My wife used to call the process of getting young kids into the car “herding butterflies.” A series of Web clicks brought that image to mind. The series started with real butterflies, passed through “butterflies in my stomach” and ended with me feeling like I was herding conceptual butterflies – a fluttering of events that seemed both to clang together and to be strangely synchronous – which was the idea Paul advanced at the start of the whole sequence.

So: On September 13, Paul started a post to Comparing Notes by saying “Vaughn Ormseth, producer of Saint Paul Sunday pointed me to his latest blog entry…”

I don’t want to defuse the powerful story told there; but if you don’t have time to read it, it juxtaposes butterflies, violence, and the redemptive power of Robert Schumann, who “braved his demons by composing music as beautiful as any ever written—music that’s offered hope ever since. Real hope in the face of real darkness, not the easy fear of vengeful cowards.”

With that story still reverberating, I turned to my next email, which had a link to a new book which tells how the authors of the Curious George books, German Jews, escaped Paris hours ahead of the advancing Nazi armies. Art and violence and butterflies in my stomach at the idea of two gentle illustrators of children’s books, who were to bring joy to millions of children, coming just that close…

Well, the next item in my morning queue will lead me in safer directions, I thought: a notice from Google Alerts that there had been a news story somewhere that mentioned Oxyrhyncus, the astonishing garbage dump full of unique manuscripts, discovered a century ago, still being catalogued, and now able to be read by new imaging techniques – new plays from major Greek authors – discoveries at that pinnacle of importance.

But the theme of art and violence was going to stay with me. The Oxyrhynus link led me to an article in Egypt Today, “the leading current affairs magazine in Egypt and the Middle East — and the oldest English-language publication of its kind in the nation.” The reference to Oxyrhyncus turned out to be minor, but the rest of the issue felt like a set of variations on the theme of art and violence: both a reminder of the deep culture of the Islamic world, and the attack from within on that tradition. Excerpts, pasted without regard to meaning or coherence, but just to point to the reverberation of the theme:

…. a group of kids stuffing their schoolbooks into a garbage can. …. took to the streets in protest against the book. …. the mob mentality behind the students’ hysterical outbursts …. three young Egyptian novelists [were} hung out to dry …. forced the university to stop teaching the controversial book …. demanded the revision of some 450 books, and banned four outright …. complained to their parents about the book’s “pornographic content” …. sentencing … to death for blaspheming …. five people died in riots against the book …. the victim of a nearly fatal stabbing by an Islamist fundamentalist….. charged by the internet monitoring unit affiliated with the police of “disseminating information harmful to the reputation of the country” and the “intent to corrupt public morals.” …. several of her books were banned. …. led to numerous death threats …. assassinated by religious extremists ….

Conceptual butterflies: I feel the need to say that I think it would be dangerously short-sighted of readers to go into a self-righteous “well, that just goes to show” tirade because of these violent responses to art in the Islamic world – this post started with a story about violence on the streets of Minneapolis, and passed through a reminder of the Holocaust. The “Egypt Today” essay comes bravely from within the Islamic world, chronicling and decrying these acts of violence against art: “I once read somewhere that the only sure weapons against bad ideas are better ideas. Banning books is probably the most counterproductive form of intellectual terrorism that ever existed. As the bearers of ideas, books are weapons that have changed the course of history and the most powerful ones have been the most forbidden.”

This all started with Paul’s post. Here’s how he wrapped it up:

Artists have long wrestled with how art should coexist with its world: should it comment on events? or provoke them? or function as an escape? or a catharsis? But as in Vaughn’s experience, that coexistence is sometimes jarring and nonsensical – for example, Mahler told a story about learning of the death of his mother, then walking outside to find a man playing an organ grinder. It is a strange and profound fact of our minds that we find sense in those situations regardless; in some way, that’s what makes art work in the first place. Our hunger for music is tied to our hunger for order in the world.

I can’t say better.