The Good Life

A little while ago, in my post on Edgar Allan Poe, I talked about a creative genius whose life would suffer through poverty and hardship and end in tragedy and mystery.

Today, I’m posting about another great literary figure whose life progressed quite differently: Nobel- and Pulitzer-prize winning playright, Eugene O’Neill.

I am, admittedly, not “well read”. I’ve only read one or two of the classics, and only because certain college courses demanded it. I also don’t attend a lot of theater, although I will attend plays by Shakespeare whenever our local playhouses present one. So I really don’t know that much about O’Neill or his plays, other than a forced reading of “The Hairy Ape” for that three-credit “art domain” course at the state university. But there is no denying the man is one of the giants in American literature, having penned renowned plays such as “Morning Becomes Electra” and “The Iceman Cometh”.

When you visit his home in the hills of Contra Costa County, California, it becomes abundantly clear that he, unlike Poe, enjoyed the fruits of his labors. It’s a beautiful Spanish Colonial house, set on a wonderfully landscaped lot, overlooking the valley below, and backed by the rocky, wooded hills of the Las Trampas Regional Wilderness. It’s a truly elegant setting, fit for a man clearly loved for his dramatic creations. The only tragedy here is his wife, Carlotta, was extremely light-sensitive and kept the windows covered by thick wood blinds and shades. Such tremendous views wasted, although I don’t fault her. I suffer slightly from light sensitivity, I can empathize with her dilemma.

I’m not quite sure what else to say about Eugene O’Neill, except for this: I never begrudge artists, whether authors or playwrights or actors or musicians, from living well off their talents. Artists are special, and art advances us as a species like nothing else can. Art is more influential than technology or governance or business or medicine in that regard. Art is the gateway to the spirit of mankind, and it is that spirit that advances us.

I know this sounds trite and packaged. Aren’t we all supposed to say “art is the gateway to the spirit of mankind” or some such crud? Sounds like it’s right from the mouth of a guest star on Oprah. But I’m convinced it’s true. There’s something personal and unique about an encounter with art. You see it, or read it, or listen to it, or watch it, and your initial reaction is unique to you and you alone. Art tends to cut through all those social filters that muddy up our society and sends a message straight to the individual (instead of the huddled masses).

Now, that message might be: “Hi. I’m really, really ugly. Please take note.” And that’s fine, because the next guy, totally independently, can receive a message: “Hi. I’m you. You really need to take a hard look at this, and change your life before it’s too late,” and that can be a really powerful message.

Famous and beloved artists tend to touch more people, send out those messages that give them hope, or give them insight, or give them motivation to change. Technology can’t do that, it only provides a vehicle to get things done. Politicians can’t do that, all they can do is further enslave us into dependency on government. Theocrats can’t do that, all they can do is entrap us deeper into the constraints of dogma. Only artists can do that. Or maybe a real, good friend.

Folks like O’Neill, Bob Dylan, George Carlin, Steven Spielberg, Robert Plant, Stephen King, and a host of others, all manage to reach out and touch lots and lots of people, and I have no problem when these folks living well. In fact, I hope they do so.

Now Brittany Spears, well, that’s an entirely different topic …

On a side note, I do want to mention one key difference between Poe’s and O’Neill’s NPS sites. In my prior post, I remarked how the Poe site’s neighbors seemed to like having Poe in the neighborhood. They do readings for local kids, and no one has ever defaced that wonderful mural of the author, even though it doesn’t seem like a pleasant neighborhood. It’s sad to say so, but it certainly appears that O’Neill’s neighbors aren’t particularly interested in having his site in their neighborhood. It’s a very upscale, expensive neighborhood, and you have to be bused in from a commuter parking lot (no tourist cars are allowed), and there doesn’t seem to be the connection between the neighborhood and the site or the man. In all fairness, the winding roads and limited parking are not conducive to lots of tourists, but you definitely get the feeling folks int he area don’t care too much for having a National Park unit in their vicinity. It’s sad, and in my view, it doesn’t speak well to their character.

I hope someone from the area can post here contradicting me. It was just an observation, drawn from a particular moment in time and seen through my jaded eyes. Hopefully reality is different. If you have direct experience with this site and its neighborhoods, and you think I’m full of crap, please post & tell me (just keep it civil ).

[Photos on this post are mine and copyrighted thusly. See other photos of Eugene O'Neill's home on my Photobucket page.]

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Links:

Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site

Eugene O’Neill Archives

Google map to E.O. NHS

]]> http://americaincontext.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/eugene-oneill-national-historic-site-danville-ca/feed/ 2 Barky Porch © 2009 America In Context Friends © 2009 America In Context Front View © 2009 America In Context http://americaincontext.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/happy-independence-day/ http://americaincontext.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/happy-independence-day/#comments Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:57:45 +0000 Barky http://americaincontext.wordpress.com/?p=675 ]]>

A Difficult Birth

I watched HBO’s excellent mini-series “John Adams”, about the famed patriot and second President of the United States. As I posted waaaaay back in December of ‘07, John Adams is my favorite Founding Father, and I think HBO did him justice, flaws and all. Beyond a fairly accurate portrayal of Adams himself (although I do think HBO downplayed the staunch religious beliefs shared by John and his cousin, Samuel Adams), the mini-series gave a very accurate portrayal of the nation’s gritty past.

There’s this great mythology around the birth of this nation. We have this image, inspired by John Trumbull’s famous painting, of nattily-attired statesmen, gathered in a great hall, proudly proclaiming our independence for all the world to hear. Unfortunately, that image is not at all accurate. I won’t go into all the factual details here, sites like Americanrevolution.org describe them well enough. I do want to go into what our vaunted image, and even a nitpicking of the facts, does not convey, and that is how risky and dangerous, and messy and complicated, the birth of this nation really was.

