Beauty and the Bizarre
One of my jobs as a junior advisor here is to help the class prepare for the annual student talent show, which happens to be this Saturday. We're managing to procrastinate wonderfully and chose the theme last week: Freak Show. Yes, that's right: Freak Show. And all I can do is conjure up images of the Elephant Man. Or the Human Fountain I read about, who used to be a staple feature at Coney Island. He had somehow worked tiny pipes under his skin, and would contort himself into strange positions. Then he would turn the water on. I confess, I'd like to have seen his act. Or the Tattoo Lady.
I tried, in vain, to explain to students why this theme might carry connotations of exploitation, why some might be offended. Didn't work. A "Freak Show" is way cooler than a simple circus.
I think I agree. Why is that?! Why are we drawn to the bizarre, even the hideous? So we feel better about ourselves? That's the psychobabble answer, but I don't entirely buy it. So we can mock the outsiders? Partly, certainly. I learned a few weeks ago that medieval villages used to carry out an annual "perambulation" before planting a new crop. The entire village, led by the priest, would walk a big circle around the land of the village, praying about the next harvest. The perambulation effectively outlined the village insiders and outsiders. We never run out of creative ways of naming us and them.
I remember a psychology/philosophy professor in college talking about an "apologetic of beauty." He showed us pictures of children with progeria, a disease which causes people to age at a rapidly accelerated pace. The photographs caused a visible shrinking back in the class. He went on to say that we don't need to be told that this is not what a child should look like. He took our reaction of horror as evidence that this world is profoundly broken. We have some internal recognition of "rightness" and "wrongness," even about beauty and the bizarre.
Our final response to recognizing brokenness in the world and in ourselves becomes a longing for wholeness that gnaws away at us. We seek the profane, at times, to remind ourselves of how much we long for beauty, purity, and redemption.
Hmmm.
Meanwhile, in the next two days, I have to figure out how to transform the school's auditorium into a circus tent. Equipment? Old drapes, lots of streamers, ribbons, and glitter. Anyone seen MacGyver around?
One of my jobs as a junior advisor here is to help the class prepare for the annual student talent show, which happens to be this Saturday. We're managing to procrastinate wonderfully and chose the theme last week: Freak Show. Yes, that's right: Freak Show. And all I can do is conjure up images of the Elephant Man. Or the Human Fountain I read about, who used to be a staple feature at Coney Island. He had somehow worked tiny pipes under his skin, and would contort himself into strange positions. Then he would turn the water on. I confess, I'd like to have seen his act. Or the Tattoo Lady.
I tried, in vain, to explain to students why this theme might carry connotations of exploitation, why some might be offended. Didn't work. A "Freak Show" is way cooler than a simple circus.
I think I agree. Why is that?! Why are we drawn to the bizarre, even the hideous? So we feel better about ourselves? That's the psychobabble answer, but I don't entirely buy it. So we can mock the outsiders? Partly, certainly. I learned a few weeks ago that medieval villages used to carry out an annual "perambulation" before planting a new crop. The entire village, led by the priest, would walk a big circle around the land of the village, praying about the next harvest. The perambulation effectively outlined the village insiders and outsiders. We never run out of creative ways of naming us and them.
I remember a psychology/philosophy professor in college talking about an "apologetic of beauty." He showed us pictures of children with progeria, a disease which causes people to age at a rapidly accelerated pace. The photographs caused a visible shrinking back in the class. He went on to say that we don't need to be told that this is not what a child should look like. He took our reaction of horror as evidence that this world is profoundly broken. We have some internal recognition of "rightness" and "wrongness," even about beauty and the bizarre.
Our final response to recognizing brokenness in the world and in ourselves becomes a longing for wholeness that gnaws away at us. We seek the profane, at times, to remind ourselves of how much we long for beauty, purity, and redemption.
Hmmm.
Meanwhile, in the next two days, I have to figure out how to transform the school's auditorium into a circus tent. Equipment? Old drapes, lots of streamers, ribbons, and glitter. Anyone seen MacGyver around?
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