the moment where it's like this is your, you're matched for a moment, even right, and like if his back arm messes up, that Python's gonna get around him and he's gonna lose. It's gonna, you know, start gripping him tighter and then he's done for how about?
Speaker 3:you Don? Do you have any flashbacks to jiu-jitsu or martial arts?
Speaker 2:No, because it was never a struggle for the people I practiced with to keep me.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, this is definitely is not like it's such an interesting. You know, at the beginning, luke, you guys were breaking down like what struggle means, in different senses of struggle and different ways of looking at struggle and this, I think, is very kind of at the heart of the physicalistic one that gives birth to the wider meeting, but it's more remote from mine, which tends to be very kind of the self-directed struggle, the struggle over time, the struggle of kind of enduring suffering versus, you know, the faced-off competitive match. But it is resonating with me more than it would any other time because I just watched the Michael Jordan documentary, the Last Dance, and I just I watched it twice in a row, which is 20 hours of it, and would have gone for a third, except I just started watching other old MJ documentaries on YouTube. But that kind of like enjoying watching the great competitors face off, because it brings into a moment the wider sense of I wanna see that struggle and victory take place, but no, not as such, but no, not as such.
Speaker 3:I love that connection, don, and I watched that documentary too and I really enjoyed it, especially for the psychological revelations that Michael Jordan was making about himself. He was speaking so openly about how much he desired to win, how competitive he was and how he got into teammates to try to get him up at his level, and then the release he would have, with the tremendous emotion of having won his struggle. But I could see him, maybe during the quote unquote flu game, being in a kind of I'm fighting off this Python and I'm just determined, even though when you catch glimpses of footage of him he looks so drained. But I could see him admiring the sculpture and saying that's the kind of fucking attitude you need when you take on Isaiah Thomas or Patrick Ewing.
Speaker 1:And I also maybe the last thing here is like I think this represents why we watch sports generally for this feeling and what we're seeing and watching this character struggle through this. That's like one of the biggest things in enjoyable parts. It's why people love the playoffs and the most intense. It's like 99 to 99 when there's two seconds left right, like we love that last second struggle and who's gonna get the ball and shoot it in at the last second, and I think this sculpture really captures that moment. That's a great point.
Speaker 3:So the artist of athlete wrestling a Python and Don, I'm glad you brought up your experience with me over 12, 13 years ago, whenever it was, with that painting of the painter's honeymoon. The artist for that painting is Frederick Layton and the artist for the sculpture is Frederick Layton.
Speaker 5:Oh whoa.
Speaker 2:All right, we have officially had a plot twist. That's amazing.
Speaker 1:You guys have come for a full circle.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, which is so funny because the emotions he's evoking are so dramatically different. Right, Like he was definitely not a one note person.
Speaker 3:Yeah, maybe some of the similarities he might see is his ability to tell a story with hands or with two figures intertwined with each other. Great, glad you guys enjoyed that one. Now I'm very curious to see what the poem is, Kirk, and see what nuance of struggle, what highlight of struggle it pinpoints.
Speaker 1:Well, it is gonna be a bit different, I think. So we'll see what you guys think Now I did send it to you guys a little bit ahead of time just so you can get an idea. And the poem is Mending Wall by Robert Frost. I think the easiest way with this one is just go into it, because it's one long stanza, it's one long narrative poem. By long I mean it's like a minute and a half, two minutes to read. So we'll read it and then we'll discuss it and see if you guys agree with me about the element of struggle in Mending Wall.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm ready All right Mending Wall by Robert Frost. Something there is that doesn't love a wall that sends the frozen groundswell under it and spills the upper boulders in the sun and makes gaps. Even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing. They have come after them and made repair where they have left, not one stone on a stone, but they would have the rabbit out of hiding to please the yelping dogs. The gaps, I mean, no one has seen them made or heard them made, but at spring mending time we find them there.
Speaker 1:I let my neighbor know beyond the hill and on a day we meet to walk the line and set the wall between us once again, we keep the wall between us as we go. We give to each the boulders that have fallen to each, and some are loaves and some so nearly balls. We have to use a spell to make them balance. Stay where you are until our backs are turned. We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of outdoor game, one on a side. It comes to little more there where it is. We do not need the wall.
