7/29/2010
 I think I saw it first as a friend and I were killing time in a mall before the beginning of a forgettable movie: The Barack Obama Collectible Plate. I stopped, considering the design and realizing that probably 51 companies had created 132 different designs of collectible Obama plates, now—not two years later—sitting on a clearance shelf and running for $4.99 at Overstock.com.
No, I'm not writing about the tarnished aura surrounding Obama in the eyes of his 2008 idolizers (though tempting) but our own bizarre fetishism of all things collectible, of our invented industry, of capitalism's ability to manufacture objects of zero practical worth, attach some signification to them, and thereby make them obscenely valuable—at least until the next invented object replaces them.
I'm not naïve about this: I understand the value of sentiment, of nostalgia, of memory. It's why we choose to carry photo albums from our burning homes instead of cash, why we treasure a copper pendant because it's an heirloom. Entrepreneurs are capitalizing on this emotional moment of sentiment, seizing the "Yes, We Can!" historical zeal and giving consumers what they want.
But this does not explain all of it. Not at all. I can rationalize (though not buy into) the Obama plates, the Mickey Mantle signed baseballs, the antique Peter Pan storybooks from our childhoods, and the Red Wings jerseys sold each season (though these $4-quality shirts like their concert shirt equivalents are casually hawked for $22 or more). Some categories of collectibles, however, move far beyond our futile efforts to physicalize our emotional needs.
 I can also rationalize the collectors of stamps, coins, and even baseball cards, not because of their obvious value (because most aficionados of these crafts do not think exclusively of future sales), but because they connect to an aspect of our culture or history through which we can build a sense of identity. A friend of mine loves Roman coins because of that genuine brush of history; another seeks three particular stamps to complete a set and has spent several years of internet browsing and traveling through flea markets and antique shops to find them. The joy of the mystery and the quest give him a purpose, not too unlike a World of Warcraft adventure. In this sense, beyond sentiment, collecting helps complete a life story for us, defining ourselves by our Simpsons paraphernalia or obsession with Mounds candy bars.
Yet what of those collectibles which create a symbiosis between several markets, such as Collectible Shrek IV ears at Burger King? Doesn't the obvious marketing ploy to consume more Biggie Fries and Triple Whopper Supremes give us some pause? What of those which reference nothing outside of themselves, such as FurReals, Purrtenders, pet rocks, Beanie Babies, or random ceramic nonsense arbitrarily labeled as "collectible"? Will my life really be defined by my collection of wax heads of Richard Nixon?
 Again, the psychology of such purchases is fairly clear. If it's popular, then it must be worth something; if it's popular, then I can be connected to some myth of the happy American life; if it's popular, then I would be missing something if I didn't have it; besides my kids want it. And I can say the exact same phrases if my collection is unique: I have the only collection of empty shotgun shell art in the world. I have more Kabaya dispensers than anyone in America (Yeah, look that one up.). Got it. We forego practical spending (and often enough, taste) to buy garbage that won't be worth a dime two months from now. And please don't tell me about "investing" in collectibles. If we do, that just puts us on the other side of the consumer cycle, perhaps the perpetrator of such frauds, but as likely as not the fools believing that such values sustain themselves. We see you, with your basements full of Super Mario Bobbleheads, Big Jim action figures, and Batman IV Mylar balloons.
And so we come to it. What is the threshold for absurdity—even of outright tastelessness or offensiveness—that we will not cross, even in the name of a self-deception for an emotional security blanket? How much will we pay and what we will collect regardless of value? Setting aside the guy who collects used staples or the one who has been collecting his own toenail clippings for 30 years (http://archive.bobandtom.com/gen3/collections.htm), how much power does this arbitrary signifier called "collectible" have on our psyches?
 It makes us feel unique and yet connected. At times it emotionally taps into our history or culture, into our nostalgia or sentiment. It offers us a sense of identity and of purpose through a cheap physical simulacrum of our needs. In a sense, we can create our own minor mythologies out of our desires for the collectible. It's no wonder that savvy businesses cash in on our mythological needs by offering us an endless array of temporary substitutes.
