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As is obvious by even a cursory examination of my notes, I was entralled during Camille Paglia's lecture on Monday night. Even though this was my first time hearing her speak in person, my sense is that she has mellowed a bit with age (she is 59) and tempered some of her early irritants. For example, she went out of her way to praise French culture, especially French film, before launching into her regular (and accurate) dismissal of poststructuralism as France's "worst export". But having read several transcripts of her lectures from the early and mid 90s, it seems she has not just mellowed, but also grown still more incisive and nuanced, even for an avowed "generalist".

The stage at the Cindy Pritzker Auditorium in the Harold Washington library was but podium and microphone. In front of the podium, and at ground level, was the table where she later signed books and chatted with her fans. The auditorium was packed with, I'd guess, around 400 people. It is a decent sized room where I've seen films screened. It is actually a pretty classy auditorium, and I'm glad the lecture was there, where it should be for a Paglia talk—at a library, which for her are "temples".

She arrived a bit late due to a late-arriving plane into O'Hare (what else is new), but it appears she went directly from the taxi into the lecture hall. She first apologized for the tardiness and explained what happened, all of which only put her about 20 minutes later than the posted time. Anyway, a minute later and she's launching into her first broadside at the literary establishment (which she loathes) and then we cue the fireworks.

Man, this woman talks fast. She is like the West Wing x The Gilmore Girls + eight doses of speed. She is a cubist Picasso painting inside a cannon, all wrapped around an multiperspectival, moving enigma. She starts on a line of thought, willfully interrupts it for some tangent that picks up on some earlier point, or word, only to return to the original line 30 minutes later missing the appropriate amount of beats given that the audience is generally pretty intelligent and well-read. I'm a longtime fan of her work, having listened to many recordings as well as having read everything she has written, so I felt pretty at home and completely engaged by her rhetorical style. But it wasn't just me, for I was with a friend completely new to her and he had a blast, also following along without any trouble.

In her lecture, I was most struck by a relatively small moment. She was talking about how the best art is spiritual, which she acknowledged is an abused word, but that still, art is spiritual. But then, she hastened to add, that did not mean art was moral. Her voice lowered and her head tilted forward—"art is spiritual, but not moral." Art sharpens perception, and helps you see the world and yourself more clearly, she said. But it does not, and should not, tell you what to do, or provide directly moral instruction or advice. The implication was that other factors act to provide moral direction (the likely candidates being family, friends, churches, law enforcement, and other examples along the spectrum of social institutions).

I found this to be refreshing, as well as completely in line with her scholarly thesis that traces a study of decadence in art from ancient Egypt to the American 19th century. She find much artistic merit in the work of Mapplethorpe, in that same line of decadence. Releasing fine art from the obligation to provide moral direction, as well as releasing art lovers from needing to find moral instruction in the artwork we absorb, allows a full-spectrum of representation as well as interpretation to manifest in artwork and our perceptions, respectively.

If artwork, in its multifarious ways, sharpens perception and helps us to see things more clearly, then we can better understand life for its ugliness, beauties, inconsistencies, subtle dramas, torment, joy, pain, and rottenness. In this way, artists need not sugar-coat their work, and art lovers need not seek the sugar-coated response to artwork, and rather can just allow the artwork to work upon the soul, in whatever way that happens. This is not to release the artist or art lover from all obligations, but it is to allow a greater expanse for creativity play within than a more strict, moralistic, literalist approach to art would allow. It is an approach to art that is more truthful to the messy, conflicted and even tragic aspects of life, beyond those that are orderly, useful, and supremely joyous.

I did ask Paglia two questions (the last two on my list of eleven previously posted to this blog). One is the formal q & a part, where my booming baritone spoke into the microphone and filled the room with the following statement/question:

"Hello. I just wanted to thank you because I think your work is very supportive to working artists, beyond those you teach at the University of the Arts. ["Oh, thank you," she said warmly.] And I'm curious; you have cited Marshall McLuhan's work as very influential upon yours. What about his work first caught you and what do you think is most enduring contribution might be?"

Cue 25 minute answer. A small part of it is contained in my notes, and another small part was to refer to her Salon.com essay, "The North American Philosophical Tradition", something I've read many times and think is very far-reaching as very helpful to my work. I'm going to return to the library and see if they have the video of the lecture archived, so I can take more notes of her perspective upon McLuhan.

After she finished, when she signed by copy of Break, Blow, Burn, I asked her the following question.

Hi. I've read your essay, "Cults and Cosmic Consciousness" many times, and I'm wondering if, in your research about the American New Age movement, you came upon the work of Colorado philosopher Ken Wilber? Your argument, and conclusion, seems to imply that you had come across his work in some way.

Her answer.

No, I'm not familiar with him at all.

My response.

Thank you, just wondering. Really great talk, please come back soon.

Rather than attempt to explain Wilber's work a bit (in the tradition of speculative, developmental psychology, infused with a "Buddha meets Freud" approach, exemplifying as well as criticizing cultural narcissism, a "shining light" of the New Age movement, etc), I felt no need to do that and rather just walked away, to leave the library shortly thereafter, my curiousity (finally) satisfied, and an odd kosmic harmony came briefly into place, my own path as an art philosopher more supported and 'right feeling' than before. For a good spell of time, I felt the echo of ages rattling about my bones, as if a transmission of sorts that directly resulted from Paglia's own tireless research and writing about the arts, ancient to present, a transmission open to all who were engaged and deeply listening to her lecture.

I know even more now that Paglia is a far more rigorous, respected, interesting, informed, and provocative authority (far more, that is, than Wilber will ever be) on an approach to art that includes insights from psychology, formalism, sociology, and cultural response. It is all there in her work! Without the need for maps, superficial renderings and thought, sloppy New Age mush, or lazy scholarship that attempts to transcends all human disciplines of thought and study, yet still infused to the core with drama, provocation, evangelism (for the cause of art), fierce passion, and fully earned conclusions from solid, tight research into primary sources. She's been teaching for 30 years, many of them directly to artists—this means a whole heck of a lot. After this lecture, Paglia is further cemented as one of my primary anchors and inspirations for the ongoing development of a Post-Wilber integral art philosophy.

I'm too wise to think her imperfect or anything childish or naive like that, and I've already cited places where I disagree with her (such as recently about funding for individual artists). But her passion, presence, and perspective is a constant challenge to my work, a challenge or calling to dig deeper, look further, consider more (especially of mythology and world history) and tirelessly pursue the truth as best and most informed that I can provisionally present it, at least in the art world. Hopefully I will have another chance to hear her speak, or even perhaps to chat one on one without 53 other people in line behind me. Ideally she's be my advisor for my PhD dissertation about integral art, but since I won't be attending the school where she dutifully teaches (too old, too much tuition, not in Chicago), at best this would be a distance-advising.

So I'll throw this out there, and promise that I'll attempt to contact her directly at some point later this year when I'm closer to my book. Worth a shot, right?