As the Occupy Wall Street folks in Zuccotti Park move into winter, circumstances are about to force a big decision on them--whether to tough it out through a long miserable New York winter, or find a reason to disband, which would almost certainly spark a similar disbanding at many if not all of the other Occupy sites. So as the movement reaches this pivotal moment, it's worth asking what they've accomplished, if anything.
I hear two principal complaints about the protestors (aside from the boringly obvious "hippies having sex in the park" blather): first, that the OWS people have too many demands, or incoherent demands; and second, that all they're doing is complaining, they're not doing anything to present possible solutions. So let's deal with the question of incoherence.
OWS is a deliberately-disorganized mass protest that began in New York and then spawned spinoffs across the globe. Their essential message has always been crystal clear: they were there to occupy Wall Street because the actions of Wall Street have done so much, globally, to wreck the world economy, drive millions of people out of work, leave unknown thousands of people homeless, etc. Wall Street greed, which is intended to represent absurd levels of income inequality, is a cancer on the body politic, and a lot of people aren't prepared to just sit idly by and be victimized anymore. (Insert the obvious quote from Network here.) Without even paying much attention to OWS when it first started, I understood all of this perfectly well.
But of course it's a mass movement, deliberately without spokespeople, and as any mass movement becomes truly massive, the bandwagon effect happens and people start to show up with a boatload of crazy-time. And because there are no spokespeople, any random nitwit in the crowd is seen as just as valid as anyone else. So while there have in fact been plenty of coherent statements made about OWS's goals, there have also been just as many interviews with chowderheads who have no business discussing a recipe for chowder, let alone a global movement about income inequality. And every time a moron is handed a microphone, political opponents gleefully point fingers and start shouting about the incoherence of the movement itself. (The same is true of the various Tea Party gatherings, of course. They have their fair share of nitwits and chowderheads as well, and certainly their opponents have done their fair share of finger-pointing and shouting.)
Let's be clear, then. Here is a moron.
Here is a non-moron. There's a difference.
Much more interesting, though, is the criticism that OWS doesn't offer any solutions. And I find it interesting because it ties in with Story Theory, something I happen to be rather fond of. What I'm talking about boils down to this: there's an idea in the arts that a story doesn't have to solve a problem, it's enough to point out that a problem exists. What an audience takes away from the story, once the problem has been presented to them, is their own business. And the reason why this is important is because an issue can be talked about generally, but it has to be solved specifically--and each audience member has to find their own solution, something that works in their lives and takes into account their individual circumstances. I'll use one of my favorite examples: Dead Man Walking. There's a movie that works very hard to present every side of the death-penalty issue, and in the end, the only "solution" is that the criminal is put to death. But what that means in the world at large is left open. "Think about this," the filmmakers are saying, "then make up your own mind."
The same argument can be made for Occupy Wall Street. I can't say whether it's deliberate or not, but they've ended up crafting an open, enigmatic storyline in which a problem is cleary presented but solutions are not offered. (Actually, some are--the reinstatement of Glass-Steagal has been advocated for from the beginning, and I think it's a very good idea.) And the more the general public argues about what OWS stands for, the more we wonder what solutions OWS would like us to make, the closer we come to devising our own solutions--ones that will probably turn out to be far more creative and coherent than anything that could come from a bunch of cold, numb-fingered people shivering in a New York park.
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
21st Century Communion
A friend from college, V Kingsley, died on April 1st after a six-year, horrific and awe-inspiring battle against cancer. Most people would have succumbed long before, but V was never one to go gentle into that good night, which will come as no surprise to anyone who met her for even five minutes. The memorial service was yesterday up in Santa Cruz, and I couldn't attend--but the service was streamed live over the web, so I was able to participate in a little bit of the experience. A few words about that in a minute--but first, a quick story about V.
We never particularly hung out--but as a frequent Tech Director on shows I was acting in, we worked together often. And I quickly learned a respect for her that made her more memorable than a lot of the people I did hang out with. We had a Sociology class together, and it should have been a great class because it's a great subject--but the teacher was bad. Really remarkably bad. Never taught anything that wasn't in the book, and his lectures always always always expounded on the obvious with a slowness so extreme it bordered on the surreal. "Max Weber's... conflict theory... stated... that people... are... in... conflict." (Truly, you cannot imagine how long it would take him to get those words out.) It was so bad that the rest of us quietly gathered into groups of four so that only one at a time would have to actually attend the class and take notes. And when we were there, we just sat and felt our brains dying. But V, she was different. She would stand up and say to this bad, bad teacher, "What the hell are you talking about?"
Which would invariably leave him confused--and me immensely grateful. (His usual response, when thus challenged, was to repeat exactly what he had just said. Slower.) V eventually transferred out of the class to something that wouldn't waste her time, which was a very great sadness because now it was just us sheep and that very bad shepherd.
Graduation happened, we all went our various ways, and I never saw V again. But with Facebook, I was able to reconnect with her a little, to say nice things to her that I'm now very glad I said. She responded with typical warmth and grace. I read a few of the entries in her excellent blog and my mind reeled. Blindness. Pain beyond imagining. But she kept soldiering on through it all, with her sense of humor intact. And then on April 1st she finally succumbed, leaving behind her partner Dani and her son Parker and a huge number of devoted friends and family.