Speaker 1:He is all pine and I am Apple orchard. Trees will never get across and eat the cones under his pines. I tell him he only says good fences make good neighbors. Spring is the mischief in me and I wonder if I could put a notion in his head. Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it where there are cows, but here there are no cows? Before I built a Y, I'd asked to know what I was walling in or walling out and to whom I was like to give offense. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, that wants it down. I could say elves to him, but it's not elves exactly and I'd rather he set it for himself. I see him there bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top in each hand, like an old stone, savage armed. He moves in darkness, as it seems to me, not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father saying and he likes having thought of it so well. He says again good fences make good neighbors.
Speaker 3:Well, kirk, thanks for reading that. So, like you mentioned that, it's like one big stanza, but there's a lot of punctuation and periods that stop at certain points and your reading, with the affectations you're making, really helped me understand it much better, I think, which is not much. So here's my kind of one sentence, quick summary. So walls can crumble from many things, but you know what Me and my neighbor, we keep it kind of, we keep it, keep it up, and, and you know, we keep it up because it helps us get along. Okay, so that's, that's my gist, don. How about you? What?
Speaker 1:anything Don.
Speaker 2:That was what I was about to say, but I just had a thought strike me and you can tell me what you think, Kirk. I think that maybe this is about friendship that just seems kind of blocked, maybe because of just you know, masculine quietness or something that keeps him from really just having connecting with this person, and he thinks you know, why does it have to be this way? And yet just has to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I definitely like the word blocked, for sure I mean. So if I just give like a quick summary. You know I think you guys summed it up. But so every spring this wall comes down.
Speaker 1:There's a neighbor who asks this question or thinks about something there is that doesn't love a wall. He's starting to question why do we have walls? Essentially Like, should we have a wall here? And he tells his neighbor and they go and they start building, rebuilding this wall that's taken down. Or, like hunters that are chasing a rabbit, they knock it over. Then he starts to get the other person and he wants to get the other person to think maybe we don't need a wall, right, like if he wants to get him to question the whole concept. So he says spring is the mischief in me and I wonder if I could put a notion in his head why do they make good neighbors? And so what he's trying to do is ask the question why do we need these walls? Does is it true that good, good, good fences make good neighbors? That adage which you've probably heard that adage right, kirk Kirk?
Speaker 3:why is it? Yeah, definitely heard that adage, but why do you think he's asking that question? Is it to? Is it to that he wants to make conversation? Is he what's making him want to ask why do they make good neighbors? Why is he want to engage?
Speaker 1:Well, the whole structure of this poem is that you have him asking this question at the beginning of something. There is that doesn't love a wall, that sends the frozen ground swallows under it and spills, so it knocks over like we're. We're in this habit of rebuilding, right, and we're constantly doing this thing. And so he's asked and he's thinking like, well, but why only when there are cows do we need this? I'm you know what am I? I'm cherry or churrid in your pines. There's no purpose to having this, this here, right? Like if I'm trying to wall something out, I should want to know. And so the argument the other guy has, he doesn't have an argument, right?
Speaker 3:And this is why I thought of the idea struggle, the trite, the trite, saying well, yeah, good you know, walls make good neighbors.
Speaker 1:Good fences make good neighbors, which, by the way, he Frost invented that term to sound trite explicitly.
Speaker 3:And so when you say that term, the whole habit would say to it yeah, so he's not actually pulling this from something, some old adage.
Speaker 1:He invented that adage and the whole concept is that this person, this neighbor, is just kind of yeah, there's no reason. He just said, well, daddy told me, you know, right, that's the last line. He will not go behind his father saying and he likes having thought of it so well, he says again good fences make good neighbors. The whole thing is not that the one original narrator is saying we shouldn't necessarily, we should definitely not have a wall, right, and if you look at the grammatic structure, there's two refrains. I guess you could say it's the something there is that doesn't love a wall. That's repeated, and good fences make good neighbors. That's repeated. And the something the good fences make good neighbors is a simple grammatical structure. Right, it makes sense. The something there is that doesn't love a wall doesn't quite gel Like. It's like what do you mean? Something? What is this something? And I think that's part of the point is that the narrator doesn't have it's the narrator who's trying to figure that out.
