The glow of celebrity is bright. Most people know Steve Martin as a popular entertainer, movie star and standup comedian. He is, though, also a very serious art collector and, most recently, an author of a novel set in the art world, An Object of Beauty. At a recent event in New York, the serious side of Martin was not appreciated, given the demand for the celebrity. I see this as a manifestation of a basic social problem.
The simple proposition, “there is a time and place for everything,” which I take to be not only a popular saying but a fundamental condition of modern life, is challenged in our present media environment. Now on different fronts, the significance of the challenge is becoming most apparent.
I’ve already observed this in thinking about the spread of economic logic to more and more spheres of our social life (link), (compactly named by Jurgen Habermas as the “economic colonization of the life world” in his Theory of Communicative Action) And clearly the issue arises in the case of WikiLeaks. But it also appears in surprising moments and locations.
There is the strange case of Steve Martin’s latest visit to the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, leading to the embarrassment of all involved. (link) Martin went to an institution known for serious discussion about all sorts of issues, but was not permitted to have such a discussion with Deborah Solomon, a writer for The New York Times and art historian and critic.
At the Y, the demand for the entertainer silenced the collector and writer. I think the primary reason for this was that the event was telecast nationwide and the email messages from that electronic audience did not permit the live event from developing as it otherwise would have.
Solomon is an expert interviewer, Martin an expert performer. The interview apparently started unsteadily. They wanted to frame their discussion about art and not entertainment. They needed to reframe audience expectations. In that Martin and Solomon are accomplished professionals who have worked together before, it is predictable that they would have succeeded. And this was important for all involved, given what they have in common, and the character of the location of the event. But because they were not permitted to freely work their audience, the event was derailed.
Martin in an op.ed. piece described how he experienced the event:
When I arrived for Monday’s talk, I was informed that it would be telecast on closed-circuit TV across the country. What I wasn’t told was that the viewers were going to be encouraged to send in e-mails during the discussion; what I didn’t expect was that the Y would take the temperature of those e-mailed reactions, and then respond to them by sending a staff member onstage, mid-conversation, with a note that said, “Discuss Steve’s career.”
This was as jarring and disheartening as a cell phone jangle during an Act V soliloquy. I did not know who had sent this note nor that it was in response to those e-mails. Regardless, it was hard to get on track, any track, after the note’s arrival, and finally, when I answered submitted questions that had been selected by the people in charge, I knew I would have rather died onstage with art talk than with the predictable questions that had been chosen for me…
I have no doubt that, in time, and with some cooperation from the audience, we would have achieved ignition. I have been performing a long time, and I can tell when the audience’s attention is straying. I do not need a note. My mind was already churning like a weather front; at that moment, if I could have sung my novel to a Broadway beat I would have.
People sending the email messages were outside the situation. They could observe Martin and Solomon, but Martin and Solomon couldn’t in turn perceive them and their reactions. The interaction between performer and interviewer with their audience was stifled. Because the electronic audience, the audience present, and the performers could not work together to calibrate the framing of the event, the event failed. The place and time for discussion about art and writing couldn’t be established in the face of a demand for entertainment .
Being concerned with the time and place for things seems old fashioned. But without it, I think, many valuable activities can be reduced to mass entertainment and spectacular display, from world diplomacy to an evening at the “Y.”
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