Here's how they're celebrating Memorial Day in Waterloo, NY, the birthplace of Decoration Day, out of which Memorial Day evolved. Heavy on the re-enactments (though somehow I doubt they honored the Civil War dead with a pizza eating contest way back when), no mattress sales involved. We're taking the Weedlets to the parade downtown: a little sunstroke is a small price to pay to honor liberty and its heroes. Then we hope to rendezvous with the extended family, including our own personal war vet, whom we plan to honor by pushing into the pool.
Yesterday's WaPo has an essay saying that after the Lincoln Memorial, memorial sculpture died. It's short, but touches on many interesting things:
This was deeply serious business. The fallen mustn't be forgotten. We used words like "the fallen" then. That seriousness bred art. That art would shape the country's look, and Washington's especially. Vast amounts of money, artistry and effort would be expended on its making. The beauty of the art would illumine its high purpose -- to immortalize remembrance.
In "In Tune With The World," Joseph Pieper lays out a few things that are necessary to have an authentic celebration, among them being a "festive occasion" --that is, something specific to celebrate. You can't celebrate "liberty" generically, but you can celebrate Independence Day. Our practical habit of trying to combine holidays so as not to multiply feast days has the unintended consequence of detaching people from the celebration. You can muster enthusiasm for Washington's birthday and Lincoln's birthday but "Presidents' Day?" You mean we're celebrating the custodial presidents and The Wizard of "Is" just as much as those revered gentlemen? Please. I think I'll just go shopping.
Art requires concrete inspiration, too, and it's no accident that our memorial art has gone woozy as we've become culturally uncertain what it's supposed to be honoring. As the author points out, after Lincoln, our memorial statuary started being opaque in the eyes -- a figurative loss of vision.
