I had my first job interview in ten years. I had to dress up, show up on time, be charismatic and answer all questions with a cheerful demeanor. Not so hard. I am pretty sure these skills are like riding a bike, once you have them, you don’t lose them. In my twenties I changed jobs frequently, moving up the ladder of success, giving me ample opportunity to polish my interview skills and perfect my modus operandi, my performance, if you will. Still, nothing makes a good interview like knowing the job and really wanting it, in a word, enthusiasm. The best part about teaching art for me is, when you do what you love, you never have to work.
So, the good news is I got the job, which meant I had to scale back on some of the part time positions I was considering elsewhere. I am still finishing up my MFA, and was going to teach a 2D design class at the university, but had to let them know that I was taking on a full time position at the community college, and with the studio hours I need to complete for the degree and family time, I was going to be maxed out. They were as sympathetic as you might expect.
On my way out of the office I ran into one of my professors and told him about my situation. We began talking about the graduate program, and the personalities involved. The art department hired a new department head over the summer and the interim director of the art program had stepped down. He was also the chair of my graduate committee. When I commented about having to find a new chair now, the professor said, “It is probably for the best.” The former director, he continued, wasn’t really my biggest supporter. We continued to talk about how my chair had spoken of me in the past and how change could really help me.
Still, It took a minute for his initial comment to sink in. About a year ago I sat down with my chair and asked him rather directly if, regardless whether he liked my work or not, if he could support me. If he could be the kind of chair that could be honest with me and tell me what I needed to move forward in this program. He had agreed that he could; only now I discovered that that had not been the case. Far from being my advocate, this guy had worked behind the scenes criticizing me to the other faculty. Betrayed, I wanted to punch him in the nose.
I suppose if he hadn’t held me back with his actions, I might be in a very different place right now. Who knows, I might have been working on my final thesis and would have had to pass on this job opportunity. In which case we wouldn’t have the extra money and the benefits. What with the baby coming, those benefits could be really nice right now (though after watching “Sicko” benefits begin to look less and less helpful) and after not having had steady employment in seven years, the extra income is always welcome.
I don’t know if you noticed, but I just did something here, that I frequently catch myself doing. Looking at the events of my life from point A to point C, and surmising that if it hadn’t happened this way, it most certainly would have been different. (Of course) I think it is interesting too that this kind of thinking, while it can be used pessimistically, usually creates a kind of optimistic syllogism (“certain things having been supposed, something different from the things supposed results of necessity because these things are so.") Optimistic, I guess, because I get a certain amount of comfort from this kind of thinking that keeps me from punching noses or beating my head against the wall. That, and its fun, when your not completely stressed out, to look back at your life and see all the funny twists and turns, the successes and failures that amount to the total of your experience.
Interestingly, I always seem to ascribe some kind of unconscious force to these results that seems to have little to do with me. That or I am just being superstitious. That my mind is just making these scenarios up to make sense of things I couldn’t otherwise look at. But I believe there is something valuable in seeing these little lessons unfold. I am guilty of thinking, “God has a plan for me,” or “the universe has a way of unfolding.” Call it kismet, call it karma, call it divine intervention, (god looks out for children and fools) if I look at my life in this way, I invariably see these gentle lessons, that you have to fail in one place to succeed in another. I find these lessons peaceful, because they make me understand why it is important to experience the setbacks, the disappointments and the suffering. Not just because I will appreciate the good times more, but because there is no difference between them, good and bad, they are materially part on each other, and I can’t imagine the one without the other. So I see these stories of my life unfold, I see the consequences, the joys of a new job and the setbacks of my degree plan and realize that they are all just part of the unfolding narrative that is my life.
I guess the challenge then is to unfold your own myth.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
The intercultural temple of the body
I had the funniest conversation at my gym the other day. I was talking to one of my Hindu friends, a retired doctor. He has been encouraging me to try the vegetarian lunch buffet at the local International Buddhist Temple just a few blocks from my home. (Cleverly disguised as a three story office building) I told him I haven’t been feeling well, so I haven’t made the trip, but that I did make some samosa’s for dinner the other night.
Chorus: “Who had samosa?
“I made them for dinner?”
“Your wife made samosa for dinner?” (Repeat these three lines three times)
So, you made them with eggroll paper from the store?
“No I just mixed up a bit of flour and yogurt and salt for the dough, cooked up the vegetables and seasoned them”
Repeat Chorus
“You should really try the food at the Buddhist temple.”
“I am going to go the first chance I get.”
“I am sure they have very good samosa”
“I know, I love samosa, that’s why we made them at home.”
Repeat Chorus
J. and I have been going to the same gym now for 6 years. In that time the gym itself has changed owners and gone through about a dozen complete staff changes. There are only a few of us now who still brandish our original Q club cards. In that time I have made a few casual acquaintances, some lingered for a while, then disappeared, others quit the gym but maintain a cursory contact, and a few, like ourselves, seem to be permanent fixtures.
Our gym sits on an interesting crossroads, and, having been a member for so long, I have discovered that from moment to moment it is a place constantly in flux. Early in the morning, (I am told by J. who used to go before work at 6 a.m.) the place is awash with the young urban professionals, eager to get a head start on the day. Next come the septuagenarians, the Indians and the Pakistani, the soccer moms at noon, a smattering of every group in the afternoons, more business professionals from four to seven, and an assortment of people from the Asian community in the evening. (The gym turns into something of a Korean bathhouse after 9 p.m.)
Yes, our gym is awash with cultural diversity. Reflecting, for the most part, the community at large. We have sizable Asian and Indian community centers on either side of the interstate nearest our house that accounts for the large number of members from these communities. Put that in the mix with demographics of the area: married, same sex, with kids, African American, Caucasian, Hispanic, employed, retired, Russian, Jewish, Christian, Purple, Poke-a-dotted, and tattooed, and you have our gym, a little cross section of our corner of the world. Apparently, in the world of intercultural dialogue, the language of exercise is universal.
On a side note, I remember the first time I had a samosa, was at a little bakery a few blocks from the college in Cambridge. They were absolutely delicious. I’d always pick up a few for breakfast, and eat them as I walked to class. The novel nature of these little veggie filled pockets was the succulent sauce that made them so endearing. (That and the 5 shillings apiece they cost) The vapor that rose out of them as you sunk your teeth into one would fill the air and surround you and implant itself into your pores so that you would smell of cumin and coriander all day long. Compared to most of the fodder we were asked to eat in England, these were incomparably scrumptious. (This reminds me of the story of the first time I had Falafel, but that for another time)
Chorus: “Who had samosa?
“I made them for dinner?”
“Your wife made samosa for dinner?” (Repeat these three lines three times)
So, you made them with eggroll paper from the store?
“No I just mixed up a bit of flour and yogurt and salt for the dough, cooked up the vegetables and seasoned them”
Repeat Chorus
“You should really try the food at the Buddhist temple.”
“I am going to go the first chance I get.”
“I am sure they have very good samosa”
“I know, I love samosa, that’s why we made them at home.”
Repeat Chorus
J. and I have been going to the same gym now for 6 years. In that time the gym itself has changed owners and gone through about a dozen complete staff changes. There are only a few of us now who still brandish our original Q club cards. In that time I have made a few casual acquaintances, some lingered for a while, then disappeared, others quit the gym but maintain a cursory contact, and a few, like ourselves, seem to be permanent fixtures.
Our gym sits on an interesting crossroads, and, having been a member for so long, I have discovered that from moment to moment it is a place constantly in flux. Early in the morning, (I am told by J. who used to go before work at 6 a.m.) the place is awash with the young urban professionals, eager to get a head start on the day. Next come the septuagenarians, the Indians and the Pakistani, the soccer moms at noon, a smattering of every group in the afternoons, more business professionals from four to seven, and an assortment of people from the Asian community in the evening. (The gym turns into something of a Korean bathhouse after 9 p.m.)
Yes, our gym is awash with cultural diversity. Reflecting, for the most part, the community at large. We have sizable Asian and Indian community centers on either side of the interstate nearest our house that accounts for the large number of members from these communities. Put that in the mix with demographics of the area: married, same sex, with kids, African American, Caucasian, Hispanic, employed, retired, Russian, Jewish, Christian, Purple, Poke-a-dotted, and tattooed, and you have our gym, a little cross section of our corner of the world. Apparently, in the world of intercultural dialogue, the language of exercise is universal.
On a side note, I remember the first time I had a samosa, was at a little bakery a few blocks from the college in Cambridge. They were absolutely delicious. I’d always pick up a few for breakfast, and eat them as I walked to class. The novel nature of these little veggie filled pockets was the succulent sauce that made them so endearing. (That and the 5 shillings apiece they cost) The vapor that rose out of them as you sunk your teeth into one would fill the air and surround you and implant itself into your pores so that you would smell of cumin and coriander all day long. Compared to most of the fodder we were asked to eat in England, these were incomparably scrumptious. (This reminds me of the story of the first time I had Falafel, but that for another time)
Saturday, July 26, 2008
The Blog of all things Scout
The other day I left Scout alone in the kitchen for a minute with a bowl of yogurt. Apparently a minute is all the time that is needed for a two year old to make free associations. We have been taking the kids to the pool a lot lately and really it is all Scout talks about. “Pool? Pool? Pool?” Evidently, cherry flavored yogurt looks and smells a lot like sunscreen, and a minute was all it took for her to liberally spread the gooey stuff over the entire surface of her body. It was then that the nucleus of my new blog began to form: The blog of all things Scout.
Scout has an amazing propensity for mischievous trouble. Whether it is mainlining ranch salad dressing, scattering her mother’s craft beads throughout the house, or simply displaying the charming cognitive developments that are so unique to a two year old, Scout is an imp. albeit a very, very sweet imp.
IMP: (I’mp’eh) fairies frequently described in folklore and superstition that are somewhat mischievous similar to a demon but smaller and less powerful; a mischievous child.
Well, maybe not an imp, but she is a wonder. She'll dance to literally any tune she hears, will spontaneously burst into song, will pause to pet the kitty then turn and pinch her sister. There is something really fascinating about watching children grow and develop. For example, the other day we were putting in a new bookcase, as we have grossly outgrown our old ones, and jenny was making irregular piles of books on the floor divided into the usual categories, cookbooks, poetry, harlequin romances, epistemological philosophy, ancient heresies of religion… when scout wandered over to the littlest pile, pointed, and said “Baby.” Jenny looked at the pile of books and, not seeing what Scout was referring to, replied “What baby Scout?”
Scout repeated her gesture “Baby.” She said, then, as if to clarify, she pointed at a slightly larger pile of books and said “Mama.” Then to the largest pile of books “Papa.”