In this sense, as disgusted as I am by the gullibility of so many collectors, I am horrified by one of the most recent collectibles, the packaging of beer in the bodies of dead animals. Somehow, even in the limited release (note the plea to uniqueness, elitism), hundreds of people bid hard cash for these bottles manufactured on the Orkney Islands in Scotland. The beer line was called The End of History (note the appeal to the mythological) and was doubly unique in that it was 55% alcohol, the highest alcoholic content in beer history. No matter. Said one bid winner, "If I had not bought this one, I would always have wished I had . . . . It will be a collector's item. You would be mad to open it" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-10737787). They sold for nearly $800 each. I've been to the Orkneys, by the way, and that's good money out on those cold wind-worn rocks; and what else do they have for packaging?
Apparently we have few limits when it comes to completing our bogus quests. Fitzgerald said of Gatsby that "No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man can store up in his ghostly heart." What we imagine can never be fulfilled through physical reality. And the kiss by Daisy can be no better than a Britney Spears collectible flipbook.
1 BrewDog's End of History beer
P.S. Two years ago I E-Bay'ed a few war games from my youth. One "pocket game" of thin paperboard pieces called Chitin:I which I bought for $1.95 sold to a collector for over $100.00. My set of Star Trek novels did not sell at all.
3/29/2009
Fresh. Pure. Delicious. Made fresh daily in Detroit.
 Most of us don't think of the late 1960s as the Golden Age of the peanut butter sandwich. I do. It was a time when my grandmother would make sandwiches with Smucker's jelly and Velvet Peanut Butter. I don't know how many tall jars of homogenized goodness I engorged in my childhood, but in my memory it was in everything: sandwiches, milk shakes, fudge, on Ritz crackers, and (I kid not a bit) in coffee cups mixed with Karo dark corn syrup.
I confess my guilt: I moved on from Velvet as I grew older. We tried Jif, Skippy, Peter Pan, and the rest of the national brand ilk. It never worked. Sure, I ate it all, but it all felt processed, plasticized, wrong. When Velvet went out of business in the early 1980s it signaled the end of my public schooling and the end of any chance to keep that childhood taste.
The boy-cherubs who represented my pre-adolescent personalities vanished and I later matured into more sophisticated peanut butters: organics, natural brands (where I would work the little jar, stirring carefully to remix the oils and then refrigerating carefully), even soy butters. They were better for me. And while I could convince myself that I had found an evolved affection for peanut butter, nothing has quite been right. Nothing has quite been my grandmother's sandwiches or the occasional stolen spoonful when she took her afternoon nap.
That all changed this past week. Idly singing the Velvet jingle, one of my seniors told me that Velvet was back on the shelves! And how lucky could I be to discover that its test markets included Holiday Market and Westborn right in Royal Oak? I began my plan.
 I immediately read everything I could on the website, from the couple who wanted to bring back nostalgic brands to Detroit to their up-to-date reports on the salmonella-free condiment. Sure, it was actually produced in Georgia and shipped to Detroit, but what did that matter? It was the authentic peanut butter again. I plotted maps to the nearest store and then, that afternoon, I descended on Westborn Market. I bought them out at $2.99 a jar.
And it was amazing! After all, who knew a childhood could be so easily regained? I found a Hershey bar and dipped. I grabbed a small spoon. And that evening I made a grilled peanut butter sandwich.
Yes, I was in peanut butter heaven, or at least a facsimile of it. My kitchen suddenly began to feel complete, or at least it was vaguely reminiscent of my grandmother's. I remember the taste even still, nearly 40 years later—the slight saltiness, the graininess of that early mix—and the jar in my hands today wasn't—no, may not have been quite the same. . . .
Memory is a fallible thing. The Golden Age of Peanut Butter has passed, if it ever was. I begin to wonder, Was there ever a time when such a taste experience really existed? Is it possible that I elevated the original taste to something beyond the peanut? That I've somehow fantasized a taste in my memory that never was?
On the other hand, the mismatch of memory and reality may be because the new Velvet company has changed its formula. If that's so, then what they have labeled as Velvet is not actually Velvet. What they may have done is sold me nostalgia and not my childhood love. Fiends.
Neither, of course, is an acceptable choice. If my memories are wrapped in Velvet, then I must be able to recreate them. The alternative makes me a dreamer or a dupe. I have already bought enough jars for Christmas gifts and a dozen more so that my grandmother can try out the old fudge recipe. I'm not in denial, really.
It's just that, if the experience is not what I remember, perhaps I'm not creating the original experience. This morning I bought a bottle of Karo dark corn syrup. And now if you'll excuse me. . . . 3/21/2009
Truly, my first thought when I heard that the cast of Battlestar Galactica was debating at the real United Nations was that we've finally lost our sense of reality. And, on reflection, I admit I don't think I'm wrong.
