There is a weight on everyone’s back. Life is hard. People can go about their days not knowing what they’re carrying around with them and eventually they’ll crack. For Jean-Dominique Bauby that weight was light until Friday December 8th, 1995. After picking up his son for a weekend together, Bauby had a stroke. Bauby’s massive stroke left him in a coma for 20 days and when he awoke he found himself suffering of Locked-In Syndrome, which doctors C.J. Borthwick and R. Crossley define as, “patients who become unable to speak or move as the result of certain rare cerebra-vascular accidents involving the brainstem” (387). Bauby describes his weight as a diving bell. Willie Howard writes, “Early diving bells were nothing more than inverted buckets that trapped air…the wooden diving bell built in 1691 by British astronomer Edmond Halley. Its breakthrough technology of the day included supplies of fresh air from barrels, a valve to release stale air, a bench seat, a barometer for a depth gauge and a helmet that let divers venture outside the bell” (Diving). In addition to his paralysis and muteness Bauby’s right eye had to be sewn shut because it was drying out. Bauby, with the help of his speech therapist began to communicate by blinking his one good eye. Bauby would blink at the letter when a specialized alphabet ordered from most common to least common was read to him. Letters formed words and words then formed sentences. Through these sentences his butterfly was able to take flight in the form of his imagination and he was able to communicate to the outside world. That painstaking communication gave us The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Bauby’s difficulty in communicating did not seem to hinder his ability to write beautiful prose about his life, both before and after his stroke. Bauby writes in the prologue, “Through the frayed curtain at my window, a wan glow announces the break of day. My heels hurt, my head weighs a ton, and something like a giant invisible diving bell holds my body prisoner” (Bauby 3). Bauby cannot move or talk and yet has the wherewithal to notice the sunlight coming in through his hospital room window. From the first line of the book it’s hard to miss the fact that Bauby sees the big picture. He’s not navel gazing nor saying “woe is me” but rather focusing on the beauty around him and paints a picture for the reader of what he is feeling. Like Bauby, everyone has a similar weight, some heavier than others but everyone has one. All people are locked-in to something. Their souls, are locked into their bodies. When reading Bauby’s memoir it is as if the reader is not merely reading his words but also his thoughts. Through this, the narration takes on all the conclusions the reader’s mind would come to if they were unable to communicate. The reader in a sense becomes the writer. Through Bauby’s honesty, symbolism and imagination he was not only able to write a memoir but a beautiful expression of how to carry around the weight of life but also what makes life worth living.
Jean-Dominique Bauby will be remembered for his memoir and the amazing experience that brought it about but he wasn’t always like that. As the fashion editor of Elle magazine Bauby lived the expected luxurious lifestyle full of travel, nice cars and beautiful women. He recalls a test drive of a new car, “Crossing the Bois de Boulogne, the BMW glides like a flying carpet, a private world of luxury and comfort” (Bauby 121). He was also a son to a father he loved very much. Bauby recalls a scene with his father, “The last time I saw my father, I shaved him…I wrap a big towel around his shriveled neck, daub thick lather over his face, and do my best not to irritate his skin” (Bauby 43). Through the small glimpses of his life prior to his stroke we see a man that lived both a life of luxury but was also sensitive enough to care for his elderly father. Bauby’s character did not change after suffering the stroke. He describes his relationship with the hospital staff, “I hated some of them, those who wrenched my arm while putting me in my wheelchair, or left me all night long with the TV on. For a few minutes or a few hours I would cheerfully have killed them. Later still, as time cooled my fiercest rages, I got to know them better. They carried out as best they could their delicate mission: to ease our burden a little when our crosses bruised our shoulders too painfully” (Bauby 110). Thomas Mallon writes, “The author cultivates strong feelings, especially anger, to keep his spirit from atrophying along with his limbs. But despite occasional sarcastic eruptions, the book’s tone is dominated by a sweet, even humorous, lyricism” (Blink). Throughout the book Bauby balances beautifully between extreme sarcasm and sensitivity, which allows the reader to both laugh with Bauby and his situation and also cry with how lonely and isolated he must have felt. Bauby’s horrible circumstances didn’t seem to change him. He was a high flying magazine executive and a sweet son prior to the accident and remained so through his use of humor and symbolism in his writing.
After waking from his coma, finding himself paralyzed and mute, Bauby could have easily given up. Who would have blamed him? It would almost be expected. He didn’t though, he chose to see beauty and use his imagination to remember life the way he wanted to and for this his memoir stays with us. Robert McCrum writes, “Most stroke victims, let alone Locked-In syndrome victims, are so overwhelmed by the four horsemen of apocalyptic illness depression, disability, fatigue and rage that even to compose a postcard involves a supreme effort of will” (Observer Review). Why did he do this? It was hard and an amazing act of determination and no one was holding a gun to his head. Bauby kept on living and wrote his memoir because he had a story to tell. A story that only he could tell. He writes, “My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space or in time, set out for Tierra del Fuego or for King Midas’s court” (Bauby 5). Bauby’s view of life is the exact opposite of what one would think. Rather than basking in self pity, Bauby doesn’t see enough time in the day for all the adventures in his mind.
Everyone on earth is locked in to something. Sex, alcohol, work, video games, name it and someone loves it. By these things people get distracted and trapped and avoid what mankind was created for, to tell a story. Everyone is like Jean-Dominique Bauby and has a choice to make. People can look at their seasons of life and see the limits, the constraints and the difficulties that they face or they can see more. Bauby chose to see more and writes, “My nostrils quiver with please as they inhale a robust odor-intoxicating to me but one that most mortals cannot abide. “Ooh!” says a disgusted voice behind me. “What a stench!” But I never tire of the smell of french fries” (Bauby 88). The smell of french fries means so much more to Bauby than to the average upright person because the smell is the closest thing he can come to tasting them. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly serves as a beautiful reminder for the reader to open their eyes and see the things they can so often ignore or get distracted from.
An unfortunate reality is that some people recognize the choice they face and choose to go they opposite direction. Some people choose dying over living. Eerily coincidental to Bauby is the story of a Vincent Humbert. A 22 year old French paraplegic who was left paralyzed, mute and blind (Son’s Wish). Humbert wrote a book entitled I Ask the Right to Die, in which he campaigned for the legalization of euthanasia in France. Humbert’s book, dictated in the exact same hospital as Bauby’s paints a stark contrast to the message of Bauby’s memoir. Charles Smith writes, “Mr. Humbert recounts with heartbreaking bitterness how his life as a healthy, careful young fireman ended when his car met an oncoming truck on a narrow country road. After enduring months of ebbing hope that he would recover any of his lost faculties he decided he wanted to die and with his mother began the campaign” (Son’s Wish). In no way should a choice like this be made by someone outside of the inner circle of the patient if not the patients themselves, but what if Bauby had given up, what if he chose to end his life before it came to an end naturally? His memoir would never have been written, millions of people would not have been touched by his story and people would not be inspired by life. Deathbeds are coming for everyone. On those deathbeds people look back on their lives and either have great joy or great remorse. Bauby, although his book is filled with so much hope, was not immune to remorse. He recounts a lost bet at a horse race track:
The memory of that event has only just come back to me, now doubly painful: regret for a vanished past and, above all, remorse for lost opportunities. Mithra-Grandchamp is the women we were unable to love, the chances we failed to seize, the moments of happiness we allowed to drift away. Today it seems to me that my whole life was nothing but a string of those small near misses: a race whose result we know beforehand but in which we fail to bet on the winner” (Bauby 94).
Bauby had a great life, one full of money, fame and everything that life has to offer and yet he still had remorse.
It can be said that everything that happens, happens for a reason. Bauby had a stroke for a reason. He was meant to inspire people to live their lives, to open their eyes and to see all that fills life around them and to encourage people to take advantage of the freedom they have in this life. Everyone wakes up in the morning for a reason. A choice has to be made: either drown with the diving bell of life or take flight with the butterfly. Distractions and stress can creep up from around the corner at the drop of a hat. We should be a people that persevere and endure and continually look at the big picture and how today fits into it. Theologian John Piper expounds on the little moments in life where we get a new perspective on life:
At these moments, when the trifling fog of life clears and I see what I am really on earth to do, I groan over the petty pursuits that waste so many lives – and so much of mine. Just think of the magnitude of sports – a whole section of the daily newspaper. But there is no section on God. Think of the endless resources for making your home and garden more comfortable and impressive. Think of how many tens of thousands of dollars you can spend to buy more car than you need. Think of the time and energy and conversation that go into entertainment and leisure and what we call “fun stuff.” And add to that now the computer that artificially recreates the very games that are already so distant from reality; it is like a multi-layered dreamworld of insignificance expanding into nothingness” (Piper 125).
If life was meant to be wasted, it wouldn’t have happened. Please don’t waste yours.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Obligitory Truth
Here's another essay. I was given the task of determining whether or not a memoirist is entitled to take creative license with their memoir. Hope you enjoy.
