“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.”  – James Oppenheim

Rally like it's 1969

I am a little sad I couldn't be in Washington DC this past weekend for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.  Some friends have emailed with great reports on the big day out, and looking at the news coverage, I'm heartened to see 200,000 average Americans stood up and voiced the sentiment of the overwhelming majority: "Calm Down, Folks."

Perusing the signs, which range from hilarious and random to poignant and eloquent, I think the rally-goers really did justice to the theme of the event.  The sad, ageless fact is that moderate voices are--by definition--almost never heard.  (the squeaky door gets oil)  The brash and outspoken make news, regardless of their accuracy or representativeness.  America' headstrong, abrasive image in the world scene is grossly unfair to the millions of Americans who keep their heads down and work hard, practice a personal and unobtrusive form of religion, vote as sensibly as they can given the information available.  This rally was a humor-driven showcase of the moderate.

Humor is key here.   Mr. Stewart and Mr. Colbert are excellently informed, satirical entertainers, whose lighten-up philosophy is refreshing by contrast with the fear-mongering and loud commentators of traditional "news" stations.  We citizens should not be misinformed or ignorant dullards, but likewise we cannot bring the high-stress of party politicking into our homes every time we switch on the tv, look at the internet, or read the newspaper.  "Maybe I need to be more discerning," Mr. Colbert told Mr. Stewart. "Your reasonableness is poisoning my fear." My generation gets some flak for thinking Comedy Central is a source of news, but I think we're just looking to take the edge off news with a good laugh.  As my dear friend Natalie once said, "If you don't laugh, it's disturbing."  We know what's going on, or some of what's going on; as much as we care to know.  And dwelling on it can only be painful or scary.  See the humor, carry on.

I'm very glad that the National Mall was chock-full of people standing for common sanity, laughing at the absurdity of it all.  I hope it was a blow to the egos of men (and women) who have made their fame and fortune bloviating a very niche viewpoint to a very rabid, loud, and small constituency.  We Americans, for the most part, are not those pundits or radicals, just as much as Arabs and Muslims are, on the whole, not strapped with explosives.

Choosing a favorite sign was a hard ask.  For timely humor and my personal bias, I was really enamored of the guy that showed up with a life-size stuffed coyote wearing a sign: "I am not a coyote, I'm you." He was poking fun, evidently, at Christine O'Donnell's recent "I didn't go to Yale, I'm you" campaign slogan. Which, personally, I found intensely offensive.

I also really appreciated the numerous people who pretended that they'd just sort of happened on the rally, and were confused about its purpose.  "Is this the line to buy Justin Bieber tickets."  "I came for the sex!"  "I would like more tortilla chips with my fajitas."  Non-sequitur humor as always appreciated.  So is irony/logical fallacy: "I am protesting the existence of protest signs."

But the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear was not about being disoriented, catty, plaintive, or overly intellectual.  It was meant to remind us regular people that there are lots of others like us, and we should be proud to band together as Americans under a different banner than the loud, visible, fear-mongering types who have co-opted the American brand.  "We live now in hard times," Mr. Stewart said, "not the end of times." We should keep our wits about us and our sense of humor intact. In the end, I think the rally was summed up best by one sign:

thanks to BuzzFeed.com for posting the originals of these sign photos, and thanks to the witty people who walked around DC carrying them on 31 October 2010!

