I am trying to write something cohesive about last year, but I can’t seem to find a way to do it. One of the questions that keeps bugging me is why I never feel "at home" wherever I am.
Home: I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what home is to me. At times I have said that home exists wherever you love someone. We each have a bit of home divided up and spread throughout the world. As I get older and as I move more and more, I am not quite sure that this is the case. When I go to a place with people that I love, the place feels comfortable, but not like home. I found this out first when I moved back to California after college. The place felt comfortable and I knew my way around, but I had a tumultuous relationship with Orange County and quickly realized that I always had. I don’t think that I wasn’t welcome in OC, but the welcome felt temporary, as though the county was trying to tell me that I didn’t belong.
Neil Gaiman, in his Sandman series, has a comic called “A Tale of Two Cities.” In the comic a man wakes up and finds himself in the dream of the city in which he spent his entire life. In that dream he encounters a man who tells him that the city is indeed asleep. He did not know when the city would wake, but was fearful of what might happen if and when that occurred.
As I move from place to place, and city to city, I wonder if some cities are asleep and some are awake. If I personify Orange County, I can imagine someone with authority fast asleep. As they sleep, a raucous party forms around them. Throughout the party, people draw on OC’s face, they put OC’s hand in cold water and cover OC’s face with shaving cream. OC sleeps so deeply that eventually the partygoers stop worrying about the possibility of OC waking up. They shave OC a Mohawk. They tattoo “enter here” just above OC’s ass. With all this having happened, what will the repercussions be when OC finally does wake up? Maybe OC will just accept what happened and try to move forward. Maybe OC will get belligerent and do something crazy to the partygoers. Who knows. Time will tell.
Just thinking of a city as alive is, I think, a productive act. This is not to say that I think that people will treat their cities better if they thought of them as alive. We treat living things poorly all the time. To look at a city as alive is to see that everything about that city has gone into giving it the life it possesses, from the lay of the land that attracted the first people to it and determined how the infrastructure would be laid, to the people who continue to build/destroy/preserve the city today. These things affect the temperament of the city. They make it so some parts work better than others and some not at all. We can think of our relationship to a city, then, as sometimes parasitic, sometimes symbiotic, and sometimes both. Furthermore, if we think of these relationships as not inherently good or bad, but simply complicated and fluctuating (we move back and forth between the various relationships, and the city does as well), we can see that, depending on the current state of a city and its population, those relationships might need to shift and change. What is good for one city and its residents might not be good for others. Of course, what is good for one city is not necessarily good for its inhabitants, and vice versa.
I said that my relationship to OC was tumultuous. I felt that I was welcomed, but not because I belonged, but because I had been there for so long and had given a lot of my life and time to OC and its inhabitants. I had friends and family there, some of whom really belong there. However, what I wanted from a city was not what I found in OC. I used the analogy of a sleeping authority and it well may be that OC is sleeping and yet to wake up. It could be the inhabitants of the city that I don’t mesh well with. It could be the city itself. It could also be, and this is probably it, a combination of the two.
I have lived in 8 cities. I have visited countless others. It’s hard for me to say if any of the cities I’ve visited could ever be home. I’m still not quite sure what home is. I’m thinking that it has to do with being able to maintain a symbiotic relationship with a city which means that I would be willing to give and take from the city and allow the city to give and take from me. I have yet to feel comfortable enough with a city to allow this exchange to take place. I want to say that the closest I’ve felt to this was the few months I spent in Dublin, and the couple of weeks I spent in San Francisco and Boston. I was attracted to each of these cities for different reasons and found more reasons once there that I wanted to be there, but have still not explored them sufficiently. While in those cities I acted primarily as a tourist, which is a very different experience than living in a city. I also sometimes wonder if I have created some sort of idealized city in my head that doesn’t really exist. Of course, I’ve never really felt comfortable in the places I’ve lived and always wanted to move on, and I think that there’s something to be said about that.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
seeing white: part 2
*spoiler alert*
I don’t remember what it was that got me thinking about Harvey Milk for the second time, but sometime between college and grad school, I rented a documentary called The Times of Harvey Milk. The documentary, released in 1984, chronicles Milk’s activism as a community organizer and politician in the Castro in the 70’s. The film is particularly adept at revealing the amount that Milk was able to accomplish in his short time in the Castro and in his even shorter time as a politician. What the film fails to show is the progressive nature and hopes of the time. We see a community brought together by a single man, and at the end of the film, when Dan White is awarded the minimum sentence, we see the riots break out and the community ruptured. Without Milk it seems as though the movement is quick to turn to violence. Now, it’s been a while since I saw the film, but I believe that after the riots, it moves on to quickly chronicle the last few years of Dan White’s life, from his short time in prison to his move back to San Francisco, and finally to his suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. The initial reaction to Milk’s death was the candlelight march through San Francisco and up to City Hall. We hear the interviewees say how much Milk would have enjoyed this moment. It becomes, then, an act done for Harvey Milk. The riot, on the other hand, is an event that is depicted as independent of Milk, and shows very little other than the anger that the gay community felt at the sentence received by Dan White. This sequence in the documentary is, as I remember it, as follows: Milk is assassinated; candlelight vigil; sentence declared; riots ensue. We interpret the vigil as something caused by Milk and the riots as something caused by the sentence meted out by the jury. Neither, we see, were of the audience's doing.
Gus Van Sant’s film sends a new message, one that is reverent of Milk and what he was able to do, but also casts the net a lot wider. Through “Milk,” we see Harvey Milk as a strong and influential catalyst, but by no means the only one. We see the work and the skills of a variety of individuals put together that made the movement. An individual does no act alone unless that act is misguided, destructive, and caustic. What we see as productive acts are all done by a community. In Van Sant’s film, for instance, the assassination of Milk and Moscone is brought up at the beginning. We know what is going to happen and we sense that Dan White will be the one who does it as we watch him grow more and more unstable throughout the film. When Milk is killed we see Milk’s friends Anne Kronenberg and Scott Smith wondering why no one came to city hall. As they leave the building dejected, they are suddenly confronted by thousands of people walking the streets holding candles in memory of Milk and Moscone. It is not an act of one person, or for one person, but instead an act by a community, for the community. It serves to hold the people together in this time of great loss. Additionally, the riots are never shown, only told, through screen text. This telling, not showing, is significant. It does not leave us with an image of violence. Instead, it says that after the riots, despite the massive amounts of destruction, no arrests were made. In the documentary we see the violence as an effect of the outcome of the trial. In Van Sant’s film, however, we see the violence as a communal catharsis sanctioned by the city through the lack of response from city officials. Earlier in the film we see state sanctioned violence against homosexuals in the form of arrests and police brutality. At this moment, when violence is greatest and committed against the state, the fact that the state does nothing to reprimand the protesters suggests that even if the state doesn’t stand with the protesters, it does not stand against them.
There is, I think, much more to talk about in this film but for the moment I will stop and suggest a discussion if anyone would like. I am interested in violence against the state and how/when it is affective and effective. I might post one more entry about “Milk.” If I do it will deal with Dan White, how he was portrayed, and the role of absurdity and individual action in the film. I thoroughly enjoyed the film. It was directed towards a sympathetic audience and might not read as strongly to an opponent of gay rights and I’m glad that it eschewed this larger (or so I’m led to believe) audience. It’s purpose was to send a message of hope, and I thought it did this quite well. To watch an individual change a community is one thing, but to watch a community come together and try to make the world a better world for everyone is another thing entirely. Van Sant’s film shows one aspect of what a community acting together can accomplish and the necessity of such acts.