This argument, like every argument has two sides. The first side is justice, truth, and integrity -- a journalistic approach. The second side is art, ideas, and meaning -- a poetic approach. Authors have a choice to make about how they write their memoirs. They must decide which will take precedence, the story or the meaning of the story. Helen Epstein claims, “Because it is so strongly rooted in the specifics of time and place, memoir depends as much on accurate rendition of facts as on the writer’s intellectual and emotional honesty” (“As Best”). The author is forced by the genre, a genre they chose to write, a genre with borders and definition, to not only tell the story but make an emotional connection with the reader. The author must take a journalistic approach to the story to come up with the poetic meaning for the reader. If the foundation of the poetic meaning is false, the story fails and the reader is left betrayed.
Betrayal is avoided when truth is told. Vivian Gornick, the author of The Situation and the Story, disagrees when she writes, “What happened to the writer is not what matters; what matters is the large sense that the writer is able to make of what happened” (91). Unfortunately, readers don’t come to a memoir knowing nor expecting that. Gornick has first hand experience with this issue when in 2003 she admitted to composing characters, events and dialogue for her memoir Fierce Attachments. She defends her actions in an interview by saying, “This is a genre that requires a more educated readership. A memoir is a composition” (qtd. in Beer). Must a reader be educated to determine fact versus fiction? The problem is not with the reader’s education level or IQ but rather the reader’s expectations. If the reader expected fictional writing from the memoirists there wouldn’t be any discussion, but that is not why readers flock to memoirs, they come for truth. Readers read memoir because they long for someone’s real life experiences, and if those real life experiences are fiction, the rug has been torn out from under them.
The question is raised, why would an author want to do this? Why would an author purposely invent scenes, or characters in a memoir? Scott Eyman proposes, “Nobody wants to read the fourth book about the father who’s a drunk and the mother who can’t get off the couch, so the ante has to be upped. Before you know it, mom and dad are not just alcoholics, they’re molesting the children, then worshipping Satan” (“It’s My Story”). There certainly is nothing new under the sun in our day. Authors are retelling the same stories and are tempted for the sake of narrative and excitement to embellish a little here and fabricate a little there. It may make for a great read but its not a memoir, its not truth. Gornick writes, “The ability to make us believe that we know who is speaking is the trustworthy narrator achieved” (17). She is dead on. We can only believe the memoirist by what they have written in their book. The minute it is discovered that facts have been embellished and events contorted the memoirist’s hopes of being believable are dashed. Gornick violates her own idea when she composes and invents aspects of her memoir.
Another author that has garnered much ridicule for falsifying events in his memoir is James Frey, who wrote A Million Little Pieces, a story about his recovery from a life of crime, drugs and alcohol. Where Gornick composed characters and dialogue, Frey completely lied. When being interviewed on the Larry King Live show, Frey defended himself, “The book is 432 pages long. The total page count of disputed events is 18, which is less than five percent of the total book” (“James Frey”). His defense has holes to say the least. If its so little of the book, why embellish any of it? Such a miniscule portion of the book can’t change too much of the narrative, so why be dishonest to the readers that are assuming that all 432 pages are fact, and not 414. Frey continues, “It’s an individual’s perception of what happened in their own life. This is my recollection of my life” (“James Frey”). The problem is that the life presented in the book is not his life; it’s the life he wanted readers to be captivated by but not his. Tom Beer concludes, “Why would someone write a novel and then extend the fiction even further by creating a fictional author for it and hiring an actor to play the role in public?” he continues, “This much is certain: For confused readers, the boundary between storytelling and sheer make-believe has never seemed more indistinct” (“No Place”).
Embellishing facts for a tighter narrative is lazy writing. The memoirist is trying to engage the reader by making something sound better than it really was. A good memoirist is bound by truth and must come up with a way to creatively express it in a way that is both truthful and engaging, this is no easy task. Larry King questioned Frey about changing the location of a cut on his face, Frey responds, “It’s a lot easier than saying over and over again that I cut the area between my lower lip and my chin. You know, I believe that the essential truth of the event remains, there’s a large cut on my face” (“James Frey”). The essential truth is just that, the truth and not a version of what someone thinks of the truth. Does changing the location of a cut on his face really make the narrative tighter? Frey just couldn’t come up with a creative way to say he cut his lip.
Any time a memoirist falsifies events in their memoir, trust is violated. The reader has come to the book expecting an honest portrayal of the written events that have change the author into who they are. Vivian Gornick, and James Frey in different ways violated their readers’ trust and ultimately weren’t honest with themselves. Frey reflects, “I thought of myself as being tougher than I was and badder than I was-and it helped me cope. When I was writing the book…instead of being as introspective as I should have been, I clung to that image” (“James Frey Controversy”). Expecting integrity and honesty from people has become taboo these days. People lie, cheat and steal to succeed and when they’re caught it is explained away and blame shifted. Truth is not subjective, there is no grey area. James Frey and Vivian Gornick were more concerned with the story than the truth and in the end their readers suffered because of their expectations for the truth.
Obligatory Truth
When someone purchases, rents, or steals a book they are looking for something, something they can’t find in their own life. If they purchase a fantasy book, they want to escape and be taken to a different time and place. If they purchase a memoir they are longing to look into someone else’s life. They want to see the kind of experiences they’ve had and how those experiences have effected or even changed the author. Certain assumptions are made by the reader when they come to a book, whether it be fact or fiction. Readers of fantasy know they are not reading reality and therefore give the author license to create otherworldly and even unrealistic stories. Readers of memoir come to the book expecting to be drawn into a person’s life experiences and that those same experiences actually happened. It is memoirists’ duty and obligation to honor the reader’s expectations by telling the truth and refraining from composing or lying about aspects of their writing.This argument, like every argument has two sides. The first side is justice, truth, and integrity -- a journalistic approach. The second side is art, ideas, and meaning -- a poetic approach. Authors have a choice to make about how they write their memoirs. They must decide which will take precedence, the story or the meaning of the story. Helen Epstein claims, “Because it is so strongly rooted in the specifics of time and place, memoir depends as much on accurate rendition of facts as on the writer’s intellectual and emotional honesty” (“As Best”). The author is forced by the genre, a genre they chose to write, a genre with borders and definition, to not only tell the story but make an emotional connection with the reader. The author must take a journalistic approach to the story to come up with the poetic meaning for the reader. If the foundation of the poetic meaning is false, the story fails and the reader is left betrayed.
Betrayal is avoided when truth is told. Vivian Gornick, the author of The Situation and the Story, disagrees when she writes, “What happened to the writer is not what matters; what matters is the large sense that the writer is able to make of what happened” (91). Unfortunately, readers don’t come to a memoir knowing nor expecting that. Gornick has first hand experience with this issue when in 2003 she admitted to composing characters, events and dialogue for her memoir Fierce Attachments. She defends her actions in an interview by saying, “This is a genre that requires a more educated readership. A memoir is a composition” (qtd. in Beer). Must a reader be educated to determine fact versus fiction? The problem is not with the reader’s education level or IQ but rather the reader’s expectations. If the reader expected fictional writing from the memoirists there wouldn’t be any discussion, but that is not why readers flock to memoirs, they come for truth. Readers read memoir because they long for someone’s real life experiences, and if those real life experiences are fiction, the rug has been torn out from under them.
The question is raised, why would an author want to do this? Why would an author purposely invent scenes, or characters in a memoir? Scott Eyman proposes, “Nobody wants to read the fourth book about the father who’s a drunk and the mother who can’t get off the couch, so the ante has to be upped. Before you know it, mom and dad are not just alcoholics, they’re molesting the children, then worshipping Satan” (“It’s My Story”). There certainly is nothing new under the sun in our day. Authors are retelling the same stories and are tempted for the sake of narrative and excitement to embellish a little here and fabricate a little there. It may make for a great read but its not a memoir, its not truth. Gornick writes, “The ability to make us believe that we know who is speaking is the trustworthy narrator achieved” (17). She is dead on. We can only believe the memoirist by what they have written in their book. The minute it is discovered that facts have been embellished and events contorted the memoirist’s hopes of being believable are dashed. Gornick violates her own idea when she composes and invents aspects of her memoir.
Another author that has garnered much ridicule for falsifying events in his memoir is James Frey, who wrote A Million Little Pieces, a story about his recovery from a life of crime, drugs and alcohol. Where Gornick composed characters and dialogue, Frey completely lied. When being interviewed on the Larry King Live show, Frey defended himself, “The book is 432 pages long. The total page count of disputed events is 18, which is less than five percent of the total book” (“James Frey”). His defense has holes to say the least. If its so little of the book, why embellish any of it? Such a miniscule portion of the book can’t change too much of the narrative, so why be dishonest to the readers that are assuming that all 432 pages are fact, and not 414. Frey continues, “It’s an individual’s perception of what happened in their own life. This is my recollection of my life” (“James Frey”). The problem is that the life presented in the book is not his life; it’s the life he wanted readers to be captivated by but not his. Tom Beer concludes, “Why would someone write a novel and then extend the fiction even further by creating a fictional author for it and hiring an actor to play the role in public?” he continues, “This much is certain: For confused readers, the boundary between storytelling and sheer make-believe has never seemed more indistinct” (“No Place”).
