Day 16

Imagine people sitting in cramped, plastic booths, eating overpriced, mediocre food, watching their friends and loved ones across the room playing various games of skill and chance. It's loud. So loud, you can't have a conversation. Buzzers, sirens, lights flashing. The occasional cheer of a lucky winner. The sound of coins clinking into the metal tray of a change machine.

Anyone who's ever been to a casino would recognize this. The problem is the above description is of Chuck E Cheese's. Last summer, my kids had been begging to go. They see it all the time (it's right next to Target and the movie theater) and the advertisements during Saturday morning cartoons had painted a grand picture. I remember going when I was a kid. Only then, it was Showbiz Pizza. The draw was the video games. Sure, I had an Atari, but if you wanted to play a quality game with cool graphics and sound, the only options were the stand-up games in arcades. So thinking back on this, I told my kids, we'll go when grandma comes to visit. While this put the issue on the back burner for a few months, she did eventually come to visit, and so I had to make good on my promise.

At first, it was exiting, just like when I was a kid. The boys' faces lit up, and the games had changed a lot since I was a kid. There was an F-14 Tomcat game where you sat in a pilot's seat, had realistic flight controls, and the entire thing pitched, rolled, and yawed, according to your movements. It also shook like crazy when you were hit with enemy fire. All of us played that one a few times. Then we went a played ski-ball a little. And within 20 minutes, we were ready to go. But our pizza wasn't even ready.

As we sat in the noisy chaos, the boys got hungrier, I got hungrier, and things were uneasy. I bought more tokens and let the boys go play games, not because of enjoyment or even to try to win, just to pass the time until we could eat and leave. That's when the casino analogy hit me.

Years before, Catricia and I had wanted to take a winter trip over a long weekend in January for my birthday. We wanted to go somewhere warm and within a day's drive. We ended up in Biloxi MS. I'd read things about the Redneck Riviera and was curious, thought it could be fun, but Catricia and I don't gamble. Not that we're necessarily opposed to others doing so, but it's the one aspect of our Baptist upbringing that stuck. We love to play cards, games, etc, but when there's money on the line, the fun goes away.

So there we were in Biloxi. For lack of anything to do the first night, we went to the casino our hotel had a shuttle service to, and it was an awakening. The place reeked of desperation. Cigarette smoke hung so think, you'd think it was a storage house for dry ice. Or that the building was on fire. No one smiled. Everyone had the look of being on the edge. That if they could only win on this next hand or lever pull or button push, then life would be fine. We didn't gamble at all that night. Just ate and left, depressed.

The next night we drove to the Belagio, the most upscale casino hotel on the gulf. Yachts were tied up in the private marina where people cruised in from the blue-green waters and stopped to gamble, go to the spa, spend money in the shops. There was no desperation here. People had money to burn. It was a beautiful building. We felt like imposters.

We cashed some money, played slots for a while. Penny slots were boring. You didn't lose or win enough to matter. Nickels were the same. Quarters were kind of fun. Then Catricia played a dollar slot and won twenty bucks, which put us about even. We thought about leaving, but then saw a video blackjack machine. We played for a bit and lost another twenty. Catricia said, "Let's just go," but I was determined to get it back. I finally won 18 dollars and said that would do. In the meantime, Catricia was watching an older gentlemen sitting next to us, playing two machines at a time. He was nice looking, well dressed. Always had a cocktail near. And he played calmly. At one point, he had to have a cashier come and cash out one of his machines because he had maxed his winnings. It was something like three grand. Maybe more. But while he was waiting, maybe five minutes, ten tops, he won 1800 dollars playing the other machine. We left, and decided that if we had money to blow and knew how to play like that guy, gambling would be fun.

When I was a kid, the only places you could gamble legally were Vegas and Atlantic City. It seemed glamorous and classy. At least on the movies. When they legalized river boat gambling in Illinois, it seemed like a good thing. No different than the lottery really. The taxes went to education. And in an area with high unemployment and no industry, it seemed it would bring jobs. I never went to a riverboat casino, but I imagine it to be like that first Biloxi casino.
It's interesting that when other states besides Nevada and New Jersey started to legalize gambling, they only allowed it to take place on the water, as if the fluid, ever moving nature of the state's borders kept it free of criticism. No one had to claim it. I read once that the Gulf Coast casinos, which despite their enourmous size, are actually floating off shore, were built that way so that if the second coming of Jesus ever took place, the Baptists could cut the lines and toss away the gangplanks, and all sin would be absolved.

