A Google/Time Joint Project

Imagine my surprise when I find out that millions of LIFE magazines photos are now accessible online here.  Lets just say that I began to giggle out loud and spilt some of my water on to my pants making it appear that I have peed myself.  Here are some classics....

1) Che Guevera. Date taken: January 07, 1959 by Joseph Scherschel

2) The Beatles. Date taken: February 1964 by John Loengard

3) People Camping Out in Yosemite National Park. Taken in 1945 by Nina Leen

Yes We Can Fail!

In one of my last semesters at State I took a class in American Literature that focused on visions of the future. We would read books like McCarthy’s The Road, now a major motion picture, and Toni Morrison’s Paradise; each novel dealing with the a possible future for America. We spent the entire semester looking for hope within these novels and trying to apply what we found within the works to our own lives. I found hope in that class in failure, attempting to do something but messing up historically.
While in bed a couple of nights ago Mel read this part of a Dave Hickey article, it had this awesome quote attached to it. I could never remember the exact phrasing, much to my dismay (thanks Beastie Boys), it went something like –Talent is luck, Brilliance is trying-. I think trying and failing gets a bad rap in America. How often do we laugh at the rejections episode of American Idol? These people are trying to accomplish their musical dreams, we should be lauding them, rather than trying to tear them down. The simple process of applying themselves, regardless of success, is more important and interesting than defeatist mockery.
With the election of Barak Obama, we have a chance to reclaim human effort. The historical precedent aside of Obama’s presidency, because it does equate a major change, Obama inspires people to change, to try, to fail and try again. If we as American, or what people typically do, wait around for change to be thrust upon us and passively go about our lives, then nothing is going to happen. If we are going to change anything or become successful at moving forward we must try and not be afraid of failure.
Failure is such a negative word. It has to deal with the education system and the grading policy. Having to bring home an “F” is rather embarrassing. Let alone the American ideology does not allow for failure. We celebrate our winners and forget about the losers along the way. No one remembers whole lost the game, just who won. We should redefine the word Failure. It should be a beautiful idea, something embraced by dreamers, where the parts of the towers we have built in our mind fall down in a scattered mess, but we start over again, building, trying, and creating.

From Robert ParkeHarrison - The Architect's Brother - we must try to grab clouds even if we know we will fail. 

Yes We Can!

A new computer means time to start some serious work on the blog

Some cool Obama photojournalism (here)

Rabbit, Run!

The way I see it there are several core themes that run through American literature. Most if not all good novels delve into one of these paths; the melting pot (convergence of cultures), the American Dream (usually unattainable), race issues, religion, violence and American rebels (either authors themselves or their works being banned, pushing the idea of freedom of speech). It is from my frustration with Rabbit, Run that I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the big scary label of “the American Novel” and its core themes. The problem with Rabbit, Run is that it reflects life too well. This is why I enjoy reading it yet am scared. I want to reject Updike’s vision of American life, however, I know that it is inevitably true. Ironically, this is how Rabbit feels. His childhood is spent like any other stereotypical American kid playing varsity sports. He was the golden child of his high school basketball team, he was going places, and he was filled of hope for the future. Then life happens, Rabbit gets married, has children, and realizes that the rest of his life is going to be spent in a cycle of work/eat/sleep. Rather than face this Sisyphusian pattern, he runs away to a prostitute with whom he develops a physical/emotional relationship, whom he eventually leaves as well, after learning that his future with her involves children and possible domestication. Rabbit problem is not exactly a lack of maturity, but rather he has been let down by the American Dream. We live in a culture that almost worships high school athletes, and we equate that success with success in life. Because of high school successes on the court, he feels he is entitled to have a successful life. When that does not happen, when he is confronted with a drunken wife and the tedious pattern of daily life, he rejects his life and starts searching for what he feels he is entitled. He does lack responsibility for his actions, but his searching for some sort of meaning to his life fuels his capriciousness. Updike claimed that this novel is written as a response to On the Road, to show the world what happens to the people whom once a boy goes on the road. In his attempts to discover himself, Rabbit leave a field of destroyed lives. Updike gives a realistic description of what sort of pain families go through because of going on the road.

Not that Rabbit is a horrible stereotypical dead-beat dad character, he is actually a nice guy, but he is a creature of circumstance, somehow American and society has let Rabbit down, he has fallen through the cracks. He obviously has talent, but he fails. Is this is own fault for failing or is it societies? How much of the American Dream/exceptionalism is bullshit and just a way to keep us unhappy yearning for more?