Embellishing facts for a tighter narrative is lazy writing. The memoirist is trying to engage the reader by making something sound better than it really was. A good memoirist is bound by truth and must come up with a way to creatively express it in a way that is both truthful and engaging, this is no easy task. Larry King questioned Frey about changing the location of a cut on his face, Frey responds, “It’s a lot easier than saying over and over again that I cut the area between my lower lip and my chin. You know, I believe that the essential truth of the event remains, there’s a large cut on my face” (“James Frey”). The essential truth is just that, the truth and not a version of what someone thinks of the truth. Does changing the location of a cut on his face really make the narrative tighter? Frey just couldn’t come up with a creative way to say he cut his lip.
Any time a memoirist falsifies events in their memoir, trust is violated. The reader has come to the book expecting an honest portrayal of the written events that have change the author into who they are. Vivian Gornick, and James Frey in different ways violated their readers’ trust and ultimately weren’t honest with themselves. Frey reflects, “I thought of myself as being tougher than I was and badder than I was-and it helped me cope. When I was writing the book…instead of being as introspective as I should have been, I clung to that image” (“James Frey Controversy”). Expecting integrity and honesty from people has become taboo these days. People lie, cheat and steal to succeed and when they’re caught it is explained away and blame shifted. Truth is not subjective, there is no grey area. James Frey and Vivian Gornick were more concerned with the story than the truth and in the end their readers suffered because of their expectations for the truth.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Engaging the Truth
Here's another paper I had to write this quarter in my English 102 class. In no way do I support the smoking of hashish...
When I think of persona, I think of Tony Robbins. That strong personality, great presence and someone that everyone wants to be around, except for the people that think he’s a complete fool (in the case of Al Bundy, just skip straight to the fool). So when Gornick writes, “The unsurrogated narrator has the monumental task of transforming low-level self-interest into the kind of detached empathy required of a piece of writing that is to be of value to the disinterested reader” , the reader has to question themselves (Gornick 7). What makes a writing worth reading? Quite often it is the persona of the author. The way they write, how they write it, how they say it, that is what keeps the reader interested. Sanders, hooks the reader from the beginning when he writes, “My father drank. He drank as a gut-punched boxer gasps for breath, as a starving dog gobbles food—compulsively, secretly, in pain and trembling” (Sanders 734). From the first line Sanders’ persona grabs you and forces you to read on. He writes a sad sentence that speaks truth and draws the reader in to explore what Sanders is saying about his Dad and alcohol.
Benjamin takes on a different persona all together. His essay slowly takes the reader on a journey through Marseilles, France while he is trips on hashish. He writes, “In this city of hundreds of thousands where no one knows me, of not being disturbed, I lie on my bed. And yet I am disturbed, by a little child crying. I think three-quarters of an hour have passed. But it is only twenty minutes…So I lie on the bed, reading and smoking” (Benjamin 371). Where Sanders’ pacing is quick and deliberate Benjamin takes things slow, repetitive and expansive. Benjamin wants to experience Marseilles the only way he could, by himself. In a city where no one knows him, isolation is sought but unattainable. He wants a do not disturb sign on his life but the maid keeps knocking.
Both Sanders and Benjamin use a specific, orchestrated persona to open the eyes of the reader and keep them from closing. Benjamin is effective because he creates a dreamlike state. The reader is allowed to experience Marseilles in a trance with him. Sanders’ persona is one of detail, quickness, and scene painting. Each piece of imagery so precise that every one of his emotions is felt.
Sympathy for who or what an author is writing about helps make the author believable and worthy of reading. Gornick writes, “Where the narrator is presented as an innocent and the subject as a monster—the work fails because the situation remains static. For the drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent” (Gornick 35). No one wants to read an author complain about how horrible life is. Sanders shows sympathy for his father when he writes, “He would not hide the green bottles in his tool box, would not sneak off to the barn with a lump under his coat, would not fall asleep in the daylight, would not roar and fume, would not drink himself to death, if only I were perfect” (Sanders 734). While unhealthy, Sanders looks inside to see if there is anything he could have done to prevent his Dad from being an alcoholic. At then end of his essay, Sanders is looking at his relationship with his children and sees that he has replaced his father’s drinking with his overworking. He writes, “I write, therefore, to drag into the light what eats at me—the fear, the guilt, the shame—so that my own children may be spared” (Sanders 744). Sanders wants nothing more than the sins of his father not to be passed down to his children, but man is a creature of redundancy. Sanders has replaced alcohol with a different god.
Where Sanders’ substance is the cause of all that is wrong, Benjamin’s substance is the cause of all that is good. He writes in the final paragraph, “And when I recall this state I should like to believe that hashish persuades nature to permit us—for less egoistic purposes—that squandering of our own existence that we know in love” (Benjamin 375). Benjamin’s subject isn’t a person but rather the hashish itself. He is grateful to the hashish and that it makes less of him and more of love. The hashish frees him to experience not only Marseilles in a different way but also love itself. The hashish has given Benjamin the ability to see more in every situation and go deeper into his experience, deeper than the typical stoner could go. Benjamin’s sympathy not only helps him enjoy his night in Marseilles but it helps the reader go along with him. Benjamin does this all without preaching. He isn’t trying to convince the reader that illicit drugs will make life amazing. He shows that hashish gave him an amazing experience and shows his gratitude by showing sympathy towards it.
Detachment from the situation that the author is writing about helps provide perspective and do more than just tell a story. Gornick rehashes an assignment she once had in Cairo, Egypt where she struggled to write the story. She writes, ”On the one hand, the prose is an amazement of energy, crowded with description and response. On the other, the sentences are often rhetorical, the tone ejaculatory, the syntax overloaded” (Gornick 12). She couldn’t sit down and write what she wanted because she got too involved, she wasn’t able to pick out the story from inside the situation.
Sanders gets detachment not only from the time it took to grow up, but also by seeing that he is what he never wanted; just like his Dad. He writes about his relationship with his son, “He tells me that when I am gripped by sadness he feels responsible; he feels there must be something he can do to spring me from depression, to fix my life. And that crushing sense of responsibility is exactly what I felt at the age of ten in the face of my father’s drinking” (Sanders 744). Sanders’ detachment allows him to take a step back and look at what his life has been. When he looks at his life by writing the story, he feels the crushing weight of who he has become and what he has modeled for his children. Without detachment Sanders would be looking to blame his father instead of taking responsibility for what his children have become.
Benjamin’s detachment comes by his ability to look through his night in Marseilles as more than a drug fueled visit but rather an enlightened journey. He writes, “We go forward; but in so doing we not only discover the twists and turns of the cave, but also enjoy this pleasure of discovery against the background of the other, rhythmical bliss of unwinding the thread” (Benjamin 373). Existential thoughts don’t happen without reflection. Benjamin’s detachment helps him see something bigger than a mere hashish trip. He learned things about himself and the world around him. It is this that tells us the truth.
Almost Famous is a autobiographical film about director, Cameron Crowe’s teenage years, growing up fast as a rock journalist. In it, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character Lester Bangs, an acclaimed music critic is pleading with Crowe’s character. He says, ”You cannot make friends with the rock stars. That’s what’s important, if you’re a rock journalist…You have to make your reputation on being honest and unmerciful.” Like critics, authors have to be detached from their subjects in order to tell the truth. A critic can’t be in bed with the rock stars and tell them how terrible their music is. An author too must be completely honest and unmerciful even if it means implicating themselves in the blood bath.
The goal of every author is to reach the reader. Authors can do this in different ways, but authors must have persona, sympathy and detachment to reach the reader and keep the reader. Scott Russell Sanders’ and Walter Benjamin’s personas are often at opposite ends of the spectrum and still hook the reader through the thought and emotions in their words. The sympathy they have for their subjects causes them to read as insightful and contemplative instead of preachy and judging. The detachment that comes through soul searching, and looking at the big picture allows the reader to believe them and the truth they are expressing. These aspects of the authors’ writings show them as both engaging and honest reads.
Engaging the Truth
In The Situation and the Story, Vivian Gornick proposes many ideas about what makes a writing worthy of reading. Writing is one of the most subjective forms of art that exists today. What makes a piece of writing well written might make it poorly written to someone else. A filter has to be held up to the writing to determine whether or not the author is telling the truth. Gornick’s ideas will be the filter that the essays “Under the Influence” by Scott Russell Sanders and “Hashish in Marseilles” by Walter Benjamin, will be viewed through. In these essays, the authors’ personas, sympathy, and detachment keep the reader engaged and tell the story’s truths. When I think of persona, I think of Tony Robbins. That strong personality, great presence and someone that everyone wants to be around, except for the people that think he’s a complete fool (in the case of Al Bundy, just skip straight to the fool). So when Gornick writes, “The unsurrogated narrator has the monumental task of transforming low-level self-interest into the kind of detached empathy required of a piece of writing that is to be of value to the disinterested reader” , the reader has to question themselves (Gornick 7). What makes a writing worth reading? Quite often it is the persona of the author. The way they write, how they write it, how they say it, that is what keeps the reader interested. Sanders, hooks the reader from the beginning when he writes, “My father drank. He drank as a gut-punched boxer gasps for breath, as a starving dog gobbles food—compulsively, secretly, in pain and trembling” (Sanders 734). From the first line Sanders’ persona grabs you and forces you to read on. He writes a sad sentence that speaks truth and draws the reader in to explore what Sanders is saying about his Dad and alcohol.
