The ways that art stays with us

About eight years ago I saw a Wallace and Gromit film by the Aardman guys. Before the main feature they showed a couple short films, including this one, which features the song "My Baby Just Cares For Me," by Nina Simone.

There was something about this 5-minute film that delighted me. I don't know if it was the song, which I had never heard before, or the goofy little cat who falls in love with the sultry cabaret diva kitty. For some reason the film has stayed with me all these many years and I kept thinking I would so love to see it again.

This morning it dawned on me that that, as is true for so many things these days, someone, somewhere has probably posted the film on YouTube! And sure enough, there it was...

...watching it was an interesting experience. After eight or years or so of this piece living in my memory bank with fond associations, it was completely different than I remembered. Still cute, but with out the utter charm that I seemed to remember. Which makes me think of the legacy of art: sometimes it happens that we find a way to keep the piece alive in a way that is close to the original -- we play the same song over and over or have a print or a photograph that we can look at repeatedly. Sometimes, as with live performance, or an aesthetic experience of some kind that just "happened" and we were in the right place at the right time, all that remains is the impression that the experience made upon us. Perhaps in these types of experiences, we become artists, too: adding to the work by embellishing it with our own associations.

Maybe sometimes it's better not to watch something again...?