Pseudo-American

Today, I was fitted for a bridesmaid’s dress for one of my best friends’ wedding. The seamstress I went to was in Coolidge Corner in Brookline, MA, which has a very large Russian and Jewish population. My seamstress, who is known by the nickname “Poppy,” is a former fashion designer from Russia. Every review I saw about her online said that she is incredibly curt and could be likened to the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld; needless to say, I was incredibly excited to meet this woman.

I arrived in her small cramped store to be greeted by a heavily accented, “What you want?” I politely explained I had an appointment for a dress fitting and she told me to follow her upstairs and change into the gown. The upstairs was a maze of multicolored garments, most half-finished. I looked around for a changing room, but there wasn’t one. Instead, she had me change in front of her as came behind me with her cold fingers and a measuring tape to take my measurements, without informing me that she was going to do so. I put on the dress and she howls, “Who let you to order this size? This not your size! No dressmaker makes mistakes like this!” My dress is three to six inches too big everywhere and she is appalled. She pins the dress, has me strip in front of her and retakes my measurements (again, without asking). “You no trust the American clothes. Not European girl like you.”

This strikes me as odd - I don’t have an accent; I’m not wearing anything that identifies my nationality. I shake it off as crazy ramblings and ask when I can expect the dress and get a quote on the price. I left the store completely amused by the exchange and hop on the T to go to work. On the ride there, I thought about her European comment. She’s right; I am European. All four of my grandparents are from Ireland. There is not a single drop of my blood that has mixed with any American blood. I’ve never thought of myself as anything but American since my family has been here since the 1940s, but genetically, I’m as Irish as the Irish and European as the Europeans. The average height of a full-grown woman in Europe is over an inch shorter than a woman in the USA. So now, I’m not going to consider myself short – I am the exact average height of a European woman, 5’3”.

Thanks Poppy!