I can’t even begin to tell you how cute this was. Jenny was astounded at Scout’s seemingly new capacity for abstract thought. Needless to say, we have the cutest two years old in the universe! (Which is the universe’s way of protecting her when we discover permanent marker on our 19th century end table)
Scout has reached that formative age when free associations come naturally; it’s that point in life where most of artist, poets, designers, and us creative types in general strive to return. I think the true wonder of the age is that the associations are so simple, this pile of books resembles a family, that bowl of yogurt resembles sunscreen. There is no pretension, because the artifice of pretension doesn’t exist. These are the association free of judgment. That is what makes them so beautiful, so elegant, and really, so darn funny. Now to capture it in pictures so I can make my new blog…
Scout has an amazing propensity for mischievous trouble. Whether it is mainlining ranch salad dressing, scattering her mother’s craft beads throughout the house, or simply displaying the charming cognitive developments that are so unique to a two year old, Scout is an imp. albeit a very, very sweet imp.
IMP: (I’mp’eh) fairies frequently described in folklore and superstition that are somewhat mischievous similar to a demon but smaller and less powerful; a mischievous child.
Well, maybe not an imp, but she is a wonder. She'll dance to literally any tune she hears, will spontaneously burst into song, will pause to pet the kitty then turn and pinch her sister. There is something really fascinating about watching children grow and develop. For example, the other day we were putting in a new bookcase, as we have grossly outgrown our old ones, and jenny was making irregular piles of books on the floor divided into the usual categories, cookbooks, poetry, harlequin romances, epistemological philosophy, ancient heresies of religion… when scout wandered over to the littlest pile, pointed, and said “Baby.” Jenny looked at the pile of books and, not seeing what Scout was referring to, replied “What baby Scout?”
Scout repeated her gesture “Baby.” She said, then, as if to clarify, she pointed at a slightly larger pile of books and said “Mama.” Then to the largest pile of books “Papa.”
I can’t even begin to tell you how cute this was. Jenny was astounded at Scout’s seemingly new capacity for abstract thought. Needless to say, we have the cutest two years old in the universe! (Which is the universe’s way of protecting her when we discover permanent marker on our 19th century end table)
Scout has reached that formative age when free associations come naturally; it’s that point in life where most of artist, poets, designers, and us creative types in general strive to return. I think the true wonder of the age is that the associations are so simple, this pile of books resembles a family, that bowl of yogurt resembles sunscreen. There is no pretension, because the artifice of pretension doesn’t exist. These are the association free of judgment. That is what makes them so beautiful, so elegant, and really, so darn funny. Now to capture it in pictures so I can make my new blog…
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Waiting for Blogot
The other day, after reading one of my posts I asked J. what she thought. “It’s great,” she replied “ I just don't understand why you sound so surprised about it.” Ever since then I’ve been thinking about “the voice” of my blog, and while not dissatisfied, I have been pondering ways in which I can make the blog more interesting.
I told J. “I think I need to create some kind of dialogue. You know, break up the imperious voice of indignation with a character that resembles reason. Sort of a Waiting for Godot blog if you will.”
What would that look like? I’ve been pouring over the headlines and found a topic that interested me almost straight away, the Trial of Max Mosley, the FIA Formula One race car president who sued for invasion of privacy after the Sunday tabloid had falsely accused him of taking part in a "sick Nazi orgy".
O.K. So I have my Gogo, but who to play Didi? Hmmmn. Then it struck me. Bill Clinton is my Didi. Why? Because I never understood why an investigation into a fraudulent real estate development got tied to an entirely separate investigation into a political sex scandal and led to the eventual Impeachment of a President. The so-called Starr Paper that should have highlighted the prosecutorial investigation into the real estate debacle, instead hardly made mention of it. Instead it turned out to be a brief on sex and the abuse of power. There is no question that Bill Clinton perjured himself. There is some question whether it was cause enough to impeach a president, and as Chelsea Clinton pointed out to a reporter not long ago, ultimately whether it is any of our business in the first place.
There in lies the rub, so to speak, for poor old Slick Willie. Not that he could have cried "foul!" adn claimed it was no ones business but the truth remains that America has very differing standards when it comes to privacy (defined by a series of differing laws (torts)) while the Europeans have come to understand privacy as a Human Right, so defined in the articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.
So, I’ve got my Brit. and my American, my, Gogo, who is preoccupied with his physical aches and pains, the lash of the whip and the speed of the car and my Vladimir, whose pain is primarily mental anguish, what the lawyers will argue and his cunning bits of logic used to persuade and delude. Now all I need is my dialogue.
Act I
Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot. He pulls at it with both hands, panting.
E: (giving up again). Nothing to be done.
V: (advancing with short, stiff strides, legs wide apart). I'm beginning to come round to that opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything. A cigar tube, a little oral sex under the desk. And I resumed the struggle. (He broods, musing on the struggle. Turning to Estragon.) So there you are again.
E: Am I?
V: I'm glad to see you back. I thought you were gone forever.
E: Me too.
V: Together again at last! We'll have to celebrate this. But how? (He reflects.) Get up till I embrace you.
E: (irritably). Not now, not now. I don’t swing that way.
V: (hurt, coldly). May one inquire where His Highness spent the night?
E: In a ditch.
V: (admiringly). A ditch! Where?
E: (without gesture). Over there.
V: And they didn't beat you?
E: Beat me? Certainly they beat me.
V: The same lot as usual?
E: The same? I don't know.
V: When I think of it . . . all these years . . . but for me . . . where would you be . . . (Decisively.) You'd be nothing more than a little heap of bones at the present minute, no doubt about it.
E: And what of it?
V: (gloomily). It's too much for one man. All those women, and for Five hours??? (Pause. Cheerfully.) On the other hand what's the good of losing heart now, that's what I say. We should have thought of it a million years ago, in the nineties.
E: Ah stop blathering and help me off with this bloody thing.
V: Hand in hand from the top of the Eiffel Tower, among the first. We were respectable in those days. Now it's too late. They wouldn't even let us up. (Estragon tears at his boot.) What are you doing?
E: Taking off my boot. Did that never happen to you?
V: Boots must be taken off every day, I'm tired telling you that. Why don't you listen to me?
E: (feebly). Help me!
V: It hurts?
E: (angrily). Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!
V: (angrily). No one ever suffers but you. I don't count. I'd like to hear what you'd say if you had what I have.
E: It hurts?
V: (angrily). Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!
E: (pointing). You might button it all the same.
V: (stooping). True. (He buttons his fly.) Never neglect the little things of life.
I told J. “I think I need to create some kind of dialogue. You know, break up the imperious voice of indignation with a character that resembles reason. Sort of a Waiting for Godot blog if you will.”
What would that look like? I’ve been pouring over the headlines and found a topic that interested me almost straight away, the Trial of Max Mosley, the FIA Formula One race car president who sued for invasion of privacy after the Sunday tabloid had falsely accused him of taking part in a "sick Nazi orgy".
O.K. So I have my Gogo, but who to play Didi? Hmmmn. Then it struck me. Bill Clinton is my Didi. Why? Because I never understood why an investigation into a fraudulent real estate development got tied to an entirely separate investigation into a political sex scandal and led to the eventual Impeachment of a President. The so-called Starr Paper that should have highlighted the prosecutorial investigation into the real estate debacle, instead hardly made mention of it. Instead it turned out to be a brief on sex and the abuse of power. There is no question that Bill Clinton perjured himself. There is some question whether it was cause enough to impeach a president, and as Chelsea Clinton pointed out to a reporter not long ago, ultimately whether it is any of our business in the first place.
There in lies the rub, so to speak, for poor old Slick Willie. Not that he could have cried "foul!" adn claimed it was no ones business but the truth remains that America has very differing standards when it comes to privacy (defined by a series of differing laws (torts)) while the Europeans have come to understand privacy as a Human Right, so defined in the articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.
So, I’ve got my Brit. and my American, my, Gogo, who is preoccupied with his physical aches and pains, the lash of the whip and the speed of the car and my Vladimir, whose pain is primarily mental anguish, what the lawyers will argue and his cunning bits of logic used to persuade and delude. Now all I need is my dialogue.
Act I
Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot. He pulls at it with both hands, panting.
E: (giving up again). Nothing to be done.
V: (advancing with short, stiff strides, legs wide apart). I'm beginning to come round to that opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything. A cigar tube, a little oral sex under the desk. And I resumed the struggle. (He broods, musing on the struggle. Turning to Estragon.) So there you are again.
E: Am I?
V: I'm glad to see you back. I thought you were gone forever.
E: Me too.
V: Together again at last! We'll have to celebrate this. But how? (He reflects.) Get up till I embrace you.
E: (irritably). Not now, not now. I don’t swing that way.
V: (hurt, coldly). May one inquire where His Highness spent the night?
E: In a ditch.
V: (admiringly). A ditch! Where?
E: (without gesture). Over there.
V: And they didn't beat you?
E: Beat me? Certainly they beat me.
V: The same lot as usual?
E: The same? I don't know.
V: When I think of it . . . all these years . . . but for me . . . where would you be . . . (Decisively.) You'd be nothing more than a little heap of bones at the present minute, no doubt about it.
E: And what of it?
V: (gloomily). It's too much for one man. All those women, and for Five hours??? (Pause. Cheerfully.) On the other hand what's the good of losing heart now, that's what I say. We should have thought of it a million years ago, in the nineties.
E: Ah stop blathering and help me off with this bloody thing.
V: Hand in hand from the top of the Eiffel Tower, among the first. We were respectable in those days. Now it's too late. They wouldn't even let us up. (Estragon tears at his boot.) What are you doing?
E: Taking off my boot. Did that never happen to you?
V: Boots must be taken off every day, I'm tired telling you that. Why don't you listen to me?
E: (feebly). Help me!
V: It hurts?
E: (angrily). Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!
V: (angrily). No one ever suffers but you. I don't count. I'd like to hear what you'd say if you had what I have.
E: It hurts?
V: (angrily). Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!
E: (pointing). You might button it all the same.
V: (stooping). True. (He buttons his fly.) Never neglect the little things of life.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Television Man
I’ve had a bit of stomach trouble the past few days, the kind that makes for a good pepto commercial, and in true man-flu fashion I found myself laying on the couch, groaning a bit, staring vacantly into the television, my thumb reflexively toggling the remote’s channel button. Normally the man-flu doesn’t allow for self-reflective thought, but I found myself getting offended and angry. What is the deal with the sitcom dad? I realize I am a bit of a Johnny-come-lately to this issue, but um, well, T.V. dads are not the brightest lampposts on the street. It is a bit aggravating, so you will pardon my incredulity.
O.K. I know the white male=bad, right? Nobody is going to buy a t-shirt that says “have you hugged your white male today?” White men are the privileged class. We have all the best jobs, so we can afford the best cars and houses. Right? Not according to television. Then we are the deadbeat dads, the racist hillbillies, and the gigolo yuppies. Worse than this (much, much worse) we are the ineffective caregivers who cannot make a single decision about the welfare of our children without the approval of the ill-tempered, dictatorial wife who is constantly looking over T.V. dad’s shoulder and correcting his every faux pas.
Honestly, women should be as, or more offended by this then men. I just watched an AT&T commercial of a Mother chastising her husband because he was throwing away “milky rollover minutes. ” Far from being the shrewd businesswoman making money in the world of big finance, she is just the shrew. The husband, the bumbling oaf of the home, dismisses her concerns with an offhand and demeaning remark.