The service, as I mentioned, was streamed live. There were severe technical problems, but let me just say up front that even a poor experience beats the heck out of no experience at all. I'm glad I was able to kinda sorta be there as people said goodbye to V. But the online experience also led to some thinking about what community is becoming in These Times of Ours, and there are few things more likely to make me start setting words down.
The church (unitarian universalist, the most enlightened of the Christian churches) had set up a single camera hanging from the ceiling. It was locked down, never moving, never zooming, the image was static and distant and distinctly low-res, particularly after being compressed for live streaming. The sound was just as distant, with echo and reflection and distortion that made it very hard to hear anything that was being said--while the songs were almost robbed of anything resembling musicality. I had the stream on for about an hour, and soon realized that the fact that I was up and making a sandwich during the service really didn't say much for the quality of the internet stream.
But was it purely a technical problem? If the tech had been as good as it was for, say, the recent royal wedding, with high-def closeups and multiple expensive microphones capturing every nuance of sound, while commentators babbled on in the background with context and opinions, then maybe I'd have felt a greater sense of communion with the others assembled for the service. But is there an essential limitation inherent in the nature of the service itself? In other words: is it really possible to have a shared, communal experience without actually being there?
Bear in mind that without Facebook I'd have never been able to reconnect with V in the first place, so clearly the social media have their place. But a memorial is a very particular kind of experience. From my grandmother's service, I still have a vivid memory of when the bells began to peal, summoning people to a place where such services had been held since, in that case, the 11th century. As soon as the sound of those bells began, I suddenly felt the presence of everyone who had gone before in that place: the people who had been baptised there, the people who had married there, the people memorialized, the people who rested in the cemetery just outside. There is an argument to be made, even by those of us who aren't particularly religious, for the notion of a patch of land made sacred by its use for exactly these sorts of ceremonies over time--and obviously none of that can be transmitted over the internet.
And while there were certainly moments in V's service that resonated--such as her former partner talking about how she had not been strong enough to continue supporting V throughout her long illness, even though she never stopped loving her--there was never anything that could compare with the impact of sitting in a room together as lives intersected and resonated. In a different (but comparable) direction, I remember going to see the movie Dead Man Walking
, and at the moment when Sean Penn's character is revealed strapped to the execution table, someone in the audience, for just a moment before she choked it off, let out a single anguished sob. Perhaps she had a loved one who had been executed; perhaps she had a loved one who had been murdered; I can never know. But the story in the movie had just set off bells in her and for a moment, she could not help but resonate with them. If I'd watched the movie at home, the movie would still have had power, but not that kind of power.
Communion--here in its broadest definition as "an act or instance of sharing" or, even better, "intimate fellowship or rapport"--requires community. I am, as I said before, glad to have been able to share the experience at all, but technology is still no substitute for a gathering of souls in a place sanctified by prior gatherings of souls, be it a church or even a movie theater or a baseball field. I have a long and somewhat odd history of writing and delivering very well-received eulogies at such services, but there was a moment yesterday when the experience of watching other people's eulogies over the internet came to feel so unnatural that I (momentarily) resolved to never deliver another one in my life--but the fault there was not with the thing itself, but with the manner in which it was received. The next time I seek a gathering of souls, I shall deliver my own soul unto the appropriate place at the appropriate time, and be with everyone else.
It looks like it was a great service. I wish I could've been there.
We never particularly hung out--but as a frequent Tech Director on shows I was acting in, we worked together often. And I quickly learned a respect for her that made her more memorable than a lot of the people I did hang out with. We had a Sociology class together, and it should have been a great class because it's a great subject--but the teacher was bad. Really remarkably bad. Never taught anything that wasn't in the book, and his lectures always always always expounded on the obvious with a slowness so extreme it bordered on the surreal. "Max Weber's... conflict theory... stated... that people... are... in... conflict." (Truly, you cannot imagine how long it would take him to get those words out.) It was so bad that the rest of us quietly gathered into groups of four so that only one at a time would have to actually attend the class and take notes. And when we were there, we just sat and felt our brains dying. But V, she was different. She would stand up and say to this bad, bad teacher, "What the hell are you talking about?"
Which would invariably leave him confused--and me immensely grateful. (His usual response, when thus challenged, was to repeat exactly what he had just said. Slower.) V eventually transferred out of the class to something that wouldn't waste her time, which was a very great sadness because now it was just us sheep and that very bad shepherd.
Graduation happened, we all went our various ways, and I never saw V again. But with Facebook, I was able to reconnect with her a little, to say nice things to her that I'm now very glad I said. She responded with typical warmth and grace. I read a few of the entries in her excellent blog and my mind reeled. Blindness. Pain beyond imagining. But she kept soldiering on through it all, with her sense of humor intact. And then on April 1st she finally succumbed, leaving behind her partner Dani and her son Parker and a huge number of devoted friends and family.