This was such a dangerous endeavor that the members of the Continental Congress were rarely, if ever, all present at the same time. They would appear in shifts, as it were, with individual representatives of a colony present but almost never a full quorum of a delegation. Some of the notables, like the Adams cousins and William Ellery of Rhode Island, had open warrants for their arrest by the British colonial government long before the 2nd Continental Congress convened, and would certainly have been hanged if they were caught travelling to Philadelphia. Almost the entire New York delegation would be missing at times, most of those delegates lost home or property, and the wife of one (Francis Lewis) was captured and held prisoner by the Brits for many months during the Revolutionary War. This type of personal danger is almost never conveyed in American mythology.

There were also health and transportation problems. Yellow fever was not uncommon in Philadelphia in those years, and travel was risky. British blockades and privateers made sea travel dangerous, forcing travel over land. It took weeks if not months to ride the roads to Philadelphia, and in some circles families would weep from grief if loved ones had to travel, it was so dangerous. Remember this was the early days of America, cities were small and far apart, and there were great tracts of land void of civilization and comfort. It wasn’t the highly developed contryside that marked Europe in the 18th century, this was something far wilder. Getting all these great men to Philadelphia to draft the Declaration, create and fund a Continental Army, and plead for help from France and Spain was not an easy affair.

After the Revolution, things were still sloppy and complicated. There’s a sordid mess surrounding the crafting of the Constitution itself. Yes, it’s a beloved document and has served us well, but in reality, it was a contentious and difficult document to craft. The nation first had to go through the sloppy failure of the Articles of Confederation, a configuration so weak it nearly allowed the 13 states to break apart or, even worse, rejoin Great Britain. It was not easy to keep the Union together, and in the end, the only way to guarantee continued independence as well as undivided strength was by guaranteeing the continued enslavement of an entire race of man for decades thereafter.

People shouldn’t forget that our founding fathers enabled that greatest of travesties, but in a way, these men were forced to do so in order to avoid becoming servants again, through dissolution of the Union and potential reconquering by Britain.  I’m sure that last sentence can be debated: what if our founders banned slavery in 1787? Would we have been split into two, or perhaps more, nations? And would that have been a bad thing? It’s an interesting debate, but the fact still stands: slavery stood for 89 years after the Declaration of Independence  was first read to an assemblage in Philadelphia. All men created equal? Hardly, it would appear.

In my opinion, it’s vitally important for all Americans to understand that we are a flawed nation. We had a difficult birth and a flawed childhood and, to this very day, we struggle and wrestle and fight with our greater ideals and our conscience. We’ve fought unjust wars, we mistreated our own citizenry, we’ve “prospered” ourselves into great poverty, and we’ve poisoned our waters and air and land. But we’ve also had successes: we freed Europe from the ravages of war, our scientists have stopped polio and invented transistors, we’ve created unique and beloved forms of art and music, and we’ve been an example to the world in terms of freedom and liberty. Best of all, we’ve managed to survive and thrive in spite of our great mistakes and failures.

Success and failure, failure and success. Hmmm, sounds like we’re human. And part and parcel of being human is being flawed. It can be said that the greatness of a person can be judged by how well that person responds to his or her own failure. We all make mistakes, and we all have to learn from them and overcome them. This is true for people and true for nations. Those who think they themselves, or the United States of America itself, are incapable of making mistakes and deserve continuous adulation are not only inaccurate but incredibly arrogant.

It has always been my view that arrogance is the worst human characteristic. Arrogance, that belief that you can do no wrong and can make no mistake, is that characteristic that prevents you from ever learning anything. And the inability to learn guarantees an inability to succeed and thrive. It’s a flaw that guarantees stagnation and eventual irrelevance. Individuals should strive to never be arrogant in anything, even those things in which you are an expert. Nations should also strive to never be arrogant, even in areas in which that nation has succeeded in the past.

If I could ask all Americans to do anything for this country, I would ask them to be honest with our country’s flaws and failures, and strive to continuously improve the health, welfare, and integrity of this nation and all of its citizens. Only through understanding of our flaws can we ever improve our lot in life.

I hope everyone had a happy, fun-filled Independence Day weekend, and I wish nothing more than a just and prosperous future for the United States of America on this, the 233rd anniversary of it’s birth.

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I know I haven’t been posting regularly as of late. There have been a few real-life issues keeping my muse at bay, or perhaps in full retreat. Regular postings of my National Park trips will resume shortly, I promise.

I just came back from my spring National Parks trip. With all the economic uncertainty, plus my need to pay off credit card debt (like the rest of America), I kept it small. Drove through upstate New York, then Ohio, across West Virginia, then home via Maryland. Hit eight more, albeit small, sites on the list, bringing the total to 185.  Still not quite halfway there.

During this trip, I also visited my two all-time favorite museums: the amazing National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio (about which I’ll post at a later time) ; and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.

The poor Rock Hall doesn’t get a lot of respect. Some think it’s self-serving to a lot of rich, arrogant, rock egos. Others think it’s unfathomable that you could put the energy and rebelliousness of rock music into something as stuffy as a museum. Still others can’t get over the fact that non-rockers like the Bee Gees or Madonna have been inducted, while their favorite act (KISS or Journey or Emerson, Lake and Palmer or whoever) still aren’t in there.

