The New "Old, Weird America"

I've always been nostalgic for that "old, weird" America that we dream up in our songs. A land where people work harder than they should and stand up for others and do whats right 80% of the time. The rest of the time they are the connoisseurs of vice and perversion. The swindlers with a heart of gold. Hoboes, hippies, beats, punks, and maybe--if they're lucky--hipsters. They're all swindlers, and I'm one of them, sometimes proudly sometimes not. We dream of a world that never really existed and even if it did, it was never ours. I guess it's the romantic in me that longs for a promised land that isn't quite utopia but it's close. Then again, utopia has always been with us, always longed after, popping up in all those weird places that make America what it is.

There are a couple of analyses of utopia (Graham Ward and Paul Ricoeur in particular) that point out this impulse. It is most prevalent today in the dream of the suburbs, our idea of what the 1950's were like, and in political rhetoric. What becomes most disconcerting to me is that, as Ward has pointed out, the utopian dreams of "cities of endless desire" or "cities of eternal ambition" are dystopian from the start. As any urban hipster who digs folk and old-timey music will tell you, city living is no utopia. We city dwellers have become The Hollow Men. Perhaps we're not as desperate as these headpieces filled with straw, at least I don't feel that desperate, but I do find that the utopian dream remains.

Perhaps its not such a bad thing, to dream of the world as it is not. Certainly, the utopian dream can lead to a neglect of the sufferings of the present but it doesn't seem like the wrong dream to have. It is simply a different kind of utopia that I actually desire. It is the promised land of Woody Guthrie songs, John Steinbeck novels, and Wes Anderson movies. It is the "old, weird America" that Greil Marcus documents in his book of the same name that I long for. But it is the New, Weird America that I live in.

The New, Weird America bears a striking resemblence to the old one. Except this one has technology. Less hand cranks, gears and sprockets; more cables and remotes and keyboards. And the utopian dream still lives on in the new, weird america but it takes on new ways of dissemination, that is, new forms of distribution. I'll focus on one aspect of the new, weird america--partisan narratives.

As a philosopher partial to Narrative thought I should be happy about the way that people are throwing around narratives for their parties and how knowledgable about their construction. But my problem is precisely that which, I believe, most important: Content Matters. What the old, weird america did was create a narrative based on issues (at least from my recollection). Problems had solutions and you chose what solution you wanted. I know that I am generalizing and maybe overly so. What I've noticed in our political rhetoric, what angers me the most, is that these narrative swindlers spin their stories not about issues but about ways of life. My people, their people, us v. them, the people v. the elites, etc. On and on they go until they've made us suspicious of our neighbors. Maybe this is what they mean by identity politics. The problem with this, besides its questionable morality, is that it thinks that ways of life are fixed. But any student of history knows that the narrative keeps changing. Aristotle reminds us in his Poetics that action is what makes a drama a drama.

So when there's a farmer buying parts for his tractor on ebay and an urban hipster like myself listening to Dr. Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys without the slightest feeling of irony or anachronism, the narrative hucksters are dead in the water. Those narratives about dumb hicks loving their guns and porn and nascar are just as absurd as those narratives about the coastal ivy-leaguers with their indie music, art films, and smarterer-than-thou attitudes. Certainly, there are those people who we all know who make those stereotypes somewhat true. But to craft a whole demographic of people who are ruining it for everybody because they live a certain way, like certain music, movies, restaurants, etc. is completely bogus.

Sometimes these narratives are necessary; in particular I am thinking of energy use narratives. They give us a story by which to judge our actions and in the best cases, give us reasons to change. Here, in the New, Weird America, we can tell the most outlandish stories because they are true, Ivy-Leaguers do actually love appalacian music and farmers do have ipods. And if these narratives are good, they'll be big enough to incorporate both farmers and pharmacologists into their tale and hopefully provide us with new, weird utopian dreams to hope for.

Cultural Artifacts pt. 2

Doodles.





popesaysitsgood #1






that son you planted grew into a fine tree







its a lot bigger than you thought it would be

The Cultural Artifact

Right now I'm watching one of my favorite things ever put on film...Danielson: A family movie. Its hard to describe how a movie about a band I don't like filled with music that can be repulsive at times makes me feel positively joyous. Things with integrity do that. It's why My Morning Jacket's "Z" is a phenomenal record. It's why "For Emma, Forever Ago" by Bon Iver is a phenomenal record. Its why "Gilead" is a phenomenal book. Integrity.

Anyway, watching this documentary has me thinking about cultural artifacts. One of the ways that we construct how people used to live is by reconstructing the culture that they lived in. What books they read, what movies they saw, what games they played, etc. So I guess I'm wondering how would you use cultural artifacts to describe a specific place and time? Or maybe how you would use media and art to describe your life? The best parts or the worst parts or both?

Perhaps I'm not being clear. I don't think I'm clear about it for myself. So I guess I'll just make my list of the things that remind me of the best parts of life.

