Maybe that is why I have a thing for minimalism in its many forms; we often love what we lack, and I wish I had the ability to write in sparse sword-strokes, piercing to the heart of bare meaning. Minimalism is wonderfully comforting. It is the beauty of the Spartans at Thermopylae's pass, and the warm words "I love you" spoken on a winter night. I have been thinking lately about it -- probably inspired by Leslie lending me Sufjan Steven's Seven Swans, a very minimal album which I have been listening to in a minimalist way, on incessant repeat -- and my thoughts have been straying in two distinct directions. I feel that there are at least two distinct types of minimalism; certainly there are two present in the Bible, and they seem to describe two types in art as well. One is the minimalism of despair, the other the minimalism of hope. Both are helpful, wonderful, and beautiful.
Part One: You Cannot Serve Both God and Mamet
"All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after." -- Ecclesiastes 1:8-11
The first function of minimalism is to serve as a sort of memento mori, a totem by which we recall the futility of our labor. "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold" says Yeats. We batten down the hatches of our lives, prepare to weather all storms, vow we will bend but never break, but in the end we wear down to the ground. Of course men are never quick to accept defeat; art is in some sense a longing to escape the grave. But nothing is more pathetic than a man who tries to circumvent death through the work of his hands. He is like Ozymandias screaming through the centuries on his trunkless legs: "Look on my wonders ye Mighty." And we do despair, but not at the cold greatness of the man. Rather we despair that good can come from any man. If even the greatest among us fall and ground down by the sand, what chance does man have? The victory of history is shallow indeed.
This type of minimalism strikes me as very present in David Mamet's great play/film Glengarry Glen Ross. Mamet is famous, justifiably, for his take on dialogue. Meaty, masculine, brutal, his words smash the reader between the eyes. The play features a cast of desperate real estate men, pushed to the limit by the demands of their company. They must sell real estate or be fired, yet the prime leads are given only to the man who has consistently been the top seller. The other leads are broken down, no good: crazies and deadbeats. They have been canvassed to death. The salesmen despair, but they continue to try because they have no choice. They call up the same targets, spout the same weary lies, go through the same tired out motions. In particular Shelley Levene, the most veteran salesman, seems a man doomed to run in circles to the grave (Mamet brings this point into sharp focus by the end of the play). His daughter is sick and he needs the money, but he has lost the touch: he could not sell thermal underwear to an Eskimo, much less an icebox. He has no real hope, but he clutches at the straws of his repetition. In this way Mamet's dialogue is a masterstroke of minimalism: key phrases crop up throughout the play, but beyond this his characters speak in circles. They speak their minds piece by piece, as if they needed to gain the confidence to say everything. Their speech is much like the starting of a push lawnmower, a gradual sputtering built to a roar. But of course the roar is full of sound and fury.
In a sense Glengarry runs parallel to the book of Ecclesiastes. Vanity of vanities, all a vanity. Such are the lives of Mamet's men. They toil with the sweat of their brow, but do not know who will reap the reward of their labor. Even Ricky Roma, the slick salesman with the magic touch, sees his conquest vanish in the smoke of futility, set alight by his lies. Things fall apart: sales, minds, lives. The futile circuity of life shows us nothing new, only the vain strivings of men too foolish to realize how utterly consigned they are to failure.
Part Two: Through a Glass Darkly
Yet there is another side to minimalism. Simplicity and repetition are the guttural cries of Qoheleth, the trunkless legs of stone, but they are also, paradoxically, a reminder that all things are made new. This may not seem obvious on first glance, but it makes sense. Only when we strip ourselves of the grand illusion of human progress do we see the real building of history. It is like Babel in that it raises us to the heavens, but at the same time the Anti-Babel, not a tower grasping up but the ladder thrown down from heaven. It is the same old story, yet new every morning.
This is why the Psalms constantly call us back to remembrance. The exodus is not merely a remarkable event that happened long ago: it is the pattern of life. When we remember the cloud and pillar, we see the grace God gives day by day. So to the cross, that final exodus. As Christians we must constantly remember back to that discrete point in history; not because (as some have said) we are anti-progressive, but because we know the startling truth that all progress flows like the water from His side.