Benjamin takes on a different persona all together. His essay slowly takes the reader on a journey through Marseilles, France while he is trips on hashish. He writes, “In this city of hundreds of thousands where no one knows me, of not being disturbed, I lie on my bed. And yet I am disturbed, by a little child crying. I think three-quarters of an hour have passed. But it is only twenty minutes…So I lie on the bed, reading and smoking” (Benjamin 371). Where Sanders’ pacing is quick and deliberate Benjamin takes things slow, repetitive and expansive. Benjamin wants to experience Marseilles the only way he could, by himself. In a city where no one knows him, isolation is sought but unattainable. He wants a do not disturb sign on his life but the maid keeps knocking.
Both Sanders and Benjamin use a specific, orchestrated persona to open the eyes of the reader and keep them from closing. Benjamin is effective because he creates a dreamlike state. The reader is allowed to experience Marseilles in a trance with him. Sanders’ persona is one of detail, quickness, and scene painting. Each piece of imagery so precise that every one of his emotions is felt.
Sympathy for who or what an author is writing about helps make the author believable and worthy of reading. Gornick writes, “Where the narrator is presented as an innocent and the subject as a monster—the work fails because the situation remains static. For the drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent” (Gornick 35). No one wants to read an author complain about how horrible life is. Sanders shows sympathy for his father when he writes, “He would not hide the green bottles in his tool box, would not sneak off to the barn with a lump under his coat, would not fall asleep in the daylight, would not roar and fume, would not drink himself to death, if only I were perfect” (Sanders 734). While unhealthy, Sanders looks inside to see if there is anything he could have done to prevent his Dad from being an alcoholic. At then end of his essay, Sanders is looking at his relationship with his children and sees that he has replaced his father’s drinking with his overworking. He writes, “I write, therefore, to drag into the light what eats at me—the fear, the guilt, the shame—so that my own children may be spared” (Sanders 744). Sanders wants nothing more than the sins of his father not to be passed down to his children, but man is a creature of redundancy. Sanders has replaced alcohol with a different god.
Where Sanders’ substance is the cause of all that is wrong, Benjamin’s substance is the cause of all that is good. He writes in the final paragraph, “And when I recall this state I should like to believe that hashish persuades nature to permit us—for less egoistic purposes—that squandering of our own existence that we know in love” (Benjamin 375). Benjamin’s subject isn’t a person but rather the hashish itself. He is grateful to the hashish and that it makes less of him and more of love. The hashish frees him to experience not only Marseilles in a different way but also love itself. The hashish has given Benjamin the ability to see more in every situation and go deeper into his experience, deeper than the typical stoner could go. Benjamin’s sympathy not only helps him enjoy his night in Marseilles but it helps the reader go along with him. Benjamin does this all without preaching. He isn’t trying to convince the reader that illicit drugs will make life amazing. He shows that hashish gave him an amazing experience and shows his gratitude by showing sympathy towards it.
Detachment from the situation that the author is writing about helps provide perspective and do more than just tell a story. Gornick rehashes an assignment she once had in Cairo, Egypt where she struggled to write the story. She writes, ”On the one hand, the prose is an amazement of energy, crowded with description and response. On the other, the sentences are often rhetorical, the tone ejaculatory, the syntax overloaded” (Gornick 12). She couldn’t sit down and write what she wanted because she got too involved, she wasn’t able to pick out the story from inside the situation.
Sanders gets detachment not only from the time it took to grow up, but also by seeing that he is what he never wanted; just like his Dad. He writes about his relationship with his son, “He tells me that when I am gripped by sadness he feels responsible; he feels there must be something he can do to spring me from depression, to fix my life. And that crushing sense of responsibility is exactly what I felt at the age of ten in the face of my father’s drinking” (Sanders 744). Sanders’ detachment allows him to take a step back and look at what his life has been. When he looks at his life by writing the story, he feels the crushing weight of who he has become and what he has modeled for his children. Without detachment Sanders would be looking to blame his father instead of taking responsibility for what his children have become.
Benjamin’s detachment comes by his ability to look through his night in Marseilles as more than a drug fueled visit but rather an enlightened journey. He writes, “We go forward; but in so doing we not only discover the twists and turns of the cave, but also enjoy this pleasure of discovery against the background of the other, rhythmical bliss of unwinding the thread” (Benjamin 373). Existential thoughts don’t happen without reflection. Benjamin’s detachment helps him see something bigger than a mere hashish trip. He learned things about himself and the world around him. It is this that tells us the truth.
Almost Famous is a autobiographical film about director, Cameron Crowe’s teenage years, growing up fast as a rock journalist. In it, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character Lester Bangs, an acclaimed music critic is pleading with Crowe’s character. He says, ”You cannot make friends with the rock stars. That’s what’s important, if you’re a rock journalist…You have to make your reputation on being honest and unmerciful.” Like critics, authors have to be detached from their subjects in order to tell the truth. A critic can’t be in bed with the rock stars and tell them how terrible their music is. An author too must be completely honest and unmerciful even if it means implicating themselves in the blood bath.
The goal of every author is to reach the reader. Authors can do this in different ways, but authors must have persona, sympathy and detachment to reach the reader and keep the reader. Scott Russell Sanders’ and Walter Benjamin’s personas are often at opposite ends of the spectrum and still hook the reader through the thought and emotions in their words. The sympathy they have for their subjects causes them to read as insightful and contemplative instead of preachy and judging. The detachment that comes through soul searching, and looking at the big picture allows the reader to believe them and the truth they are expressing. These aspects of the authors’ writings show them as both engaging and honest reads.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Mr. President
I've seen or heard this clip several times now and it still stops me in my tracks. I'm thankful for John Piper's voice and his humility towards the issue of abortion.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Television: The Plug-In Drug
Marie Winn, in her essay “Television: The Plug-In Drug” writes about the history of the television and its effects on families since it was introduced to our homes. She conveys that the television was initially seen as a great benefit to families by bringing them closer together. However, as society and television evolved it started becoming more and more obvious that the television was driving families to opposite ends of the home rather than gathering them together on the sofa. Now, families are hooked on a drug they can’t kick, because it allows them to avoid their problems and sometimes create new ones.
“Kill Your Television”. You’ve all seen the bumper sticker. Today, killing your television may actually be possible. Your television promises glimpses into reality by allowing you to watching people live in a house with strangers, or by watching people trying to survive on an island with nothing but their cunning to keep them alive (except for the crazy obstacle course in the jungle that can save them for another day). You can also take your TV with you wherever you go through the miracle of mobile phones. Have to go to work? Not a problem. Just pull out your phone and watch today’s edition of One Life to Live in the comfort of your cubicle. Television has become an almost living and breathing organism that is such a part of all of our daily lives that it has become another member of our families. Rather than slaying the TV beast, people and families are being murdered in their living rooms.
The television is such an integral part of American family life that it would be a miracle to think about the American family without it. The average American’s need for TV is almost staggering. Winn writes, “the medium has become so deeply ingrained in daily life that in many states the TV set has attained the range of a legal necessity, safe from repossession in case of debt along with the clothes and cooking utensils” (457). Is this scary to anyone else? Clothing could keep you alive if you were trapped in the woods eating bugs and tree branches. I could understand the need for cooking utensils as a necessity because in order to eat, some kind of utensils are needed, but the TV, why the TV? It just doesn’t even sound right. Clothes, check. Cooking utensils, check. TV, oh thank God they didn’t take that, check! We have become so reliant on it as if it was our life support and it was the only thing keeping us alive. Without the nightly news we’d never know what was going on, without the Daily Show we’d never laugh. One would never think about picking up a book or newspaper to learn about something. The fine art of trying is a thing of the past. All we have to do is hit the power button and use our thumb. We can claim that we’re learning or investing in something important but if asked about what we watched the night before, many of us would fail to remember. It wasn’t because it wasn’t interesting or we didn’t learn something but because there was no effort involved.
What is on TV isn’t even necessarily important to us anymore, especially our kids, they just need the security of the noise coming from the big black box. Maybe their parents don’t listen to them when they try and share or maybe their parents aren’t even around. Parents know that the TV is always there for the child if they can’t be. Winn writes, “They (kids) watch their favorite programs, and when there is “nothing much on I really like,” they watch whatever else is on – because watching is the important thing” (460). Barney cares about the child. You know the song, “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family”. Why wouldn’t a child want to be part of that. Without the white noise coming from the other room, parents might actually have to raise the kids themselves. It’s ok though, if the program that makes them feel the most comfortable isn’t on, it doesn’t matter; they can watch an infomercial with Billy Mays and be enraptured with how interested he is in their needs and interests.