Worth a Thousand Words

I've recently been batting around sad ideas concerning modernity and culture, specifically how technology interfaces with wine.   I'm seeing wine--which I'm so heavily invested in studying right now--as a microcosm of the world at large.  Perhaps something as simple, widespread, and as perennial as wine could be a useful touchstone in discussions of future.  What makes a wine good or worth money?  What do we consider to be an improvement in wine technology?  Is it machine harvesting as many perfectly ripened and lab tested grapes as possible and producing as much wine as we can make bottles?  Whatever happened to the honed generational skills of the farmer?  What about terrior?  Where does mechanization take the romantic--and indeed appealing--element away from wine?  How much does the romanticism matter, so long as we have the convenience of inexpensive and well-made wine on our grocery store shelves?
From the slow food movement to vintage clothing to handcrafted, biodynamic wine I'm seeing these reactionary trends within my generation that has seen so much technology advance so quickly.  NASA is trying to start a "space tourism" industry, and we still can't grasp the genetic mutations that sometimes occur in grapevines.  We're churning eggs out of chicken-powered factories, and can't wrap our heads around the fact of skyrocketing obesity and cancer rates in the developed world.  It all seems too much too fast, at the expense of complex systems that have developed over millenia...  and cultures that have been in place for thousands of years.

These thoughts swirling after a particularly aggravating viticulture class, I stumbled across this photographic essay on spiritual life in Bali, with commentary from the artist John Stanmeyer: 

"The Balinese culture is under severe stress from development and modernity. How much longer will the Balinese even be speaking their own language? How much longer will people be able to read the ancient Sanskrit texts?
I’m intense and passionate about it because I do feel in some regards, around the world, we’re having cultural genocide. Cultures are vanishing. We’re homogenizing ourselves across the planet. We have language loss on an epic level and we have cultural loss on an equally epic level. And that I find to be tragic, especially when you have rich, ancient cultures that haven’t changed for so long but now are on the verge of a breaking point."

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/high-balinese-ritual-low-holga-technology/

And so, what to do?  When is globalization a good thing?  To what extent....

This Haitian Life: Doomsdaying

I'm a little behind on my podcast listening, but I am a devotee of Mr. Ira Glass, voice and brain behind an NPR show called "This American Life."  Every week, he and a team of investigative radio reporters start with a broad topic and delve into the illuminating details of topics that shape our collective culture.  Back in May, TAL ran an episode called "Island Time," which considers Haiti in the wake of the catastrophic January earthquake.  How is it, they ask, that the small island nation has been floundering for half a century while 10,000 NGOs and millions in foreign aid have focused attention on the place?

There were some really interesting quotes, my favorites penned and read by an author named Ben Fountain, who went to visit a friend of his in Haiti in the immediate wake of the disaster....

1.  "I've noticed it's as if God gives you 205 years to do something with Haiti, and if you fail, He passes it on to someone else.  The Spanish had it from 1492 to 1697.  Two hundred and five years.  Then the French from 1698 to 1803.  Two hundred and five years.  Then the Haitians from 1804 to 2009.  Two hundred and five years.  So what is coming next?  Maybe revolution."

The Mayans predicted a revolutionary shift to a new world order in 2012.  The timing is getting creepy... plus the weather is nuts here, Guatemala isn't having a great week, and Christchurch, NZ is as flat as it's been in 100 years after the weekend quake there.  In literature we call this "pathetic fallacy."

2.  "I've been hearing how backward Haiti is for as long as I've been going.  What about this?  What if Haiti is ahead of the times?  It seems to be on the leading edge of so many current trends: environmental degradation, serial ecological disasters, crumbling infrastructure, a population that exceeds resources, plus a skewed economic order that channels vast wealth to a privileged few while the great majority of people stagnate and struggle.  By any objective measure, Haiti appears well advanced on the track that the rest of the world seems hell-bent on following."

I don't want to get into politics.  Just reflecting.

3.  [observing the destruction of Port au Prince's cultural institutions]  " 'Art is finished in Haiti,' he said abruptly. 'After what happened here, art has nothing more to say to us.'  And he went on, 'The philosopher Hegel said that before the end of time there will be the end of history.  And before the end of history there will be the end of art.  Maybe this is what we're seeing here: the enacting of Hegel's theory.  Haiti is leading the rest of the world to the end of time.' "

 Buy art.  Buy books.  Support your local chefs, bakers, farmers, and potters.  Drink more fortified wine.   Go back to the land, because --dear Lord-- when the ground itself starts to move underneath us, what in heavens will we all hold onto?


