The Best of Time and Place

In 2007, Eric Schlosser wrote a short piece called "The Freak Show." His aim: to show the variety of artists and events that contributed to his understanding of America and offer a brief perspective on the country.

Using his writing as a model, I created my own inventory of stuff that has shaped my view of the United States. It was a definite challenge to pare down my list. For every name and event listed, I thought of five more that easily could be included, especially when considering musicians and filmmakers. Here it is:

The Best of Time and Place

My idea of America was formed by my dad explaining to me how politics works and why it is vital to treat all people with respect, by the music of the Dead Kennedys, Bob Dylan, and dozens of unknown indie and punk bands driving town to town in their vans, by the films of Martin Scorsese, the Coen Brothers and Jim Jarmusch, by writers like Walt Whitman, Tim O’Brien, and the art of Chuck Close, by characters like Huck Finn, by Reagan’s theory that taxes for the rich will trickle down to the rest, by the 1980 hockey team defeating the Soviet Union, and our questionable response to 9/11.

The America that I love combines patriotism with a healthy sense of scepticism. It is made up of people who strike out for the unknown and create their own lives, but who also never forget that they are a part of something greater than any one person. The stories that have forged my perspective can be dark: a low growl meant to warn strangers to tread carefully. At the same time, the optimistic sense that, as Walt Whitman says, “we have the best of time and place” lingers on.

And a short video accompaniment.

Thanks for reading.

The Immediacy of a Conversation

The Process
It started with an early morning phone call to Kevin Hodgson, fellow #clmooc traveller. Our chat lasted about 10 minutes, which I uploaded, unedited, to Soundcloud. There were pauses, non-sequiturs, and stumbling attempts to formulate questions (by me). It was an untidy and excellent record of our voices on a July morning, full of springboard ideas.



My next task: shape the 10 minutes so that those ideas could flourish. I accomplished this in Soundtrap. My first decision--remove my voice. I did not make this decision because I am averse to hearing myself. Like most people, I am not crazy about listening to my voice, but I have done it often enough to not get hung up on how strange it sounds. Instead, I cut myself out in order to highlight Kevin.

After snipping a bit more, I added a few musical interludes. I enjoyed playing around with these bits of guitar loops. I listen to podcasts and am always interested in the way that music shapes narrative, moves conversations along, and accentuates mood.

Satisfied with how I highlighted Kevin's compelling thinking about the morning, the unknown, the need to let ideas simmer, I uploaded the Soundtrap file back to Soundcloud as a post that was now half as long as the original.



A Take-away
It is fantastic to hear Kevin's voice. While I've always enjoyed his writing, listening to him reflect on how and why he creates feels even more immediate.

But why?

Maybe this is due to the unified, polished quality of published writing. As readers we know that writers struggle, revise, and, probably, feel a degree of frustration in order to articulate a thought sharply and clearly. (I just spent 10 minutes on that last sentence. . .) But, typically, this is not what we think about in the moment we are engaged with an essay, blogpost, or article. Instead, our minds are occupied by the ideas. If I consider the writing itself, usually it is to relish the masterful way the writer has shaped a particularly powerful moment.

Returning to the point about immediacy, as I listened to Kevin talk, I could hear him working out his ideas in the moment. Seeking, revising, emphasizing: these were happening simultaneously. Or, to put it another way, I got to listen to Kevin's thinking process. I heard him cobbling together explanations, searching for examples, making leaps and taking momentary rests. For both of us, there was this lingering anticipation of what might come next. Maybe this is what it comes down to. In a conversation, anticipation is in play for both the speaker and the listener, whereas, when we read a piece of writing, the shared anticipation is gone. Only the reader feels it.

As I think about this now, I wonder how much different his remarks would be if I emailed him some questions and asked him to respond in writing. It is quite possible that the ideas would be the same. However, Kevin is indisputably a great writer, and I am sure his answers would be executed in a more planned and polished way. Without a doubt, it would be an absorbing piece of writing and one that I would gladly dig into. Sometimes, though, it is conversation, with its messiness, that supplies brighter glimmers than polish can provide.