A recent Hidden Brain podcast on “Honor Culture” has me thinking a lot about how I conduct myself and whether or not people feel dishonored when I put questions to them. “You’re not going to change anybody’s mind by shutting them down,” Claudia Rankine tells me. I know this is true. I’ve felt it. How do we go about telling someone that they’re doing something wrong while also preventing the shut down that prevents a moral realization? Is it possible?
I believe I’m living proof and a very talkative witness to the fact that it is. This is my segue into saying that I feel very honored by the fact that Steven Hale wrote about me for The Nashville Scene’s People Issue. I’ve admired Steven from afar for years, and I was so pleased to speak to him over coffee in our backyard. It was even therapeutic as he put all kinds of questions to me I’ve never thought to put to myself. I felt honored and respected and relaxed. With his prodding alongside a pretty continuous feeling that we’re motivated by many of the same concerns, he helped me think through an early obsession with people who’ve been passed over, hidden, tortured, or disappeared. I found myself tying it to The Twilight Zone as well as a Peter Gabriel song I discovered I could quote by heart:
Though you may disappear, you're not forgotten here.
And I will say to you, I will do what I can do.
I internalized it before I was able to begin to catch up with what Gabriel was placing before me. I think I’m still catching up.
And I can’t mention The Nashville Scene without praising Jim Ridley. A little like a local Peter Gabriel, Jim placed all kinds of awesomeness on my path long before we met in person. Through his writing, he talked me into sitting through all kinds of films, listening to all kinds of music, and tracking down all kinds of authors who challenged the systems of belief I, and perhaps others, are prone to confuse for their own identities. I’d e-mail him and he’d write back. And whenever I saw him, he’d keep talking to me until he knew I was done. He taught me that I could find my voice by loving things. After he passed, I met his friend, Steve Haruch, who carries on the work of treasuring available goodness with words and images.
I look for people who appear to love Nashville as much as I do. Steve Haruch is one such person. He also loved Jim Ridley. I don’t know that you can love the latter without loving, at least a little, the former. Steve honored Jim by collecting and editing much of his written work on film in People Only Die of Love in Movies. Steve honors Nashville (or what remains of Nashville) in Greetings from New Nashville.
So back to me and Nashville, I couldn’t be happier with what Steven wrote. I worried a little that some of what I felt compelled to divulge concerning my evolving understanding of my segregationist academy alma mater might upset someone(s). I was relieved to hear the following from my mother, Doris Dark, a lifetime public school educator: “I, too, gave little thought to the Confederate flag and so many other things for a long period of time. Isn’t it great that senior citizens can become enlightened when sane voices are heard?”
Being the son of someone who says this kind of thing probably goes a long way in explaining the freedom I feel to do, say, and think particular things as well as the compulsion I experience to do, say, and think them. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, everyone.
Harry Nilsson's THE POINT shaped a great deal of my imagination and theology. I think part of the power was the "comic book" that came inside the album. I spent hours on the floor listening to the words and looking at the pictures. As an adult, I found that there was an animated movie! JOY JOY JOY! Somehow, I failed to pass along my love of the movie and soundtrack to my children, but I am pretty certain that they got the POINT!
PS. I think it should be mandatory in all educational institutions. K - post grad.
My son Aussie became close friends with Jim Ridley's daughter Kat during their four years in the Literary Arts conservatory at Nashville School of the Arts. She is, unsurprisingly, brilliant like Jim and like her mom Alicia. And Kat's little brother Jamie (James Ridley VI, I believe!) is witty and whip-sharp.
When Wes Driver and I started Blackbird Theater in 2010, staging financially risky pieces like Stephen Sondheim's rarely produced musical PACIFIC OVERTURES, Jim championed us in print, as did theater critic Martin Brady. We remain forever grateful to them both.
I wish Jim had been here when Aussie and Kat met. Aussie would have delved deep into conversations with Jim. And I sure as heck would have snuck my way into some of them. Blessings on Alicia, Kat, and Jamie. They are a dear and marvelous family.