The Confessions of a High Culture Tourist

"This piece is about Uranus," my girlfriend whispers in my ear, waking me out of a short nap at the philharmonic. My what? This doesn't seem like appropriate conversation for the symphony. But already I'm failing at being a convincing member of the class that creates and consumes high culture, and I'm nearing the end of a long trip into the champagne-sipping, hushed-voice-talking, classics-repeating life of the culturally elite.

So, in the dark balcony of the concert hall, I give in to licentiousness, raise my eyebrows at her and, completely in touch with my inner middle-schooler, encourage her to say it again. Uranus.

It's all in the interpretation. Here's mine: What happened to Vincent Van Gogh is happening to us all. Not the ear thing—only a special few of us will go there—but the arc of his relationship to high culture.

He was lost in the masses while doing the bulk of his work; then he (posthumously) broke into the world of high art and was regaled as one of the masters; and then his work became stationery. As in: on note cards, with matching envelopes in packs of 12 on sale at Target.

My recent experience as a high- culture consumer was similar. I set out to re-examine the notion of high culture, to discover high culture in Las Vegas and to become intellectually, emotionally, artistically enriched by it; to rise to a state of some aplomb; to prove that neither I, nor my beloved city, was unrefined.

I write this three weeks later with a Van Gogh finger puppet on my thumb. Makes typing tricky. But he's cute in all of his tortured artist angst—a little cotton Vincent in a two-inch blue smoking jacket, worry lines stitched between his brows. Sadly for both of us, at the moment I like this little version of him better than I like his painting "Sunflowers." It's less ubiquitous.

Nineteenth-century poet and cultural theorist Matthew Arnold famously asserted that high culture is "the best that has been thought and said in the world"—labeling everything else as "chaos." It was Arnold who popularized the derogatory use of the word "philistines" to describe a section of the population who undervalue "art, beauty, intellectual content, and spiritual values." Since then, philistines have come to be known as materialistic and unthinking, and to favor forms of art that are cheap and easily digested, like pop culture and Vegas and Van Gogh finger puppets.

Furthermore, Arnold argued that high culture is the "progressive refinement of human behavior" without apparently taking into consideration the power mass consumerism and technology might have on the progress and refinement of human behavior. The speed with which we obtain, process, consider mastered and then abandon "the best that has been thought and said in the world" cracks the fortress of elitism implied in Arnold's thesis. In many cases, such as poor Vincent's, pop culture has eaten high culture, leaving those of us in pursuit of the best of the best in a lurch—can Claude Monet be experienced on a postcard? Can you reject what is intrinsically considered to be high art because it turns up on the philistines' coffee mugs? It seems that it has always been difficult to define high culture, but ever more so now.

In Vegas, we're fast merging the most philistine with the most highbrow; from Broadway's foray onto the Strip to high art in casinos. One wonders what Arnold might think of how human behavior has progressively refined itself here.

That's not to say traditional, secluded offerings of high culture aren't available. In all of its vague and subjective definitions—a pursuit of the best that humanity has to offer; something distinct from popular or mass culture; the products of the most intellectually and artistically gifted among us; an excuse to wear fur and pearls—something that passes for high culture is alive and well in Las Vegas. Having fallen out of touch with it in recent years, ensnared in the lazy routine of culture that comes to me via TV, radio, and Internet, I slithered into my fake fur and heels and threw myself back into it.

On the way to UNLV's Judy Bayley Theatre to see A Man For All Seasons, my girlfriend asks whether there will be popcorn. She's kidding. However, much to my embarrassing delight, the concessions shame those at the movies—there are Junior Mints and Hershey bars and three choices of cheap wine—and this bodes well for my rekindling a love of fine arts.

As expected, the crowd is genteel-ish. Most are dressed in black, most are significantly older than cable TV, most are whispery and well-behaved and even polite in the long line at the restroom during intermission. ("Were you next?" "Oh, no, go ahead." "Really, you were here first, I think." "Are you sure?")

I'd been warned that A Man For All Seasons might be a bore, particularly when compared to the film. I had faith, if only because M*A*S*H's Rizzo, G.W. Bailey, was cast as a key character. The warning proves wrong; the show is quite engaging. A great production of the essential question of Britain's Sir Thomas More—whether one is willing to die for his principles—does exactly what you would hope high art would do: inspire conversation, debate and the further investigation of history and philosophy—the refinement of human behavior, Arnold would say. On the way home, my girlfriend and I discuss the actors' skills, debate whether More did the right thing and how the central question applies to our political and religious world today, and feel certain we'll subscribe to the whole season of the Nevada Conservatory Theatre. Within a few days, I am reading books on both British history and Thomas More's Utopia.

