J.F.K. the Art World and Democracy

J.F.K. the Art World and Democracy

Originally Posted 11/22/2008 9:18 PM HST at my blog site at the Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii. Enjoy!

November is a good time of the year to get ready for the upcoming winter, a time to brace yourself for the "cold." November 22 has a particular chill for me.

i found myself perusing the obituaries today just out of curiosity. As it turns out, today happened to be a bad day for the world of Pop Art too.

In Washington D.C. a jazz pianist composer passed on. He had played jazz in the D.C. area for 40 years. He had no penchant for recording so his live music has gone along with him. I guess you could say the same for Mozart and Beethoven.

In St. Louis we lost a poet who also had Altheimers. His live voice is gone , but he left 14 volumes of poetry. They say he was good at creating foggy boundaries and expanding readers' senses.

In Los Angeles we lost a B-movie composer who composed around 200 movie scores. Much of his work went uncredited in the genres of fantasy, science fiction, and horror in old Hollywood.

In Maryland we lost an impressionist painter. She was celebrated in New York in the 1950s for her marriage of popular and classical art, predating Andy Warhol.

In New York we lost a writer who had a flair for being both witty and critical.

In Dallas we lost a President. He had pushed for American space exploration. This required the accelerated invention of computers and the miniaturizing of their components to be small enough to fit into a cramped space capsule. These efforts would produce descendent computers that 45 years later would allow even children to practice art.. Children could embark on their own journey of creative exploration. This is the expression of a true democracy.

On November 22, I give a moment of thought. I was in marching band practice and hitting the drum for Key West High when I heard the news.

I'm not sad anymore. Kennedy's legacy sits before me on my desk, all around me in democracy, and within me as my own personal freedom to create.

Yes, November is a good time of year.