a brit on the american ideal

I was struck by an excerpt from Tony Blair's new book, A Journey: My Political Life.

Americans can be all that the rest of the world sometimes accuses them of: brash, loud, insular, obsessive and heavy-handed. But America is great for a reason. It is looked up to, despite all the criticism, for a reason. There is a nobility in the American character that has been developed over the centuries, derived in part, no doubt, from the frontier spirit, from the waves of migration that form the stock, from the circumstances of independence, from the Civil War, from a myriad of historical facts and coincidences. But it is there.

That nobility isn't about being nicer, better or more successful than anyone else. It is a feeling about the country. It is a devotion to the American ideal that at a certain point transcends class, race, religion or upbringing. That ideal is about values, freedom, the rule of law, democracy. It is also about the way you achieve: on merit, by your own efforts and hard work. But it is most of all that in striving for and protecting that ideal, you as an individual take second place to the interests of the nation as a whole. It is what makes the country determined to overcome its challenges. It is what makes its soldiers give their lives in sacrifice. It is what brings every variety of American, from the lowest to the highest, to their feet when "The Star-Spangled Banner is played. Of course the ideal is not always met--that is obvious. But it is always striven for.

Never before have I read such an accurate assessment of America. To have it written by a foreigner shows incredible insight, perhaps only attainable by an outsider. It has intrigued me enough to read his book. If only it had come out during the summer when I had a bit more free time!

twinkie, deconstructed

And here it is, book number one of the summer reading blitz under my belt. Twinkie, Deconstructed is an interesting book that sometimes reads like a PR spot for processed food manufacturers.

Who am I kidding? It is pure propaganda, plain and simple. Each and every industry Ettlinger gets a nod to greatness from the author, all because of the simple question his kids posed about ingredients on a Twinkie label. Brilliant in in its concept, fell short in execution.

In the end, he does make some good points about why manufacturers have moved away from natural ingredients in supermarket-ready foods. All in all, I think books like this will certainly drive me more towards organic grub and being a locavore, so as to avoid all these additives and processing that are in the seemingly innocuous Twinkie.

Honestly, I can't recall the last time I ate a Twinkie, but I know for sure now after reading this book, it ain't just Twinkies that get the scientific treatment by food scientists. I could go home right now and find all sorts of additives and preservatives and replacements for "natural" ingredients. Sure, they're "generally regarded as safe" by the FDA, but the acids and chemicals used to produce them are anything but.

To be perfectly honest, that kind of scares me.

the indomitable human spirit

It's been a while since I've blogged about either books or movies. Usually, I'm comparing the book version of something to the film version. This edition will not follow that modus operandi. This one will be a little more like those silly essays we used to write in high school and college, comparing seemingly disparate works to one another. In college, I compared a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story to one by Edgar Allan Poe and then tied that symbolism to Biblical representations of water. It was deep, but quite a stretch. Maybe I'll hunt that down and share it with you this weekend.

Anyhow. On to the analysis. In this corner, wearing Crip blue and throwing up gang signs, we have Stanley Tookie Williams' Blue Rage, Black Redemption. And in the other corner, we have the brilliant Cool Hand Luke, starring Paul Newman.

The mere comparison of these two works must start with a description of the characters. The former, Tookie, is best-known for being a co-founder of the Crips. In his two-part memoir, he rails against his past and what eventually led him to death row. The missteps that led him to prison are many, though until he landed at San Quentin, he had never before been incarcerated. He was a larger than life figure in South Central LA during his lifetime, and that spirit carried over into his life in prison. He refused to submit to the prison culture, maintained his ethics, and turned over a new leaf. He wrote an 8-part children's book series to prevent youth from going down his same stretch of road. His turnaround was so drastic, there was a film made about his prison redemption, and he was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize.

The latter was Luke, a fictitious character, but one with an antiestablishment persona just the same. His refusal to submit to the rules laid out by the sadistic warden at the work camp led to beatings, harder labor, nights spent "in the box"...and earning the respect of all his fellow inmates. He fought the system up until the very end, playing his part with that trademark Newman grin. He wasn't locked up for murder, but his long trial at the work camp tested his mettle just the same.

Tookie & Luke both refused to let their spirits be broken by an inhospitable imprisonment. Tookie stepped into the realm of peacemaker while in prison, refusing to participate as the gang hooligan that took him there. He brokered truces between Bloods & Crips, which few on the streets have even tried, much less succeeded with. All the while, he faced a prison bureaucracy that was out to get him, much like the sadistic warden in Cool Hand Luke. Both spirits of these men were indomitable, unable to be broken. Despite crueler than cruel circumstances, they managed to hold their heads high until the very end.