****I am unabashedly plugging "This American Life."  Check it out and download the podcast for illuminating insight on subjects you didn't know were out there (ie. the competitive business of interstate rest stops.... pet life insurance... the hedge fund that shorted their own investments and made a killing just before mid-2008)  One could find worse reasons to walk around the neighborhood for an hour with your iPod.****

The Four Way Test

...of things we Think, Say, or Do....

1. Is it the TRUTH?

2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?

3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

The maxims of Rotary International: keeping me on the straight and narrow. Good words for us all to bear in mind.

Note: My dad, the single most upstanding and honest man I know, reads this blog from time to time. He astutely pointed out some things I might want to change for the general public (reputation and all), and I have dutifully done. He was probably in the right. Sadly at least two of the things I changed were lies in the first place. White lies. The line between fiction and reality is so blurry on the other side of the world, and I never intended to be a reporter, just a writer.

Some timeless thoughts on the subject:

"I hate things all fiction... there should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric -- and pure invention is but the talent of a liar."
-Lord Byron (1788-1824)

"It's with bad sentiments that one makes good novels."
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot."
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Mr. Twain, brilliant as usual. And, Daddy, I love you very much. Thanks for looking out for me.

Question 25

Bruce markets a wine called Bruce's Middle of the Road Medley Red. All the wine is 2006 vintage. It is a blend of the following:
45% Shiraz from Lenswood
30% Grenache from Lenswood
20% Mourvedre from Piccadilly Valley
5% Mourvedre from the Adelaide Plains

(a) Bruce is thinking about renaming the wine, calling it Bruce's GSM, and increasing its price by 25%. The label blurb says in part: “This is a classic Grenache-Syrah-Mourvedre blend...” Is this acceptable?

STUFF!

After a long and extraordinary process, I have finally received the five boxes of personal items I packed and shipped from Florida in January. My closet overfloweth. Frankly, I don't have sufficient room for everything now, largely because I only have shelves, no space for hanging things like coats and dresses.

Then, in my wandering across the interwebs, I stumbled on this admonition:

"Stop buying unnecessary things.
Toss half your stuff, learn contentedness.
Reduce half again.
List 4 essential things in your life,
stop doing non-essential things.
Do these essentials first each day, clear distractions,
focus on each moment.
Let go of attachment to doing, having more.
Fall in love with less."

I choose the word admonition judiciously. It comes from the Latin "ad" (towards) plus "movere" (to move). Generally admonishment connotes a sort of verbal punishment, a result and reaction after bad behavior as in, "I admonished Fido for peeing on the rug," or, "Dad admonished me for failing my chemistry test." As I considered the perfect noun for this little web-based poem, I realized that it is not meant as indictment but instead as motivation to move towards something.

"Move towards" reduction of these material constructs. " Move towards" clarity and purpose. "Move towards" simplicity.

Now, I'm not much of an ascetic, and am not about to renounce my worldly possessions, but there's something to be said for the freedom and clarity that derives from having little. If you can pack everything that matters into a bag, you can go anywhere you please. For several years now, I've denied myself the comfort of home and familiarity, actively replacing that stasis with travel and new horizons. I've been unfettered and unattached as possible. I've consciously sought to collect a life in the form of experience rather than things, and I've been deliberately unemotional about leaving behind places and people over and over again. Frankly, it's incredible, even depressing, to me that living this way I've still managed to accumulate so much stuff, mostly clothing. It's even more frustrating to know how upset I was at the long delay in its arrival. I like to think I was just desperate to get warm clothing for the winter.

Maybe what this admonishment is driving me to move towards is a different awareness of what exactly I'm collecting. With less material items, the mind focuses more acutely on more ethereal spoils of the road: friends, education, collected tidbits of wisdom, sunsets that cannot be photographed. Of course these things have long been my goals, but how often do I really focus on them? How often have I lost a moment by thinking ahead to the next one? I could slow down, I suppose... stay awhile.