In undergrad, we lived in a trailer park, a tough place, a townie park, not one full of college students, but of ex-cons and drug dealers and people generally out on the tiles. We had a neighbor there, Calvin, a black guy about 40 who would come over all the time and hang out with us. We'd give him beer. Loan him our tools when the power company shut his electricity off. And we also tried to encourage him. He was on welfare, always saying he wished he had a job, so one day we went through the paper and said, Here are jobs. They're not great, but they're something. A week later he came to tell us he got a job at a nursing home. We gave him some beer to celebrate. But as soon as he got his first paycheck, he went straight to the Teletrack, an off-track horse betting facility, telling us he'd double his money. Needless to say he didn't. Still he tried each week, because the idea of getting ahead in one turn of luck was so strong. And there was always someone there who won big, like the gentleman in Biloxi, to keep that idea alive.

Here in Oregon the Native Americans are allowed to run casinos on any land they own. I'm always more sympathetic to Indian Casinos. After all the broken treaties and smallpox laden blankets and firewater, what better way for the white man to get his comeuppance than to lose all of his money to the the tribal council. Even with the newfound casino revenue, Native Americans are still one of the poorest demographics in the country. What's sad is that instead of trying to right the wrongs of the past and provide the necessary means and services, the only way we'll do anything is if there's the chance that it might make us rich. It's the same with other gambling. When lotto first happened, no one would agree for that amount of money to be taken from their taxes. So they created lotto, where people willingly give up their money to the state for a chance to win it all. By the way, you have a better chance of getting hit by lightning, twice, than winning the lottery. But no one is lining up for that game.

Not long ago, the city buses in Eugene started carrying ads for the casinos. They usually showed smiling people with fanned out hundred dollar bills and some slogan about being lucky. I didn't think much about them. An ad is an ad is an ad. Then I read a letter to the editor in the paper, written by a nineteen year old kid who was upset by the ads being on public transportation. He then told the story of his mother and her gambling addiction. How she would go to the casino every Friday after getting her paycheck, and how he knew what kind of night it had been when she came home: if she had won, she carried in bags of groceries and wore a wide smile; more often, she came in empty handed, half-drunk, and silent. The glossy sales pitch of that life was too much.

A friend of mine, who is about 18, told me the problem of his generation is represented in the popularity of Guitar Hero. If all the effort and time and skill that's put into playing that game were actually put into learning an instrument, imagine the result. It's the same with the mother in the letter to the editor and my neighbor Calvin and all of the millions of lotto players. If the time and money spent trying to win just a little extra were put into attaining more education or working extra hours or helping a good cause, imagine the result.

It seems we'll do nothing for the greater good without that carrot on the end of the stick, driving us toward action. Sometimes it's an earthly reward, like winning a million bucks. Sometimes it's an eternal reward, like the salvation of our immortal souls. We comfort ourselves by saying these carrots create good for the whole. But it's cold comfort.

So Chuck E Cheese teaches us that going out for pizza with your family or getting to play video games (at home, with a friend, on your cell phone) isn't enough of a treat, that we're entitled to more. After all, a little extra incentive never hurt anyone. You need lights and buzzers and long strands of paper tickets that appear when you win, which you can then go cash in on any number of cheap and useless things. Usually, you're only able to get a small plastic dinosour or a deck of cards. But it's the hope of those things on the top shelf, a remote control car or a new X-Box, that drive you to cash in for more tokens, order another soda, and stare into the mindless void of a game screen for a little longer. You know you won't win the prize. But you're willing to suffer the loss for just a few more moments of hope.

Day 15

If I were to run for national public office, one of my main platforms would be to ban the penny. No, it's not an original idea, just one that I wholly support. Jim Kolbe, Republican representative from Arizona has been trying to get his Legal Tender Modernization Act passed into law since 2002. It doesn't ban the use of pennies outright, but instead discourages their use by requiring that all transactions be rounded up to the nickel. There are numerous practical reasons for this to happen. First, it costs 1.23 cents to mint a new penny. No brainer there. I doubt people would continue making pretty much anything else (widescreen tvs, new houses, tacos) if the overhead was higher than the value. When the U.S. got rid of the half-cent coin in 1857 it had a buying power of 13 cents in 2008 dollars. With that logic we should be able to get rid of pennies and nickels, rounding to the nearest dime. Then there's the fact that no one uses pennies to buy anything. It's a one way transaction. We get pennies back as change, but rarely do we use them to purchase something. Most places won't let you buy anything with pennies. Vending machines haven't taken pennies forever. (There was a soda machine near the baseball fields in my town growing up that gave you two sodas if you put in a penny; maybe that's why.) Once, when I was in sixth grade, some friends and I went into a donut shop and they had a big glass jar of one cent bubble gum. We each had a dollar and said, we'll take a hundred pieces each. The owners frowned and said we had to count them out ourselves, which we took the next five minutes doing. It's a reverse example of the problem of the penny's purchasing power.