Queue this movie, check out this book. I don't think you'll be disappointed by either.

fast food nation

Here it is, my short and sweet review of Fast Food Nation. If you're unaware of what the book is, it's an interesting take on the fast food industry and what it has meant to American consumers, even those of us who choose not to eat at such establishments. It has quite a bit of history on it, which was fascinating and disturbing at once. The business acumen and lack of ethics on the part of most of the magnates of the industry brought us what we know today. A McDonald's or 10 in every city, Ronald McDonald being second to Santa Claus in recognition, and the golden arches being one of the most recognizable corporate symbols in the world.

I can't say I'm going to be a vegetarian after reading this book. I don't have the willpower or the nutrition knowledge to make a go at it. Too much of my cooking skill involves grilling or roasting or frying. Pasta wouldn't cut it.

Some odd facts. Ray Kroc bought out the McDonald's brothers for a paltry $3ish million. His empire is clearly worth billions. Most franchisees go into debilitating debt to open a restaurant. There's a reason why immigrants staff the lowest levels of the American workforce; even managers in this industry make chump change and work lawyer-like hours. Ninety percent of children in this country visit a McDonald's every month. Why? Probably because they are the largest private operator of playgrounds in the country. A McDonald's hamburger is healthier than McNuggets.

Someone needs to import In-N-Out Burgers from California to the District. Their food is better quality, they pay their employees living wages, and their management style is ethical. Five Guys wasn't mentioned, but judging by the taste of their food, I bet they're in the same league. So what's this mean for Mr. J? As with all my reading on Wal-Mart, I'm avoiding fast food joints from now on. I haven't set foot in a Wal-Mart in almost two years, and I don't plan on starting.

My fast food corporation boycott starts...now!

almost poetic

I just finished reading Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. I started reading it during my month-long traveling bender. It rekindled the same itchy feet syndrome first diagnosed by Jack Kerouac and nearly cured by an ill-fated attempt to live overseas. This time, however, in Pirsig's wandering tale of a cross country motorcycle trip intertwined with a past borne of insanity and ancient Greek philosophy, my life circumstances changed considerably. Oddly, so too did the book.

During the course of my reading, she and I made that whole "getting married" thing official, I logged about 10,000 miles of air travel, got attacked by a macaw, lost my job (technically, destaffed, but let's call it what it is), and started trying to get this bum back of mine fixed. I thought it rather fitting the way the book ended. So, if I may quote the last paragraph, "'Tis a far, far better thing...."

Wait, that's not right.

Ahem. Here it is:

Trials never end, of course. Unhappiness and misfortune are bound to occur as long as people live, but there is a feeling now, that was not here before, and is not just on the surface of things, but penetrates all the way through: We've won it. It's going to get better now. You can sort of tell these things.

For all the stresses of my life past, and those to come, I know this to be true. Words truer were never written, nor at a better time for me to read them in a 35 year old classic.

conflicting interests

something pains me each time i walk into an outdoor store. the gear head id in me is elated, excited, intrigued at all the shiny new toys and clothes that will keep me entertained whilst pursuing outdoor fun. i want to try them all on and have an unlimited gift card to purchase said gear. this half of me is in conflict.

the quieting force that seems to be stronger in me is the anti-consumerist ego that fights its every id whim. i'd just as soon keep the same old stuff and old clothes and old pickup, but in this american society, it's pretty difficult to do. i read not buying it by judith levine a while back. if you've not read it, it details the trials and tribulations of the author's challenging project of not buying anything but needs for an entire year. i thoroughly enjoyed the book and identified very strongly with her internal conflicts on doing so. i'd say in climber fashion, this is the strongest statement we make. thrift store finds, flea market used pants, army surplus wool sweaters. to top it off, it's all chalked up because wearing clean clothes to climb in seems to be a ridiculous faux pas.

of course, this is fought by our craving for new shiny carabiners and cams and ropes and packs to stow it all in. granted a good bit of our climbing gear carries our life in its function. substandard gear doesn't cut it. in the snowboarding realm, i've had to drop a few bills on new gear just to get started. it ain't top notch stuff...yet, but it gets me outdoors on the weekends when the rocks are too wet or snow-covered to climb on them. this weaker id loses far more often. were it stronger, i'd have a kayak, a new mountain bike, and and and.

a million little pieces

way back when, i read this book. i wasn't in the best place in my life. lately, it's come up repeatedly in discussions, so i feel compelled to share my thoughts on it from way back when.