The service, as I mentioned, was streamed live. There were severe technical problems, but let me just say up front that even a poor experience beats the heck out of no experience at all. I'm glad I was able to kinda sorta be there as people said goodbye to V. But the online experience also led to some thinking about what community is becoming in These Times of Ours, and there are few things more likely to make me start setting words down.
The church (unitarian universalist, the most enlightened of the Christian churches) had set up a single camera hanging from the ceiling. It was locked down, never moving, never zooming, the image was static and distant and distinctly low-res, particularly after being compressed for live streaming. The sound was just as distant, with echo and reflection and distortion that made it very hard to hear anything that was being said--while the songs were almost robbed of anything resembling musicality. I had the stream on for about an hour, and soon realized that the fact that I was up and making a sandwich during the service really didn't say much for the quality of the internet stream.
But was it purely a technical problem? If the tech had been as good as it was for, say, the recent royal wedding, with high-def closeups and multiple expensive microphones capturing every nuance of sound, while commentators babbled on in the background with context and opinions, then maybe I'd have felt a greater sense of communion with the others assembled for the service. But is there an essential limitation inherent in the nature of the service itself? In other words: is it really possible to have a shared, communal experience without actually being there?
Bear in mind that without Facebook I'd have never been able to reconnect with V in the first place, so clearly the social media have their place. But a memorial is a very particular kind of experience. From my grandmother's service, I still have a vivid memory of when the bells began to peal, summoning people to a place where such services had been held since, in that case, the 11th century. As soon as the sound of those bells began, I suddenly felt the presence of everyone who had gone before in that place: the people who had been baptised there, the people who had married there, the people memorialized, the people who rested in the cemetery just outside. There is an argument to be made, even by those of us who aren't particularly religious, for the notion of a patch of land made sacred by its use for exactly these sorts of ceremonies over time--and obviously none of that can be transmitted over the internet.
And while there were certainly moments in V's service that resonated--such as her former partner talking about how she had not been strong enough to continue supporting V throughout her long illness, even though she never stopped loving her--there was never anything that could compare with the impact of sitting in a room together as lives intersected and resonated. In a different (but comparable) direction, I remember going to see the movie Dead Man Walking
, and at the moment when Sean Penn's character is revealed strapped to the execution table, someone in the audience, for just a moment before she choked it off, let out a single anguished sob. Perhaps she had a loved one who had been executed; perhaps she had a loved one who had been murdered; I can never know. But the story in the movie had just set off bells in her and for a moment, she could not help but resonate with them. If I'd watched the movie at home, the movie would still have had power, but not that kind of power.Communion--here in its broadest definition as "an act or instance of sharing" or, even better, "intimate fellowship or rapport"--requires community. I am, as I said before, glad to have been able to share the experience at all, but technology is still no substitute for a gathering of souls in a place sanctified by prior gatherings of souls, be it a church or even a movie theater or a baseball field. I have a long and somewhat odd history of writing and delivering very well-received eulogies at such services, but there was a moment yesterday when the experience of watching other people's eulogies over the internet came to feel so unnatural that I (momentarily) resolved to never deliver another one in my life--but the fault there was not with the thing itself, but with the manner in which it was received. The next time I seek a gathering of souls, I shall deliver my own soul unto the appropriate place at the appropriate time, and be with everyone else.
It looks like it was a great service. I wish I could've been there.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
A Morning's Bloodletting
A quick story, to illustrate my remarkable lack of fondness for needles:
During my senior year of high school, there was a measles outbreak. Or mumps. Whatever. Since I've never had measles or mumps or chicken pox or any of that, I was one of the students required to get reinoculated, or I wouldn't be allowed back into classes or any school activities. And as one of the leads in a show about to go off and compete in one of the Florida Thespian conferences, I absolutely had to get cleared of this silliness as fast as possible. My friend Krys was in a similar boat--and she disliked needles just as much as I did. Shots were being offered at a nearby school, so off we went together, both doing a fine job of revving each other into a fine state of outright phobia. Rehearsal for my show was already underway, and I was missing it.
We reach the school, and there's a line stretching outside and around, at least 200 people waiting for shots. Claiming desperate need, and pulling Krys behind me, I cut in front of almost all those hundreds of people, which did not go over well, and soon enough was in the auditorium watching the nurse stick a needle into the arm of a toddler. The toddler shrieked. Krys and I went very, very pale, and I'm gonna say she grabbed my hand but it could just as easily have been the other way round.
I'm male, so I go first. The swab of alcohol. I turn my head away. There is the slightest sensation, then I'm being bandaged up. Stunned, I turn to the nurse. "Wait, that's it? No, that can't.... Do it again."
Krys of course thinks I'm just lying in order to make her feel better, which makes her feel worse. She sits, she gets swabbed, she grips my hand with bone-crushing strength, the nurse does the injection, and Krys turns to her, aghast, and says "No, come on, that's not--do that again."
So no. I do not like needles. And over the years I've had various opportunities to donate blood, but never have. I mastered several excuses and used them all, repeatedly. When I moved to L.A., I happened to select an apartment that is, literally, a stone's throw from a Red Cross station, yet I never wandered over to donate. Even after September 11th, when the need was clear and overwhelming, I knew I should donate but did not, and that time in particular, it bothered me a lot.