Speaker 3:So it sounds like the narrator wants to ask a philosophic question about why we have this separation between us, but he's not going to get the answer from his neighbor. Is that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think 100%. And he talks about, like you know, we wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, it's just another kind of outdoor game, right One on a side, like playing tennis. There's no like actual practical physical reason that we should be doing this. It comes a little more there where it is, where we do not need the wall. He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across and eat cones, and I, you know, and under his pines, and I tell him that. And what's his response to that? Good fences make good neighbors.
Speaker 3:All right. So, going back to what Don's lightning strike was that it's the narrator maybe feels like he can't communicate with him. Yes, that there's something blocking. So is it because he's recognizing this guy's a traditionalist doofus or is it because he's feeling he's repressed?
Speaker 1:Well, maybe the doofus, maybe the doofus one, but I mean so just making it real world sense. So all of us in some sense are in the business of trying to get people to have an opinion, to change their mind right, To put a notion in people's heads. That's what we all do to us, you know, to varying degrees and levels, I don't know about.
Speaker 3:Don, I don't know that Don does that.
Speaker 2:I have something to say about that.
Speaker 1:But I bet we've all been put in this situation where you make arguments, you talk to them, no matter what you do, and they just throw at you some cliche, some trite thing that they have heard some sloganistic idea. Trump, by the way, I'm not going to say what about this, but he said a nation without borders is not a nation. This is argument essentially for borders, for a big old wall in the south, which made me think of this poem. Like good fences make good neighbors, nations make. A border without a border is not a nation. Like really, why does that make a nation?
Speaker 1:And then this last little couple lines I see him there bringing a stone, grasped firmly by the top in each hand, like an old stone, savage, armed, exactly. He's got these two stones and he's going to go put them on there and he looks like a beast. And I think for us to say something about the type of person who won't go behind his father saying not, you know he moves in darkness, as it seems to me, not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father saying and he likes that he thought of it so well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Don.
Speaker 2:I brought up the point like I think throughout, you know, is there like something philosophic going on? And then you guys, you know, mentioned this stuff that I do, and a lot of what I do, is write about how philosophy illuminates different issues in the world. And I also mentioned that my favorite author is Ayn Rand and one of her most famous speeches was called Philosophy who Needs it? And she talked about the way that we, everybody you meet, will resort to what she calls philosophic catchphrases, like who can be sure? Nobody can be certain of anything, and what these are is an attempt to basically say there's no argument, here's the final justification, there's nothing more to say about it. And what?
Speaker 2:What real philosophers do is they take what everybody takes for granted and they question it and say let's think about it rigorously. And so it's here he's struggling under somebody who won't question the given, who stuck with a catchphrase that offers final justification and there's nowhere to go. There's nowhere to go unless both people are willing to question. And then, if we're willing to question, we can get somewhere, and we don't know which one we'll end up with. Maybe, maybe, you know, walls, good walls do make good fences, do make good neighbors, or maybe there's, you know, something that doesn't love a wall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's 100% correct and there's definitely in terms of this and, you know, I hope I can intrigue people to read for us. It's one of the reasons I wanted to do this, you know, in our last of this 10 summer session, is have frost, because I think frost is somebody that everybody knows. Most people probably read at least one of his poems I wrote not taken maybe two or three, and yet he's an extremely prolific and interesting writer and he always has these like very on the surface, very simple things, like when you think about it, it's just neighbors talking to each other. One's trying to put a notion of his, of his head, but the more you think about it, the more the deeper and deeper it goes. I mean you could talk about like, why does the the, the one neighbor even tell the other guy?
Speaker 3:Well, here's. Here's what I'm interested in Kirk. Yeah, kirk. Why did you pick this as struggle? Well, because I think.
Speaker 1:I think this is a struggle for putting a notion in someone's head and it's the feel like it's the challenge that so many of us have of trying to make arguments and convince somebody of something, of persuading them Right. Don's latest episode was on the laws of persuasion, on liberty unlocked, right, and it's something I started my career off in sales. That's something that I often think about. It's very challenging to really put a notion in someone's head and it's something that we underestimate. And I think this kind of gives a feeling for what that is like.
