The Airing of Grievances, Charge 2, cont.

Being the Second Charge, 

Regarding the Bed of Procrustes

I had known about Anna Deavere Smith by the time I was a sophomore in college, but I never really sat down and read any of her plays until last year.  I'd often heard the comparison between Smith's amazing work and what Tectonic Theater had done with The Laramie Project, but it took my growing interest in documentary theater and ethnography to finally make me pick up Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992.

What I found just about knocked me off my feet when I read it.  I could remember the LA riots and the Rodney King trial back when it happened, but it wasn't something that really made an impact on a 12-year old celebrating her birthday in Montana.  Now that that 12-year old is 30 and studying lit, however, Smith's recounting of the event is quite compelling.  I read in Smith's play about everyone from disgraced cops to gang members to old Korean business owners layered together, and it was electrifying.  The voices were messy, sometimes following completely different story lines, but they were woven together by Smith's solo performance and a common bewilderment about what went wrong.  And, at the end, we have the voice of Twilight Bey, a gang member who spoke of hope in the confusion with such clarity that I marveled at him.  When I get back home I want to read through Fires in the Mirror, although the one I'd really like to get my hands on sometime is Let Me Down Easy.

What really fascinates me is the organic way in which these disparate voices seem to come together in Smith's work.  Sure, Smith is a very creative editor, but she felt no need to jettison side narratives that didn't seem to really fit into the whole, like the story of the gang peace talks or the shooting of a young black girl by a Korean shop owner, both of which fill in the richly complicated background of community tension that existed long before Rodney King was beaten.  I almost feel that she's willing to sacrifice continuity for texture.  Some of these voices clash; some don't fit.  And, many of the voices that couldn't fit in the original performance were re-added in the print version as part of her series On the Road: The Search for the American Character.  Smith seems to prefer to keep rather than cut. 

 Now, it could just be that familiarity breeds contempt, but I feel like that there's an unruliness, a slip to Anna Deavere Smith's work that fits the real world pace of painful revelation.  That's an unruliness I don't feel with The Laramie Project, which feels more unyielding and tight like the suspension on a sports car.  I sometimes wonder what had to be chopped off or didn't get noticed when Tectonic wound the plot of this play like a precision watch around the religious narrative.  

Last time, we looked at that story line-- the religious factors contributing to Matt's murder-- which maybe, like Procrustes, Tectonic stretched out to make it fit on their theatrical bed.  What I'd like to explore today are some of the other stories which maybe Procrustes chopped off to make this story run in that direction.  I'm not sure which of these (if any) are really important, but let's see what possibilities we run into!   

We Do Things Differ'nt Out Here...

One thing I constantly have to remind myself when I come home is that the Rockies run on a different set of rules from everything else.  The pace of life is different, for one.  In the winter, the tempo of existence depends completely on the weather, so one makes plans and travels over several days.  When the snow started here last night, everything ground to a slow halt, and we sit with friends and drink coffee and "bullshit" each other, as my mother Goose might say.  When the roads melt off and all are ploughed, the pace of life will quicken back up to a regular, but still lazy pace. Those differences stand out more and more every Christmas I go back and try to pick up the rhythms again.  

For instance, my parents and I headed out to the grocery store, but they stopped by the old A&W to grab a cup of coffee first.  A bunch of people that my Papa Fox knows all meet for coffee twice a day-- 9AM and 3 PM-- and they come religiously.  We piled out of the car in the parking lot, and my father left the car unlocked and running while we sat.  Mama Goose introduced me to one of her friends and her son.  The server brought out the coffee pot and filled us all up.  My  mother pulled out a twenty to pay for the coffee and promptly got the stinkeye. 

"I'm ignoring you,"  the server said to my mother. 
"What, my money's not good enough for you?"  Mama Goose asked with a grin.  The server sniffed at it. 
"Stinks," she answered.  My mom scoffed and put her money back.  So, we all got free coffee as we talked, and that restaurant owner got to show her unusual brand of appreciation to her regular customers and loyal friends.  The small business owners don't always focus on the bottom line, it seems; things run different out here. 
 