But I've been considering lately the importance of giving, just giving for its own sake without expectation of return. (I suppose you might call it a faint glimmering of something resembling maturity, all these many years in.) So I decided to donate at last, went on the Red Cross's website, and set up an appointment for Saturday morning. (This was, by the way, a couple days before the earthquake in Japan. I really did decide because I decided, not because of an external event that shamed me into it. I shamed myself just fine, thank you.)
Turns out there was some sort of event going on that day, so there were volunteers on the road putting up signs, barriers and balloons. Tables set up out front of the Red Cross station offering raffle tickets and first-aid kits, and a black-draped booth whose purpose I wouldn't learn till a little later. I found the room, carefully did not look at the people in the big chairs with blood draining out of them, filled out some paperwork, was given a pamphlet to read that I'd already read online, and sat down to wait.
This is Los Angeles, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised when a celebrity walked in, but suddenly there was Jamie Lee Curtis, who it turns out is one of the Red Cross's celebrity spokespersons and who'd decided to just wander in that morning and donate again. Which meant of course that a Red Cross photographer soon showed up to document the occasion. (Ms. Curtis blogged about it on the Huffington Post here.) She was very nice, we had a little conversation after I was handed a button reading "It's My First Time," discussing where the blood might go and how, even though it almost certainly wouldn't go to Japan, it could very well free up resources that in turn help the Japanese. And then my name was called, and in I went for the pre-bloodletting interview. No turning back now, not with Jamie Lee Curtis from Fish Called Wanda
staring, oh hell no.
I was mildly bothered by the assertion that if I had ever in my life had sex with one male partner I would be put on a list and my blood probably wouldn't be used--particularly since they routinely test the blood for HIV anyway--but neither that nor any other question barred me from participating, and soon enough I was in one of those big chairs as the very nice nurse--who does this twenty times a day, every day--did her level best to put me at ease while swabbing me with iodine.
I was next to a window, and peered out. To discover that the big black-draped booth was for a puppet show. Elmo, the Count, several of the Henson muppets, and I happened to be situated behind them so that I could watch the volunteers muppeteers at work, scripts in one hand, muppets on the other, crouching and dancing around each other, swapping muppets as fast as they could, great big smiles on their faces, having a fabulous time. Almost time for a very large needle to get jabbed into my arm.
At this point my friend Tonyalyn sends me a text about something or other. So I respond to it then tell her where I am. She, only five feet tall in her bare feet, texts back that the last time she tried to donate they told her she didn't weigh enough. So as the needle goes in, I am now marvelously distracted: muppets performing over there, and over here I've got Tonyalyn texting me, saying "bet I could give now!! ;)"
Which is of course brilliant in its own way, since it's impossible to respond to. Do I say "Yes, I believe you have gained so much weight [a bad thing] that you could now give blood [a good thing]," or do I say "Nonsense, whatever weight you might have gained is so negligible [a good--and true--thing] that I'm sure they still would not let you donate blood [a bad thing]"? I just stared at the text for a while, marveling at it, and barely noticed that a pint of blood was draining away from me. I sent off something like "noticeable lack of comment," watched the Muppets for a little while, did a Facebook status update from the chair, and that was it, it was all over. I'd barely noticed a thing.
One little surprise, though. Because it was my first time, there would be some bonus bloodletting! Four tubes that had to be filled in order to test my blood type and other such purposes. "Shall we draw from your other arm?" the nurse asked. So they moved me to a different chair where I could no longer see the Muppets, they stuck me again, and this time I felt it more because even though it was a smaller needle, it was necessarily jiggling around a little as they attached and detached all those vials. Plus, you know--I couldn't see the Muppets anymore, and Tonyalyn wasn't texting me anymore. Which just left me, the nurse, and the needle.
But having done it, I'll never have to do that part again. And I'm finding that I'm now really psyched about donating blood. Giving without expectation of return proves, once again, that in fact there are enormous returns. Pride in oneself for having done an absolute good, that's pretty potent. And it beats the crap out of the shame felt for not donating after September 11th. The nurses are brilliant at what they do, the blood could very well save a life somewhere down the road, there is absolutely nothing about the experience that should keep anyone away for any reason, even if that person is needlephobic like me. They won't let you donate for two months after you've given blood. I suspect I'll be in there again, not long after those two months have run. I'm even thinking how great it might be to become one of those cheerful volunteers outside. After all, I've never worked a Muppet before, and a volunteer job that lets you save a life with a Muppet on your hand?
Priceless.
During my senior year of high school, there was a measles outbreak. Or mumps. Whatever. Since I've never had measles or mumps or chicken pox or any of that, I was one of the students required to get reinoculated, or I wouldn't be allowed back into classes or any school activities. And as one of the leads in a show about to go off and compete in one of the Florida Thespian conferences, I absolutely had to get cleared of this silliness as fast as possible. My friend Krys was in a similar boat--and she disliked needles just as much as I did. Shots were being offered at a nearby school, so off we went together, both doing a fine job of revving each other into a fine state of outright phobia. Rehearsal for my show was already underway, and I was missing it.
