Art + Math = Identity Crisis

One of my favorite* pieces in the new exhibition at my workplace is a large fan made of combs on the floor by Sonya Clark. It's beautiful, for one thing. It has a lot of very striking resonances, and I find new things to like about it each time. Plus, it's placed next to a giant tapestry made of hair, and who doesn't love clever juxtapositions?

But now, I have a problem. This piece has a feature that I didn't notice until someone brought it to my attention. And now that I see it, I don't know what to do.

At the reception, someone pulled me aside. He was very excited. He said, "That piece on the floor, how many combs are in it?" I said I didn't know. He suggested we have a contest, like a guess the number of jelly beans in the jar type thing, and I said the idea had come up before.

Then, he said this: "You know, it's a beautiful example of a binary tree."

I hate math. When I had to write a press release template, I made it about my hatred of math. I have a who, what, where, why and how much for my math hatred, and an "About Math" section (About Math: I hate it). Got it?

I can pretty much instantly remember the year LIFE magazine was founded (and what was on the cover, and who took the photograph), but math terms tend to be buried deep, probably under the pile of embarrassing moments I acquired during middle school, tucked away in some neglected corner of my brain that I'd rather not visit again. In any case, they're very hard to find, if they're even there at all.

The man must have sensed that binary trees are not exactly in my memory's immediate recall.

He sighed, and I got the feeling that maybe he had brought this up with someone else earlier, with similar results. Maybe he's a math teacher. "Binary trees. You know, each branch doubles. See? it starts with one comb, then it doubles each branch. two combs, four combs..."

"Eight combs! sixteen combs!" I shrieked like a three-year-old who just learned to spell her name. "Er..I hadn't noticed it before. How interesting."

He smiled. "Oh, it's quite obvious."

The thing is, seeing the binary tree in the piece makes it even more beautiful. It adds something (get it?). The man was right to be excited. There's a precision and pattern to Sonya Clark's piece, and he knew exactly why. But it's math. So I should hate it, right?

I don't know. Even the term "Binary tree" is beautiful. Maybe there's something to the beauty of mathematical precision.

*I have about 15 other favorite pieces in this show.

Tolle, Lege

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"How Long O Lord, to wait

Beside this open gate?

My sheep with many a lamb

Have entered, and I am

Alone, and it is late." -John Banister Tabb, "The Old Pastor."

I pulled an Augustine and opened to a random page of an American poetry anthology. That's what drew my eye first. I wonder if he wrote it before or after going blind.

"Your brain peaks at 18. After that, it starts to deteriorate." God help the person who learns that after turning 19. I think I heard it first in elementary school. God help the teacher who teaches that fact year after year. Mine was 50, at least.

I got the American poetry anthology from my grandparents last night, at my grandmother's 79th birthday party. They're giving stuff away; they think they're dying soon, despite their good health. The anthology is part of a "home education program" in American literature. Poetry, Short Stories, Short Novels, Literary Essays, and the Key. The Key tells you what to read and when. It's the professor, but it's showing its age more than anything else in the collection. After all, according to the Table of Contents, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Archibald MacLeish, and e.e. cummings are all still alive. Damn.

Now, the Key teaches you a canon comprised of dead men, many of whom were still alive and producing when deemed worthy of the course. There are some women in there, but they're almost all dead, even to the Key. I guess the Key liked dead women better than living ones. I bet the Key and Gogol would have been pals.

I'm going to take the course with Professor Key. There are even a list of questions I can answer about each text:

Does Whitman's celebration of himself in "Song of Myself" seem arrogant, egotistical, or a justifiable acceptance of himself and the world he found himself in?"

Masters' poems have a prose quality. Explain.

Crane is an ironic poet. Write an essay (350 to 400 words) on this subject.

Explicate "In a Station of the Metro"

Many of the images in "Preludes" are ugly. Does this mean that they are unpoetic?

Does the play involve the American experience in any clearly recognizable way? Explain.

Are the characters mere types or are some of them, at least, fairly complicated?

Write an essay (600-700 words) entitled The American Short Story Since Crane.

... I don't think I would have been a very good student in this class.