scan t.v. 24

Here are two sections of an essay I've been working on. The essay is about SCAN TV 24 - the t.v. station at UNH. The club is most often ignored / misunderstood. I would argue unjustly ignored / misunderstood. In the essay, I attempt to capture the true spirit / character of the station as I have found it during my time at UNH. The first section I've posted here describes the typical goings-on at the station. The next section is a kind of introduction to different aspects of the station. These two sections are in no particular order, but I thought they were two fertile sections. Any comments / criticism would be greatly appreciated.
***
It is Tuesday and I have time before class. I stop by SCAN. I open the office door and immediately see filth and disarray but this is somehow welcoming. An empty Sunkist bottle lies horizontal on top of a massive digital server worth a frightening amount of money. An orange drop of liquid falls mute to the shiny surface, the first of what I am sure will be many stains to come. A Snickers wrapper dangles lightly over a nearby keyboard. The chocolate flecks inside have almost certainly found there way to the many crevaces between the lettered keys. “It’s fucking hot in here!” Guthrie Andres, computer genius for the T.V. station explains to me as I make my way into the office. Guthrie is sitting at a nearby computer, his feet resting on top of the PC tower. He is wearing his shirt tied on his head like a shabby turban. I hear the door open. Matt Lubicky, senior SCAN member and advertising mastermind comes in and shows me the latest ad he made for the school newspaper. It has a picture of a bird on it and there's an arrow pointing at the bird with the words "the bird is guilty" added in bold lettering over the arrow. At the bottom of the ad, almost as an afterthought Matt included SCAN's general information. "I like it" I say. The door shuts again and I look up. Sabino San Juan IV enters. Sabino is the General Manager of SCAN. He is brilliant with technology, able to deconstruct and construct any mechanical thing and perhaps most significantly he sincerely believes he is a wolf in a human's body. "Did you see this?" he asks, holding up some piece of computer equipment I will never understand. "It just came in...and...basically...it's really good..." Sabino proceeds to bombard me with technical information, the specifications on whatever he's holding. I just nod, wanting sorely to shift conversation. The T.V. at the front of the room is playing VH1 Classic. Phil Collins sings passionately "take, take me home". Then Nate Lord, SCAN celebrity and senior member walks in and gives his usual shouted greeting, "just the losers I wanted to see…hey, hey boys!!!!!" Nate and I proceed to theatrically make fun of each other for as long as the other people in the room laugh. Jon Waugh, SCAN member of several years and instrumental to the short lived SCANNATION T.V. show slides in behind us holding up a large white tube. “Know what this is, boys???” he eagerly asks to the room. “What’s up Johnny?” we reply. “New Batman poster…it’s got the Joker on it…so good…oh my God, so good” We all admire the poster and then meander about the room. Some of us doing work. Some of us watching videos on youtube. Others talking and not talking.
***
This is the room where I met my best friend, where I edited for eight hours straight and where that kid in the dog collar told me he was a wolf. This is where I learned to accept my eccentricities and become publicly creative. This is where I wasted countless hours and where I am proud to belong – SCAN TV 24.
SCAN TV 24 is the campus television station for the University of New Hampshire. It comprises a studio for filming live television shows which are broadcasted throughout all campus dorms and an office complete with digital server and three computers with professional Final Cut Pro editing software. The club is responsible for the proper handling and maintenance of many thousands of dollars worth of equipment and hardware. It is also home to one of the most diverse and motley groups of UNH students on campus. At SCAN you are sure to find an unlikely tableau - roomfuls of impressive technology juxtaposed with immature, uninhibited and messy fun.
SCAN is open to all and prides itself on its unbiased and diverse membership. Despite this, very few members of the UNH community feel comfortable walking through SCAN’s office door. I didn’t at first, and for good reason. The first time I entered the SCAN office was during my Sophomore year. While timidly viewing the awful raw footage of an unfinished short film I had shot earlier that day, Len Mazzone, resident tech nerd in the group several years back, singled me out solely to mock me. In the middle of a conversation with another SCAN member about how “the majority of UNH students were dumb and obsessed with sports,” Len looked at me and presumably by my “jock-like” grey sweater and jeans combo assessed “that’s kind of like you, isn’t it?” I think the intimidation of SCAN, what’s slightly frightening about it is that there are members in SCAN who aren’t afraid to call you out; who are loud, theatrical, and at times abrasive. What is also slightly frightening is that you generally have to prove yourself in some way before you can crack the social barrier between “UNH student” and “SCAN member”. The initiation varies with the passing years and with the rolling membership, but I know I didn’t feel comfortable in the SCAN office or studio until I dedicated a lot of time to the club and produced a lot of content. Productivity was my in. For other people, it’s holding an executive position. For others, it’s simply knowing a SCAN member.
SCAN is criticized for its output and adored for its uncaring attitude toward its output. You can literally film anything and have it broadcasted on the SCAN TV 24 broadcasting loop. The contents of SCAN’s scratch space (essentially the digital library for all of the saved material on SCAN’s computers), comprises material for actual television shows, commercials, short films, and other miscellaneous bits predominately of a strange and irreverent character. In the scratch space, you will find “SCAN ids," or short commercials for the T.V. station which new general members are required to make before they can advance within the group. The ids are often between 30 seconds and one minute in length and are almost always of an exceptionally random nature. Like the one where lounge music is played over a scene from a dubbed Chinese martial arts film or the one where the sound of manic laughter is played over a slow zoom into a bowl of disgusting leftovers sitting in someone's sink. Also in the scratch space are short films. These come in both the successful and failed varieties. They are largely compiled during the film fest season, toward the end of spring semester when everyone frantically attempts to produce their thirty seconds of fame in the off hours when they should be sleeping and / or writing papers. The range of short films is large and includes five minute experimental animations produced over months and 10 minute embarrassments wherein screenshots of the video game Halo are edited to music taken from someone’s I Tune’s library.

The Aesthetics of Smoking, or Egomania

For many reasons, I grew up an anti-drug.

My parents divorced when I was very young. Me, my sister (the oldest), and my brother (the middle child) stayed with my father in our house on Osgood Road. My mother moved around a lot, but never too far away, always being sure to remain in touch enough to take us (sometimes) on the weekends or pick us up (sometimes) from school. She eventually remarried (not her last time) and re-reproduced (her last time). My father, on the other hand, invited a woman to live with me and my siblings when I was in Kindergarten. She was nice and had two children; one older than my sister and one younger than me. This mathematically made me the middle child in the middle of a post-broken home amelioration attempt. On cue, it blew up in its makers' faces and violence ensued. My elder blood siblings resorted to drugs, music, rebellion, everything people our age tend to remember the '90s for (good times and nowhere to go), while I, by default, became the counterpoint. The constant tension and strife between my father, my stepmother, and my siblings, was more than I could bear to consider partaking in. So I did what made sense; I did not do what my siblings did. This included steering clear of drugs and unsavory people that might lead me to become something my parents disapproved of. Not surprisingly, I became resentful of my good grades and anti-drug attitude, and was not proud when my parents said "good work" after looking over my report card. Though my self-reliant, self-righteous attitude effectively kept me out of social circles and off of drugs, it also made me a very lonely person.