I don’t remember what it was that got me thinking about Harvey Milk for the second time, but sometime between college and grad school, I rented a documentary called The Times of Harvey Milk. The documentary, released in 1984, chronicles Milk’s activism as a community organizer and politician in the Castro in the 70’s. The film is particularly adept at revealing the amount that Milk was able to accomplish in his short time in the Castro and in his even shorter time as a politician. What the film fails to show is the progressive nature and hopes of the time. We see a community brought together by a single man, and at the end of the film, when Dan White is awarded the minimum sentence, we see the riots break out and the community ruptured. Without Milk it seems as though the movement is quick to turn to violence. Now, it’s been a while since I saw the film, but I believe that after the riots, it moves on to quickly chronicle the last few years of Dan White’s life, from his short time in prison to his move back to San Francisco, and finally to his suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. The initial reaction to Milk’s death was the candlelight march through San Francisco and up to City Hall. We hear the interviewees say how much Milk would have enjoyed this moment. It becomes, then, an act done for Harvey Milk. The riot, on the other hand, is an event that is depicted as independent of Milk, and shows very little other than the anger that the gay community felt at the sentence received by Dan White. This sequence in the documentary is, as I remember it, as follows: Milk is assassinated; candlelight vigil; sentence declared; riots ensue. We interpret the vigil as something caused by Milk and the riots as something caused by the sentence meted out by the jury. Neither, we see, were of the audience's doing.
Gus Van Sant’s film sends a new message, one that is reverent of Milk and what he was able to do, but also casts the net a lot wider. Through “Milk,” we see Harvey Milk as a strong and influential catalyst, but by no means the only one. We see the work and the skills of a variety of individuals put together that made the movement. An individual does no act alone unless that act is misguided, destructive, and caustic. What we see as productive acts are all done by a community. In Van Sant’s film, for instance, the assassination of Milk and Moscone is brought up at the beginning. We know what is going to happen and we sense that Dan White will be the one who does it as we watch him grow more and more unstable throughout the film. When Milk is killed we see Milk’s friends Anne Kronenberg and Scott Smith wondering why no one came to city hall. As they leave the building dejected, they are suddenly confronted by thousands of people walking the streets holding candles in memory of Milk and Moscone. It is not an act of one person, or for one person, but instead an act by a community, for the community. It serves to hold the people together in this time of great loss. Additionally, the riots are never shown, only told, through screen text. This telling, not showing, is significant. It does not leave us with an image of violence. Instead, it says that after the riots, despite the massive amounts of destruction, no arrests were made. In the documentary we see the violence as an effect of the outcome of the trial. In Van Sant’s film, however, we see the violence as a communal catharsis sanctioned by the city through the lack of response from city officials. Earlier in the film we see state sanctioned violence against homosexuals in the form of arrests and police brutality. At this moment, when violence is greatest and committed against the state, the fact that the state does nothing to reprimand the protesters suggests that even if the state doesn’t stand with the protesters, it does not stand against them.
There is, I think, much more to talk about in this film but for the moment I will stop and suggest a discussion if anyone would like. I am interested in violence against the state and how/when it is affective and effective. I might post one more entry about “Milk.” If I do it will deal with Dan White, how he was portrayed, and the role of absurdity and individual action in the film. I thoroughly enjoyed the film. It was directed towards a sympathetic audience and might not read as strongly to an opponent of gay rights and I’m glad that it eschewed this larger (or so I’m led to believe) audience. It’s purpose was to send a message of hope, and I thought it did this quite well. To watch an individual change a community is one thing, but to watch a community come together and try to make the world a better world for everyone is another thing entirely. Van Sant’s film shows one aspect of what a community acting together can accomplish and the necessity of such acts.
seeing white: part 1
The other night, after I finished my last paper for the semester, Sarah and I drove to New Orleans to pick up my sister, Shira. We then met up with Andy, had some extra salty and cheesy Mexican food, and went to go see Milk, the new Gus Van Sant movie about Harvey Milk.
The first time I heard about Harvey Milk was during my sophomore year of college. I was taking a solo-performance class and was performing an interpretation of Tim Miller’s “Spilt Milk.” Miller’s piece accentuated what it means to have your hopes shattered in a major way for the first time. I read it as a parallel story to my own, and as such, the death of Harvey Milk was not that interesting to me at the time. For me, the death of Harvey Milk in Miller’s story struck me as the moment that sealed Miller’s temporal doom. It meant that his journey was not going to be as simple as he thought. It was the realization that he had a journey, in the Gilgamesh, Jesus, Buddha kind of way. Miller says that San Francisco felt like a gay utopia in the late 70’s and the death of Harvey Milk shattered that false image. It’s here where the title of Miller’s piece is particularly disturbing. Miller is a highly affective performer, but if and when I have seen him cry, I can’t help but feel that there is still a part of him that is “acting.” This is by no means an admonition, especially since I think that he is only in part acting. The best affective performances are where the performer knows how close they can get to the line and position their performance at that point. Miller excels at this, and as such his performances are emotionally and politically charged. When we hear the last lines of this particular piece, and we hear of the death of Harvey Milk and George Moscone, we don’t see Miller break down. We do not see Miller cry over “Spilt Milk.” Instead, we see the burgeoning political activist coming into his own. We do not see that the utopia was shattered, but that the utopian image was shattered. The utopia never existed. When I was 19 and performing my adaptation of this piece, I focused on the shattering of the image without giving much thought to the particular image that Miller was evoking. In his piece, Miller was remembering a point in time where, for millions of people, an image of what could be seemed so close but was proven to be so very far away. Miller situates this in relation to his own story but is constantly evoking this larger audience.
I look back on my performance at the time and see that what I did was leave the global message that Miller was evoking, totally out of the performance, and focused instead on myself at a particular moment in time. My performance, while highly effective (I drew some conclusions that I otherwise wouldn’t have, and I created an enjoyable thirty minutes of theatre for my audience), was barely, if at all, affective. As such, I allowed my audience and myself to leave the theater unchanged.
The first time I heard about Harvey Milk was during my sophomore year of college. I was taking a solo-performance class and was performing an interpretation of Tim Miller’s “Spilt Milk.” Miller’s piece accentuated what it means to have your hopes shattered in a major way for the first time. I read it as a parallel story to my own, and as such, the death of Harvey Milk was not that interesting to me at the time. For me, the death of Harvey Milk in Miller’s story struck me as the moment that sealed Miller’s temporal doom. It meant that his journey was not going to be as simple as he thought. It was the realization that he had a journey, in the Gilgamesh, Jesus, Buddha kind of way. Miller says that San Francisco felt like a gay utopia in the late 70’s and the death of Harvey Milk shattered that false image. It’s here where the title of Miller’s piece is particularly disturbing. Miller is a highly affective performer, but if and when I have seen him cry, I can’t help but feel that there is still a part of him that is “acting.” This is by no means an admonition, especially since I think that he is only in part acting. The best affective performances are where the performer knows how close they can get to the line and position their performance at that point. Miller excels at this, and as such his performances are emotionally and politically charged. When we hear the last lines of this particular piece, and we hear of the death of Harvey Milk and George Moscone, we don’t see Miller break down. We do not see Miller cry over “Spilt Milk.” Instead, we see the burgeoning political activist coming into his own. We do not see that the utopia was shattered, but that the utopian image was shattered. The utopia never existed. When I was 19 and performing my adaptation of this piece, I focused on the shattering of the image without giving much thought to the particular image that Miller was evoking. In his piece, Miller was remembering a point in time where, for millions of people, an image of what could be seemed so close but was proven to be so very far away. Miller situates this in relation to his own story but is constantly evoking this larger audience.
I look back on my performance at the time and see that what I did was leave the global message that Miller was evoking, totally out of the performance, and focused instead on myself at a particular moment in time. My performance, while highly effective (I drew some conclusions that I otherwise wouldn’t have, and I created an enjoyable thirty minutes of theatre for my audience), was barely, if at all, affective. As such, I allowed my audience and myself to leave the theater unchanged.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
My choice for president
The other day I walked into my public speaking class and told my students, as I’ve told them all semester, that I was not going to try to persuade them to vote one way or another. I think it would be unethical to do so. What I told them instead is that when I go to vote, the way I make my decision is to figure out what is most important to me. What is it that I think, from my own particular vantage point of the world, that we need in order to make this world a better place. For me, I believe that the most important thing, and you can take this straight back to the constitution, is that everyone should have the ability to do what they love, and to do what they do best. In order for that to be possible, I believe that people need to be healthy, and well informed. Not just informed of the possibilities available to them, but of the steps that need to be taken in order for them to achieve those goals. I believe that what Barack Obama is planning with health care and education will help make it so that more people in the United States will be able to achieve their goals and live a life that they find fulfilling. I think he achieves this by looking ahead and working to preempt problems that might arise in the next twenty years. By offering health care to all children, it is more likely that children will not only grow up healthy, but will remain health conscious when it comes time for them to pay their own way for health care. By making it more possible for all people to attend college by engaging in community service, we help build a commitment to the country and to community in the young adults who go out and work for a public works project. After they complete this project, they will be offered money towards college and tuition reimbursement. In this way, Obama is attempting to reinforce a generation of Americans with a love for community and country, and the education that would allow them to continue building community in a way that is interesting and provocative for them.
