Do you notice how much of the action is behind the curtain?  You know what I mean — hidden from view.  I stumble across this phenomenon every time I think about whether I enjoyed an event, or the emotional impact of an object, or even whether I connect to a person I’ve just met.  For example, if you’re like me, you always find out that the dinner guest, whom you’ve described to your spouse as catatonic for the first half of your vibrant conversation and unpleasantly assertive the second half, was in fact suffering all evening under the horrible knowledge that his tumor was growing.  Great.  Now you’ve not only had an unpleasant time at dinner, but you feel guilty for being such a schmuck, and then you’re angry at the guest for having a tumor.  True.  But, notice, the tumor was there all the time — behind the curtain.  And the corollary to this behind-the-curtain garbage that really bites, is that THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING BEHIND THE  CURTAIN.  Lord help me.

I’ve been trying this theory out over the last couple of weeks by trying to peek a bit into the shadows.  In a recent trip to Kansas City for a wedding, we visited a museum that is astoundingly world-class: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.  Listen, don’t get nervous.  Monster trucks are still my go-to preference.   I don’t even like to use the word “museum” without saying 10 Hail Marys.  Will this make you more comfortable?  “While driving our flatbed to a Kansas City barbecue-and-beer joint, we saw this front lawn . . . .”

Yup, those are two gigantic birdies sitting in the front yard — made by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen — and, believe it or not, there are two more in the backyard.  Do you recognize those names?  They’re the same crazy couple who made our Crusoe Umbrella in downtown Des Moines.

In the area between the four birdies exists the museum.  Inside, amongst a gazzillion other beauties, is a painting by Pieter Claesz.  Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten where we’re going.  Here’s the picture:

Yes, it’s a still life.  Come on, take the knife out of your heart, I feel the same way about still lives.  But I want you to follow the light.  If you lean in closely, you’ll see this:

Do you see the window reflected in the glass?  Now, go through the window.  You’re outside in the sunshine.   Dancing.  How did that happen?  Well, you went behind the curtain.

Of course, this theory may be malarkey as most theories are.  And, more importantly, where is that barbecue-and-beer joint?

Joe

Memorial Day has come and gone.  It is somewhat buried under the weight of school endings, graduation parties, and the beginning of summer.  A heavy burden for any holiday.  For me, however, it generally makes me reflect on a painting of my dad.  Yes, the painting.

The painting is part and parcel with Jerry.  Born the youngest in a German Catholic family, where the father worked at the Rock Island Sash & Door and the mom raised a passel of kids, Jerry’s life was a typical blue-collar life in the 1930’s.  But Jerry was very good at math and very good at teaching.  The new field of computers grabbed his fancy in the 1950’s.  Turning his back on IBM, he ended up at the University of Iowa.  Soon he was running the newly created Computer Science Department and the Math Department.

He was 46 years old and poised to take over the world — or at least his little corner in Iowa City.  And he was funny.  I mean really funny.  Perhaps his forte was not academia but stand-up.  He began speaking internationally and was referred to as the “Flip Wilson of the Computer World.”  The sky was the limit.

Ahhhh . . . .  But, enter stage left, a small brain tumor.  It took three years for that uncontrolled mass of cells to kill him; but kill him it did.  Which brings us to our story.

As Jerry lay dying, the accolades began.  A large painting was commissioned.  A famous artist appeared who painted his head, but what to do for the now wasted-away body?  The oldest son was enlisted and the father’s head was placed on the son’s body.  Voila, the painting was born.

The Computer Center at the University of Iowa was posthumously named after him, and his last name appeared on every log-in by a University of Iowa student.  And Jerry’s picture hung with pride in the main entry way of the Computer Center.

Time marched on.  The world of computing changed from a gigantic mainframe to the wispy laptop.  In fact, years before, Jerry had engineered his fame’s demise by promoting the end of a central computing location.  And the Center vanished.  The Picture moved under the stairs and then totally disappeared.  The end of a life.

A few years ago there was a brief resurrection at the insistence of the few colleagues still alive and some of his students.  Jerry was honored, a few speeches were made, some money was raised, and everyone had a piece of sheet cake.  A second ending, but still an end.

And that was to be my story.  The story of a painting that would be the foil for moralizing about the height of fame followed by the quick drop to nothingness.  A story about living, dying, and then there you are in the basement in storage.  A fun Ecclesiastical fable.

So the other day I travelled to Iowa City in search of The Painting to prove that it had vanished.  I searched classrooms, and hallways, and even restrooms in support of my thesis.  Of course, there was no painting.   