At first I thought that this was perhaps some kind of role reversal on television, from weak helpless female, to inept insincere male. But the more I think about it, the more I realize, nothing has changed. It is just more of the same. Perpetuating the message that women should be at home, where they belong, and men have no place in America’s kitchens. Far from members of a healthy relationship, women are still depicted as the guardians of the home, where they are constantly having to correct the husband on what should be some simple chore.. The identities of women are even more closely associated with home and family than that of June Clever.
The interesting thing about this formula is just how little television producers have to risk. With the myriad of channels offered it is more difficult for sitcoms to find wide audience appeal, as a result Sitcoms now target more defined niche audiences on a range of channels. It may even be more difficult for a sitcom to ‘tap into’ contemporary issues since a varied audience is not watching. This means that producers can, with very little deviation, choose between either the matronly housewife or the Jessica Simpsonesque sex kitten without having to challenge the status quo. Nothing changes. Well, except that now men are depicted as the soul of ineptitude.
I like to think of art as somehow imitating life, becoming the social mirror by which we can examine ourselves. That is why I believe learning to look at the media critically is such an important and essential skill for people to develop. Much attention has been made of the fact that most young women read and look at magazines that objectify and exploit them while the images are subconsciously inserted as desirable. I suspect much the same thing is going on for men. Men Depicted as incapable of taking care of their children are thus excused from parenting responsibilities, they are not trusted to take their children to the doctor, or be left alone at home with the children for long periods while the wife is out of town.
I find that even when I know what is going on, when I am being sold a bill of goods by stereotypes on television, it is hypnotic, I can’t look away. Worse, because too often these concepts become less about who we are and more about who we should be and what we should look like to fit in and be accepted and prized in this culture. Unfortunately these images are seldom little more than window dressing on the regurgitated offerings of societies ills. We should be wary and heed the cautious tone of Oscar Wilde. "Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life."
O.K. I know the white male=bad, right? Nobody is going to buy a t-shirt that says “have you hugged your white male today?” White men are the privileged class. We have all the best jobs, so we can afford the best cars and houses. Right? Not according to television. Then we are the deadbeat dads, the racist hillbillies, and the gigolo yuppies. Worse than this (much, much worse) we are the ineffective caregivers who cannot make a single decision about the welfare of our children without the approval of the ill-tempered, dictatorial wife who is constantly looking over T.V. dad’s shoulder and correcting his every faux pas.
Honestly, women should be as, or more offended by this then men. I just watched an AT&T commercial of a Mother chastising her husband because he was throwing away “milky rollover minutes. ” Far from being the shrewd businesswoman making money in the world of big finance, she is just the shrew. The husband, the bumbling oaf of the home, dismisses her concerns with an offhand and demeaning remark.
At first I thought that this was perhaps some kind of role reversal on television, from weak helpless female, to inept insincere male. But the more I think about it, the more I realize, nothing has changed. It is just more of the same. Perpetuating the message that women should be at home, where they belong, and men have no place in America’s kitchens. Far from members of a healthy relationship, women are still depicted as the guardians of the home, where they are constantly having to correct the husband on what should be some simple chore.. The identities of women are even more closely associated with home and family than that of June Clever.
The interesting thing about this formula is just how little television producers have to risk. With the myriad of channels offered it is more difficult for sitcoms to find wide audience appeal, as a result Sitcoms now target more defined niche audiences on a range of channels. It may even be more difficult for a sitcom to ‘tap into’ contemporary issues since a varied audience is not watching. This means that producers can, with very little deviation, choose between either the matronly housewife or the Jessica Simpsonesque sex kitten without having to challenge the status quo. Nothing changes. Well, except that now men are depicted as the soul of ineptitude.
I like to think of art as somehow imitating life, becoming the social mirror by which we can examine ourselves. That is why I believe learning to look at the media critically is such an important and essential skill for people to develop. Much attention has been made of the fact that most young women read and look at magazines that objectify and exploit them while the images are subconsciously inserted as desirable. I suspect much the same thing is going on for men. Men Depicted as incapable of taking care of their children are thus excused from parenting responsibilities, they are not trusted to take their children to the doctor, or be left alone at home with the children for long periods while the wife is out of town.
I find that even when I know what is going on, when I am being sold a bill of goods by stereotypes on television, it is hypnotic, I can’t look away. Worse, because too often these concepts become less about who we are and more about who we should be and what we should look like to fit in and be accepted and prized in this culture. Unfortunately these images are seldom little more than window dressing on the regurgitated offerings of societies ills. We should be wary and heed the cautious tone of Oscar Wilde. "Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life."
Friday, July 18, 2008
Spinach in the meatball
So I am flipping through one of these parenting magazines and I spy an article on how to get kids to eat their vegetables. This piqued my interest on multiple levels. One. I am always looking out for a good recipe. Two. Preparing kids meals should be the soul of brevity. Personally I don’t think that any meal that takes more than a half an hour to make is worth its salt. I have several years worth of half-hour long programming from the food network to prove my point that a half hour is more than enough time to prepare several delicious dishes. This goes doubly for children’s meals. Three. My kids hate to eat, or at least seem to do so. In fact, their propensity to eat is inversely proportional to my expectation that they will enjoy whatever it is I have made them. Sure they are going to like chicken nuggets? Come to find that today chicken nuggets are an anathema.
So, what was the sage advice that this parenting article offered? Disguise your food. Not with funny little masks or hats, but to transform the ordinarily disgusting vegetable into something that appears to be a delicious treat for the ages. Don’t like spinach? Chop it up and hide it in a yummy meatball. Don’t like Cauliflower? Fry it up to look like popcorn. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I can’t even begin to tell you the myriad reasons that this strategy will never work. First of all small children are able to detect despised vegetables the way bloodhounds detect scents, like a shark smells blood in the water, like an eagle spies, oh you get the point. You put one single leaf of minced up spinach in ten gallons of hamburger, they will know it is there, and don’t even get me started on why the cauliflower thing is just nonsense.
Believe it or not though, none of this compared to the incredulity I felt when I read the last item on the list. Don’t like Broccoli? Puree it up to look like guacamole and, and, (wait for it) serve it with pita chips. Now I know you are gasping with disbelief. But, for the uninitiated, I will spell it out. Never mind the complete dishonesty and misrepresentation that you are perpetrating on your child. Forget the years of psychotherapy the child will grow to require. Imagine for a minute the larger picture. What are they asking us to do to broccoli? I am on a bit of a rant here, so bare with me. Why would you take something perfectly good and wholesome, like a simple tree of broccoli, and puree it? The very adjective “tree” should tell you everything you need to know about broccoli. Broccoli already looks like something else. If this isn’t enough to convince a child to eat it, then surely nothing else will. Needless to say, I have yet to meet a child that would eat guacamole anyways, certainly not any that tasted like broccoli.
No, the truth is, this article simply did not make any sense. But it did remind me of something I learned a long time ago with my first child that I have come to forget. Disguising a food aside, there is something to the idea that foods can look like something else that can capture the imagination of a child in a way that spinach in a meatball has failed to grasp. That the very resemblance of a thing can and often does challenge the imagination of a child in a way that can make eating more enjoyable, dare I say fun. Why not have fun with it. Allow your broccoli to be a tree.
A few years ago, D. was looking through a cookbook for kids that suggested transforming the ordinary everyday hot dog in a bun into a crocodile simply by adding a few carefully placed kernels of corn to resemble teeth. She loved it. I shared this with my neighbor, who also has children, and she suggested that a few simple lengthwise cuts halfway along the length of a hot dog are all that is needed to ensure that the hot dog will resemble an octopus when it comes out of the boiling water. Kids want to be engaged. They want to see the world from new perspectives. This is the core of their cognitive development, and we, as parents, have only a small window of time in which to lay down simple differences, let alone allow them to see the world from completely new perspectives. Why not give it to them.
Now I realize that some of you will cry foul. I am a vegetarian (yes who likes fish) and I do like vegetables and, more importantly, I like food to look like the stuff it came from. (The exception being sushi, or, well fish in general. Fish should never look like fish) I suspect some of you are rethinking my dislike of beets and saying "a ha! So it isn't just the beets!" But, we are deceived so much of the time. In advertising, in spam and craigslist scams and on the used car lot. It seems to me that children will get enough of this “spinach in the meatball” kind of treatment all too soon. I wonder how I perpetuate this kind of thinking in my own life? I suppose I can think about it on my way to the grocery store. I guess we are having hot dogs (or smartdogs) for dinner.
So, what was the sage advice that this parenting article offered? Disguise your food. Not with funny little masks or hats, but to transform the ordinarily disgusting vegetable into something that appears to be a delicious treat for the ages. Don’t like spinach? Chop it up and hide it in a yummy meatball. Don’t like Cauliflower? Fry it up to look like popcorn. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I can’t even begin to tell you the myriad reasons that this strategy will never work. First of all small children are able to detect despised vegetables the way bloodhounds detect scents, like a shark smells blood in the water, like an eagle spies, oh you get the point. You put one single leaf of minced up spinach in ten gallons of hamburger, they will know it is there, and don’t even get me started on why the cauliflower thing is just nonsense.
Believe it or not though, none of this compared to the incredulity I felt when I read the last item on the list. Don’t like Broccoli? Puree it up to look like guacamole and, and, (wait for it) serve it with pita chips. Now I know you are gasping with disbelief. But, for the uninitiated, I will spell it out. Never mind the complete dishonesty and misrepresentation that you are perpetrating on your child. Forget the years of psychotherapy the child will grow to require. Imagine for a minute the larger picture. What are they asking us to do to broccoli? I am on a bit of a rant here, so bare with me. Why would you take something perfectly good and wholesome, like a simple tree of broccoli, and puree it? The very adjective “tree” should tell you everything you need to know about broccoli. Broccoli already looks like something else. If this isn’t enough to convince a child to eat it, then surely nothing else will. Needless to say, I have yet to meet a child that would eat guacamole anyways, certainly not any that tasted like broccoli.
No, the truth is, this article simply did not make any sense. But it did remind me of something I learned a long time ago with my first child that I have come to forget. Disguising a food aside, there is something to the idea that foods can look like something else that can capture the imagination of a child in a way that spinach in a meatball has failed to grasp. That the very resemblance of a thing can and often does challenge the imagination of a child in a way that can make eating more enjoyable, dare I say fun. Why not have fun with it. Allow your broccoli to be a tree.
A few years ago, D. was looking through a cookbook for kids that suggested transforming the ordinary everyday hot dog in a bun into a crocodile simply by adding a few carefully placed kernels of corn to resemble teeth. She loved it. I shared this with my neighbor, who also has children, and she suggested that a few simple lengthwise cuts halfway along the length of a hot dog are all that is needed to ensure that the hot dog will resemble an octopus when it comes out of the boiling water. Kids want to be engaged. They want to see the world from new perspectives. This is the core of their cognitive development, and we, as parents, have only a small window of time in which to lay down simple differences, let alone allow them to see the world from completely new perspectives. Why not give it to them.
