About ten years ago I was totally obsessed with George Mallory. Who is George Mallory?, you may ask. Mr. Mallory was part of the third British expedition to try to summit Mt. Everest in 1924. He and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine disappeared on that expedition and were last viewed about 100 meters from the summit. No one knows if they were the first to reach the summit (they would have beat Edmund Hillary by 29 years) or if they died going up. In 1999, a team from National Geographic discovered Mallory's remains bleached alabaster white by 75 years in the snow and sun. His femur was broken and jutted from the other bones at an unnatural angle, the back of his red woolen sweater torn open to reveal a perfectly smooth, ivory colored back. His name was painstakingly embroidered in his sweater. When asked before the expedition why he was going to climb Everest, he retorted "because it's there."
Other obsessions of mine have included Everett Reuss (he disappeared in the canyons of the Escalante of Utah in 1934), Chris McCandless (who died while living in the wilds of Alaska) toupees, and mullets (but that's for another blog). My most recent fix has been on Aron Ralston, who amputated his own arm after having it pinned under a chockstone for 127 hours in a slot canyon outside of Moab, Utah.
McCandless and Reuss probably have the most in common (although Ralston fits the description; he quit a lucrative job as an engineer to work at a bike/ski/climbing shop to free himself up for climbing adventures): young men who gave up most of their possessions and professions to go out in the unknown wild and escape society and its expectations. McCandless and Reuss perished. Rather than being put off by these books, I wax romantic over the notion of turning off my cell phone, ditching my computer, make-up bag, and huge assortment of cute boots to put a few belongings in a backpack and hit the road.
I gobble up books by Edward Abbey, Jon Krakauer, Terry Tempest Williams and watch The Deadliest Catch and Man vs. Wild with great interest (you never know when you'll need to eat bugs or how to make flotation devices out of your jeans). What these books bring very pointedly to my attention is this need, this human yearning to escape our societal constraints, test our limits, and get out of our heads. Ralston mentions in his book Between a Rock and a Hard Place the notion of Deep Play. The basic idea of deep play is that surviving dangerous circumstances that are beyond your control creates a very pleasurable feeling of relief. However, even though the voluntary acceptance of fatal, uncontrollable risk is a totally irrational act, it happens. Of course, according to deep play theories, the pleasure can only exist if the risk is real. Jeremy Bentham, and 18th and 19th century philosopher, legal and social reformer defines "deep play" as a game with stakes so high that no rational person would engage in it.
What I want to know is why have we, as a group of human beings, constructed a society that we are all trying in some measure to escape? There are the extreme cases of people like Reuss and McCandless, but how many take refuge in a bottle of booze, fall into a hole of drug addiction or take up gambling, extreme video gaming, trading on the floor of the stock market, take mistresses, have multiple irresponsible love affairs or take on extreme religious views? What happens when the lovers get caught, the floor trader makes a billion one day and loses it the next, the guy playing roulette in Vegas wins the jackpot? We crave, hope and live for that elusive "maybe," for the momentary relief we have from minutae.
The Bravery sing, "So give me something to believe 'cause I am living just to breathe. And I need something more to keep on breathing for, so give me something to believe."
I think that we are all desperately seeking escape! We are banging on the prison walls with our tin cups, our ids screaming "Get me the fuck out of here!" I have passed by many opportunities for fun because I have been afraid of something...I didn't want to look stupid, didn't want to push myself to a physical limit, and mostly because I didn't want to fail.