We reach the school, and there's a line stretching outside and around, at least 200 people waiting for shots. Claiming desperate need, and pulling Krys behind me, I cut in front of almost all those hundreds of people, which did not go over well, and soon enough was in the auditorium watching the nurse stick a needle into the arm of a toddler. The toddler shrieked. Krys and I went very, very pale, and I'm gonna say she grabbed my hand but it could just as easily have been the other way round.
I'm male, so I go first. The swab of alcohol. I turn my head away. There is the slightest sensation, then I'm being bandaged up. Stunned, I turn to the nurse. "Wait, that's it? No, that can't.... Do it again."
Krys of course thinks I'm just lying in order to make her feel better, which makes her feel worse. She sits, she gets swabbed, she grips my hand with bone-crushing strength, the nurse does the injection, and Krys turns to her, aghast, and says "No, come on, that's not--do that again."
So no. I do not like needles. And over the years I've had various opportunities to donate blood, but never have. I mastered several excuses and used them all, repeatedly. When I moved to L.A., I happened to select an apartment that is, literally, a stone's throw from a Red Cross station, yet I never wandered over to donate. Even after September 11th, when the need was clear and overwhelming, I knew I should donate but did not, and that time in particular, it bothered me a lot.
But I've been considering lately the importance of giving, just giving for its own sake without expectation of return. (I suppose you might call it a faint glimmering of something resembling maturity, all these many years in.) So I decided to donate at last, went on the Red Cross's website, and set up an appointment for Saturday morning. (This was, by the way, a couple days before the earthquake in Japan. I really did decide because I decided, not because of an external event that shamed me into it. I shamed myself just fine, thank you.)
Turns out there was some sort of event going on that day, so there were volunteers on the road putting up signs, barriers and balloons. Tables set up out front of the Red Cross station offering raffle tickets and first-aid kits, and a black-draped booth whose purpose I wouldn't learn till a little later. I found the room, carefully did not look at the people in the big chairs with blood draining out of them, filled out some paperwork, was given a pamphlet to read that I'd already read online, and sat down to wait.
This is Los Angeles, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised when a celebrity walked in, but suddenly there was Jamie Lee Curtis, who it turns out is one of the Red Cross's celebrity spokespersons and who'd decided to just wander in that morning and donate again. Which meant of course that a Red Cross photographer soon showed up to document the occasion. (Ms. Curtis blogged about it on the Huffington Post here.) She was very nice, we had a little conversation after I was handed a button reading "It's My First Time," discussing where the blood might go and how, even though it almost certainly wouldn't go to Japan, it could very well free up resources that in turn help the Japanese. And then my name was called, and in I went for the pre-bloodletting interview. No turning back now, not with Jamie Lee Curtis from Fish Called Wanda
staring, oh hell no.I was mildly bothered by the assertion that if I had ever in my life had sex with one male partner I would be put on a list and my blood probably wouldn't be used--particularly since they routinely test the blood for HIV anyway--but neither that nor any other question barred me from participating, and soon enough I was in one of those big chairs as the very nice nurse--who does this twenty times a day, every day--did her level best to put me at ease while swabbing me with iodine.
I was next to a window, and peered out. To discover that the big black-draped booth was for a puppet show. Elmo, the Count, several of the Henson muppets, and I happened to be situated behind them so that I could watch the volunteers muppeteers at work, scripts in one hand, muppets on the other, crouching and dancing around each other, swapping muppets as fast as they could, great big smiles on their faces, having a fabulous time. Almost time for a very large needle to get jabbed into my arm.
At this point my friend Tonyalyn sends me a text about something or other. So I respond to it then tell her where I am. She, only five feet tall in her bare feet, texts back that the last time she tried to donate they told her she didn't weigh enough. So as the needle goes in, I am now marvelously distracted: muppets performing over there, and over here I've got Tonyalyn texting me, saying "bet I could give now!! ;)"
Which is of course brilliant in its own way, since it's impossible to respond to. Do I say "Yes, I believe you have gained so much weight [a bad thing] that you could now give blood [a good thing]," or do I say "Nonsense, whatever weight you might have gained is so negligible [a good--and true--thing] that I'm sure they still would not let you donate blood [a bad thing]"? I just stared at the text for a while, marveling at it, and barely noticed that a pint of blood was draining away from me. I sent off something like "noticeable lack of comment," watched the Muppets for a little while, did a Facebook status update from the chair, and that was it, it was all over. I'd barely noticed a thing.
One little surprise, though. Because it was my first time, there would be some bonus bloodletting! Four tubes that had to be filled in order to test my blood type and other such purposes. "Shall we draw from your other arm?" the nurse asked. So they moved me to a different chair where I could no longer see the Muppets, they stuck me again, and this time I felt it more because even though it was a smaller needle, it was necessarily jiggling around a little as they attached and detached all those vials. Plus, you know--I couldn't see the Muppets anymore, and Tonyalyn wasn't texting me anymore. Which just left me, the nurse, and the needle.