The last few months have been stressful for me, in large part because I am afraid of us not looking far down the road. I’m afraid what will happen if we continue to try to fix and save for the present, instead of preparing for the future. It is hard to have faith in something and over the past few years my faith in just about everything has wavered from time to time. I have put my faith in Barack Obama not because he’s going to solve all of our problems right now. I have put my faith in him because he knows and freely admits that we can’t solve all the problems right now. The world is growing smaller and people are more connected than ever before. As we move forward, we need to do so intelligently. Yes, we need to work to make the world safer now, but if we are doing so at the cost of future relationships, that just doesn’t seem right. If the world is growing smaller, it also means that we are growing closer and closer to our neighbors. We have to find a way to be on equal ground with them, and to do so demands a population that is cognizant of other worldviews and willing to entertain new ideas. For that to happen we need a population that is well educated, and healthy, and I believe that that is what Barack Obama stands for.
The last few months have been stressful for me, in large part because I am afraid of us not looking far down the road. I’m afraid what will happen if we continue to try to fix and save for the present, instead of preparing for the future. It is hard to have faith in something and over the past few years my faith in just about everything has wavered from time to time. I have put my faith in Barack Obama not because he’s going to solve all of our problems right now. I have put my faith in him because he knows and freely admits that we can’t solve all the problems right now. The world is growing smaller and people are more connected than ever before. As we move forward, we need to do so intelligently. Yes, we need to work to make the world safer now, but if we are doing so at the cost of future relationships, that just doesn’t seem right. If the world is growing smaller, it also means that we are growing closer and closer to our neighbors. We have to find a way to be on equal ground with them, and to do so demands a population that is cognizant of other worldviews and willing to entertain new ideas. For that to happen we need a population that is well educated, and healthy, and I believe that that is what Barack Obama stands for.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Update
We are currently on day 5 without power, but last night the capitol building and the streetlights downtown came on. We were told that the latest our area will get power will be september 11th. then we were told that if it doesn't happen by then, the latest will be the 14th. That didn't make too much sense to me, but we're hopeful. Last night we went to one of our professors houses for dinner and today we are here getting work done. A couple of friends received word from FEMA today that they would be given a voucher to stay in a hotel for up to 30 days until their places become liveable again. That would be great except for the fact that all the hotels that are on FEMA's list (and there are a substantial number of them) are all totally booked up, indefinately. We were told to fill out the FEMA forms on line if we were without power for more than five days, so this morning I filled mine out. Not sure what is going to come of it, but we'll see.
In other news, LSU opened up with full power yesterday and classes are to resume Monday morning. I am both looking forward to this and dreading it as well. We have no food in our house, still no power, and frankly, the place is pretty disorganized. We haven't been able to do laundry and we had as many as 8 people staying with us and 5 cats. We've picked up as much as we can and Sarah was out sweeping the porches and doing other clean up the other day as well. I'm excited to get back to work, but with no power and my life kind of a mess, I'd also like some time to get it back in order before.
The last thing I will say before I go try to find some food (free food at the LSU dining hall!), is that everyone seems to be doing alright. there is a general air of exhaustion, but spirits still seem to be up. We're all slightly worried about Ike, especially as he seems to be following the same path as Andrew, but we're trying to avoid thinking about that until thinking about that becomes necessary. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts over the last week. My wonderful landlord also seems to be managing to make some headway on the van situation, so with fingers crossed, things are looking up!
In other news, LSU opened up with full power yesterday and classes are to resume Monday morning. I am both looking forward to this and dreading it as well. We have no food in our house, still no power, and frankly, the place is pretty disorganized. We haven't been able to do laundry and we had as many as 8 people staying with us and 5 cats. We've picked up as much as we can and Sarah was out sweeping the porches and doing other clean up the other day as well. I'm excited to get back to work, but with no power and my life kind of a mess, I'd also like some time to get it back in order before.
The last thing I will say before I go try to find some food (free food at the LSU dining hall!), is that everyone seems to be doing alright. there is a general air of exhaustion, but spirits still seem to be up. We're all slightly worried about Ike, especially as he seems to be following the same path as Andrew, but we're trying to avoid thinking about that until thinking about that becomes necessary. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts over the last week. My wonderful landlord also seems to be managing to make some headway on the van situation, so with fingers crossed, things are looking up!
Friday, September 5, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
The Story of the Van
Here is an open letter I've been passing around. In my next blog, which I'll be publishing soon, I'll tell why I think this is an important event that has a larger impact than just my friends ability to get his van back. I'm trying to dissemenate this letter as far as possible, so if you know of anyone who may find this concerning, please send it their way. Thanks!
To whom it may concern,
I live in Baton Rouge. As of today, the third day after Gus, 85% of the city is still out of power (roughly 350,000 people). The city seems to be at a standstill, but that is not totally out of the ordinary, given the circumstances. What does seem to be out of the ordinary are the stories that we are hearing, or rather, the stories we are not hearing. The local radio stations are asking people to call in for their stories and almost everyone is identical. Everyone is either having power issues or wondering where the nearest FEMA help center is. Not that these aren’t problems that need to be addressed, but surely someone else must have something interesting to say? I know I do, but when I called the radio station, they told me that my story was not the type of story people needed to hear. I’m wondering if that’s really the case, or if something else is going on. Here is my story:My friends evacuated New Orleans and have been staying with us. City officials have been begging citizens to not drive anywhere so that emergency vehicles have easier access to the city, so we decided to walk to a place downtown that we heard was open and serving breakfast. When we returned we noticed that our friends van was no longer in front of our house. Asking around, we learned from our neighbors that the police came by in the hour that we were gone and towed any cars parked on the street. The van was legally parked and we were given no warning or notification. There was not even a note left for us as to who towed it, or why. Eventually we found out that the reason the car was towed was to make way for George Bush and Bobby Jindal’s motorcade. We called the local police but they said they didn’t know anything about cars being towed. We called the city, state, and capitol police, and none of them knew anything either. Finally, we phoned towing companies until we found the one that had towed the van. They told us that the city police had ordered it towed and that we would have to pay $180 to get it back. Additionally, because the car was borrowed from another friend, they said that the owner of the car would have to show valid identification. The owner, however, also evacuated and is currently in Dallas. When we called the city police, they told us to pay the fine and then we might be able to get reimbursed, but seeing how when we had initially called them they had said that they didn’t know anything about the car being towed, we aren’t really sure that we will get reimbursed. I know that my story isn’t getting out. Yesterday evening I watched someone on the news talking about power outages. As he was in the middle of saying that he just saw a bunch of Entergy employees sitting around without working, he was cut off and the channel switched to commercial. I’m not sure what to do. When I finally got through to some friends of mine out of state, their response was “I’m sorry I didn’t call, but I was under the impression that everything there was fine.” Sure, it could be worse, but it is definitely not fine, and there’s no one here that will listen.