What can I learn if I don't fail? How will I know if I don't try? I'm not saying that we all should go out and try to scale Everest, I mean, my brand of danger is Aron Ralston's idea of a snore, but maybe I should try something "because it's there." Because it might be scary. Because it could really be fun.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Becoming New York-y
It happened the first time in Flagstaff. While waiting at a decidedly laid back coffee shop in a very chilled out, Grand Canyon town, I went to the counter and asked the Flagstaff version of a Brooklyn hipster (you know, tats, gauges in the ears, worn out t-shirt and Chuck Taylor's) if I could "please have a decaf soy latte and may I please have the receipt?" He glanced up at me slowly with ill concealed disdain and said in a voice at a speed that any snail would envy, "um...yeah...I'm...getting...to...that..." A little flustered at the the notion of being thought rude, I apologized and laughingly said, "I live in New York City. Sometimes if you don't ask for a receipt they just throw it out and move to the person behind you, so sorry." And without accepting my apology he offered an apology of his own: "You live in New York? I'M sorry."
When my friend arrived at the coffee shop, I asked him, "do I seem a little big city? Do I have that BIG CITY vibe? Because I try to be conscientious about that, you know." And it's true, I take pains to match the vibe of whatever city I'm in .
When I was a kid I wanted nothing but to live in the big city and have some glamorous Broadway life and live in a midtown apartment the size of a shoebox. I wanted to walk down busy city streets undaunted, looking not "in people's eyes but past them," so they would know that I was there but that I didn't notice them, that I was indeed too busy to give them eye contact. I would conceal myself behind giant sunglasses and baseball caps pulled low. Even if I wasn't a star, I was going to pretend. And, most importantly, I didn't want anyone to know that I lived in a town that no one's ever heard of called Ogden and that for fun I used to throw peaches from our backyard tree at the neighbor's barn in the field behind our house (it was a long way to throw. That "thunk" was always satisfying).
The second time happened last week when I picked up a rental car to drive to a shoot in Connecticut. The gentleman working behind the counter asked me for my driver's license, and the first response I get, no matter what state I rent a car in is, "Utah!" He looked at me in what I thought was an appraising way and then said, "Wow, I thought you were one of those 5th Avenue girls. I didn't think you'd be from the west." The third time came at an audition for a short film that I went to on Saturday. They loved me. Thought I was hilarious. Didn't book me, of course, because when people gush effusiently, I never book. Anyway, as I am making my way out the door the screenwriter says, "Where are you from?" I told him Utah, and he said that I was the first person from somewhere else that he thought was from New York.
I've given this some thought: I wear what I think are kind of western-y clothes. It's not like I run around in fleece and Merrills, but you won't catch me dead wearing Burberry, Wellies, and the ubiquitous lady trench (gives me the shivers). When I'm not working I'm probably wearing a skateboard cap and pigtails. So I don't think it's something outward. Clearly it's me.
Uh-oh.
It's always been a priority of mine to not become what is deemed by many to be a typical "New Yorker," you know, the pushy, rude, aggressive, impatient, demanding person you see in the movies. I strive to be polite, gracious, and patient. And yet just today as I was walking to Grand Central station (talk about a melange of the stereotypical New York; the bleary eyed travelers pushing their rolling suitcases, the homeless man reeking of ammonia taking furtive sips from a filthy water fountain, the uber busy business men walking purposefully with their attaches, the bored Upper East Side ladies sporting botox, Cleopatra-like make-up schemes and over-sized baubles, the guy wearing a track suit and baseball cap with a flattened bill selling his own poetry looking to make a quick buck), I found myself speed walking past the Euro tourists, muttering under my breath at the ladies walking in threes across the sidewalk pushing their babies in strollers, and cursing the mobs of people generally gawking in Times Square.
Have I become that New Yorker?
Perhaps my time here will teach me to savor the moments of slow-moving tranquility that I get while on a hiking trail. Perhaps it will teach me to appreciate the joys of a mountain pass, or the challenges of driving in a blizzard. I know that I often pine to drive a stick shift, to throw the car in gear and open the engine up on some vast desert road.
Or maybe it will teach me to ask for my latte at exactly 140 degrees while tapping my Jimmy Choos impatiently at a Fifth Avenue Starbucks while flipping through my Blackberry and listening to the latest podcast on NPR on my IPod. But I really hope not.