I miss much of the ballet because of the testicles. There's no way around discussing this, except for having a few ounces of class. Absent that, as one who doesn't frequent the ballet and so is not inured to the flopping dollops of manhood pouched in tights, I must say I find it distracting, but not entirely problematic. Turns out, during the three acts of the St. Petersburg Ballet, there is plenty of time to compare the dancers' sheathed genitals and still enjoy the performance. Mind you, I am in the third row of UNLV's Artemus Ham Hall, staring directly up at all manner of bulbousness, so my perspective is probably somewhat distorted. One hopes.

In addition to that, the ballet is grand. Well, wait. The first act of The Russian Season, "Chopiniana," seems a tad misogynistic, if fascinating and technically impressive. In it, about a dozen ballerinas move slowly in formal poses, dressed in traditional ballerina tutus, with stoic, matching made-up faces that remind me of the old Robert Palmer "Addicted to Love" video. This is only important in that it points out how we can't help but view high culture through pop-culture lenses today; it is difficult for high culture to be truly exclusive of pop culture in an era when we carry thousands—millions?—of pop-culture images and their instamatic meanings in our heads.

However, it isn't the likeness of the ballerinas to Palmer's chicks but to the image in Edward Degas' painting "Dance Lesson" that makes me uncomfortable. I remember reading in one of my previously futile brushes with high culture that Degas portrayed his women as ratlike. As I watch the crowd of women on stage in what seems like agonizing, repetitive, uniform tiptoe, I see the rodent form and become ill at ease. Probably I'm off on my own in this line of thought. Or maybe that was the point. I don't know. But it is thought-provoking; beauty and skill and disgust at once.

The next two acts were breathtaking, stringing together for me the beauty of the body and music united. At one point, I think no other medium better expresses pure joy than dance; later I'm nearly in tears during a pas de deux that displays passion more sensuously and gracefully than I expected.

I should note here that it's possible that part of being a subscribing consumer of high culture may be the quiet agreement not to discuss things such as testicles and rats at the ballet. This may indeed be the defining state of the culture: You act as if you understand these things to such a degree that it doesn't warrant mention. A mutual silent agreement to be above noting the obvious; to look beyond ample, in-your-face genitalia and focus on the delicate subtext. That becomes Point 9a in my rapidly developing Theories of the Obvious About High Culture.

The more I think about it, the more possible it seems that high culture is that culture about which we agree to be effusive and evasive. The ballet was meaningful. It was evocative. It was inspirational. More wine?

There's nothing so inspirational to me as an art museum. I was once, briefly, one of those dreary girls in black who sat in museums and wrote self-consciously in a notebook while absorbing the great works. The mere nearness of art, great art, high art, made my poems about unemployment and suicide and sex that much deeper. Believe me, that was a period of great profundity.

After arriving at Bellagio, finding a spot in the garage, stepping around some beer bottles by the elevator, getting to the lobby, asking where the museum was, following many signs around many blackjack tables to the ticket booth of the Gallery of Fine Art, I am desperate for some high culture.

Twelve bucks later, I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with about 4,000 tourists in an 8-inch-by-8-inch space, all of us holding audio wands to our ears listening to descriptions of Claude Monet's work, which we can see only if we have the moxie to elbow in and block the view of others. My thoughts range from masterful brush strokes to basketball's step-in-and-screen-out moves, from maximum-occupancy violations to Monet's amazing use of light. Midway through the exhibit, one of my toes damaged from someone else's high heel, I can't help but think that we would've made beautiful subject matter for today's impressionists, all smear and smatter of butt-to-butt humanity huddling in for a nip of high culture, the real focus of the piece being not the individual art connoisseurs or casino refugees but the light cast on us as a group: a dim, empty light that speaks more of desperation than of refined culture. Or is that what high culture has become? The not-so-well-hidden and somewhat desperate search for something more meaningful, more lasting, than mass culture?

If so, it's short-lived at the Bellagio Gallery. After returning the wand, visitors are shepherded into the gift shop, which seems suspiciously more spacious than the gallery. Here, one finds such tributes to the distinction between the philistines and culturists as a coffee mug with Van Gogh's self-portrait on it, which, when filled with hot liquid, magically erases his ear.

Poor Van Gogh. It reminds me of my college dorm roommate, who had a poster of Salvador Dali's melting clocks adjacent to a poster of Garfield the cat. Dali was ruined for me right then. Last week, Newsweek and several other mass media outlets ran articles "rediscovering Dali"—reaching into his over-commercialized reputation and salvaging his "art." In May, the Philadelphia Museum of Art plans to show a retrospective of his work. Newsweek felt it necessary to explain his mass popularity and then say, "Still, Dali was, and remains, a supremely impressive painter."