In case you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard about James Frey's "memoir" A Million Little Pieces. Curiosity finally got the best of me, and I borrowed it. It was slow going at first because his writing style was hard to get used to. The further I got, the faster I read. Partly because I didn't have to stop and think about who was saying what, partly because it became more intriguing. I found myself laughing out loud at his interactions with his fellow patients and the staff. The descriptions in the book are haunting and vivid. His fellow patients are real, and come from a broad spectrum of society. Mob boss. Boxer. Steel worker. Judge. It holds to some of the stuff I taught. Addiction doesn't care if you're black, white, rich, poor, man, woman, child. You abuse, you're done. Simple as that.
With the brouhaha over the fictive parts of the memoir, I found myself wondering at points in the book what was made up. There were certainly parts of the book that I am convinced were complete and total bullshit, but then again, I've not been in his shoes before. Since I can't relate to the anger that addicts felt upon finding out about the embellishments or bold-faced lying, I can't help but wonder if there would've been the same outcry or hope if it was written by someone else as a work of fiction.
Never having dealt with substance abuse myself, I can't relate to those aspects of the book. The struggle the overwhelming need the craving the Fury...Sorry, I guess Frey's style got into my head. Hell, I've never taken anything harder than booze, and certainly not to the point of abuse. The most I've ever drank in one night was the better part of a fifth of SoCo, and I'm still being told details of that evening.
"Words can't say this. The one word love means too little for what it is. It means everything and that is still not enough. It doesn't communicate even a fraction of the feelings involved. Love. The word is not enough for what it is. Love. Love."(316)
The part of the book that I related best to was when he fell for Lilly. Being in love is about the only addiction I've ever experienced. Always wanting to be with that person, never wanting to part. It's awesome and it's powerful and it's draining and it's exhilarating all at the same time. When you lose it, you crave it and fear that you'll never find it again. I suppose it's an addiction that most everyone wants, and it seems to be awfully hard to find sometimes. Each time you're lucky enough to find it, your mind and heart race with all the possibilities it poses. But each time you're unlucky enough to lose it, the pain seems more intense than the last, though you build your walls and defenses and it sadly becomes easier to deal with. Thus a vicious cycle begins. Each time you meet someone worthy of your love, it's harder and harder to let yourself go and just be.

you read it? your thoughts, please. being in love then and being in love now are worlds apart, and i'm curious how your view may have changed (especially if you read this review when i originally posted it on myspace).

happiness

...happiness is a difficult thing--it is, as Aristotle posited in The Nicomachean Ethics, an activity, it is about good social behavior, about being a solid citizen. Happiness is about community, intimacy, relationships, rootedness, closeness, family, stability, a sense of place, a feeling of love...--in this America, happiness is hard.

i just finished reading Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel. if you've not heard of it, it's a memoir of one young woman's battle with depression. throughout the book, i felt my self vacillating between empathy and annoyance at her state of being. she struggled with knowing she needed help and running at the first signs of it. i identified with her, recognizing the same self-destructive behaviors that plague(d) some of my friends in my early 20s. the relationship woes. the substance abuse. the listlessness. clearly, she made it through the trial by fire; otherwise, her book would've never been written. it wasn't until her eventual release by pharmacy that i got something out of this book. we are a nation of drug addicts. remember from your health classes in middle and high school that a drug is anything that changes the way your body operates. caffeine is a drug. food is a drug. heroin is a drug. alcohol is a drug. medications, prescribed or otherwise, are drugs.

her clarity of mind after making it through her "black wave" belittled the drug culture that infects our health care today. her line of thinking is much like mine, in that i often refuse to go to the doctor with minor ailments, knowing that they'll often prescribe something to make the symptoms go away when my immune system will often take care of it in about the same time frame. i don't take aspirin unless i can't see straight; i'll only take ibuprofen to reduce swelling from injuries. prozac is so readily prescribed by doctors these days that it has become a bad joke, one that wounds people with true problems.

happiness is a choice. someone very dear to me says that often. you can choose to be happy, you can choose to be sad. when you make sadness your choice too often, depression is the result, and your brain won't let you make choices anymore. i had all of the components of aristotle's definition living in gainesville.