Truthfully, for the last week I have been struggling with Rabbit. It has shaken me and may have made me depressed. I do not know what to make of this novel. It has made me think more than any other, which is good, however, is this at the cost of losing my idea of the American Dream?

This book has left me confused and disorientated, which is good.

Feliz 1984

I originally started writing this blog article with the intention to give a review of Mailer’s book and delve into people’s infatuation with realistic violence. However, that tangent seemed to entirely miss the point of the book. Mailer did not want to write a book that would dramatize violence for the masses to enjoy. That is the job of Tom Clancy or war/action movies (think any film made in Hollywood in the last 20 years…Rambo). Mailer’s book provides a cross-section of the US Military and ultimately, via flashbacks on the men’s past, gives us glimpse into American life. When Mailer writes, ““The natural role of the 20th century man is anxiety” he defines America and Americans with worry. Filling the entire narrative is worry/fear, fear of officers/other enlisted men, fear of being cuckolded, fear of death, fear of war, or combat, and fear of minorities. By setting this observation within the Army, arguably a diverse group of Americans from the beatnik traveler to the high brow New Englander, he is making a general statement not only about the men in World War II that can be applied to our own lives.

Is the general state of Americans anxiety? Probably, I tend to worry a lot about seemingly pointless things. However, I am more concerned with the exploitation of this anxiety to achieve particular aims. I cannot help but throw up a little in the back of my throat when considering American fear with the current Republican Convention, especially Giuliani’s speech. It resembled something out of 1984, a large collection of people standing around booing and yelling, it was a giant “two minute hate.” By using Orwellian Hate rhetoric, for example the constant mentioning of terrorist attacks, the Republicans are using our own fears against us to gain control. They want to present themselves as the comfortable big brother, pun totally intended, who will protect us from the big and dangerous bully. It is a model that has been used, just replace Cold War Russia with Islamic Terrorism and you have a real life Emmanuel Goldstein, this is why I am so attracted to Obama’s politics. He is promoting change away from this dynamic. No longer is “us verses them” relevant. I think here Obama’s experience as a community organizer is very important, regardless of Palin’s claim that it has no responsibility, because it changes this dynamic. Obama politics are ground up, he incorporates community, our thoughts, and our reactions. Obama’s politics are different; he gives us the possibility for change from this old system. Even with my general distrust of post-modernist philosophy, the right verse wrong, yes or no, us verses them, this fear-mongering modernist philosophy that has a strangle hold on Americans must change, we must adapt a different, dare I say a pluralist perspective, method to governing.

Great Men

As part of my study of the contemporary American novel, I decided that I would start with Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead. Critics praise it as one of the best novels about World War II, if not one of the best American novels ever. One critic reviewed as “the most important American novel since Moby Dick.” Give it to the Providence Journal and their critic counterparts to using their clot to exaggerate on a works importance. Regardless I can say, without feeling like a sell out, this is still one of the best American novels I have read. Given that my experience with Contemporary American Literature has been the crap professors shove down ones throat in survey courses, i.e. Daniel Woodrell or worse the professor’s own works over McCarthy or Pynchon, I beginning to feel that this project that I am embarking on will change the way that I will see and think about American Literature. 

  The Naked and the Dead, is reminiscent (trying to not make one of those epic comparisons) of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I know it is a heavy-handed comparison, but hear me out. One of Tolstoy’s major themes in War and Peace is the role of important and impressive men in history. Men like Napoleon, the Tsar or in Mailer’s case General Cummings. Both Tolstoy and Mailer describe these men as larger than life figures who make decisions that affects hundreds of lives without regrets. These Uber-Men are god-like to the simple solders. While giving orders upon learning of a Japanese offensive Cummings, one of the officers noticed that “the enlisted men looked to him (Cummings) almost in awe” in his ability to spew out orders. Cummings is described as having inhuman amount of concentration with quick and instinctively just decisions. He even states about himself, “if there is a God, Robert, he’s just like me.”

 However, what makes Cummings more dynamic is Mailer’s use of Cummings as the voice/figure head of the military superstructure. Cummings rules by fear and anxiety. He creates fear of retaliation from his officers towards the enlisted men. To Cummings “the army functions best when you’re frightened of the man above you, and contemptuous of your subordinates.” What differs here between Tolstoy and Mailer is Tolstoy seems to admire these Uber-Men, while Mailer gives a more complete description where they are worthy admiration yet are incredibly shady.

 

I giggled over this a lot. Peter Gronquist.