But having done it, I'll never have to do that part again. And I'm finding that I'm now really psyched about donating blood. Giving without expectation of return proves, once again, that in fact there are enormous returns. Pride in oneself for having done an absolute good, that's pretty potent. And it beats the crap out of the shame felt for not donating after September 11th. The nurses are brilliant at what they do, the blood could very well save a life somewhere down the road, there is absolutely nothing about the experience that should keep anyone away for any reason, even if that person is needlephobic like me. They won't let you donate for two months after you've given blood. I suspect I'll be in there again, not long after those two months have run. I'm even thinking how great it might be to become one of those cheerful volunteers outside. After all, I've never worked a Muppet before, and a volunteer job that lets you save a life with a Muppet on your hand?
Priceless.
Friday, March 04, 2011
Naming Names
Was watching a movie last night--A Single Man
, which features Colin Firth's previous Oscar-nominated role. (And for my money, a subtler, richer and deeper performance than the excellent one he just got the award for.) I liked the movie, and after it was over, as the end credits rolled, for whatever reason I sat there and watched all those names roll by.
Now bear in mind--I'm in the business, I actually know what all those people do, I know how valuable their work is, and sometimes I even know some of the people whose names scroll by five minutes in. But even I don't generally sit and watch all the credits, for all the obvious reasons. Last night, though, I had the impulse to give those names their due, so I did.
I'm not suggesting we should all do the same thing all the time. But every now and then. Be that person still sitting in the darkened theater while everyone else files out, from time to time. Give all those names their due. Because when they say that movies are a collaborative medium, man, they're not kidding. It really does take all those hands to make the final product that gets on the screen, and they're all people who worked hard and they deserve to have their names up there--even if does extend the running time of a movie by another six minutes or whatever.
One argument against having all those names up there is, Why should these movie people get their names up there when, f'r instance, the people who make cars don't get to put their names on their product?
And I think that's an excellent question. Why don't they? When you see one of those labels that says Such-and-Such was reviewed by Inspector #32, don't you wonder who that is? And what sort of day they were having when they inspected your This-or-That? Movies are one of the great American exports--they're also a rare exception in American industry where the company gets its name on the product, but so do all the craftsmen who contributed to that product. Is it too much of a stretch to suggest that the pride generated by such recognition is part of why the product is in such demand around the world?
Imagine if every car had a plate in it somewhere--like the one telling you what tire pressure you need--with a list of the workers who assembled that car? The writing would be pretty tiny, and most people would never look at it, but so what? A key grip watching a movie he worked on, he still sits in the theater as the others leave, and he sees his name roll across, and yeah he feels proud about what he did and it makes him a better key grip when he goes back to work.
Strictly speaking, none of us should need that. The work should be its own reward. The paycheck should also be its own reward. Is it not best to do good work for its own sake? Of course it should. And of course almost none of us are so enlightened. When I sat in a theater, surrounded by strangers, and watched my name roll across a screen for the first time, that was a truly great moment in my life. I remember it often--and as we gear up for the next movie (casting director hired, some interesting names begin to circle), I stop every now and then, and remember the sight of my name in the credits, and I know it'll be there again and that I need to do a really great job because that's my name up there.
Here's a thought: once a year, each of the Detroit carmakers creates one special-edition car. With all the bells and whistles, the best car they make--but on this one vehicle, each part is etched with the name of the person who made it. Then they can either auction it off, with money going to the workers' pension funds, or they can simply hold a sweepstakes where one of the listed workers gets to drive off in that car. It'd probably be one of the most popular things they do every year--and I'll bet those vehicles would become highly sought-after collector's items.
Any manufacturer could do something like that. A little slip of paper in the box, telling us not just that Inspector #32 is named Marisol, or Joe, or whatever, but that 13 other people actually made the thing you just bought, and here are their names. I wouldn't read that slip of paper every time, but sometimes I would. Giving honor where due, and credit where due. And I'll bet the thing I bought has a slightly better chance of being of good quality because the people who made it knew--those are their names on there.
, which features Colin Firth's previous Oscar-nominated role. (And for my money, a subtler, richer and deeper performance than the excellent one he just got the award for.) I liked the movie, and after it was over, as the end credits rolled, for whatever reason I sat there and watched all those names roll by.Now bear in mind--I'm in the business, I actually know what all those people do, I know how valuable their work is, and sometimes I even know some of the people whose names scroll by five minutes in. But even I don't generally sit and watch all the credits, for all the obvious reasons. Last night, though, I had the impulse to give those names their due, so I did.
I'm not suggesting we should all do the same thing all the time. But every now and then. Be that person still sitting in the darkened theater while everyone else files out, from time to time. Give all those names their due. Because when they say that movies are a collaborative medium, man, they're not kidding. It really does take all those hands to make the final product that gets on the screen, and they're all people who worked hard and they deserve to have their names up there--even if does extend the running time of a movie by another six minutes or whatever.
One argument against having all those names up there is, Why should these movie people get their names up there when, f'r instance, the people who make cars don't get to put their names on their product?
And I think that's an excellent question. Why don't they? When you see one of those labels that says Such-and-Such was reviewed by Inspector #32, don't you wonder who that is? And what sort of day they were having when they inspected your This-or-That? Movies are one of the great American exports--they're also a rare exception in American industry where the company gets its name on the product, but so do all the craftsmen who contributed to that product. Is it too much of a stretch to suggest that the pride generated by such recognition is part of why the product is in such demand around the world?
