Soon as I crossed the latest border, I found signs posted every twenty yards – pretty consistently throughout the state – reminding that if I injure a road worker, it will cost me $7500 and 15 years.
Now entering Michigan – birthplace, according to some, of both the modern labor union and the American middle class. Or, as my hosts put it, the miner’s canary of America. Which is a rather ominous analogy, if there’s any accuracy to it.
Rolled into Ann Arbor, and from what little I’ve seen of it it’s the classic university town, all sunshine and red brick. The presence of the college has apparently done much to insulate it from the economic catastrophe afflicting the rest of the state. My sister lives in what appears to be a totally idyllic neighborhood, and I can tell that I’m going to enjoy my time here. It may just be familiarity – one of the advantages of family, after all, is that we all pretty much decided how we were going to feel about each other for the rest of our lives many years ago – but she and her husband have, in some indefinable way, created an environment similar to the one I remember growing up in.
Her husband and I spent much of the evening standing over a barbecue in their backyard, discussing kitschy inventions that could be mass-produced to make us stupid amounts of money. And, really – isn’t that image what the American dream is all about?
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
Being a big geek apparently runs in the family.
I spent much of the day with my ten-month-old nephew, who has the most remarkable attention span I’ve seen in a child that age – staring at new stimuli intently for minutes on end. This may an indication of intelligence. Or stupidity. Time will tell.
My sister had me take him around downtown while she ran into work to take care of some business there. I spent my time walking extremely slowly, constantly checking on him, and eyeing strangers suspiciously. This leads me to believe that I will be one of those obnoxiously controlling, overprotective Chinese fathers.
People kept stopping to talk to us, and I’m not 100% certain whether this was due to the baby or the town – almost certainly both. The town’s the same size as the one I grew up in, only with more ethnic and cultural diversity – I saw three used bookstores in a single city block. I don’t have the faintest idea how a community of this size can support that. (I essentially grew up on the Main Street immortalized by Sinclair Lewis (who, incidentally, is undoubtedly Minnesota’s laureate. Infinitely superior to that hack Fitzgerald (and isn’t this a lot of parentheses?)).) My trip thus far puts me in mind of Goldilocks and the Three Bears – if the farmhouse was too small, and Chicago was too large, this place feels just right. Well, not for any sort of long-term arts career, but it’s lovely to visit.
Spent a lot of time looking over my script, and I found myself (like, I suppose, many who view my scripts) thinking about boredom – particularly following my reflections in Out of Focus. One recurring problem I find in my profession – and it’s a hell of a note for an entertainer – is that large swaths of the population seem to be bored by the things that interest me – just as I’m bored by the things that interest them. (One reason, perhaps, why I’m frequently asked to do more autobiographical work. Which always leads me to think, really? You want to watch me standing onstage just talking about my life? When I can do all this other cool stuff like blather on about medieval manuscripts for an hour?)
I recall an artist’s discussion taking place at the Center for Independent Artists. I’m usually very impatient with these kinds of discussions – I find myself thinking of that anecdote about the centipede, who, when asked how he managed to walk with so many legs, immediately fell over. There’s a part of me that worries that examining the process too closely will somehow destroy my ability to use it.
I do remember one guy – can’t recall his name, but he was a slam poet – who made, I thought, a very apt analogy – that performance is like making love: it’s possible to do it in such a way that you just satisfy your own needs, and it’s possible to do it in such a way that you just satisfy their needs – but everyone’s going to have a lot more fun if you compromise, do a few things you like and a few things they like. It’s about seeking mutual satisfaction.
Which isn’t to say that I haven’t done performances where I felt like I was being gang-raped by the audience.
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
I had a splendid time at all of the other places I visited – but they were alien enough to me that they never felt truly comfortable, and I was ready to hit the road again. This is a first place I’ve been where I really found myself dragging my feet leaving.
My brother-in-law – a Michigan boy who went to school in Minnesota – observes that the key difference between drivers of the two states is that, while Michigan drivers rely on eye contact and constant communication, Minnesota drivers will tend to stare straight ahead, doing their best to ignore the other people on the road. My experience has borne this observation out.
Avoiding toll roads has kept me off of the highways, and led me to note that one of the great plains states looks much the same as the next, and that all of them live up to their collective name. Ohio, in particular, is huge, flat, and led me to carefully evaluate suicide.
Driving through, I find myself thinking about the concept of the heartland. There’s a certain absurdity to trying to extrapolate any meaningful data from such a small sample – I’ve been to Chicago several times, and each time I feel like I find a new face of that city, because there’s easily a dozen different cities within its limits. Everyone I speak to has a different definition, and are intensely defensive of those definitions. The assertion seems to be that you’re not truly Midwestern if you’re not from the proper cultural region, an assertion I find objectionable – much as I object to those who claim I’m not truly Chinese-American because I didn’t grow up in a Chinese community.
But it causes me to reflect on that idea that is, most likely, the unifying theme of all my scripts, and certainly central to this one – that language dictates behavior. Well, indirectly – language dictates perception which dictates behavior. State borders seem arbitrary at times – it seems strange to me to claim that North and South Dakota are culturally distinct, or that north and south California really have much of anything to do with each other – but the creation of a name creates a collective identity. I am a Minnesotan, whether that term has any meaning or not – but the fact that we’ve created that name, that word, has created a shared culture.
Crossed into West Virginia, then rapidly criss-crossed through three states, with all manner of winding cliffside roads. I was concerned about falling asleep at the wheel in Ohio, but at least if I did I wouldn’t end up pulling a Toonces the Driving Cat.
In any case, as soon as I crossed the bridge from Ohio into West Virginia, I looked up – and saw an eagle circling overhead. I am now officially out of the Midwest.
No comments:
Post a Comment