If you are not following all the latest news from the world of science fiction, then allow me to catch you up: fictional characters from the SciFi Channel's long-running series of human refugees fleeing killer robots assembled (along with many of their fans, apparently) in the Economic and Social Council chambers; then, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, they discussed issues of race, human rights and terrorism. They even had placards from their individual planets to identify themselves.
 Right, I thought, the UN is now a playground for pop culture sf nerds and Hollywood B-listers.
While I'm not the first to begin UN-bashing, I certainly recognize that it has often fallen far short of its idealistic objectives. Mired by petty politics and corruption, incompetence in its administration, and mediocrity from its mid-20th century assumptions of geopolitics, the UN is nevertheless one of the only platforms for discussing global conduct and occasionally achieving true consensus on everything from airline security to landmine bans, and from coordinating humanitarian relief to biodiversity treaties. It has found successes in halving the number of global conflicts in the 50 years of its institution in contrast to the fifty which preceded it. It has brought peace to Cyprus, El Salvador, Mozambique, Nambia, and Kashmir. One of its most powerful programs is in election monitoring where it assures the legitimacy of growing and established democracies. In its successes and in its failures, the UN is one of the most serious-minded political bodies in the world. So why turn it into a Romper Room for Galactica geeks?
Most of the media coverage, however, reminds me of my error. I admit I have not watched the new series at all (but I remember Dirk Benedict and the robot-dog Muffy). I confess that I have only the vaguest notion that the series addressed issues of torture, suicide bombing, and insurrection while our own country engaged in a prolonged Iraqi war. Established news agencies like NPR and BBC offer praise of the evening of debate, underlining the cultural importance of BSG.
  And I should be able to admit when I'm wrong. Isn't it true that anything which forwards debate on human rights and raises its profile be praised? Isn't BSG one of those water-cooler series (at least at computer-programming companies) which raises the bar on discussion? It certainly must be better than having everyone talk about Paris Hilton skirt slips and celebrity couple hybrid names like Brangelina and Chrisiana. And I certainly don't need Yahoo! pushing any more Red Carpet Atrocities at me.
As a literature teacher, too, I should recognize that fiction—at its best—compels discussion of the most complex human issues. Heart of Darkness challenges our notions of linking civilization with moral purpose, Waiting for the Barbarians compels us to wonder about the single-mindedness of empire and the impossibilities of altruism, and Richard III decries the power of language and the seductive power of evil. Art calls from humanity its most provocative philosophy and introspection, raising teleological questions as profound as religion: it's no wonder that religion finds so much of its power in allegorical story.
And, as even I argued in my classroom Friday, The Dark Knight is arguably literary whereas Batman Returns certainly is not. So who am I to pick on Battlestar Galactica and the idealism of its cast and crew?
But I will, and for two reasons. The first is that BSG's conception of complex issues must by definition be confined to a 52-minute commercial-driven sensationalism to sustain ratings. What television as a medium calls "compelling" is too often nothing more than WWE spin-offs like Ring of Honor or the newest grotesqueries from Law & Order: Criminal Intent. It's the difference between authors called to idea and those called to profit, the difference between the poet inspired to vision and the pop-machinist programmed to a dance beat, between an Oscar Wilde or Ivan Turgenev and Los del  Rio's "Macarena." Is this elitist? I'll plead guilty, but I think it's entirely fair to investigate the context in which art is propagated.
What compels the themes of BSG, then? And are we moving into dangerous territory when we disguise those themes as fair or full representations of the political machinations of Darfur or the financial complexities of Wahhabist schools in Pakistan? Has the UN become a soapbox for celebrities who will never have the attention from an Emmy speech?
And this leads me to my second objection: BSG has stepped out of its fiction and into some serious real life. Harmless enough while confined to the profit-making Saturday night primetime cable slots, turning fiction into faction openly tells its naïve fans that they do indeed understand all that needs to be said . . . or thought.
At the close of his speech at the UN, a teary-eyed Edward James Olmos as Admiral Adama cried, "There is only one race: the human race. SO SAY WE ALL!" And the crowd chanted it right back. They follow the mesmerizing fantasy into their own lives, as immersed just as much as they might have been in a Final Fantasy campaign.
