Oscar Wilde, the Numa Numa Kid, and Undergraduate Celebrity
I was thinking about Oscar Wilde the other day.
Years ago, I heard Stephen Fry give a wonderful tribute to Wilde’s skill as a writer, but Wilde’s influence began long before his celebrated literary career. In short-form, Wilde was a public figure as early as his college days. In 1878, the year he graduated, his poem “Ravenna” won the Newdigate Prize for “best English verse composition,” but even more than his academic achievements, he was known for his personality. Wilde was a pioneer of the Aesthetic Movement; known far and wide for his wit and unique style of dress. Gilbert and Sullivan even wrote a satiric operetta in response to to the Aesthetics, basing the character of Bunthorne on Wilde himself. Wilde, honestly, was the original collegiate non-conformist; a well-known personality before he ever left college. Once again, Stephen Fry said it best:
He became a famous undergraduate. Internationally famous. It’s an extraordinary idea, isn’t it? Even in the days of Web 2.0...I don’t think there’d been cartoons of undergraduates or skits or lampooning essays in Punch as there were of Wilde.
Being well-known simply for being himself makes Wilde remarkable, both for his day and in modern remembrance. In all seriousness, if you contrast the limitations of mass communication in the Victorian era against the present day's instantaneous transit of images and sounds via the internet, it’s astounding. Wilde didn’t lip-sync a Romanian love song in a cry for attention; he was a scholar who explored ideas of beauty and philosophy in both theory and practice, while still finding the time to distinguish himself academically. Wilde makes me wonder: do students revolutionize the world with their ideas any more?
Culturally, the latest trend in spreading ideas seems to be crowd campaigning, for "Arab spring” movements which celebrate the power of group activity. And to be fair, this method is not without merit. But the problem with collective ideas that lack designated leaders (and go out of their way not to have them), is that their true intentions risk never being communicated clearly and succinctly for the benefit of others. The power of the masses cannot be denied, but when individual voices are exchanged for communal shouts of protest, even the most powerful and eloquent communicator can be drowned out by the louder voice of the village fool.
The modern achievements of young individuals seem easier to find in the realm of business. Every couple of years, a student drops out of an ivy league school to pursue an idea with the goal of making a profit. These ideas tend to become startups which makes headlines for a year or two before being absorbed into golems like Facebook and Google, for obscene dollar amounts. These young idea people might be billionaires before they can legally purchase alcohol, but in the wake of their earnings, will they be remembered for their personalities or the strength of their principles? I doubt it. I suspect that they will be remembered as names and salaries on boards of directors; because, in the end, they have not fostered any lasting ideas; they capitalized on an idea and pocketed their returns.
I recently graduated college. I didn’t distinguish myself at school as anything beyond being a student. I kept good grades and earned scholarships on my ability to use my skills outside of the classroom (and write compelling letters about my experiences to the board)...but I never wrote a “Ravenna,” and I can’t recall anyone else who did, at my school or anywhere else.
Do college students still change the world, or have they settled for making grades and earning their awards within the tedium of academia?
In an era when “mass communication” meant “book” or “printed leaflet,” Oscar Wilde set trends and broke molds. He grasped the helm of the Aesthetic Movement against the uniformity and lack of edification provided by the culture of Victorian establishment. And by proxy, Wilde and his fellow aesthetes took a stance against industrialism. In Wilde’s own words concerning the values of the movement: “the mark of all good art is not that the thing done is done exactly or finely, for machinery may do as much, but that it is worked out with the head and the workman's heart.” Wilde said this not long after a famous American writer who said that “there is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide."
Whether he was much aware of Emerson and the American Transcendentalists or not, Wilde embraced that philosophy as a personal credo. Wilde’s was lifestyle which bucked black-clad Victorian sameness and obstinately refused to imitate that which was modeled for him. In a famous quote, which is incredibly profound despite its frequent reduction to a Monday morning hurrah on Facebook, Wilde summed up his life in a single sentence: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
To be fair to my modern counterparts, it was much easier for Wilde to stand out in the Victorian era of blacks, pinstripes and class constructs. A wardrobe of colored satins and a devotion to art for its own sake would create much more of a sensation when they represented the exception to the norm. Today, it is much harder to be different, even for those of creative, non-conformist or artistic temperaments. It seems that, with no Aesthetic Movement to speak for them, it is the burden of the artist carry on the mission of beauty in the world for its own value.
Wilde could be identified in a crowd for his unconventional clothing, much like the artists of today. But while Wilde’s fashion sense was wholly new at the time, there is a stigma of tiresome sameness associated with artists who, for all practical purposes, look like artists in their stained, shabby clothing, vintage eyeglasses and tendency to worship at the literary altars of Kerouac and Bukowski. For all practical purposes, in their headlong attempts to be different, many self-proclaimed artists end up looking alike, and are grouped in with other subcultures which the mainstream loves to make fun of, like hipsters or Trekkies.