To whom it may concern,
I live in Baton Rouge. As of today, the third day after Gus, 85% of the city is still out of power (roughly 350,000 people). The city seems to be at a standstill, but that is not totally out of the ordinary, given the circumstances. What does seem to be out of the ordinary are the stories that we are hearing, or rather, the stories we are not hearing. The local radio stations are asking people to call in for their stories and almost everyone is identical. Everyone is either having power issues or wondering where the nearest FEMA help center is. Not that these aren’t problems that need to be addressed, but surely someone else must have something interesting to say? I know I do, but when I called the radio station, they told me that my story was not the type of story people needed to hear. I’m wondering if that’s really the case, or if something else is going on. Here is my story:My friends evacuated New Orleans and have been staying with us. City officials have been begging citizens to not drive anywhere so that emergency vehicles have easier access to the city, so we decided to walk to a place downtown that we heard was open and serving breakfast. When we returned we noticed that our friends van was no longer in front of our house. Asking around, we learned from our neighbors that the police came by in the hour that we were gone and towed any cars parked on the street. The van was legally parked and we were given no warning or notification. There was not even a note left for us as to who towed it, or why. Eventually we found out that the reason the car was towed was to make way for George Bush and Bobby Jindal’s motorcade. We called the local police but they said they didn’t know anything about cars being towed. We called the city, state, and capitol police, and none of them knew anything either. Finally, we phoned towing companies until we found the one that had towed the van. They told us that the city police had ordered it towed and that we would have to pay $180 to get it back. Additionally, because the car was borrowed from another friend, they said that the owner of the car would have to show valid identification. The owner, however, also evacuated and is currently in Dallas. When we called the city police, they told us to pay the fine and then we might be able to get reimbursed, but seeing how when we had initially called them they had said that they didn’t know anything about the car being towed, we aren’t really sure that we will get reimbursed. I know that my story isn’t getting out. Yesterday evening I watched someone on the news talking about power outages. As he was in the middle of saying that he just saw a bunch of Entergy employees sitting around without working, he was cut off and the channel switched to commercial. I’m not sure what to do. When I finally got through to some friends of mine out of state, their response was “I’m sorry I didn’t call, but I was under the impression that everything there was fine.” Sure, it could be worse, but it is definitely not fine, and there’s no one here that will listen.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
what the crap is going on?
So, I just found a way into Coates Hall on the LSU campus. Sarah needed to use the internet to work and we heard that the campus had power. Coates didn't, but there was an open door, so we used it to get in nonetheless. I checked the NOLA.com website and found a link to the power outages by number/percentage. Looks like roughly 90% of East Baton Rouge Parish is out of power. Cell phones seem to be all on the fritz. I haven't received any calls but apparently I have voice mail that I can't get to. Otherwise we're fine. Now time for a funny hurricane story:
Andy and Star drove up here from New Orleans in their friends van. They parked this van, legally, in front of my house. This morning as we went out to scrounge for food, Baton Rouge police towed their van. They did not inform us to move it, by sign or anything. There were police on our street as we left the house, but they said nothing as we passed. When we got back, the car was gone. Asking around, we come to find that the car was towed in order to make way for Bush's motorcade who was passing through the area to asess the damage. I guess he can add "cars unnecessarilly towed" to the list of things that residents here are pissed off about.
So, once we figure this all out, we call the local police. They don't know who towed the car. We call the capitol polise and then the state police and no one knows. Finally, we get one of our neighbors to tell us the name of the towing company. We call them to find out that it'll be $180 to get the car back. Hold on a sec, I'll just head to the ATM. The one with electricity. Let me know if you know where that is. In addition, they say that they can't release the car to us because none of us own the car. It can only be released to the owner. He evacuated NO to Dallas. He's not here. They want to go back home, but they can't. The situation sucks. We're thinking about filing a claim with the city to say that our car was stolen. We'll see if that works.
Andy and Star drove up here from New Orleans in their friends van. They parked this van, legally, in front of my house. This morning as we went out to scrounge for food, Baton Rouge police towed their van. They did not inform us to move it, by sign or anything. There were police on our street as we left the house, but they said nothing as we passed. When we got back, the car was gone. Asking around, we come to find that the car was towed in order to make way for Bush's motorcade who was passing through the area to asess the damage. I guess he can add "cars unnecessarilly towed" to the list of things that residents here are pissed off about.
So, once we figure this all out, we call the local police. They don't know who towed the car. We call the capitol polise and then the state police and no one knows. Finally, we get one of our neighbors to tell us the name of the towing company. We call them to find out that it'll be $180 to get the car back. Hold on a sec, I'll just head to the ATM. The one with electricity. Let me know if you know where that is. In addition, they say that they can't release the car to us because none of us own the car. It can only be released to the owner. He evacuated NO to Dallas. He's not here. They want to go back home, but they can't. The situation sucks. We're thinking about filing a claim with the city to say that our car was stolen. We'll see if that works.
Monday, September 1, 2008
storm
posting from my phone. powerlines exploded so we're out of power for now. there are now 7 ppl and 5 cats staying w/us. soon our friend holley will be joining us. we have water, batteries and beer, so we should be good for a bit. BR police ordered a curfew 2night from 8pm-6am. that's all i got for now. spirits are good!
Just down the road
as the rain begins to fall the feeling of anticipation reaches a new level. the hurricane has been on its way for days. there were various perspectives about when it would hit and how big it would be. we talked a lot about what we were going to do once it hit, and what it might be like. we bought supplies, cleaned the house, stored water in the freezer, and made sure that we had everything we would need if power went out for a few days. We were waiting, but not quite sure what we were waiting for. Some projections had it hitting New Orleans as a category four, but most were saying it would be a category three. Even now, as I look at the various weather outlets, and as the hurricane is supposed to have already hit land, no one seems to be sure what the size is. I guess that means that no one is sure the extent of the possible damage. No one wants to underestimate its strength in case it does end up being totally detrimental, but now it seems like people might be raising fears too much. It’s hard to say. Either way, even now that it has supposedly hit, no one is sure what is going on...
It was raining a little bit last night, but stopped after about an hour. We went over to our friends house and played apples to apples and had a few beers before coming home a little after midnight. The walk home was nice and cool. The first time since we’ve been here that it wasn’t too hot. It reminded me of the evenings in California, with just enough of a breeze to be cool, but not need a sweater.
At about 5:30 in the morning Sarah got up and went outside. The rain still hadn’t started back up yet, but she watched as the clouds raced closer to us. About twenty minutes later both the wind and the rain began to hit our house, but not yet what I would consider badly. It is now just about noon. I still don’t know what to expect. We still have power, though I have heard that the outlying areas of Baton Rouge have begun to lose theirs. Every now and then it feels like the wind is going to sustain itself at a much higher speed, but then it drops down and the rain falls at only a drizzle. It’s like the storm is pulsing towards us. Like the big bad wolf breathing in, over and over and over again until he has enough breath to try to blow our house down. However, being here in Baton Rouge and knowing that we still have a few hours before the brunt of the storm hits us, and the fact that we still have power and the internets are still working, leads me to hope that we wont get hit too hard. There’s a lot to anticipate, but at this point, as throughout the last few days, nothing is certain, and there really is no way to know.
It was raining a little bit last night, but stopped after about an hour. We went over to our friends house and played apples to apples and had a few beers before coming home a little after midnight. The walk home was nice and cool. The first time since we’ve been here that it wasn’t too hot. It reminded me of the evenings in California, with just enough of a breeze to be cool, but not need a sweater.
At about 5:30 in the morning Sarah got up and went outside. The rain still hadn’t started back up yet, but she watched as the clouds raced closer to us. About twenty minutes later both the wind and the rain began to hit our house, but not yet what I would consider badly. It is now just about noon. I still don’t know what to expect. We still have power, though I have heard that the outlying areas of Baton Rouge have begun to lose theirs. Every now and then it feels like the wind is going to sustain itself at a much higher speed, but then it drops down and the rain falls at only a drizzle. It’s like the storm is pulsing towards us. Like the big bad wolf breathing in, over and over and over again until he has enough breath to try to blow our house down. However, being here in Baton Rouge and knowing that we still have a few hours before the brunt of the storm hits us, and the fact that we still have power and the internets are still working, leads me to hope that we wont get hit too hard. There’s a lot to anticipate, but at this point, as throughout the last few days, nothing is certain, and there really is no way to know.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Gus is coming!!!