"History repeats itself". A cliche, very well. Even a true cliche. But I think we miss the full significance of the statement. We say it when mankind makes mistakes: "Oh there goes history repeating itself again". It is the soundtrack of the blooper real of human existence. We see the first purpose of life's minimalism, but not usually the second. History repeats itself every day: the sun comes up as surely as it sets. Babies are born no less than old men die. Grace upon grace flows to us.
Yeats apparently thought of history as an ever widening spiral: repetition intertwined with progress. This is false in one sense, in the sense Yeats intended. Where he saw some frightening new creature slouching to Bethlehem, we know that no birth can ever happen in that small town again. But in another sense he is on to something, for the circular nature of life does not preclude a building up of things. We do not merely spin in place, nor is the swirling descent to the ground an inevitability. Life in the Kingdom is a relentless moving forward; it merely refuses to move in a straight line. Rather than moving from point A to point B, the story of redemption is the curve of a story, the constant move toward the center from which all things flow.
Think of the miraculous music of Phillip Glass. Many Glass works start with just a pulse, an insistent rhythm which will not be held at bay. Simplicity itself, but strangely affecting. Little by little the piece grows. New instruments add their voice but always circle back around to that main theme, the lifeblood of the piece. People who find minimalism boring simply do not listen hard enough; they are novelty seekers. There in the barebones, the pulse, lies the essence of music, that to which all should return. Not that there is no development: on the contrary, the pieces often build up to dizzying heights. But all growth is focused on that center. In a sense, most great music is a type of minimalism, for you cannot have development and exposition without a theme. No matter the wandering, music returns home.
This, then, is the ultimate sad fact of the myth of progress: it is not merely foolish but empty as well. Man labors all his days to build a bark hut, while the city of God descends unnoticed to earth. Only grace can change the downward spiral of repeated actions into a Jacob's ladder of endless praise.
This is why the Psalms constantly call us back to remembrance. The exodus is not merely a remarkable event that happened long ago: it is the pattern of life. When we remember the cloud and pillar, we see the grace God gives day by day. So to the cross, that final exodus. As Christians we must constantly remember back to that discrete point in history; not because (as some have said) we are anti-progressive, but because we know the startling truth that all progress flows like the water from His side.
"History repeats itself". A cliche, very well. Even a true cliche. But I think we miss the full significance of the statement. We say it when mankind makes mistakes: "Oh there goes history repeating itself again". It is the soundtrack of the blooper real of human existence. We see the first purpose of life's minimalism, but not usually the second. History repeats itself every day: the sun comes up as surely as it sets. Babies are born no less than old men die. Grace upon grace flows to us.
Yeats apparently thought of history as an ever widening spiral: repetition intertwined with progress. This is false in one sense, in the sense Yeats intended. Where he saw some frightening new creature slouching to Bethlehem, we know that no birth can ever happen in that small town again. But in another sense he is on to something, for the circular nature of life does not preclude a building up of things. We do not merely spin in place, nor is the swirling descent to the ground an inevitability. Life in the Kingdom is a relentless moving forward; it merely refuses to move in a straight line. Rather than moving from point A to point B, the story of redemption is the curve of a story, the constant move toward the center from which all things flow.
Think of the miraculous music of Phillip Glass. Many Glass works start with just a pulse, an insistent rhythm which will not be held at bay. Simplicity itself, but strangely affecting. Little by little the piece grows. New instruments add their voice but always circle back around to that main theme, the lifeblood of the piece. People who find minimalism boring simply do not listen hard enough; they are novelty seekers. There in the barebones, the pulse, lies the essence of music, that to which all should return. Not that there is no development: on the contrary, the pieces often build up to dizzying heights. But all growth is focused on that center. In a sense, most great music is a type of minimalism, for you cannot have development and exposition without a theme. No matter the wandering, music returns home.
This, then, is the ultimate sad fact of the myth of progress: it is not merely foolish but empty as well. Man labors all his days to build a bark hut, while the city of God descends unnoticed to earth. Only grace can change the downward spiral of repeated actions into a Jacob's ladder of endless praise.