-"Torches Together", mewithoutYou!
-The Bleached Madonna
-Recording the last/lost Amnesty Letters songs in the basement of Young House
-Compline by candlelight
-Danielson: A Family Movie (Or Make a Joyful Noise Here)
-Arrested Development (as a whole)

Like I said, I don't know exactly what I'm talking about. I guess I'm groping at some feeling I have about history and culture and memory and the gumbo it's mixture produces.

Full of Tone Full o' Tone

Some of you know that, while I'm not the worlds worst tone freak, I take my guitar tone pretty seriously. Debates about true bypass vs. active bypass not withstanding (i tend to side with the mentality that you need active bypass at the beginning and end of your signal but the middle is fair game) I have been in pursuit of a really good sound for a long time. While the amp that I really want is out of my price range, I've managed to gradually make my tone better. It's weird for me to think back to being at Greenville and running my DeVille's overdrive as my only overdrive. Or when I had that boss dual overdrive moded. It did sound good but sadly...it had to go in place of something far better....the Jekyll and Hyde. For a time I even used my Turbo-Tubescreamer in conjunction with the JK. It's what's on the Marcel ep and, honestly, I think it sounds pretty good.

Sadly, the JK has seen better days. I've been having trouble with it and it's to the point where it works only when it wants to. In the words of Derrida, this is not sufficient. So I've been doing some research...seeking out that pedal that would meet all my needs. It has to be thick but not muddy or sound too much like fuzz. It has to have multiple forms of overdrive, that is, it has to be versatile. And most of all, it has to sound good. I walked into guitar center today looking for a reverb and found them very lacking (why am I not surprised). However, I was struck that they carried a certain boutique overdrive pedal that I had been thinking about. Maybe 30 seconds into playing it I knew that I had found what I was looking for. Thick, versatile....sexy? Probably not but it sounds damn good. So I have now joined Wes, Chase, and Mike in being the proud owner of a Fulltone Fulldrive 2.

Yes, yes, I know I've committed post-rock heresy by not getting a big muff but that's just not my bag. Besides, bigmuffs are uglyass pieces of equipment and rarely sound good. But I'm super happy with the overdrive and am getting happier with my setup and overall tone the more I play it. for any who are interested here it is.

[Gibson Les Paul Classic-->Boss TU-2 tuner --Fulltone Full-Drive 2--Line 6 Delay Modeler--Digitech Digiverb--->Vox AC15]

so now that I've engaged in such vanity as writing about my pedals...i'm gonna go play.

Twentysomething? or If you weren't cool two years ago now you'll never be

Holy week. Its about this time that I remember lent. I attempted to be more responsible with my life over the course of this season and what a disaster that has been. Perhaps disaster is the incorrect word to describe my "lenten journey" as it is so called. Fizzle is a better word for it. Forgetfulness, non-intentional, laziness, malaise...all of these are good words to describe what happened in a corporeal sense. Reflecting back on the past forty days, the only thing that seems to have benefitted from this attempt at responsibility is reflection itself. I have found myself asking "am I being responsible if I do X, Y, or Z?" This, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Far from it. But the attempt was to bring the whole of my life-the mental, material, and interpersonal-into some sort of responsible practice. Did that happen? Not entirely. Parts of it did. I don't eat out as much. I'm more mindful of what I devote my time to. I ended up practicing guitar (doing scales and chords and exercises and such which i never do) which has been a pleasant surprise. I read more but that's nothing new.

Along the way of this church season, I became acquainted with this little internet based show called "Quarterlife". It's not terrible but it isn't an amazing show like The Wire, The Office, etc. What it tries to do is both comment upon twentysomethings and speak for them, er, us. That tends to be a difficult task when you are in your 40's like the writers are. However, their portrayals of what it means to be a post-college middle-class (white) American is fascinating to me. The biggest thing watching this show has done, combined with the Lenten accentuation of reflection, is lead me to question what it means to be a young white American male in the city. What does this time mean?

Meaning is a volatile mistress, provoking one to wrestle with the many possibilities, both good and bad, that any actions or times might have. So what is the meaning of being a post-college twentysomething? Where does one find purpose in one's vocation? But I guess the question that plagues me the most is:

What good can a graduate student in the humanities, specifically philosophy, do to make the world better through one's vocation?


Of course the philosopher in me begins to deconstruct the very question I've asked at the moment it comes into being. Why portray the humanities in a negative light? In an age where science abounds and technology is the double-edged sword that provides a myriad of possible connections and yet pushes us more into atomized existence...do we not still need to understand what it means to be human? Why is philosophy seen as such a superfluity (unnecessary discipline)? Is it not important to ask these questions of meaning, to question meaning, to question questioning, etc?

