The spiritual ambiguity of
art... its connection with the limitless unconscious...its use of irony..its
interest in evil worried Plato.
Art ,especially literature is a
grand hall of reflection where we can all meet and where everything under the
sun can be examined and considered.
Iris Murdoch, Oxford University,
May 21, 1991
II
“Well, what do you expect. You got no education You and the
name detective aka the language pro, should have stayed in Flatbush, not unlike
like the Dodgers, distancing themselves in their Chavez Canyon spread.. Why
didn’t you?”
Momma, a young sixtyish, brushed her left hand through her
silvery red hair. She eyed her son, a former high school do gooder (delivering
WW2 telegrams to Gold Starred Mothers , and now a student at the University.
“I wanted to be a writer. A screen writer,”
she said, brushing her right hand through her silvery red hair. “Taking night
classes at Manual Arts, where Frank Capra used to go.”
“But momma” said the son, now in University.”Southern
California is a T.S Eliot wasteland for
scribblers.. Trapped in quicksand. You should have known better.
Faulkner is in Mississippi. Poppa Hemingway in Cuba. Mailer in Brooklyn Heights.
Sartre on the lefrt bank.
All you got out here is a big circus. A high wire act, that’s all.”
IV
He turned his back on the Momma He was in University and his
Momma should realize he had insights, he
didn’t have in High School “What good were all those courses if your own Momma
didn’t come to me and ask for moral support and a sustaining point of
view.
“My son. my son, now you tell me, “ said the Momma. “I
wasted all that time taking those courses, trying to make contacts on the
tennis court. Learning to hit a backhand down the line. A forehand cross court.
I chased so many balls I thought I was reincarnated as a ball boy.”
V
“I defaulted on tennis , the little you know, snot nose. Got
the want ads. Read about a writer needing a junior writer.”
“Who was the writer, Momma?”.
“The Lone Ranger. He had a conspicuous consumptive
ranch off Coldwater Canyon in Beverly
Hills. A tycoon to the core..
“Fore,” on the 18th green for the delivery of his fan
mail... Seeing I wasn’t an outlaw into
his masked man caper, he took me in his golf car tourt as he had done
thousands of times, tinsel town’s caste system playing out..
“There’s Willie’s castle (William Randolph Hearst) Mary
Pickford ‘s(Gladys Smith)a la Flatbush
Avenue’s Prospect Park..”
VI
“Then into his role as chauffeur, he parked the golf cart.
“My library” ,the masked man waxing, his fingers dancing across his passion. “I wrote ‘em all, sweetheart.”’.
“Who was your publisher?” asked the Momma, thinking
of Bennet Cerf’s Rtandom House. Leon Shimkin’s Simon&Schuster. Max Perkins
Scribners..
“Published them myself. Using a nom de plume. Same as Daryl
Zanuck on Waner Brother’s “G Men” with “Cag” (Jimmy Cagney)
VII
“Didja meet Tonto, Momma?” (Walt Disney
rolling the dice, Johnmy Depp as the Lone Ranger’s kimosabi of an alter ego,
10/3/12))
“No way.”
“Didja do any scribbling, surfing the net, Momma? Did the
masked man ask for any credits? What have you done lately?. Harold Lloyd
? Laurel&Hardy? Mae West? W.C.Fields??”
“The masked man was a control freak, my son my son. He
wanted a typist at a dollar an hour. Like your Momma was still living in the
dark ages...East New York Brownsville the candy store syndrome of ‘My lady” immigrants ,the exodus off the
lower East Side, sweeping into the 4 Boroughs. Staten Island.
“He didn’t want to pay extra for dictation. An additional
two bits, twenty five cents.,” said the Momma.
VIII
“But he’s the Lone Ranger, Momma,” said the
son, now in University.”He always gets his outlaw. A kimosabi of
moral authority..”
The Momma placed her two hands on her son’s shoulders.
“You may have been a High School graduate and all that.
A University degree someday, my son, my son.” .
“But the masked man never went to University, Momma.
He stayed out so
long, he matriculated on his steed’s stance..”
The Momma turned her head to he son. She ran her hands
through
her silvery red hair.
“Hi Ho Silver,” she murmured..
“Hi Ho Silver.” responded her son now in University.
Why Plato banned the
artists, October 4, 2012
