Method Artistry

Originally written Saturday, December 17, 2005

Oh, my.

Where do I begin?

Chronologically, of course. I merely ask the rhetorical question for the dramatic effect.

Lunch with Richard yesterday was at a homey Italian place, the kind where the menu and the portion sizes are inversely proportional to the square footage (that is, much food and little space, not vice versa). As I approached the restaurant, I was surprised to see Patrick waiting for me outside the door. He pushed himself away from the wall he was leaning on and walked a few steps to meet me. I noticed he’d positioned us out of view of the large front windows. Standing very close to me and vaguely resembling an FBI informant, he pulled a dark, palm-sized crescent out of the oversized thigh pocket of his cargo pants. “Here,” he said, “let’s trade.”

I couldn’t say it looked identical to mine, but it was a commendable replica. I looked inquisitively at him, awaiting the explanation behind it.

“It’s clay,” he offered. “I used to do pottery and sculpting in high school. Lemme see the real one. I wanna see how close I got.”

I drew Bella’s out of my own pocket and held the two side by side. They were nearly exact in dimensions and shape; only the size and spacing of the textured holes, worn from the coral by erosion but scraped from the clay by human design, differed. Patrick’s looked both more random and more refined. Nature often yields patterns that people resist in their efforts to replicate it; in developing the capacity for replication, humans drift from their own place in nature. From method acting, there should perhaps emerge a method artistry, wherein the sculptor can reestablish the latter in the service of the former. Although on the one hand I imagine art teachers in sandals and long skirts instructing earnest young pupils to “Be the coral, feel the waves trickle through your pores,” on the other hand it could also make for an especially good exercise for Patrick in particular. I took the mental note and addressed the moment.

“Pretty good work. So… why?”

“Just in case. You know? You don’t know what Richard wants. This way you don’t have to give up the real one if he asks for it.”

I sighed. He’s so enthusiastic about the opportunity to engage in surreptitious undertakings that he’s thinking three or four steps ahead of the game. “Do you play chess?”

“I didn’t used to, but Dennis plays. He started making me play like a year ago, and now I always beat him. He hates to play now.”

“That’s my boy.” Not just for playing chess but for recognizing that my inquiry was not a non sequitur. I dropped the fake voodoo charm into my coat but hesitated to give Patrick the original. “He might be sincere. I’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”

He nodded. “I get it.”

I smiled and thanked him before going in. “You have your phone on you, right?”

“Always.”

Right. Cell phones are cyborg-like appendages for his generation. My near-30 friends in this re-gen, on the other hand, are cell-optional. No one had one as a child, so they see it as modern technology, a convenience rather than a necessity, albeit a convenience with a high dependency factor for some. The internet spread throughout middle-class America several years before mobile phones, and so that is their cyborgian equivalent. Oh yes, and I’ve been reading Donna Haraway. Grey Orchid philosophies obviously were not developed to accommodate the way these tools have become integrated into people’s very identities, but I don’t see them as contradictory to the ancient teachings. Most people seem to want to see nature and technology as opposing forces competing for our priorities, and indeed the makers of technology seem intent on making the connections harder and harder to bridge, but I don’t think the cause is yet lost. Anyway, I had to confirm it with Patrick because, well, I play chess sometimes, too.

I went in and found Richard already at a table tucked discreetly into a corner. The size of the room—which, as I’ve already mentioned, was the eatery equivalent of a postage stamp—did not allow for private conversation too easily, but somehow he had found the one spot that might. He rose as I entered and kissed my cheek before pulling my chair out for me. We traded pleasantries about traffic, weather, and parking, studied the menus, and placed our orders. I chose a bottle of wine for us to share (a Tuscan chardonnay of recent vintage), and we spent a good fifteen or twenty minutes babbling about absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Me: teaching is fine, glad to be on break, article accepted at a journal last week, blah blah blah. Him: art deco architecture exhibit opening, organizing silent auction, contributions up from last year, etc. etc. etc. And so on.

It wasn’t until the chardonnay was near finished that the conversation turned a bit more personal. He knows me too well to think I’d become more loosened up from imbibing a mere half bottle; I wondered therefore whether he had been waiting until the wine had done just that to him. If the subject was so difficult for him to broach, then that might say something about his sense of culpability in the situation. I took advantage of these possibilities to guide the discussion into a direction favorable to me while I could still make it appear casual.

“So what kind of holiday plans do you have?” I asked. “And for that matter, what holiday are you celebrating these days?”

The events of this day to be continued...