Sometimes, I find this rather funny blog "Stuff White People Like" kind of depressing. The entry on Grad-School is particularly unnerving albeit something of a truism (especially if you ever go to a philosophy party). Honestly, it got me a little depressed for a bit. And then I read some Heidegger and it made me feel better (how weird is that). But I guess the point of this is that the majority of people see philosophy as less than worthwhile. The concern is with something other than the history of ideas, or new ways of thinking. So it's kind of depressing when you find out that you're going to be studying something that people won't value near as much as other things. And yet, I am reminded that I didn't get into this world of academics because I wanted to be valued or thought of as cool. I didn't get into it because it fulfilled my need to have my intelligence validated. I got into it because I saw the worth in learning about the way that we view things, the way we value things, the questions of what it means to be human, to live in the world, to do the right thing, etc. I got in because I didn't want to be the kind of academic that perpetuates the ivory tower but the kind that as my cousin in the Navy says "breaks it down to show that war is not the answer."

There is, I think, a myriad way of living life as a twentysomething. More than any show or blog could chart or describe. Certainly, there are trends and funny quirks that are elevated over others but there are also idiosyncrasies that are untellable and inexpressible to more than the parties involved. And there are so many questions. There is the wrestling with the idea of "a way of life" that seems to be highlighted in these middle twenties that I"m progressing through that doesn't lend itself to an easy answer.

Identity, purpose, communication...all of these things don't go away as I move on. Some answers become more adequate, others are revealed to be little more than a mask. But I think that the comedian and philosopher Steve Martin revealed the best way to move through these questions. In a recent interview with Charlie Rose he said (I'm paraphrasing)

"Be so good that you can't be ignored"

Timely advice. And in light of the resurrection, there is a touch of the divine in those words. A rumination of what that means is for another time, but at least there is comfort coming at the end of this afflicting season of Lent.

This Picture Looks Dusty

Lent is here. I never participated in Lent when I was growing up largely because the church I attended didn't practice the Christian year. There were three holidays that we celebrated with vigor: Christmas, Easter, and the 4th of July. So sacred time is still a relatively new idea for me. I started out with Lent around my freshman year of college (Spring 2003...man that seems so long ago) and gave up soda for a while. It was easy-ish and was combined with learning about the Christian year, sacred time, and all that those things entail. Now, however, my perspective is different.

My life, and I would venture to say that most lives, consist of patterns of behavior that were started, intentionally or as a reaction to something, and now seem beyond immediate control. What I mean is something like this: you did not naturally start brushing your teeth. You were taught and now it is a habit that is not immediately under your control...you probably don't constantly think "oh man, i need to brush my teeth in 5 hours" although I wouldn't put it past some people...it is a part of the pattern of your life. But this Lent, I'm stepping back from that pattern and trying to look at what constitutes how I spend my time, how time spent places value on activities and objects, and how this pattern of my life is a part of other patterns. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I feel like the pattern of my life is not as intentional as I have thought it to be and that it is crucial for me to examine what is going on in order to assess where meaning is to be found.

Automatically, my philosopher's ears cringe at the thought of solipsism, that is, of being all wrapped up in oneself. But self-assessment is not entirely about being wrapped up in oneself or being focused on the self before others. Self-awareness can be the result of the collision of egos, of the experience of other people, of other things, of different places, of patterns changing. All of these things are beyond control and tend to happen beyond any intention for them to happen. Being a shy man, I tend not to assert myself into conversations with people which explains my ineptitude at small talk. But conversations happen to me.

This gets to a bigger phenomenon I've noticed. Patterns of life that are interrupted beyond the intention to be can involve a kind of giving over of the self to new ways of living or behaving or even pattern making. In other words, when we interact with things that are different, truly and remarkably different, they can change our patterns of living. I am one who believes that the truly and remarkably different is to be found all over---but I am distracted. I am distracted by the larger pattern of goods and services that attempts to assess the amount of meaning my life can have and tries to fit me into it's pattern. However, this is not necessarily the best way to live. A lack of self-reflection leaves me blind to the patterns that I have unintentionally given myself over to or have imposed themselves gently on my life. This should not be.

So this Lent, this season of reflection, I'm attempting to look at the pattern of my life and see just what is driving it. What guides my movements, what blinds me to the remarkable and extraordinary that surrounds me, what demands me to value some things and services over others? These are the questions I'm asking, difficult as they might be.

One more thing. You should check out The Story of Stuff to get a decent view of what I would call the larger pattern of goods and services. It's a fun, simple little video.

It's not the devil in your bed but the angel on your shoulder that's causing you to lose sleep

So this is the new year and my how things are different. I find it amazing and humbling to be here in Boston doing what I really feel I'm supposed to be doing where I'm supposed to be doing it. I am so much more aware of how blessed I am to be here and so much more aware of how my life is built upon the foundations of those who have come before. A trip to Greenville will do that.

I've never been more convinced that community is the most radically subversive and radically necessary element of human existence. Seeing all those friends together around a table sharing a meal and not needing anything other than each others company to be nourished. Rarely has the eucharist been so alive for me. Holy moments like a shared meal, a picnic by the dinning commons, a frisbee toss in cornfields, and the singing of songs, sneak up on me. Rarely do I realize just how sacred, just how separated from the mundane they really are. Nor do I realize that it is in these moments that come so naturally, despite being so rare, I am being transformed.

Why is it that around these people I feel like I can actually be good? I can be funny, and begin to become wise? Perhaps wisdom, not intelligence, exists only in a community of people.