Let There be Light!

My fourteen year old son asked me last night if he could watch a certain show on Netflix.  He told me that it was "really cool" and about the zombie apocalypse.  I am a reasonably open-minded parent, so I gave my permission and sat down to watch it with him.  Three episodes later I was depressed, with such a dim view of the future potential of humankind that I had to ransack the cupboards for dark chocolate.  How much rotting flesh, human snacking, marital strife, bickering, dishonesty, and raunchy conversation can one person absorb?  (I must find an equation for that...)  I enjoy dark, edgy shows.  I was a true X-Phile back in the day.  I love 40's and 50's film noir.  Yet those earlier forms of entertainment always had a glimmer of light, a ray of hope.  Fox Mulder was on a quest for the truth, and that was worth wading through mutant fluke worms.  Today's protagonists seem to be on a quest for more zombies to kill, more meth to make, more lying, stealing, cheating to get away with, more notches carved on the bedpost, more consumption, more lust, more greed, more, more, more.  It begs the question, what happened to the light?

Ah, but art is a reflection of its time, right?  We live in a dark, edgy world.  People are lying, cheating, stealing, making meth (not sure about killing zombies...).  Why should we expect anything else from our creative peers?  They are merely portraying their environment.  This is a popular but flawed conceit.  Let us consider Olivier Messiaen.

Messiaen was a French composer, born in 1908.  He was drafted into the French army in World War II and was captured at Verdun. He was sent to Stalag VIII-A, a prisoner of war camp in Görlitz.  Under what surely must have been dire and depressing circumstances, Messiaen did what any self-respecting composer would do, he created.  He met a violinist, a cellist, and a clarinetist among the prisoners and  composed Quartet for the End of Time, with a part for himself on the piano.  Given his surroundings, it would be understandable if the music were angry, harsh, clangorous.  It would be forgivable if it were a sonic assault upon our ears.  But Messiaen chose the light.  Inspired by the Book of Revelations in the New Testament and with movement titles such as "Praise to the Eternity of Jesus," Messiaen chose to improve his environment, not reflect it.  The premiere was performed for the prisoners and guards in a chilly barrack on inferior quality instruments, yet Stalag VIII-A must have been transfigured on that January night as the sublime, ethereal tones of Messiaen's musical vision filled the air.  It is truly transcendent music that elevates the soul.

There is always a choice.  We may not be able to choose our surroundings or control the situations in which we find ourselves, but we can choose how we reflect those surroundings.  We can choose what we absorb, internalize, and celebrate from our surroundings.  We can choose what we assimilate and integrate into our creative endeavors and our lives.  What does it say about humankind that so many of us choose to reflect moral and spiritual decay?  Perhaps this fascination with zombies and its attendant rotting flesh and corpse cannibalism is more of a comment on who we've become than we'd like to admit.  It doesn't have to be that way.  The undead need not come knocking at my door.  I will emulate Messiaen.  I choose the light.

Olivier Messiaen



If you are interested in reading more about the fascinating history of
Quartet for the End of Time, I recommend this excellent
article by Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker.

Zombie