Now I realize that some of you will cry foul. I am a vegetarian (yes who likes fish) and I do like vegetables and, more importantly, I like food to look like the stuff it came from. (The exception being sushi, or, well fish in general. Fish should never look like fish) I suspect some of you are rethinking my dislike of beets and saying "a ha! So it isn't just the beets!" But, we are deceived so much of the time. In advertising, in spam and craigslist scams and on the used car lot. It seems to me that children will get enough of this “spinach in the meatball” kind of treatment all too soon. I wonder how I perpetuate this kind of thinking in my own life? I suppose I can think about it on my way to the grocery store. I guess we are having hot dogs (or smartdogs) for dinner.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
O fridge, my fridge
When we bought our first home in Austin, we didn’t really know what we were getting into. Fortunately we had a very sweet realtor who walked us, baby steps, through the process and was very patient. Much to our surprise, we discovered that one of the hidden costs of buying a first home is buying a refrigerator. In fact there should have been several of these appliance related costs, but the previous owners abandoned their washer/dryer. The washer gave us a couple of years of good service, but we replaced it as soon as we moved to Dallas. Amazingly the dryer lasted a full ten years before being “updated” with another used hand-me-down dryer we picked up from our neighbors. But the refrigerator is special. I love our refrigerator. I think you can tell a lot about a person by their fridge. Are they sufficiently adapted to the modern world? Do they partake of all the modern conveniences, or are they simply sufficiently utilitarian? Is the fridge cluttered? Is it clean? Does it have enough space within? Is it appropriately decorated with the proper amount of photographs, magnetic poetry, shopping lists and assorted bric-a-brac? I would go so far as to wager that no other single household item can tell you as much about the occupants of the home as the fridge, not even the personal computer.
Ours is a freezer on the bottom variety refrigerator. A bottom freezer refrigerator puts the fresh food you need to access most often right where you need it -- at eye level. This is particularly true for those of us over six feet. The less frequently accessed freezer section is moved to the bottom of the unit. This seems perfectly natural as frozen foods are those foods that are meant to be stored for longer and are thus accessed less often. The decision to purchase a bottom freezer refrigerator really depends on how important it is to you to have fresh food in a more accessible, easily viewable area. (Again, the desire to eat fresh food, and to have it readily available tells you a lot about a person.)
A good refrigerator withstands the changing family dynamic and its use evolves over time. When we bought our fridge J. was still expecting, the fridge catered to the two of us, but today our little family grown, we buy in bulk, and we store excess frozen foods in the freezer more frequently. Our diet has changed somewhat, and while the children for the most part eat what we eat, they also eat more frozen, prepackaged foods. This is what a freezer is for, after all. Since he introduction of the home freezer in the 1940’s, frozen foods have made the transition from a luxury to a necessity, an integral part of our daily lives. The best part? Our freezer (the freezer on the bottom variety) once again shows its versatility in that adult foods are at adult levels, while children’s foods are at children levels. Though the two year old quickly discovered the means of obtaining and thereby forming a four Popsicle a day habit.
Sadly our refrigerator is beginning to show its age, and here is the thing. Once something is broken, is it ever the same? Now, the ice-maker broke. Parts were brought in, specialists were summoned, and as if by magic (and a hefty check) ice began to once again grace our freezer compartment. Next was the seal, or gasket. The thin, membrane-like lip of plastic that runs around the inner part of the freezer door that forms the hermetic seal between inner and outer. It began to bubble. It began to crack. Soon things were not as they should be. Cold air no longer flowed gracefully from bottom to top bringing freshness and crispness to leafy vegetables. Lettuce began to wilt prematurely and milk soured. Specialists were call and prices were quoted. We balked. We found the part online we enlisted the aid of a few well-intentioned websites that offered do-it-yourself tips and we repaired our freezer. Freshness was restored.
Then of course it failed again. Hands were wrung. Questions of competency and expense were raised and we tried again. Today everything seems to work, though there does seem to be a bit of excess moisture forming on the ceiling of the refrigerator. Suggesting that, despite our best intentions, we are going to have to eventually do something else.
I think my fridge has a lesson or two to teach me about aging gracefully. I’ve decided to adopt a wait and see attitude about my fridge. I don’t have any fear of its eventual success or failure. I suppose my love of my fridge allows me to embrace its flaws with loving acceptance. When something breaks, is it even the same? Nothing lasts forever. Everything eventually shows signs of age. But will those signs be the salt and pepper dusting of gray that begins to peek out between visits to the barber, or is it the annoying flatulence that seems to strike somewhere between midnight and two in the morning? Worse, is it the annoying back pain that signals a system failure deep from within? I suppose time will tell. J. says refrigerators aren’t supposed to last much more than ten or fifteen years and I shoot back a withering glance and whisper “not in front of the fridge.” For now I gently wipe the sweat of age and exertion from the brow of my dear refrigerator as I pour myself a glass of OJ.
Ours is a freezer on the bottom variety refrigerator. A bottom freezer refrigerator puts the fresh food you need to access most often right where you need it -- at eye level. This is particularly true for those of us over six feet. The less frequently accessed freezer section is moved to the bottom of the unit. This seems perfectly natural as frozen foods are those foods that are meant to be stored for longer and are thus accessed less often. The decision to purchase a bottom freezer refrigerator really depends on how important it is to you to have fresh food in a more accessible, easily viewable area. (Again, the desire to eat fresh food, and to have it readily available tells you a lot about a person.)
A good refrigerator withstands the changing family dynamic and its use evolves over time. When we bought our fridge J. was still expecting, the fridge catered to the two of us, but today our little family grown, we buy in bulk, and we store excess frozen foods in the freezer more frequently. Our diet has changed somewhat, and while the children for the most part eat what we eat, they also eat more frozen, prepackaged foods. This is what a freezer is for, after all. Since he introduction of the home freezer in the 1940’s, frozen foods have made the transition from a luxury to a necessity, an integral part of our daily lives. The best part? Our freezer (the freezer on the bottom variety) once again shows its versatility in that adult foods are at adult levels, while children’s foods are at children levels. Though the two year old quickly discovered the means of obtaining and thereby forming a four Popsicle a day habit.
Sadly our refrigerator is beginning to show its age, and here is the thing. Once something is broken, is it ever the same? Now, the ice-maker broke. Parts were brought in, specialists were summoned, and as if by magic (and a hefty check) ice began to once again grace our freezer compartment. Next was the seal, or gasket. The thin, membrane-like lip of plastic that runs around the inner part of the freezer door that forms the hermetic seal between inner and outer. It began to bubble. It began to crack. Soon things were not as they should be. Cold air no longer flowed gracefully from bottom to top bringing freshness and crispness to leafy vegetables. Lettuce began to wilt prematurely and milk soured. Specialists were call and prices were quoted. We balked. We found the part online we enlisted the aid of a few well-intentioned websites that offered do-it-yourself tips and we repaired our freezer. Freshness was restored.
Then of course it failed again. Hands were wrung. Questions of competency and expense were raised and we tried again. Today everything seems to work, though there does seem to be a bit of excess moisture forming on the ceiling of the refrigerator. Suggesting that, despite our best intentions, we are going to have to eventually do something else.
I think my fridge has a lesson or two to teach me about aging gracefully. I’ve decided to adopt a wait and see attitude about my fridge. I don’t have any fear of its eventual success or failure. I suppose my love of my fridge allows me to embrace its flaws with loving acceptance. When something breaks, is it even the same? Nothing lasts forever. Everything eventually shows signs of age. But will those signs be the salt and pepper dusting of gray that begins to peek out between visits to the barber, or is it the annoying flatulence that seems to strike somewhere between midnight and two in the morning? Worse, is it the annoying back pain that signals a system failure deep from within? I suppose time will tell. J. says refrigerators aren’t supposed to last much more than ten or fifteen years and I shoot back a withering glance and whisper “not in front of the fridge.” For now I gently wipe the sweat of age and exertion from the brow of my dear refrigerator as I pour myself a glass of OJ.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Revisiting Q
Well I got myself into another Sunday School assignment, this time I offered to lead a discussion on the Lost Gospel of Q, or the Q document or just Q, depending on whatever you want to call it.
A little background, after graduating with my BA I spent a little time doing some graduate work in CA studying the Christianity of antiquity, my interest was in the Coptic/Gnostic library that came from the Nag Hammadi find of 1945, but the Institute, once famous for its association with the Nag Hammadi Library, had changed its focus to the International Q project. I became a bit of an unwilling participant. I left after about 6 months, to rejoin J. in N.M.
Last night, as we were beginning our nightly sojourn into slumber, J. asked me one of those leading “if” questions. If I hadn’t left the Institute, to go and court my one great love, would I have stayed on, and finished my work? I suppose it would have meant never looking into my children’s eyes, thought I know that isn’t what she meant. Is my interest still there? Well, suffice it to say, I happy to lead an Adult Sunday School class on the subject, but I am not sure I would want to spend the rest of my life arguing over the subtle nuances of a Greek iota.
Q, you see, is a document buried within the New Testament, specifically, the synoptic (seen-together) gospels, which were originally written in Greek. Now, truth be told, it has been a while, fifteen years, since I wrote my last paper on the subject, and while I have kept a cursory eye on new publications about Q, I am anything but an expert. So, I dutifully dusted off a few books from the shelf and settled in to a good night's read.
Q is really fascinating, especially if you gloss over some of the controversial aspects of its genesis. You can’t get bogged down in how someone goes about finding a document within a document, especially one redacted so many times. You have to put aside, the “which gospel came first” question and accept that better minds than mine have managed to sort out the primacy of Mark. Finally, (my favorite) that Mark, according to Karl Ludwig Schmidt’s “The framework of the story of Jesus,” is itself a story made up of several smaller stories that were themselves put together by the author Mark for the purpose of inventing the biographical narrative, putting an end to the assumption that the narrative constituted a historical record.
So the New Testament gospels were written, using Mark as a guideline for the biographical narrative, and Q for the sayings of Jesus. What is Q? James Robinson in his “Logoi Sophon” hypothesized that Q was a kind of collection of wisdom sayings, a handbook of instruction filled with maxims, proverbs, injunctions and popular philosophies that offered insights into how to navigate modern living. The difference between Q and other types of pamphlets of its day? Well, Q was comprised of sayings by the teacher Jesus, but more importantly, contained prophetic and apocalyptic passages that were uncommon in other works of the genre. John Kloppenburg suggested that Q was probably itself a document that was edited many times and that the prophetic and apocalyptic language was probably added later as a kind of injunction against misbehaving. Don’t give to the poor? Don’t get into the kingdom of Heaven.
A couple of interesting things stand out for me. While Q may not get scholars (people, critics, the media) any closer to the historical Jesus, it does get us closer to the historical Jesus community. The addition of these injunctions shows very clearly the kinds of struggles and adaptations that were necessary for the community to bond together from a group of possible itinerants (i.e.” Do not carry purse, or bag, or sandals, or staff; and do not greet anyone on the road”) into a growing, thriving community.
Secondly, Q1, the original layer of Q, is without prophetic or apocalyptic language. It contains no birth, death or resurrection motifs, and while it is loosely organized into a narrative, it is essentially a prescription for how to live your life. Many of its sayings exhort the same lessons we try to teach our children: When asked, give, when in need, ask. Do not lie. Do not do what you hate. Eat what is in front of you whether it is meager or sumptuous. Do not be consumed with worry. Life is hard. Be cautious and courageous. Trust God. Be kind.
