The Airing of Grievances, Charge 2

Being the First Part, 
Regarding the Straw and the Plank

A couple of years ago, my Ph. D program requirements led me to take a class on composition and ethnography with our program director.  Part of the requirements of the class was to do a short qualitative analysis on some kind of literacy topic, and if there's one thing I've figured out from going through the rigmarole of IRB supervision and preparing for a qualitative study, it's that you should always distrust the self.

 That may sound paranoid, but it makes a lot of sense for a discipline that requires the researcher to observe and interact with people or cultures.  If you are an outsider, you might have different values or ways of understanding that hamper your ability to understand what's valuable or important in the culture you study.  You might not know what to look for beneath the surface.  If you grew up with the people or cultures you're studying, however, sometimes that can give you blind spots or make you reluctant to draw negative conclusions.  Both of these possibilities require the researcher to stop, look at their own motives and cultural values, and understand that those worldviews or personal experiences will color their observations. 

Hell, let's be honest-- the first nine months of this blog were basically just a really, really long bracketing interview to hash out my motives for studying this play.   The last thing I can do is just assume that I've got it all figured out and that I'm completely on the clear because I never am.   I always have motives.   I always have to accept that objectivity is impossible for me due to my personal connection to the play and events, and the best I can do is to mistrust my own conclusions and force myself to look at all the angles.  And I will still screw up.  
 
And so, how does this apply to Tectonic Theater?  Some of them (like Stephen Belber) show themselves to be pretty ambivalent and angsty about this process, and boy, do I appreciate that; it means they're concerned about their relationship to their interviewees.  Nevertheless, I think that, as a company, sometimes they believe in their mission so much that they just know what they're doing is the right thing.  That's where maybe they slipped up a little when it came to giving a full, well-rounded portrayal of Laramie: they immediately saw the right answer and ran with it. 

And so, I would like to proceed to the second charge in the Airing of Grievances, which is related to the first:

2.  Failure to Maintain Self-Loathing

Okay, so that's a little harsh, but "Failure to Maintain Self-Referentiality" or "Failure to Bracket" just sounded too academic.  Basically, I'm just saying that maybe they believed in their mission a little too much or didn't stay suspicious enough of their own motives to question if they were getting too focused on the wrong thing.  So, here we go, and let's see what we find-- just remember, ladies and gents, to keep a healthy self-doubt about your view of western culture and Tectonic's motives, too! 

*          *            *

Life among the prairie parishes: Time reports

When my grandmother was born in Garniell, Montana during the Depression, she lived on a farm; the nearest actual town was Judith Gap, in the middle of the Montana breadbasket, and the nearest church was therefore about ten miles away. Her family had a choice of driving to Moore and be a Catholic or Methodist or go to the Gap... and be Catholic or Methodist. The nearest town with any other denominations were all the way in Lewistown.  My grandfather grew up on the other side of the Gap in a staunch Lutheran family.  I think they went to the Methodist church. 

These tiny parish churches and prairie chapels were sometimes a county apart and had only a handful of families in attendance.  Now, their numbers are shrinking as those families commute for services or stop going altogether.

Time ran this interesting short piece about the traveling pastors who serve these tiny farming communities in Minnesota. Apparently Blogger isn't fond of flash videos, but this displays remarkably well in full-screen if you choose.  In any case, the plight of these pastors is very similar to what we see in Montana and Wyoming as well...

Good Riddance, DADT...

Photography by Jason Pier, at: www.jasonpier.com.

Well, it's finally happened-- and not via the courts as I expected.  After a wacky year of bizarre surveys, court decisions and President O seemingly backing off on his campaign promises, and John McCain having a conniption fit, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" might finally become legislative history.  CNN is reporting that the Senate voted by a margin of nearly two to one to end the military policy.  Although it rather shames me to know that the bill would have failed after the lame duck session was over, I am quite grateful to the eight Republicans in the Senate and the fifteen in the US House who voted for it.

Was this a "Hail Mary pass" like the Washington Post said?  Sure it was.  The bill is less than two weeks old.  Does the bill contain some compromises?  Yes.  But, when the smoke cleared, the decision that most people could see was the right conclusion happened.   