But this is unfair. Legitimate artists, those who actively work to pass on a reflection of themselves or society through the creation of something new, are often identifiable by a nebulous, uncertain quality. Tempura-stained clothes and unwashed hair aside, expressive artists have often known some form of personal hardship in life, and the resulting awareness of the contrast between happiness and sadness, difficulty and ease, gives them a unique perspective on the world. This is a strictly personal observation, but I have always seen a marked physical difference between the eyes of artists and those of the people around them. In the eyes of artists I’ve spoken to, from my hometown to Germany and back again, there is clarity, a capacity to perceive and interpret detail. This trait is foreign and sometimes unsettling to the rest of us.
The position of the true artist in a society is sadly undermined by imitators who undertake art for selfish reasons. In one of his podcasts (the exact episode escapes me), Stephen Tobolowsky remarked that the problem for artists is that many people want to identify themselves as “artists,” but do not generate the creative output necessary to validate their claims. As a result, the value of true artists and their contributions to society are cheapened by those apply the title of “artist” to themselves.
This brings us back to the question pondered by Mr. Fry:
Do college students become famous or change the world any more?
Is it possible for anyone to be unique when being a non-conformist is automatically perceived as conforming to a type?
Oscar Wilde set an uncomfortable precedent. Whenever I read about his life or his accomplishments made as an undergraduate student, I am unsettled. In 2009, I watched on television as Juan Martín del Potro defeated Roger Federer in the US Open at the age of twenty. I was about to turn twenty at the time, and I remember updating my Facebook status that afternoon to say “Juan Martín del Potro just defeated Roger Federer at the age of twenty. I turn twenty in three weeks. I better get busy.”
Wait..did I just stumble over my generation’s problem?
Potro’s athletic win was not in a college environment. His accomplishment was totally different than those of Oscar Wilde, but was nonetheless achieved early in life and to international fame. Outside of college, Potro set a goal, and through blood, sweat and tears, he won. Maybe it’s the college environment that has changed. It was my experience that college set its agenda for my personal time as well as my academic time, and instead of having the space to create ideas, I was forever trapped within the processes necessary to parroting lecture notes back to my instructors. Not being a complete slacker, it crossed my mind several times to attempt standout achievements, but I was always hampered by thoughts of "if I do "A" for me, that will leave me without time to do "B" for school, and if I fail to accomplish "B," I’ll lose my grade and my scholarship.
In the end, I would just shrug it off and tweet cleverly about being busy.
And that’s my generation. We are typified by expressing outrage on Facebook until enough people with signs start running in the same direction. Then we join the mob.
Sorry, Oscar, but you set the bar just a little too high.
Thinking of Florence and missing the magic...
Have you ever been to a place that does more than get under your skin? Have you ever woken up to the morning bells of a dozen churches and been able to honestly tell yourself "I am happier here than I have been, would be or could be anywhere else?" That is what Florence, Italy means to me. Of all the places I have been, it is the one where I felt least like a stranger. To the contrary, I felt a part of it from the moment I arrived. The people I met, the places I visited and the monumental relics of art and history to which I stood witness all beckoned me forward instead of pushing me away.
It has been just over two years since I was in Florence. I've wanted to go back ever since, but can just never get the time and funds to align to make a proper trip there possible.
But I still have my memories.
Locking my camera away in an effort to literally avoid putting anything between myself and the city.
Clambering up campanile steps in a blind zeal to see the city by morning's light.
Botticelli's Venus hanging in the Uffizi; bigger than I thought it would be.
Being taught how to properly pronounce nocciola (hazelnut) at the Gelato Festival.
Walking across the Arno on one of the city's many bridges to watch the sun set from the Piazzale Michelangelo.
Getting lost on the way back from the sunset and seeing the southwest neighborhoods come to magical life in a manner rivaling scenes from Midnight in Paris.
That beautiful girl behind the counter at the pizza shop.
Michele, the hilarious shop owner near the duomo who always demanded a kiss, like a blustery Southern aunt.
Mirko, the architecture student who moonlighted as a waiter. He emailed me a year later to that I photograph his wedding...I wish it had worked out.
Michelangelo's David, tall and proud in the Galeria dell'Academia. I swear he was breathing.
Kissing the cold marble of the duomo when it was time to leave.
Myself. Alone and quiet, entirely at peace and completely content to move through the city on booted feet, and simply bear witness to it.
Florence is magical.
Christians, Christianity and the Paleo Diet. Compatible or Not?
For your weekend consumption, I encourage you to read a rather unique article which I wrote on HubPages:
Christians, Christianity and the Paleo Diet: Are they Compatible?
You have to click through to HubPages to read the article, but I would like to provide some background on it here.
I have made my position as an advocate for the paleolithic style of eating and exercise very clear. I have researched the subject for the past year and have seen remarkable results in my own life from adopting it as a complete lifestyle. Simultaneously, I also do not shy away from letting people know that I am a Christian.
