How did Bosch get this preview of Hell? It's not that hard to imagine. Sartre famously said that Hell is other people, and while he was probably directly referring to some annoying waiter at Deux Magots, the line has broader implications. People are flawed, and not in the Japanese sense of wabi, in which a slight imperfection merely accentuates the fundamental perfection of a thing. Wabi is the mole on Cindy Crawford's lip, the wheat bits in Lucky Charms, or the fact that Bill Gates' fortune is owned by him and not you.
No, we're talking about deep-seated incipient screw-upped-ness, the kind that puts you on the news as the helicopter gets a top down view of the police surrounding your home. For most of us, fortunately, it expresses itself in less virulent form, usually a furtive, opportunistic violation of one or more of the seven deadly sins when we think we won't get caught. Coupled with this is the dread knowledge that, not only do we know what we're doing is wrong, but we'll probably do again the next time everyone else's attention is back on the TV. We're all a country song waiting to happen. With that realization comes the grinding sound of Satan's backhoe scraping out space in our brain for another yet Hell franchise (six billion locations worldwide!). Hell is in all of us, not just the ones who use cell phones when they drive. All you have to do is look.
Bosch looked. A pessimist and a moralist (one can hardly be one without being the other), Bosch saw what evil lurked in the hearts of men, and then hit the paint. His friends and neighbors were no doubt unhappy to learn they were the motivation for Bosch's horrifying and fantastical canvases; It's difficult to live near someone who might paint your face onto a damned creature with Hell's staff fraternizing in what used to be its butt. But there's a story about another painter which could shed some light on what Bosch was doing. Pablo Picasso once painted a portrait of Gertrude Stein, only to have someone comment that Stein looked nothing like the painting. Said Picasso: "She will, soon enough." (And she did). Apply this same reasoning to a picture of yourself with imps in your ass. It might make you think.
Beyond the existential and theological nature of Bosch's work is the fact that, as paintings, they are just so damned cool. Bosch's paintings of Hell influenced two great schools of art: Surrealism and Heavy Metal. Surrealism got off on Bosch's vibrant and innovative use of color and his ability to combine the mundane and the fantastical to make bitter and intelligent social commentary. In fact Bosch had one up on most of the Surrealists in that he actually believed in something; unlike the surrealists and their kissing cousins the dadaists, Bosch's work is rooted in morality rather than running away from it. Bosch wouldn't have painted a moustache on Mona Lisa; he'd've had her devoured by a fish demon as a pointed warning of the dangers of vanity.
Heavy Metal artists dug Bosch, because, dude, he totally painted demons. Without Bosch, we'd have no Boris Vallejo airbrushings or Dio album covers, and it's debatable whether Western Culture would be able to survive their lack.
Some ask, does Bosch's work show Hell as it really is? No less an authority than the Catholic Church suggests that Hell is not so much a location as it is a state of being, an eternal absence of God's grace rather than a place where pitchforks are constantly, eternally and liberally applied to your eyeballs. In which case, Bosch's turbulent colors and troublesome devils are just another picture show, a trifle used to scare the credulous and the dim from indulging their baser instincts, like sex and thoughts on the possibility of even more sex.
It's the wrong question. It's not important that Bosch shows Hell as it truly is; it's entirely possible that, other than a useful philosophical construct, Hell doesn't exist at all. (This does not change the fact that the Backstreet Boys must somehow be eternally punished for their crimes.) But whether it truly exists or not, humans need the idea of Hell, whether it be to scare us into a moral life, comfort the smug ones who believe everyone else is going there, or simply to remind us that the actions of our lives, good or ill, live beyond those lives themselves, and the accounting of them may occur past the day we ourselves happen to stop. Bosch saw the importance of the idea and put it down in oil.
The question is not whether Hell exists, but rather: If we could see our souls in a mirror, rather than our bodies, would they be as Bosch painted them? If they were, we wouldn't have to wait until the next life for Hell. It would already be here.