at times.

i chose happiness, and in spite of leaving all of those behind, i am managing to reconstruct them in my new environment. i'm delighted to be a part of such a new, vibrant experience that i can't help but smile more often than not.

metro people watching

i've taken to reading more often while waiting around at metro stations and other public-type places. lots of locals do it; when in rome...

anyhow, that brought me to my people watching today. as the blue line pulled up at rosslyn today, i shut my book. (i'm rarely blessed with the ability to read in moving vehicles. if i get a seat, sometimes. reading a book is easier than reading the paper.) as the horde stirred with the trains arrival, i caught a young 20-something sneaking a glance at my book choice. she quickly averted her eyes and resumed reading her book, which happened to be one i read in the fall, ecology of a cracker childhood. i wonder what went through her head. i wonder what goes through everyone's head, especially the readers, as they take stock of what their fellow riders are reading at the station or on the train. "hey, i read that." "hmm, she's really into that book." "she clearly bought that at the checkout line." "he's cute and smart. how should i get his attention?"

i discovered this week on the train that there are several types of people during rush hour. presuming there are very few tourists at this time of day, i'll say that they all work in the city. first are the readers. magazines, books, newspapers, work papers. there's the sleepers. these folks just plain pass out as soon as they're on the train. they wake up at the terminus of the line, look around confused, and stumble out of the station. folks like these are pretty common early in the morning too; those are a different breed though. they worked the night shift and ride the train because it's air conditioned and no one bothers them. somehow, they manage to get off at the right stop too. there's the texters, who don't let their thumbs rest at all. this is the common species of the breed. the more ubiquitous (at least in this city) are the blackberry addicts. their eyes forever scanning their inbox, their smartphone never makes it to the hip holster for the hour commute. the zoned-out ipod junkies tune out the rest of the world, bobbing their heads and staring at the screen. those are the most obvious.

all others seem to nervously watch each station and each person as if they're on a train with degenerates and miscreants. very rarely do i see people interacting with one another. eastbound trains tend to have more of this. of all the random strangers that i've talked to on the train, they've all been super nice and very few of them have been anything like me.

it's been a while. damn, i love this city!

random cultured

netflix has brought me some dizzyingly odd and wonderful movies. way back when, i refused to watch foreign films because i had to read the subtitles. i'd lose the visual nature of the film because i'd be reading so slowly. i still have trouble reading the subtitles without losing some meaning, but it's improving. i feel like it started with chinese action movies. a lot easier for me to follow, even with the romantic subplots in crouching tiger or house of flying daggers.

recently, i watched volver. kind of a chick flick, with a dark twist. if penelope cruz weren't in it, i may have liked it less. she was phenomenal. any lesser actress in beauty or joie de vivre couldn't have carried the film, especially in light of some of the darker aspects of her character's life.

last night, i finished watching the lives of others. a german movie about the stasi in 1984 in east germany. the first half or so was pretty tough to watch. the setup for the second, far more satisfying half took a while. the plot wound up being fairly predictable. i'd probably watch it again if given the chance, but alas, netflix wants it back.

i've also been reading sporadically as i have time. just finished the kite runner. yes, i know i'm about a year or two late on that one. presuming the characterizations of afghanis true, i learned an awful lot about their culture, and in turn one of my students. for the same reason i didn't particularly enjoy deliverance the movie after reading deliverance the book, i'm not so sure i'm going to see the film adaptation of hosseini's acclaimed novel. i will however keep a look out for a thousand splendid suns, which i hear is also excellent.

ok, cultured friends. hit me up with some more foreign or random indie flicks i can put in the queue, or books i should pull off my shelf. think classics in the latter regard. i have quite a few that i've never opened up. i think into the wild will be the next one i crack, but it's a short read i'm told. it's getting to be the time to read in the sunshine...

book learnin' about ecology

in my short (and failed) quest to read more before cable started to rot my brain (too late), i had checked out 3 books from the library, two i'd heard of and one i had not. the former ones, river of grass by marjorie stoneman douglas and their eyes were watching god by zora neale hurston, gathered dust and i only got a chapter or two into each of them. river of grass was a recap of all that i knew of the everglades. a great book for me to read had i never experienced the majesty of the swamp, or one to collect dust on my bookshelf for pretentious purposes. hurston's tale was described as a seminal work of african-american fiction. a great novel. i barely made a dent in it before lee sent a walk in the woods by bill bryson. no classic american literature, but a great, fast read nonetheless.