Kids aren’t the only ones that rely on Television for an escape though. Adults are just as guilty as using TV as a coping mechanism. TV has made it so easy for parents to just plop the kids down in front of it and go about their lives without the demands of the pesky kids running around. Winn describes a scene of the kids watching the TV while a couple enjoy a peaceful meal together, “surely the needs of the adults in that family were being better met than the needs of the children. The kids were effectively shunted away and rendered untroublesome, while their parents enjoyed a life as undemanding as that of any childless couple” (460).We’ve all seen the mother ignoring her child as she continues a conversation with another adult, totally unaware that little Billy is about to jump out of the shopping cart and land on his head. Parents can be totally unaware of the fact they have children and then when they realize that they have a child and have to care for it, it ticks them off. It’s almost as if they had nothing to with the child coming into existence, it just showed up in their house one day and now they’re really annoyed that they have to deal with it. The child is yours! Billy needs parents to love him and actually care about him. What if parents didn’t have a TV to babysit their kids? What if parents realized that the moment they became parents their goals in life changed forever. Their job became raising up the child to contribute to society, to respect others, and to learn about hard work. Are the parents exhibiting these traits by sitting the kids down in front of the TV while they enjoy a nice meal together? No, they’re taking the easy way and only thinking about their own well being and happiness and ignoring the child’s needs and desires.
Human nature is lazy and selfish. We are all like this. Paint us all with the same brush, there is no escaping ourselves. This laziness and selfishness becomes very evident in a family situation where things outside of the home have caused additional stress such as divorce, job loss or financial troubles. When the Television is added to this fragile situation the effects can be frightening. Winn writes, “the medium’s dominant role in the family serves to anesthetize parents into accepting their family’s diminished state and prevents them from struggling to regain some of the richness the family once possessed” (465). It is the role of the parents to pursue the kids and draw them out, and not be drawn to the one thing that may be causing all the damage in the first place. Parenting is a responsibility that a lot of parents don’t understand and shift that responsibility over to a black box. Dad used to come home and want to play with the kids and tell them what he did that day. He longed to visit with his wife and see what her day was like. Unfortunately, now he just comes home and plops himself down in front of the TV and zones out. It wasn’t always like this. The kids felt the richness of being in a family that loved each other, a richness that couldn’t have been replaced with anything. As Dad started to model to his kids what relaxing and comfort looked like, they began to pursue the same outlets and eventually the whole family got hooked.
The selfishness and laziness that we all have breeds a state of unconsciousness in a family. Life goes by outside the window while we get distracted by the next “Biggest Loser”. Parents become unaware that the TV is doing their job and kids are unaware that they are worshiping a plugged in piece of electronics. What we worship takes our time, and our money. Americans spend more on TVs than most people in third world countries make in a year. Then once we get the perfect TV, we sit and stare at it like we’re waiting for it to ask us how our day was. Winn writes, “In spite of everything, the American family muddles on, dimly aware that something is amiss but distracted from an understanding of its plight by an endless stream of television images” (465). Images come to mind of Alex from the film A Clockwork Orange sitting in front of all those disturbing images with his eye lids pried open, unable to close them. The only difference being that he didn’t want to be there, we however willingly subject ourselves to the influx of millions of images every week. We crave watching people hurt themselves; we crave other people’s misfortunes. The happy ending will someday be replaced by the divorce and splitting up of the assets. Kids need parents though. Parents who care enough about them to not let the TV raise them, no matter how educational the program is. Nothing can replace the interaction between a parent and child if done in love. Parents are real people. An actor on Sesame Street doesn’t know your child’s problems or what they learned in school that day. A parent can ask specific questions and find out what makes their child special and different from any other child. They can learn to love that child for who he or she is. To a TV program, a child is just a customer that they’re trying to please, and they’ll do almost anything to get the child hooked.
What is the Television turning families into and what will become of the family in the years to come? Kids come home, grab something to eat from the refrigerator, sit down on the couch or their bed and turn on TV for the next couple of hours. Parents get home, yell at the kids for not doing their homework, and tell them to come get their dinner before it gets cold. They take it back to their rooms, pretend to do their homework and fall asleep. This cycle is endless. What if the TV wasn’t the most important household appliance in the house? Imagine a child coming home from school, ignoring his homework to play outside with all the other kids whose parent’s decided the TV was tearing their families apart and got rid of it. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening anytime soon because we and our future generations are hooked on a drug that there isn’t a support group for. A drug that feels better than any hallucinogenic or upper, it’s a drug that knows us, speaks to us, and numbs us while the outside world just floats by.
“Kill Your Television”. You’ve all seen the bumper sticker. Today, killing your television may actually be possible. Your television promises glimpses into reality by allowing you to watching people live in a house with strangers, or by watching people trying to survive on an island with nothing but their cunning to keep them alive (except for the crazy obstacle course in the jungle that can save them for another day). You can also take your TV with you wherever you go through the miracle of mobile phones. Have to go to work? Not a problem. Just pull out your phone and watch today’s edition of One Life to Live in the comfort of your cubicle. Television has become an almost living and breathing organism that is such a part of all of our daily lives that it has become another member of our families. Rather than slaying the TV beast, people and families are being murdered in their living rooms.
The television is such an integral part of American family life that it would be a miracle to think about the American family without it. The average American’s need for TV is almost staggering. Winn writes, “the medium has become so deeply ingrained in daily life that in many states the TV set has attained the range of a legal necessity, safe from repossession in case of debt along with the clothes and cooking utensils” (457). Is this scary to anyone else? Clothing could keep you alive if you were trapped in the woods eating bugs and tree branches. I could understand the need for cooking utensils as a necessity because in order to eat, some kind of utensils are needed, but the TV, why the TV? It just doesn’t even sound right. Clothes, check. Cooking utensils, check. TV, oh thank God they didn’t take that, check! We have become so reliant on it as if it was our life support and it was the only thing keeping us alive. Without the nightly news we’d never know what was going on, without the Daily Show we’d never laugh. One would never think about picking up a book or newspaper to learn about something. The fine art of trying is a thing of the past. All we have to do is hit the power button and use our thumb. We can claim that we’re learning or investing in something important but if asked about what we watched the night before, many of us would fail to remember. It wasn’t because it wasn’t interesting or we didn’t learn something but because there was no effort involved.
What is on TV isn’t even necessarily important to us anymore, especially our kids, they just need the security of the noise coming from the big black box. Maybe their parents don’t listen to them when they try and share or maybe their parents aren’t even around. Parents know that the TV is always there for the child if they can’t be. Winn writes, “They (kids) watch their favorite programs, and when there is “nothing much on I really like,” they watch whatever else is on – because watching is the important thing” (460). Barney cares about the child. You know the song, “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family”. Why wouldn’t a child want to be part of that. Without the white noise coming from the other room, parents might actually have to raise the kids themselves. It’s ok though, if the program that makes them feel the most comfortable isn’t on, it doesn’t matter; they can watch an infomercial with Billy Mays and be enraptured with how interested he is in their needs and interests.
Kids aren’t the only ones that rely on Television for an escape though. Adults are just as guilty as using TV as a coping mechanism. TV has made it so easy for parents to just plop the kids down in front of it and go about their lives without the demands of the pesky kids running around. Winn describes a scene of the kids watching the TV while a couple enjoy a peaceful meal together, “surely the needs of the adults in that family were being better met than the needs of the children. The kids were effectively shunted away and rendered untroublesome, while their parents enjoyed a life as undemanding as that of any childless couple” (460).We’ve all seen the mother ignoring her child as she continues a conversation with another adult, totally unaware that little Billy is about to jump out of the shopping cart and land on his head. Parents can be totally unaware of the fact they have children and then when they realize that they have a child and have to care for it, it ticks them off. It’s almost as if they had nothing to with the child coming into existence, it just showed up in their house one day and now they’re really annoyed that they have to deal with it. The child is yours! Billy needs parents to love him and actually care about him. What if parents didn’t have a TV to babysit their kids? What if parents realized that the moment they became parents their goals in life changed forever. Their job became raising up the child to contribute to society, to respect others, and to learn about hard work. Are the parents exhibiting these traits by sitting the kids down in front of the TV while they enjoy a nice meal together? No, they’re taking the easy way and only thinking about their own well being and happiness and ignoring the child’s needs and desires.
Human nature is lazy and selfish. We are all like this. Paint us all with the same brush, there is no escaping ourselves. This laziness and selfishness becomes very evident in a family situation where things outside of the home have caused additional stress such as divorce, job loss or financial troubles. When the Television is added to this fragile situation the effects can be frightening. Winn writes, “the medium’s dominant role in the family serves to anesthetize parents into accepting their family’s diminished state and prevents them from struggling to regain some of the richness the family once possessed” (465). It is the role of the parents to pursue the kids and draw them out, and not be drawn to the one thing that may be causing all the damage in the first place. Parenting is a responsibility that a lot of parents don’t understand and shift that responsibility over to a black box. Dad used to come home and want to play with the kids and tell them what he did that day. He longed to visit with his wife and see what her day was like. Unfortunately, now he just comes home and plops himself down in front of the TV and zones out. It wasn’t always like this. The kids felt the richness of being in a family that loved each other, a richness that couldn’t have been replaced with anything. As Dad started to model to his kids what relaxing and comfort looked like, they began to pursue the same outlets and eventually the whole family got hooked.
