Variations on a Theme
the art of constraints, the constraints of art
There is an odd dichotomy in many people's thinking that says things either have to be fully determined, or completely free.
This comes up all over the place, from philosophers who fight about realism versus nominalism, to dictators (both grand and petty) who liken any deviation from their delusional edicts to anarchy, and to scientists who insist that the world must be understandable in only one way... or not at all.
In reality, the far more common case is that our actions, our thinking, and our creativity is constrained, being neither completely determined nor entirely free.
A constraint is a boundary, and within it we're free to do or be whatever we want.
A constraint does nothing to determine where the person, or thing, or system being constrained goes so long as it stays on the right side of it, but it prevents going beyond it.
Constraints can be open or closed, internal or external, and so on. For example, a submarine's hull is an external constraint: it prevents the outside from getting in. A spaceship's hull is the opposite. A cage is a closed constraint: it surrounds something. The border between Canada and the contiguous US is an open constraint: it just divides the world in two, without closing off either half of it.
When it comes to knowledge, reality constrains our ideas. It does not determine them. That is: there's more than one way to understand the world, but that doesn't mean that just any old way will do. We can't say, for example: "The traditional knowledge of my ancestors is just as good as science." If we did, we'd still be bloodletting and using poultices of cow's dung, which among my people were traditional healing techniques... and if we're going to insist that the traditional knowledge of some people is going to get a look-in, we need to be equal opportunity about it, don't we?
Likewise, in the arts, our works are constrained but not determined.
One way of demonstrating this is to consider a scene in a play from multiple angles. Give the characters different wants and you'll have a different play... but it'll be constrained by the same words. It's just that the words do not determine the nature of the scene, or the play: totally different people with different characters and different motives can say the same words... in different ways. But just as in science, it is not the case that "anything goes": there are an infinite number of interpretations that are not consistent with the text. But that doesn't mean there is exactly one that is, which is what textual determinists claim.
There's an improv game like this called "Scene Three Ways", but the best illustration I've seen of this idea is the scene in David Lynch's non-narrative film Mullholand Drive where an aspiring actress rehearses a scene with her room-mate. In the scene being rehearsed, her character is breaking up with her father's best friend, with whom she has been having an illicit affair. In the rehearsal, the two characters are angry with each other and bitter about the situation. But when she goes to read the scene at an audition, later in the film, the chemistry between her and the actor playing her lover is incendiary, and they play it as two lovers who are saying the words of a break-up while in fact surrendering completely to their mutual lust.
"I hate you" can mean "I hate that you used the power differential between us for sex" or it can mean "I hate that you turn me on so much that I'm going to keep on banging you even though I swore I would never do that again."
Same words, totally different meanings.
On the other hand, the "I hate you" in that scene is never going to mean, "Math is hard! Let's go shopping!" It might in other scenes, but in this one the meaning of the words is constrained by the parameters of the relationship to have something to do with the powerful and socially unacceptable sexual chemistry between the two characters.
When creating art, constraints are useful and powerful. We can't create just anything: we have to write specific words, paint specific colours, and so on.
One of the things artists learn in the course of their journey is how to choose constraints wisely. They need to find ones that work for them, which won't be anything like universal.
Me, I like working within the constraints of existing plots and characters. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Ham is a riff on an Arthurian romance. The work I'm currently failing to sell, Capuleft and Montaright, is a riff on Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was in fact a riff on a poem, so I’m kind of bringing it full circle. And while my work-in-progress is something that's vaguely historical, and constrained at least somewhat by real events, my next big project is going to be a riff on the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh. The constraints that these existing plots and characters put on my work keep me from wandering off into the tundra and getting eaten by wolves.
Which brings me to the actual topic of today's post, which is a variation on a theme that demonstrates how much freedom even apparently quite tight constraints can afford us.
Last year I entered a rhyming story contest and got bounced out in the first round, maybe because I didn't use ChatGPT, which was recently used to "write" an award-winning Japanese novel.
Because writing under constraints is something I enjoy, I actually wrote three stories within the constraints of the contest, the first of which I shared back in December. The constraints on the story were that it had to be a romcom, it had to contain the emotion "speechless", and it had to be on the theme "law-abiding". It also had to be less than 600 words, and rhyme. I elected to make my stories exactly 600 words, because "less than" is way too weak a constraint for me to get excited by it.
As I said, finding the constraints that work for you is a powerful tool for an artist looking to express themselves in the deepest possible way: what you can still say under tight constraints is what you really need to say, and because we're beings of limited attention, the need to focus on working within our constraints distracts the censors of our conscious mind, and lets the deep self run free.
