You know those tightly controlled neighborhoods that have review boards to sign off on any decision a homeowner might make such as painting their house, putting up a fence, cutting down a tree, or planting a garden? I'm talking about the kinds of neighborhoods that don't allow folks to hang laundry, keep a few chickens, park an extra car, or do anything visible. All that process, review, and standardization is done to protect property value. And perhaps less consciously, to make a statement: Here live people who have money and a desire to set a certain tone. I think these folks mean to suggest a certain level of trustworthy sanity and sanitation.

I can't figure out if all this process, review, and standardization (hey, does this sound like life is school to anyone else?), if all this control, is more pathetic or more ironic. Who lives in those places? Well, of course we can't really know. Perhaps people acclimated to false authority? People obsessed with appearances? People uncomfortable with the chaotic nature of reality----ah, this one most probably.

Clyde's neighborhood was nothing more than a backwater cancer cell, dirty, dirty cheap, and on the other side of everything anyone wanted in the 1970s. This I remember well. (Yes, sometimes memory is meaningful.)

When you drive through today you can't mistake a well tended cohesion. Every house is tidy and cared for lovingly. The vibe is thoughtful, intentional, and suggests smart people (well educated, liberal, intelligent, good) live there. Its the kind of place you drive through and think to yourself: This would be a good safe sane place to raise babies.

How did that happen without any review boards? How did that happen in the face of chaos and everyone allowed to do anything. It happened through art. What is art?

I asked a smart man the most important thing to know about life. I was fresh out of school and woefully uneducated. I needed to know what 13 years of institutionalization, standardization, and control had failed to teach. He told me there are two kinds of people. People who avoid chaos and people who confront chaos. He suggested confronting chaos was the way to go, attending reality.

Only art and love are capable of establishing cohesion and sanity in the face of chaos. Love does this ineffably. Art does it through confrontation, questioning, and release. Art makes irony its bitch, shines light on the insides of things, attempts to see clearly, and creates more than it controls.