Speaker 1:Right that you know I've had this, I've had arguments you know I'm an atheist with with, like Catholics who are very pro logic and argumentation. There always comes a point when, at some point, they're like well, just, you know, I believe it because it's faith and it's like, no matter how many arguments you give them, no matter what, there's just a stopping point and that's you know, and Robert Frost is giving a feel like he's, he's giving a moral evaluation of those types of people. Right, like who's the good guy in this story?
Speaker 3:And who's the? This is a poem not about getting along with your neighbors at all. It's about can you communicate with others and the struggle of being able to communicate with others.
Speaker 1:That's, I think, the struggle of communicating, because it's going to be hard for them to come together on anything if they can't have, you know, a solid explanation here you know, so maybe it's easier just to put up a wall between each other and, you know, go live our happy lives separate.
Speaker 1:I think that's. I think that's a legitimate thing to ask and that's what he does. That's kind of that's what he does in the poem. Right, he does do it, but there is something that separates and makes it challenging for them to connect on any deep level, to have like a real connection.
Speaker 3:All right. Well, Kirk, I'm. I'm having all kinds of flashbacks and connections right now and this poem is me and a lot more to me, and realizing one thing I was, you know, talking about just struggle in general. I was thinking to myself, okay, what are the things that are struggles for me in my life, those long term things, and I was thinking about my psychological issues and you know, my day to day things or career stuff.
Speaker 3:And then your, this poem, and what you're helping me see in this poem is drawing out one of the fundamental struggles in my life and, I bet, in a lot of people's lives who want to work and especially communicate ideas or new ideas to other people. There's so much comfort in doing what you know works, and offering up something that might be a little bit different but could work better is such a challenge. Some people are open and want to. You know they're not armed with those pre-made phrases and are open to hearing, and those people are wonderful. But then sometimes and I'm trying to picture like what the visceral kind of struggle this would be it would be like you've just made a passionate or a well thought out explanation of your point and then the person looks at you blankly and said oh, that sounds great. Or just goes on, and then that's when the snake is like staring right back at me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's an important part of the challenge of interpersonal communication, that I think this kind of grasped right, you know, because we've all had that feeling. Like he says in the poem halfway down or toward the end, something there is that doesn't love a wall, that wants it down. Right, he's saying that to the neighbor, and then what he wants to say is I could say elves to him, you know, like that wants the wall down, like it's some kind of mystical idea or something like that that wants to have this wall down. But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather he said it for himself, right, and a lot of us have that feeling where it's like I could tell you what to say or believe, but I'd rather you come up with the idea, you know, and the notion in yourself. And that's when he kind of goes into his little spiel about the darkness of the person. But I mean, it's not like a poem that gives you an answer on how to persuade this person, right, yeah.
Speaker 3:But here's Kirk and I'm Don. I'm wondering what kinds of you mentioned Ein Ranz as a philosophy, who needs it and some of those catchphrases? And I'm wondering, are there any other kinds of struggles with being able to communicate with somebody that you really think are matter to you or prevalent in the culture I?
Speaker 2:think particularly for people who are more thoughtful, even if they're not reading philosophy. But you know the people who you meet, if you. I forget who was in the room, but one time our mutual friend, lisa Van Dam, showed the still Bill Bill Withers documentary and he was just this kind of like pop icon you know, rock pop icon during the seventies and decided to leave music behind because he was just not interested in the fame and just wasn't having fun anymore. And he was this guy who was just so thoughtful about his own life, even though he was just, you know, like. You know he wasn't reading Aristotle or anything like that.
Speaker 2:And I think there's a lot of people who are thoughtful about life and what they want from life and how should things be, and they feel very alienated from people, profoundly alienated by people, because they don't know how to bridge the gap, because people are stuck in this world of that's what everybody else does. That's what my teacher told me, that's what my parents said, like that's what the church said. And I think that what this really speaks to is more, more than to me, more than even the struggle to persuade them. It's more the struggle to come to terms with the fact that maybe they're not persuadable and maybe I will always feel cut off from other people, and that, to me, is the kind of deep sadness of the struggle and I think that is very prevalent, particularly among really intelligent, independent people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's really well said. I agree with that is like sorry, what was that? Luke?