The biggest objector to banning the penny is the state of Tennesee. They're the biggest producers of zinc in the country and that's what pennies have been made of since the early 80's. They say Kolbe has no problem banning the penny because his state of Arizona is a large copper producing state, which all of the other coins are made of. That's right, copper pennies are zinc, and nickel nickels and silver dimes and quarters are actually copper. Even the golden Sacajwea dollar was mostly copper, which by the way, Kolbe was all for using instead of the paper one dollar bill.

But the real reason that I'm all for getting rid of the penny is that I have a phobia of them. That's right. Actually it's coinage in general, but pennies are the worst. There is a name for this, cuprolaminophobia, but I found that on the internet and it could be fake. I mean, really who is afraid of coins?

It's not really a fear, but a disgust. If you asked me to come up with a single image of filth, it would be a tarnished, dust covered penny on the floor. I trace this disgust back to one of my earliest memories, which was kids at my church who would carry their offering money around in their mouths. Eventually one of them swallowed a coin. And ever since then, I've been messed up over change.

Of course, I can operate in the world just fine, as long as I follow certain procedeures. I cannot eat anything with a coin in sight. If someone keeps change on the table, I'm immediately on edge. If there's food present, it's near nausea. So in my house, coins must have a place. A glass jar, kept in a cabinet out of sight. I've found that it has to be glass. A metal container doubles the effect (maybe I have issues with metal, but other things don't bother me, like metal washers or bottle caps). My in-laws always kept change in a plastic coffee mug, which was bad because I immediately imagined someone drinking down a stream of coins. Maybe it's an obsessive compulsion and not a phobia. If I receive coins during the day, I put them staight in my pocket. When I was a kid, I hated having a pocket full of coins, hated the sound it made as I walked. Still do. So I keep the number of coins in my pocket to a minimum. If there's too many, I give them to Catricia so she can put them in her purse. When I come home, I empty the change from my pocket to the jar, usually without looking at it, and forget it. Once a year, we empty the jar and put the money in the bank. I was never so happy as when I received my first debit card. No change, ever. I've put purchases under two dollars on my debit card, just so I don't have to deal with change.

The first time we went to Canada, we exchanged money and went around doing things and it seemed our money wasn't lasting long. Then I realized that I'd been handing my change to Catricia to put away, which meant all those Loonies and Toonies went too. We had forty dollars in coins that I had exiled to her purse.

It's been hard since we had kids, as everyone wants to give kids coins. My boys have learned to put it in their pockets and then to the jar when we get home. After trying to come up with reasons for it, I finally just said 'Daddy's weird about coins. I can't explain it. Just be a pal." This was tough on them at first because they said, "Dad, it's our money. We want to keep it." I solved this by giving them rights to anything in the jar. All change in the house goes to the boys if they put it in "their jar" which will then be put into a savings account of their own. It may sound like me being a responsible parent, but I could care less. They could charge me interest or extort a 'weird dad tax' and I'd pay, as long as there is no change visible in my house, and as long as it's out of their hands so I don't have to imagine one of them swallowing it. I know. I'm a psycho.

Really, the only good thing about change is that people save it. Our country is at an all time low in personal savings. So I guess if you can put back a hundred or two a year in change, you're ahead of the curve. My stepdad recently spent days rolling a giant jar of pennies he'd been saving since high school. It ended up being thousands of dollars which he put toward a new truck. Catricia's grandmother saved pennies from when Catricia was little, and when Catricia graduated college, her grandmother gave her the result, 1500 dollars, to buy her first piano. I'm all for people saving their change. I just don't like it when people let it lie around on dressers or the table or the floor or in car ashtrays. Although, with scrap metal prices at an all time high, one might be better off to take those pennies to the salvage yard and have them melted down. Why take a cent, when you can get more on the pound.