And I won't run off to the Salvation Army with my boxes tomorrow. I'm so grateful to have a diverse selection of t-shirts and warmer winter clothes that I have been spending the last couple days dumbly smiling at the closet. But let's be realistic: I'd do just fine and dandy with half of all this. Or less. It is, in the end, just stuff.

Privacy and Insanity

Mom sent my brother and me an article from the New York Times yesterday. It was yet another tome about the perils of our lives online. Apparently some motivated scholarly types mapped Facebook profiles and friendships, concluding that they could predict with high accuracy personal facts that weren't necessarily shared online. For example, they could say with 76% certainly that a man was gay simply based on the network of friends he maintained.
Shocking, right?
Not really. I could tell you a lot about 76% of the people who use Facebook without tapping MIT's statistical analysis computers. Most people put too much information online.
And here I am, blogging. The thing is, I want this stuff in the public domain. I am self-aggrandizing enough to think others (mom) might want to read about my misadventures. But keep in mind, there's a high degree of censorship going on. I haven't written all that much recently because life has been a slog, less than noteworthy.

I did find a job; that is going well. I am enrolled in some pretty awesome classes; I am phenomenally behind in my schoolwork. I am morose about my financial situation; one hit after another has rather drained my resources.

Did I tell you about my car situation?? I do want this to be online. I want this story to be searchable to the point that it becomes Google's top hit whenever someone is looking for Best Buy Motors in Adelaide South Australia. That's right, Best Buy Motors in South Australia, proprietor Michael Dundon, salesperson Andrew Lockhead. These gentlemen have personified for me the caricatured image of the smarmy, dishonest used car salesman. I was, no doubt about it, an absolute fool to buy a 1994 Volvo off the Best Buy Motors Lot, but I did ask the right questions. For example, "Can I take this car to an independent mechanic for examination?" No, came the answer... for insurance purposes.
"Can I see the service history?" Oh, it's all in order.
"Is this car going to break down on me in a week?" Nah, it's a good little car. Last owner was a doctor!

So yes, I am officially a sucker. The car broke down in exactly one week. The timing belt snapped while I was driving at 45 mph. For those of you who, like me, are not mechanically savvy, the snapping of a timing belt leads to the misalignment of all pistons in the valves of the car. Basically the engine requires major overhaul and repair. The cost to get this car back on the road is higher than the cost of purchase. Not running, this car is worth less than nothing to a salvage yard. Even scrap metal collectors want to charge me for the cost of towing the hunk of junk (my housemates call it "The Blue Runner") to a car graveyard.

In what I think was a valiant attempt at conciliatory bargaining, I went back to Mike Dundon, owner of Best Buy Motors. I explained the untenable financial situation his fraudulent salesmanship (and my bad character judgment) had put me in, and I told him that I was quite certain he deliberately screwed me over. I told him that I was positioned to take legal action against him for misleading me into a purchase. I offered to work out a trade, an exchange, or some variation on a refund. He laughed in my face and insulted me (details need not be recorded here). Incensed, I left the lot and have been plotting a lawsuit ever since. Alternatively, I'm thinking of throwing a raging car bashing party, wherein $10 will get participants a beer and 3 minutes with a sledge hammer. Everyone can relieve their angst, as well as support the charity case that is my current life. Two-hundred fifty angry car-bashing people, and I could completely recoup my losses. A brilliant plan, no?

Did I mention that I've got four assignments due in a week and a half? Two 15-page papers, one accounting problem set, and a collection of legal opinions. I am in the coolest masters degree program ever, but heavens it's a lot of work in a short period of time. On top of the car. On top of the "money earning" table-waiting work. And the shipping conundrum. And the... oh, right, privacy... there are some things that shouldn't be posted online for all eternity and all readers.

Oh, don't feel sorry for me. It's all a grand adventure. But what a mess.