Update to the Great Cougar Saga of Twenty-Ten:
Two days after the incident, I noticed a handmade sign and a small cluster of flowers in jars arranged in a shady bus stop niche. Predictably, the good people of Berkeley were saddened and/or outraged by the killing, and they'd erected a miniature shrine to mark the occasion, complete with an expression of their disappointment with the Berkeley P.D., as well as what looked like a 5th grade homework assignment on cougar facts. Being the perpetual cynical jerk that I am, I chuckled and snapped a photo with my iPhone, to be shown to friends in the crude vein of "LOL, hippies."
But when I passed the shrine the next day, there was a new addition -- a typed letter, presumably from a fellow cynic, lightly chiding people for being so foolish and quick to splash moral outrage over a fairly cut-and-dried situation (cougar in burban neighborhood = dangerous). Every time I passed by the area on subsequent days, there was some new development in the shrine discussion: notes jotted on the typed letter, both approving and disapproving; more facts sheets and print-outs of National Geographic-style cougar photos; a prayer for peace and harmony with the animal kingdom; and even a second typed letter, this one riddled with arrows pointing to facts from the original shrine decor, calling them out as specious and then arguing vehemently for "critical thinking" -- a lost art, according to the anonymous writer.
At first, I was simply amazed by how virtual-looking this discussion was becoming, with its hyperlinks and follow-up threads, and how well-represented every facet of Internet commentator was in the fracas. There was the OP, the snarky respondent, the peacemaker, the fact-finder, the critic of the fact-finder... all that was missing was the obscene troll and the inevitable comparison of the California law enforcement tactics to that of Hitler's Germany.
But then I remembered something I'd read while researching for my undergrad thesis on dissent and revolution in communist and post-communist Eastern Europe. In the 80s, a shrine to John Lennon instantaneously materialized in the middle of Prague right after the announcement of Lennon's tragic death. The communist police were miffed at first and tried getting rid of it, but the plethora of flowers and candles and teary notes reappeared in the morning after each clandestine midnight sweep, like mushrooms after a rainfall. Eventually, the police gave in and, pun intended, let it be. Seizing the opportunity, the dissident community appropriated the shrine as a symbol of their resistance movement, as John Lennon and The Beatles had already been for the disgruntled East European youth for the better part of a decade. To the flowers and candles and teary notes were added more overtly political messages on the subject of Peace and Freedom. Dissidents even began to use the shrine as a bonafide message board, posting locations and times of their next meetings in the middle of the traditional mourning accouterments. Eventually, the police were alerted and became more vigilant about pruning the shrine of political content -- but by then it was already the late 80s, and a real revolution was just around the corner.
Clearly, the people of Communist Czechoslovakia already had some germinal concept of message boards in their heads, and it only took a few more years for technology to catch up to the idea. What really makes me giddy is the continuity not only of the theoretical aspect, but also the concrete implementation, the blow-by-blow of how this public discussion plays out. Whether it happens in the street or in the comments section of the New York Times, it's the same kind of discourse, built on digression and marginality, fixing on some highly public, emotionally resonant event in history, and then pulling together people's preexisting political agendas, performed personas, and various other axes that need grinding. It's at once centripetal and centrifugal, generating the weight that gives importance to the event, while simultaneously threatening to pull the solidity and homogeneity of communal interpretation in a dozen different directions. Both modern and primal, just like a cougar roaming the back-alleys by one of the world's most distinguished restaurants. People: truly the world's most fascinating beasts.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Big game
Last night, in a state of restless half-sleep, I heard the sound of two gunshots going off, seemingly right outside the bedroom window. Throughout most of my solidly lower-to-middle middle class existence, I've been fortunate enough not to hear gunshots all that often -- the exception being the W.T.O. riots in Seattle circa my sophomore year of high school, and I'm pretty sure those were rubber bullets -- but the sound was unmistakable: like the swat of a rug-beater on a dusty carpet, but amplified tenfold, with a sinister reverb you never hear in the movies. Idly, I wondered who on earth could be firing a weapon in the middle of downtown Berkeley, but at that point, I was too far gone with sleep to care.
Turns out, the shots were from a police officer tasked with gunning down a wild cougar that had inexplicably wandered into our quiet suburban neighborhood. When this story was related to me the following day, what surprised me wasn't so much the cougar prowling around the organically stocked dumpsters of Chez Panisse. That much seemed perfectly reasonable to me, given that mountains are close and "twice-cooked kid goat with cumin, ginger, eggplant, and chickpeas" is enough to draw in the most skittish and reclusive of carnivores. What surprised me was that, even in this hippie/yuppiefied town, the only effective method the local law could come up with for dealing with a wild animal was extermination. Weren't there some tranq darts lying around in their Black Marias, or some tear gas left over from 60s student protests?
I kept thinking about this as I heard about the crazy Discovery Channel standoff that also happened today. Obviously, it's dangerous to compare the killing of a wild animal to the killing of a person, but even without PETA-style intellectual convolution, the logic from the point of view of the trigger finger feels exactly the same to me: This is a wild, unpredictable creature. It may harm someone. It needs to die to let others live. Viscerally, I'm uncomfortable with this logic. I don't like imagining myself in the situation of the police officer whose job it is to make that decision and, pun intended, execute it. I don't like the place a mind has to go in order to dispassionately, instantaneously make that choice. And I certainly don't like the dark stain that inevitably remains imprinted in some corner of that mind after the dust has settled and the body of some unfortunate hunted creature lays prone and motionless like a limp rag. One would say, then, that I'm clearly on the side of deontological ethics, favoring process and means over and above any ends they enact. Thinking deeper about the situation, though, I suppose that's precisely what draws me to utilitarianism. It's not a visceral, passionate reaction, and that makes it a hell of a lot harder for a human mind to make sense of it. But maybe we as a species need to put ourselves in more difficult situations, and to avoid solving them with meely-mouthed platitudes about kindness and love and sanctity of life, especially when it's so clear that our entire society is built on anything but.
Turns out, the shots were from a police officer tasked with gunning down a wild cougar that had inexplicably wandered into our quiet suburban neighborhood. When this story was related to me the following day, what surprised me wasn't so much the cougar prowling around the organically stocked dumpsters of Chez Panisse. That much seemed perfectly reasonable to me, given that mountains are close and "twice-cooked kid goat with cumin, ginger, eggplant, and chickpeas" is enough to draw in the most skittish and reclusive of carnivores. What surprised me was that, even in this hippie/yuppiefied town, the only effective method the local law could come up with for dealing with a wild animal was extermination. Weren't there some tranq darts lying around in their Black Marias, or some tear gas left over from 60s student protests?
