Billy Bob, the Brazilian, and the Misplaced Gaze
April 12 2009

Two major arts events this week.

One spectacularly public. One hermetically private.

One a thoughtless wisp. One a thoughtful universe.

One attracted the depthless outrage of prurient social buzz. The other meandered into the Pianobabbler's mindscape.

Billy Bob Thornton was interviewed on CBC by Jian Ghomeshi. The former is a Hollywood B actor. The latter is a former musician, and now an unskilled broadcaster. Thornton has a country music band. He scored time on national radio because of his Hollywood celebrity. He set as a condition of the interview that no questions be asked about his movie career.

Ghomeshi stuck to the deal, but when introducing Thornton and his band, quickly mentioned the Hollywood connection. D'uh. Elephant in the room. Ghomeshi did no wrong.

Nevertheless, Thornton gave a demonstration of organic petulance. He deflected questions with oblique weirdness, and passive-aggressive detachment. His tantrum was quiet and protracted.

It had no effect on Ghomeshi. He handled it badly. He should have confronted the actor. Shown outrage at his treatment. Got to the core of the story unfolding before him. Instead, he remained largely passive and beggarly. It earned him puppy dog sympathy, but no journalistic points.

(The real victims of Thornton's narcissistic antics: his hapless bandmates, locked in the studio with him.)

The dog-bites-man-ness of the story attracted public attention, nationalist howls (Thornton put down Canadian audiences), and tsk tsk's around water coolers everywhere.

So what? Indeed. So what.

At the other end of the telescope, The Pianobabbler chanced upon a book on his wife's shelves. The Foreign Legion. Author: Claire Lispector. Never heard of her. But the book was made up of short, very short, stories. Just what I was looking for. So I took it for a quick glance. I expected little.

O mother of all that is good. O ye gods of unfathomable discovery. Where did Clarice Lispector come from? Brazil, actually. Where she died in 1977, at age 57.

But I didn't literally mean where did she come from. I meant what planet was this supreme author from? How could I have gone my whole reading life without having heard of a writer who belongs beside Kafka and Nabokov, and one shelf above Camus and Salinger?

Let's not hold back: Clarice Lispector was a genius of the soul, the mind, and the word. While I regret not having discovered this national treasure of Brazil earlier, I am happy to have done so now. It gives the Pianobabbler a literary companion to look forward to as he ages.

But my point is not to praise Clarice Lispector. It's to comment on the public gaze.

Why did the empty mutterings of a lesser man command the public gaze for a week? Why do the precious words of an artist for the ages not do so?

What draws the attention of many, even when they are assured to be left with nothing of value after paying their attention? What discourages them from making that same payment of attention, when they can be almost certain their lives will forever be changed for the better?

Why does popular culture in North America sometimes gravitate to the tasteless? Why does it avoid the taste-filled nutritious alternatives?

Why does dreck draw? What misplaces the public gaze?

I know. This is not a new problem. Aristotle complained of the mass' predilection for spectacle. We all have our answers and theories. We need not rehearse them here. My point is to point out the problem, not resolve it.

The Pianobabbler can only hope that, as he grows older with and closer to Clarice Lipsector, the name and ways of Billy Bob Thornton will be remembered as bad fiction of the likes our Brazilian heroine could never have written.

- Click here for the Wikipedia entry on Clarice Lispector

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