Comedy Yes, Sleep and Kitsch No

One father's kitsch is another dad's crap. So, while someone must purchase this sort of thing, the only thing that occurs when squinting at this week's objet d'eBay, a wall decoration in bronze of a baby's head and (presumably) daddy's back, is "who really thought or thinks this is a good idea or arty-but-true embodiment of father and child?"

Each father may have this sort of magic moment occassionally — although few experience it in bronze — when he is at one with his child. More often are the patches of endless time when a father would give almost anything to get around the evil gatekeeper between him and sleep, his "anti-child." In neither case does kitsch seem appropriate or representative. More accurately (assuming one is looking at the father and not being him), "comedy" describes another father's pain and attempts to do best for baby and himself:

From Afar

Nobody parents well from far away, but today no distance is too great a barrier to connection between father and child. And we're not just talking miles.

Dads incarcerated in Indiana are touching their kids' lives by reading bedtime stories (via DVD) to them. It is part of a process by which they both reenter society and the lives of their family.

Fathers serving in Iraq are attending four-year old birthdays and even the birth of their children via webcasting. Is that the same as being there? Obviously not. But presence (even when absent) is important.

If you don't think so, ask Christopher Rothko, son of the abstact-expressionist painter he lost when he was just six. The younger Rothko learned about his dad — a suicide — connected with his genius, his spirit and his humanity, via a manuscript given to him as executor of the estate. As he told a reporter for the Houston Chronicle, "...having the manuscript was really a much more direct interpersonal experience than looking at the artwork, simply because I could hear his voice so clearly in the writing."

From a void to a real connection. It's not perfect, but reaching out (from either side of the parent-child equation) is so much better than pulling away.

Created Fathers

Saving a father from debilitating illness is a great trope for art. Not that great art necessarily makes life easier.

In Undertown, Jim Pascoe's manga of Sama's search for the Sugar Stone that is his father's only chance for salvation, an entire dark imaginary universe is lit with hope. (Vol. 1 is out; V.2 is due in Nov. '08.)

And Phillip Toledano's tribute to his "Days with My Father," thirty-five images and text of his father's journey into Alzheimer's, is an extraordinary creation of joy and even sadness stolen from encroaching death. Physically, Toledano's father can't be saved, but something about his spirit and the connection between father and son has been built to last for an eternity.

Alas, art may inspire life, but, unfortunately, it can't fix it. Sama will no doubt find the cure for his father many, many volumes from now, it will be a fictional fix. And, no matter how wondrously Toledano has saved his father's image and spirit from death, the shadow over his art is that he (and now we) will lose him to memory.

Egging On Fathers and Sons

Tradition is a key to the story of fathers and sons. Today, the Holy Father &mdsh; who, ironically, won't have children — delivers the traditional Easter "Urbi et Orbi" in honor and celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, son of God.

Another part of the Easter tradition is remembered with today's objet d'eBay, a tchotchke in the style of the famous Faberge eggs. Those decorative huevos began life as a present from Tsar Alexander III to (his wife) Empress Maria, Easter 1885. The Easter gift giving tradition was followed by his son, Tsar Nicholas II ... until the 1917 revolution. And, since the revolution scattered the house of Faberge, the tradition of making such extravagances was carried on by Carl Faberge's son's — Eugène, Agathon, Alexander and Nicholas — as they set up the Faberge diaspora in Switzerland, Scandinavia, France, Britain and Brazil.

For years, the most prominent collector of the actual eggs was Malcolm Forbes. Upon his death and to pay off debts of the company whose assets they diminished, his sons sold off the collection and they returned to Russia from America.

** There is always tradition a father passes on to son. No, the tradition is not always good. **

Influence

Children to learn who they are, in part, through their fathers' stories. Where it goes from there is anyone's guess.

But first the stories have to be told, somehow. In the case of artist/author Leo Polti it is his work and a son's remembrance; Sargent Shriver is memorialized in a documentary by daughter Maria Shriver; and some Texas dads are taking a first big step on their own, composing letters to their kids.

** A father's influence is what he makes with his kids, not just for them. **

Sharing Footsteps

Fathers take many paths to get their children to follow in their business footsteps.

Mark Olmstead has established a money-making synergy with daughter Marla in their joint art operation. Mark is a talented if not genius painter. Marla is four, with some interest in line and form and color. Together, his "encouragement" and her "talent" produce abstract expressionist (i.e., the viewer creates his/her own story from the non-realistic buildup of paint and shapes) works that sell for thousands. An amount that keeps it from being magnetted to the refrigerator.

Whether or not she really draws on her own, the Olmstead story is a far cry from the kitty litter king, steady Eddie Lowe, who was recently remembered — he died in 1995 — for escaping his dad's clutches to make million bringing the outside into the house so kitties could do their business in relative odor-free peace. Dad went so far as to get him fired from a job so he could return to the family business, but Lowe longed to breathe free. And, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars that live on, he eventually did.

And, finally, there is the path of working together. Even happily. As do the Hoosier father-son Luke Weinmans III and IV who will be featured on TV later this month "flipping a house" for about twice what they originally paid for it. Almost every weekend is a project together, although not always such a profitable one. Says IV, "We have a pretty good working relationship."

** Is there any better father-child connection than a "pretty good working relationship"? **

Scare Tactics

Saying he was only interested in "scaring" his ex-wife's fiancee, 55-year-old David Connolly killed 36-year-old David Pike with his van. Linda Potter, in the middle, is 47.

Pike and Potter's nine-year-old twins were in the van when it struck. This was following a pre-father's day argument on a Rome, N.Y., baseball field between Connolly and Pike over who gets to be called "father" by the boys. Or at least that is what everyone is saying as Potter says there was never any trouble before between the two, even though Connolly and Potter were engaged last Christmas, presumably ending the decade long (presumably at least occasionally rocky) relationship between Potter and Pike.

Alas for art's sake, none of them were rich (or ancient Greeks) as chronicling the boy's development could be a Sophoclean tragedy rather than a Jerry Springerian farce.

** Ah, a post-modern argument over the nature vs. nurture question of dadness? **