I have written before about the problematic erasure of boundaries between fact and fiction, but perhaps it is all we can hope for. Perhaps the commoditization of human rights and war is inevitable. After all, do we remember the Iraqi playing cards sold by the Bush administration? When genocide awareness is sponsored by Zune, DirectTV and Cheetohs, and child slavery board games are marketed by SkyOne and QmX, should we complain? (And yes, these companies sponsored episodes of BSG.) What should we care if Disney wanted to build a theme park in Gettysburg? After all, then more people would really know about the Civil War. And what should we care if Holocaust camps in Germany sell tourists souvenirs?
Josiah Bartlet for President! Bono for Secretary-General! Kiefer Sutherland for CIA Director! Bring on the sponsored illusions, because a complex reality may just be too difficult to face. 12/14/2008
On January 20, 2009, Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. will be inaugurated. That’s Hussein. Tune in to any number of news channels and watch the pundits argue over the public use of his middle name. Somehow—despite its being tradition for the full name to be used—it has become a minor scandal.
I’m curious, though, about why. Is the obvious coincidence of names between our Hawaiian-born Christian and an executed Muslim dictator too much for Americans to handle? Does it play upon our irrational fears as conservative Bill Cunningham depended on when he repeated the name over and over at a Cincinnati rally for McCain? Is it not Saddam that lives as a ghost in our President-elect but the fear of Islam in general? Or is it the linguistic nexus between Obama and Osama?
 
To be sure, there are emotional connections to names and words which defy rational thinking. Even Slate.com suggests that the name “Hussein” ranks among the worst of middle names. So by this thinking, let us be grateful for the great US political leaders who do not carry any names which might offend our prejudiced sensibilities:
· Let us be thankful that none of our leaders share the names of infamous serial killers like Harold Shipman or Randy Steven Kraft, of Gary Leon Ridgway or Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy. Hopefully none will ever remind us of the killer nurse Charles Cullen, of David Berkowitz or Jeffrey Dahmer, of Richard Ramirez or Robert Lee Yates. None will ever be linked to Pedro Lopez (who may have killed as many as 300 in Colombia), Peter Sutcliffe, Joseph Paul Franklin, Herbert Mullin, or Henry Lee Lucas, Christopher Wilder or Michael Bruce Ross, Peter Manuel or Derrick Todd Lee. Yes, a US President with one of those names would surely stir our moral sensibilities.
· Let’s be grateful that our President is not near the nuclear button if he shares a name with Charles Whitman (who shot dozens at the University of Texas) or Jeff Weise (who did the same at Red Lake High School). And let’s keep our leader clear of names like Eric and Dylan of Columbine.
· The US President should have the moral guidance which earns the respect of our citizens, so let’s be careful that he is neither a Jim nor a Jones, a Charles or a Manson, a David Koresh of Waco or Jeff Lundgren of Ohio.
· To sustain our democracy, be certain that he carries no names like Manuel (Noriega of Panama), Francisco (Franco of Spain) or Simon (Bolivar of Peru).
· And it goes without saying that he should not share a name with a US terrorist, let alone a foreign one. Therefore, let us Constitutionally amend the Presidential requirements to ban candidates with names like Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, Theodore Kaczynski, or Eric Robert Rudolph.
· Sure, the FBI’s most wanted terrorists list includes other Arab names, like Adam Yahihe Gadahn and Mohammed Ali Hamadei. Until they are caught and justice is served, let no President have such frightening names as, um, Mohammed and, er, Adam.
· Fortunately, readers of this blog are unlikely to be named John Thomas, whose name now appears on the Master Terrorist List. If our President were so named, he would be unable to travel by air, just like 70-year-old African American woman Johnnie Thomas (and every other variation of the name). By the way, that list now contains over one million names.
Republicans have been praised for rightfully denouncing the use of Obama’s name by Cunningham and by the Tennessee Republican Party. The use of the name, they said, was “disrespectful” and “distracting.” To me, however, that argument also suggests that Obama’s shameful name should be buried, omitted.
Fortunately for our future President, his own name strikes no such fear in his own heart. Blatantly flaunting the name of his Kenyan grandfather, he has decided to use his full name at the inauguration, a name Semitic in its origins, just like General Omar Bradley, Cabinet secretary Donna Shalala, and—um—Benjamin (Ben Yamin) Franklin. The nerve.