So, if I were running for president, you'd see me include a 'ban the penny' platform. I think the practicality of economics would bring in supporters. And if there are any other weirdos like me who can't stand change, they won't be outed. They can stay in the closet and just say, getting rid of these things makes good sense. That will be our motto: trade bad cents for good sense. Change haters of the world unite!

Day 14

Well, after a month off (which meant a month of nonstop paper grading) it's time to get back into the swing of the blog.  And just in time for Christmas.  Being fairly recent transplants from the midwest, both Catricia and I notice a big difference in the way people decorate for the holidays here in Oregon, mainly having to do with exterior lights.  Here in the northwest, it's much more lowkey than back home.  Sure, there are houses that go all out, but considering how many houses remain dark and unlit, it's quite a different picture.  In southern Illinois, it seemed every house, cottage, and singlewide trailer was strung in strands of colored and white lights.  And if they weren't decorated, you figured that they must be traveling for the holidays or were elderly and couldn't put up the lights.

My father-in-law fell into a holiday job based on this idea.  He's well liked by most everyone in his small town and has the unique ability of befriending the "higher class" of that place.  Anywhere else, these people would simply be part of the working landscape.  Bankers.  Lawyers.  Small business owners.  But in rural Illinois, you'd think they were CEO's or day traders.  They either live in huge colonial houses on cobblestone streets in the oldest part of town or in newly built subdivisions out by the golf course.  But these people love my father-in-law, Bob.  They refer to him for all things working class.  What kind of cordless drill should they buy to hang picture frames?  The water heater needs replacing, what would he suggest?  And this has brought him a lot of small jobs, for which these people are ever grateful, because they've befriended someone blue collar who talks to them and seems to sympathize with them and doesn't charge as much as union workers.

So each year, Bob is hired from Thanksgiving to New Year by George Woodcock, who is a retired lawyer and former multi-term mayor of the town.  Mr. Woodcock had a meager upbringing, didn't have much of anything really, so now that he's a self-made man, he wants to make up for some of that.  He pays Bob generously to hang and maintain all of his outdoor Christmas lights and decorations.  And it's quite a lot.  When Chevy Chase decorated his house in Christmas Vacation it was meant to be an absurdity that would draw laughs from its outlandishness, but Woodcock's house isn't far off.  Lights along the roof (this is a three story house!), along the porch, around the doors and windows, in all the trees and schrubs, along the white picket fence, and with a lighted wooden sleigh and reindeer in the yard.  He buys new lights nearly every year, along with the needed drop cords, power strips, and hangers.  For the month and a half that he turns it on, his utility bill is 1500 dollars.  My guess is that each year he spends between 3500 and 5000 dollars just on outside Christmas decorations.

Now, I'm not trying to be hard on George.  He's a nice guy.  He's very fair with my father-in-law.  I've even been on his roof, helping Bob fix some outed strands, while there was six inches of snow over an inch of ice.  I understand the desire to want more than what you had growing up, and sometimes going a little too far with that desire.  I've heard him say that he wants to create a display that the people of the town can drive by and enjoy.  Which is great.  But there's more to it than that.

It seems to me that if everyone cut their decorating budget by a quarter (ideally, I would propose half), then took what they would have spent on twinkle lights or a giant inflatable Santa Claus and donate that to a charity that helps people who are hungry or homeless or struggling, it would do a great deal more than participating in the gross show of meaningless consumerism that this country has come to love so much.  When I see people standing on corners, cold and beat down by their situation, or when I know of kids that I teach or that my sons go to school with who might get one gift or whose Christmas dinner might come from Carl's Jr., or when I hear of struggling families who will cut out shampoo and conditioner for themselves, using instead a bar of soap for everything, so they can give their children one more simple gift, I wonder how much these foks appreciate a 3000 dollar light display.  I think that if George Woodcock still spent the rediculous amount of 500 dollars a year and then gave 2500 dollars to a food drive or a homeless shelter or a school fund, he would know that when people drove by his house, the lights shining in the night so beautifully would have true meaning behind them.  That he had risen above his humble beginnings to make a difference for someone else.

The most popular holiday show is A Charlie Brown Christmas.  It's been on for over forty years.  It's message is that we can't allow the holidays to be corrupted by comercialism and consumerism and selfish greed.  You'd think that after multiple generations have watched this show, someone might start to get an idea.  And that's just Snoopy.  Nevermind the revolutionary things that were said by the guy who they named Christmas after.