What I find especially interesting, however, is how the news sites are covering the vote.  For two examples, you can see CNN and Fox News' coverage at the two links above.  I especially like how each of them frames the names of the eight Republican senators who voted for the measure. 

I'm sad about the DREAM Act and that Republicans are too worried about the "message" the bill sends to make a humanitarian gesture to kids who didn't have any choice over coming to the States legally.  But, hey, I'll take progress where I can get it!

Oh, and I'm typing this post less than ten feet from my in-laws, who very much don't support the repeal.  Especially my ex-Marine father-in-law, who means well but can only compare Marine culture to his own experience in the sixties and seventies.  I don't think he understands how much of a non-issue this is for my generation and younger.  Yay, fun!

PHOTO CREDIT:  Jason Pier, who provided this photo via a Creative Commons License.  You can see his entire Flickr photostream here.  

Remember to always drink responsibly, boys and girls...

Most of the time, I really love living in the South-- well, at least this part of the South.  But every once in a while I see something that just sets my rage a-flaming.  You know, like this:

So I go to pick up my prescriptions this afternoon, and this is what I run into-- a freaking drugstore serving forties and ping pong balls together in the same cooler.  It wasn't like it was just the one spot, either-- every other door had a hanging display of em'.  Nothing says encouraging responsible alcohol use on my party campus and the high school three blocks down the street quite like one-stop shopping for all your beer pong needs.

You can't blame this on just this CVS, however.  The drugstore three blocks down the road is a Wallgreen's, and they do the same thing.  Ladies and gentlemen, I don't want to say that this is the reason for the alcohol abuse culture I see with my students...  but it sure ain't helping.

Links: Morning Has Broken- Una Vita Spezzata

Well, it seems as if my Flickr ticker on the blog has yielded another loose Laramie narrative running free, this time in Italy.  The photo you see here (and which showed up on my blog a couple weeks ago) is from a concept performance called Moring Has Broken- Una Vita Spezzata, which debuted in Firenze, Italy back in November around the same time that we were having Thanksgiving back stateside.  The performing company described it as a "reportage" moments and excerpts from both The Laramie Project and Judy Shepard's book The Meaning of Matthew. 

As you can see from the photo at left, the staging is extremely minimalistic, it focuses on the abstract, and...  well, it's in Italian.  (If my Latin doesn't fail me, that sign says "The shining lights of Laramie.)  Unfortunately, I can't find any information about the content or staging of the performance, so I can't really speculate about the content.  I'm fairly intrigued, however, by the idea.  By calling this a "reportage" they claim to be relaying news in an abstract sense, but their main texts are a memoir and a play.  So, if anything, it's a reportage of first-hand accounts, creatively rethought.  I wish I could find a little video clip of this, but there's nothing up on that, either.

There are, however, some nice stills of the performance if you want to get a sense of it.  You can view most of the set on a Flickr Photostream here, including a poster for the event, but if you're the sort that prefers your Internet searching to have a soundtrack, someone involved with the production set them up as a slide show with some old school Cat Stevens as a YouTube video. 

And, there is contact information via a Facebook event if you'd like more information here (and have better Italian skills than I do.)

The Airing of Grievances, Charge 1

As it turns out, my brother Coyote, who still lives in Laramie, also has an angsty relationship with The Laramie Project. I had already sort of known this, of course; both he and my sister were living in Laramie back in 1998, too, and back in my "I hate this freaking play" phase in the Deep South, he and I had a few conversations about that.

But until this summer, I thought that his complaints just stemmed from his own personal knowledge of the incident.  Coyote, you see, knew both of the killers and Matt Shepard through various channels even though he didn't have any kind of deep relationship with any of them.  He was much better friends with "Sascha" and several other members of the LGBTA on campus.  And, since our conversations had mostly revolved around that social set, I had always thought that his main gripe against the play was just the "accuracy" issue. 
 
