Mutual Monarch

Last July, my wife and I were to have seen Orville Peck as the Emcee in Cabaret in New York.  However, on the day of the performance, I received an urgent text message.  Peck was unable to perform that day, and we had to decide within the hour if we’d still attend the performance with a different performer in the role or return our tickets for a refund. To be honest, we were not familiar with Peck at that time, so his appearance in or absence from the show didn’t make any difference to us, so we saw the show and thoroughly enjoyed it. By the way, Peck’s replacement was Marty Lauter, a drag performer known as “Marcia Marcia Marcia” who competed on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Concerning Peck, though check out the photograph at the right along with a snippet of info I found in an article from the New Yorker entitled “Orville Peck, the Masked Man Our Yee-haw Moment Deserves”:

“What we officially know: Peck is Canadian, gay, a transplant from punk music. Many of the shibboleths of country gatekeeping were being obliterated—and good riddance.”

LET’S BOIL THAT CABBAGE DOWN:  Shibboleth: “a custom, principle, or belief distinguishing a particular class or group of people, especially a long-standing one regarded as outmoded or no longer important.”  (LOL – I freely admit – although I used context clues to figure out the meaning, – I looked up the definition anyway.)

Now to the photo at hand: stylistically with the individual figure and the minimalist background, it reminds me of a Sherald-esque portrait.  Compare it  to the painting below by Sherald.  If one were to draw a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the two, I suspect there’d be quite a number of details in the overlapped area.  Shibboleths subjugated!

And the title of the painting?

Well, the subtitle is “All American,” and Sherald could have left it at that.  However, the full title is “What’s precious inside of him does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence.”  With one alteration of a pronoun, the title comes from the last stanza of the poem “The Winter of Listening” by David Whyte.

Whyte is an Anglo-Irish poet who has said that all of his poetry and philosophy are based on "the conversational nature of reality.”  His personal website states that he is a “poet, philosopher, speaker”:

“Behind each of these approaches lies a very physical attempt to give voice to the wellsprings of human identity, human striving and, most difficult of all, the possibilities for human happiness.”

LET’S BOIL THAT CABBAGE DOWN:  Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  (Fits with the painting perfectly, no?)

The quote from the poem – and the title of the painting – emphasizes that profound, inner truths –or the "precious" essence of an individual – are often obscured or diminished when the logical mind attempts to over-analyze or define them.  They (the quote and title) are a declaration of authenticity through self-acceptance. They emphasize embracing one’s true nature and refusing to live in a state of self-denial or self-betrayal.

LET’S BOIL THAT CABBAGE DOWN:  A succinct affirmation of this conviction comes from noneother than Popeye the Sailor Man:  “I yam what I yam.”

In thinking about some connection to Dickinson with this ideology of self-acceptance, self-love, and self-respect, I first landed on a quote from the poet with which I am familiar: “I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.”

Of course, if any poet knew herself intimately and deeply, it was Emily Dickinson – and what a wonderful quote, no?  It illuminates the idea of her innermost soul searching for self-discovery – uncovering her true values, passions, and desires – all leading to a more authentic and purposeful life. What a  transformative journey for Dickinson it must have been – “looking for herself” with metaphoric  lanterns to overcome any self-doubt. 

Well…are you sitting down?  That’s the true gist of the quote.

No, this line about the lanterns “searching for myself” is from a letter to Elizabeth Holland shortly after her family moved from their home on North Pleasant Street in Amherst back to the Homestead on Main Street.  Here’s a portion of what Dickinson wrote:

“I cannot tell you how we moved. I had rather not remember. I believe my ‘effects’ were brought in a bandbox, and the ‘deathless me,’ on foot, not many moments after. I took at the time a memorandum of my several senses, and also of my hat and coat, and my best shoes - but it was lost in the melee, and I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.

Such wits as I reserved, are so badly shattered that repair is useless - and still I can't help laughing at my own catastrophe. I supposed we were going to make a ‘transit,’ as heavenly bodies did - but we came budget by budget, as our fellows do, till we fulfilled the pantomime contained in the word ‘moved.’ It is a kind of gone-to-Kansas feeling, and if I sat in a long wagon, with my family tied behind, I should suppose without doubt I was a party of emigrants!
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They say that ‘home is where the heart is.’ I think it is where the house is, and the adjacent buildings.”

So this wonderful quote about soul-searching – “I am out with lanterns, looking for myself” – was not about soul-searching at all.  It was about the chaos and confusion of trying to locate one's personal belongings in the “melee” of a pain-in-the-ass experience moving.

Fear not, though, dear reader – I have landed upon  a very suitable verse by Dickinson’s to connect to Sherald’s painting – and it’s quite profound:

LET’S BOIL THAT CABBAGE DOWN:  "L'etat, c'est moi.”  More specifically, “L'état (D'ÊTRE) c’est moi.”

Subjugate consciousness not, my King or Queen.  Banish not you from yourself!.  Your corporeal being is “mutual monarch” to your inner spirit  Abdication is needless when what’s precious inside does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence.

For further reading, a thoughtful analysis of the poem is HERE. Also, more on the painting from Ekow Eshun of the Whitney Museum is HERE.

And now for the grand finale -- the showstopper ending -- or, as they say in the artworld -- the final stoke:

Reign and shine!​