I love the place, absolutely love it, loved it from the beginning. I was there during the opening, 8-hour concert on Labor Day weekend in 1995, where I saw everyone from Chuck Berry to Johnny Cash to Dr. John to Aretha Franklin to Iggy Pop. That was a fantastic experience. The next day I saw James Brown sauntering through the crowd, surrounded by some of the biggest, scariest bodyguards imaginable, on his way into the Rock Hall. I’ve been back several times since, and love it more and more every time I go. For me, it goes beyond being a fan of rock music. My love of rock & roll dovetails nicely into my love of American history.

Most countries or cultures are defined by their art. For the Greeks, it’s architecture and epic tales. The Italians have religious iconography and works by Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. The French have Impressionism, the Germans and Slavs people have composers such as Beethoven, Tchaikovzky and Mozart. Africa, China, Japan, Polynesia, even the Native American tribes have unique art tied directly to their culture and their history. America has its own unique art form, developed straight from our culture and history: Rock & Roll.

Rock & roll is uniquely American because of it’s “origin story”. Rock’s primary grandfather was The Blues. Political correctness aside, The Blues was the black man’s music. It’s basically a lament about hard times and suffering set to a quick-paced but rough tempo. The Blues was fostered in a segregated South and derives directly from music sung by plantation slaves. This is Part I of why Rock is uniquely American, it’s the only positive thing to ever come out of our slaveholding past. Without the caustic cauldron of atrocity known as antebellum slavery, and the emotional agony of Jim Crow, the genetic material of The Blues would not have been created. No Blues, no Rock.

Another grandparent of Rock & Roll was Folk music (and its close cousins called Country and Bluegrass). All three of these forms sprouted out of the barrenness of the Depression. Yes, the Depression affected lots of countries, not just the USA, but there was something special about America’s experience that led to the birth of these three forms of music. Maybe it was the rural nature of Depression-era America, maybe it was the unique experience of the Dust Bowl, maybe it was the influence of our unique take on the religious revival. Whatever it was, folk, country & bluegrass evolved as uniquely American styles.

Then there’s Jazz. Jazz, in my view, represents the independent American mentality applied to music. People wanted to play what they wanted to play, and wanted to hear what they wanted to hear. It’s improv, blending, mixing things up, and doing what you want. It’s throwing away musical convention, just like we threw away monarchial convention. We tossed out the King and made our own government, then we tossed out musical conformity and made our own Jazz. It’s the Declaration of Indepence set to music.

All of rock’s “early influences” were masters of these forms of music: Robert Johnson, Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, Bill Monroe, Louis Jordan, Elmore James. But it took something else, something more. It took the lightning strike known as Capitalism to give Rock & Roll life. It took people like Alan Freed and Ahmet Erteghun and Jerry Wexler to realize that money could be made, people who had the savvy to prop up firebrands like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis and make all this roughshod music palatable to the young masses and their disposable income. Only in America could art be turned into something so immensely popular, and therefore immensely profitable.

Rock has then been changed and modified and altered by so much more since then: the injustice of the Vietnam War draft, the poverty of inner cities, the rebellion of angsty white suburbanite teens, plus America’s penchant to abuse mind-altering substances …. All of these things are, again, uniquely attributable to the U.S. and the unique mix (or train wreck, if you prefer) of our culture.

Now I know some (er, most?) will shout back “but what about the Beatles or the Stones or Led Zepplin, asswipe? These are Brits who revolutionized rock!”. Well, yes, that’s true. But all of these bands will tell you themselves that they got into rock because of Muddy Waters, or Bo Diddly, or Buddy Holly. Besides, just as the U.S. is a nation of immigrants, so too is rock a music of immigrants. Artists from all over the world have morphed and shaped rock to suit their needs, and have influenced other artists in return. It’s a great melting pot of music styles and cultures.

I highly recommend going to the Rock Hall. It does a great job showing the continuing evolution of a great, rebellious art form, a form of music whose greatest contribution is giving convention the big middle finger.

[Only the picture of the Rock Hall is mine. The others are from allmusic.com, a great web site for music research. Copyrights apply in some cases, this is a not-for-profit blog so I think it's OK here. I'm sure lawyers will call if it ain't .]

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Links:

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

allmusic.com

Looking for college credits?

Google map to RRHOFM

America’s Queen Mum

I have a really weak system for selecting blog topics. When I started America In Context, I didn’t have a plan. I just started alphabetically, a pretty lame way of doing it if I do say so myself. It’s actually not that bad of a system, surprisingly I don’t repeat myself too often. One day it’s a natural preservation post, then something historical, then something cultural. Things stay fairly well mixed up. I suspect it’ll break down soon when I get to all the “Fort Something-or-Other” sites, but for now, it’s fine.

Actually, in the case of this week’s post, it’s better than fine. It seems fitting that my post on Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II, be immediately followed by a post on Eleanor Roosevelt, who could, perhaps, be called Supreme Commander of the U.S. Home Front. Having these posts bookend Memorial Day is fitting as well.

I titled this post “America’s Queen Mum” for a reason. Eleanor Roosevelt, like Britain’s Queen Elizabeth (the current Queen Elizabeth’s mother, who passed away in 2002) was a beloved figure during terribly troubled times. Throughout the Depression and then the War, both women were strong role models for their beleaguered citizenry. These ladies did what leaders are supposed to do: walk amongst the people. With regular public addresses, newspaper articles, and visits to various cities and towns, they were inspirations to the people when they needed it most. Cowards sit in their undisclosed locations or corner offices or posh resorts when the shit hits the fan. Leaders stand in front and take the full spray. OK, I think that’s the most repulsive sentence I think I ever typed, but it makes the point….

