DROPPING OFF a sculpture I sold to a couple with an incredible collection of contemporary art last night, I eventually turned the conversation to the fact that the United States may not have representation in the 2005 Venice Biennale. They shook their heads knowingly. The wife noted that our nation is adrift: “We have no national cultural agenda.” For those who don’t care much for fine art, it’s comparable to not having any American athletes in the Olympics. It suggests we simply do not care enough about such things to make the effort or spend the money to send our very best. It has many folks in the American art world in a funk, to say the least. It’s an awful blow to our egos.
AS I RODE the train this morning, I scoured The New York Times for a hot topic to rant on. Nothing even remotely sparked my interest. Then I found the Times’ third installment of Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (they’re reprinting installments of novels as part of their Summer Reading Free Book Series). “You don’t have time to indulge yourself with such trifles,” I thought. “Besides, you’ve already read the whole thing three times or more. Politics, War, Economic Strife…these are things worthy of your time…get serious. So much is at stake.”
A FEW YEARS AGO I became obsessed with trying to remember this short story I read in high school. I think it was titled “The Disappearing Act,” but I’ve been unable to find it or even verify that was its title. The story was set in the near future, and the world was in constant war. As I recall, generals and such were running the country, Spartan thinking was demanded of everyone, and creative endeavors were officially discouraged.
Then people started disappearing. Driving along in their car and then GONE. Hammering out a deal on the telephone and just VANISHED. It was officially denied by the government at first, when only a few people were disappearing, but soon there were so many folks vanishing without a trace, they had to do something about it. The final, chilling scene of the story has the country’s leaders realizing that they didn’t even have the skills to comprehend what was going on…they didn’t have the sensibilities to get their minds around the problem. Someone high up, rather frantically, begins commanding, “Get Me a Poet. We need a Poet.”
There simply were none left.
SO I READ the third installment of Breakfast at Tiffany’s on my way to work. It’s an American masterpiece. If you haven’t read it already, you really owe it to yourself.
Here’s a snippet (I rekeyed this, so please forgive any typos):