When my friend arrived at the coffee shop, I asked him, "do I seem a little big city? Do I have that BIG CITY vibe? Because I try to be conscientious about that, you know." And it's true, I take pains to match the vibe of whatever city I'm in .
When I was a kid I wanted nothing but to live in the big city and have some glamorous Broadway life and live in a midtown apartment the size of a shoebox. I wanted to walk down busy city streets undaunted, looking not "in people's eyes but past them," so they would know that I was there but that I didn't notice them, that I was indeed too busy to give them eye contact. I would conceal myself behind giant sunglasses and baseball caps pulled low. Even if I wasn't a star, I was going to pretend. And, most importantly, I didn't want anyone to know that I lived in a town that no one's ever heard of called Ogden and that for fun I used to throw peaches from our backyard tree at the neighbor's barn in the field behind our house (it was a long way to throw. That "thunk" was always satisfying).
The second time happened last week when I picked up a rental car to drive to a shoot in Connecticut. The gentleman working behind the counter asked me for my driver's license, and the first response I get, no matter what state I rent a car in is, "Utah!" He looked at me in what I thought was an appraising way and then said, "Wow, I thought you were one of those 5th Avenue girls. I didn't think you'd be from the west." The third time came at an audition for a short film that I went to on Saturday. They loved me. Thought I was hilarious. Didn't book me, of course, because when people gush effusiently, I never book. Anyway, as I am making my way out the door the screenwriter says, "Where are you from?" I told him Utah, and he said that I was the first person from somewhere else that he thought was from New York.
I've given this some thought: I wear what I think are kind of western-y clothes. It's not like I run around in fleece and Merrills, but you won't catch me dead wearing Burberry, Wellies, and the ubiquitous lady trench (gives me the shivers). When I'm not working I'm probably wearing a skateboard cap and pigtails. So I don't think it's something outward. Clearly it's me.
Uh-oh.
It's always been a priority of mine to not become what is deemed by many to be a typical "New Yorker," you know, the pushy, rude, aggressive, impatient, demanding person you see in the movies. I strive to be polite, gracious, and patient. And yet just today as I was walking to Grand Central station (talk about a melange of the stereotypical New York; the bleary eyed travelers pushing their rolling suitcases, the homeless man reeking of ammonia taking furtive sips from a filthy water fountain, the uber busy business men walking purposefully with their attaches, the bored Upper East Side ladies sporting botox, Cleopatra-like make-up schemes and over-sized baubles, the guy wearing a track suit and baseball cap with a flattened bill selling his own poetry looking to make a quick buck), I found myself speed walking past the Euro tourists, muttering under my breath at the ladies walking in threes across the sidewalk pushing their babies in strollers, and cursing the mobs of people generally gawking in Times Square.
Have I become that New Yorker?
Perhaps my time here will teach me to savor the moments of slow-moving tranquility that I get while on a hiking trail. Perhaps it will teach me to appreciate the joys of a mountain pass, or the challenges of driving in a blizzard. I know that I often pine to drive a stick shift, to throw the car in gear and open the engine up on some vast desert road.
Or maybe it will teach me to ask for my latte at exactly 140 degrees while tapping my Jimmy Choos impatiently at a Fifth Avenue Starbucks while flipping through my Blackberry and listening to the latest podcast on NPR on my IPod. But I really hope not.
Monday, November 01, 2010
The Court Jester Holds a Rally, Rally, Baby
I'm a total Gen Xer. After looking on Wiki to define what they believe a GenXer is, I saw this:
In the 1991 book Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe call this generation the "13th Generation" and define the birth years as 1961 to 1981. According to the authors, Generation X is "the 13th generation" to be familiar with the flag of the United States (counting back to the peers of Benjamin Franklin). The label was also chosen because, according to their generational theory, it is considered a "Reactive" or "Nomad" generation, composed of those who were children during a spiritual awakening. Older generations generally have negative perceptions of Reactive generations—whose members tend to be pragmatic and perceptive, savvy but amoral, more focused on money than on art.
