June 29: Turn in the Dark, "Get Out," Art and Truth

Santiago waits for the fish to take his bait . . . 

This far out, he must be huge in this month, he thought. Eat them, fish. Eat them. Please eat them. How fresh they are and you down there six hundred feet in that cold water in the dark. Make another turn in the dark and come back and eat them.

He felt the light delicate pulling and then a harder pull when a sardine's head must have been more difficult to break from the hook. Then there was nothing.

Art has ways of speaking to you deeply.  For me, the story of Santiago and his fish is about poetry.  Every time I sit down to write, I'm Santiago in the boat, paddling far out onto the sea to try to land the big one and bring it home in one piece.  Santiago ultimately fails.  Generally, I do, too.  

This evening, my son and I watched Jordan Peele's movie Get Out.  I had seen the film once a couple years ago.  It was the first time for my son.  Of course, it's a movie designed to make white people cringe and feel the kind of guilt that white privilege allows us usually to ignore.  

After the movie ended, my son said, "That movie made me feel bad about being white."

I nodded, the said, "I don't think it's meant to make you feel bad about the color of your skin.  I think it's supposed to make be aware of the kind of things that African Americans encounter every day in their lives."

He nodded and then sat there thinking for a while.  Finally, he said, "It sort of messes with your head."

"Well," I said, "the fact that you feel those things means that the movie did its job."

That is what good art is all about.  It messes with your head.  Makes you feel uncomfortable emotions.  Uncovers truths that are usually deeply buried.

Here endeth Saint Marty's lesson for the night.