having renewed all three books, and returning two unread, i felt obligated to at least crack open the latter of the three: janisse ray's ecology of a cracker childhood. boy, am i glad i did! much like one of my favorites a land remembered, it details a natural history of georgia's longleaf pine forests. juxtaposed next to her poor upbringing in rural baxley, it certainly is an interesting read. the descriptions of the pine lowlands in southern georgia and how mankind has raped and pillaged them were vivid and disheartening. the book ends with this call to arms:

We Southerners area people fighting again for our country, defending the last remaining stands of real forest. Although we love to frolic, the time has come to fight. We must fight.
In new rebellion we stand together, black and white, urbanite and farmer, workers all, in keeping Dixie. We are a patient people who for generations have not been ousted from this land, and we are willing to fight for the birthright of our children's children and their children's children, to be of a place, in all ways, for all time. What is left is not enough. When we say the South will rise again we can mean that we will allow the cutover forests to return to their former grandeur and pine plantations to grow wild.
The whippoorwill is calling from the edge.

if you call yourself a naturalist, conservationist, ecologist, environmentalist, Southerner, woodsman, forester, READ THIS BOOK.

book learnin'

lee sent me a walk in the woods by bill bryson. he wouldn't stop raving about it. i've never really known lee to go on and on about a book, especially not to the point that he asked for my address, and it was in my mailbox 3 days later. anyhow, it was a fast read. took me three or four nights to polish it off. much like kerouac's on the road, it filled me with wanderlust. my long-forgotten dreams of completing a thru-hike of the appalachian trail were rekindled in part. perhaps this summer i'll forgo my route 66 coast-to-coast plans (mostly because i'm not sure if the old danger ranger can hoof it to california one more time!) and hit the AT's full length in virginia. 550 miles in all....we'll see.

anyhow, what struck me most in the book was not the memoir of life on the trail. that i easily related to, recollecting many nights spent in my tent after many miles on my feet. it was the commentary on everything else running through his head along the way that most interested me. oddly enough, here's the passage that resonated the most with me, for its absolute truth:

Consider this: Half of all the offices and malls standing in America today have been built since 1980. Half of them. Eighty percent of all the housing stock in the country dates from 1945. Of all the motel rooms in America, 230,000 have been built in the last 15 years...At the time of our hike, the Appalachian Trail was 59 years old. That is, by American standards, incredibly venerable. The Oregon & Santa Fe Trails didn't last that long. Route 66 didn't last as long...Nothing in America does. If a product or enterprise doesn't constantly reinvent itself, it is superseded, cast aside, abandoned without sentiment in favor of something bigger, newer, and alas, nearly always uglier.

agreed? in 274 pages of prose, that is what i agree with. no tradition in america. my kids won't have the experience of visiting my "hometown" when they're growing up. my folks won't live there anymore, though they may be in my adopted hometown by then. my grandma has lived in the same house for close to 50 years. i haven't lived in the same house for more than 10 years at any point in my life. perhaps my itchy feet aren't really helping me grow roots by the same notion, but that's the america i've grown up in. the woods that brian, mark, adam and i used to goof off in are actually the land that my mom's current school sits on. the once-deserted stretch of sw 20th ave that i once took a trip on as a pledge is glutted with gaudy apartment complexes, cookie cutter subdivisions, and too much traffic for a two-lane road.

wow. my fingers just wandered. i'm not sure where that came from. my subconscious types quickly.

books

in an continued effort to simultaneously make myself more smarter and more interesting, i'm pledging to read more this month. before i get reconnected to the media-filled life that is american society. yep. november 10th-ish, internet, tv and a landline (how retro!), and my descent into ignorance begins anew.

anyhow, here's a sampling of the stuff i've read in the last year or so. any recommendations based on what's written below? classics, non-fiction, new fiction. pretty much anything but sci-fi or fantasy. just can't get my head around it.

cheers!

A Land Remembered by Patrick D. Smith
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Stormy Weather by Carl Hiaasen
Big Trouble by Dave Barry
Red Grass River by James Carlos Blake
Florida Roadkill by Tim Dorsey
All Over But the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Freakonomics by Steven Levitt
Nickel & Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
The*Bully*of*Bentonville: How the High Cost of Wal-Mart's Everyday Low Prices is Hurting America by Anthony Bianco
Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzales