Pierian Borderlands

Pierian Borderlands

by Marco M. Pardi

“His return repelled by the impermeable membrane which separated him from the “real world”, he drank deeply from the Pierian spring, treasured by the Muses of Macedonia.” Untold stories of Tonio.

“A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.” Alexander Pope. An Essay on Criticism. 1709

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These past several months have undoubtedly provided us with unusual amounts of time to ponder our existence, and the continuation thereof. Those of us not given to “binge” watching of television may have increased our reading time, walked in the neighborhood more, cleaned and repaired things around the home, learned how to assist the kids in distance learning, or spent more time meditating about life.

Included in that meditation some of us considered the possibility that Covid 19 might eventually catch us and, especially for those of us older, bring down the curtain on the final act. What has our life been about? Has it turned out as expected, or did we learn to not expect? What little mysteries did we put off until “later”?

One rather minor mystery I’ve actually enjoyed is one I discovered very early. Most of the childhood time I was in my family home was spent alone with a wide variety of books, paintings, and a radio I could listen to. Somewhere in that time I became aware that photographs, though somewhat interesting, were not compelling. They were static, frozen moments in time. Worse, they presented me with immutable fact, leaving me with little or no incentive to wonder. On the other hand, paintings seemed kinetic, somehow living and speaking of a past and a future and encouraging me to ponder a choice not taken. In later years I’ve often said, The camera captures, the brush invites. For me, the camera presents a take-it-or-leave-it fait accompli, a demonstration of mechanical technology whereas a painting invites me to imagine the mind of the artist and how the image developed there and unfolded on the canvas. Would I have seen the subject that way? How might I have done it differently?

The radio programs of the 1940’s to mid 1950’s did the same. They compelled me visualize the characters, the settings, and the broad scope of the timeless context. Even after a tour through the New York studios, watching a man “clopping hooves” onto a specially made pan to produce the sounds of The Lone Ranger’s horse I was afterwards still convinced I was hearing Silver thundering after the bad guy. I had not been locked out of the borderlands of imagination.

Yes, radio. A device largely forgotten except by those who now listen to almost entirely Right Wing “talk shows”. But unlike the hate filled fantasies spun out by the talk shows of today there were engaging programs such as Fibber McGee and Mollie; The Shadow; Sgt. Preston of the Yukon; Amos and Andy; and many others. Some readers may recoil at my mention of Amos and Andy, thinking it impolitic to reference White men mimicking Black men for popular entertainment. I did not see it as prejudiced, and I knew prejudice from the daily taunts of WOP, DAGO and MAFIOSO shouted at me by “American” kids. Their claims of being half this and half that led me to think of them as mongrels, but I did not voice that as it would stoop to their level. But then, turn off the lights, tune the radio to The Shadow and slip across the border as Lamont Cranston stalks the evildoers through darkened streets. Sail the high seas with Horatio Hornblower as enemy ships close around you. Marvel as Tarzan communicates effortlessly with fellow citizens of the jungle. Return to Fibber McGee‘s cluttered but comfortable home as he struggles to outsmart Mollie.

And then television came along. As if movies – “moving pictures” – were not enough, they sought out delinquent theater goers in their homes. And brought us characters who obviously were not from the borderlands. That’s not the Lone Ranger. And “Tarzan” holding in his gut? Anyone who has ever opened a book or listened to a radio series, venturing deeply across the border knows that casting calls almost always miss the mark. Moving pictures, at 32 frames per second (film speed), to fool the mind into thinking it is seeing motion when it is simply seeing a blur of static, take-it-or-leave-it images. We are denied entry into the borderlands, the possibilities conjured in our imaginations.

But at least early television and even film studios were compelled by their primitive technologies to capture credible presentations of something passing as reality. Now we are so accustomed to “special effects” we no longer find ourselves saying, But that’s impossible. We accept unreality as reality.

Through those early years there was “education”, the deadening process of learning versus experiencing. Primary school, three in my case, was learning the correct answers. And learning how to escape into the borderlands without getting caught by the women in Black Robes and their ever present steel edged rulers. Prep school was better, but the men in Black Robes still managed to teach Religion classes as Match the Answer to the Question, not as experiment with a thought and explore your feeling. Static, frozen answers in time. They would still be there whether I accepted them or not. After all, they didn’t belong to me.

And so, retired, sequestered and withdrawn I hear that call, “Follow your dream” and wonder. Did I follow my dream, or someone else’s? What part of life was a dream and what part was just hacking through day by day? Was I even aware it was a dream, those times when I thought I knew someone and it became obvious I didn’t? If we can become distracted, are we ever tracted?

At times I think our culture encourages us to leave the thinking to someone else. It encourages us to accept what we are told is the proper way to react to the “information” we are given and to reject all interest in what may be a larger and truer reality just across the border.

Some years ago, in southern California, I observed a group of people interested in psychic phenomena. During one session the moderator explained a process of handling an object and “psychically” sensing its history. She then passed around a common piece of decorative pottery you would find in many homes and asked one after another to hold it for a few minutes and tell us about it. I knew the moderator had a good knowledge of its history. But as each person took a turn, some seemingly acting very “psychic”, she never betrayed any agreement or disagreement with what the person said. I felt there were several ways to assess the completed process, beginning with a rejection of the standard materialist claim that it was all nonsense. Yes, the moderator very likely did have a history of the object, but what I found more valuable than a “hit” by someone was the exercise itself, in some cases a cautious toes first stepping and in others a full blown stride over the border and into the lands beyond. I don’t recall any “rights” or “wrongs” or any grades given. The object was simply put away and the next topic introduced.

I came away from that with a sense that we do not do enough of active wondering, conjuring if you like, in our lives. We live in the “Information Age” as so many empty vessels waiting to be filled, drained, and filled again until one day we crack down the center and are swept into the discard bin.

As a child I loved museums, even those exclusive art galleries where my family shopped for significant finds. Remember that saying, Cut to the chase? In fact, the chase was the term for the backplate upon which type was set (by typesetters) in preparing newspaper stories for printing. To cut to the chase meant to strip off the stories planted there in preparation for a new story.

Want to take back your life? Cut to the chase, remove the stories other people have set on your backplate and write your own. Who’s to say you are wrong?

And while you’re at it, spend some time in the art galleries of museums near you, and the antiquities galleries. Cross the border, at least for a little while. And drink deeply from the Pierian Spring. Remember, a little learning is a dangerous thing.