Some people would point to the absence of the story of Jesus as evidence that the Gospel narrative is nothing more than a myth in the making. However, I doubt that Q was the only story in town, and suspect that the narrative chunks of Jesus’ life that made up Mark were floating around with the same regularity as Q. In fact, I find these kinds of discussions about the rise of ritual and myth as detractive from the true story of Q. Rather I see in Q a kind of possibility for a religion besieged by so much distrust and animosity. From the reformation on, people have been questioning its authority. The whole "who is the historical Jesus" question seems somehow aimed at the authenticity of the religion as a whole.
Just yesterday I was talking to a long time friend who also goes to the class. He was saying that while he finds our class discussions interesting, what he is really hungry for, what he really wants, is more interaction that addresses how we integrate faith into our daily lives. J. is fond of saying “I can’t think myself into right action, but I can act myself into right thinking.” Maybe this is the core of Q? That faith is made manifest in works, and not just our lofty ideas about God and our good intentions. With that perspective in mind, I think I am going to reread Q one more time...
A little background, after graduating with my BA I spent a little time doing some graduate work in CA studying the Christianity of antiquity, my interest was in the Coptic/Gnostic library that came from the Nag Hammadi find of 1945, but the Institute, once famous for its association with the Nag Hammadi Library, had changed its focus to the International Q project. I became a bit of an unwilling participant. I left after about 6 months, to rejoin J. in N.M.
Last night, as we were beginning our nightly sojourn into slumber, J. asked me one of those leading “if” questions. If I hadn’t left the Institute, to go and court my one great love, would I have stayed on, and finished my work? I suppose it would have meant never looking into my children’s eyes, thought I know that isn’t what she meant. Is my interest still there? Well, suffice it to say, I happy to lead an Adult Sunday School class on the subject, but I am not sure I would want to spend the rest of my life arguing over the subtle nuances of a Greek iota.
Q, you see, is a document buried within the New Testament, specifically, the synoptic (seen-together) gospels, which were originally written in Greek. Now, truth be told, it has been a while, fifteen years, since I wrote my last paper on the subject, and while I have kept a cursory eye on new publications about Q, I am anything but an expert. So, I dutifully dusted off a few books from the shelf and settled in to a good night's read.
Q is really fascinating, especially if you gloss over some of the controversial aspects of its genesis. You can’t get bogged down in how someone goes about finding a document within a document, especially one redacted so many times. You have to put aside, the “which gospel came first” question and accept that better minds than mine have managed to sort out the primacy of Mark. Finally, (my favorite) that Mark, according to Karl Ludwig Schmidt’s “The framework of the story of Jesus,” is itself a story made up of several smaller stories that were themselves put together by the author Mark for the purpose of inventing the biographical narrative, putting an end to the assumption that the narrative constituted a historical record.
So the New Testament gospels were written, using Mark as a guideline for the biographical narrative, and Q for the sayings of Jesus. What is Q? James Robinson in his “Logoi Sophon” hypothesized that Q was a kind of collection of wisdom sayings, a handbook of instruction filled with maxims, proverbs, injunctions and popular philosophies that offered insights into how to navigate modern living. The difference between Q and other types of pamphlets of its day? Well, Q was comprised of sayings by the teacher Jesus, but more importantly, contained prophetic and apocalyptic passages that were uncommon in other works of the genre. John Kloppenburg suggested that Q was probably itself a document that was edited many times and that the prophetic and apocalyptic language was probably added later as a kind of injunction against misbehaving. Don’t give to the poor? Don’t get into the kingdom of Heaven.
A couple of interesting things stand out for me. While Q may not get scholars (people, critics, the media) any closer to the historical Jesus, it does get us closer to the historical Jesus community. The addition of these injunctions shows very clearly the kinds of struggles and adaptations that were necessary for the community to bond together from a group of possible itinerants (i.e.” Do not carry purse, or bag, or sandals, or staff; and do not greet anyone on the road”) into a growing, thriving community.
Secondly, Q1, the original layer of Q, is without prophetic or apocalyptic language. It contains no birth, death or resurrection motifs, and while it is loosely organized into a narrative, it is essentially a prescription for how to live your life. Many of its sayings exhort the same lessons we try to teach our children: When asked, give, when in need, ask. Do not lie. Do not do what you hate. Eat what is in front of you whether it is meager or sumptuous. Do not be consumed with worry. Life is hard. Be cautious and courageous. Trust God. Be kind.
Some people would point to the absence of the story of Jesus as evidence that the Gospel narrative is nothing more than a myth in the making. However, I doubt that Q was the only story in town, and suspect that the narrative chunks of Jesus’ life that made up Mark were floating around with the same regularity as Q. In fact, I find these kinds of discussions about the rise of ritual and myth as detractive from the true story of Q. Rather I see in Q a kind of possibility for a religion besieged by so much distrust and animosity. From the reformation on, people have been questioning its authority. The whole "who is the historical Jesus" question seems somehow aimed at the authenticity of the religion as a whole.
Just yesterday I was talking to a long time friend who also goes to the class. He was saying that while he finds our class discussions interesting, what he is really hungry for, what he really wants, is more interaction that addresses how we integrate faith into our daily lives. J. is fond of saying “I can’t think myself into right action, but I can act myself into right thinking.” Maybe this is the core of Q? That faith is made manifest in works, and not just our lofty ideas about God and our good intentions. With that perspective in mind, I think I am going to reread Q one more time...
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Democratization and Holden Caulfield
Walking out of the house for the airport last week, it suddenly dawned on me that I had not packed a single book for my trip. Glancing over at the shelf of paperback books (best for travel) my eye landed on The Catcher in the Rye. A little history here: I spent the summer of 1988 in Cambridge England taking a few courses in English at Clare College. One day, while walking to class with a professor, he began talking about The Catcher in the Rye. When I told him I hadn’t read it yet he stopped and said. “You better read it quick, because in a few more years, this book won’t make any sense to you, at least not for another 20 years.” So there I was, 20 years later, standing at the French doors, suitcase in hand, having this flash back. “Oh, what the hell.” I thought and grabbed the book.
The first thing that I have to tell you is, I’m pretty sure I have never read this book before. Nothing in the book seemed familiar. Stranger still were the notes in that back of the book written in my own hand writing. Be that as it may, the book was a complete surprise to me on many levels. Most notably, the last page. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, anyone who hasn’t been through AP English in high school that is, but I was completely taken back by the final page that lead me to believe that the entire story was written while Holden is sitting in an asylum of some sorts. He has been given a project to write by his therapist, and he chose to write this story. His brother comes to visit him and asks him what he thinks about what he has written, and finally Holden says he is allowed to leave and restart school in the fall because he is doing much better.
I found myself flipping back to page one. Wait. Is he crazy? If so, how? (I realize that “crazy” is not the appropriate nomenclature nor terribly PC) I immediately started thinking back to the comment my professor had made. Why wouldn’t a 20 or 30 something year old like this book? I suppose the short answer is that most adults have very little patience with the trials of adolescence, and that it isn’t until one has grown, raised a family, owned a home, and gotten a lot more experience under their belt that we are able to once again view those teen age years with a bit of sympathy.
I suppose the struggle for independence and the desire to be recognized as mature that accompanies youth and inexperience must look a little desperate to an outsider, and even be annoying. I know that being a teenager was incredibly hard, and I have no desire to relive those years. But as I grow older, as I have children of my own, I begin, once again to see the world as a very big place, and one life, one momentary 70 or 80 years journey in the vast well of eternity is really only a very small piece of something much larger. I recognize my own limitations, and strive to be something more. I am perhaps more like myself as a teenager than I would ever want to admit.
So, why is it that Holden ends up institutionalized? Throughout the book he constantly struggles accepting life as genuine. Everything is “Crumby” or “Phony” or “Perverted”. It is obvious that Holden is troubled, he fails out of four schools, he is completely apathetic about his future, and he is unable to connect with other people. Holden’s ex-teacher cautions him saying that he is riding towards some terrible fall, and might end up growing up to hate everything about his life and viewing others with disdain as he gets older, amassing just enough education and experience to slip quietly under the radar, but with few friends or meaningful relationships. (Interestingly the ex-teacher says this will happen to Holden in his 30’s.) Still, is this deserving of being hospitalized?
The thing is I don’t think that Holden is that much different from people I see around me. I look around and I see people hidden away behind their computer desks, locked inside or their SUV’s, listening to their ipod’s and playing with their playstations. In many ways we are as isolated as he is,maybe even more so. Throughout the novel, Holden remains separate from the world around him, perhaps as a means of self-preservation. He certainly uses his isolation as proof that he is better than everyone else around him and therefore above them. Ultimately, his interactions with other people usually confuse and overwhelm him, and his cynical sense of superiority serves as a type of self-protection.
When I teach my class on modernism, I spend a bit of time talking about the Age of Enlightenment, and try to get my students to understand the radical shift in thought that takes place during this time. The Enlightenment is held to be the source of critical ideas, such as the centrality of freedom, democracy and reason as primary values of society. Who in America doesn’t feel that the right to question one’s government, one’s religions, one’s basic way of life isn’t an inalienable right? We are still very much the children, or grandchildren of this thinking. If anything, it has gone much further. Instead of individualism, we now practice a type of hyper individualism, in which we choose our own music, our own unique fashions, and our particular mode or brand of living as means of self-expression. Don't want to be another face in the crowd? Build a gigantic home in the suburbs. Don’t like the music on the elevator? Plug in your ipod.
The problem with hyper individualism? We need look no further than the extreme case of individualism brought about by isolation as depicted by Holden Caulfield. First there is the tendency to assert rights without accepting responsibilities, the tendency to ignore or avoid responsibility for the consequences of our individual behavior for others, the desire to gain the benefits of social cooperation without accepting the burdens of the shared activities that are needed to produce those benefits, and finally, the tendency to assert our freedom at the expense of connection with other human beings. One such example from the book: Holden is the manager of the school's fencing team, and he loses the team's equipment on the subway. However he is unable to take responsibility for his actions. He is unable to comprehend that his action was irresponsible; instead, he focuses on how he feels his mistake, which he insists is not his fault, is humorous.
It is easy to idealize Holden and downplay the ambivalence and anxiety he feels in viewing a world full of phonies and perverts. Who doesn’t feel a little alienation in a world full of serial murderers, rapists, child molesters, and clowns? But Holden is the quintessential unreliable narrator (no relation to my old friend), and as such his account is tainted by his living in longing of his unfulfilled needs of love and acceptance, rather than by the values he idealizes. Holden dreams of becoming the "Catcher in the Rye", a heroic individual who, by virtue of his insight and natural intellect is foreordained to save the wayward and the innocent. What he lacks is the shared emotional connection with the different members of the community, and more importantly any kind of shared fate or moral responsibility, the sense that we are all in it together, that what happens to one happens to all.