My sister was a smoker from the age of 16 or thereabout. Every time I was around her when she lit up, I would lecture her about the harmful side effects of smoking, how it's killing her, and be generally dripping condescending incredulity. She would always say the same thing: "Gotta die somehow." A cliched smoker's response (she never said it without cackling afterwards), I always thought it was the worst defense. I found myself saying this recently when someone suggested I stop puffing on a Camel.

Like many people who are lucky enough to take the 4 year vacation known as college (and now have to PAY for it...), many things changed when I went to school. I began drinking and smoking pot. Not out of rebellion, but out of both curiosity and a sense of decorum. Nothing about shedding the straight-edge skin was painful. It was a blast. However, it made me reconsider certain values I held, the most glaring of which was tested two years into college. One day without much thought, I purchased a pack of cigarettes and started smoking. My friends alternately approved and disapproved.

So, why did I, and why do people in general, start smoking?

- From a sociological standpoint: The standard sociological argument is that it's a parroting effect - teen sees person she wants to be like or be near smoking so she herself starts smoking. Other factors are prevalent, such as smoking parents, but really, from that point of view, it boils down to the parrot effect.

- From a cultural standpoint: "Coolness" is (like, almost always?) the reason one starts smoking. Whether it's out of rebellion, the urge to do what is not allowed, or the desire to partake in what cool people partake in (most cool people smoke, or so it seems), smokers tend to trace their picking up of the butt to an image, idea, or person. Of course, smoking also is an act that has no justification outside of pure self-gratification, so in that sense, it represents an aspect of the American character - straight, undiluted, 200-proof self-gratification. This is often taken as the essence of cool; a sum of unexplained acts originating from a self that resists standard labels, explanations, and expectations. So if smoking could be considered cool, it would be naive to say that Miles Davis, Keith Richards, or Dont Look Back have nothing to do with it. People who start smoking for these reasons would probably never admit it or, at least, would disregard the attempt to explain the "why" of smoking when, duh, the lack thereof is part of the fun.

- From a phenomenological standpoint: Smoking is relaxing. It occupies your basic motor skills, helps you regulate your breathing, and helps you take time. It tastes great, especially when paired with coffee or red wine.

As far as I can tell, smoking was once as casual as drinking water. Now, there are signs in bodegas urging smokers to protest the proposed cigarette tax increase ($6/carton!) that New Yorkers are currently facing. Not only that, there are industries, profit and non-, built around helping people quit. Why has smoking become so bad? Depending on your sources, either one pack takes 7 minutes off your life or if you quit by the time your 26, there is virtually a 0% chance of developing lung cancer due to smoking. Clearly, evidence has indicated that smoking can and does kill all too often. Can cigarettes be enjoyed responsibly? And hasn't everyone "Gotta die somehow"?

Wes Anderson tends to make very pointed use of smoking in his films. Whether it's an issue of realism or not is beside the point; to me, smoking, if I may wax philosophic, is a token of the smoker's Dionysian acceptance of their own mortality. If that's too Romantic for you, the urge to smoke is antithetical to the urge to remain alive. It concerns quality over quantity, how one lives as opposed to how long. In a sense, every person that smokes a cigarette is performing their very own miniature crucifixion.

Every morning I scale 6 flights of stairs in a grimy building occupied mostly by hardworking immigrants. On the second floor, I always pass two older Eastern European men sitting on a bench, smoking and chatting in their native language. I at first tried smiling and nodding at them, but they would just scowl (understandably), and I would move on. Smoking, though it's often associated with rebellion, is also an expression of solidarity. Who huddles outside bars when it's 2 degrees outside? Smokers. Who's "Gotta die somehow"? Smokers. Am I a smoker?*

*OK, this piece has two endings. Here's your chance to fill in the blanks. You can choose the one you like the best:
1.) Doubtful, but I do enjoying smoking.
2.) Sure, aren't you?