With a tanked stock market and millions out of work, these issues are more widespread than ever.  And this doesn't include the greater world.  I remember when I was in seventh grade, my dad's coal mine shut down and all the workers were out of work without any warning.  It was a tough time, one that my dad, mom, and I never really survived as a family.  Of course, we're all fine, but our family imploded in the following years.  But that Christmas, a group of miners who hadn't lost their jobs (yet) got together and bought a gift for every kid of a miner who lost his or her job that year.  I got a small cassette player and a Transformer that turned into an airplane.  I don't really remember the other things I got that year.  But I remember those because of the gesture behind it.

So this year, instead of grabbing that newly enhanced Peanuts Holiday Box Set on Blu-Ray or paying admission to see a live nativity scene, you might put together food bags to hand out the next time you're stopped on a corner where a person without shelter is holding a sign, or you might drop off some canned food at a shelter, or find a way to help someone who's just lost a job, or give a gift as a family to a charity (ours is Heifer Project this year).  In the end, I believe we all do the best we can.  We decorate, we give, we enjoy.  But like everything else in life, finding balance is the toughest part.  And the most worthwhile.  

Day 13

In this month's Discover magazine, there is an article about an amateur archaeologist in Bosnia that claims the hills around the city of Visoko are actually 12000 year old pyramids built by a civilization more advanced that our own. The academic community disputes this claim, though this is the highest funded archaeological project in Bosnia. On the fringes of this, the pyramids have created an ultranationalism in the country. Bosnians have begun to claim that people who refute the idea that the hills are manmade are actually in league with the Serbs. Along with this ultranationalism, a type of New Age religion has grown up around the idea, based on claims of supernatural happenings in relation to the site. Massimo Introvigne, Europe's leading academic expert on religious minorities, says that pseudoscience is "classic feature of New Age," and these movements begin small, with a large variation in their ideas and voices. The more attention they gain from the larger world, the closer they come to the point of either falling apart or becoming accepted.

This article caught my attention for a number of reasons, but it was this connection with New Age religion that struck me, mainly because if you looked at early Christianity with a contemporary's point of view, it would look very similar. It has nothing to do really with what Christ may or may not have said and done, but with what followed his death. A small group of followers with claims of miracles and resurrection combined with an ultranational Jewish movement against the Romans spreads through the region and varying versions and interpretations develop around it until it reaches a critical mass in the Empire. It can either disappear (or be destroyed as Nero and others tried) or grow. Which it did, becoming more and more accepted, until Emperor Constantine, who happens to be leader one of the most influential societies in human history, embraces it a few hundred years later.

Cut to 2000 years later, when this once New Age religion based on pseudoscience is Canonized, influencing world politics, economies, wars, and philosophy. I'm not saying that if one follows the teachings Christianity (or Islam or Buddhism or Judaism or Taoism) they're on the wrong track. That's why these major religions are still around after thousands of years and practiced by millions--they capture some universal human truth. Drawing the parallel simply makes me wonder what the next seemingly strange or hokey movement will grow to affect human history in the next millennium.

In this week's Newsweek there is a short review of Martin Lindstrom's book "Buyology". Instead of asking people how marketing affects them, he did brain scans while they looked at images. The results showed that people had the same brain activity while looking at religious icons--the virgin Mary or the star of David--as they did when viewing strong brands--Ipod or Nike. The weaker the logo the lower the brain activity. While disturbing, it's not surprising.

I'd say the biggest religious gatherings in the world are sporting events. Every Saturday when the Ducks are at home, seas of people wearing yellow and green cram themselves together to spend their money and watch football. A few weeks ago, Catricia, the boys, and I were at an outdoor cafe eating lunch, and could hear the crowd two miles away.

And now that sports arenas are venues for the strongest corporate iconography, all the items are in place. People cheer with nationalistic fervor, they gaze on the icons and logos with humble reverence, and they're willing to give a percentage of their income to gather together and worship their team. It makes sense that the former home to the Houston Rockets is now a megachurch.

And yet all of this sound and fury actually helps no one. The hungry aren't fed. The poor aren't clothed. Healthcare is still a wreck. Wars are still fought. People still lose their homes. Old growth forest is still cut. Education is still cut. Let's face it--peace for humanity just doesn't market well. Academic study doesn't market well. Fair distribution of wealth doesn't market well. You have to have to have winners and losers--prosperity and condemnation--in order to have more ad appeal.