I kept thinking about this as I heard about the crazy Discovery Channel standoff that also happened today. Obviously, it's dangerous to compare the killing of a wild animal to the killing of a person, but even without PETA-style intellectual convolution, the logic from the point of view of the trigger finger feels exactly the same to me: This is a wild, unpredictable creature. It may harm someone. It needs to die to let others live. Viscerally, I'm uncomfortable with this logic. I don't like imagining myself in the situation of the police officer whose job it is to make that decision and, pun intended, execute it. I don't like the place a mind has to go in order to dispassionately, instantaneously make that choice. And I certainly don't like the dark stain that inevitably remains imprinted in some corner of that mind after the dust has settled and the body of some unfortunate hunted creature lays prone and motionless like a limp rag. One would say, then, that I'm clearly on the side of deontological ethics, favoring process and means over and above any ends they enact. Thinking deeper about the situation, though, I suppose that's precisely what draws me to utilitarianism. It's not a visceral, passionate reaction, and that makes it a hell of a lot harder for a human mind to make sense of it. But maybe we as a species need to put ourselves in more difficult situations, and to avoid solving them with meely-mouthed platitudes about kindness and love and sanctity of life, especially when it's so clear that our entire society is built on anything but.
Monday, August 23, 2010
RE: Fighting like a girl
To follow up on my continuing series of posts on girls and the fascist patriarchy contemporary pop culture, I'd like to mention a little film called Kick-Ass, which not long ago was the subject of intense debate for film aficionados and feminists alike. The problem? The film stars 10-year-old Hit Girl, who mercilessly stabs, kicks, shoots, and disembowels bad guys in the name of justice, and utters a stream of colorful Tarantino-esque language while doing so.
Personally, I didn't actually find this all that problematic -- though I should mention that I'm not a very strong believer in the ethical duties of art (I'm also a hypocrite.). Furthermore, The Professional (very different movie, very different genre, but drawing on a similar concept and drawing in similar outrage) is one of my favorite movies of all time, precisely because it pulls back the soft, frilly curtains of girlhood and exposes the wrathful steel rod at the center of anyone who has ever felt small, weak, and defenseless. Of course, where The Professional was more or less anchored in a realistic portrayal of the damage done by a vicious cycle of vengeance and violence, Kick-Ass goes the way of gratuitous wish-fulfillment, allowing the small, weak individual the chance to actually fight back. What both features have to offer, I would argue, is, first of all, a revealing look at the nuanced and often contradictory patriarchal relationship (the young female protagonists of both films are enthralled with the "stronger" male, not the "weaker" female side of the father-daughter equation -- precisely the side that is unequivocally glorified as the hero in any major Hollywood production). And, second, both films present a counter-narrative not just to the popular misconception of young girls as delicate little princesses, but also to the other popular portrayal of young girls in Hollywood, the demonic dead-eyed Scary Child. While both Natalie Portman and Chloe Moretz are involved in some pretty monstrous activities, neither of them is herself a monster whose demise we cheer, precisely because these are, at heart, deeply recognizable, deeply sympathetic human archetypes.
What was interesting to me in the critical fracas about the film was the way that the pro-Kick-Ass camps were split: on one side, those who loved it and found within it an empowering feminist message, and those who were okay with the (stylized) murder and mayhem but objected mainly to the word cunt coming out of the mouth of a 10-year-old. What everyone seemed to agree on, though, is how cannily the director managed not to sexualize Hit Girl... because, presumably, that would take away from the whole feminist empowerment thing. While I'm certainly no fan of the rote approach Hollywood takes when presenting a woman onscreen (hot, skinny, white), something about this abhorrence of sexuality made me do a double take. It seems that while we've crossed some boundaries in our ability to imagine a fictional reality in which a pre-teen girl can take down a roomful of aggressive armed thugs, we obviously feel differently if that girl were, say, posing as an underage prostitute to do the same thing. That movie simply could not be made in any of today's major film studios, because... a 10-year-old seeing a penis is so much worse than a 10-year-old seeing the decapitation of a drug dealer?
The visceral cultural ick-factor was also in play during the release of The Professional, which had to be split into an American version expunged of all suggestive content, and a European version called Leon, featuring a controversial and highly suggestive scene in which Natalie Portman discusses her blooming love/lust for the titular foreign hit-man. Again, I didn't really see the problem -- the scene added meat to the exploration of the dark side of patriarchal relations, problematizing the squeaky-clean father-figure role and adding a nice Aristotelian edge to the drama. But, again, to reiterate the most boring and overused criticism of Hollywood -- violence is okay, sex is not. And the younger the protagonists of films get, the more that formula seems to hold true, with no real critical self-reflection. To quote the director of Kick-Ass: "She wasn't sexualized, it wasn't gratuitous, it was fun and she comes off as a great, fully realized female heroine." Hmm. "Fully-realized" indeed.
Personally, I didn't actually find this all that problematic -- though I should mention that I'm not a very strong believer in the ethical duties of art (I'm also a hypocrite.). Furthermore, The Professional (very different movie, very different genre, but drawing on a similar concept and drawing in similar outrage) is one of my favorite movies of all time, precisely because it pulls back the soft, frilly curtains of girlhood and exposes the wrathful steel rod at the center of anyone who has ever felt small, weak, and defenseless. Of course, where The Professional was more or less anchored in a realistic portrayal of the damage done by a vicious cycle of vengeance and violence, Kick-Ass goes the way of gratuitous wish-fulfillment, allowing the small, weak individual the chance to actually fight back. What both features have to offer, I would argue, is, first of all, a revealing look at the nuanced and often contradictory patriarchal relationship (the young female protagonists of both films are enthralled with the "stronger" male, not the "weaker" female side of the father-daughter equation -- precisely the side that is unequivocally glorified as the hero in any major Hollywood production). And, second, both films present a counter-narrative not just to the popular misconception of young girls as delicate little princesses, but also to the other popular portrayal of young girls in Hollywood, the demonic dead-eyed Scary Child. While both Natalie Portman and Chloe Moretz are involved in some pretty monstrous activities, neither of them is herself a monster whose demise we cheer, precisely because these are, at heart, deeply recognizable, deeply sympathetic human archetypes.
What was interesting to me in the critical fracas about the film was the way that the pro-Kick-Ass camps were split: on one side, those who loved it and found within it an empowering feminist message, and those who were okay with the (stylized) murder and mayhem but objected mainly to the word cunt coming out of the mouth of a 10-year-old. What everyone seemed to agree on, though, is how cannily the director managed not to sexualize Hit Girl... because, presumably, that would take away from the whole feminist empowerment thing. While I'm certainly no fan of the rote approach Hollywood takes when presenting a woman onscreen (hot, skinny, white), something about this abhorrence of sexuality made me do a double take. It seems that while we've crossed some boundaries in our ability to imagine a fictional reality in which a pre-teen girl can take down a roomful of aggressive armed thugs, we obviously feel differently if that girl were, say, posing as an underage prostitute to do the same thing. That movie simply could not be made in any of today's major film studios, because... a 10-year-old seeing a penis is so much worse than a 10-year-old seeing the decapitation of a drug dealer?