Imagine if every car had a plate in it somewhere--like the one telling you what tire pressure you need--with a list of the workers who assembled that car? The writing would be pretty tiny, and most people would never look at it, but so what? A key grip watching a movie he worked on, he still sits in the theater as the others leave, and he sees his name roll across, and yeah he feels proud about what he did and it makes him a better key grip when he goes back to work.
Strictly speaking, none of us should need that. The work should be its own reward. The paycheck should also be its own reward. Is it not best to do good work for its own sake? Of course it should. And of course almost none of us are so enlightened. When I sat in a theater, surrounded by strangers, and watched my name roll across a screen for the first time, that was a truly great moment in my life. I remember it often--and as we gear up for the next movie (casting director hired, some interesting names begin to circle), I stop every now and then, and remember the sight of my name in the credits, and I know it'll be there again and that I need to do a really great job because that's my name up there.
Here's a thought: once a year, each of the Detroit carmakers creates one special-edition car. With all the bells and whistles, the best car they make--but on this one vehicle, each part is etched with the name of the person who made it. Then they can either auction it off, with money going to the workers' pension funds, or they can simply hold a sweepstakes where one of the listed workers gets to drive off in that car. It'd probably be one of the most popular things they do every year--and I'll bet those vehicles would become highly sought-after collector's items.
Any manufacturer could do something like that. A little slip of paper in the box, telling us not just that Inspector #32 is named Marisol, or Joe, or whatever, but that 13 other people actually made the thing you just bought, and here are their names. I wouldn't read that slip of paper every time, but sometimes I would. Giving honor where due, and credit where due. And I'll bet the thing I bought has a slightly better chance of being of good quality because the people who made it knew--those are their names on there.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
In Which I Am Uncled
The thing about a small family is, it's small. And sometimes it gets smaller before it gets larger. Since the birth of my baby sister Amanda in 1986, there have been five funerals--and zero babies born.
Until last Saturday, when the youngest of us, Amanda herself, started to right the scales.
When the news came that she was pregnant, Amanda moved in with our parents in Dallas while the father, a chef of Cajun extraction named Patrick Couvillon, went into basic training as a Coast Guard reservist. From time to time I would get a text with a new ultrasound image--and being who I am, I would send a text back to her, asking why she was sending me pictures of sweet potatoes.
Now Amanda, she works with children with disabilities, but she didn't get her final certification till she was already pregnant, so there was no point looking for a job in her field right away. Which explains how she ended up playing the part of a dancing pregnant elf.
(Oh how I wish I had a picture to insert here. I've been begging for one. She won't give it to me.)
It was Christmastime, y'see, and a nearby hotel had a program that they described as helping kids bake holiday cookies and whatnot. A bit of outreach for their guests with children. What the hotel did not tell her was that she'd be wearing a costume. Or that there would be some dancing involved. With fake plastic elf ears. All set to a minute-long song that she would have to listen to, and dance to, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And then again. Till she became a dancing, pregnant, murderous elf.
But eventually that ended, and her fellow elves threw her a party, and then she was done, in those last weeks before the baby came, growing larger and, it need hardly be said, grumpier with each passing day. Patrick finished basic training and joined her in Dallas, which helped a lot. (He now has a job as a chef at a nearby Hyatt--where they do not make him wear elf ears.) And me, the uncle-to-be, I started looking for dates when I could come out and visit. Ideally, a date as close to the birth as possible.
Because when my brother and sister were born, I wasn't there. In both cases I was supposed to be there, I had plane tickets from Boston that would have gotten me to Miami in time for both due dates--but they both showed up early, and I had to hear about their births second-hand, from a few thousand miles away. "Not this time!" I declared, and started examining the calendar. The due date was right at the end of January. Since the kids were both early, I settled on the weekend before the end of the month: January 21-23. I knew the unlikelihood of actually pegging the birth date, the baby could still be born before I could get there, or he would come afterward so that my entire visit would consist of marveling at how gigantic my sister was and why was she being so grumpy?
(Okay, I suppose I may be overstating her grumpiness a little. But I'm telling the story and I'll tell it how I like, so there.)
My dad talked me out of that particular weekend. I would almost certainly miss the birth, there was nothing I could actually do to help during a visit, it would be much smarter and more sensible to wait a couple extra weeks till all the excitement was over, and I could be certain of meeting my brand-new baby nephew. Reluctantly, I agreed and pushed the date back.
Six a.m. Saturday morning, the 22nd of January. My sister calls. She's at the hospital. And instead of being there to help, as I might've been, I was locked in Los Angeles, hearing it all from very far away. Again.
But maybe it was for the best, after all. Sitting in a hospital waiting room wouldn't really have been an improvement on sitting in my living room--I heard all the news almost as soon as there was any news, and by not being there I was spared the terror of that stretch at the end, when the baby was in distress and Amanda was in distress and the baby came out looking distinctly blue. By the time I heard any of that, Amanda was feeling fine and the baby was already starting to pink up nicely. Cellphone photos were promptly sent to me, and I just as promptly posted them on Facebook, so that little Hunter Cole Couvillon was announced to the world, with photos and details, very shortly after he was born.
