Stripped

Poetry is all about stripping things down to barest essentials. But how much can one deconstruct something without losing it in the process? There's an old Zen saying, “To taste an apple one must first change it by eating it,” which reminds me of the quantum physical conundrum that says we cannot observe nature objectively because the very act of observation interferes with the thing observed.

 How much can you remove without ruining it?

I'm the type who likes a little something left to the imagination, so I prefer a woman in a French Maid get up to a g-string. Once a stripper takes it all off there's nowhere else to go. Other than to the ATM machine.

As a songwriter I've spent too many hours pondering the concept of melody and what it is that makes one appealing or novel. The principal melody chain in “Yesterday” requires exactly 24 notes, none of which may be safely removed without noticeable--even irreparable—damage. Take a 3-note chorus like “All Night Long” by Lionel Richie. Does it have to be those particular three notes? You can actually change them up and it still works because it's more about the rhythm. Now take the 2-note wonder “One More Night” by Phil Collins.

"Gimme just two notes. . ."

Phil seems to know those particular notes are not essential and he in fact varies the intervals, sometimes adding a third note--more or less toying with every possible iteration (like climbing up and down the same three stairs in different order) before the song is over. We both know you were just humming that in your head.

How many words could we remove from Great Gatsby and preserve the art? Would anyone-- Fitzgerald included---know or care if a few words or sentences were cut? I used to read Classics Illustrated comic books that were basically Cliffs Notes for literature. One could cheat even more and read a synopsis, but the joy is in the details, not just the plot.

 
The lead animator on a Disney film, as another example, draws only the critical “Action Points” of a given motion (beginning, middle and end) and some poor sucker called an “Inbetweener” fills in the rest to smooth out the action.

 Pan-orama

 
Ever seen sheet music like “Bach Made Easy"? Same basic concept. Some dude removes the fluffy more elaborate elements while (theoretically) keeping the essential melody intact.

 "There are simply too many notes" (Amadeus)

 

One argument audiophiles have against digital sound is that it goes through a process of compression (smooshing the highs and lows into a comfy range) and by preserving only crucial audio information whilst removing extraneous noise. But what gets removed is sometimes important. The recent restoration of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo is a similar case, which had some art purists in a tizzy because the final result may have gone too far. For many, the vibrant colors hidden beneath centuries of dirt were a revelation, though some critics, aghast at the loss of subtlety, condemned the restoration as an act of butchery, saying that Michelangelo purposely overpainted to create muted effects.

 Ooops! Michelangelo before and after.

Don't even get me started on “colorization” of classic Black and White films.