I was gonna write a post to let people know what's going on, but Sarah already wrote one that pretty much explains everything in better detail than I could, so check it out:
http://somethingaboutkudzu.blogspot.com/2008/08/gustav.html
Also, check out some pics of our new place. with any luck it'll still be here next week...
http://somethingaboutkudzu.blogspot.com/2008/08/pictures-of-awesomeness.html
Now I'm going to go duck and cover (that works for hurricanes as well, right?)
http://somethingaboutkudzu.blogspot.com/2008/08/gustav.html
Also, check out some pics of our new place. with any luck it'll still be here next week...
http://somethingaboutkudzu.blogspot.com/2008/08/pictures-of-awesomeness.html
Now I'm going to go duck and cover (that works for hurricanes as well, right?)
Thursday, August 28, 2008
soporiphic ruminations: my next door neighbor
she is old. i have seen her on three occasions.
1. sarah needed a place to lock her scooter up. we live in a lovely area but around these parts, lovely does not entail safe. our landlord, a wonderful woman, warned us to keep any flammable objects off our front porch and gave us specific instructions as to how to unlock the various chains and padlocks that lead in and out of our back porch. this was our introduction to our neighborhood, spanish town. i’ve been meaning to post pictures, but i haven’t has the inclination to drive to a place that will develop them, yet. anywho, the place is really lovely but not very safe, but in comparison to the area across the street, it’s like we live in a medieval fortress town. still, sarah needed to tie up her scooter.
the fence next to our driveway is actually the property of our next door neighbor. our landlord suggested that we go over, introduce ourselves, and ask if we could lock the scooter to the fence post. we went around to the back of her house to find the door slightly ajar. we rang the bell and after a few moments a slight older woman in a nightgown and coke bottle glasses answered the door, with a huge smile on her face. we skipped right to the introductions by briefly telling her our names and that we had just moved in next door. before we could say anything else, she immediately began to relate stories of all of the previous tenants of our place and how they all seemed to stay for just two or three years. she seemed awfully puzzled by this. we told her that they were most likely graduate students and were primarily here for the education. she smiled at us. then she began in on a story about how she used to live in the house on the other side of her. the house she currently lives in once belonged to a woman who was older than her and during this woman’s declining years, our neighbor cared for her on a regular basis. when the woman finally passed away, our neighbor inherited the house and all that was in it. which included a plethora of antiques. she invited us in to take a look at them but we politely refused and asked for a rain check. we were on our way out and had just stopped by to introduce ourselves and to ask a question. before we could ask, however, she told us that ever since her husband passed away (he was a driver of a concrete truck, and a very good one at that. one day, as he swerved to avoid someone that had stopped illegally in the middle of the street, he hit a huge pothole and his truck flipped. he lived for about another year but was in pain the whole time. he would have killed the person in the car in front of him, but managed to avoid it and in so doing, killed himself. she never said that he was a hero, but in her eyes we knew he was) she had made a living selling the antiques that she had inherited. we told her we would simply have to take a rain check, and proceeded to ask our question.
she said that that would be fine, and then walked into the yard with us. it was a sunny day. she remarked that her daughter told her that she wasn’t aloud to go in the sun because of her medication. we could tell that this bothered her. she led us around to the side of the fence and pointed to the place that would be best for us to keep the scooter. in that time she also informed us that her daughter stayed with her roughly three to four days a week. just to visit. and to take care of her.
2. it was a cloudy day. i saw her in profile. she was staring into the highway that runs parallel to our street. she stood for a minute before she turned and went inside.
3. it was overcast. our neighbor and her daughter were salting for slugs. they seemed to be meticulous about the lawn. it is nice. the house which it encircles is grayish with years of dirt and dust from off the highway and cracked. but the yard is immaculate. i watched as they leaned down close to my car which was on my driveway. i tried not to stare, but i was worried that i had parked too close to the lawn, possibly on it, and that they would be mad. after they went back inside, i went to inspect my car to find that it was a good foot from the edge. i was relieved. i went back inside...
a day or so later, sarah went to get on her scooter. we’ve been biking most places and avoiding motorized transportation unless necessary, for the most part. she came back inside with an exasperated look about her. she looked more hurt than angry, but there was definitely anger there. she said that her scooter had trouble starting...and that the key had trouble turning...and that when she pulled the key out of the ignition, she found salt on it.
had we offended our neighbor? surely not. unless...unless something she said to her daughter made the daughter feel the need to take some sort of revenge on us. but for what? what had we done? maybe they were both really religious, and the fact that we were living in sin made it so that they felt they should meet out some sort of punishment on us. maybe the old woman told her daughter that she had taken us outside to show us where to tie up the scooter. the daughter, realizing that we had taken her poor mother out of the house when it was sunny out, decided that we should pay for endangering her mother and decided to pour the salt then. or maybe something else happened. but that was the last time i saw her. sarah tried to knock on her door. the windows were open. it was a sunny day. her daughters car was in their driveway. no one answered.
1. sarah needed a place to lock her scooter up. we live in a lovely area but around these parts, lovely does not entail safe. our landlord, a wonderful woman, warned us to keep any flammable objects off our front porch and gave us specific instructions as to how to unlock the various chains and padlocks that lead in and out of our back porch. this was our introduction to our neighborhood, spanish town. i’ve been meaning to post pictures, but i haven’t has the inclination to drive to a place that will develop them, yet. anywho, the place is really lovely but not very safe, but in comparison to the area across the street, it’s like we live in a medieval fortress town. still, sarah needed to tie up her scooter.
the fence next to our driveway is actually the property of our next door neighbor. our landlord suggested that we go over, introduce ourselves, and ask if we could lock the scooter to the fence post. we went around to the back of her house to find the door slightly ajar. we rang the bell and after a few moments a slight older woman in a nightgown and coke bottle glasses answered the door, with a huge smile on her face. we skipped right to the introductions by briefly telling her our names and that we had just moved in next door. before we could say anything else, she immediately began to relate stories of all of the previous tenants of our place and how they all seemed to stay for just two or three years. she seemed awfully puzzled by this. we told her that they were most likely graduate students and were primarily here for the education. she smiled at us. then she began in on a story about how she used to live in the house on the other side of her. the house she currently lives in once belonged to a woman who was older than her and during this woman’s declining years, our neighbor cared for her on a regular basis. when the woman finally passed away, our neighbor inherited the house and all that was in it. which included a plethora of antiques. she invited us in to take a look at them but we politely refused and asked for a rain check. we were on our way out and had just stopped by to introduce ourselves and to ask a question. before we could ask, however, she told us that ever since her husband passed away (he was a driver of a concrete truck, and a very good one at that. one day, as he swerved to avoid someone that had stopped illegally in the middle of the street, he hit a huge pothole and his truck flipped. he lived for about another year but was in pain the whole time. he would have killed the person in the car in front of him, but managed to avoid it and in so doing, killed himself. she never said that he was a hero, but in her eyes we knew he was) she had made a living selling the antiques that she had inherited. we told her we would simply have to take a rain check, and proceeded to ask our question.
she said that that would be fine, and then walked into the yard with us. it was a sunny day. she remarked that her daughter told her that she wasn’t aloud to go in the sun because of her medication. we could tell that this bothered her. she led us around to the side of the fence and pointed to the place that would be best for us to keep the scooter. in that time she also informed us that her daughter stayed with her roughly three to four days a week. just to visit. and to take care of her.
2. it was a cloudy day. i saw her in profile. she was staring into the highway that runs parallel to our street. she stood for a minute before she turned and went inside.