Hmmm...let's look up "Nomad Generation:"
Nomad generations are born during an Awakening, a time of social ideals and spiritual agendas, when young adults are passionately attacking the established institutional order. Nomads grow up as under-protected children during this Awakening, come of age as alienated, post-Awakening adults, become pragmatic midlife leaders during a Crisis, and age into resilient post-Crisis elders. Due to this location in history, such generations tend to be remembered for their fast-paced, alienated rising-adult years and their midlife years of pragmatic leadership. They are shrewd realists who preferred individualistic, pragmatic solutions to problems.
We grew up in the shadow of the Vietnam War, came home from school to the news that Ronald Reagan had been shot, that the Berlin Wall had fallen, that we were running out of oil, that the bankers were running amok with our money (the early 1980's recession and Black Monday in1987), and the savings and loan crisis, instilling "a sense of economic uncertainty and reduced expectation of long-term fidelity between employers and employees." I was in my 7th grade science class when I saw on TV, over and over, The Space Shuttle exploding into a million pieces.
We started college having to do our research papers using the Dewey Decimal system in the library, wrote our papers on typewriters (double-spaced, please). I was pleased as punch and felt smugly superior when my parents were the first on the block to have both a VHS players AND cable TV, and happily made fun of everyone listening to Bon Jovi and Motley Crue while I was snug in my room kissing posters of Michael Jackson, whose posters were replaced by Billy Idol, Robert Smith, U2, and Duran Duran. I traded in my peg-legged pants and side ponytails for Doc Martens and flannel shirts as the Duran Duran posters came down and I swapped out my Sinead O'Connor tapes for Pearl Jam CDs. I actively hated rap music, Vanilla Ice, and made fun of anyone who wore Guess or Girbaud jeans and braided belts (although I secretly wanted a braided belt). I remember MTV when they played actual videos.
"Compared with previous generations, Generation X represents a more heterogeneous generation, exhibiting great variety. They are diverse in such aspects as race, class, religion, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Often the children of divorced parents, change is more the rule for the people of Generation X than the exception.
No wonder Tea Partiers hate us.
Tea Party supporters are mainly white and slightly more likely to be male, married, older than 45, more conservative than the general population, and likely to be more wealthy and have more education. Polls have shown that they are significantly more likely to be registered Republican, have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party and an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party. The Bloomberg News poll showed that 40% are 55 or older, 79% are white, 61% are men and 44% identify as "born-again Christians."
Hmmm....so if they're over 45 they are most likely Baby Boomers...and this is what Wiki has to say about that (this has been edited by me, btw, so judge away, although I am really trying to be even-handed):
In Europe and North America boomers are widely associated with privilege, as many grew up in a time of affluence. As a group, they were the healthiest, and wealthiest generation to that time, and amongst the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time. One of the features of Boomers was that they tended to think of themselves as a special generation, very different from those that had come before them. The Boomers also tend to view the world through the lense of "traditional values." The term can also refer to an intention to preserve ancient or traditional customs and values against anything deemed "innovation." It is generally fair to say that usually traditional values tend, by definition, toward conservativism and that they often, but not always, accept some form of patriarchy as normative. The usage of "traditional values" can in some cases imply that said values, in being traditional, are better than values that are non-traditional. However, in other cases "traditional values" can simply imply a matter of identity ("it's who we are") without seeking or addressing any notion of absolute values of "good" or "bad".
As I think about who I was standing shoulder to shoulder with at the rally, I would have to say that it included at least one lesbian couple, an older woman in her 70's, a mom with her teenage son, another mom with an extremely well-behaved child in a stroller, a bunch of college kids, and some young men dressed up like the Village People. But I would also say that the majority of the people there were GenXers like me.