The visceral cultural ick-factor was also in play during the release of The Professional, which had to be split into an American version expunged of all suggestive content, and a European version called Leon, featuring a controversial and highly suggestive scene in which Natalie Portman discusses her blooming love/lust for the titular foreign hit-man. Again, I didn't really see the problem -- the scene added meat to the exploration of the dark side of patriarchal relations, problematizing the squeaky-clean father-figure role and adding a nice Aristotelian edge to the drama. But, again, to reiterate the most boring and overused criticism of Hollywood -- violence is okay, sex is not. And the younger the protagonists of films get, the more that formula seems to hold true, with no real critical self-reflection. To quote the director of Kick-Ass: "She wasn't sexualized, it wasn't gratuitous, it was fun and she comes off as a great, fully realized female heroine." Hmm. "Fully-realized" indeed.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Gender troubles
While I was out riding the other day (for the past week, everything in my life has been structured around motorcycles), I remembered I needed to pick up some deodorant. On a gas break, I stepped into the gas station convenience store and quickly scanned the aisles for something other than livid polythene bags of processed carbohydrates. I found a small shelf of personal medical and hygiene products and spent another few seconds searching for deodorant, which I finally located in two varieties: Arrid(tm) For Men and something called Ladies Choice(tm) Invisible Solid. Hesitating slightly, I settled on the cloying pink Ladies Choice and headed to the check-out. An elderly black man with bloodshot eyes and a blank expression swooped in front of me and placed a 40 of Olde English on the counter, then asked the salesgirl for two packs of Kools and a lighter. When she swiped the age-restricted items, the scanner emitted a startled "uh oh!" in a prudish robotic voice. Somewhat bashfully, I stepped up to the counter with my pink tube of deodorant, wishing I'd gone with the Arrid. Equally impassive to purchases of ridiculously named deodorant as she was to purchases of malt liquor at 10 in the morning, the salesgirl scanned my item. The prudish robot remained silent.
Stepping back out into the blaring Texas heat, I popped the frosted cap off the top of the deodorant and gave it a skeptical sniff. It looked and smelled exactly like a giant Elmer's glue stick. Whatever a lady is, I decided, she would probably not choose to slather this stuff on her pits.
Later that day, while my husband and his brothers sat shirtless on the living room couch and played endless rounds of Call of Duty, I retreated to the home gym for some cardio and push-ups. Every now and then, I'd catch a pungent whiff of the floral-cum-paste smell of Ladies Choice emanating from my body. As a distraction, I turned on the TV: Pitch Black, probably my favorite Vin Diesel vehicle, was playing, and as I did sets of push-ups, I thought about how great the character of Jack is in this screenplay -- a (spoiler!!) budding adolescent girl who pretends to be a boy, and who spends the entire movie idolizing and emulating Vin Diesel's space-age killer cowboy persona. What really struck me was how differently this was interpreted in the higher-budget, higher-grossing sequel, Chronicles of Riddick. There, Jack grows up, grows her buzz cut out into an appropriately luscious mane, and transforms into the sexy spitfire sociopath love interest -- the sci-fi version of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Unlike the relatively nuanced discussion of sexuality and gender generated by Pitch Black, the sequel is the Ladies Choice of Hollywood's take on women: commodification masquerading as self-assertion. Ladies, you can choose your choice! You can be strong... and sexy! Smart... and sexy! A sociopath... and.... whatever, as long as you bring in that 15-25 market with cleavage and tight leather pants!
I was so caught up in my seething feminist outrage that I barely noticed my arms turning to jelly from the frenzied pace of my workout. I got up and examined my biceps, which, even after years of regular weights, push-ups, and yoga, were no match for the slovenliest male couch-potato. Is that why I identify so strongly with Jack?, I wondered. Am I just a scared little girl at heart, playing dress-up and acting tough to gain the respect of some distanced, abstracted, quasi-paternal figure -- who's actually just waiting for me to get over this awkward tomboy phase and act like a sexy lady?
Pitch Black ended and 27 Dresses, the Katherine Heigl rom-com about a perpetual bridesmaid, came on. I watched -- sweaty, breathless, half-dazed -- as Heigl paraded across the screen in the titular 27 hideous bridesmaid's dresses, none of which she had actually chosen for herself, but all of which she inexplicably loved too much to throw away. I mashed the power button on the remote, leaving a greasy slick of sweat on the molded plastic. Next time, I'm getting the Arrid and the 40, goddamn it.
Stepping back out into the blaring Texas heat, I popped the frosted cap off the top of the deodorant and gave it a skeptical sniff. It looked and smelled exactly like a giant Elmer's glue stick. Whatever a lady is, I decided, she would probably not choose to slather this stuff on her pits.
Later that day, while my husband and his brothers sat shirtless on the living room couch and played endless rounds of Call of Duty, I retreated to the home gym for some cardio and push-ups. Every now and then, I'd catch a pungent whiff of the floral-cum-paste smell of Ladies Choice emanating from my body. As a distraction, I turned on the TV: Pitch Black, probably my favorite Vin Diesel vehicle, was playing, and as I did sets of push-ups, I thought about how great the character of Jack is in this screenplay -- a (spoiler!!) budding adolescent girl who pretends to be a boy, and who spends the entire movie idolizing and emulating Vin Diesel's space-age killer cowboy persona. What really struck me was how differently this was interpreted in the higher-budget, higher-grossing sequel, Chronicles of Riddick. There, Jack grows up, grows her buzz cut out into an appropriately luscious mane, and transforms into the sexy spitfire sociopath love interest -- the sci-fi version of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Unlike the relatively nuanced discussion of sexuality and gender generated by Pitch Black, the sequel is the Ladies Choice of Hollywood's take on women: commodification masquerading as self-assertion. Ladies, you can choose your choice! You can be strong... and sexy! Smart... and sexy! A sociopath... and.... whatever, as long as you bring in that 15-25 market with cleavage and tight leather pants!
I was so caught up in my seething feminist outrage that I barely noticed my arms turning to jelly from the frenzied pace of my workout. I got up and examined my biceps, which, even after years of regular weights, push-ups, and yoga, were no match for the slovenliest male couch-potato. Is that why I identify so strongly with Jack?, I wondered. Am I just a scared little girl at heart, playing dress-up and acting tough to gain the respect of some distanced, abstracted, quasi-paternal figure -- who's actually just waiting for me to get over this awkward tomboy phase and act like a sexy lady?
Pitch Black ended and 27 Dresses, the Katherine Heigl rom-com about a perpetual bridesmaid, came on. I watched -- sweaty, breathless, half-dazed -- as Heigl paraded across the screen in the titular 27 hideous bridesmaid's dresses, none of which she had actually chosen for herself, but all of which she inexplicably loved too much to throw away. I mashed the power button on the remote, leaving a greasy slick of sweat on the molded plastic. Next time, I'm getting the Arrid and the 40, goddamn it.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Potentialities
In the interim between moving out of Boston and moving into Berkeley, Ryan and I are spending a week at his parents' rural Texas lakehouse, which to me is pretty much the best way ever to ease into a terrifying and potentially demoralizing transition from academia into The Real World. Ryan's parents have the infinite patience and bottomless pantry of a well-regulated military machine and/or a big family, with a refreshing lack of that obsessive, passive-aggressive neediness that passes for love in most Slavic families I know. Plus, they drink every night, go on impromptu motorcycle or camping trips around the country, and still manage to run two highly profitable small businesses, making them the model of adult success in my eyes.
