Category Archives: What’s a man?

An surprisingly unsurprising quote from David Foster Wallace reduex – unburying the lead

Americana, Books, Religion, What's a man?

I just ran into a quote by David Foster Wallace that really hit me. It is a short fragment
of a commencement speech to the 2005 graduating class at Kenyon College. The fragment
is short, less than 1/2 a page and it is the best case for spirituality that I have ever read. It starts out: Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

He was so brilliant and I am so sorry that he is gone. When David Foster Wallace committed suicide some time ago, I was staggered. It seemed so unlikely. I felt like I knew him from his writing and he seemed so confident. He was incredibly competent but, I guess, not as confident as he appeared. Two of my favorite pieces of writing were by David Foster Wallace – and he seems to always be David Foster Wallace, never David, or Wallace – A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and Tense Present; Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage.  Both were, IMHO, brilliant: interestingly written, interesting and informative, and great fun. And even though I read them when I was well into my 50’s and 60’s, I was greatly influenced by both of them.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again was written in 1997 and was about going on a cruise ship. It was a vicious takedown of the Cruise, but in a very funny and gentle way. The two things I most remember about the article was how jam-packed the cruise was – leaving no time to relax or contemplate the day – and the incredible amount of footnotes that were a huge part of the article. One of the footnotes even had it’s own footnote1. For months, if not years, my footnote use went way up much to the annoyance of some people who were trying to read what I had written.

But Tense Present; Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage  was the biggest influence on me. It was a very favorable book review of A Dictionary of Modern American Usage by Bryan Garner. But it was also about the the importance of of good grammar and the use of the right word in the right way. It is about the importance of language in our democracy and how language defines class and much more such as why he doesn’t like Politically Correct English: Were I, for instance, a political conservative who opposed taxation as a means of redistributing national wealth, I would be delighted to watch PCE progressives spend their time and energy arguing over whether a poor person should be described as “low-income” or “economically disadvantaged” or “pre-prosperous” rather than
constructing effective public arguments for redistributive legislation or higher marginal tax rates on corporations….As a practical matter, I strongly doubt whether a guy who has four small kids and makes $12,000 a year feels more empowered or less ill-used by a society that carefully refers to him as “economically disadvantaged” rather than “poor.” Were I he, in fact, I’d probably find the PCE term insulting — not just because it’s patronizing but because it’s hypocritical and self-serving. I bought the dictionary, still use it, and highly recommend it.

1. He writing about a fire extinguisher in the passageway by his room, he footnoted that the sign said Break glass to access Fire Extinguisher and then footnoted the footnote with Duh!

Gays in the military: Obama as a Jedi master

Obama, What's a man?

A week or couple ago, Jon Stewart was on the Bill O'Reilly show – The Factor to the consignetti – and O'Reilly asked Stewart how is President Obama is doing, so far? Stewart answered that he wasn't sure if  Obama is a Jedi master playing chess on a three level board, or if this is kicking his ass. He then went on to say that it is complicated.

It seems to me that in the matter of gays in the military – atleast – Obama is playing it like a Jedi master. First the Chief of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, came out in favor of letting open gays serve in the military saying I have served with homosexuals since 1968. Everybody in
the military has.,

Mullins

then General Colin Powell came out in support.

Now, General David Petraeus

Commander-of-the-us-central-command-gen-david-petraeus

has come out in support. It just seems to be spontaneously happening. But, of course, it isn't spontaneous. But it is happening. My guess – and my hope – is that by summer, DADT will be history.

Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and the American male archetype with a gratuitous jab at Fox and a guest appearance by Mad Men’s Roger Stirling

Americana, What's a man?

In their own ways, Jon Steward and Stephen Colbert represent two main American archetypes:  the humble man and the braggart. When I was growing up, the humble man was the ideal we all aspired to (would you be happier with "to which we all aspired"?). The shy, reticent Gary Cooper playing Sgt. York or the sheriff in High Noon was the ideal American hero. The French with their fancy clothes and braggadocio manner were one thing, but real Americans were quiet, even taciturn. Think John Wayne. Think the great Baltimore Colt quarterback Johnny Unitas.

While not taciturn, Jon Stewart is in this tradition. Often his humor is based on him being wrong, the reasonable but humble everyman.   