 
No, Obama has decided to allow his name to remind us that we are a 21st century America of mixed heritages, and our Muslim traditions are at least as vital to our values as they have been to the world’s. Perhaps one day we will not wince at the names of Islam:
· Maybe we will learn about Zakir Naik, the religious scholar from India; or Aminah Assilmi, who converted from Southern Baptist to Islam and is now President of the International Union of Muslim Women. Perhaps we will admire a Benazir Bhutto for being the first female Muslim head of state in Pakistan and we will study the chemistry of Jabir Ibn Haiyan as we do the physics of Newton. Will philosopher Abu’l Waleed Muhammad Ibn Rushd ever appear in our textbooks?
· Oddly, we have less trouble admiring the Muslim athlete. Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul Jabbar are long favorites, as are Imran Khan of the cricket world and Nigerian NBA star Hakeem Olajuwan.
· And we are okay with celebrity Muslims, so long as don’t think about them too much. We love the jazz of John Coltrane, the ballad rock of Cat Stevens, and even the pop nonsense of Michael and Jermaine Jackson. We laugh through multiple seasons of Dave Chappelle. And we are willing to allow political writer Fareed Zakaria a place on CNN.
· But be careful. Muslims have been sneaking into our politics long before Obama. In fact, the radical Republicans of California ran Eric Carlson, a blind Muslim Native American, for US Representative. (Fortunately, we would never allow a President to be named Eric or Carlson.)
Names conjure subjective power, and we must ourselves decide if an incarnation of a name will cause us fear or inspiration. Every Jesus is not a Jesus. Every Muhammad is not the Muhammad. And a new Hussein will lead the most powerful democracy in the world. 11/16/2008
Recently I mentioned in some of my classes that, psychologically, we are the stars of our own movies. By this I meant that we first of all see ourselves as the protagonists of a story, the main characters, the ones we imagine must win or succeed in the end. This is a function of ego, entirely to be expected. With that, however, come a few cautionary notes. . . .
First, in a metaphor like this one—and we must remember it to be metaphor—everyone else, the “not-I” characters, must be extras, co-stars at best. In this sense, our ego often works to convince us of our own right behavior and that others are supporters of us or obstacles, villains in the play. We invent ourselves to live a story or a series of them.
 
Clearly, however, these villains—if they are of healthy mind (or perhaps not)—also see themselves as the hero-protagonists. And of such convergences are conflicts wrought.
Kenneth Burke called it a dramaturgical framework, logological. By this he meant that language (logos = the word and reason) creates for us the structure of dramatic thinking, of thinking in terms of story.
- We enjoy the history of the American Revolution if it’s told as a story of people, not as lists of facts and dates.
- We want to know “what happens next” in our Gray’s Anatomys and CSIs.
- We always wait for the punch line of a joke or the story from a weekend party.
 
But here we arrive at our second caution, the fine line between story as fiction and story as a prejudiced or distorted reality. If we’re not careful, we end up casting ourselves into the drama we wish to live instead of the relationships in our lives we are dealt.
This is harmless, perhaps, if these are brief escapist fantasies of online role play or daydreaming. (Perhaps a little over-the-top is the Society for Creative Anachronism which has divided the US into duchies and baronies in a sort of medieval replication of the planet.) It becomes much more complicated when we re-write our lives to create new drama or rewrite the lives of others to do the same.
Enter the reality show. I had the misfortune of watching an episode of one of the latest, Estate of Panic. In it a half dozen or so contestants are placed in various spooky settings to grab money while confronted by electrical wires, snakes, or falling ceilings. The show makes no pretense of actually being reality, of course, unlike Big Brother or Ghost Hunters. But in it contestants openly participate with a corny host in a fantasy setting, almost as if they have no idea that it’s staged.
  
Much harder to distinguish for some is Ghost Hunters, Cops, or the WWE. Frustratingly, as the plots are wound and crafted, the suspense is built to reach climaxes before commercial breaks, and all the while the actors are trained to seemingly “break script” and the story appears to us to be . . . all the more real. (More than a few students have told me in the past few years that there is nothing fictional about these programs.)
This intentional blurring of fact and fiction caters specifically to our own belief that we can live these fantasies ourselves (witness backyard wrestling, Jackass wannabes, and amateur ghost-busting groups). It is entertaining. It makes money. It builds allegiances and ratings.