So, this Glenn Beck Tea Party stuff and this Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally is really, at its end point, just a fight between parents and their kids. They want us, their kids, to get a good job, find a nice mate, settle down, have babies, and get that gold watch when we retire. Problem is, that no longer exists. And we're mad at you, Mom and Dad, for getting divorced then telling us how to run our lives. So screw you, dudes, we say, and we put on our Walkman headphones and tune you out because unlike us, you challenge leaders with an intent to replace them, whereas we, Generation Xers, tend to ignore leaders.
When I was growing up in CA, my mom sang with a patriotic singing group called The Grandland Singers. She was their #1 soprano and sang for President Nixon. God, family, and country were a very big deal in my growing-up experience. I used to sing to all of their records and are the number one reason I can sing the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble, and know all of my 50 states in alphabetical order. Anyway, patriotism has always been big in my family, and I have to say that I never felt terribly patriotic about anything until I stood at the Washington Mall, sardined in with about 215,000 other people. Some troops came out to sing the National Anthem, and I put my hand over my heart and just felt grateful that I lived here, despite its many terrible flaws and injustices, that I, a single woman, can move about freely, that I have an education, that I can get on a plane, a train, a bus, see my friends, do my work, enjoy my life, and share ideas with people who are unafraid. That felt really good. It may not be my family's brand of patriotism, but it is mine.
That's why this rally was so heartening, so surprisingly moving, so naive and encouraging, so engaging. We are standing together listening to COMEDIANS. "In literature, the jester is symbolic of common sense and of honesty, notably in King Lear, the court jester is a character used for insight and advice on the part of the monarch, taking advantage of his license to mock and speak freely to dispense frank observations and highlight the folly of his monarch. Only as the lowliest member of the court can the jester be the monarch's most useful adviser."
We are the jesters. We are your disenchanted kids. We see that the world is changing and we are okay with that. As seminal Gen X band REM said, "It's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine."
In the 1991 book Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe call this generation the "13th Generation" and define the birth years as 1961 to 1981. According to the authors, Generation X is "the 13th generation" to be familiar with the flag of the United States (counting back to the peers of Benjamin Franklin). The label was also chosen because, according to their generational theory, it is considered a "Reactive" or "Nomad" generation, composed of those who were children during a spiritual awakening. Older generations generally have negative perceptions of Reactive generations—whose members tend to be pragmatic and perceptive, savvy but amoral, more focused on money than on art.
Hmmm...let's look up "Nomad Generation:"
Nomad generations are born during an Awakening, a time of social ideals and spiritual agendas, when young adults are passionately attacking the established institutional order. Nomads grow up as under-protected children during this Awakening, come of age as alienated, post-Awakening adults, become pragmatic midlife leaders during a Crisis, and age into resilient post-Crisis elders. Due to this location in history, such generations tend to be remembered for their fast-paced, alienated rising-adult years and their midlife years of pragmatic leadership. They are shrewd realists who preferred individualistic, pragmatic solutions to problems.
We grew up in the shadow of the Vietnam War, came home from school to the news that Ronald Reagan had been shot, that the Berlin Wall had fallen, that we were running out of oil, that the bankers were running amok with our money (the early 1980's recession and Black Monday in1987), and the savings and loan crisis, instilling "a sense of economic uncertainty and reduced expectation of long-term fidelity between employers and employees." I was in my 7th grade science class when I saw on TV, over and over, The Space Shuttle exploding into a million pieces.
We started college having to do our research papers using the Dewey Decimal system in the library, wrote our papers on typewriters (double-spaced, please). I was pleased as punch and felt smugly superior when my parents were the first on the block to have both a VHS players AND cable TV, and happily made fun of everyone listening to Bon Jovi and Motley Crue while I was snug in my room kissing posters of Michael Jackson, whose posters were replaced by Billy Idol, Robert Smith, U2, and Duran Duran. I traded in my peg-legged pants and side ponytails for Doc Martens and flannel shirts as the Duran Duran posters came down and I swapped out my Sinead O'Connor tapes for Pearl Jam CDs. I actively hated rap music, Vanilla Ice, and made fun of anyone who wore Guess or Girbaud jeans and braided belts (although I secretly wanted a braided belt). I remember MTV when they played actual videos.