So that was that.  I gave up the fruitless looking.  I was confirmed in my belief as to the nihilism of life.  Yahoo.

As I walked out of one of the old buildings in my smugly fruitless search for the picture, a middle-aged man was walking in.  Being the thorough detective, I decided to make one last effort to demonstrate my due diligence — so I asked him.  He paused; quietly he looked me over and then said in a soft voice:  “Go to MacLean Hall, go down half a flight of stairs, turn right, and go to room 14.  The picture is there.”    I was stunned!  Seeing my jaw drop, the middle-aged man added: “He’s a legend, you know, a legend.”  Damn him.

Did you know that there are now nearly 30,000 folks who call the University of Iowa home?  What are the odds?  Of course, I go to room 14, and this is what I see: A legend.  In room 14.  May he rest in peace.

Joe

The notion that the only interesting sights and interesting people are “elsewhere” is certainly attractive.  I mean, come on. . . .  How can it be denied that Paris, and Amsterdam, and Barcelona are State Fair-times-ten?  When we argue to out-of-towners that Des Moines really is the epicenter of post-modern cool, we only have to look in the mirror to be reminded that guy looking back won’t be gracing the cover of GQ Magazine.  And if not him or her, who will?  You check out the mirror and tell me.

So, here we are in Des Moines, Iowa, looking elsewhere for the promised land.  I don’t know, it could be in Iowa City, or Wisconsin, or California.  Certainly in London.  But it sure ain’t here. . . .

Really?

Perhaps our point of reference is a little askew.  Perhaps we need to move our game piece ten squares past the mirror — all the way to Balzac’s coat.  No, I haven’t overdosed on pastries:  “Balzac’s coat” is exactly what I said.

First, you need to go downtown.

Yup, that’s the radio tower anchoring the west end of the downtown district. And that’s the Iowa sky — scary, wild, tempestuous, and maybe even apocryphal.  A Dutch Master, say that dewy-eyed Vemeer, could have painted that same sky over the  City of Delft in Holland.  Sorry, but the sky belongs to Des Moines.  As for the radio tower, it’s the same steel-frame structure as that one put up by Mr. Eiffel — and you can smooch under the shadow of this one also.

As you go east, there are the Meredith Gardens — lush with the many shades of green that Iowa offers before the prairie winds get too strong.  The royal gardens in Paris, the Tuileries, are certainly no better (although the Parisian corn dog, the crepe, should not be dismissed as a possible gateway to heaven).

And look at the canals and sculptures outside the Pappajohn Building and the Public Library:

See.

But what puts us on the map is Balzac — we’ve got his coat.  Right here in River City.  Somehow, this French writer of The Human Comedy, who married his sweetheart after a fifteen-year correspondence (another story of social media run amuck), who is constantly depicted as stark naked by the sculptor Rodin — this Balzac guy left his coat in Des Moines.  No kidding.  Judith Shea has hung it in our sculpture garden — waiting for him to pick it up.  So, before he comes, you should check it out (move slowly around the spider).

By the way, check the mirror again — maybe with the right light and a few fish oil supplements we could make GQ.

Joe

So, you’ve tried yoga, calming tea, the 12-step program, and perhaps a small affair.  Did it work?  Of course not.  If you look backwards into the murky past, you can feel the nudge of better times.  Times of slow summer days as you made forts in the empty lots of the neighborhood.  Times where you could lie in the grass and spin a universe in your head full of heroic deeds as performed by plastic army men, who worshipped winsome damsels born from dandelion blossoms.  Times where every part of you merely wanted to be the best on your block at kickball — and, maybe even more importantly, make that dark-haired, dark-eyed girl glance at you with bubbling laughter.

But now you are a SERIOUS man or woman.  You have serious responsibilities with a serious job, a serious spouse, and serious children, who, seriously, need to get into a great college, or at least you need to enroll them in that kindergarten where trigonometry is a prerequisite.  In your neighborhood, there is no time for whimsy because “tick-tock” you’re running out of time.  Yup, that’s death knocking — you need to pick up the pace.  Faster.   Faster.  Faster.  Ahhhhhhh . . . .

Perhaps all this running from whimsy is not the answer.  Perhaps we should be drifting towards whimsy.  That is what this writing is about — getting out of your serious head for a moment, feeling foot-loose and free, and smiling.   I am a former criminal prosecutor of 30 years — which has absolutely nothing to do with this blog.   I’m also a former janitor, baker, construction worker, and foot-long hot dog seller.  They also have nothing to do with this blog.  However, I formerly directed the epic adventures of Marky Maypo — the plastic doll that I obtained through saving cereal boxtops in the early 1960’s — that has everything to do with this blog.