Living Below Dead People

Coming home from Key Food supermarket this afternoon, I noticed an abundance of emergency personnel and their vehicles littered about 66th Street. While climbing the stairs, lugging my red cart full of groceries, I was surprised to see a large turnout of neighbors in the hallways, including the 45-year old woman next door who watches soaps, lives alone, cooks delicious smelling things, and whom I had never seen until an hour ago. Everyone was busily gossiping. As I was unlocking the door to my apartment, all I could hear was "Ah! It's a shame!," "Sometimes rats die in the walls and you can't get them out, so they just stink up the place," and "I hadn't seen him for 3 days!" With these kinds of comments circulating through the halls, I threw all the frozen foods in the freezer and rushed back to the peephole in my door to figure out what was going on.
First thing I noticed was no one was running or even rushing. The EMTs and cops were taking their time, and I kept hearing this guy (one of our neighbors from the 3rd floor; loud voice, wearing red flannel) talking about how he was once an exterminator and that "it" smelled like dead rats on the 3rd floor "but a little different, y'know?" Second thing I noticed was that no one was crying, and I was uncertain what this meant. Did someone die? Or were they not as badly injured as thought? Third thing I noticed was that I never heard anyone speaking directly to the sick person.


After waiting for a half-hour behind my door listening for answers, I overheard this conversation between the Spanish-speaking neighbor across the hall and a Muslim mom from the 4th floor: (paraphrased) "You know that guy up in C5 with longish hair down to here [Spanish-speaking neighbor makes reference to his shoulders]? He's been dead 2 whole days up there! ... It started to smell up the 3rd floor [holds his nose; grimaces dramatically] and so Zurab [Turkish landlord] called the cops... [in a whisper] overdosed." Both Spanish-speaking neighbor and Muslim mom shook their heads and went back into their respective apartments. I turned away from the peephole in the door only to hear two women upstairs calling the dead man's cat so they could remove it from the apartment.


The prevailing feeling that I got from what could be seen as a very tragic and dark moment, was anything but grave. People's expressions were grave, but despite the long faces, it felt almost like a block party with everyone's door open, everyone talking to everyone else, the EMTs and cops making light with the neighbors, all present agreeing just how smelly it was and sort of laughing like "Wow! Who would have thought we were smelling a dead guy for 2 days!" and then following up with "What a day, huh!" (as it's 70 degrees and perfectly sunny this afternoon). This is not to say the tenants of 1718 66th Street were uncaring or dismissive of the dead man. Among themselves, they located the dead man's father's phone number and contacted the building manager to talk to the EMTs. It's just that there was a certain lightness that was prominent; a giddiness, if you will, to take part in this team effort of remembering all one could remember about the dead man that no one in the apartment building was great friends with or related to.


On a personal note, this "phenomenon" of people living and dying all over you, as natural as it is to do so, is at times so compelling and other times so alienating to me. Initially, I wanted to go out and talk with all the neighbors about this man's death, and yet I felt uncomfortable that everyone (including myself) was suddenly in this man's tragic business. For me, it raises questions like: Is everyone completely desensitized to tragic situations, but not to entertaining situations after one has lived here (namely an urban environment) or simply just lived a considerable amount of time? Or is it more appropriate to say that everyone here is at one with the inevitable human shame that comes with life, and that this acceptance prompts a certain entitlement among everyone to know since we're all involved with everyone else eventually (i.e. a stranger smells your dead body and calls the cops)? Or is it neither, and rather an insatiable, universal desire for humans to know and speak of distant tragedy (in other words, tragedy that does not directly involve them)?
All I can know for sure is that, should I pass away in my apartment at 1718 66th Street, it will take about 48 hours until the neighbors call the cops.