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In my memory, the first of the braggarts was Mohammad Ali but, really, the braggart archetype is older. George Washington went to the Continental Congress hoping to be appointed Commander in Chief of the American revolutionary forces and to accomplish that end, he had a natty powder blue General's uniform made so he would look very generalish. Nothing reticent there. All the Civil War generals before Grant enjoyed their displays of splendor (when Grant first arrived at General Meade's Headquarters, he snarkingly said that this must be Caesar's Army with all the flags and pomp). Now, it is pretty much universally considered manly to put on a display: think almost any NFL football player after making a touchdown. And nobody does it better than Stephen Colbert.


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General U. S. Grant, Mathew Brady, and the new American Hero

Americana, General U.S. Grant, Politics, War, What's a man?

 

Lee

 

In case you weren’t paying attention during your Civil War history class, the picture above in not Grant, it is Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It was take in 1863 and was pretty typical of a portrait of a Civil War general. He stands tall in his battle uniform, with resolute eyes, beautiful shinny boots (you can be sure he didn’t shine them), and a sword. Every inch the patrician. He was the son of Major General Henry Lee III “light Horse Harry” who later became the governor of Virgina.       

Grant, like Lincoln, was a mid-westerner. A common man. At West Point, Lee was Captain of Cadets  while Grant muddled along near the bottom of his class. Grant was quiet, shy, self-effacing. When Grant met Lee during the Mexican-American War, he was thrilled; Lee later said he didn’t remember the meeting. The next time they met was at Appomattox – after Grant’s army had pounded the shit out of Lee. Lee was still resplendent in his beautiful uniform, Grant was wearing a muddy privates uniform with his three stars pined on the shoulders.

Grant had come to do a job and he did it. The picture below shows just that.

Ulysses-grant

 

It is a new kind of portrait. It was probably taken during the Overland Campaign just after the battle of Cold Harbor. Grant is not the patrician hero: he looks tired, his eyes are sad, his boots are muddy. Unlike Lee, war is not a great adventure for Grant. It is a dirty job to be done.

Grant was the new American hero. The quiet man just doing his job. John Wayne. Gary Cooper in High Noon.  No braggadocio flourishes, just quietly getting the job done.

 

This is probably Mathew Bradley’s most famous photo. Not only because of it’s informality, but because it is so penetrating. I have read that a good portrait is a artifact of a relationship. This is a portrait of a man, the picture of Lee, in contrast, is generic. The pictures, together, are emblematic of the Civil War. Up until then, portraits were formal affairs but this portrait was informal.  Lee is shown as the patrician, and by extension, the south as feudal. They are formal portraits reflecting a formal society: ridged, stratified, looking back. This portrait of Grant, the dynamic new kind of American from the West, and by extension, the new and dynamic North: the new America.

An America that is open to the common man. Open to change, at ease with its new frenzy and energy and looking forward. In about a hundred years, from 1800 to 1900, we went from being the equivalent of a third world country to being the world’s industrial powerhouse. And the cleavage point was the Civil War: before it, we were mostly an agrarian society; after it we (the North, at least) were an industrial, urban society.

It is our country.

Americana, What's a man?

Sarah Palin is still talking about the real American and the goofy birthers
are still saying Obama is not a real American. Now Pat Buchanan is complaining that
"Old heroes like Columbus, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee are
replaced by Dr. King and Cesar Chavez." – For God's sake, Pat,  Robert
E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were traitors, is that the best you can
do?  Listening to them, I have starting thinking about what does make a real American?

Maybe a real American is like pornography: hard to define, but you know it when you see it. One real American is Hung Ba Le, a native of Hue, Vietnam, who left that country
as a five-year-old refugee and was picked up at sea by a U.S. Navy ship. This this month, he became the commander of the USS Lassen, a guided missile
destroyer.

3476404748_2473ea00c8_o-b

There is so much that I like about this (and this picture). The delicious irony that Le was saved by a US Navy ship and is now the commander of US Navy ship. The Navy is the most conservative of all the US armed services – by far. Just look at the picture, Le is wearing a sword… a SWORD! and they still use a pipe whistle as part of the boarding ceremony. Sixty years ago, the Navy was all white except for black mess stewards and Filipino cooks, now three of the six people in this picture are minorities and the new commander is a Vietnamese American.

The new America, the real America is not Sarah Palin's America.