Without debating the merits of Dali particularly, the notion that popular familiarity with an artist's work degrades it is one that gets debated within and beyond the art world, but rarely to anyone's complete satisfaction. As I stood in the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art Gift Shop, I got a much more personal look at the works of Monet than I did inside, although on teeny greeting card reprints. I could not see the brush strokes fully nor appreciate the light in the way I could on the works inside. But I could buy them.

Instead, I opted for the finger puppets of the Great Masters: Van Gogh, Monet, Dali and Frida Kahlo. All four for the bargain price of $19.99.

My girlfriend and I almost break up during Romeo & Juliet. What Shakespeare repeatedly failed to include in his tales of romance are spastic feuds over whether we're enjoying ourselves enough at the ballet to stay for Act II.

In my defense, let me just say that by the time we get to Nevada Ballet Theatre's production of Romeo & Juliet, I am doubtful that I will enjoy Shakespeare without words, as I am a fan of the written and spoken language. The prospect of sitting through the silent version of Romeo & Juliet doesn't appeal so much, particularly having enjoyed the ballet already once this month. It's a Friday night, and I am hitting high-culture burnout. There's a pizza and a movie somewhere with my name on it.

Nonetheless here we are. People are milling around the lobby of Judy Bayley Theatre holding champagne flutes and chit-chatting in hushed tones. I further develop Point 16b in My Theories of the Obvious About High Culture: It's merely an excuse to wear anachronistic expressions of wealth. One woman has on a three-quarter-length rabbit coat. Another, a fox shawl. A man in a splendid black suit holds a sharp black umbrella like a cane; I look in vain for his monocle. A little girl in a full-length red-velvet dress watches the pianist, who plays passionately on a baby grand in the corner of the lobby and may be the highlight of this affair. Two men wearing tuxedos stand outside smoking cigarettes.

A sign in the lobby reads, "Ballet is fun and playful."

We hit the snack bar, Junior Mints for a dollar, and check out the tchotchkes for sale on a table on the other side of the lobby—ballerina barbie dolls, signed toe shoes, necklaces and earrings—before heading into the theater.

Again we have the testicle seats. Front row. I am a poor planner, and often fail to reserve seats until, well, until we're on the way to the ballet. So we're sitting there nibbling Junior Mints covertly when I note this: High culture doesn't preclude two women from climbing over seats to get to the row behind. Because it would be unseemly for a portly middle-aged woman in semi-formal wear to simply go around, right? Much better that she should climb over the seats, requiring a stranger to put out a hand to prevent her from falling ass over teakettle into my girlfriend's lap. Her friend watches the whole ordeal and, amazingly, opts to follow the procedure.

The show begins, and the audience is hushed, full of the expectation of grace and beauty, when the little girl behind us says, not in her ballet voice, "Grandma, I'm hungry." She's shushed by those in other rows, to no avail. In fact, Grandma, too, begins talking like a bingo-caller about the ballet, which the little girl doesn't understand, which I don't hold against her. But moments later, as Mercutio struts his stuff, there is but one loud, agonizing sound in my ears: little girl sucking on candy, mouth wide open, smack, smack, smack, slurp, smack, on and on, louder and louder, so that by the time Romeo and Juliet are meeting and pantomiming one of the greatest love scenes ever written to be spoken, my world is filled with the sounds of an ill-chaperoned child and her Everlasting Gobstopper.

Here, my Shakespearean ballet experience turns more into Shakespearean interior monologue, a silent battle of my conflicting wills: one; to be polite and mature and focus on the artistry in front of me despite the atrociously bad behavior of the party behind; and two, to turn around and stick my fingers in that child's mouth to remove the candy.

I focus on the ballet. Romeo and Juliet leap and bounce and smile and try to suggest love with leaping and bouncing and smiling. The grace and power that so moved me at the St. Petersburg ballet performance isn't finding me here. I'm not feeling it. I'm certainly not hearing it. With apologies to the local production, this perennial crowd-pleaser isn't pleasing me. It may be the girl behind us or the lack of Shakespearean turns of phrase or the caliber of dance, or me.

In any case, mood sufficiently foul by intermission, I am ready to go. My girlfriend is not. Appropriately, we pantomime anger in a silent car all the way home.

Turning to the intellectual tome "Wikipedia," a free online encyclopedia, we find this definition of high culture:

"(E)lite goods and activities such as haute cuisine, high fashion or haute couture, museum-caliber art and classical music, and the word 'cultured' to refer to people who know about, and take part in, these activities …

"People who use 'culture' in this way tend not to use it in the plural. They believe that there are not distinct cultures, each with their own internal logic and values, but rather only a single standard of refinement to which all groups are held accountable ..."

But some theorists argue that high culture inhibits human nature rather than somehow escalating it.