Best Non-Toxic Creative Tool of the Millennium.
Play-Doh. No one outside the manufacturing process know exactly what this stuff might be made out of (it's not clay! It's not dough! It's somewhere in between!) but just about everyone has eaten some. When you're four years old, and there's five more minutes between you and your cookies and milk, there's only one toy you have that will quell those annoying tummy rumblings. And as an extra bonus, tomorrow, you're going to have a couple of really creative bathroom moments, too! There's no downside. Thank God someone thought to make it non-toxic.
Blame the smell. You pry off the lid of Play-Doh, and that sweet, unidentifiable aroma wafts out. It almost smells like a number of things, many of them yummy. Some people think it smells a little bit like vanilla. Sure, if it's been rubberized; as good as Plah-Doh smells, it also smells identifiably non-food-like. There's something implicit in the Play-Doh Smell that says, "You know, bud, you're not supposed to eat me." Upon further sniffage, however, there's also nothing that says "Nibble on me, and your children will be born with four opposable thumbs." Kids being what they are, that's a green light to drop a ball down the gullet.
Whereupon the big surprise of Play-Doh: It's salty. As an adult, you have to wonder why salt is an ingredient in the stuff. Surely sodium chloride is not being used in its role as a preservative here; hardy sea adventurers did not venture away from sight of land with only Play-Doh and hardtack to sustain them all those months until they discovered the Pacific Ocean. I think the salt is there specifically to keep kids from eating an entire can of the stuff. Kids will eat anything, but they prefer that anything to be sweet. Salty obsessions come in those teen years. Then kids wolf down Doritos and Sour Cream and Onion chips, which are essentially salt licks for adolescents.
But I've come to praise Play-Doh, not to eat it. Play-Doh is not the only non-toxic creative tool around, after all. If one wished, one could arrange Crayolas into a delightful fan pattern, set a bowl of ranch dressing at the base, and then happily munch away (after the skins had been removed, of course) while watching football or "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." No, Play-Doh has other qualities besides the gustatory. Number one among them is the fact that it's meant to be played with.
Crayons color and paints paint. But Play-Doh is meant to be squished and squooshed and, if you're up to it, made into something else. You can't squish and squoosh your crayons, at least not without the use of a heating element, like an oven or an open flame. And of course that's a big no-no. Now, everyone once and a while a kid will make his or her finger paints into a facial mud pack. But it's not usually intended expressly as such (it's just what it turns out to be). Crayons and paints and markers are conduits; the flow of activity goes through them. They are the means, not the ends.
Now take Play-Doh. I mean that literally -- you pick it up, and make a tight little fist and let it ooze through your fingers. Kids spend hours just poking it and squashing it, making little balls of the stuff and then slamming them into thin primary color pancakes (and then eating them). It's tactility with a purpose; once you realize you can do just about anything with Play-Doh, you start thinking about what you can make with Play-Doh.
What a moment! God made Adam from the dust of the Earth, a sort of primordial Play-Doh, if you will, although it came in only one color (muddy brown). When little Bobby or Susie sets down to make that first Play-Doh person, it's a moment that recapitulates that first Divine Inspiration. Let's hope Bobby and Susie's Play-Doh planet is a happier and more peaceful than the one we've got. One suspects that God's modeling substance had more than one toxic substance in it; it would explain a lot about people. If God had made Adam out of Play-Doh,
I don't know that we'd be better, but I do know this: When we'd sweat, we'd smell like vanilla.
The makers of Play-Doh have come out with a lot of different Play-Doh Fun Toys, in which you press the Play-Doh into pre-existing forms or ooze them through holes to make "hair" or whatever. I don't much like these. Some of these playsets are simply ill-advised; the fellow who thought up the Play-Doh McDonaldland Playshop has forgotten that to a kid, a non-toxic modeling substance turned into a McDonald's fry is now actually a fry, ready to be consumed (it's already got salt!).