No wonder President-Elect Obama has done well: he—or his party—has written a mythological reality story, complete with the historical drama of Grant Park climaxes, Lincoln-style challenges, and utopic endings. Today the Detroit Free Press spent an entire page urging Michelle Obama to wear a “regal” gown as it compared her to Jackie Kennedy.
  
Again, no surprises here, nothing that has not been done to countless decades of celebrities and politicians. But now will the millions of allies, followers, and devotees who found themselves mesmerized by the “Obama story” expect the “happily ever after?”
History is not story, though we cast and write it so. I worry that we will spend our media time writing Obama as a hero or villain to suit our own dramatistic whims rather than confront the problems before us as they really are. Real. 2/3/2008
Maybe I’m in the mood to vent—but why should I? It’s not like our world is full of the ridiculous, packed with the absurd, stuffed with the ludicrous. It’s not like I can’t make sense of the planet.
As I tell me Lit. of the Western World students, existentialists begin with the notion that the world is immune to reason. Either the world is illogical or our limited thinking is unable to decipher it. Or both. And so, for my impotent effort to make clear what I mean, here is a brief list of the absurd, elements of our world which defy logic. (Help me out, here. If you can explain all of these to me rationally, I’ll feel much better.)
- In Ypsilanti, the name of a store is “Going Postal.” I would have gone in to see what it was about, but I was afraid I’d be shot.
- Someone has a website dedicated to the unibrow. (And no, I won't help you find it!)
- As many people tune in to watch the Superbowl commercials as the game; and the commercials cost $2.7 million for 30 seconds.
- Someone had $2,700,000 and decided to spend it on 30 seconds of commercial time.
- Many someones.
- A newscaster said Friday, “Well, we were going to bring you that amazing feature story about an innovative elementary school, but this important news about Britney’s hospitalization has bumped that story.”
- Definitely on the list is spelling the word "definately."
- Over two years after Katrina, more than 6,000 are still without homes.
- Lies.
- Despite everything we know about educational reform and successful student learning, our public schools use an agricultural calendar (pre-1900) to run classes based on a manufacturing model (c. 1920s) to serve 21st century information age students. And ROHS begins school at 7:20 instead of 10:20.
 
- Omarosa is now a celebrity.
- So is Chris Crocker.
- Months into the presidential primary race and we have yet to hear any candidate—Republican or Democrat—speak substantively on any global issues but terrorism and Iraq.
- The 1973 film Horror Express still has not gained the respect it deserves.
- Galoshes.
 
- A woman was reported driving while brushing her teeth, gargling, and spitting out the open window. Well, at least the window was open.
- A ham and cheese sandwich on one slice of bread is regulated by the Dept. of Agriculture, but if it’s on two slices of bread, it’s regulated by the FDA.
- Bjork.
- A teenager with a plastic egg filled with air-gun pellets is arrested for carrying a Weapon of Mass Destruction.
- We have made 4 Saw movies, 7 Freddie movies, 12 Jason movies, and Sly Stallone still thinks he’s Rambo.
- Falun Gong protests and crackdowns in China are so common that foreign journalists are tired of writing about them. (Ian Johnson, Wild Grass)
- Jello.
- We actually have game shows The Moment of Truth and Battle of the Bods, seemingly designed to demean people in the most vile ways.
- Parents jeopardize their children’s chances to fund college by falsifying their taxes and then refusing to complete a FAFSA. I now know of three families in Royal Oak.
I leave it to you. Help me out of my existential funk. 12/9/2007
You don’t pump anti-lock brakes. I’m still not used to that. As my car skidded a bit across the December ice, I remembered to turn into the spin and bring it around straight again. Not so the driver behind me who began to fishtail before he remembered and corrected.
And I found myself smiling, loving the cold, the wind, the black ice which hid itself against the 6:00 am pavement. Not more than a few weeks ago, the sun and humidity baked my air-conditioned-less classroom. The autumn oak leaves descended through a pre-Thanksgiving slush and immediately froze themselves to my lawn. The courtyard hardened before the spring bulbs could be planted; it will likely thaw in February and kill any flowers who foolishly pretend it’s Michigan’s two week long spring.
California dwellers are crazy, surrounded by the dull pleasantness of green and gray office cubicles. Each evening’s dinner is an open-topped cruise to a new bistro; the snow is plastic.