I feel this is the great failure of the idea that America’s great export can be the democratization of another country. Somewhere we got the idea that our country can somehow be the great “Catcher in the Rye” for other nations. Setting aside the hubris that one country can say what will be better for another. The basic thesis is that over time, we will all be better off (as measured by our income, opportunity, and standard of living) if we accept the need for the "democratization" of the world. Unfortunately our democracy resembles something more like "free market economy" than equality and human rights. Like Holden, the democracy we envision is often not the one we are able to bring. Holden’s moment of insight comes as he realizes that he cannot save himself or his sister from the inevitability of growing up. Worse, she understands better than Holden that any refusal to mature reveals less about the outside world than it does about himself.
I have an urge to wrap this up. In the end, Holden sits down and examines his actions through the narration of the events. Through this process he begins to realize that the thoughts he had been carrying around with him about his relationships didn’t match the images of story he had been telling himself, and so he was forced to reexamine his beliefs and ultimately form healthier attachments.
The first thing that I have to tell you is, I’m pretty sure I have never read this book before. Nothing in the book seemed familiar. Stranger still were the notes in that back of the book written in my own hand writing. Be that as it may, the book was a complete surprise to me on many levels. Most notably, the last page. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, anyone who hasn’t been through AP English in high school that is, but I was completely taken back by the final page that lead me to believe that the entire story was written while Holden is sitting in an asylum of some sorts. He has been given a project to write by his therapist, and he chose to write this story. His brother comes to visit him and asks him what he thinks about what he has written, and finally Holden says he is allowed to leave and restart school in the fall because he is doing much better.
I found myself flipping back to page one. Wait. Is he crazy? If so, how? (I realize that “crazy” is not the appropriate nomenclature nor terribly PC) I immediately started thinking back to the comment my professor had made. Why wouldn’t a 20 or 30 something year old like this book? I suppose the short answer is that most adults have very little patience with the trials of adolescence, and that it isn’t until one has grown, raised a family, owned a home, and gotten a lot more experience under their belt that we are able to once again view those teen age years with a bit of sympathy.
I suppose the struggle for independence and the desire to be recognized as mature that accompanies youth and inexperience must look a little desperate to an outsider, and even be annoying. I know that being a teenager was incredibly hard, and I have no desire to relive those years. But as I grow older, as I have children of my own, I begin, once again to see the world as a very big place, and one life, one momentary 70 or 80 years journey in the vast well of eternity is really only a very small piece of something much larger. I recognize my own limitations, and strive to be something more. I am perhaps more like myself as a teenager than I would ever want to admit.
So, why is it that Holden ends up institutionalized? Throughout the book he constantly struggles accepting life as genuine. Everything is “Crumby” or “Phony” or “Perverted”. It is obvious that Holden is troubled, he fails out of four schools, he is completely apathetic about his future, and he is unable to connect with other people. Holden’s ex-teacher cautions him saying that he is riding towards some terrible fall, and might end up growing up to hate everything about his life and viewing others with disdain as he gets older, amassing just enough education and experience to slip quietly under the radar, but with few friends or meaningful relationships. (Interestingly the ex-teacher says this will happen to Holden in his 30’s.) Still, is this deserving of being hospitalized?
The thing is I don’t think that Holden is that much different from people I see around me. I look around and I see people hidden away behind their computer desks, locked inside or their SUV’s, listening to their ipod’s and playing with their playstations. In many ways we are as isolated as he is,maybe even more so. Throughout the novel, Holden remains separate from the world around him, perhaps as a means of self-preservation. He certainly uses his isolation as proof that he is better than everyone else around him and therefore above them. Ultimately, his interactions with other people usually confuse and overwhelm him, and his cynical sense of superiority serves as a type of self-protection.
When I teach my class on modernism, I spend a bit of time talking about the Age of Enlightenment, and try to get my students to understand the radical shift in thought that takes place during this time. The Enlightenment is held to be the source of critical ideas, such as the centrality of freedom, democracy and reason as primary values of society. Who in America doesn’t feel that the right to question one’s government, one’s religions, one’s basic way of life isn’t an inalienable right? We are still very much the children, or grandchildren of this thinking. If anything, it has gone much further. Instead of individualism, we now practice a type of hyper individualism, in which we choose our own music, our own unique fashions, and our particular mode or brand of living as means of self-expression. Don't want to be another face in the crowd? Build a gigantic home in the suburbs. Don’t like the music on the elevator? Plug in your ipod.
The problem with hyper individualism? We need look no further than the extreme case of individualism brought about by isolation as depicted by Holden Caulfield. First there is the tendency to assert rights without accepting responsibilities, the tendency to ignore or avoid responsibility for the consequences of our individual behavior for others, the desire to gain the benefits of social cooperation without accepting the burdens of the shared activities that are needed to produce those benefits, and finally, the tendency to assert our freedom at the expense of connection with other human beings. One such example from the book: Holden is the manager of the school's fencing team, and he loses the team's equipment on the subway. However he is unable to take responsibility for his actions. He is unable to comprehend that his action was irresponsible; instead, he focuses on how he feels his mistake, which he insists is not his fault, is humorous.
It is easy to idealize Holden and downplay the ambivalence and anxiety he feels in viewing a world full of phonies and perverts. Who doesn’t feel a little alienation in a world full of serial murderers, rapists, child molesters, and clowns? But Holden is the quintessential unreliable narrator (no relation to my old friend), and as such his account is tainted by his living in longing of his unfulfilled needs of love and acceptance, rather than by the values he idealizes. Holden dreams of becoming the "Catcher in the Rye", a heroic individual who, by virtue of his insight and natural intellect is foreordained to save the wayward and the innocent. What he lacks is the shared emotional connection with the different members of the community, and more importantly any kind of shared fate or moral responsibility, the sense that we are all in it together, that what happens to one happens to all.
I feel this is the great failure of the idea that America’s great export can be the democratization of another country. Somewhere we got the idea that our country can somehow be the great “Catcher in the Rye” for other nations. Setting aside the hubris that one country can say what will be better for another. The basic thesis is that over time, we will all be better off (as measured by our income, opportunity, and standard of living) if we accept the need for the "democratization" of the world. Unfortunately our democracy resembles something more like "free market economy" than equality and human rights. Like Holden, the democracy we envision is often not the one we are able to bring. Holden’s moment of insight comes as he realizes that he cannot save himself or his sister from the inevitability of growing up. Worse, she understands better than Holden that any refusal to mature reveals less about the outside world than it does about himself.
I have an urge to wrap this up. In the end, Holden sits down and examines his actions through the narration of the events. Through this process he begins to realize that the thoughts he had been carrying around with him about his relationships didn’t match the images of story he had been telling himself, and so he was forced to reexamine his beliefs and ultimately form healthier attachments.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
The Happy Memory Maker
I think a lot about the inane chatter of my own mind: the endless dialogue strewn with memories, trivia, quotes, and the occasional flashback. Lately the chatter has been friendlier, more constructive. It comes and goes. I have come to view it as a sort of constant companion. It is even part of the reason I have started blogging. Jenny suggested it would be good for me to have an outlet for my thoughts, my ideas, for the constant stream of mindless banter.
So I have these internal conversations with myself throughout the day, and more and more I have come to enjoy them. But it hasn’t always been like this. At some point, it is hard to say exactly when, the gentle narrator in my head was much more dysfunctional. If it wasn’t blowing things out of proportion, it was addicted to the excitement and intensity of my life’s drama while simultaneously terrified of the conflict.
They say that al-anon’s are “addicted” to alcoholic personalities. Often times an al-anon (a friend or family member of an alcoholic) will get out of a relationship with one alcoholic, only to quickly immerse themselves in a relationship with another. I guess this is the old adage, “wherever you go, there you are.” We carry our baggage with us from one relationship to another, until we either deal with whatever issues we have or they drive us insane.
Anyway. I’m not sure I can tell you all about all of the crazy thinking that I honed and perfected over the years. I just know that I have carried it with me for a long time. I don’t know if it was born out of some inferiority complex, my relationships with alcoholics, or just the kind of situational development that leads you down roads you never expected to go. I do know that at some point the way I thought about myself changed. The unwillingness to see shades of grey in any argument, the thinking that I was always on the side of “right” because I didn’t have an addiction, the constant ingratitude I felt for everything, my job, my relationship, and my life. The emotional barter, the inability to accept a compliment, the doubt and the blame. I am reminded a bit of the Dr. Seuss story “ The glunk that got thunk.” I know that I started out a bit of a drama junkie. I guess I went from my gentle intrusions into other peoples business to thinking that I could solve someone else’s problems, till pretty soon I had thunk myself a glunk.
There is a bit of magical thinking that goes on in any relationship. For instance, that the one you love is uniquely special in a way that discounts their flaws, that their character defects, and yours, are somehow lessened by shared love. Magical thinking can do strange things to a mind. My personal favorite is the Happy Memory Maker. It is that unique bit of spin that puts a rosy disposition on any unpleasant memory. The Happy Memory Maker is an integral component to any relationship basking in denial. It can turn a fight into a spat, hurt feelings into the claim “I’m just being honest”, and anger, the really crazy type where I’m flying around the house acting like a complete gorilla, into “frustration.” I have used the Happy memory maker to paint over my own crazy thinking, and worse to justify so much of my own bad behavior in my relationships. The best part? With the Happy Memory Maker, all your memories can be cheery ones.
It is funny to think that the friendly little voices inside my head don’t necessarily have my best interests at heart. While I am sitting there thinking about the changes in ancient Greek architecture and how they might have evolved into the funny little dormers that sit atop shopping malls, the voices are plotting new and interesting ways to fuck with me.
I think it was Al-anon that taught me that in fighting for a cure, I wasn’t part of the solution; I was part of the problem. You know, the whole “it takes two to tango” sort of thinking. The problem I feel is that it took me years to hone the Happy Memory Maker, to perfect its every little idiosyncrasy, and it might just take as many years to unlearn it. For now, I am grateful that the conversations in my mind are able to notice when it is just inane chatter, and when I am truly seeking spiritual solutions.
I suppose that is why I like the Bhagavad Gita so much. It is a conversation that takes place outside of space and time, the world is frozen in an instant as Arjuna stands, confused and eager for illumination. Krishna, the loving midwife, instructs Arjuna not in the linear path to the summit of enlightenment but in a circular route that returns again and again to a central point, the letting go of the fruits of action, over and over, again and again.
Krishna is neither impatient nor hard, (I think there is an important lesson in being gentle to oneself here) though his message is at times very intense, even as he patiently guides Arjuna through a quagmire of questions. “How should I live? How should I act? What is my duty?” and each time Krishna responds, “Act in this way. If that doesn’t work, act in that way. Let go. Be calm. Don’t give up.” Krishna’s message doesn’t come at the expense of any particular religion or belief. The basic assumptions of all paths being that we seek to rid our lives of the obstacles that prevents us from living more fully. Krishna asserts that any path will, with sincere practice, ultimately result in a surrendering of our own selfish nature into the ultimate reality he calls the Self, the spiritual unification of mind body and spirit. I suppose in this way, free from the bondage and limitation of selfishness, one eventually discovers oneself to be truly happy, without the need for the Happy Memory Maker. God. Won’t that be something? Still, I am making progress, swirling ever closer to my center, who knows, making peace with the chatter, and quieting the Happy Memory Maker may be the start of something great
Postscript.