"Compared with previous generations, Generation X represents a more heterogeneous generation, exhibiting great variety. They are diverse in such aspects as race, class, religion, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Often the children of divorced parents, change is more the rule for the people of Generation X than the exception.
No wonder Tea Partiers hate us.
Tea Party supporters are mainly white and slightly more likely to be male, married, older than 45, more conservative than the general population, and likely to be more wealthy and have more education. Polls have shown that they are significantly more likely to be registered Republican, have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party and an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party. The Bloomberg News poll showed that 40% are 55 or older, 79% are white, 61% are men and 44% identify as "born-again Christians."
Hmmm....so if they're over 45 they are most likely Baby Boomers...and this is what Wiki has to say about that (this has been edited by me, btw, so judge away, although I am really trying to be even-handed):
In Europe and North America boomers are widely associated with privilege, as many grew up in a time of affluence. As a group, they were the healthiest, and wealthiest generation to that time, and amongst the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time. One of the features of Boomers was that they tended to think of themselves as a special generation, very different from those that had come before them. The Boomers also tend to view the world through the lense of "traditional values." The term can also refer to an intention to preserve ancient or traditional customs and values against anything deemed "innovation." It is generally fair to say that usually traditional values tend, by definition, toward conservativism and that they often, but not always, accept some form of patriarchy as normative. The usage of "traditional values" can in some cases imply that said values, in being traditional, are better than values that are non-traditional. However, in other cases "traditional values" can simply imply a matter of identity ("it's who we are") without seeking or addressing any notion of absolute values of "good" or "bad".
As I think about who I was standing shoulder to shoulder with at the rally, I would have to say that it included at least one lesbian couple, an older woman in her 70's, a mom with her teenage son, another mom with an extremely well-behaved child in a stroller, a bunch of college kids, and some young men dressed up like the Village People. But I would also say that the majority of the people there were GenXers like me.
So, this Glenn Beck Tea Party stuff and this Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally is really, at its end point, just a fight between parents and their kids. They want us, their kids, to get a good job, find a nice mate, settle down, have babies, and get that gold watch when we retire. Problem is, that no longer exists. And we're mad at you, Mom and Dad, for getting divorced then telling us how to run our lives. So screw you, dudes, we say, and we put on our Walkman headphones and tune you out because unlike us, you challenge leaders with an intent to replace them, whereas we, Generation Xers, tend to ignore leaders.
When I was growing up in CA, my mom sang with a patriotic singing group called The Grandland Singers. She was their #1 soprano and sang for President Nixon. God, family, and country were a very big deal in my growing-up experience. I used to sing to all of their records and are the number one reason I can sing the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble, and know all of my 50 states in alphabetical order. Anyway, patriotism has always been big in my family, and I have to say that I never felt terribly patriotic about anything until I stood at the Washington Mall, sardined in with about 215,000 other people. Some troops came out to sing the National Anthem, and I put my hand over my heart and just felt grateful that I lived here, despite its many terrible flaws and injustices, that I, a single woman, can move about freely, that I have an education, that I can get on a plane, a train, a bus, see my friends, do my work, enjoy my life, and share ideas with people who are unafraid. That felt really good. It may not be my family's brand of patriotism, but it is mine.
That's why this rally was so heartening, so surprisingly moving, so naive and encouraging, so engaging. We are standing together listening to COMEDIANS. "In literature, the jester is symbolic of common sense and of honesty, notably in King Lear, the court jester is a character used for insight and advice on the part of the monarch, taking advantage of his license to mock and speak freely to dispense frank observations and highlight the folly of his monarch. Only as the lowliest member of the court can the jester be the monarch's most useful adviser."
We are the jesters. We are your disenchanted kids. We see that the world is changing and we are okay with that. As seminal Gen X band REM said, "It's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine."
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