Yesterday, we found out midday that a friend of ours was coming to visit. Ryan's mom dutifully bought sackfuls of burger fixins at Wal-Mart and made up the spare bedroom, just in case. Robbie, the friend, was one of the dudes who'd made up our Tokyo spring break group four years ago, and he'd loved it so much that he went back to teach English there for two years. Last we'd heard from this kid, he'd found himself a pretty, older Japanese lady, brought her back to the States, and gotten hitched. Given the delicate nature of such matters, Ryan thought it imprudent to ask whether he'd be bringing his wife on this visit. I was out on the deck reading when he arrived, and when I walked into the house, the first thing I saw was a tanned, smiling Japanese girl wearing a flowy floral sundress over an enormously pregnant belly. Robbie grinned goodnaturedly and didn't say anything, as if he were just as surprised by the whole thing as we were. "Hiromi," the girl introduced herself, giving me a barely material handshake and fixing me with her beautiful almond-shaped eyes. She didn't look a day over twenty.
As we all stood there awkwardly, trying to find something to say that wasn't immediately obvious, Hiromi spotted the lake beyond the sliding glass doors in the living room, and she headed straight for the deck. "Will we go swimming, Robbie?" she asked gently, her voice radiating the pure joy that also lit up her face. We changed into bathing suits, and I tried not to ogle the arresting spectacle of Hiromi in a black string bikini and a floppy denim sun hat. Before she got into the water, she did a quick round of calisthenics, stretching her thin limbs and torso and showcasing a strange juxtaposition of prominent ribcage and plump, perfectly gourd-like stomach. Ryan's brother offered her some foam pool noodles, which she eagerly accepted. "These are great! We don't have these in Japan. We have some things like this for kids..." she trailed off and bobbed happily in the warm Texas lake water.
Robbie made for the small square dock a couple dozen breast-strokes from shore. For a gangly, nerdy white boy, he was impressively skilled at small-scale water acrobatics. Last summer, I'd watched him do sets of front and back flips off that dock, so I was expecting another show this time around, especially since he now had a wife to impress. But after his first modest flip off the edge, which dappled Hiromi's sun hat with dark blue wet spots, she protested. "Roooobbie..." she cooed, never changing her honeyed tone or losing the glint of joy from her eyes, "I've already seen you do this." With the same bashful grin on his face, Robbie swam obediently back to Hiromi and, instead, began blowing into one end of the hollow foam noodles to make water jet out of the other end. Hiromi observed this activity with a mixture of maternal love and childlike amusement. "Like a whale!" she said, and, try as I might, I couldn't detect any hint of patronizing in her voice. I watched the two of them float together, exchanging quiet words in a mixture of English and Japanese, and I marveled at the strangeness of a world that could bring these two people together and put them in a lake in Texas. Then again, when I thought about it, it was no stranger than a world that could bring a girl from rural Ukraine and an all-American boy from Texas together and deposit them in that same lake. And who knows how strange and serendipitous things will get for Hiromi's unborn daughter, or for Ryan and my as-yet only hypothetically conceived kids. But it's nice to think about, and -- as seems to be the theme of this interim time in Texas -- a good way to put things into perspective.
Yesterday, we found out midday that a friend of ours was coming to visit. Ryan's mom dutifully bought sackfuls of burger fixins at Wal-Mart and made up the spare bedroom, just in case. Robbie, the friend, was one of the dudes who'd made up our Tokyo spring break group four years ago, and he'd loved it so much that he went back to teach English there for two years. Last we'd heard from this kid, he'd found himself a pretty, older Japanese lady, brought her back to the States, and gotten hitched. Given the delicate nature of such matters, Ryan thought it imprudent to ask whether he'd be bringing his wife on this visit. I was out on the deck reading when he arrived, and when I walked into the house, the first thing I saw was a tanned, smiling Japanese girl wearing a flowy floral sundress over an enormously pregnant belly. Robbie grinned goodnaturedly and didn't say anything, as if he were just as surprised by the whole thing as we were. "Hiromi," the girl introduced herself, giving me a barely material handshake and fixing me with her beautiful almond-shaped eyes. She didn't look a day over twenty.
As we all stood there awkwardly, trying to find something to say that wasn't immediately obvious, Hiromi spotted the lake beyond the sliding glass doors in the living room, and she headed straight for the deck. "Will we go swimming, Robbie?" she asked gently, her voice radiating the pure joy that also lit up her face. We changed into bathing suits, and I tried not to ogle the arresting spectacle of Hiromi in a black string bikini and a floppy denim sun hat. Before she got into the water, she did a quick round of calisthenics, stretching her thin limbs and torso and showcasing a strange juxtaposition of prominent ribcage and plump, perfectly gourd-like stomach. Ryan's brother offered her some foam pool noodles, which she eagerly accepted. "These are great! We don't have these in Japan. We have some things like this for kids..." she trailed off and bobbed happily in the warm Texas lake water.
Robbie made for the small square dock a couple dozen breast-strokes from shore. For a gangly, nerdy white boy, he was impressively skilled at small-scale water acrobatics. Last summer, I'd watched him do sets of front and back flips off that dock, so I was expecting another show this time around, especially since he now had a wife to impress. But after his first modest flip off the edge, which dappled Hiromi's sun hat with dark blue wet spots, she protested. "Roooobbie..." she cooed, never changing her honeyed tone or losing the glint of joy from her eyes, "I've already seen you do this." With the same bashful grin on his face, Robbie swam obediently back to Hiromi and, instead, began blowing into one end of the hollow foam noodles to make water jet out of the other end. Hiromi observed this activity with a mixture of maternal love and childlike amusement. "Like a whale!" she said, and, try as I might, I couldn't detect any hint of patronizing in her voice. I watched the two of them float together, exchanging quiet words in a mixture of English and Japanese, and I marveled at the strangeness of a world that could bring these two people together and put them in a lake in Texas. Then again, when I thought about it, it was no stranger than a world that could bring a girl from rural Ukraine and an all-American boy from Texas together and deposit them in that same lake. And who knows how strange and serendipitous things will get for Hiromi's unborn daughter, or for Ryan and my as-yet only hypothetically conceived kids. But it's nice to think about, and -- as seems to be the theme of this interim time in Texas -- a good way to put things into perspective.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Hearts, brains, and guts
While watching Zombieland the other night, I had a minor revelation on the subject of danger and fear. In the film, Jesse Eisenberg (doing his best version of a poor man's Michael Cera) plays a nerdy college student who claims that his innate obsessive fearfulness is what helps him survive the zombie apocalypse. Since he's always been a Warcraft playing shut-in, he argues in a voiceover dripping with geek pathos, it's easy for him to follow the extremely antisocial, risk-averse lifestyle necessary to avoid becoming a "human Happy Meal" when every human around him has been zombiefied. Yet within the first five minutes, his character is paired with Woody Harrelson (doing his best version of a poor man's Clint Eastwood), who sprays the air with bullets just for fun and generally expends a shocking amount of his energy on putting himself at risk. To hammer home his extravagantly superfluous bravado, the main motivation of his character is not, as for the others, to find a zombie-free zone, but to locate and consume what may soon become the world's last remaining Twinkie. Predictably, though quite delightfully, the rest of the film deals with the navigation of these two poles -- extreme risk aversion and extreme risk predilection -- as they relate to life, love, and zombie survival.