There are an infinite number of stories one could write under the constraints I was given. The one I actually submitted was a pretty conventional riff on the genre. This one is less so, although it still leans heavily on common tropes. As part of the creation process I searched on "romcom tropes" to get an idea of what was expected, and "enemies to lovers" was practically the first thing.
The reason why people might be enemies are diverse, and this particular story came to mind because I'd read a news item about a guy who recovers stolen paintings for a living, walking the shadowy line between the criminal underworld on one side and the police and courts on the other. How rom-comy is that?
I stole the title from Ovid.
The last line is a riff on a rhyme from Chrisopher Marlowe's The Passionate Shepherd to His Love that I've always found amusing:
Come live with me and be my love And we will all the pleasures prove...
In fact, both "love" and "prove" were pronounced by Elizabethans--who were at the tail end of something known as the "Great Vowel Shift"--with an "o" that was like the "o" in the modern pronunciation of "love", but shorter: something that might be rendered in today's spelling as "luv" and "pruv".
Formal poetry is highly constraining, but this also creates opportunities to violate the constraints to get a particular effect. For example, to scan properly as iambic pentameter, the lines:
"I say you are a thief, and liar, too," she says, but he feels something's askew.
should be:
"I say you are a thief, and liar, too," she says, but he feels something is askew.
The reason it's written the way it is, breaking the iambic rhythm of the piece, is because, well... something's askew.
Form is liberating, in part because it affords us the opportunity to assert ourselves against it when we decide something else is more important.
===
The Art of Love
A stealthy figure slips along the dark
museum corridor, gives not a spark
nor glimmer of reflection as it steps
around the angled rectangles that deck
the hall with silverings. The moon is full.
Then light erupts! A woman in a guard's
dark uniform shouts at him, cold and hard:
"Freeze or I'll blow your head off, damn your eyes!"
His hands go up. "I cannot tell a lie.
I'm being paid to test security.
Release me. I will give you surety
that I won't run away. What do you say?"
"I say you are a thief, and liar, too,"
she says, but he feels something's askew.
"Your uniform is not to regulation.
Nor was I briefed on guards. This operation
was predicated on the new AI
being all that I would have to try."
Before she can reply alarms ring out,
and they both run, curious with doubt.
===
"I tell you she was just as much a thief
as I'm supposed to be," said Joe Retief
to Roderick Peal, his contact on the Force.
"But there was something in her, some recourse
to deeper things."
"You're thinking with your dick,"
his friend replied. "Stop being bloody thick."
"It isn't easy, being me," said Joe.
"Walking in between the worlds. I know
more thieves than cops, more cops than thieves.
Abundant as the autumn leaves."
===
"I tell you he was more than just a thief,"
she said to Lucy, sighing with relief
as she washed off her makeup and disguise.
"Oh please don't be unwise!" her friend replied,
remembering past sexy men who lied.
"Such a figure of a man! I think
I know of him. I'll stand him for a drink
down at the Bar Del'Arte. He will be there."
And so she went, though first she washed her hair.
===
The moment he laid eyes on her he reached
to take her picture, so her trust was breached
despite the rush of something more than lust
that flooded her. And yet, he'd lost her trust
so out she ran, into the night, alone.
He was dejected, wanting to atone,
but Rod reminded him: "You are a law
abiding citizen. It grates my craw
to see you act like this."
But still he went
back to that corridor, slipped through a vent
and found her once again, and their eyes met
across a moonlit room.
"Will you abet
a criminal?" she asked.
"I would redeem
myself and you. I want to live a dream
where you possess some stolen work to trade
for immunity. Deals can be made."
Her past welled up while she did not reply:
the orphanage, the streets, a chance to try
for betterment through crime... all that implies.
She found her voice again, a little rough:
"I have a Rothko. Would that be enough?"
===
He stood before the painting, tall and wide,
hung in a warehouse, with her by his side,
made speechless by its silent majesty
of reds and blacks and browns, the mystery
of life itself confronting him upon
a canvas that was pulsing in the dawn.
In the distance sirens sounded out.
"We have to run!" he told her with a shout,
"That is my old friend's signal that the cops
betrayed my trust. We're set up for a drop!"
"Well they can keep the painting! I'll abide
by their laws if you are by my side!"
He hustled her away, into her van
then kissed her, "Now, we must stick to our plan."
===
A month goes past, he meets her at the Louvre
then through the night all pleasures do they prove.
Delightful! …and I love “Louvre” to rhyme with “prove”. Perfect!