3. it was overcast. our neighbor and her daughter were salting for slugs. they seemed to be meticulous about the lawn. it is nice. the house which it encircles is grayish with years of dirt and dust from off the highway and cracked. but the yard is immaculate. i watched as they leaned down close to my car which was on my driveway. i tried not to stare, but i was worried that i had parked too close to the lawn, possibly on it, and that they would be mad. after they went back inside, i went to inspect my car to find that it was a good foot from the edge. i was relieved. i went back inside...
a day or so later, sarah went to get on her scooter. we’ve been biking most places and avoiding motorized transportation unless necessary, for the most part. she came back inside with an exasperated look about her. she looked more hurt than angry, but there was definitely anger there. she said that her scooter had trouble starting...and that the key had trouble turning...and that when she pulled the key out of the ignition, she found salt on it.
had we offended our neighbor? surely not. unless...unless something she said to her daughter made the daughter feel the need to take some sort of revenge on us. but for what? what had we done? maybe they were both really religious, and the fact that we were living in sin made it so that they felt they should meet out some sort of punishment on us. maybe the old woman told her daughter that she had taken us outside to show us where to tie up the scooter. the daughter, realizing that we had taken her poor mother out of the house when it was sunny out, decided that we should pay for endangering her mother and decided to pour the salt then. or maybe something else happened. but that was the last time i saw her. sarah tried to knock on her door. the windows were open. it was a sunny day. her daughters car was in their driveway. no one answered.
Monday, August 25, 2008
The Long Road Home Part 2
I begin this blog by sending thanks to the ever wise and beautiful Paul Boshears who reached deep into my last blog and pulled out what I was truly trying to say. A few things that I left out of my last blog that Paul pointed out are that the heart is not a finite thing, but rather an entity (though that is so not the right word) that is at once tangible and fleeting, controllable and chaotic. It is, as Paul suggests, something more fluid. His analogy of a heart as belonging to the "vast ocean of humanity" points to the depth and the complexity of our emotions, and does a good job at framing where I sit today, or rather, where I swim. For the last few weeks I've been treading water through a new river. I haven't been fighting the current, but I haven't been allowing it to take me with it either.
If it is indeed a river that I find myself in, moving and mingling, constantly on my way to something new, and always connected to this great life force, the term "river teeth" comes to mind. One of my favorite authors, David James Duncan, has a collection of short stories titled "RiverTeeth," and in it he explains that river teeth are the fallen debris that litter the bottom of rivers. This debris then lets some of the river sediment through, all the while capturing more debris until the pressure of the water finally breaks through and frees that which was once stuck.
And maybe that is another analogy for broken hearts. Maybe the debris that is first taken by the river teeth only to become river teeth, might contain some of those who are weighed down and venture too close to the bottom, to the murkiness... those that have trouble enjoying the the flow. After all, the river teeth are constantly struggling against the flow. But I feel that I am taking this too far and have too many other fish to fry at the moment. But again, that might wait for another entry. For now I have just finished my first week of classes. My hopes and fears, for the most part, have all been proven to be well founded. I came here prepared and was not disappointed. I look out my living room window and watch the sky, split into various shades of pink and gray and blue. They tell us that a storm is coming and to be prepared. Tomorrow I'll go stock up on some bottled water.
If it is indeed a river that I find myself in, moving and mingling, constantly on my way to something new, and always connected to this great life force, the term "river teeth" comes to mind. One of my favorite authors, David James Duncan, has a collection of short stories titled "RiverTeeth," and in it he explains that river teeth are the fallen debris that litter the bottom of rivers. This debris then lets some of the river sediment through, all the while capturing more debris until the pressure of the water finally breaks through and frees that which was once stuck.
And maybe that is another analogy for broken hearts. Maybe the debris that is first taken by the river teeth only to become river teeth, might contain some of those who are weighed down and venture too close to the bottom, to the murkiness... those that have trouble enjoying the the flow. After all, the river teeth are constantly struggling against the flow. But I feel that I am taking this too far and have too many other fish to fry at the moment. But again, that might wait for another entry. For now I have just finished my first week of classes. My hopes and fears, for the most part, have all been proven to be well founded. I came here prepared and was not disappointed. I look out my living room window and watch the sky, split into various shades of pink and gray and blue. They tell us that a storm is coming and to be prepared. Tomorrow I'll go stock up on some bottled water.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
I live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I have been here for three weeks and am still in a sort of state of shock about the whole thing. This entry, then, is about two things. The first part is about what it means to be home, and second, what it means to try to make Louisiana my home.
I have long believed that home is not a place, but a presence. Home exists when and where you exist in a particular way. For me, home is about family and friends. For example, a few years ago some friends of mine and I were shooting a short film. One of the locations was in the middle of a town called Tonopah Nevada. Tonopah was a silver mining town in central Nevada that, by the time we had arrived in 2005, seemed to have pretty much dried up. The point is that despite the fact that there was little, if anything, to do ther
e and that the towns population had reduced from 10,000 to roughly 2,000 in the matter of a few short years, for the few days that we were there, it felt like home. We were never at a loss for something to do (we were filming, but not all the time), and no one ever got bored, or depressed about being, literally, in the middle of nowhere. Had I been there alone, I would not have felt the same way.
The point being is that I think that there is only so much time spent alone that can be helpful for a person. It doesn’t matter if they are in London, Honolulu, or Tonopah, what makes a place home, and what makes a place worth living in are the people who are around you and care for you. This gets me to that old adage, “home is where the heart is,” and leads me to question if, and how much we possess our own heart. When we’re kids we think in terms of “best friends.” I think our hearts are objects that we divide up and dole out as we see fit. It’s bad form to hold too much of your own heart, if any, so we immediately give it to others to hold. When we’re young, we don’t have as many people as we would trust with it when we are older, so it belongs to fewer people, and the biggest piece goes to your best friend. As we grow older we cut it up into more and more pieces and continue to hand them out to more and more people. When someone gives their piece back to you, it could be devastating. It’s not that the heart is literally broken, but it feels like that must be the case or they would have kept it. And then we don’t know what to do with it. What if it is broken and we just can’t see how? It would seem unethical to give the broken piece away without fixing it. I mean, really, who wants to inherit a broken anything? Then if we can get convince ourselves that it’s not broken and that it works fine (even if that’s not really the case), we try to force it on someone else or we just hold onto it and pine on the one who once cared for it. But there is no set standard and no guidebook as to who to give it to and what to do should they give it back. It’s a scary process.
I have lived in a lot of places in my life, from California, Georgia, North Carolina, and for a couple of months, Ireland, and now I live in Baton Rouge. I am about to start the process of cutting up my heart again and handing it out. I need to do it soon, but not so quickly that I overestimate the sizes I need to give out and the amount that I need to give out. There is also the fear of stepping too timidly. Some would say that I never have this problem but that doesn’t change the fact that I feel like I do have this problem...
This ends part 1. Part 2 will present a little information about why the Long Road home can only take place in Louisiana. It’s a section of the country unlike any other...
I have long believed that home is not a place, but a presence. Home exists when and where you exist in a particular way. For me, home is about family and friends. For example, a few years ago some friends of mine and I were shooting a short film. One of the locations was in the middle of a town called Tonopah Nevada. Tonopah was a silver mining town in central Nevada that, by the time we had arrived in 2005, seemed to have pretty much dried up. The point is that despite the fact that there was little, if anything, to do ther
e and that the towns population had reduced from 10,000 to roughly 2,000 in the matter of a few short years, for the few days that we were there, it felt like home. We were never at a loss for something to do (we were filming, but not all the time), and no one ever got bored, or depressed about being, literally, in the middle of nowhere. Had I been there alone, I would not have felt the same way.The point being is that I think that there is only so much time spent alone that can be helpful for a person. It doesn’t matter if they are in London, Honolulu, or Tonopah, what makes a place home, and what makes a place worth living in are the people who are around you and care for you. This gets me to that old adage, “home is where the heart is,” and leads me to question if, and how much we possess our own heart. When we’re kids we think in terms of “best friends.” I think our hearts are objects that we divide up and dole out as we see fit. It’s bad form to hold too much of your own heart, if any, so we immediately give it to others to hold. When we’re young, we don’t have as many people as we would trust with it when we are older, so it belongs to fewer people, and the biggest piece goes to your best friend. As we grow older we cut it up into more and more pieces and continue to hand them out to more and more people. When someone gives their piece back to you, it could be devastating. It’s not that the heart is literally broken, but it feels like that must be the case or they would have kept it. And then we don’t know what to do with it. What if it is broken and we just can’t see how? It would seem unethical to give the broken piece away without fixing it. I mean, really, who wants to inherit a broken anything? Then if we can get convince ourselves that it’s not broken and that it works fine (even if that’s not really the case), we try to force it on someone else or we just hold onto it and pine on the one who once cared for it. But there is no set standard and no guidebook as to who to give it to and what to do should they give it back. It’s a scary process.