What I realized as I was watching all the silly yet surprisingly smart zombie-killing action go down was that the character played by Eisenberg (and made infinitely more famous in pop culture by Monsieur Cera) has a lot to say about the psychological makeup of my generation in general and me in particular. And not just because he's a Warcraft playing shut-in (substitute Diablo and I'm guilty as charged), but because his major phobias are not the rational fears you'd expect for someone in his situation (violent, cannibalistic hordes of zombified humans), but completely irrational, moderately ridiculous ones (clowns, bathrooms, dirty dish towels). As someone also raised in a world hermetically sealed off from any actual danger, I feel a lot of empathy for this kind of abstracted second-order fear, as well as the impulse to refashion it into some kind of bizarre self-definition-cum-self-affirmation.
Last summer, on a bet, I had to learn how to ride a motorcycle, and while jerkily zipping around a dusty strip-mall parking lot in first gear, I realized that my biggest fear wasn't dying in a fiery crash on the highway, or even experiencing the sensation of skin scraping against the grit, gravel, and broken glass that littered the concrete. My biggest fear was not being very good at riding the damn thing -- not being able to master turns, or leans, or figuring out the rules of the road, and thus letting down the well-intentioned boy I'd made the bet with, as well as his father, who was patiently trying to teach me to shift gears as childish tears of frustration and shame streamed down my face. I kept trying to explain to the confused Texas boys in attendance to my paltry performance that I just didn't like dangerous things, that speed wasn't fun or exhilarating for me. Maybe, I tried to suggest to them, and even more plaintively to myself, maybe I'm just a scared little girl who needs to remain locked in the safety of esoteric anxieties and neuroses. But as soon as I framed it that way, in exactly the same pathos-ridden inner monologue performed by Eisenberg, I balked. Like Eisenberg's character, I had existed in a solitary, essentialist framework for a long time and, like him, I wasn't entirely happy in it -- not the least because it was a framework dominated by a secret obsession with heroicism and machismo (see: every video game and comic book, ever).
Because the thing is, the Eisenberg-Harrelson duality is actually a singularity. No matter where the members of my generation fall on the spectrum, we almost certainly want to be at least a little bit more Harrelson, and I'm certainly no exception. Any time I've dealt with fear and danger in a public setting, I found myself working through the complex performative possibilities and coming up on the Harrelson side. Eighth grade gym class comes to mind, when I was one of the only girls to make it to the top of the climbing rope (the reward was getting to sign your name on the gym ceiling with a Sharpie) but made the mistake of wrapping the rope around my leg when I slid down, sloughing off a third of the skin that covered my left tibia. The school nurse nearly keeled over when I limped into her office dripping with blood, but I was totally stoic about the whole thing, eying the raw, red tissue with clinical interest as she proceeded to scald it with alcohol and swath it in gauze. I'd never broken or sprained anything, and I decided that this moment was going to define my relationship to pain from that day on. Walking through the deserted hallways to get back to class, leg bandaged and bloody gym clothes in hand, I felt absurdly proud, like Indiana Jones returning roughed up but triumphant from yet another legendary quest. Whatever pain I'd dealt with struggling up the rope and then using it as an accidental skin grater seemed completely immaterial in comparison to this euphoric victory march. For the first time in my life, I felt like a genuine certified badass.
The point is that bravery does not exist in a vacuum, just as fear doesn't. It all comes down to the performance of a type, and the reason the Harrelson character in the film isn't the lead and dorky, neurotic Eisenberg is has everything to do with Zombieland's savvy handling of this basic social fact. Harrelson is an archetype, a comic book character, while Eisenberg is the real mirrored representation of the film's audience: a geeky, avid comic book reader, video game player, zombie movie watcher, precisely for the reason that Harrelson is who he secretly wants to be.
The main takeaway from all of this is that there are two options:
1. Be Eisenberg and make risk-taking antithetical to one's perception/presentation of self. Be pretty much safe from failure and pain but remain dominated by secret dreams, yearnings, feelings of inadequacy, etc.
2. Be Eisenberg trying to be Harrelson, possibly fail and/or look ridiculous, almost certainly get eaten in the metaphoric zombie apocalypse that is the modern world, but at least go down in style.
Well, long story short, I may be a scared little girl at heart, but at least I'm a scared little girl with a motorcycle license. And if worse does come to worse, I'm also an organ donor.
What I realized as I was watching all the silly yet surprisingly smart zombie-killing action go down was that the character played by Eisenberg (and made infinitely more famous in pop culture by Monsieur Cera) has a lot to say about the psychological makeup of my generation in general and me in particular. And not just because he's a Warcraft playing shut-in (substitute Diablo and I'm guilty as charged), but because his major phobias are not the rational fears you'd expect for someone in his situation (violent, cannibalistic hordes of zombified humans), but completely irrational, moderately ridiculous ones (clowns, bathrooms, dirty dish towels). As someone also raised in a world hermetically sealed off from any actual danger, I feel a lot of empathy for this kind of abstracted second-order fear, as well as the impulse to refashion it into some kind of bizarre self-definition-cum-self-affirmation.
Last summer, on a bet, I had to learn how to ride a motorcycle, and while jerkily zipping around a dusty strip-mall parking lot in first gear, I realized that my biggest fear wasn't dying in a fiery crash on the highway, or even experiencing the sensation of skin scraping against the grit, gravel, and broken glass that littered the concrete. My biggest fear was not being very good at riding the damn thing -- not being able to master turns, or leans, or figuring out the rules of the road, and thus letting down the well-intentioned boy I'd made the bet with, as well as his father, who was patiently trying to teach me to shift gears as childish tears of frustration and shame streamed down my face. I kept trying to explain to the confused Texas boys in attendance to my paltry performance that I just didn't like dangerous things, that speed wasn't fun or exhilarating for me. Maybe, I tried to suggest to them, and even more plaintively to myself, maybe I'm just a scared little girl who needs to remain locked in the safety of esoteric anxieties and neuroses. But as soon as I framed it that way, in exactly the same pathos-ridden inner monologue performed by Eisenberg, I balked. Like Eisenberg's character, I had existed in a solitary, essentialist framework for a long time and, like him, I wasn't entirely happy in it -- not the least because it was a framework dominated by a secret obsession with heroicism and machismo (see: every video game and comic book, ever).