More to the point, it's limiting to the Play-Doh. Play-Doh was meant for finer stuff than to be extruded into fries or hair. It's meant to be played with as is: A lump of not-clay, not-dough lying in the hand of a kid, its possibilities limited only by the imagination of the child. And by the amount the child has remaining, after that first exploratory bite.
Best Domesticated Animal of the Millennium.
It's the cat, and I really don't want to hear from you doggie folks about it. As the owner of both a dog and a cat, I willingly concede that were I on a desert island with no other sort of companionship, and were given a choice between my dog and my cat, I'd go with the dog. The dog is friendlier, more fun and, most importantly, has a quite bit more meat on her frame than the cat (come on, people. If you're stuck on a desert island, it's not because you want to be there).
But dog owners should also concede that by and large, it's been a pretty good millennium for their favored pet. The Ed McMahon to our Johnny, the Paul Allen to our Bill Gates, the Captain to our Tennille, dogs have prospered inordinately from their relationship with humans over the last thousand years. Dozens of breeds have shot out of the dog's disturbingly plastic gene pool, gracing us with animals that range in size from handbag to a Volkswagen Beetle yet which are all supposedly the same species (does anyone really think that would stop a Rottweiler from eating a Chihuahua? Drop the chalupa, indeed). There've been a few episodes of human bad behavior concerning dogs over the last thousand years, yes, usually coinciding with a war so devastating that it reminded folks that Man's Best Friend was wearing a fur coat, which it wouldn't need after it was fried up right nice. By and large, however, it's been smooth sailing.
The same cannot said about the cat. The cat has spent a goodly chunk of the last thousand years being killed in depressingly creative ways by the very humans who were benefitting from its presence. These deep valleys of feline persecution were interrupted by wan peaks of enthusiasm: by the sailors, who valued the cat's companionship on long voyages, and by millers and other folks who stored grain, and were thus happy to see someone killing all those rats. But mostly, for the cat, this second millennium was all about being kicked.
Who to blame? Christianity (which I've noticed is responsible for quite a lot of things this millennium, actually). Seems that when Christianity was busy sweeping across the European continent in the millennium previous to this one, one of the ways it would compete with other religions would be to demonize the deities of those religions -- a perfectly logical course of action when one is trading in monotheism, of course. If your god is the only god, then all those other gods have to be, well, you know, false idols and all that. Thus the former gods fell into disfavor, as did their accouterments.
Including cats. Cats were intimately associated with the Norse goddess Freya, who you might know from her association with the last day of the work week (that's right, thank a Goddess it's Friday). Freya was surrounded by cats everywhere she went, and her wain was pulled by two very large and one assumes somewhat tractable cats. Cats also played a role in her religious ceremonies. You can see what's coming. Freya was relegated to a demon (the world's first "crazy cat lady"), and all those cats, her cute and furry little demonic friends, were labeled "familiars," conduits to the "To Do" list of ol' Scratch himself.
Cats were in such bad odor during the medieval times (ironic, considering innate cleanliness of the cat, and general stink of the humans of that era) that it's been estimated that the cat population of Europe decreased 90% as people killed them, quick and slow. Some cats were even tried as witches, and you can see how unfair that would be to the cat. It clearly couldn't speak in its defense, and if it could, it would just be bolstering the prosecution's case.
Europe paid for its crimes. You've probably heard about a little something called the Black Plague; the Plague was transmitted by fleas, which used rats as their public transportation system. Normally the cats would kill the rats, but all the cats were busy dying or being interrogated by the Inquisition. Rats had free rein, the fleas infected humans, and humans died horrible stench-filled deaths. Call it Freya's revenge.
Cats clearly could not have stopped the plague from coming, but they probably could have limited its impact by eliminating a main vector of infection. In fact, that's what they did: in all the zaniness and hub-bub surrounding the Black Death, people were too busy counting their buboes and their days to worry about slaughtering cats. The cat population went up and went after the rats (who, as you might imagine, were doing very well in those days); the rat population went down and with it the main avenue of plague transmission. Did the humans thank the cats afterwards? Hell, no. As soon as they were feeling better, they went back to their cat-burning ways. Stupid humans.
