Ivan of the Reef

#3

If Ivan were honest with himself, lectures were an ego-stroking exercise. The amphitheater-style hall was always packed to bursting when he spoke. In addition to the library's personnel, listeners would come from town and fill out whatever seats remained. Sometimes depending on the subject, his lectures went to standing room only.

Everyone wanted to hear what he had to say. For one glorious hour, the attention was solely on him. At his core, Ivan was a charismatic personality type and his magnetism had served him especially well before coming to the library. The only person Ivan knew of who was more persuasive and enchanting than himself was the Old Man.

These days, Ivan kept his charisma in check. The day-to-day operations of the library were held up by many different people, and Ivan knew all the credit being attributed to him was dangerous. The library had existed long before his arrival, and if he did his job correctly, it would exist long after he turned to dust.

"Ivan, you've built this entire operation around yourself and your ego," the Old Man said during one of their many conversations. "But what you do here won't last. You want to be remembered? Come with me to the library. I'll show you how to make your name last forever."

What a stubborn old man.

Ivan looked down at his notes as he stood at the podium and synced them with the holo just ahead of him.

The lecture hall was already filled with people and the quiet hum of indistinguishable voices. The room itself was a plain slate grey and tuned for acoustics. The nondescript backdrop and coloring made it ideal for recordings.

When Ivan looked up, he saw Saulo slip into a chair towards the back.

He wants to speak to me. I wonder if I can stave off our ill-fated confrontation, or if it will happen today.

Thankfully, the subject of Ivan's lecture had nothing to do with the Manipulators or their wars, so he doubted Saulo would find the content offensive. Still, he didn't want to die, or worse, be whisked off the planet. There was so much to accomplish, and he needed to find better solutions for the library's financial shortcomings. He couldn't leave his charge worse than when he acquired it.

The hall was crammed, and the hour chime tolled. Ivan tapped on his notepad to dim the overhead lights. He put his hands on the podium and gazed upward at the throngs of people staring down at him.

"A series of queries," he began. "Does art influence history? Or does history influence art? Is art the catalyst or is it merely reactionary?"

Ivan paused. It was just long enough to allow his ringing voice to permeate the hall and force his listeners to turn the questions in their minds like a three-dimensional puzzle.

He then continued by saying, "We have general agreements as to what art is. Art is, most assuredly, a painting. It is a sculpture, and it is poetry. It is a song, a dance, and it is written in fiction. But could speech be considered an art? After all, art is the creative expression of the human mind. And if speech is art, how does that relate to our opening questions?"

Ivan cast different examples of art to the holo. Some of this art was in the library, and some were among the sea of stars. Maybe Ivan was pandering to his own selfish whims with some points in his lecture. He had no creative talents, after all. Only his words.

Still, he built his case with two main points. First, the composition of speech was an art form, which alongside other works of art, had the power to topple governments and begin the reversal of systematic oppression. Second, Ivan explained that art, even in its purest form, cannot help but be reactionary. Sometimes reactions turned into catalysts. Sometimes they did not.