Because the thing is, the Eisenberg-Harrelson duality is actually a singularity. No matter where the members of my generation fall on the spectrum, we almost certainly want to be at least a little bit more Harrelson, and I'm certainly no exception. Any time I've dealt with fear and danger in a public setting, I found myself working through the complex performative possibilities and coming up on the Harrelson side. Eighth grade gym class comes to mind, when I was one of the only girls to make it to the top of the climbing rope (the reward was getting to sign your name on the gym ceiling with a Sharpie) but made the mistake of wrapping the rope around my leg when I slid down, sloughing off a third of the skin that covered my left tibia. The school nurse nearly keeled over when I limped into her office dripping with blood, but I was totally stoic about the whole thing, eying the raw, red tissue with clinical interest as she proceeded to scald it with alcohol and swath it in gauze. I'd never broken or sprained anything, and I decided that this moment was going to define my relationship to pain from that day on. Walking through the deserted hallways to get back to class, leg bandaged and bloody gym clothes in hand, I felt absurdly proud, like Indiana Jones returning roughed up but triumphant from yet another legendary quest. Whatever pain I'd dealt with struggling up the rope and then using it as an accidental skin grater seemed completely immaterial in comparison to this euphoric victory march. For the first time in my life, I felt like a genuine certified badass.
The point is that bravery does not exist in a vacuum, just as fear doesn't. It all comes down to the performance of a type, and the reason the Harrelson character in the film isn't the lead and dorky, neurotic Eisenberg is has everything to do with Zombieland's savvy handling of this basic social fact. Harrelson is an archetype, a comic book character, while Eisenberg is the real mirrored representation of the film's audience: a geeky, avid comic book reader, video game player, zombie movie watcher, precisely for the reason that Harrelson is who he secretly wants to be.
The main takeaway from all of this is that there are two options:
1. Be Eisenberg and make risk-taking antithetical to one's perception/presentation of self. Be pretty much safe from failure and pain but remain dominated by secret dreams, yearnings, feelings of inadequacy, etc.
2. Be Eisenberg trying to be Harrelson, possibly fail and/or look ridiculous, almost certainly get eaten in the metaphoric zombie apocalypse that is the modern world, but at least go down in style.
Well, long story short, I may be a scared little girl at heart, but at least I'm a scared little girl with a motorcycle license. And if worse does come to worse, I'm also an organ donor.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Naturalized
Mechanics Hall in Worcester, MA wasn't exactly what I was expecting. What I thought would be a bland warehouse with long neon-lit corridors and waxy linoleum floors turned out to be a grand, quasi-historic monument of a building. The foyer boasted red plush carpet and a curved twin stairway hugged by gold side-rails that led up to a mysterious second level, where glittering chandeliers hung from the cavernous ceilings. Unfortunately, all the glamor was somewhat tarnished by the addition of cheap aluminum folding chairs lining the walls of the entranceway, and the veritable Babel of foreigners gradually filling them and all the empty space around them. The foreigners were all well-dressed, perfumed, clean-cut and professional-looking. I cast an eye at all the tailored suits and stiletto heels and, in my denim skirt and thrift-store collared button-down, felt uncharacteristically underdressed. But there was a discernible note of nervousness in the air, a hint of desperate anticipation that soured the atmosphere, a cross between an opera house and a dentist's waiting room.
Like a plucky artisan in a sea of disinherited nobility, I acted cool and disinterested. I took a seat in an empty chair and opened up Leszek Kolakowski's Main Currents of Marxism (volume one, chapter one: The Origins of Dialectics). There was still a good hour-and-a-half until the time printed on my invitation, but already the foyer was beginning to fill to capacity. Ushers dressed in suits and pastel ties flitting through the crowd, instructing people to have a seat and wait. Most did, either sitting placidly with their arms crossed or fidgeting anxiously with their invitations. A small but tenacious contingent, though, strode boldly up the stairs, as if they expected a second, higher tier of administration in the balcony above the rabble. "Why are people going up the stairs? Do we need to go up the stairs?" someone called to an usher. "No, no... they're just going to use the bathroom. Please stay here and wait," the usher said, a note of frustration creeping into his overly polite voice, and then went to chase down the upstart stair-climbers.
More and more people drifted in, and the noise level in the foyer rose steadily. When the ushers finally announced that we were to form two lines, left staircase for guests and right staircase for oath-takers, there was hardly any room to move. A thick snake of bodies began pushing itself up both staircases, forcing the ushers to chirp in barely-contained panic: "Careful, please! No pushing! Please, be considerate of those around you. There's plenty of time. Please, please -- proceed slowly." The snake did not relent. It just kept churning steadily up the steps, only narrowing at the very top, where two ushers were checking invite letters and green cards. I began to feel sorry for the ushers and their desperate politeness, as if they'd somehow been transported from their modern-day office jobs into the 18th century to act as slave-overseers and were really apologetic about it. They all spoke clearly and distinctly, drawing out every syllable like adults addressing well-mannered children. To break the officious atmosphere, they would ask how we were doing, or which countries we were coming from. I imagined there were quite a few people with actual titles here, well-educated dignitaries, respected professionals who examined the ushers with world-weary eyes. If they'd been more comfortable with the language, they'd certainly have knocked these provincial bureaucrats down a peg or two, but for now they were forced to nod and murmur deferentially. When I reached the top of the stairs, the usher took my invite and flipped it over to make sure I'd filled in the "Signed at____" portion correctly. "Excellent!" she said, her stern face breaking into a warm, motherly smile because I'd written "Worcester" instead of the popular mistaken answer, "Boston." She had the same smile on her face as my third-grade math teacher. "Yeah, thanks," I said acidly, snatching the letter back. Her grin faltered, but she had to move on quickly to the next person in line. "Worcester. Change that from Boston to Worcester. Do you understand me? Do you speak English? Where's your interpreter?" I heard her saying to the wizened old Asian woman behind me.
Before going into the main room, I went through a small convention hall, where a conveyor belt of teen volunteers handed out packets of citizenship information ("Learn About Our Flag!", "A Citizen's Handbook," "A Welcome From the President") and miniature American flags. A quiver of panic ran through me when I saw the flags, and my mind flashed back to high school pep rallies. Trying to suppress my tenth-grade instinct to run and hide in the girl's bathroom, I went to find my seat.
The auditorium was even more regal than the entrance. Elaborate marble balustrades lined the walls, along with framed oil paintings of the Founding Fathers, and the ceiling was a richly-stuccoed neoclassical confection dotted with pink and blue frescoes. But the centerpiece of the room, hanging in the front and covering up an ancient brass organ, was a giant screen with a moving graphic of a billowing American flag, with the caption "Celebrate Citizenship, Celebrate America" emblazoned in the center. The young man next to me -- mid-twenties, slender, dressed in all black -- took a picture of it with his phone and started texting rapidly. There was something familiar about the wariness in his gray eyes, the slightly defensive hunch to his bony shoulders, the ironic smirk on the corner of his lips. Russian, I thought and knew he was thinking the same thing about me. True to the iron-clad law of "Slavic brotherhood," neither of us said anything or looked at each other again.