The selfishness and laziness that we all have breeds a state of unconsciousness in a family. Life goes by outside the window while we get distracted by the next “Biggest Loser”. Parents become unaware that the TV is doing their job and kids are unaware that they are worshiping a plugged in piece of electronics. What we worship takes our time, and our money. Americans spend more on TVs than most people in third world countries make in a year. Then once we get the perfect TV, we sit and stare at it like we’re waiting for it to ask us how our day was. Winn writes, “In spite of everything, the American family muddles on, dimly aware that something is amiss but distracted from an understanding of its plight by an endless stream of television images” (465). Images come to mind of Alex from the film A Clockwork Orange sitting in front of all those disturbing images with his eye lids pried open, unable to close them. The only difference being that he didn’t want to be there, we however willingly subject ourselves to the influx of millions of images every week. We crave watching people hurt themselves; we crave other people’s misfortunes. The happy ending will someday be replaced by the divorce and splitting up of the assets. Kids need parents though. Parents who care enough about them to not let the TV raise them, no matter how educational the program is. Nothing can replace the interaction between a parent and child if done in love. Parents are real people. An actor on Sesame Street doesn’t know your child’s problems or what they learned in school that day. A parent can ask specific questions and find out what makes their child special and different from any other child. They can learn to love that child for who he or she is. To a TV program, a child is just a customer that they’re trying to please, and they’ll do almost anything to get the child hooked.
What is the Television turning families into and what will become of the family in the years to come? Kids come home, grab something to eat from the refrigerator, sit down on the couch or their bed and turn on TV for the next couple of hours. Parents get home, yell at the kids for not doing their homework, and tell them to come get their dinner before it gets cold. They take it back to their rooms, pretend to do their homework and fall asleep. This cycle is endless. What if the TV wasn’t the most important household appliance in the house? Imagine a child coming home from school, ignoring his homework to play outside with all the other kids whose parent’s decided the TV was tearing their families apart and got rid of it. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening anytime soon because we and our future generations are hooked on a drug that there isn’t a support group for. A drug that feels better than any hallucinogenic or upper, it’s a drug that knows us, speaks to us, and numbs us while the outside world just floats by.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Put Your Pants On
Where’s your pants? Why are you just sitting there? Your baby is crying, your wife needs help with the dishes. Put down that porn magazine, turn off your Xbox and put your pants on, please, your family is depending on you, society is depending on you, we’re all depending on you to be the man you’re supposed to be. You might be asking yourself, “What does it mean to be a man?” Dictionaries define a man as someone who is an adult male person, as distinguished from a boy or a woman. “Well, that’s me” you say. Wrong, boys run around in their underwear, playing video games and have a mommy and a boy is what you are. Don’t worry though, you’re not alone, there are millions of “men” just like you, sitting at home while their wife works her two jobs, too lazy to get a job and provide for your family, sucking on the teet of society. Thank God Obama got elected, now you can get your stimulus check and buy some more video games. Go ahead and stimulate that economy!
Men are like trucks. We need a weight on our shoulders to feel important and to drive straight. Without that load we’re all squirrely and stop at every rest stop along the way. Whether it be the strip club, the hot chick walking down the street, or the hottest new video game since World of Warcraft, we are easily distracted from what we’re supposed to be doing. That weight is ours and we’re not supposed to transfer that weight to our wives and kids. They need us, they want us to lead them. If you are not providing for your family financially and emotionally you’re not only failing them but society also.
A woman gets up at 6am, gets ready for work, cooks breakfast for her husband and the kids. A beautiful picture of a home right? What I didn’t tell you is that her husband is still asleep on the couch from a long night of Halo 3. Why does she have to do this? Why is she providing the physical, emotional and financial needs for the whole family, including the husband? Why is she compensating for his laziness? This is killing the family. The kids might have a great time with Dad but its only because he knows how to play all their favorite video games. When they need someone to have a serious conversation with, they immediately go to Mom because she’s got her head on straight and a certain amount of wisdom that they don’t pickup from the Dad. They can’t respect him if he’s just on older child. They need someone to be a Dad. Someone that works hard, shows them the right way to live and teaches them what it means to be a respectful adult. Unfortunately, he’s wasted it because he’s just another kid for the wife to take care of.
Or maybe the husband has a job but the wife works too. They both go to work early and come home late. The kids never see them because they drop them off at daycare all day. Trying to keep up with the Jones’, this is just the way it has to be. Times are tough, and they need the extra money. Unfortunately, if the wife isn’t pulling in $30-50k a year, they aren’t making any extra money at all. When daycare, work clothing, car expenses, and taxes all get factored in, things start to add up. Maybe the husband should get a second job and have the wife stay home and raise the kids, because this is often overlooked as an important job in itself. Who better to raise them than the woman who birthed them? The weight of providing financially should be on his shoulders not hers, he needs the weight to drive straight.
Marriages and home life haven’t always been like this. Men used to be the sole provider for their families. They used to go to work all day, come home and play with the kids, have dinner with the family and actually care about what their wife did during the day. They longed to spend time with their wives because they loved them and didn’t see them as an asset to be exploited. What happened? Why isn’t this the case anymore? The history of dating can help to shed some light on what caused men to stop and women to start providing for their families. The typical date nowadays starts by the man picking up the woman in his car from her place or maybe even her parent’s place. Then they head out to dinner, where he lets her pay her half of the bill. Then go to a movie, where she buys her own popcorn and soda. Why does she have to pay for anything? This pattern starts on the first date and continues throughout the relationship. The term “date” was a term prostitutes used for their “hook ups”. Instead of dating, couples used to court each other. The boy would go to the girls’ house, have dinner with the family and that’s it. This would continue until the parents agreed that the boy was suitable for their daughter. Then the car was invented. Boys could take the girl out, buy them dinner and go to movies. After dinner and a movie, the woman often felt obligated to give sex in return for the entertainment. How is that unlike prostitution? Sex in exchange for goods. The women start paying their way so they don’t owe the men anything. Men weren’t under the supervision of parents so they felt entitled to do whatever they wanted to or with the girls, whether it be rape, abuse, or just a little demeaning of the woman, men thought they deserved something and would do whatever they wanted to get what the wanted. In response, the women’s movement started gaining steam to protect women from this gross mistreatment and to give them equal rights as the men. Women are indeed equal to men and if the men had treated them as women instead of pets that they could do whatever they wanted to with, a lot of the women’s movement would have been unnecessary. The women’s movement has come far, unfortunately, men are still looking for an easy lay and a nice piece of meat for their arm, driving the man and woman further apart.
Where would we be today if all men were hard working dudes. If a man woke up before his whole family, worked hard all day and came home to play with his kids and love his wife, we wouldn’t face nearly as many welfare situations, kids wouldn’t grow up as part of the system but rather as part of a family where they knew they were loved and could respect their father rather than wish he wasn’t alive. These kids are our future. We have to pour into them. It’s not that a mother is incapable of working but that a father is more respectable when he is. If a man can’t be respected by his own family, what benefit can he be to society?
In society today there is so much emphasis on our future. You’ll hear things like “go green”, “reduce your carbon footprint” or “we can’t let our future generations inherit our mess”. All these things are true and we must act and act now but not by supporting companies that are carbon neutral but by giving children Dads who work hard at their jobs, can’t wait to come home and play with them, and who look to serve their wives above the call of duty. These traits have to be passed on to our children or they are doomed to repeat our mistakes. Doomed to mistake boys for men. Men should be distinguishable from boys, they should be the men their families need. So men, please, take off the sweats and put on some pants with a zipper.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Can Sesame Street Raise My Kid for Me?
Had an interesting discussion in my English 101 class today. Apparently, Sesame street is about to unveil an HIV positive Muppet in Africa for kids to learn tolerance towards people with HIV. Education about HIV doesn't seem to be the problem but more the stigma that goes along with having HIV. The Muppet will teach kids tolerance and an understanding of the sickness. This raises some interesting questions. Should TV be teaching our kids? What are parents doing while the TV is teaching their kids? I know not all of these questions apply directly to the situation in Africa where by next year there will be almost 2 million orphans due to the AIDS epidemic. But is it ok, in certain situations for television to teach our kids? A child will undoubtedly learn from a television, whether we like it or not but is it OK for parents to substitute teaching a child about HIV or anything for a TV to teach a child?
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
And Then There Were Three
Night had finally come to a sunless day. The sound of my wallet and keys hitting the bedside table and my shoes hitting the back wall of the closet were all too familiar. “Where are my sweats?” I said to myself. It had been an especially long day and another long day was coming quick in the morning. On top of all this I was trying to murder a cold that wouldn’t go away. I’d had it for almost two weeks and sleep was the only thing I wanted. I needed help, adrenaline was still flowing through my veins like a time lapsed freeway. Gulp. Down went the Nyquil. Not ten minutes after taking the Nyquil and my head hitting the pillow, my wife Liz calmly but sharply said, “Whoa, I think that was a real one.” She had the look of someone that had just been stabbed in the stomach and wasn’t really sure whether or not to pull the knife out or leave it in. I wanted to pull the knife out for her but there was no stopping my eyelids; they were going down.