Speaker 3:I was just going to say let the snake bite you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but yeah, maybe I mean, or it's it's like what you said, or just build the wall and shut up, right, which means that you don't connect with him on this idea of what should? You know, because that's what he's trying to do, is try to connect with his neighbor and maybe get rid of walls, at least in this area, right, Like maybe we could just, you know, be together or something like that. Right, like elves, like Kebler elves, all living together, and not that that's necessarily the right one, we do know, but they're trying to connect and you know it's a funny and it's very much.
Speaker 2:oh, I'm sorry. I was going to say very quickly, like on that point, like it's very much he's not cut off from life, like he's still going to tend to his trees and like, like you know, he's not giving up in the world. But there's a kind of what are you going to do when you deal with people, sort of yeah, yeah, there's that kind of feeling.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a little bit of a fourth that there's a fun of like a little anecdote that might be fun, that I think we could all attest to. That speaks to this. Robert Frost was the kind of guy who really valued rugged individualism, and especially in thinking for yourself and in his own life. So he was a farmer in his own life and he was the type of person Everybody, of course, that is farmers, they know you're supposed to milk the cow early in the morning, right, that's the thing. But he wanted to sleep in, that's his thing, right. So he decided, well, why can't I just do it at night? Right, just do it the night before at 10 pm. So he was the type of person who literally challenges all these types of things, and so it doesn't. My point is it doesn't always have to be these grand philosophical things, it also has to be well, you had to be willing to be a weird outsider. Oh yeah, that guy over there he milks his cows at 10 pm, right.
Speaker 2:Where you walked away from fame and fortune for no reason other than that that wasn't what you wanted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. I mean, like everyone thought Michael Jordan was crazy in the last dance, right? Like you know, he's dropping out when he's some of the things he's doing just doesn't make sense. But he's always thinking outside you know Dave Chappelle, thinking outside the box and figuring out what makes them happy, rather than you know every whatever but he else expects. So yeah, I think that's also part of it. It's not just you know, part of it is like trying to convince somebody of a really challenging philosophical idea or any kind of idea, but it's also like just living your life. Hey, we could be neighbors without a fence. I think we'll be all right. Maybe let's talk about it.
Speaker 2:So how does it-? But they're not going to have that and the sadness is they're not going to have that conversation. They're not willing to go down the level from. This is the way it's always been done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's accurate. And then I think the question, luke and Dawn, is what kind of so we have the struggle of the physical struggle of that statue, the sculpture, and then we have this struggle of a man who wants to put a notion in his potential friend's head. Are they completely separate topics and ideas or is there a feeling that's mutual, the connection between those two pieces?
Speaker 2:Oh, what's that the sound? Of Luke volunteering to go first. Fine, go for it.
Speaker 3:I've got this thought as I'm imagining these moments where I'm struggling to communicate with somebody and I'm feeling the tension within me and the frustration, but I set myself and I say, okay, I can figure this out, just clear my mind and let me try to have some common ground or to rephrase it or something else, or to think of another strategy.
Speaker 3:That kind of feeling that I'm having is akin to that tension in my arm, like let me get a hold of that, and so that look of determination is one that I hope that when I'm facing that struggle which is something more internal, because in my face I'm trying not to show anything, I'm just let me play this cool and think through it and have this conversation I think there's a similar kind of feeling that I'm having and I've been trying to figure out at what point in the poem would be the closest point of the handling the snake, wrestling the snake, and maybe it's, you know, when he's saying, okay, maybe I'll tell him elves, no, it's not a matter. But there's a little bit more passivity and resignation in the poem, so it doesn't quite capture that intensity. But I can see sometimes, as you know, kirk, I get really intense in trying to convince and I can feel that when I'm taking on the snake. So maybe that's the tension is.
Speaker 1:What I was thinking, too, is the link is terms of, like you know, when I'm trying to make persuasions, and sometimes you're conversing with someone around a fire at a conference, right, and you're like, no, it's got to be this way.