People are fond of reminding me that grains are in the Bible. Fair point. Furthermore, the science behind the Paleo diet is almost entirely based on evolutionary biology, so aren't I compromising? How can I live the way that I do without compromising my beliefs or subjecting myself to ongoing cognitive dissonance?
These were questions which, after a long enough period, I had to ask myself in a structured manner. So I poured myself a cup of strong coffee, settled in with my Bible and my old friend, Google, and did as I always do when I want to educate myself on a subject: I read, researched, assimilated and typed out my findings.
This article was the result. I would appreciate your reading the full story, but here is the CliffsNotes abridgment if you are pressed for time.
- Nutritionally, the Bible and the paleo diet give the same advice. (Genesis 1:28-29, 9:1-3).
- Christ used grains and bread as a metaphor because that is what his audiences understood when he spoke to them, 2,000 years ago. The grains of today are much different than the grains spoken of in the Bible, and now contain many harmful anti-nutrients.
- The paleo diet's reliance on an evolutionary model is rooted in its desire to express why a pre-agricultural diet is most beneficial for the human body. Evolutionists in the paleo community state that we evolved to our physical and mental apex through a diet free of grains and other products of agriculture. However, this fits in very well with the Biblical model as well, only in this paradigm, it simply means accepting that an Intelligent Designer created us to eat this way, and we messed it up.
When an author shares your book review...
In case you missed it, author Richard Nikoley was kind enough to acknowledge my review of his book Free the Animal: How to Lose Weight and Fat on the Paleo Diet on his own blog. He also shared the review on his Facebook page. I knew there was a possibility that Nikoley might share my review (I went out of my way to make him aware of it, tagging him on Twitter so he would at least see it), so I made sure to proofread and ensure my review was polished before posting; just as I always do. However, when Nikoley shared the review on Facebook, it hit home that my lowly blog had been shared on a site with a huge regular readership and over 3,000 likes on Facebook.
Cue mental crisis!
I immediately scanned back over my post and made a couple of minor wording and punctation adjustments. There were no glaring errors or major misprints, but the idea of easy readability takes on new significance when the audience of a blog and the writer's reputation is suddenly put before a much larger group of people for a short time.
An identical crisis of confidence occurred last year when I reviewed J. Stanton's The Gnoll Credo on HubPages. Eventually, I will learn to let my copy rest for a day or two before proofreading and finally publishing it to the web. It would help me to avoid this crippling state of mind.
Crippling? Yes. The following visual aid should communicate it fairly succinctly.
Andrew McGee: You Can't Sell a Song in Nashville
Sometimes, I really don't know the reason that I blog at all. Originally, it was to promote my photography, but at this point it is simply a constructive outlet for me to flesh out ideas and communicate the things which keep me awake at night. I probably do myself a disservice by writing so much about health and culture instead of specializing in marketable photographic content. But, it's my blog and I'll do what I want.
Tonight, as I continue to work obsessively over my upcoming ebook (unofficially announced several times now, the "official" word is forthcoming), I want to take a break and highlight the work of my friend and colleague, Andrew McGee. Andrew has a pretty remarkable story. After a brush with death that should have sent him on to the great hereafter, Andrew decided to quite stalling and do what he really wanted to do with his life. He moved to Nashville and has created a new life for himself as a singer and songwriter.
Andrew and I met under interesting circumstances. My creative specialty is photography, but I also moonlight as a videographer from time to time. I was most heavily involved in this line of work a few of years ago, and I was introduced to Andrew on a “friend of a friend" basis. Our association was originally pretty simple; another fellow was engaged to write and direct the video for a wonderful song Andrew wrote about the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. My job was to operate the camera.
Long story short, the other guy flaked on the project and I took up the slack from start to finish. As a result, my video and my name were incorporated into the marketing for Andrew's debut album, These Beautiful Hideous Things. That was 2009, and since that fateful day we met on Pensacola Beach, with BP oil cleanup equipment rumbling about us on all sides, Andrew and I have continued to collaborate on videos for his songs. Our greatest accomplishment so far is the weekend last year when I (along with a group of other creative and reliable people who would go on to found The Dream Factory) traveled to Nashville and shot four music videos for Andrew in four days. I don't know about the rest of the team, but that weekend still ranks as my personal best.
Most performers have a blog or social feed of some sort, but Andrew's stands out. Prior to moving to Nashville, he wasn't a stereotypical neighborhood busker; He didn't and doesn’t pass off blurry iPhone photos of random drunks as his "awesome fans" to build up a web presence. Andrew is an FSU graduate with an MBA in marketing, and his blog has some serious substance. His latest entry, You Can't Sell a Song in Nashville, is stellar. Seriously, if more people recognized the realities of whichever industries they attempted to be part of, instead of delaying their own steps toward action in hopes of “getting discovered,” more dreams would see the light of day.
Read Andrew's blog. And listen to his music. Listening to his album is like listening to a good story, and he has another one coming soon.
You Can't Sell a Song in Nashville
http://youtu.be/8bSEZmoPxvo