Homeless People

One of the most interesting things I've noticed about living in a big city is the Homeless phenomenon, aka the "Bum" phenomenon. I don't mean people without homes, or people "in between" things; you can find these people just about anywhere. I mean the really, really, really odd, dirty, smelly, probably insane, possibly belligerent people that sleep between copies of The Onion and The New York Times outside of Dunkin' Donuts. Don't get me wrong; this is not Bumfights propaganda, nor is it a misanthropic rant. There are , in fact, many decent, dignified homeless people who humbly request that you help them out by quietly sitting beside a quaint cardboard sign (for all you who think this marriage of dignity and overt solicitation is a contradiction, lay off the late-period Nietzsche). That aside, the stinky, loud, nothing-to-lose crazies are the ones that fascinate me.
Just the other night, Jess and I were heading home from Greenwhich Village after a pleasant evening full of art and Indian food when we slowly became aware that one of "them" was on the train we were on. Having lived in the city for some time now, I've learned the art of avoiding "that" train car. As the train comes to a stop, you casually watch as the cars pass, noting the passenger density, gaging if you'll be able to get a seat or not. Then, you see a car that is half-empty. This train has a bum on it, so you avoid it. Sometimes, however, the trains are so busy you just can't tell, and you don't notice you're on a train with one of "them" until the doors are closed and you've opened your book. Anyway, this particular person, a man claiming to be a veteran, was walking up and down the car, shouting both coherent things, like "Easter Sunday!" and "It is better to give than to receive!", and incoherent things, like "Muthafuher" and "Take a plane!!!" He started on one side of the car and I was on the other. Eventually he made his way to my side and stationed himself diagonally across from me. I buried my nose deeper in Mann. He let loose a pair of thick loogies which made an ungodly sound on the soiled subway floor. He then resumed shouting and while he was jingling his panhandle, some coins bounced out. He marched forward to pick them up, bellowing to a kid in a pair of New Balances to "Move, Punk!" Once he had collected his lost coins, he left that side of the train feeling sufficiently guilty and marched to the other side, whereupon he threatened some female passengers thus: "I'm-a cut you up!" Not clear on the sincerity or really the direction of this threat, Jess and I switched cars at the next stop.
Another time Jess and I were walking down 5th Ave in Park Slope and we were passing a bank. A terribly loud, bulging, shabby, oldish woman with stringy brown hair and beady black eyes was hollering at people not to help her, but simply to give her money. As I walked passed, on cue, she yelled, "Give me some money." Slightly shaken by her hoarse, dire voice, Jess and I continued walking only to hear her yell, "88, feed me!" I was assuming she was talking to the guy in the Michael Irvin jersey, so I kept walking. To my surprise, I found myself terribly angry that this woman had the nerve to do what she was doing - that is, making people painfully aware of their advantages in life. Not only that, but of what they are wearing or how they look (she called me "Handsome"). Jess asked rhetorically why this woman wasn't outside a bank in the Upper West Side of Manhatten or some other area where there's a lot more wealth. I say rhetorical because the answer is readily obvious; someone would complain and she would be promptly removed. Then she would be dumped in Brooklyn, where she can solicit freely because a.) no one has enough free mental space to care enough that someone is yelling at them and b.) the police have far more important things to do - like gangbusting and prostitute-ring-ousting - than to remove an obnoxious beggar. How is it that this person exists? Is she just crazy? Or is it a symptom of a much larger problem?
Between these two encounters, I've come to a loose, metaphoric conclusion. You know how when you make sugar cookies, you roll out the dough, and then you use various shapes to cut out your cookies? Well, people like me or you or the businessman on 6th or the hooligan on Franklin are all defined shapes. The "others" or, for the lack of a more accurate term, bums, are the extra dough that isn't quite a shape. It has potential to be made back into a shape, but there's always a shapeless remainder. Insofar as this makes any sense, these people become foils, or mirrors. They show us what is wrong with the whole baking process, and I don't blame them for hating me for not giving them money.
Perhaps I've been too hard on these people. Perhaps they have severe mental problems and are really just tragically out of touch with reality and I should be sad that no one has been able to or chosen to help them in the necessary ways. I believe this could be the case. But then I think of this other homeless man I've seen several times all over the city who pushes around a shopping cart full of his effects. Dressed like an urban monk of some kind, he curls up on two-seaters beside car-to-car passageways with his cart parked by his side. Swilling an unlabeled two-liter bottle, he doesn't say anything, and doesn't smell. He settles in and closes his eyes. As far as I'm concerned, either this man is nuts, or he knows something I've yet to learn.