Also, did you know that not every person in this country has to get searched to get on a passenger plane?   Not to mention carriers or locations, but when we brought my grandfather in late at night to board his flight back to Montana, the TSA agent had already been sent home and the only passenger coming in for hours was old Grampa Wolf.  The agent for the flight took and scanned his bags, walked him by hand to the gate, and took him through a side door out to the plane, no pat downs or anything.  We gave him a hug right in front of the only gate in the airport, and out he went, without ever entering the secure boarding area first.  

I'm sure that there's someone out there who'd freak out at the thought of an unsearched person boarding a plane, but around here it makes a lot of sense.  They were picking up a single traveler, an 87 year-old man who caught the very last flight out.  The plane had no connections to anywhere else and only twelve minutes to get back in the air.  There might be two TSA agents in the county, so why keep them there for another three hours to search one person with no carry-on bags?  He was in no danger of entering the larger flight system, and once his ID was verified and his bags checked, there was no reason to make an old man with bad balance and Padgett's disease completely undress for a hand search.  We just do things different here.

So, why such a nonchalant way of relating to others?  I suppose what really makes things different is that there are no strangers...

This is how Wyoming field trips happen.

Well, after a brown Christmas, I finally made it to my parents' house in Wyoming a few days ago from Casper.  My grandpa Wolf was down here for a few days, and we drove to a town with an airport to fly him back home to Montana.  After the flight took off, however, the airport decided that the runway was too slick to land a plane on, and so my 87 year-old, crotchety, snappish, OCD grandfather had to spend the night with four other passengers in Billings, MT. 

So, now it's the next day, and northern Montana is supposed to get slammed with all our late Christmas snow by 3 PM.  So, with the blizzard bearing down upon them, the airline tried to sneak them all back into Lewistown before the snow hit.  They packed my old Grampa Wolf up onto a plane, circled the Fergus County airport five and a half times, and had to turn back.  Only, now Billings is too nasty to land, so he's been diverted.  To Sheridan, Wyoming.  In the northeastern corner of the state.

Oh, la.  So, my mother's hair is standing on end, and Papa Fox and I are debating whether or not it's worth tromping through Ten Sleep Canyon to try and snatch him up before the snow heads south.  Either way, we'll be driving through snowstorm by six o'clock.

At the moment, it looks like Papa Fox and Jackrabbit will be headed out to outrun the storm, so wish us luck!  I've wanted to see the Bighorn Mountains for quite a long time-- but I just didn't want to see it with four inches of snow on the ground...
 
 [Update...]

Well, just as we were about to head out the door and scream down the road towards Sheridan, my mother finds out that the airplane isn't staying in Sheridan.  It's heading back to Billings, where they couldn't land before but now they can, and they had a 20-minute window to get him home.

Naturally, they missed the window of clear weather.  That means that, after a full day of travel to three different destinations in two states, Grampa Wolf is back in Billings, at the same hotel he had left that morning.  Outside my window, the snow falls in thick, thick cushions over everything in sight.

Grab the hot cocoa and kick back, Grampa.  I don't think you (or any of us) are going anywhere soon...

Merry Christmas from Jackrabbit

Okay, so it's time for a cessation in all this Festivus angst and spread a little more holiday cheer.  Since I haven't really had much of a chance to take some good, wintery photos yet while I'm back in Wyoming, I culled some of my best of the previous year for you.  So, wrap up, grab some hot chocolate, and enjoy the winter chill compliments of Jackrabbit.

To give credit where credit's due, these pictures are a mixture of shots taken both by me and my talented niece Kestrel.  She's really quite remarkable.  For a hint, most of the really good ones are hers. 

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and be blessed, y'all. Love is born this season.

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.