To continue quoting the intellectual powerhouse free online encyclopedia, "People lacking 'culture' often seem more 'natural,' and observers often defend (or criticize) elements of high culture for repressing 'human nature' ...

"(Some) social critics argue that refinement and sophistication are corrupting and unnatural developments which obscure and distort people's essential nature. On this account, folk music by working-class people is an honest expression of a natural way of life, and classical music is superficial and decadent."

We are sitting in the sick ward at the Las Vegas Philharmonic. We're in the balcony seats of UNLV's Ham Hall, which I didn't realize until tonight is the segregated area meant for those with coughs, sniffles, snoring and intestinal disorders. A small symphony of its own is happening up here in the cheap seats.

The program has begun, some three miles below, when an old couple arrives and begins asking around about their chairs. We grunt and grumble and begrudgingly forgive their tardiness. Shortly thereafter, a man the size of Jupiter makes his way up the stairs, wheezing threats of heart attack, and proposes, in a scene straight out of Monty Python, to make his way to the absolute center of the narrow aisle, in the middle of the first performance of a program entitled "Music of the Spheres."

It is precarious. One imagines the gallery is split in its concerns that he would either topple forward and roll off of the steep balcony onto the unsuspecting crowd below, or, and this is my concern, that he had taxed his heart and lungs too severely on the climb up, and would shortly be in need of emergency medical care. After fellow concertgoers in his aisle manage to move out enough that he can move in, and he finds a seat, he continues to wheeze in such a way that the paranoiac/Good Samaritan in me cannot focus on the music for fear that he is about to arrest, and someone will need to stand gallantly and yell for help. Alas, by the beginning of the second piece, he seems to have recovered.

Not so the sick among us. Someone a few aisles up and over is stricken with such a coughing solo that the usher actually fishes him out and removes him to the stairway outside.

But the philharmonic is wonderful. Curled up in the sickeningly sweet smell of cough drops all around me, but for the young woman next to me whose cigarette odor I am grateful for, I fall in love with the philharmonic. Watching the synchronized elbows of the violinists and the passionate motions of the guest cellist and conductor, listening to the various parts of the group lap and wave their way over one another, I feel as if I am watching the sea, and then drifting off to sail. In my nascent encounter with this phil, I spend some of the time dissecting and focusing on each part of the music, each instrument, indeed each musician, as much as I can from the bird's perch where I sit, thinking that maybe high culture is about this: taking the time to parcel out the pieces and really think about the composition, to focus on the details. One would think, in a frenetic, multitasking world like ours, taking the time to focus on slow-forming details for such a long period of time would constitute a higher culture. And so, I develop Point 34f in my Theories of the Obvious About High Culture: High culture is for people who need to escape.

During the rest of the performance, I just relax and let the music carry me, let my thoughts go, feel a certain enlightened peacefulness pick me up and take me into a lovely reverie.

That's when my girlfriend whispers something dirty in my ear. I would so love to tell you that at my age, definitively beyond the seventh grade, I don't begin to giggle about the word "Uranus" in the middle of a gorgeous performance of Gustav Holst's "The Planets." Alas, sadly for me, I suppose, there's a sufficient amount of Bart balancing out my Lisa. I do my best to contain laughter, but the giddy mood has set in, and by the time we get to Neptune, I am still stifling a laugh, still chuckling internally, and so by the time we get to the car, we are not having a high-minded conversation about purpose or being or meaning or morality, we are not about to purchase books about Britain or the planets or the bassoon, we are not even going to acknowledge the spiritual beauty of the music.

Did you like the performance? she asks, smiling, and I say, It was beautiful, but we should've lingered longer on the classics before going straight for Uranus.

And so it goes, all the way home from the philharmonic, philistine anus jokes.

High culture month has resulted in me wanting to buy new furniture and art for my house. It has resulted in me thinking long and hard about St. Thomas Aquinas and the role of medieval Christian thought in the discourse of philosophy. It has given me a minor cold, which I assume all regulars at these performances pass around and keep alive year-round. It has given me finger puppets. It has me listening, right now, to the Kennedy-Harrell "Duos for Violin and Cello," which is beautiful and makes this morning brilliant and full of opportunity, and makes me happy to be alive.

In some way, reconnecting with whatever we deem to be high culture has also led me to renew my love of pop culture, to be more aware of, more active in, my consumption of it, rather than numbly, unknowingly absorbing it. Maybe that's what I got most out of this little jaunt, aside from a mean 3-inch likeness of Frida Kahlo: a refreshed way of taking in all culture, a renewed artistic consciousness. I'm slowing down to appreciate the details, the breadth, the bigger and the smaller pictures, looking both high and low for expressions of the human condition, and finding them equally and endearingly absurd in every venue.