People eventually stopped their wholesale cat extermination policy, although felines were still never entirely trusted. Start with the black cat superstitions and move to the one about cats sucking the life out of babies and you've got yourself an animal who is even now on humanity's "double secret probation" list -- one false move and it's back to the stake with them. And don't think they don't know it. Cats are famously standoffish, but maybe that's just because they've learned the value of a running start when it comes to dealing with humans.
Admittedly, cats often don't help their case. They're not pack animals like dogs, designed down to the genetic code to follow the leader. Your dog would follow you off a cliff, because if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for him. As opposed to your cat, who would watch you all the way down, staring at you like you're the dumbass you so obviously are. Your cat likes you and may even love you (depending on how well it's fed). That doesn't mean it's going to back you up on every damn fool move you make. Cats have their own agenda, and while it's generally simple (eat, sleep, kill something its own size or smaller), it doesn't mean it's any less important than yours.
It's this element of cat nature (combined with the fact people have pretty much stopped believing cats are the Devil's own furry telephone into this world) that have finally given cats an edge in this last half of the 20th Century. We're all somewhat more independent these days, less inclined to follow the leader. The cat has the attitude of the age, and that's why this beleaguered animal has managed, finally, to make it to the top of the heap. Don't think your cat's not enjoying it. Don't think your cat is under the illusion it will last, either. More than any other animal, the cat knows the danger of human nature.
Best Buddy Team of the Millennium.
Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. Sorry to disappoint all of you who were rooting for Shields and Yarnell.
What does it take to be a successful buddy team? Well, as years of violently formulaic motion pictures tells us, you need at least a couple of the following elements:
a) One "buddy" has to be older and established, the other young and brash. At least one of the two has to be a loose cannon; usually the younger one, but the older one will do in a pinch. Sometimes the two buddies can be the same age, but one has to act older.
b) The "buddies" have to hate each other in the beginning but eventually develop a grudging respect for each other and their abilities, which usually involve guns or martial arts.
c) The buddies undertake a long and arduous quest (or police investigation) together.
d) The two "buddies" bicker like an old married couple, leading to the inevitable intimations of homoerotic undertones, even when the buddies are in fact of the opposite sex. Hey, I'm
not making up the rules. I'm just telling you what they are.
Thus, we are provided with any number of famous buddy teams: Riggs and Murtaugh. Mulder and Scully. Spock and Bones. C-3PO and R2D2. Bert and Ernie. Any two members of the Superfriends, mixed and matched. But these, of course, are fictional folks. It's much harder to match up these qualities with real people (real people being more complicated than fictional people for some unexplainable reason). Yet Johnson and Boswell had it all. They were a true 18th century dynamic duo. Just look at what they were like, when first they met in 1763:
Johnson: The grizzled veteran of the 18th century intellectual wars, famous thoughout London for both his rapid fire wit and his hulking physical presence. He could take you to town intellectually and then throw you the hell out of the saloon! Sure, he was a loose cannon in his younger days, but when you were a Tory during a Hanoveran monarchy, you had to back up your politics with your fists! Now Johnson has received a 300-pounds yearly stipend from the King, "not given you for anything you are to do, but for what you have done," notes Prime Minister Lord Bute. A symbol of gratitude from a nation...or hush money from the higher ups? Johnson will take the money. Hey! He's got drinking to do! But he'll never quell his wild intellect -- not even for the King!
Boswell: The new kid in town with something to prove! He's ditched dusty old Edinburgh for the glitzy lights of London -- but not before cutting a swath through the ladies! In London, he hung out with some pretty radical dudes, like Oliver Goldsmith and John Wilkes. They were young, they were wild, they didn't want to just wait around for the old guard to die! When you're 22, smart, and have a way with the ladies... who's gonna stand in your way?
The two have their first meeting at in the parlor of actor Thomas Davies. Did they get along? As if!