I have lived in a lot of places in my life, from California, Georgia, North Carolina, and for a couple of months, Ireland, and now I live in Baton Rouge. I am about to start the process of cutting up my heart again and handing it out. I need to do it soon, but not so quickly that I overestimate the sizes I need to give out and the amount that I need to give out. There is also the fear of stepping too timidly. Some would say that I never have this problem but that doesn’t change the fact that I feel like I do have this problem...
This ends part 1. Part 2 will present a little information about why the Long Road home can only take place in Louisiana. It’s a section of the country unlike any other...
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
political/Social interrogations: I don't want a revolution
It seems to have two very different usages, one being to come full circle, as in "the revolution of the earth around the sun takes one year," and the other to bring about a complete change, as in "the face of governance was forever changed by the American revolution." It also connotes going around something, but not touching it, which, may be the factor that connects the two usages. Inasmuch as the earth circles the sun, the sun is a part of the revolution. In the same way, inasmuch as the colonies worked to distance themselves from Great Britain, the revolution was always constituted by their relationship to Great Britain. It seems then that any revolution is always already limited to what it can become. This can be seen simply by looking at the historical texts that influenced and informed governmental texts that arose after any major country achieved it's revolution. We can also see how any revolution, though it may have the best of intentions, is still something that goes around in circles. It is still something that is influenced by and not necessarily contrary to that which it is revolting from.
So, why do we call for revolution? Does it come from a need to act? A need to see our actions change the world? That's all I can think of. I don't want to sound corny and say that I think it would be more productive to strive for evolution instead of revolution, but I can't think of a better way to put it. The problem with evolution is that there is no significant change that we can see in our lifetimes. There are no significant changes in evolution that happen over a hundred lifetimes. However, it seems to be the only way that things do change permanently. We have seen many times, in the last century alone, where the moments of revolution breeds change that then continues revolving until it's back to where it started. Think Stalin. Think Hitler. Think the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Real change, it seems, would require something greater and more frightening than bloodshed. It would require a certain amount of faith in ourselves as well as in others. It also requires that this faith would be equal in both cases, i.e. I must have the same amount of faith that I have in myself that I have for others. For one to be greater would be to tip the scales. For me to say that I have more faith in others is to breed lethargy, whereas to say that I have more faith in myself might lead to me thinking that I am better/stronger/more capable than I actually am.
So, the question I have then is how do we start/formulate/initiate an evolution? Should we strive to make our own communities better places to live? It's a start, but can a cultural evolution happen without organized action? I would like to think that that is the very basis of what a cultural evolution would be. I feel like we spend a lot of time trying to organize projects saying that we need such and such a number of people to start. Why not, instead, choose a project that can be accomplished on your own, and allow the positive effects to trickle through the community. A hypothetical: you decide to plant a community garden. You buy a small piece of land and place a sign in front of it that says "community garden." you plant a few things but no one else does. you keep tending the garden until you get old and die, or until you move on, and in all that time, you are the only one who has tended it. There are a million possibilities as to what might happen to the garden after you have left it. One of those possibilities is that someone else might take up where you left of. They might expand the project and make it bigger, and more people might join in.
Sure, it's idealistic, but I don't think so much so. If people never come to the garden, that should be no bother, as you would still be able to appreciate it for yourself. You would still be doing as much for you as you were for others. The worst case scenario seems to be that the patch of ground would go untended and eventually get built over. At least you had fresh vegetables for a while. If you start out with hopes of evolution you still might end up with only a slight revolution, but at least you moved something.
So, why do we call for revolution? Does it come from a need to act? A need to see our actions change the world? That's all I can think of. I don't want to sound corny and say that I think it would be more productive to strive for evolution instead of revolution, but I can't think of a better way to put it. The problem with evolution is that there is no significant change that we can see in our lifetimes. There are no significant changes in evolution that happen over a hundred lifetimes. However, it seems to be the only way that things do change permanently. We have seen many times, in the last century alone, where the moments of revolution breeds change that then continues revolving until it's back to where it started. Think Stalin. Think Hitler. Think the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Real change, it seems, would require something greater and more frightening than bloodshed. It would require a certain amount of faith in ourselves as well as in others. It also requires that this faith would be equal in both cases, i.e. I must have the same amount of faith that I have in myself that I have for others. For one to be greater would be to tip the scales. For me to say that I have more faith in others is to breed lethargy, whereas to say that I have more faith in myself might lead to me thinking that I am better/stronger/more capable than I actually am.
So, the question I have then is how do we start/formulate/initiate an evolution? Should we strive to make our own communities better places to live? It's a start, but can a cultural evolution happen without organized action? I would like to think that that is the very basis of what a cultural evolution would be. I feel like we spend a lot of time trying to organize projects saying that we need such and such a number of people to start. Why not, instead, choose a project that can be accomplished on your own, and allow the positive effects to trickle through the community. A hypothetical: you decide to plant a community garden. You buy a small piece of land and place a sign in front of it that says "community garden." you plant a few things but no one else does. you keep tending the garden until you get old and die, or until you move on, and in all that time, you are the only one who has tended it. There are a million possibilities as to what might happen to the garden after you have left it. One of those possibilities is that someone else might take up where you left of. They might expand the project and make it bigger, and more people might join in.
Sure, it's idealistic, but I don't think so much so. If people never come to the garden, that should be no bother, as you would still be able to appreciate it for yourself. You would still be doing as much for you as you were for others. The worst case scenario seems to be that the patch of ground would go untended and eventually get built over. At least you had fresh vegetables for a while. If you start out with hopes of evolution you still might end up with only a slight revolution, but at least you moved something.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
bits of this and that: graduate school, part 2
Around October of my first year of graduate school, I became something that I had never truly been – promiscuous. I was promiscuous when it came to my personal relationships in just about every way possible. I was also promiscuous when it came to my work and to my self. I began drinking a lot more than I wanted to and pitied myself a lot more than was healthy. I kept to my regular schedule, up at dawn and down as late as possible, but my waking hours were filled with less and less work, and more and more procrastination and slacking off. In a way, however, this wasn’t all bad. When I began graduate school I was so gung ho that I thought I could do everything as I had always done and still manage school as well. I even drove home to Atlanta for both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, a combined seven days of travel. I also agreed to work as a production assistant for a show that my then advisor was directing/adapting. I took on much more than I should have and by the time I lost it in late October, I was so jaded that I really didn’t care at all about being in school anymore. And to think, it took just three months. So, what was the positive thing about all this? If I hadn’t gone through all of that, the rest of my graduate career would have most likely been marked by a whole lot of very uninteresting work.
Here’s the scoop: My promiscuity didn’t allow me to get very close to too many people (those that I did get close to, I have remained dear friends with and probably wouldn’t have made it out of graduate school without…I very well might have just run home). It did, however, get me out of the house almost every night where I drank and chatted with a lot of different people. The fact that I didn’t embarrass myself or others too much during that period helped make it so that a lot of people knew me enough to know that I had a decent personality and could be fun to hang out with. It made it so that when I eventually did have my shit together, I found that there were a lot of people who would at least hear me out, if they were unable to help in other ways. Basically I ended up with a lot of people who I could draw on for a variety of reasons. I also ended up with a healthy amount of distrust and cynicism towards graduate school and communication studies in general. This was and is by no means a total distrust. It is, I believe, necessary in any field to question what it is you are a part of, and to know that it will always be larger than yourself and fairly uncontrollable. It should be kind of like skiing a double black diamond. You know that you can do it, and you love doing it, but you also know that at any moment the mountain might turn on you and swallow you up.
