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I got on an elevator a while back with a famous author named Jonathan but made the mistake of confusing him with another famous author named Jonathan.
Are you that Jonathan, I asked?
No, I’m this Jonathan, he said.
I apologized and said that I loved his work anyway, even though I blanked on the titles of all his books.
He said it was okay, and I got the sense that he was sorry for not being the Jonathan I thought he was.
Then we were stuck in the elevator together for a few moments of awkward silence. There’s a good chance it’s the same elevator where Hall met Oates for the first time.
In any case, he gave a lecture a few hours later about what it was like to be this Jonathan as opposed to that Jonathan, and he said that he always planned on toiling away in obscurity, but then one of his books took off, and he suddenly found himself in the spotlight, more or less.
That’s when he made the distinction between white elephant art and termite art, saying that he started out making termite art but ended up making white elephant art. He said it was a distinction that an artist named Manny Farber made in an essay titled, appropriately enough, “White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art.” Here’s an excerpt:
A peculiar fact about termite tapeworm-fungus-moss art is that it goes always forward eating its own boundaries, and, likely as not leaves nothing in its path other than the signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity.
The most inclusive description of art is that, termite-like, it feels its way through walls of particularization, with no sign that the artist has any object in mind other than eating away the immediate boundaries of his art, and turning these boundaries into conditions of the next achievement.
He wrote the essay in a film journal in 1962, and he was championing low-budget B-movies (termite art) over big-budget blockbusters (white elephant art). What I like about his description of termite art is that it’s all about pushing outward. The termite isn’t thinking inside the box because it isn’t even aware of the box.
It just keeps chewing away.
And once it’s chewed something and digested it and pooped it out, it’s gone, so it can’t go back.
It has no choice but to move forward.
My favorite musicians do the same thing. They’re not trying to adhere to some artificial paradigm that they think is going to score them a big hit or win them a massive following. They’re not even trying to do the old “well, I’m trying to rewrite the rules within the system” dodge where they play the game with the goal of subverting the game. They just keep their heads down and make the music they want to make.
Sometimes other people take notice.
Most of the time, no one cares.
That’s fine. The artist keeps going.
Would a little recognition be nice once in a while? Sure.
But then you run the risk of getting confused with that other guy who’s playing the game just a little better than you are. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it can get a little awkward.
Just ask Jonathan.