Personally, I think the concept of “first lady” is anachronistic and inappropriate for a democratic nation. They are nothing more than the wife of a president, yet they are treated as cultural icons or, even worse, like royalty. I find all the current fawning over Michele Obama to be ludicrous. “Ooh look, she doesn’t have flabby arms!” Big damned deal. To this day, people still adore Jackie O. for no reason other than her fashion sense. The First Lady institution is not much more than a baseless cult of personality. First Ladies also have a penchant to support their pet causes, sitting in weak public service announcements nestled between the latest Ron Popeil Crap-O-Matic infomercial and some MTV “I Wanna Be a Teenage Hooker” reality show on late-night television. I’m so glad a First Lady sponsors literacy while her husband guts the public school system and his party disparages educated people as “liberal intelligentsia”.

When it comes to Eleanor Roosevelt, however, I change my view. She was truly a great lady. Not only did she speak to the people during hard times as I noted earlier, but she was also directly involved in many great causes, from civil rights for African-Americans to equality for women to the spread of democracy across post-WWII Europe to the formation of the United Nations. She was also a shrewd political operator, directly sponsoring campaigns of those who supported her progressive agenda. Regardless of whether or not you support progressive causes, you have to admire her determination and activism in the causes she supported. She was no mere figurehead but an actual mover and a shaker and an inspiration for millions.

She has her own spot in the National Park Service for a good reason. Of all the First Ladies in our history, she truly stands out as an individual, separate from her husband, for her impact on the country (and the world).

[Once again, I didn't own a digital camera when I visited Eleanor Roosevelt's NPS site. Pics are public domain, taken from Wikipedia or the National Park Service.]

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Links:

Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site

Wikipedia’s Eleanor Roosevelt Media Gallery

Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill

Google map to ER NHS

]]> http://americaincontext.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/eleanor-roosevelt-national-historic-site-hyde-park-new-york/feed/ 2 Barky Eleanor Roosevelt with Fala Eleanor Roosevelt & Pete Seeger with WWII Troops Val-Kill Cottage http://americaincontext.wordpress.com/2009/05/21/eisenhower-national-historic-site-gettysburg-pennsylvania/ http://americaincontext.wordpress.com/2009/05/21/eisenhower-national-historic-site-gettysburg-pennsylvania/#comments Fri, 22 May 2009 00:43:05 +0000 Barky http://americaincontext.wordpress.com/?p=614 ]]>

For Your Consideration: The Greatest American

Some time ago, on a long-forgotten internet message board, someone posed a question: who was the greatest American in history?

Of course, the internet being the internet, the argument soon disolved into a flame war (I’m sure someone mentioned “abortion” somewhere and it just devolved from there). Somewhere in the fray, however, I made a case for Dwight D. Eisenhower as the Greatest American. Now you can’t answer a question without understanding a question so, as I did on that tiny little  message board, I’ll start off explaining my interpretation of that particular question.

Most folks, upon hearing that question, will instinctively think only in terms of America itself, as in “which American did the most for America”. A logical answer here would be Abraham Lincoln, a man who not only kept the Union from dissolving, but also had the guts and fortitude to fight the greatest evil America has ever wrought: the continuation of slavery nearly 9 decades into its existence. Slavery was an unholy abomination that should have been extinguished when Thomas Jefferson put the last period on the Declaration of Independence, but it was allowed to exist through the sheer audacity (and utter cowardice) of founders and legislators and presidents alike. No President stood up to slavery until Lincoln, and his actions saved our country. We were not only saved literally (by stopping secession), but also morally. We had no moral fiber as a nation until slavery was abolished. It is as simple as that.

The only problem I have with proclaiming Lincoln as the “greatest American” is his actions really only saved the country. When I hear “greatest American”, I think globally: which American did the most for the world? Now that is an entirely different question. Sure, some could extrapolate “well, America is the greatest country, and Lincoln saved America, so Lincoln is the greatest”. That not only shows a grotesque level of hubris, it’s not really accurate. America wasn’t a world player for nearly a century after Lincoln’s time. We were an isolationist nation. We were protected on two fronts by mighty oceans, and only had two neighbors. No threats = no conflict = no interest in the world. Plus we were a nation of immigrants, collectively giving Europe the big middle finger as we went on our way, making our own prosperity (and driving the native population into their graves, but that’s the subject for yet another post). Saying Lincoln was a great world figure is simply disingenuous.

So, if we honestly answer “which American did the most good for the world”, well, you can come up with a lot of answers. Many (and perhaps rightly) say medical pioneers like Jonas Salk or inventors like Thomas Edison or scientists like Robert Oppenheimer deserve the title.  I appreciate these picks, but I have to ask: is science purely an American endeavor? Isn’t science simply the discovery and application of facts, principles and theorems? What makes it uniquely American? Doesn’t science transcend nationality? Jonas Salk could just have easily have been German, or Spanish, or Japanese. I’m not at all denigrating the work of these individuals in making my pick, I’m actually elevating them beyond simply being Americans.  Well, I suppose Edison was truly American: he was an incredibly shrewd businessman and power broker who set out to destroy his competitors, but, again, that’s a subject for another post …

This leads me to my own approach to the “Greatest American” question. First, did the individual have a postive, global impact; and second, did the individual act with the best of our core American principles (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, etc.)? I say Ike deserves serious consideration as the Greatest American under that context, and I say it for one big reason: World War II.

World War II was the greatest conflagration the world has ever known. Never before, and thankfully never since, has the globe ever been covered in carnage and evil as horrid as during the period between 1939 and 1945. I don’t even know if people can comprehend that evil. I’m fairly convinced Americans can’t, we simply haven’t experienced war firsthand on our own soil since 1865. Let me tell you, it was nasty-horrid. And the Nazis, the Nazis were the worst. They epitomize evil to this very day. Every tyrant since 1945 is judged against Hitler, every evil movement has been compared to Nazism. These people were cold, heartless butchers; utterly disinterested in freedom and liberty; technocrats and bullies of the worst kind; the filthiest type of genetic bigots and medical torturers this world has ever seen. America saw this evil and (after much prodding by FDR) finally decided to confront it. But we brought more than men and equipment to Europe, we brought a secret weapon. We brought Ike.