A few years ago, while in counseling, I coined the term Happy Memory Maker, while discussing with Jenny and our counselor some of the peculiarities of my different relationships. There are so many experiences here I wanted to speak and share about that would, I think help illuminate what I mean by the Happy Memory Maker. The problem being, some required a lot of back story, and others I would probably need to check with the parties involved before I shared so many intimate details. Finally there is stuff that, without the happy memory maker, is just going to take time before I can share it with more than a few close friends. None-the-less I have been thinking about how I view the past, and how it haunts us, and how we come to terms with it. So I wanted to write this post. I hope it wasn’t too vague. I hate gross generalities.
So I have these internal conversations with myself throughout the day, and more and more I have come to enjoy them. But it hasn’t always been like this. At some point, it is hard to say exactly when, the gentle narrator in my head was much more dysfunctional. If it wasn’t blowing things out of proportion, it was addicted to the excitement and intensity of my life’s drama while simultaneously terrified of the conflict.
They say that al-anon’s are “addicted” to alcoholic personalities. Often times an al-anon (a friend or family member of an alcoholic) will get out of a relationship with one alcoholic, only to quickly immerse themselves in a relationship with another. I guess this is the old adage, “wherever you go, there you are.” We carry our baggage with us from one relationship to another, until we either deal with whatever issues we have or they drive us insane.
Anyway. I’m not sure I can tell you all about all of the crazy thinking that I honed and perfected over the years. I just know that I have carried it with me for a long time. I don’t know if it was born out of some inferiority complex, my relationships with alcoholics, or just the kind of situational development that leads you down roads you never expected to go. I do know that at some point the way I thought about myself changed. The unwillingness to see shades of grey in any argument, the thinking that I was always on the side of “right” because I didn’t have an addiction, the constant ingratitude I felt for everything, my job, my relationship, and my life. The emotional barter, the inability to accept a compliment, the doubt and the blame. I am reminded a bit of the Dr. Seuss story “ The glunk that got thunk.” I know that I started out a bit of a drama junkie. I guess I went from my gentle intrusions into other peoples business to thinking that I could solve someone else’s problems, till pretty soon I had thunk myself a glunk.
There is a bit of magical thinking that goes on in any relationship. For instance, that the one you love is uniquely special in a way that discounts their flaws, that their character defects, and yours, are somehow lessened by shared love. Magical thinking can do strange things to a mind. My personal favorite is the Happy Memory Maker. It is that unique bit of spin that puts a rosy disposition on any unpleasant memory. The Happy Memory Maker is an integral component to any relationship basking in denial. It can turn a fight into a spat, hurt feelings into the claim “I’m just being honest”, and anger, the really crazy type where I’m flying around the house acting like a complete gorilla, into “frustration.” I have used the Happy memory maker to paint over my own crazy thinking, and worse to justify so much of my own bad behavior in my relationships. The best part? With the Happy Memory Maker, all your memories can be cheery ones.
It is funny to think that the friendly little voices inside my head don’t necessarily have my best interests at heart. While I am sitting there thinking about the changes in ancient Greek architecture and how they might have evolved into the funny little dormers that sit atop shopping malls, the voices are plotting new and interesting ways to fuck with me.
I think it was Al-anon that taught me that in fighting for a cure, I wasn’t part of the solution; I was part of the problem. You know, the whole “it takes two to tango” sort of thinking. The problem I feel is that it took me years to hone the Happy Memory Maker, to perfect its every little idiosyncrasy, and it might just take as many years to unlearn it. For now, I am grateful that the conversations in my mind are able to notice when it is just inane chatter, and when I am truly seeking spiritual solutions.
I suppose that is why I like the Bhagavad Gita so much. It is a conversation that takes place outside of space and time, the world is frozen in an instant as Arjuna stands, confused and eager for illumination. Krishna, the loving midwife, instructs Arjuna not in the linear path to the summit of enlightenment but in a circular route that returns again and again to a central point, the letting go of the fruits of action, over and over, again and again.
Krishna is neither impatient nor hard, (I think there is an important lesson in being gentle to oneself here) though his message is at times very intense, even as he patiently guides Arjuna through a quagmire of questions. “How should I live? How should I act? What is my duty?” and each time Krishna responds, “Act in this way. If that doesn’t work, act in that way. Let go. Be calm. Don’t give up.” Krishna’s message doesn’t come at the expense of any particular religion or belief. The basic assumptions of all paths being that we seek to rid our lives of the obstacles that prevents us from living more fully. Krishna asserts that any path will, with sincere practice, ultimately result in a surrendering of our own selfish nature into the ultimate reality he calls the Self, the spiritual unification of mind body and spirit. I suppose in this way, free from the bondage and limitation of selfishness, one eventually discovers oneself to be truly happy, without the need for the Happy Memory Maker. God. Won’t that be something? Still, I am making progress, swirling ever closer to my center, who knows, making peace with the chatter, and quieting the Happy Memory Maker may be the start of something great
Postscript.
A few years ago, while in counseling, I coined the term Happy Memory Maker, while discussing with Jenny and our counselor some of the peculiarities of my different relationships. There are so many experiences here I wanted to speak and share about that would, I think help illuminate what I mean by the Happy Memory Maker. The problem being, some required a lot of back story, and others I would probably need to check with the parties involved before I shared so many intimate details. Finally there is stuff that, without the happy memory maker, is just going to take time before I can share it with more than a few close friends. None-the-less I have been thinking about how I view the past, and how it haunts us, and how we come to terms with it. So I wanted to write this post. I hope it wasn’t too vague. I hate gross generalities.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Vanitas
I spent the weekend in New Orleans with family. New Orleans is an unusual town, made more so by its reputation. It is an intriguing city that has developed the mystique that its public culture transcends all of its varied peoples, and molds it into a new way of life that has evolved in New Orleans, including the food, the festival, the music. When I think about New Orleans I think about its distinctive form of Jazz music and its repute for uniquely named, heavily spiced foods. But when I am in New Orleans, and particularly in the French Quarter, I feel like I am surrounded by one gigantic never-ending frat party, where the bars never close. The veil of mystique drops away, and I am left standing on a dank cobble street surrounded by thousands of people drinking neon colored concoctions and leering from side to side as if waiting for some Tijuana sex show to begin at any moment.
New Orleans reminds me of a painting by the artist Ivan Albright, "Into the world there came a soul named Ida", The painting of a lady, transformed into a woman of late middle age, sadly inspecting her reflection in a mirror and mourning the loss of her youthful good looks. It is a kind of “vanitas” painting, like the work of the Dutch masters where subjects often focused on the inevitability of decay and death as a part of life; symbolized in people, fruit and flowers. Vanitas comes from the Latin, meaning "emptiness" and loosely translated corresponds to the meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of vanity.
Albrights painting is no different. It presents an image of the inevitability of aging and death particularly in the figure of Ida. Advancing age ravages her face and body. Her clothes are worn and old. Her appearance is almost theatrical, as she powders her nose, oblivious to the ravages of time. Yet the sense of sadness is so pervasive. Ida is surrounded by similar objects that carry the same message. The flowers in the vase on the dressing table, for example, are dying. The burning cigarette and the crumpled dollar bills are other examples of things that are fleeting, as are strands of hair that have been pulled out as a result of combing. The genius in this work is that despite the overall melancholy of this painting, Albright seems to give Ida the strength to continue with life and a refusal to give up.
New Orleans is like that. The city seems in a constant state of disrepair, beautiful gardens and lattice iron-work surround crumbling buildings covered with decades of faded billboard advertisements long rendered obsolete. Signs of decay settled upon the city long before Katrina rolled over her, the hurricane just hastened the process. In many ways what New Orleans has left is that image of Creole cuisine, jazz and other forms of local music, and festivals like Mardi Gras, all the famous attributes of the city that give New Orleans a powerful sense of identity. Undoubtedly it is this identify that the people who live there seek to cultivate, to give new life.
It worked for Japan. In the decades after World War II, Japan famously pulled off an economic miracle, turning itself into the world's second richest country by the 1980s. The interesting thing is that around this time something else happened. While manufacturing electronics and cars, Japan began to export something else: A culture of cool. From sushi to ninja’s, Japan has magically been able to popularize ifs culture to a new generation. Japan, for a combination of reasons, cultural, economic, historical, seems just especially well positioned to create products for today's youth. In the past decade, Japan's exports of games, toys, and pop culture have soared with no slowdown in sight. Gamers go for Japanese video games on their Playstations and GameCubes. Manga publishers, one-third of all books published in Japan, are selling millions overseas. More than half the world's animation comes out of Tokyo. Surprisingly, for the past 15 years, the Japanese economy seems to have slowed down compared to 1980’s levels. However, Japanese pop culture is the hottest brand going. Students will sit in my class doodling anime characters.
I guess the question is, can New Orleans pull off something similar? In many ways it has. The difference being New Orleans identify seems inexorably tied to the place. It is difficult to imagine New Orleans culture without the particularly gritty smell of Bourbon street, the sights of the garden district, the fusion of so many different cultures in one place. Tom Robbins noted this in his book Jitterbug Perfume, (my favorite being his describing the weather in New Orleans as being akin to a obscene phone call)
The problem, that so many people note right away is that New Orleans, drew its strength from its diversity, and now, much of that diversity has been scattered by the winds. New Orleans has lost more talented people that most cities have residence. However, visiting New Orleans, I got the feeling right away that the city has lost so much more than that. New Orleans got its strength from being a melting pot, and cities like that get their power from their openness, not from being a bunch of bars and strip clubs.
When it come to the cultivation of a cultural image, the real difference I see between a city like New Orleans and Japan it that New Orleans has become a nostalgic place of the past, of many pasts, while Japan has recreated its image into a futurist vision where technology and mass media blur into a vision of youthful vitality. Frankly, though, the Futurist movement always seems a little soulless to me, maybe that is why so many Japanese animation movies are about man against the tyranny of the machine or man and the destruction of nature. New Orleans culture has always been about the celebration of life, sometimes a spooky, sexified, slightly drunken bacchanalic vision of life, but a celebration none-the-less. But lately it has been a city in mourning. New Orleans, you have forgotten yourself, and become a mockery of what you once were. Your mourning is no longer a festivity, your zeal has become depravity without purpose. I say, if we are going to mourn New Orleans, it is time to do it New Orleans style, cast of the shackles of yesterday and laissez le bon temps roulet.
New Orleans reminds me of a painting by the artist Ivan Albright, "Into the world there came a soul named Ida", The painting of a lady, transformed into a woman of late middle age, sadly inspecting her reflection in a mirror and mourning the loss of her youthful good looks. It is a kind of “vanitas” painting, like the work of the Dutch masters where subjects often focused on the inevitability of decay and death as a part of life; symbolized in people, fruit and flowers. Vanitas comes from the Latin, meaning "emptiness" and loosely translated corresponds to the meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of vanity.