Speaker 3:I don't want to be fighting a snake when I'm having a conversation. Yeah, I agree. So what I? What I try to do is I try to channel Atticus, atticus Fentch, and I try to think to the calm, cordiality and thoughtfulness that he has and to get away from thinking I'm fighting pythons and to think that I'm having a civil conversation with somebody. I have a tendency to get into the tense side, but I try to to channel.
Speaker 1:I don't know how many libertarians you've had conversations with, but I, whenever I try it, that's that's for me always a personal struggle to try to keep calm when I'm talking I mean, I've gotten better as I've gotten older but just some of the things that we come up against which I think are really important things sometimes, and I'm trying to convince them or talk to them about a different way of approaching it, and it's just I'm trying to. You know, it's like a strain and I want to get my point across, and maybe it's not the best way to do it, of course, but it's still like that, that physical strain. It also makes me think of sales situations, when you're confronted with someone who gives you lots of objections, and I'm constantly trying to, you know, keep, keep my blood pressure down, like okay, we got this. You know that's part of the struggle as well.
Speaker 3:Oh, do you hear that Kirk?
Speaker 1:What's that?
Speaker 3:I think that's the sound of Don offering up his final thoughts.
Speaker 1:Don bring us home baby.
Speaker 2:It's really incredible that I think we found like the farthest part of the spectrum if you're thinking about similarity and struggle because the traditional way we usually think of struggle is the struggle for victory and this is really the struggle to accept that maybe victory is not impossible today, but eternally, like he's. What he's really struggling, I think, with more, and maybe to the point of not being even a struggle anymore is resignation. Like he's struggling to just accept that this conversation is never going to happen, it's never going to go anywhere, and that's why it's quieter. It's quieter because it's not the conviction of if I just worked hard enough, it's the struggle to really take seriously that it's never going to happen, and so I think what's right is that it's the same phenomenon but it's the literal polar opposite scales, and that to me, in a way, makes it way more interesting.
Speaker 1:That's good, walled off the whole conversation.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what happens when you buy yourself two minutes to think.
Speaker 1:There you go. That's the way to do it.
Speaker 3:All right. Well, this was fun and I'm going to miss these while we take a bit of a break. Don, thank you so much for joining us and offering up your fresh, naive perspectives on the artwork and the poem.
Speaker 2:No, this was. I was very curious how this was going to go, but I had way more fun than I expected and I expected a lot because I love you guys, but thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1:No, this is awesome. It's a great way to end, to put a button on the 10-episode summer session. So thank you everybody. All right, well, thank you everybody, and stay tuned to Surprise by Art, because we will have other things, probably in the future, and we'll let you guys know what those plans will be. So we'll see you when we see you. Here you go. A special thank you to all of our voice recorders, and today our voice recorders were Jennifer Minhares, aziz Mahia and Emily. Mir.
Speaker 1:So everybody check us out on Surprise by Art on Facebook and stay tuned for a quick, special two and a half minute reading of the poem Mending Wall by Robert Frost himself.
Speaker 5:Mending Wall. Something there is that doesn't love a wall that sends the frozen ground swell under it and spills the upper boulders in the sun and makes gaps. Even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing. I have come after them and made repair where they have left, not one stone on a stone, but they would have the rabbit out of hiding to please the helping dogs. The gaps, I mean, no one has seen them made or heard them made, but at spring mending time we find them there.
Speaker 5:I let my neighbor know beyond the hill and on a day we meet to walk the line and set the wall between us. Once again, we keep the wall between us as we go to each the boulders that have fallen to each, and some are loaves and some so nearly balls. We have to use a spell to make them balance. Stay where you are until our backs are turned. We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of outdoor game, one on the side. It comes to little more there where it is, we do not need the wall.
Speaker 5:He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across and eat the cones under his pines, I tell him he only says good fences make good neighbors. Spring is the mischief in me and I wonder if I could put a notion in his head. Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall, I'd asked to know what I was walling in or walling out and to whom I was like to give a fence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, that wants it down. I could say elves to him, but it's not elves exactly and I'd rather he said it for himself. I see him there bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top in each hand, like an old stone, savage armed. He moves in darkness, as it seems to me, not of woods, only in the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying and he likes having thought of it so well. He says again good fences make good neighbors.