I don’t know if I’ll make many friends with this paragraph, and I don’t mean any disrespect to any man or woman who ever served in our Armed Forces, but an army isn’t worth a damn unless it has good, strong leadership. Throughout history, there are lots of stories of brave armies led to their defeat and slaughter by lousy generals; and plenty of other stories of underpowered armies led to victory by great generals. Anyone who’s read about our Civil War knows stories like these, and they occur in European history as well. Victory and defeat don’t rest on the shoulders of the soldier, they reside in the brains of the generals.

Ike was one of the better ones. I don’t think he’s rated as the greatest American general ever (I think that title tends to fall on Lee or Patton or even George Washington), but there can be no doubt he had the greatest challenge of any of them. He had to face a highly skilled, highly entrenched opponent, who had (in some cases) superior weaponry and better planning (at least in the early parts of the war). Not only that, he had to rescue no less than an entire continent from the greatest scourge mankind has ever seen. This was an enemy unlike any faced by Americans in our entire history. This was an enemy who actually sat down, in offices, using businesslike precision, and plotted the extermination of, by some counts, 11 million people! [See link below for more on this]. This was much, much more than simple warfare. The stakes were much higher.

I’m hoping that, by now, you see why I’m nominating Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, as the Greatest American. Yeah, he didn’t beat the Nazis all by himself (no one achieves anything by themselves). Yeah, he made a lot of blunders and mistakes and some (like the continued delay of the invasion of Europe) probably led to further deaths in the Soviet Union.  I still think his achievement earns him the title of Greatest American. He was a fine president, the 50’s were a good time in this country. He sponsored the interstate highway system, connecting us in a way we never were connected before. He started the battle against Communism (although he didn’t act to combat McCarthyism). He tried to integrate our racially divided nation (with admittedly limited success). He even tried to warn us about the growing power of the military-industrial complex, you don’t hear too many politicians doing that these days.

Most impressive, in my view at least, he was a humble man. His retirement home, now the Eisenhower National Historic Site near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is probably the humblest house ever inhabited by any former President. Hell, it’s not much different than the farmhouse next door to my own boyhood home. Personally, I think humility is one of the best characteristics a human being can ever have. Arrogance is for assholes, humility is for great people. Personally, I think Eisenhower was more of the latter and less of the former.

[I normally don't ask for direct feedback on a post, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on the "Greatest American" question. Also, I didn't have a camera when I visited Ike's house, all pictures on this post are public domain photos taken from the NPS or Wikipedia or other sources.]

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Links:

Eisenhower National Historic Site

PowerKills, R. J. Rummel’s works on democide

Atlantic Monthly’s Top 100 Americans and a contrary list

Google map to Ike NHS

American Classics

Edgar Allen Poe is a true American classic. I suspect that Poe is the second most recognized 19th Century American author (behind perennial favorite Mark Twain). Most everyone has heard of Poe through his well-known works like “The Raven”, “The Pit and the Pendulum”, “The Masque of the Red Death”, and that grade-school reader staple, “The Tell-tale Heart”. Some folks may have read one book by Herman Melville or Louisa May Alcott, and only college-level literature students have read anything by Emerson, Longfellow, or Thoreau, but most of us are familiar with Poe’s work and his influence on mystery and the macabre. I suppose it’s sad that he’s better known than his contemporaries (critically speaking Poe’s works pale in comparison to Emerson, Longfellow and Thoreau), but his visceral take on humanity made a huge impact on popular culture. You can trace so many mystery-thrillers directly back to Poe. It’s hard to imagine Hitchcock or Stephen King or even CSI would be here today without his influence.

But a visit to Poe’s old homestead in Philadelphia evokes a different sort of American classic.

Philadelphia wasn’t the only city Edgar Allan Poe called “home”.  Never a wealthy man, Poe and his family led a fairly hardscrabble life. They travelled a lot, always trying to find a new opportunity in another city. Consequently, they lived in many places, from Boston to Richmond to New York. The only Poe home that has been preserved is an old, faltering row house north of Independence Park, on the bad side of I-676. Yes, that’s right: the former home of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the premier poets and authors of his time, is a shitty house in a shitty part of town. And I find that terrific.

I visited Poe NHS on a crappy, drizzly day. I spent the prior gorgeous, sunny day strolling Independence NHS, the well-manicured core of touristy Philadelphia, with its horse-drawn carriages and Ben Franklin impersonators. But the day I visited Poe’s House was sodden and sopping. Rain doesn’t bother me, I threw on a raincoat and headed out. Of course, I didn’t realize I’d be walking about a mile into the slums of Philadelphia. Honestly, that part of town isn’t that bad, but I clearly stood out like a sore thumb. I have to admit I was pretty nervous, but I didn’t run into any trouble. In hindsight, I think it was a very appropriate walk. Too many of us, myself included, stick to the “good” parts of America, and daren’t venture into the rougher sections. A brilliant thing about my National Park Site collection is you see virtually all of America, including some slums. You get a pretty complete picture that way, in my opinion.

By the time I got to the Poe house I was pretty soaked. I entered and took off my coat, leaving puddles in my wake. A retired couple were there, their Lincoln parked in the lot, water beaded from a fresh waxing. We were just in time for a tour. Our guide (a really sharp and well-versed lady, a credit to the NPS) took us through the outwardly rickety building, and told us of Poe. A troubled man, a restless man, a man who struggled with success (both commercial and in life). A man who always tried to find his way, a man who seemingly lost his mind and eventually died a very mysterious death, yet a man who left us with some of the most beloved works in American literary history.