As it turns out, though, I was wrong; his dislike was more complicated than I had given him credit for.  Over dinner one night at a fancy bar and grill (where I was buying him his obligatory steak dinner), Coyote told me that he had watched the HBO version of the play and had some extremely pointed comments about its message.  He said he didn't like what the HBO version had to say about what Laramie was like as a community, and he didn't think that the message had any balance.  He was also surprised that I didn't completely disagree with him.  "On the whole, though, don't you think this play has done some good nationwide?" I asked him.   "I mean, people are actually willing to talk about issues like this now..." 

"Well, sure, yeah," Coyote said.  "I can totally see where this play has done a lot of good.  But, come on, Jackrabbit-- why did we have to be the ones to pay for it?" 

"So, you mean you feel like telling Laramie's story comes at a cost?"  I asked him.  

"Hell yeah," He answered through a mouthful of steak.  "This sort of thing happens all over the country, but I don't see any of them having to relive this story every time somebody puts on a play."  He waved his fork at me for emphasis.  "We can't escape it.  We can't even answer back to it.  How fair is that?"   

I couldn't keep my jaw off of the floor when he said that.  I had sort of been wondering the same thing for months: does the simple fact of telling Matt's story in the context of this community cause social damage?  Like Coyote, I know the kind of social good this play has engendered on the macro scale; but I also wonder, like him, what kind of unintended cost the microcosm of Laramie has had to absorb as a result.

And so, I hereby must proceed to the airing of my first grievance in this Festivus season:  

1.Contributing to the Delinquency of Narrative

Or, I could call it "Transporting an Underage Story Across State Lines," I suppose.  The point is this: in disseminating this story, Tectonic has left many in Laramie feeling like they have no control over their own identities, leaving some people to feel vulnerable or exposed, a point I've discussed before.  That may not necessarily be a bad thing, but let's work out the details to see where it leads...

Laramie in Pictures: Vedauwoo and Ames Monument

Where have all the railroads gone?
asks the Ames monument...

If you follow I-80 to the east of Laramie towards Cheyenne for about twenty miles, one will see two extremely odd sights on either side of the highway. To the left is Vedauwoo, and to the right, the enigmatic Ames Monument-- neither of which seem to quite fit into the prairie landscape that normally defines Laramie's spaces.

Vedauwoo is one of my favorite places because of its strange geologic architecture. The bright pink granite that makes up most of the range between Cheyenne and Laramie is stacked up in these massive, huge boulders which attract rock climbers from all over the nation. It's a popular camping, recreation, and picnic spot for the UW students.  In the dusk, the landscape looks almost mystical. 

Ames Monument is a stranger, more enigmatic spot. A three minutes' ride down a rose-colored gravel road and through a horse pasture will lead you to a massive pyramid built out in the middle of nowhere, a monument to the wealth and influence of the Union Pacific Railroad financiers Oakes and Oliver Ames (two brothers, and rather shady figures.) Oakes was eventually censured by Congress for fraud and died in disgrace. 

The monument to Oakes and Oliver Ames was built to mark the highest point of the UP transcontinental railroad lines, which were then promptly moved elsewhere; the monument therefore now stands alone, marking the point of an amazing accomplishment now tarnished by corruption and diminished by the Interstate system.   For decades it has sat undisturbed near an abandoned town, but there are signs of development nearby now-- a possible high-end subdivision, it looks like.  (blech.) It seems like no patch of land is safe from breaking out in residential, picket-fenced pimples anymore.

Anyhow, here are a few pictures I took (and a couple I didn't) of these two strange, mythical spots on the edge of the Laramie landscape! 

The weather erodes the pink Sherman granite into the most strange shapes, as seen here.
I wanted to show you the larger stuff, but I didn't have time to venture far into the park.  So, here are two pictures from Flickr to give you the feel:

Photo by Coulter Sunderman, via Flickr. I'm jealous...

This one's also by Coulter Sunderman, from Flickr.  This might be my favorite photo I've seen. 

As with a lot of public lands, the areas outside Vedauwoo are often rented for pasture. Here's a trio of Angus bullocks who came to check me out as I drove to the entrance...

And here are two views of the Ames monument for you:  

This one comes from Lord the air smells good today's Flickr photostream.
(I just love that name.) 

I'd like to give a special shout out to both Coulter Sunderman and Lord the Air Smells Good Today for sharing their photos via Creative Commons. Thanks!