Still, I think, there is a shift coming. Maybe a generation of people, who've been bombarded by advertisement and propaganda their whole lives have the ability to see through it. I want to believe that. I want to believe people haven't lost all sense of the world. I want to believe that they see the beauty in the hills, even if they're not pyramids.

Day 12

When I was a kid there were still a lot of reruns on television that were in black and white, and of course there were old pictures in my parent's photo albums that were in black and white (in fact, one of my earliest baby pictures is black and white). So I knew quite early that old stuff didn't have color. At the same time, I was aware that some tv's weren't color, so that regardless of the film used, color or black and white, that set would only show it in monochrome. The reason I'm bringing this up is because, for whatever reason, I believed in my earliest years that the world itself had no color until the 60's.

Most of you reading this must be thinking, this guy was a real dolt as a kid. In my defense this thought was to my best recollection, around four years of age. I know it was before kindergarten. But I can remember wondering what it must have been like for my grandparents to live in a black and white world, a world whose sky and grass and houses were only varying shades of gray. And then one day, someone (I'm not sure who) came along and painted all of it, and I thought, what a wonderful time to experience: the day the world became color. When I told my mom this, she said very bluntly that it was just the film that had changed. The world has always been the same.

Looking back on this memory, though, I think my four year old mind was on to something. Now I wonder what it must have been like to live in a fully colored world, but all visual documentation of that world, both real and fictional, was black and white. I think it's why we now associate black and white film stock has having some artistic quality. Because it's not an exact representation of the world, but something more ethereal. I'm sure when they came out with color film, people found it sad in some sense, because it was a little too real. I feel, in some ways, the same about HD television. Why do I need to see the beads of sweat on that politician's upper lip? Why do I need to see the plastic surgery scars on that actress? But, because I'm a person who accepts that changing technology now moves faster than weather patterns, it's no big deal one way or the other. Most of what I watch now is not HD. In ten years (or five, or two), everything will be HD, not because I choose it, but because that will be the only choice.

In the end, it's all about how our ability to recreate and communicate our perceptions shapes our understanding of the world. It's why the ancient hunters who painted on the walls of Lascaux in France ritually shot arrows at the images before going out after the real thing. No one would do that now because it seems absurd, but people do use Google Earth to make sure they understand the exact location of Disneyland before driving there. Because we trust that it's as close to reality as we can get.

The rub comes in knowing if the technology shapes our understanding of reality or if we create technology to mirror what we already understand about reality. Did I think the world before the 1960's was black and white because the technology shaped that perception, or did I already begin to understand that a new, metaphorical, color had come into the world about the same time that it arrived on film.

I think the dilemma we're faced with now, is that technology moves faster than we can understand how it's affecting us. Look at something so mundane as movies: for the first third of my life, you could go to the theater and maybe if you were lucky, catch it in some revised version on television. Then came VHS rentals and purchases in the middle third of my life. Then suddenly, we've gone from VHS, to DVD, to Blu-Ray; from renting at a store, to renting from Netflix, to renting through I-tunes, to watching it online through streaming video, as well as being able to purchase it in any of those formats. Then there's the delivery: before you could watch it in a theater or at home on a tv. Now I can watch a movie anywhere on any number of devices, which will then be obsolete in five years or less. When I was a kid, I could only rely on people's descriptions and memories of films they had seen in the past. Now, when I tell my kids about something I watched when I was their age, they say, "Check YouTube, Dad. I want to see it."

In the same vein, as technologies become obsolete, we tend to ignore those past archives unless they're updated to a new media. I have a box of photos that were taken before 2003 that are never looked at. These include vacations, our wedding, our first son's birth. After 2003, we bought a digital camera and have taken literally thousands of pictures that we peruse at least several times a month. Does that make the events in our life prior to digital photography less improtant? Do the photographs taken on actual film and stored away in boxes seem more artistic or sacred?

I've seen students pass on research for papers, even if it's perfect for what they're writing about, because it's not available online in full-text. They just find something else that is available. And who's to blame them. When I was in college, I avoided microfiche like the plague and interlibrary loan was such a pain in the ass. Once, I helped my brother-in-law, Jon, write a paper using only the books we happened to have in the house. He got an A.