Poe’s story was intriguing, but what I found more intriguing was the relationship the Poe site and the NPS has with the local residents. Obviously that part of Philadelphia has a typical, urban, African-American population: undereducated, underemployed, living their own hardscrabble lives built on single-parent households, gang warfare, drug abuse, and a collage of government entities that don’t give a crap about them. But the folks at Poe NHS have worked really hard to get in touch with the community. They are constantly hosting children from local schools for tours and storytelling and events, and that ranger clearly loved to do it. There was no pretension or hypocrisy in her voice when she told those stories, even when she was talking to three Whiteys from the ‘Burbs. Her love of her job and the locals was pretty evident, and appreciated. She also pointed out the brilliant mural of Poe on a nearby building, and the fact that it has never been defaced by graffiti in all the years it’s existed. That is a telling factoid and really shows that either Poe’s works unites us on a fundamental level, or that if you respect people, they will respect you back.

Poe NHS doesn’t just tell the story of a famous American author, it tells the story of a rough life, a life led by many millions of Americans before and many more millions who came after. Rough living in a rough house in a rough neighborhood, a life lived by more of us than we care to think about. I doubt my tour companions really got the point of Poe NHS. The retired gentleman, who was supposedly making a coffee table book about “homes of great Americans”, clearly missed it when he said “I doubt this house will make my book.” We all didn’t grow up in marble mansions, doofus.

If you want to experience America, you need to experience all of it, including tilting houses in seedy neighborhoods. That is an idea worthy of a coffee table book.

[Pics on this post are mine and copyrighted thusly, except for the mural. I didn't get a good picture of it (crappy photog that I am), so I had to pirate one.]

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Links:

Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site

Poe Museum (Richmond, Virginia)

Tabula Rasa’s History of Horror

Google map to Poe NHS

G, A, F, (octave lower) F, C? B flat, C, A flat, (octave lower) A flat, E flat!!

In 1977, I was twelve years old, smack-dab right in the middle of the target audience for a blockbuster movie. A movie about two people whose mundane lives are interrupted by visitations from extraterrestrial beings and the government conspiracy to cover it up. Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a huge experience for me back then. Mega-huge!!! I was all over those ads with the bright light at the end of the deserted highway. “Close encounters of the first kind: visual sighting. Close encounters of the second kind: physical evidence. Close encounters of the third kind: CONTACT!”.

Oof, cue the chills down the spine! The posters, the collectible cards, all that sweet, sweet geeky goodness. Ambrosia! It’s almost as if Steven Spielberg woke up one morning and said “Hmmm, I think I’ll write a movie that’ll appeal to that scrawny kid with the Coke-bottle glasses from Western Massachusetts.”  I was all over that film like stink on roadkill. A couple of years later, we were one of the first houses in town to get cable TV, and my dad bought all the pay channels. I watched Close Encounters 18 times in one month, and was damned proud of myself for it!

You can be damned sure that visiting Devils Tower (no apostrophe, contrary to popular belief) was high on my list of must-see sites in the National Park Service. And when I rounded that corner of State Highway 14 and saw that great monolith sticking out of the low eastern Wyoming hills, I was as giddy as a 12-year-old boy in a movie line the night of the big premier (after months of soaking in shameless & targetted Hollywood promotion). I’m actually glad I was alone, I could just revel in the giddiness without apologizing to anyone. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it was a pure geek fantasy come to life, and I was enjoying every rapturous moment of it!!

Devils Tower is truly a wonder to behold, even if you’re not into movies. It’s an enourmous volcanic extrusion that not only towers above the surrounding countryside but seems so alien to that landscape. It looks like it doesn’t belong, it’s like those Sesame Street clips: “one of these things is not like the other ones…” It’s almost as if those extraterrestrials placed it here millions of years ago as a signpost: “Gateway to the Stars — Free Anal Probes to the First 10,000 customers.”

It’s easy to see how mankind has marvelled at it since the Bering Land Bridge first allowed humans to cross into North America. It’s held special significance to Native Americans for hundreds of years. The Cheyenne, the Arapaho, the Lakota Sioux, the Eastern Shoshone, and many other plains tribes revered the spot, and gave it names such as “Bear’s Lodge”, “Tree Rock”, and “Mythic Owl Mountain”. To this day, their descendants return to Bear Lodge for ceremonies and to tie prayer offerings to the trees.

Later, when European settlers and their descendents crisscrossed the west looking for furs, or gold, or a path to the Pacific, they gave it the dramatic name “Devils Tower”, and eventually the greatest environmental president, Teddy Roosevelt, signed the law protecting it as America’s first National Monument. How could you not?? To this day, I have yet to see a natural wonder of such singular, unique stature in the United States.

Nowadays, people think of Devils Tower and think of Spielberg’s film, and I guess that’s OK too. A nation’s culture is defined by its arts, and in America’s case, our arts is really defined by our films. So I’m cool with the fact that this great wonder of nature has been immortalized by a blockbuster movie and not by the simple fact that it’s so fascinating.

Of course, some people can’t separate film from reality: when I came back to tell folks of my visit, a lot of people asked “did you see any aliens when you were there?” Um, well, no, that was a movie. But I did dream up a sequel to Close Encounters called Close Encounters: The Return, wherein the extraterrestrials come back to Earth and return Richard Dreyfuss. “Please, take him back. His liberal politics and sappy, pedantic movies are ruining our culture!”

I don’t see that appealing to any 12-year-old kids.