We waited. For ages. For three hours, while the auditorium filled up with over 700 people. I read about dialectics (from Plotinus to Hegel) until my eyes started to glaze over, then closed them and nodded off into fitful half-sleep, waking up every time the loop of patriotic music broke off, paused for a moment, then restarted. The thought crossed my mind that when airlines hold people hostage in cramped quarters with no food or water for hours on end, it's a scandal, but when the Department of Homeland Security does it, it's a celebration. In the balcony above us, the "guests" were snapping pictures, waving homemade signs, playing with their toy flags. At noon, the ceremony finally started. The PowerPoint projector switched from the billowing flag slide to a five-minute film on the importance of immigration in this country (presumably assembled before the whole Arizona debacle). Amid the kitschy stock footage, I noticed an archival clip of immigrants arriving on Ellis Island, the same clip I'd watched over a dozen times in Yuri Tsivian's Soviet film class and analyzed for coded ideological content. I was still trying to remember what Tsivian had said about the peculiarity of the camera angle, the way it made the static ship look like it was moving, when somebody got on stage and led us in the oath. Just like in school during the pledge of allegiance, I couldn't bring myself to repeat it. I mouthed some of it -- "...bear arms," "without any reservations in my heart," "so help me God" -- and blah blah blahed the rest. A judge came in and officially approved the motion to make us all citizens, and everyone started clapping. Some people waved their flags. The PowerPoint presentation moved to the final slide: a rousing rendition of "Proud to be an American" over video clips of happy children running through wheat fields. I desperately fought off the urge to crawl under my chair.
Afterwards, we had to wait some more, this time for the elderly, pregnant, and disabled to come get their citizenship certificates first. There was a small commotion in the row behind me; somebody had lost their invitation, which it was necessary to have in order to receive the certificate. The Indian man sitting behind me found it on the floor and handed it over to its owner, who breathed a huge sigh of relief.
"Now that would be funny," the Indian man said, "if you lost it at the very last minute. They'd probably put you in the back of the line, and you'd have to start all over again. Another ten years."
The owner of the invitation laughed goodnaturedly, then said in lightly Arabic-accented English, "Yes, no kidding. It really has been ten years for us. We started before 9/11, and then after that, you know... everything slowed down. I can't believe it's finally over. It feels so good."
And, just like that, I didn't know what I hated more -- the overblown ridiculousness of the ceremony, or my own smug, entitled detachment from it. I hadn't waited ten years for this moment. I hadn't even waited ten months. I didn't really give a damn, because as inconvenient as it was to carry a Ukrainian passport, I never really had to worry about being searched at airports, or having the wrong skin color or accent, or being threatened with deportation to a country where I'd be arrested just for thinking half the stuff I think, let alone writing it down for the world to see. All this time, I've operated under the assumption that I was different somehow, special, more in touch with the populist ethos via the grassroots immigrant experience. But when I had to spend the night in the Amsterdam airport because even a one-night layover required a visa, I didn't feel any solidarity with the various undesirables -- African, Asian, Muslim -- who slept in the cramped airport seats next to me. And I certainly didn't feel any solidarity with this motley group of foreigners around me, all dressed up and staring with happy, shining eyes at the giant illuminated screen. I just felt embarrassed, alienated, and alone. I guess when it comes down to it, I realized, I've been American all along.
The screen was raised but the projector stayed on, casting a red-white-and-blue veneer over a portrait of George Washington. I stumbled out of the auditorium in mild shock, picking up my certificate and stuffing it into my bag. Like a half-delirious debutante, I made my way down the red carpeted steps and wove through the throng of friends and family that had gathered in the foyer to welcome their born-again American loved ones into the world. I hadn't eaten since the Dunkin Donuts bagel twist at eight; it was now close to two. Without stopping or looking back, I trotted hurriedly to the train station, "Proud to be an American" still pumping through my head.
When I got back into Boston, I was equal parts starving and exhausted, so I grabbed a Milky Way from a kiosk in the subway. I handed a dollar to the young Arabic-looking man working the counter and turned to go, but he called after me. I turned back, reaching for my wallet thinking I'd underpaid, but he met me with a half-sly, half-shy, all-flirty smile.
"Where are you from?" he asked sweetly.
"Ukraine," I replied, then almost slapped myself. Why did I still automatically do that? Why couldn't I just let go of these stupid essentialist truths? Of this semi-constructed foreigner persona? Why couldn't I let myself blend in?
"Oh? You here for school? How do you like Boston?"
"Yeah. Uh, it's nice."
"What's your name?"
I paused. He was looking at me with so much openness and adoration, it was hard to believe. I wanted desperately to tell him what happened today, to explain the mixture of absurdity and mortified revulsion I felt during those four long hours. To make a genuinely human connection with someone other than the only person I could ever truly count on to understand me, the scathingly ironic, rootless cosmopolitan voice inside my head. Instead, I mustered up all the coy femininity I could and gave him a friendly smile.
"I'll see you around," I said, and went to catch my train.
Like a plucky artisan in a sea of disinherited nobility, I acted cool and disinterested. I took a seat in an empty chair and opened up Leszek Kolakowski's Main Currents of Marxism (volume one, chapter one: The Origins of Dialectics). There was still a good hour-and-a-half until the time printed on my invitation, but already the foyer was beginning to fill to capacity. Ushers dressed in suits and pastel ties flitting through the crowd, instructing people to have a seat and wait. Most did, either sitting placidly with their arms crossed or fidgeting anxiously with their invitations. A small but tenacious contingent, though, strode boldly up the stairs, as if they expected a second, higher tier of administration in the balcony above the rabble. "Why are people going up the stairs? Do we need to go up the stairs?" someone called to an usher. "No, no... they're just going to use the bathroom. Please stay here and wait," the usher said, a note of frustration creeping into his overly polite voice, and then went to chase down the upstart stair-climbers.
More and more people drifted in, and the noise level in the foyer rose steadily. When the ushers finally announced that we were to form two lines, left staircase for guests and right staircase for oath-takers, there was hardly any room to move. A thick snake of bodies began pushing itself up both staircases, forcing the ushers to chirp in barely-contained panic: "Careful, please! No pushing! Please, be considerate of those around you. There's plenty of time. Please, please -- proceed slowly." The snake did not relent. It just kept churning steadily up the steps, only narrowing at the very top, where two ushers were checking invite letters and green cards. I began to feel sorry for the ushers and their desperate politeness, as if they'd somehow been transported from their modern-day office jobs into the 18th century to act as slave-overseers and were really apologetic about it. They all spoke clearly and distinctly, drawing out every syllable like adults addressing well-mannered children. To break the officious atmosphere, they would ask how we were doing, or which countries we were coming from. I imagined there were quite a few people with actual titles here, well-educated dignitaries, respected professionals who examined the ushers with world-weary eyes. If they'd been more comfortable with the language, they'd certainly have knocked these provincial bureaucrats down a peg or two, but for now they were forced to nod and murmur deferentially. When I reached the top of the stairs, the usher took my invite and flipped it over to make sure I'd filled in the "Signed at____" portion correctly. "Excellent!" she said, her stern face breaking into a warm, motherly smile because I'd written "Worcester" instead of the popular mistaken answer, "Boston." She had the same smile on her face as my third-grade math teacher. "Yeah, thanks," I said acidly, snatching the letter back. Her grin faltered, but she had to move on quickly to the next person in line. "Worcester. Change that from Boston to Worcester. Do you understand me? Do you speak English? Where's your interpreter?" I heard her saying to the wizened old Asian woman behind me.
