“He turns revolt into a style, prolongs
The impulse to a habit of the time.
British poet.
The Sense of Movement, "Elvis Presley”
Man by nature is a fan of the arts (probably because he was made by an artist!), He can sway to the tunes of a melody in an unknown tongue, appreciate a wonderful drama in which no words were spoken, the duo of music and drama is common fabric of every culture.
In the African forest, it was tales by moonlight, the beautiful young daughters of the land swayed like gazelles to the melody of the drum and the flute. Old men and women spun tales that would fire imaginations of the young and bear retelling many years later. Man has for centuries longed for entertainment and has found ways to satisfy that yearning. Central to this universal need is the creative genius in man; this genius is seen in the life of a child with his/her capacity for wonder. Tell a child of Alice in wonderland and you’ve found a friend, let the child grow up a little and Peter Pan would do, with the advance in years comes the need to stretch the limit in order to achieve the same degree of wonder and man has tried over the years to climax a climax, at 11 it would take a “Terminator” to thrill him.
Chinua Achebe stirred our creative genius and we applauded, Wole Soyinka did the same and we all remember him for that and Shakespeare too. A great story it would have been until Hardley Chase showed up to illustrate our darker nature, it didn’t take long for pornography magazines to give the lurid details. Stephen King then dared us to stand the tale of it, Harry Porter asked since we didn’t believe in God we could try the witches!
The effect of the Arts always begins from literature (tales, logic and books) to drama, then the logical progression to kitchen table talk (our experience). 45 years ago, nobody thought we would come this far, when the Blues replaced Afro-American spiritual and country Waltz we believe it told the tale of the heart making way for a billion dollar industry that peddled love. From love, the attention shifted to sex, man needed greater stimuli, we had developed tolerance! Madonna’s “material girl” hit the airwaves, at first it shocked some but we later made her a star.
Drama (movies) had to play catch up and over the years it has provided ample illustration to the strides of music and literature.
In Jackson, we saw the progression from “cool” to “wild” to sheer “Wacko”. It would have been ok if the wacko stopped at the screens but it has entered most bedrooms from the sitting room, man had underestimated the arts. It entered in and abused little boys and girls, signed divorce papers and bolstered gay issues, sold drugs and started shooting guns, now it is delivering home-made bombs!
In Presley, we should have known that it wasn’t real. The modern art as you know is a maze of Mundane unrealities becoming existing realities i.e. if you behold it long enough, in the beginning we created arts now it is creating us. The recent Grammies illustrates this point quite well; man is trying to achieve another climax after attaining psychological dependence. if the divorce stats, depression rates, prescription pill related deaths, boobs and tummy tucks, uncanny affections, HIV rate and the average American star emotional life is not sufficient to alarm us then the thought is alarming!
The classical theatrical make-up now involve Botox needles and scheduled surgery visits, man has aromatized himself to impotency. Teenagers not only throng pharmacies for condoms now but for Viagra too!
A frog would jump out of a pot of hot water, but if you put him in a cold one and bring it to boil gradually you have a Chinese dessert, like John Nash in “a beautiful mind” it is time we realize that “it can’t be real, she never grows old”. There is always enough indices to separate reality from unrealities and one is rationality, our modern art has enough inbuilt contradictions to be explained away but man has refused to hearken, not when he is working on another high.
If drinking sea water is the only option for a man stranded in the middle of the sea, it is still a death sentence. Contemporary man is a thirsty man in on a sea of contemporary art, He has looked around, drunk a mouthful, a bottle-full and has adjusted to the taste.
Jesus on the other hand, knows that sea water would never do and had made a candid plea that still bears repeating when He said, “Are you thirsty? Come”.
You don’t have to drink sea water.
Okwonna Nelson
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