[All photos, except the Close Encouters poster, are mine and thusly copyrighted. Please do not use without my permission. More of my Devils Tower pics are here.]

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Links:

Devils Tower National Monument

Close Encounters of the Third Kind on IMDB

Lakota Archives: Bear Mountain

Google map to Devils Tower

I meant to post this immediately after my Denali posts, but forgot. Life kinda gets in the way of blogging, ya know? Anyway, Grizzly Man is a film, by noted director Werner Herzog, about Timothy Treadwell, a surfer-turned-actor-turned-grizzly activist who decided to spend several summers living amongst bears in Alaska, to “bring awareness to their plight”.

This recommendation dovetails not only into Denali, but also into my Chiricahua post. That post was about man’s stupidity (specifically my own stupidity) in the face of nature. That post and this film tell a valuable story: nature is not to be trifled with. It doesn’t care who you are, or what you do, or how “in tune” you think you are with it: when nature needs you to be food, you will become food, regardless of how high-minded you think you are or how many trees you hug.

So here’s the spoiler: Treadwell eventually gets eaten. Well, it’s not that big of a spoiler really, it’s pretty much said right up front this story is a tragedy. What makes this film so compelling is you see what’s coming, the ending is so patently obvious, yet Treadwell plods right along to that ending, making bad decision after bad decision, all leading up to a certain, gruesome fate. I won’t spoil it any more, it does have to be seen to be believed.

Some watch Grizzly Man and feel sadness for a poor, kindhearted soul who only wanted to do the best for the poor bears and paid the ultimate price. I see this as the story of an egotistical idiot who, like Steve Irwin, though nature was his playground, mealticket, and the means to inflate his own arrogant self-worth. In his case, like Irwin’s, nature turned its mighty claw and gave him a swipe.

Just to remind him, and us, who’s boss, I suppose.

A Spot of Preservation, Please

Devil’s Postpile is a tiny little National Park System spot, especially when compared to nearby juggernauts like Yosemite, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and Death Valley National Parks. It only covers about 800 acres, even Valley Forge NHS is bigger than that. It’s just there to save a singular geologic feature: a volcanic extrusion cooled in hexagonal basalt columns. Yeah, not too exciting, but hey, it’s not something you see every day. It’s just a tiny little spot of interest, preserved.

Which sort of brings up a point. How big of a deal is it for someone to look at something and say “hey, that’s pretty neat, we should save that.” Well, apparently, it’s a pretty big deal. Postpile took a bit of effort to save. Long hidden in the high-altitude mazework of the eastern Sierra Nevada, people didn’t even know it existed until the late 1800s. Of course, it wasn’t too long until water interests showed up wanting to blow these extruded columns straight to hell to build their dams. As usual, the happy ending here was a group of concerned citizens & environmental groups raising awareness leading to the salvation of this unique pile of rocks.

Yeah, I know, here we go again. Those naïve environmental whackos, sacrificing the public good and economic growth for worthless blind cave fish or piles of grey rocks. Why should we preserve all these unimportant things when people can’t put food on the table or get a drop to drink? Fair questions, I suppose. Fair questions, that is, until you realize that so many times this destruction is either for naught, or is ill-placed, or the fruits of that destruction is itself wasted, or, even worse, it’s realized after the fact that all this destruction has doomed us all.

Looking specifically at the economic collapse we find ourselves in, which seemingly marks the end of our nation’s economic prosperity, I have to ask myself: was it really worth destroying portions of our nation’s environment for “economic expansion”, when our own greed-driven stupidity has halted that very economic expansion and set us all down the road to ruin? Our wealth has evaporated, our jobs have moved overseas, our education and health care systems have collapsed, and all we have to show for it is a scarred landscape. There are parts of Texas that are forever ruined thanks to sloppy oil drilling. There are parts of West Virginia forever despoiled thanks to mountaintop removal mining. Long Island Sound will likely never recover from the damage caused first by New England mill towns and later from over-fertilized suburban lawns.

I know there’s a delicate balance between environmental preservation and economic expansion. I know NIMBY-ism prevents good projects, like robust electrical grids, light rail, and hydroelectric & geothermal power (two truly renewable energy sources), from getting completed. And there have been some very helpful projects like Hoover Dam and the TVA that have been done and resulted in vast improvements in the quality of life for millions. But what bothers me is the environmental damage we have wrought for absolutely no reason other than building over-large, unsustainable houses no one can afford to live, and mega-mall shopping complexes where no one can afford to shop. We’ve ruined our landscape and have nothing to show for it but a nation in economic collapse.

I’m just suggesting that anytime zoning boards or developers or the Dept. of the Interior or Congress considers destroying a chunk of our natural world for some special project, they need to seriously consider “is it worth it over the long term,” or is it simply some get-rich-quick scheme for some special interest group that won’t provide a lick of true economic growth for the nation. I suspect that as long as these groups can be easily bought off or deluded, we’ll never make those intelligent decisions.

At least we have places like Devil’s Postpile and other national, state, and municipal parklands. Well, for now that is, until some shyster convinces us that paving them over will lead to “economic prosperity”.

[Pics on this post are mine and copyrighted thusly. See my other Postpile pics here.]

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Links:

Devil’s Postpile National Monument

Environmental Valuation Blog

CIA World Factbook: Environment (yeah, I know it’s not directly related to the content of this blog post, but I stumbled across it and found it neat)

Google map to Devil’s Postpile

Autumn in Denali

Autumn is the best time to visit Alaska and especially Denali. Of course, being far north, Alaskan autumn starts in the last week of August, so plan accordingly. But it’s a great time to see the Last Frontier.