A couple of short hours after falling asleep, Liz woke me up. The earthquakes were getting closer together. We’d never been pregnant before so we didn’t really know what to do. The breathing classes don’t prepare you for the real thing. We’d never had any “how to give birth” drills in elementary school and reading a book or watching a birth video seemed incredibly inadequate at this point. I was just trying to wake up let alone prepare for the birth of my son. We told each other, “The doctor should know what to do, shouldn’t she?” It was the middle of the night so our doctor would be paged and then call us back. Those 15 minutes lasted forever. The air in the house was getting harder to breath. “Lungs should be working; I’m not a Marlboro man.” I thought. Was this it or were we just nervous rookies up at our first major league at bat. I can still hear the doctor calmly saying, “Well, I think you should head to the hospital”. To counter her calmness, I started running around the house, picking up anything that we might need just in case we got lost on a deserted island somewhere between our house and the hospital. We grabbed the diaper bag, our five cases of luggage and some snacks and were on our way.
The short trip to the hospital was like something out of a George Romero movie, minus the walking dead people. It was pouring down rain. The cemetery across the street from the hospital seemed a bit too obvious. Life and death were battling in the street. It was pitch black, and there was almost no one on the roads. Perfectly selected birth music and Liz’s short, pain filled breaths filled the car. We were on the adventure into parenthood all by ourselves.
Checking into the hospital moved quickly once the nurse heard Liz have one of her contractions. “Ok, we can do this paperwork later” she said. Once we got into our room, time sped up. Everything was coming at us in light speed, like when Marty McFly hit 88 mph. Nurses were hooking Liz up to all kinds of machines. One of them must have been a flux capacitor. I was filling out the paperwork…life was getting blurry. Who am I, when was I born, what’s my address, am I a US citizen?
The room itself was clean; clean like a hospital should be. The nurse was so routine about everything. She asked questions that you’d ask a statistic, “How are you feeling? On of a scale of 1 to 10, rate your pain.” Didn’t she understand? We were about to have our first kid and she’s talking to us like nothing is going on. I wanted to grab her by the neck of her flowery scrubs and shake some sense into her, fortunately for her and my criminal record; I was too tired to make that move.
I was a zombie, walking around on Nyquil, just trying to stay standing. Where had the sleep I so desperately needed gone to? Liz was pacing the room just trying to manage. She couldn’t lie down because someone had put knives in her back and you can’t sleep while you’re standing. “We’re pregnant” had a whole new meaning.
Several painful hours had passed and it was late morning. Suddenly, Liz had the urge to throw up. She did, which seemed unexpected. I knew that a there’s a lot of juices during a delivery but for some reason I hadn’t counted on vomit being one of them. Soon after I noticed more nurses and equipment coming into the room. I felt like everyone knew something that I didn’t. I asked one of the nurses,
“Are we getting close or something?”
She replied, “When the fluids start flying, it’s usually a good indicator”.
I definitely needed a breather. I sat down and my head went immediately into my hands. I was about to have a baby. I was about to be responsible for another human being. I could handle being responsible for my wife; she’s an adult, but a helpless little baby, that was a whole new ballgame. Whether it was the thought of feeding every 15 minutes or sending my baby to college, I just wasn’t sure I was cut out for this. My baby was going to need me more than any other person in the world. I never thought that being needed would be so frightening. I could feel myself breaking out. I needed a walk.
Down the hallway I ran into members of our families that had somehow shown up and were sitting in the lobby. The nervousness mixed with excitement on their faces was so clear it was almost written. Parents were about to become grandparents for the first time, brothers and sisters turning to aunts and uncles. The seasons were changing for all of us. Winter was about to become spring. Life was coming and there was nothing that we could do to stop it.
After an update for the family I found myself back in the room amidst chaos. Liz had started pushing. 88 mph seemed like nothing now. Hours flew by. Tears and screams of “I can’t do this anymore!” were commonplace but somehow with every contraction she continued to push harder and harder. I saw her then as the woman I had met three years earlier and was reminded of why I love her. I knew her as the strong woman who grew up moving every couple of years and living on her own in a foreign country. This was a whole new kind of strong that I’d never seen in her before. I was convinced now that she was not only made for me but also made to be a mother.
The screams of “PUSH!” began filling the room. Trying to be optimistic and not lie is very difficult to do. I honestly did think our baby was almost out. His head had been visible for over an hour and I was sure that it was just a matter of time until we were holding our baby in our arms. Three hours had passed and our arms were still empty. I was beginning to question whether this baby was ever going to get here. Liz’s face was drenched in sweat and her pushes were becoming weaker and weaker. I wanted this to be over, not for myself but for Liz. “Come on baby, almost here!” I yelled over and over again with every contraction. I didn’t know how much longer she could keep this up and I wasn’t sure if she would.
Suddenly, as if God himself had come down and told our baby to come out, my son appeared. My, son. I have a son. Tears filling my eyes, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or curl up in the fetal position. Somebody flipped a switch that turned on an indescribable joy. Warmth came over my body that carried with it a desire to be a father. I looked at my son as he lie on my wife’s chest, he was perfect. He was covered in goo, had a wookie like cone head and his nose was flattened, but he was perfect. He looked like he just went 12 rounds. I was waiting for him to yell out “Adrian!”
“Is his nose normal?” I asked one of the nurses with an equal amount of worry and fear in my voice.
“Oh, yeah. A lot of the time their noses actually get broken on the way out.” She said.
I did a quick check for all ten fingers and ten toes, they were all there. He could have been Sigourney Weaver’s alien baby and I wouldn’t have cared, nothing was going to convince me that my boy wasn’t perfect.
We spent the next couple of days at the hospital admiring our new baby boy. We named him Jonas. We were constantly trying to figure out what each different sounding cry meant in between diaper changes that occur every 3.4 seconds. It seemed as if every five minutes someone new would come into our room asking us if we wanted to run tests on him or take pictures of him. I just wanted to be alone with my boy. Frustration reached its peak when I had the urge to bite the photographer’s head off. I just wanted to get home and sleep. I could hear my bed calling my name.
I headed to the hospital that night desperate for sleep. I go to bed every night still desperate for sleep, a sleep that never comes. It’s been seven weeks and I’m not convinced that life is never going to be the same for us. Our son is going to grow up and become an adult and we are responsible for how responsible he is. We’re responsible for the kind of dad he will be one day. The weight of this hits me every time that I hold him. It is a weight that I wouldn’t give away for anything in the world. The weight is a gift.
A couple of short hours after falling asleep, Liz woke me up. The earthquakes were getting closer together. We’d never been pregnant before so we didn’t really know what to do. The breathing classes don’t prepare you for the real thing. We’d never had any “how to give birth” drills in elementary school and reading a book or watching a birth video seemed incredibly inadequate at this point. I was just trying to wake up let alone prepare for the birth of my son. We told each other, “The doctor should know what to do, shouldn’t she?” It was the middle of the night so our doctor would be paged and then call us back. Those 15 minutes lasted forever. The air in the house was getting harder to breath. “Lungs should be working; I’m not a Marlboro man.” I thought. Was this it or were we just nervous rookies up at our first major league at bat. I can still hear the doctor calmly saying, “Well, I think you should head to the hospital”. To counter her calmness, I started running around the house, picking up anything that we might need just in case we got lost on a deserted island somewhere between our house and the hospital. We grabbed the diaper bag, our five cases of luggage and some snacks and were on our way.
The short trip to the hospital was like something out of a George Romero movie, minus the walking dead people. It was pouring down rain. The cemetery across the street from the hospital seemed a bit too obvious. Life and death were battling in the street. It was pitch black, and there was almost no one on the roads. Perfectly selected birth music and Liz’s short, pain filled breaths filled the car. We were on the adventure into parenthood all by ourselves.
Checking into the hospital moved quickly once the nurse heard Liz have one of her contractions. “Ok, we can do this paperwork later” she said. Once we got into our room, time sped up. Everything was coming at us in light speed, like when Marty McFly hit 88 mph. Nurses were hooking Liz up to all kinds of machines. One of them must have been a flux capacitor. I was filling out the paperwork…life was getting blurry. Who am I, when was I born, what’s my address, am I a US citizen?
The room itself was clean; clean like a hospital should be. The nurse was so routine about everything. She asked questions that you’d ask a statistic, “How are you feeling? On of a scale of 1 to 10, rate your pain.” Didn’t she understand? We were about to have our first kid and she’s talking to us like nothing is going on. I wanted to grab her by the neck of her flowery scrubs and shake some sense into her, fortunately for her and my criminal record; I was too tired to make that move.
I was a zombie, walking around on Nyquil, just trying to stay standing. Where had the sleep I so desperately needed gone to? Liz was pacing the room just trying to manage. She couldn’t lie down because someone had put knives in her back and you can’t sleep while you’re standing. “We’re pregnant” had a whole new meaning.
Several painful hours had passed and it was late morning. Suddenly, Liz had the urge to throw up. She did, which seemed unexpected. I knew that a there’s a lot of juices during a delivery but for some reason I hadn’t counted on vomit being one of them. Soon after I noticed more nurses and equipment coming into the room. I felt like everyone knew something that I didn’t. I asked one of the nurses,
“Are we getting close or something?”
She replied, “When the fluids start flying, it’s usually a good indicator”.