I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make with all this. I love technology. I think Ctesibius building water clocks in ancient Alexandria is just as amazing as being able to watch live footage from Mars on my cell phone because it's humankind taking another tiny step toward the understanding of truth. But it seems that by letting technology decide for us which things will be remembered and studied, we're walking a dangerous path toward a dark age of our own creation. We consider ourselves the most informed generation in the history of humankind, which is true, if that information shows up on the first two pages of a Google search. Any knowledge past that is reserved for elite specialists. And if it's only available on microfiche, it's forever lost, the same as the scrolls containing the wisdom of the ancient world when the library at Alexandria burned to the ground.

Day 11

Homage to Dick Cavett:

I can't imagine that there's a huge fanbase for Dick Cavett, but if there is, I have realized I may be part of it. I have a link to his NY Times blog, "Talk Show", which from the first entry, I've followed with great interest and enjoyment. Others have too, with about 400-500 comments on each post as evidence. And unlike most sites that feature posted comments, these are a good read as well. With most things I read online, I've had to make myself not scroll down and ignore what people write because it's full of hateful, bigoted, polarized bullshit, but Cavett's post draws comments of nostalgia, regard, intelligent disagreement, and other such civilized responses.

Then there are the interviews from the various incarnations of his television show, which are wonderful, and I can't imagine anyone now, except maybe Letterman, who could sit with such varied guests and somehow allow such a seemingly true picture to come from it. Who else has hosted a very insightful, yet barely coherent Sly Stone and had Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal nearly come to blows on his nationally televised show. If you look at the clips of Cavett's interviews on You Tube, you see the best and brightest of his generation: not just politicians, not just pop stars, not just literary icons, but all of them.

Cavett isn't what I'd consider a movie star, though he's been in many. The first one I saw him in was Beetlejuice, playing an art agent for Delia Deets's strange and supernatural sculpture. He delivers a perfect deadpan line as he's leaving the dinner party after having been possessed by Harry Belefonte's Bananna Boat Song about how as Delia's agent he's consistently lost money on her so he can tell her frankly and honestly that if she wants to scare people she should do it with her art. It's great comedy and so subtle it's easily missed, very much the way Cavett himself is overlooked.

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by airplanes and flight. Early on it was only with military airplanes. I have a cousin, David, who I was close to growing up, whose dad had been an F-100 pilot in Vietnam and was shot down and killed when David was two years old. I think because of this, he threw himself into the subject of military aircraft. He taught me to notice the small differences between planes so that I could tell them apart and understand their purpose. I read books he gave me and we built plastic models together and so began my education on aviation. David was a very talented artist, and his models were very precise reproductions. I remember the pride he felt after completing a large model of an F-100 that had same squadron markings on the tail as his father's. I remember him using a toothbrush to paint in the blackened cannon ports under the nose. I remember it being a solemn moment when he hung it from the ceiling of his basement room with fishing line. And I remember sensing his grief because it didn't bring him any closer to knowing his dad.

But I think the beginngs of my shift from duty filled patriot child of the cold war to a 21st century pacifist, began with looking outside aircraft as a military application and seeing flying as a near spiritual pursuit, which happened watching a documentary as a kid in the early 80's on the history of flight, narrated by Dick Cavett. It started with the legend of Icarus, then the balloons and gliders of the 18th and 19th centuries, the crazy designs of early motorized attempts, moving to Samuel Langley's Aerodrome which failed with much publicity only a week before the Wright Brother's quietly successful flight at Kitty Hawk. It was about the human desire to rise above the earthly plane. Not about raining down death from above. And all of it was explained by Cavett's calm and comforting voice.

The last scene was a man snow skiing down a mountain beneath a bright orange hang glider, while the soft notes of Pachelbel's Canon began to play. I'd never heard this piece of music before, and though it's become the cliche of sappy weddings and no one of any taste would admit to liking it, I can't hear it without thinking of this: the man with the hang glider slid quickly toward a precipice, and Cavett's voice spoke the last lines of narration (I can't remember them, but can remember my chest feeling full, tears on my cheeks) and the music rising as the earthbound man went over the snowy cliff, and instead of plummeting to certain death, continued upward into a alpine blue sky.

Forever after that, when I ponder humankind's yearning to leap into the heavens or hear the still lovely Canon in D, I think of Dick Cavett, as if it was his voice that led me to these revalations, like a father teaching his son that one's first views on something aren't necessarily the best. That instead of being excited by falling bombs and cannon fire and dogfights, it's all right to be a ten year old boy with tears in his eyes because he sees a small beauty in this world. That it's all right to be who I am, instead of what's expected.