The first thing about Alaskan autumn is it does get chilly, so dress accordingly. And that’s awesome for tourists. See, I’m a firm believer that our National Park sites should be experienced. This means getting off your dead ass and getting into the park. Hike a trail, paddle a river, climb a mountain, dive into the ocean. Do something, anything, whatever is appropriate to the park, but also do it out there, in the wild.* And in the Alaska parks, where it’s winter 7 or 8 months out of the year, the least you can do is experience it in the colder weather. How can you possibly experience Alaska without layers of clothing and a bit of a chill? Summer travel is for wussies. You can get better deals at the end of the season anyway .

* Note: when I say “go into the wild”, I don’t mean drop all your worldly possessions and live in the wilderness. All I’m saying is get away from the visitor center and out of your car and walk a trail. The wonder of these places can’t be seen from a roadside overlook. And safety first: travel in a group, carry the right equipment, don’t overextend your abilities, etc., etc., etc.

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If you haven’t been to Alaska’s interior before, let me give you a primer. In Denali, there aren’t as many pine forests as you might think. The nature of the tundra doesn’t lend itself to big trees. But there is fall color out there. There are great swaths of birch and other low trees & shrubs, which do turn gold and red. The real autumn glory rests right on the ground, a low carpet of moss, grasses and other tundra-loving plants native only to this particular latitude and altitude. This is where the beauty of the Alaskan autumn comes from: a cavalcade of color coating all the hills, vales, and even some of the glaciers, a carpet you can walk on and, if you’re wearing the proper waterproof gear, sit on for lunch. This is the foliage of interior Alaska: a kaleidoscopic carpet covering the scenery, and if you walk out in Denali, you’re towering above it all.

Speaking of scenery, well, I shouldn’t have to tell you Alaskan scenery is fantastic. It’s world famous, so unless you’re spending all your days playing Second Life, you should have heard about it. But there’s special coolness in the Alaskan scenery in autumn. Winter comes so quickly to Alaska, you can see the changing season in just a few days. When I arrived at Denali, the lower mountains were bare, but by the time I left, only three days later, these same mountaintops were frosted with snow. It was great, an evident change of seasons. The other thing in play was the sun, moon and stars. The long days of summer are over in late August, there’s more of a balance between day and night, which means, yes, you can see an aurora borealis and thousands of stars in a sky devoid of light pollution during the regular tourist season. True, auroras are rarer that time of the year, but it’s still possible. One occurred when I was there, it was a nice touch.

But, by far, the coolest thing about autumn in Alaska is the wildlife. Again, the fauna of Alaska is world-famous, and fall brings it out in droves, and in great glory. I saw lots of bears out on foraging runs, doing last-minute feedings in preparation for long hibernation. I saw ptarmigans turning from summer brown to winter snow-white. I saw packs of wolves stalking caribou, not for hunting (yet), but on training runs with the younger members of the pack. I saw more moose than you can shake a stick at (which would be a bad idea, by the way). I saw one of the most beautiful animals in North America, a northern fox with a gorgeous winter coat. The neatest thing I experienced, though, was a close encounter with caribou.

I took a heli-hiking tour of the tundra region in Denali State Park (you can’t heli-hike in the national park). Basically, they take you up into the higher regions of the area via helicopter, drop you off with a guide and you trek down the mountain for a few miles and radio in for a pickup. It’s incredible! The wide-open spaces, far away from civilization, just you, your companions, and miles and miles of colorful, mountainous, utterly incredible scenery. Our guide was a strapping young guy who clearly loved his job (how can you not, I wonder?). He was pointing out all the various features and critters: the wild blueberries, the turning fireweed, the Dall’s sheep on the mountainside, the moose in the birch thicket, and, of course, the caribou. We caught sight of a big bull out in the distance. Binoculars in hand, I watched the beautiful beast. He was accompanied by a couple of females, one older and one younger, all nibbling their way across the fields.

Suddenly, and without warning, our guide put his hands up in the air and started prancing about like a wide receiver after making that big touchdown catch. None of us could figure out what he was doing – then he started to explain. “See,” he told us, “once spring comes, the great herds of caribou break up and go out on their own. The females stick together in small groups, protecting their young from predators. The males go out on their own, wandering and feeding across great regions of the tundra and taiga over the entire summer. When autumn comes, however, the caribou slowly regroup. They have this big socialization process, basically they prance around like this, and then race each other and, if accepted, the small groups join up. So,” he continued, “are you ready to run with the caribou?”

My brain barely had time to register: “um, what?” The next thing I know, he yells out “run now!” and takes off across the hillside. We all run along as best we can, up and down hill and vale, and over to our right, running along in parallel, is that same big bull and his two friends! It was awesome! Here I was, a tenderfoot product of New England suburbia, running along with the caribou across the Alaskan tundra! It didn’t last long (I run like a bag of wet cement), but it was great. It was the most fun I’ve had on any of my park trips, and an experience I won’t forget until the end of my days.**

** Note: what I did would actually be illegal in the national parks. Don’t mess with the animals in the National Parks, even the herbivores. They are not only dangerous when provoked, but contact with humans can screw up their lifestyle. I was in a state park when I did this, which I suppose doesn’t make it any less unethical, but at least I didn’t break the law.

I had an absolute ball at Denali. I recommend that everyone take a trip there once in their life. Make sure you take that heli-hiking trip!

[All pics on this post are mine and copyrighted thusly. Please don't reuse without my permission. All of my other Denali pics are here. But go to Alaska and take yer own damn pictures, ya rascals!]

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Links:

Denali National Park

Michigan’s Tech Aurora Page

Alaska Wildlife Conservation (includes tips on safe viewing)

Encyclopedia of Earth’s article on the Alaska tundra