No, no paradise for us. The desire for Eden—which we mistake for bliss—is simply and most importantly that: a desire. We mustn’t have it, but we must experience the merest hints of it. It’s enough for me to know that California exists and that I will never live there, that a long weekend is only a few weeks ahead, or that I may some night achieve more than seven hours of sleep. Complete Chaos deprives us of hope; Order is interminably boring.
An unexpected patch of black ice reminds me that I’m not in control, that there is always change, always danger, always living to do. Every story we cling to is the same, from the swordplay of Siegfried to the intrigue between Marcie and Ramsey on One Life to Live. The best literature, the mythic literature, strikes a balance between drama and respite, though. It offers the adventure with strategically paced reprieves, moments for just enough reflection to understand the value of the chaos. Achilles laments his lost “squire” during the siege on Troy; Arthur establishes a Roundtable code of chivalry so it may be corrupted; Clark trades a few love-struck moments with Lois before Lex Luthor draws him away.
   
In this way the pattern of living and the pattern of art are alike. John McClane’s adventures are not art in that he does little but “die hard” for 120 minute stretches. We enjoy the films as cheap thrills to break up our own dramas; they are brainless respite. But we are moved by the novels of Erdrich or Coetzee, writers who understand the need for chaos, the promise only of order.
As I struggle with a recalcitrant furnace (which currently heats only 2/3 of my home), surge through piles of permission slips for a New Orleans trip, and rehearse a twisted (and hated) marimba part for upcoming concerts, I have hints of something better. I can imagine what my home will be when the renovation is complete; I can share an hour of tea with a friend; and my cat will occasionally attempt to curl up in my lap (though I sit no place long enough to content it). Occasionally I even remember what it must be like to write, truly write. . . .
It—whatever it is—will never—never—all be done. And Michigan will dump ice and wind over us again. We should want nothing else, neither paradise nor consistency in life or art.
We await the Happily Ever, but that always ends the story . . . until the next dark winter sequel, Michigan Ice: With a Vengeance.
11/11/2007
Every day I hear it, more from the mouths of girls, even, than guys. One girl, angry at a contrary opinion, a rumor that has been spread, or any non-submissive behavior at her female target, calls the other the B-bomb.
Except it’s not a bomb. It’s a regular occurrence, so regular that the word, like so many curses today, seems to the speakers virtually impotent. Thus more and more speakers lace it with other invective, in vain efforts to reinvigorate it with power and anger. Targets become “f***ing” “g-d*mned” or any other foul adjective speakers can produce as they test the limits of grammar.
Its commonality makes it impotent. I believe that in the 44 years I have known her, my own mother has sworn only once. The power of that simple “D” was astounding. When we discuss the power of words, both sacred and profane, true power comes from selected, even symbolic or ritual use. In other words, words gain power from their non-use, their selected use, their reserved use. Consider the power of the words “genocide,” “holocaust,” and even “rape.” If we began to use these words heedlessly, carelessly—commonly—we reduce the power of their “proper” use and belittle that proper meaning.
If we call every mass murder or slaughter a “holocaust” (as did reporters in describing a recent university shooting spree and a hurricane in the Caribbean) we reduce the word to a level which denies its tragic and systematic intent, its ambition for total annihilation, its success or near success at achieving them through the deaths of tens of thousands or even millions. In attempting to hyperbolically escalate the event described (for a brief increase in ratings and emotional jolts), we undermine the history of Jews, Rwandans, and Darfurians who truly suffered.
Such may be said too, then, of the B-bomb. I’m not suggesting that we undermine a powerful history or sacred trust here, but that the word is so often and so casually used that it has little power remaining.
We’ve stopped thinking about it.
“So what’s the big deal?” one of my students said to me last year regarding his use of the word ‘gay’ as a synonym for ‘ridiculous.’ “It doesn’t mean anything.” In other words, he reasons, we shouldn’t worry about it precisely because we believe it has no power. He, too, chose not to consider it.
Unfortunately, this is the paradox of language, of words. The absence of conspicuous power—of conscious power—does not mean that words are nothing. Hardly. In fact, the trick to understanding language is to recognize what Jacques Lacan calls its “unconscious.” In other words, psychologically, the meaning of the word has fallen so far into our own mental schema or pattern of normality that we’ve stopped responding to it.
Let me see if I can offer an example. When Kleenex began its manufacture of tissue, it worked hard to see its brand name recognized wherever it could. Over the years, it worked. Perhaps too well. The term “kleenex” has now become a more generic name for tissue, and the brand name identification has vanished. I could go to the store to buy Kleenex and come home with Puffs feeling I’ve succeeded. I’ve stopped thinking of the Kleenex name as a specific brand.