Albrights painting is no different. It presents an image of the inevitability of aging and death particularly in the figure of Ida. Advancing age ravages her face and body. Her clothes are worn and old. Her appearance is almost theatrical, as she powders her nose, oblivious to the ravages of time. Yet the sense of sadness is so pervasive. Ida is surrounded by similar objects that carry the same message. The flowers in the vase on the dressing table, for example, are dying. The burning cigarette and the crumpled dollar bills are other examples of things that are fleeting, as are strands of hair that have been pulled out as a result of combing. The genius in this work is that despite the overall melancholy of this painting, Albright seems to give Ida the strength to continue with life and a refusal to give up.
New Orleans is like that. The city seems in a constant state of disrepair, beautiful gardens and lattice iron-work surround crumbling buildings covered with decades of faded billboard advertisements long rendered obsolete. Signs of decay settled upon the city long before Katrina rolled over her, the hurricane just hastened the process. In many ways what New Orleans has left is that image of Creole cuisine, jazz and other forms of local music, and festivals like Mardi Gras, all the famous attributes of the city that give New Orleans a powerful sense of identity. Undoubtedly it is this identify that the people who live there seek to cultivate, to give new life.
It worked for Japan. In the decades after World War II, Japan famously pulled off an economic miracle, turning itself into the world's second richest country by the 1980s. The interesting thing is that around this time something else happened. While manufacturing electronics and cars, Japan began to export something else: A culture of cool. From sushi to ninja’s, Japan has magically been able to popularize ifs culture to a new generation. Japan, for a combination of reasons, cultural, economic, historical, seems just especially well positioned to create products for today's youth. In the past decade, Japan's exports of games, toys, and pop culture have soared with no slowdown in sight. Gamers go for Japanese video games on their Playstations and GameCubes. Manga publishers, one-third of all books published in Japan, are selling millions overseas. More than half the world's animation comes out of Tokyo. Surprisingly, for the past 15 years, the Japanese economy seems to have slowed down compared to 1980’s levels. However, Japanese pop culture is the hottest brand going. Students will sit in my class doodling anime characters.
I guess the question is, can New Orleans pull off something similar? In many ways it has. The difference being New Orleans identify seems inexorably tied to the place. It is difficult to imagine New Orleans culture without the particularly gritty smell of Bourbon street, the sights of the garden district, the fusion of so many different cultures in one place. Tom Robbins noted this in his book Jitterbug Perfume, (my favorite being his describing the weather in New Orleans as being akin to a obscene phone call)
The problem, that so many people note right away is that New Orleans, drew its strength from its diversity, and now, much of that diversity has been scattered by the winds. New Orleans has lost more talented people that most cities have residence. However, visiting New Orleans, I got the feeling right away that the city has lost so much more than that. New Orleans got its strength from being a melting pot, and cities like that get their power from their openness, not from being a bunch of bars and strip clubs.
When it come to the cultivation of a cultural image, the real difference I see between a city like New Orleans and Japan it that New Orleans has become a nostalgic place of the past, of many pasts, while Japan has recreated its image into a futurist vision where technology and mass media blur into a vision of youthful vitality. Frankly, though, the Futurist movement always seems a little soulless to me, maybe that is why so many Japanese animation movies are about man against the tyranny of the machine or man and the destruction of nature. New Orleans culture has always been about the celebration of life, sometimes a spooky, sexified, slightly drunken bacchanalic vision of life, but a celebration none-the-less. But lately it has been a city in mourning. New Orleans, you have forgotten yourself, and become a mockery of what you once were. Your mourning is no longer a festivity, your zeal has become depravity without purpose. I say, if we are going to mourn New Orleans, it is time to do it New Orleans style, cast of the shackles of yesterday and laissez le bon temps roulet.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
5 things about me
I was inspired to write 5 strange things about me by Roy and Anna, it only took me a month to come up with the list. I hope you enjoy it.
1. I like ketchup on tuna fish. I have been told this is strange, but I really don’t understand why. Maybe it is the combination of Mayonnaise and ketchup, though I know people will often mix the two to make a special dipping sauce for their fish sticks. I am not really sure. I know most American balk at the Northern European use of mayonnaise on French fries. The funny thing is ketchup was originally made from fish. According to internet source, in the 1600's, Dutch and British seamen brought back a salty pickled fish sauce called 'ketsiap' from China, much like oyster sauce. The big change came in 1872 when HJ Heinz added ketchup to his line of pickled products and introduced it at the Philadelphia fair. The Heinz formula has not changed since, and has become the standard by which other ketchups are rated.
2. I am a vegetarian who likes Sushi. (My thanks to the unreliable narrator for this one.) The truth is, unlike so many vegetarians, I am not a vegetarian for any moral reasons, and I really just prefer not to eat meat. I am not a big fan of most meat, the taste and texture being abhorrent to me, and while there are some that might be interesting, (wild game perhaps) cost and availability make them prohibitive. The truth is, I don’t like the most popular meats and this distaste carries over into almost every genre of meat. Still, I like fish (see no.1) and I love rice and vegetables, rice vinegar and wasabi, and therefore, basically, I like sushi. I realize that some will object that the texture of sushi is far more strange than that of meat, however, when you haven’t eaten meat for 20 years, I assure you nothing is stranger than a pork chop.
3. I am fascinated by world religions. Honestly there are so many interesting things about all of the world’s religions, I never get tired or learning about them. I wouldn’t say that I am particularly religious, or even deeply spiritual, however I do think there is something to be learned from each of the world’s array of different religions. After all in every case from Atheism (if you want to call it a religion) to Wicca, AA (is that a religion?) to Roman Catholicism, every religion is an attempt to order the world in a way that puts the individual in touch with a higher power, physical or metaphysical. When it comes to religions I have two basic principles 1) Religion is interesting and 2) I try not to discriminate. My interest in religions reminds me of the story of the blind men asked to describe an elephant, where each one was presented with only a certain part of it. To one was presented the head of the elephant, to another the trunk, to another its ears, to another the leg, the body, the tail, tuft of the tail, etc. The one who was presented with the head said: "The elephant is like a pot!" The one who was presented the trunk answered, "The elephant is like a hose." The one who touched only the ears thought that the elephant was a fan, the others said that it was a pillar, a wall, a rope, a brush, etc. Then they quarreled among themselves, each thinking that he was the only one right and the others were wrong. The obvious truth is that the elephant is a unity of many parts, a unity that they could not grasp in their blindness. I am just trying to piece together the elephant.
4. I don’t like beets. I have to say, I don’t really think this is too weird and I am reticent to put a third food related item on the list, but Jenny assures me that my dislike of beets is definitely deserving. Beets are vile. How does the saying go? Lips that have touched liquor will never touch mine. The saying goes for beets too. There is nothing good that can come of them. How is this strange? Dear reader, I implore you.
5. I have an extremely good memory that extends far back into my childhood. I remember my sister coming home from the hospital as a new born when I was 2 and a half. I remember having the chicken pox, also when I was two. And the fort my brothers used to play in and playing in the hedge around the house and the time when I was three and I stole the neighbor boys hot wheels race track because I was jealous of it. I remember when I was four and I was five and basically all the way through my childhood. Researchers say there are very few people who can recall memories from infancy or early toddler-hood. Apparently is suggests more interaction between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. I really don’t know, perhaps it accounts for my interests in art and philosophy as well, that unique blending of creativity and my interests in philosophy, math, and science. I really couldn’t say… I guess that what makes it something a little weird about the joy of being me.
1. I like ketchup on tuna fish. I have been told this is strange, but I really don’t understand why. Maybe it is the combination of Mayonnaise and ketchup, though I know people will often mix the two to make a special dipping sauce for their fish sticks. I am not really sure. I know most American balk at the Northern European use of mayonnaise on French fries. The funny thing is ketchup was originally made from fish. According to internet source, in the 1600's, Dutch and British seamen brought back a salty pickled fish sauce called 'ketsiap' from China, much like oyster sauce. The big change came in 1872 when HJ Heinz added ketchup to his line of pickled products and introduced it at the Philadelphia fair. The Heinz formula has not changed since, and has become the standard by which other ketchups are rated.
2. I am a vegetarian who likes Sushi. (My thanks to the unreliable narrator for this one.) The truth is, unlike so many vegetarians, I am not a vegetarian for any moral reasons, and I really just prefer not to eat meat. I am not a big fan of most meat, the taste and texture being abhorrent to me, and while there are some that might be interesting, (wild game perhaps) cost and availability make them prohibitive. The truth is, I don’t like the most popular meats and this distaste carries over into almost every genre of meat. Still, I like fish (see no.1) and I love rice and vegetables, rice vinegar and wasabi, and therefore, basically, I like sushi. I realize that some will object that the texture of sushi is far more strange than that of meat, however, when you haven’t eaten meat for 20 years, I assure you nothing is stranger than a pork chop.
3. I am fascinated by world religions. Honestly there are so many interesting things about all of the world’s religions, I never get tired or learning about them. I wouldn’t say that I am particularly religious, or even deeply spiritual, however I do think there is something to be learned from each of the world’s array of different religions. After all in every case from Atheism (if you want to call it a religion) to Wicca, AA (is that a religion?) to Roman Catholicism, every religion is an attempt to order the world in a way that puts the individual in touch with a higher power, physical or metaphysical. When it comes to religions I have two basic principles 1) Religion is interesting and 2) I try not to discriminate. My interest in religions reminds me of the story of the blind men asked to describe an elephant, where each one was presented with only a certain part of it. To one was presented the head of the elephant, to another the trunk, to another its ears, to another the leg, the body, the tail, tuft of the tail, etc. The one who was presented with the head said: "The elephant is like a pot!" The one who was presented the trunk answered, "The elephant is like a hose." The one who touched only the ears thought that the elephant was a fan, the others said that it was a pillar, a wall, a rope, a brush, etc. Then they quarreled among themselves, each thinking that he was the only one right and the others were wrong. The obvious truth is that the elephant is a unity of many parts, a unity that they could not grasp in their blindness. I am just trying to piece together the elephant.
4. I don’t like beets. I have to say, I don’t really think this is too weird and I am reticent to put a third food related item on the list, but Jenny assures me that my dislike of beets is definitely deserving. Beets are vile. How does the saying go? Lips that have touched liquor will never touch mine. The saying goes for beets too. There is nothing good that can come of them. How is this strange? Dear reader, I implore you.
5. I have an extremely good memory that extends far back into my childhood. I remember my sister coming home from the hospital as a new born when I was 2 and a half. I remember having the chicken pox, also when I was two. And the fort my brothers used to play in and playing in the hedge around the house and the time when I was three and I stole the neighbor boys hot wheels race track because I was jealous of it. I remember when I was four and I was five and basically all the way through my childhood. Researchers say there are very few people who can recall memories from infancy or early toddler-hood. Apparently is suggests more interaction between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. I really don’t know, perhaps it accounts for my interests in art and philosophy as well, that unique blending of creativity and my interests in philosophy, math, and science. I really couldn’t say… I guess that what makes it something a little weird about the joy of being me.
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