Before going into the main room, I went through a small convention hall, where a conveyor belt of teen volunteers handed out packets of citizenship information ("Learn About Our Flag!", "A Citizen's Handbook," "A Welcome From the President") and miniature American flags. A quiver of panic ran through me when I saw the flags, and my mind flashed back to high school pep rallies. Trying to suppress my tenth-grade instinct to run and hide in the girl's bathroom, I went to find my seat.
The auditorium was even more regal than the entrance. Elaborate marble balustrades lined the walls, along with framed oil paintings of the Founding Fathers, and the ceiling was a richly-stuccoed neoclassical confection dotted with pink and blue frescoes. But the centerpiece of the room, hanging in the front and covering up an ancient brass organ, was a giant screen with a moving graphic of a billowing American flag, with the caption "Celebrate Citizenship, Celebrate America" emblazoned in the center. The young man next to me -- mid-twenties, slender, dressed in all black -- took a picture of it with his phone and started texting rapidly. There was something familiar about the wariness in his gray eyes, the slightly defensive hunch to his bony shoulders, the ironic smirk on the corner of his lips. Russian, I thought and knew he was thinking the same thing about me. True to the iron-clad law of "Slavic brotherhood," neither of us said anything or looked at each other again.
We waited. For ages. For three hours, while the auditorium filled up with over 700 people. I read about dialectics (from Plotinus to Hegel) until my eyes started to glaze over, then closed them and nodded off into fitful half-sleep, waking up every time the loop of patriotic music broke off, paused for a moment, then restarted. The thought crossed my mind that when airlines hold people hostage in cramped quarters with no food or water for hours on end, it's a scandal, but when the Department of Homeland Security does it, it's a celebration. In the balcony above us, the "guests" were snapping pictures, waving homemade signs, playing with their toy flags. At noon, the ceremony finally started. The PowerPoint projector switched from the billowing flag slide to a five-minute film on the importance of immigration in this country (presumably assembled before the whole Arizona debacle). Amid the kitschy stock footage, I noticed an archival clip of immigrants arriving on Ellis Island, the same clip I'd watched over a dozen times in Yuri Tsivian's Soviet film class and analyzed for coded ideological content. I was still trying to remember what Tsivian had said about the peculiarity of the camera angle, the way it made the static ship look like it was moving, when somebody got on stage and led us in the oath. Just like in school during the pledge of allegiance, I couldn't bring myself to repeat it. I mouthed some of it -- "...bear arms," "without any reservations in my heart," "so help me God" -- and blah blah blahed the rest. A judge came in and officially approved the motion to make us all citizens, and everyone started clapping. Some people waved their flags. The PowerPoint presentation moved to the final slide: a rousing rendition of "Proud to be an American" over video clips of happy children running through wheat fields. I desperately fought off the urge to crawl under my chair.
Afterwards, we had to wait some more, this time for the elderly, pregnant, and disabled to come get their citizenship certificates first. There was a small commotion in the row behind me; somebody had lost their invitation, which it was necessary to have in order to receive the certificate. The Indian man sitting behind me found it on the floor and handed it over to its owner, who breathed a huge sigh of relief.
"Now that would be funny," the Indian man said, "if you lost it at the very last minute. They'd probably put you in the back of the line, and you'd have to start all over again. Another ten years."
The owner of the invitation laughed goodnaturedly, then said in lightly Arabic-accented English, "Yes, no kidding. It really has been ten years for us. We started before 9/11, and then after that, you know... everything slowed down. I can't believe it's finally over. It feels so good."
And, just like that, I didn't know what I hated more -- the overblown ridiculousness of the ceremony, or my own smug, entitled detachment from it. I hadn't waited ten years for this moment. I hadn't even waited ten months. I didn't really give a damn, because as inconvenient as it was to carry a Ukrainian passport, I never really had to worry about being searched at airports, or having the wrong skin color or accent, or being threatened with deportation to a country where I'd be arrested just for thinking half the stuff I think, let alone writing it down for the world to see. All this time, I've operated under the assumption that I was different somehow, special, more in touch with the populist ethos via the grassroots immigrant experience. But when I had to spend the night in the Amsterdam airport because even a one-night layover required a visa, I didn't feel any solidarity with the various undesirables -- African, Asian, Muslim -- who slept in the cramped airport seats next to me. And I certainly didn't feel any solidarity with this motley group of foreigners around me, all dressed up and staring with happy, shining eyes at the giant illuminated screen. I just felt embarrassed, alienated, and alone. I guess when it comes down to it, I realized, I've been American all along.
The screen was raised but the projector stayed on, casting a red-white-and-blue veneer over a portrait of George Washington. I stumbled out of the auditorium in mild shock, picking up my certificate and stuffing it into my bag. Like a half-delirious debutante, I made my way down the red carpeted steps and wove through the throng of friends and family that had gathered in the foyer to welcome their born-again American loved ones into the world. I hadn't eaten since the Dunkin Donuts bagel twist at eight; it was now close to two. Without stopping or looking back, I trotted hurriedly to the train station, "Proud to be an American" still pumping through my head.
When I got back into Boston, I was equal parts starving and exhausted, so I grabbed a Milky Way from a kiosk in the subway. I handed a dollar to the young Arabic-looking man working the counter and turned to go, but he called after me. I turned back, reaching for my wallet thinking I'd underpaid, but he met me with a half-sly, half-shy, all-flirty smile.
"Where are you from?" he asked sweetly.
"Ukraine," I replied, then almost slapped myself. Why did I still automatically do that? Why couldn't I just let go of these stupid essentialist truths? Of this semi-constructed foreigner persona? Why couldn't I let myself blend in?
"Oh? You here for school? How do you like Boston?"
"Yeah. Uh, it's nice."
"What's your name?"
I paused. He was looking at me with so much openness and adoration, it was hard to believe. I wanted desperately to tell him what happened today, to explain the mixture of absurdity and mortified revulsion I felt during those four long hours. To make a genuinely human connection with someone other than the only person I could ever truly count on to understand me, the scathingly ironic, rootless cosmopolitan voice inside my head. Instead, I mustered up all the coy femininity I could and gave him a friendly smile.
"I'll see you around," I said, and went to catch my train.
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