The same can be said of our metaphors. For instance, when we talk about how we “spend” our time, we are speaking in metaphor, though we’ve often forgotten it. Notice how such casual (thoughtless) use has then escalated the subconscious power of the metaphor for us. We can now “waste” time, “time is money,” and we push people to never “lose” time. We’ve created a value metaphor for time which—make no mistake—is not shared by many cultures.
The point is, the connotations of words can become so much a “natural” part of our psychology that we change our ways of thinking without noticing it.
So what does b*tch do? A male invention for females, we don’t have to much discuss its original intent: the term is an animal-like condemnation of assertive women, especially of women who risk opinions contrary to men. Certainly women who commit injustices may also be labeled, but mild-mannered, meek, or submissive women are almost never called “b*tch.” If the word has ceased to have power, is it because we have a natural, unconscious expectation that women must submit to male opinion? (How many jokes and other language choices we make reinforce this idea?)
But what most concerns me is that I hear it used from one woman to another as commonly as across the sexes. It’s as if women are teaching each other the expectation. “We all live in a world which belittles our strength,” they seem to say, “and my role is to remind other women that they should not assert themselves.”
Connotatively, part of that unconscious meaning is not merely animal-like, but more specifically a reminder that the animal is useful only for breeding. (No wonder men actively oppose the word being used against them!)
Antonio Gramsci noted once that the most effective way for oppression to work is to teach the victims to oppress themselves. (Males entertained by a “b*tch-fight” suddenly come to mind.) If we can teach a group to believe themselves inferior by feeding them language which speaks inferiority, then a new language must be uttered.
All words have power, but some is just a bit more subtle than others. Whoever said “Sticks and stones” had no idea what they were talking about. Words create who we are.
P.S. But what if a woman truly acts unjustly? Doesn’t she deserve the word? No. Find other words, ones that do not carry the power to demean the entire gender each time they are uttered!
P.P.S. Isn’t it possible for women to turn the word around as a symbol of power? Isn’t this what happened to “Yankee Doodle”? Perhaps, in limited cases. But the most common use of the word contextually is hardly about empowerment!
P.P.P.S. An interesting synchronicity:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071119/OPINION01/711190305/1069
10/28/2007
The term “culture jam” suggests that we can interfere with the messages delivered to us as consumers, that as people—even citizens—we can resist.
How does it work? We begin be examining what an advertisement’s message is—not the product that it sells, but the lifestyle message behind the product. For instance, DKNY and Abercrombie and Fitch sell sex appeal to youth, Hummers sell American patriotism and strength, and McDonald’s sells fun and convenience.
Then we turn that extra message on its ear, reverse or otherwise alter the image so that the ad’s underlying goal is undone. In the newer Apple ads, for instance, Apple sells two male images of the PC and Mac, one a bumbling business geek, the other a laid-back young hipster. It’s an anti-business (or at least anti-corporate) appeal. Who wants to be stuffy and inept? But streetwise, young, and still successful? Give me that Mac!
My “jam” of the ad is perhaps simplistic, but my first goal is to remove the two male models and replace them with alternatives. I have no interest in trying to sell the PC, but I do wish to render them irrelevant, even comical, to remind us what Apple company is up to.
I now give the Mac a cute pink bunny (at least it’s still an image of youth and simplicity!) and I add a stereotypical geek to emphasize what Apple did in casting the PC guy, making their strategy open and explicit. I added one more random image to make my intent plain (It reads, "I'm irrelevant to the product.").
Ads are easy to jam, because they are so obvious. Other propaganda is less explicit, though. Politicians make speeches that sell security, prosperity, and change. Teachers sell principles of success, capitalism, and obedience. Beneath most every argument lies assumptions, subtexts, presuppositions which the speaker wants unspoken, unquestioned.
How does we make the implicit explicit? Imagine the teacher who says to his class, “Some teachers never let you speak without raising your hand.” The implicit claim of superiority, the guilt offered to students who speak out of turn, and the demand for gratefulness to the teacher who says it—all of these may motivate such a comment. And what should we make of a boyfriend’s comment which begins, “If you really loved me . . .”?
How do we become critics of every message around us? How do we move from consumer-target back to human? It is possible to respond first to the presupposition before the explicit message; but it takes practice. |
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