Day 10

I saw a man yesterday in the grocery store scan a whole aisle of bread methodically, pull out his cell phone, make a call, then reach down and pick out a loaf and go on his way.  It was a perfect example of how our brave new world of communication technology is saving relationships a lot of the small, everyday arguments that used to plague us fifteen years ago.

I first got my cell phone for that very reason.  Catricia had had a cell for a couple of years by that time.  At first, it was so she would have it in case of car trouble (oddly enough, in the twelve years since we've had cell phones, we've never had car trouble.  Before that, it seemed a weekly occurrence).  Then we realized that we could call long distance for the flat monthly fee instead of paying by minute at home, so we started using the cell more and more.  After that, the practicality of using it for small things, like calling home to find out if we were out of milk before running by the store, came into play.  And so we survived with one cell phone for three years.  Then, when Cormac was a baby, I saw the need for a change.

We both taught in Carbondale IL at the time, but lived in a small town about ten miles away.  I taught at the university during the day, and Catricia taught there in the evening.  We'd meet in the afternoon, switch the carseat, transfer the baby, and I'd head home while she went to work.  It was a good system, until one day, I was running a little late (or maybe she was late) and we missed each other at the given pickup time and place.  When we finally did find each other, Catricia was ready to lose it, because now she was running close on time for work and had to run an errand beforehand.  I'd tried to explain (I think she'd been a little late, so I decided to go somewhere and get a soda, and by the time I got back, I was now late), but she wasn't hearing it.  We argued and raised our voices about who was more inconsiderate or unreasonable, and finally I said, "That's it, I'm getting a cell phone so we don't have this problem anymore."  And I did.  I went straight to the Verizon store, picked out a plan and a phone while Cormac watched intently, probably wondering why he'd been born to such crazy parents, and within an hour, we were a two-cell phone family with no more excuses for a missed rendezvous or hurt feelings.  We still found other things to fight and bicker about, but I can't recall ever having an issue again over this kind of thing.  Now if we'd just had a cell phone, even just one, four years before on the night the fuel pump went out on my truck at 3 am on the side of the interstate and we slept curled in the lace curtains our sister-in-law Alison had given us that day, waiting for daybreak so I could walk six miles to the next town.

When I saw the man in the store so easily avoid a conflict by calling about the bread, I thought of my father-in-law Bob.  He's notorious for going to the store with a list, then coming home with interesting variations on that list.  Once, when unsure about buying something--we'll say it was cream of chicken soup--he came home with all the possible choices, then made a second trip back to the store to return the ones unneeded.  He's a good guy and never minded (or at least he never said anything in front of the rest of the family) making multiple trips to the store.  I hate that kind of thing, and when I bought the wrong thing, I'd just be stoic about it all and say we should make do with what we had.  But there was one time when Bob had gone to the store with his list that I bet he wishes he would have had a cell phone.

It was a short list and the store is only a half mile from his house, but he was gone nearly an hour.  When he finally came home, he was exasperated and frustrated, and yet still had enough good humor to tell this story on himself.  He had almost everything on the list in his cart, but there was one item that he just couldn't find.  It wasn't because the store had rearranged things but because it was an item he couldn't identify by name alone.  He wandered up and down the aisles for a while and then finally asked a stock boy, "Can you help me find the ging-er," (the hyphen is to indicate his pronunciation, which rhymes with 'ringer').  So he and the stock boy went on the search for ging-er, and the whole time Bob was saying that it had to be in the store because his wife wouldn't send him looking for it unless she knew it was there.  This went on for some time and brought other people in the store--managers, cashiers, shoppers--into the search for ging-er.  Finally, the stock boy asked Bob for his list, thinking that maybe if he read it, he'd recognize it.  So Bob handed over the small slip of paper, and the stock boy's face changed from a look of curiosity to a look of pity.  "It's ginger.  The spice.  Do you need help finding it?"  Bob took his list back and said, "No, I've got it," and walked with his eyes down so no one else in the store would ask him if he'd finally found the mystery item.  If he'd only had a cell phone.  He'd still have had to put up with taunting and abuse from the family (which he did anyway) but at least that would have been it.  As it was, he had to walk past all the people who'd been helping him and quietly answer, "It was ginger," while they shook their heads with expressions that said, "Will you make it home safe by yourself, or do you need to make a call?"