I passed the winter alone, house sitting for one of my advisers. During that month I read a lot for pleasure and spent many, many quiet nights alone. During many of those quiet nights I thought back to the previous semester, my determination to stay in school, and what doing so might mean. Primarily, I realized, it meant that I had to conquer those parts of me that wanted to run like hell. I had to find out what they were and confront them to the best of my ability. Though it might sound corny, I had to confront my demons. To help me, I had my new friends and acquaintances, my distrust for what I was about to do, and a commitment to do something that I wanted to do, and not what I was told I should do. Though people had been telling me that I should do what I wanted to do since I began graduate school that fall, I never truly believed them. It wasn’t until I had that time to myself to reflect on that awful semester that I realized that if I didn’t do what I wanted to do, I would really lose it.
Here’s the scoop: My promiscuity didn’t allow me to get very close to too many people (those that I did get close to, I have remained dear friends with and probably wouldn’t have made it out of graduate school without…I very well might have just run home). It did, however, get me out of the house almost every night where I drank and chatted with a lot of different people. The fact that I didn’t embarrass myself or others too much during that period helped make it so that a lot of people knew me enough to know that I had a decent personality and could be fun to hang out with. It made it so that when I eventually did have my shit together, I found that there were a lot of people who would at least hear me out, if they were unable to help in other ways. Basically I ended up with a lot of people who I could draw on for a variety of reasons. I also ended up with a healthy amount of distrust and cynicism towards graduate school and communication studies in general. This was and is by no means a total distrust. It is, I believe, necessary in any field to question what it is you are a part of, and to know that it will always be larger than yourself and fairly uncontrollable. It should be kind of like skiing a double black diamond. You know that you can do it, and you love doing it, but you also know that at any moment the mountain might turn on you and swallow you up.
I passed the winter alone, house sitting for one of my advisers. During that month I read a lot for pleasure and spent many, many quiet nights alone. During many of those quiet nights I thought back to the previous semester, my determination to stay in school, and what doing so might mean. Primarily, I realized, it meant that I had to conquer those parts of me that wanted to run like hell. I had to find out what they were and confront them to the best of my ability. Though it might sound corny, I had to confront my demons. To help me, I had my new friends and acquaintances, my distrust for what I was about to do, and a commitment to do something that I wanted to do, and not what I was told I should do. Though people had been telling me that I should do what I wanted to do since I began graduate school that fall, I never truly believed them. It wasn’t until I had that time to myself to reflect on that awful semester that I realized that if I didn’t do what I wanted to do, I would really lose it.
Monday, August 4, 2008
bits of this and that: graduate school, part 1
My first attempt to choose a graduate program was not totally thought out. I was substitute teaching and found myself working with ESL classes and students most of the time. In addition to having a lot of fun with these kids, I was hankering to get out of the country, or at the very least, Southern California. I completed a last minute application to the Linguistics program at Cal State Long Beach in the hopes that I would also earn my ESL teaching accreditation and eventually go abroad for an extended period of time. I ended up turning down the offer that CSULB sent me, particularly because I realized I had very little interest in linguistics as a primary field of study, but also because I didn’t think I would be happy being so far away from family and friends for such a significant period of time. At the point where I had turned down the offer from CSULB, I had recently finished production on a short film and had watched as it was summarily rejected from every film festival my friend Dan and I had sent it to. The process was great at points, but also put a tremendous amount of strain on my friendships. Despite the rejections we were able to see the significance of what we had accomplished with very little funds, time, and energy. The itch to leave SoCal was now accompanied by an itch to do something meaningful and wonderful and beautiful with my life. It was about the time of this realization that I received an email from the admissions office at UNC Chapel Hill saying that my application was incomplete. The funny part is that I didn’t remember filling out any part of the application…
I traced back in my mind the application process to Long Beach, and remembered looking at other schools. In order to get some more information I had begun to fill out a couple of the applications, but at the time didn’t really give any serious thought to the prospect of trying an academic career. I called up my friend and mentor, Dr. Gentile, from Kennesaw and asked his advice. He pointed me in the direction of Northwestern, in addition to UNC. I also applied to the program of Religious Studies at Brandeis and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. JTS told me that I needed further undergraduate classes, which they encouraged me to take and then to reapply, and after looking deeper into Brandeis, I realized I didn’t care as much for religious studies as I might have thought, so I left the application incomplete. I committed myself to getting in to either UNC or Northwestern, with my backup being a career at Starbucks (I hoped to go into coffee roasting and purchasing and eventually into international relations, and probably an MBA to help me on my way. I’m very happy with the choice I made, but I think this other path would have been pretty interesting as well). Shortly after the deadline for admissions past, I received a letter from Northwestern saying that I was not accepted into the program. When I inquired as to why, they said that my test scores were not up to par. I figured this meant that I would also be rejected by UNC and began to call in favors and set up interviews with some of the higher ups at Starbucks. Before any of these interviews were to take place, however, I received my acceptance letter from UNC. I cancelled the interviews with Starbucks, put in my notice, and cemented plans with Jesse, my girlfriend at the time, to spend the summer in Europe, before we would again be forced to live at opposite coasts. Though the last two years were amazing and life shaping, the first few months of graduate school were probably the most trying of my life. I adjusted quickly to the workload, but not in a healthy way. I had no idea what to expect and in order to do what I felt I needed to do I ended up damaging many of my personal relationships. I fell out of touch with close friends, broke up with Jesse, and fell into a four month troubling depression. All the problems of the relationship had expanded for me and became more complicated with the distance. I found myself sleeping at school, if I slept at all (something I had often done my first semester of undergrad as well), and emotionally distant from family and friends. It was at this point that I also began the arduous task of picking a topic for my thesis. As much as I danced around my choice, I knew that the best project was going to be something where I would reach deep into and embrace the darkness that was engulfing me. I wanted to confront it, if not conquer it. Short of working towards that goal, I felt I would be trapped in a permanent state of emotional retardation.
I traced back in my mind the application process to Long Beach, and remembered looking at other schools. In order to get some more information I had begun to fill out a couple of the applications, but at the time didn’t really give any serious thought to the prospect of trying an academic career. I called up my friend and mentor, Dr. Gentile, from Kennesaw and asked his advice. He pointed me in the direction of Northwestern, in addition to UNC. I also applied to the program of Religious Studies at Brandeis and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. JTS told me that I needed further undergraduate classes, which they encouraged me to take and then to reapply, and after looking deeper into Brandeis, I realized I didn’t care as much for religious studies as I might have thought, so I left the application incomplete. I committed myself to getting in to either UNC or Northwestern, with my backup being a career at Starbucks (I hoped to go into coffee roasting and purchasing and eventually into international relations, and probably an MBA to help me on my way. I’m very happy with the choice I made, but I think this other path would have been pretty interesting as well). Shortly after the deadline for admissions past, I received a letter from Northwestern saying that I was not accepted into the program. When I inquired as to why, they said that my test scores were not up to par. I figured this meant that I would also be rejected by UNC and began to call in favors and set up interviews with some of the higher ups at Starbucks. Before any of these interviews were to take place, however, I received my acceptance letter from UNC. I cancelled the interviews with Starbucks, put in my notice, and cemented plans with Jesse, my girlfriend at the time, to spend the summer in Europe, before we would again be forced to live at opposite coasts. Though the last two years were amazing and life shaping, the first few months of graduate school were probably the most trying of my life. I adjusted quickly to the workload, but not in a healthy way. I had no idea what to expect and in order to do what I felt I needed to do I ended up damaging many of my personal relationships. I fell out of touch with close friends, broke up with Jesse, and fell into a four month troubling depression. All the problems of the relationship had expanded for me and became more complicated with the distance. I found myself sleeping at school, if I slept at all (something I had often done my first semester of undergrad as well), and emotionally distant from family and friends. It was at this point that I also began the arduous task of picking a topic for my thesis. As much as I danced around my choice, I knew that the best project was going to be something where I would reach deep into and embrace the darkness that was engulfing me. I wanted to confront it, if not conquer it. Short of working towards that goal, I felt I would be trapped in a permanent state of emotional retardation.
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