There were some days in the NICU, but mother and child left the hospital together a few days ago, and have settled into their new life at home. We did a family Skype yesterday morning where I was able to see the baby move and squawk for the first time, and I was able to tell him "I'm your Uncle Robert. Everything I say is wise and good." (Amanda had a few words to say about that, but I'm telling the story here and they're not important.)
And so I am uncled, for the very first time in my life. The doctors say all visitors should wait for six weeks, which seems intolerably long. ("He'll be in college before I can get out there," I whined yesterday.) But it's okay, there will be a baptism in Louisiana (Cajun country!) in March and it looks like I'll wait till then. With Skype and cellphone photos and all the other marvelous doodads of the information age, I'll still get to participate a little, even from all the way out here.
And since no such tale is complete without a baby picture, here you go: Momma 'Manda and baby Hunter, doing his best impression of an evil scientist (in a dinosaur costume, no less):
Until last Saturday, when the youngest of us, Amanda herself, started to right the scales.
When the news came that she was pregnant, Amanda moved in with our parents in Dallas while the father, a chef of Cajun extraction named Patrick Couvillon, went into basic training as a Coast Guard reservist. From time to time I would get a text with a new ultrasound image--and being who I am, I would send a text back to her, asking why she was sending me pictures of sweet potatoes.
Now Amanda, she works with children with disabilities, but she didn't get her final certification till she was already pregnant, so there was no point looking for a job in her field right away. Which explains how she ended up playing the part of a dancing pregnant elf.
(Oh how I wish I had a picture to insert here. I've been begging for one. She won't give it to me.)
It was Christmastime, y'see, and a nearby hotel had a program that they described as helping kids bake holiday cookies and whatnot. A bit of outreach for their guests with children. What the hotel did not tell her was that she'd be wearing a costume. Or that there would be some dancing involved. With fake plastic elf ears. All set to a minute-long song that she would have to listen to, and dance to, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And then again. Till she became a dancing, pregnant, murderous elf.
But eventually that ended, and her fellow elves threw her a party, and then she was done, in those last weeks before the baby came, growing larger and, it need hardly be said, grumpier with each passing day. Patrick finished basic training and joined her in Dallas, which helped a lot. (He now has a job as a chef at a nearby Hyatt--where they do not make him wear elf ears.) And me, the uncle-to-be, I started looking for dates when I could come out and visit. Ideally, a date as close to the birth as possible.
Because when my brother and sister were born, I wasn't there. In both cases I was supposed to be there, I had plane tickets from Boston that would have gotten me to Miami in time for both due dates--but they both showed up early, and I had to hear about their births second-hand, from a few thousand miles away. "Not this time!" I declared, and started examining the calendar. The due date was right at the end of January. Since the kids were both early, I settled on the weekend before the end of the month: January 21-23. I knew the unlikelihood of actually pegging the birth date, the baby could still be born before I could get there, or he would come afterward so that my entire visit would consist of marveling at how gigantic my sister was and why was she being so grumpy?
(Okay, I suppose I may be overstating her grumpiness a little. But I'm telling the story and I'll tell it how I like, so there.)
My dad talked me out of that particular weekend. I would almost certainly miss the birth, there was nothing I could actually do to help during a visit, it would be much smarter and more sensible to wait a couple extra weeks till all the excitement was over, and I could be certain of meeting my brand-new baby nephew. Reluctantly, I agreed and pushed the date back.
Six a.m. Saturday morning, the 22nd of January. My sister calls. She's at the hospital. And instead of being there to help, as I might've been, I was locked in Los Angeles, hearing it all from very far away. Again.
But maybe it was for the best, after all. Sitting in a hospital waiting room wouldn't really have been an improvement on sitting in my living room--I heard all the news almost as soon as there was any news, and by not being there I was spared the terror of that stretch at the end, when the baby was in distress and Amanda was in distress and the baby came out looking distinctly blue. By the time I heard any of that, Amanda was feeling fine and the baby was already starting to pink up nicely. Cellphone photos were promptly sent to me, and I just as promptly posted them on Facebook, so that little Hunter Cole Couvillon was announced to the world, with photos and details, very shortly after he was born.
There were some days in the NICU, but mother and child left the hospital together a few days ago, and have settled into their new life at home. We did a family Skype yesterday morning where I was able to see the baby move and squawk for the first time, and I was able to tell him "I'm your Uncle Robert. Everything I say is wise and good." (Amanda had a few words to say about that, but I'm telling the story here and they're not important.)
And so I am uncled, for the very first time in my life. The doctors say all visitors should wait for six weeks, which seems intolerably long. ("He'll be in college before I can get out there," I whined yesterday.) But it's okay, there will be a baptism in Louisiana (Cajun country!) in March and it looks like I'll wait till then. With Skype and cellphone photos and all the other marvelous doodads of the information age, I'll still get to participate a little, even from all the way out here.
And since no such tale is complete without a baby picture, here you go: Momma 'Manda and baby Hunter, doing his best impression of an evil scientist (in a dinosaur costume, no less):
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)