I definitely needed a breather. I sat down and my head went immediately into my hands. I was about to have a baby. I was about to be responsible for another human being. I could handle being responsible for my wife; she’s an adult, but a helpless little baby, that was a whole new ballgame. Whether it was the thought of feeding every 15 minutes or sending my baby to college, I just wasn’t sure I was cut out for this. My baby was going to need me more than any other person in the world. I never thought that being needed would be so frightening. I could feel myself breaking out. I needed a walk.
Down the hallway I ran into members of our families that had somehow shown up and were sitting in the lobby. The nervousness mixed with excitement on their faces was so clear it was almost written. Parents were about to become grandparents for the first time, brothers and sisters turning to aunts and uncles. The seasons were changing for all of us. Winter was about to become spring. Life was coming and there was nothing that we could do to stop it.
After an update for the family I found myself back in the room amidst chaos. Liz had started pushing. 88 mph seemed like nothing now. Hours flew by. Tears and screams of “I can’t do this anymore!” were commonplace but somehow with every contraction she continued to push harder and harder. I saw her then as the woman I had met three years earlier and was reminded of why I love her. I knew her as the strong woman who grew up moving every couple of years and living on her own in a foreign country. This was a whole new kind of strong that I’d never seen in her before. I was convinced now that she was not only made for me but also made to be a mother.
The screams of “PUSH!” began filling the room. Trying to be optimistic and not lie is very difficult to do. I honestly did think our baby was almost out. His head had been visible for over an hour and I was sure that it was just a matter of time until we were holding our baby in our arms. Three hours had passed and our arms were still empty. I was beginning to question whether this baby was ever going to get here. Liz’s face was drenched in sweat and her pushes were becoming weaker and weaker. I wanted this to be over, not for myself but for Liz. “Come on baby, almost here!” I yelled over and over again with every contraction. I didn’t know how much longer she could keep this up and I wasn’t sure if she would.
Suddenly, as if God himself had come down and told our baby to come out, my son appeared. My, son. I have a son. Tears filling my eyes, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or curl up in the fetal position. Somebody flipped a switch that turned on an indescribable joy. Warmth came over my body that carried with it a desire to be a father. I looked at my son as he lie on my wife’s chest, he was perfect. He was covered in goo, had a wookie like cone head and his nose was flattened, but he was perfect. He looked like he just went 12 rounds. I was waiting for him to yell out “Adrian!”
“Is his nose normal?” I asked one of the nurses with an equal amount of worry and fear in my voice.
“Oh, yeah. A lot of the time their noses actually get broken on the way out.” She said.
I did a quick check for all ten fingers and ten toes, they were all there. He could have been Sigourney Weaver’s alien baby and I wouldn’t have cared, nothing was going to convince me that my boy wasn’t perfect.
We spent the next couple of days at the hospital admiring our new baby boy. We named him Jonas. We were constantly trying to figure out what each different sounding cry meant in between diaper changes that occur every 3.4 seconds. It seemed as if every five minutes someone new would come into our room asking us if we wanted to run tests on him or take pictures of him. I just wanted to be alone with my boy. Frustration reached its peak when I had the urge to bite the photographer’s head off. I just wanted to get home and sleep. I could hear my bed calling my name.
I headed to the hospital that night desperate for sleep. I go to bed every night still desperate for sleep, a sleep that never comes. It’s been seven weeks and I’m not convinced that life is never going to be the same for us. Our son is going to grow up and become an adult and we are responsible for how responsible he is. We’re responsible for the kind of dad he will be one day. The weight of this hits me every time that I hold him. It is a weight that I wouldn’t give away for anything in the world. The weight is a gift.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Monday, December 08, 2008
Jonas Michael Maxfield
Today is the first day of Jonas Michael Maxfield's life. It was an amazing day. Elizabeth is the strongest woman I've ever seen and Jonas was a champ too. He's a healthy little guy weighing in at 8lbs 13oz and 20" long. Children are a blessing from the Lord and I have never fully realized that until this day. May God bless you someday with the gift of a child. Here are some pictures of the little fighter and his Ma n' Pa.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
Election 2008
The election is only 4 days away now and will probably be one of the most important elections in the history of our country. This years election raises a lot of issues for people, christian or non, black or white, male or female. Here's a video of one of my favorite pastors, explaining what the issues of this election are and how Christians are called to act.
Monday, October 27, 2008
The Undead
Our pastor's anniversary happens to be on Halloween so every year they throw a party. It was a week early (you didn't miss Halloween). This years theme was Zombie. Liz went as Bare Foot and Pregnant Zombie and I went as Jack Shepherd Zombie.
Zombie self portraits
That thing Zombies always do with their hands
More hands
Jack's Tats
Zombie self portraits
Rob scaring you really bad
That thing Zombies always do with their hands
A variation of the hand thing that Zombies do
More hands
Jack's TatsVancouver '08
We recently took a trip to Vancouver to see how people live in the great white north. Turns out they live pretty much like us. That whole metric system is pretty handy too, you actually know how far a distance is, the numbers aren't just pulled out of a hat. I'd like our next presidential election to be all about who will adopt the metric system for the US. Here's some pics of us enjoying the freedom that the metric system allowed us to have.
Super Model Baby Momma
More Belly (Bump)
Straight Hood
Rocky Racoon
Rob was never seen from again after the alligator accident
VIFF...saw a really depressing italian mafia film "sodom and gomorrah"
Super Model Baby Momma
More Belly (Bump)
Straight Hood
Rocky Racoon
Rob was never seen from again after the alligator accident
VIFF...saw a really depressing italian mafia film "sodom and gomorrah"Sunday, October 05, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Updated Patio Shots, the 5th fairway at Augusta, and a man child
Genoveva requested some shots with the big pots we put on our patio so here you go. The grass is looking awfully good right now so I couldn't pass up taking a few shots of that too and as an added bonus, a picture of a man trapped inside of a little boys body.
Some of the new pots and a cow hiding under a blue tarp
If you look close enough you can see nothing but grass
Some of the new pots and a cow hiding under a blue tarp
If you look close enough you can see nothing but grass
Elijah "The Foreman" Forehand
Monday, September 29, 2008
To my fans
To all my fans,
I would like to issue a formal apology. You may have noticed over the last year or so that there was a certain grammatical error on our blog. Previously, under the title of our blog it read "we are the maxfield's and this is our blog". It should have read "we are the maxfields and this is our blog". I ask your forgiveness as I have recently come into my own with the use of apostrophes and when to and when not to use them. I'm sorry if I have let any of you down. Please forgive me.
To cheer you up after this crushing news, here is a picture of one of my heroes.
I would like to issue a formal apology. You may have noticed over the last year or so that there was a certain grammatical error on our blog. Previously, under the title of our blog it read "we are the maxfield's and this is our blog". It should have read "we are the maxfields and this is our blog". I ask your forgiveness as I have recently come into my own with the use of apostrophes and when to and when not to use them. I'm sorry if I have let any of you down. Please forgive me.
To cheer you up after this crushing news, here is a picture of one of my heroes.
Jonas Blank Maxfield
Here's our little boy. These were taken about 10 weeks ago.
I think he's got my nose.
I think he's got my nose.
He's all man
Bulge
Liz's belly is getting bigger, here is our first belly picture...I know what you're thinking, I'm sorry that I'm such a slacker. She's so cute though. God is good. 72 days until D-Day
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Earth, Patio & Fire
This last weekend we had a work party for my birthday and tons of friends and family came over and blessed us with a bunch of help. We managed to finish the patio and paint the outside of the garage, and finish painting the house. Thanks again for all who helped out. Here are some pictures of the finished product.
The huge pile of pavers just waiting for us
The Next Day
The Fire Pit
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Hip Hop is for everyone
Recently hippity hopper Lacrae was in town and stopped by Mars Hill to play with one of our worship bands Red Letter. Here's a little video of the their collaboration.
'Send Me' - Live at MHC | Ballard from Mars Hill Church on Vimeo.
'Send Me' - Live at MHC | Ballard from Mars Hill Church on Vimeo.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Su..Su..Sudio...ohhhh oohhhh
My dad and I have recently started working on converting our garage to a new art studio for Liz. I'd like to get this done and have the basement converted by the time the baby comes. Raise your hand if you think that will happen. Me neither. Here's some photos of the progress so far.
Somebody didn't square up the door properly, that really sucked.
Still working on the door. That's a window framed out to the left.
Another window framed out.
The mess...
The window installed on the east side of the garage.
Gotta keep my baby warm.
Some wiring and stuff.
View from the east side of the garage.
Somebody didn't square up the door properly, that really sucked.
Still working on the door. That's a window framed out to the left.
Another window framed out.
The mess...
The window installed on the east side of the garage.
Gotta keep my baby warm.
Some wiring and stuff.
View from the east side of the garage.Monday, June 02, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Our baby is bigger than yours!
Yeah that's right, you heard me. We're having a baby. Liz is 7 weeks pregnant and the baby is the size of a ladybug I hear. That's about a 1/4" for those of you who don't know what a ladybug looks like. Next week our baby explodes to about a 1/2". He/She is becoming so big!
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Model Remodel
Here's our new kitchen everyone. It's been a long, tedious, and often hate filled process but it has turned out well and we're still married. Just in case you were wondering, Liz keeps our kitchen looking this good all the time, its not just for the photo shoot.
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