Apocalypse, Soon

Our last, best days.

We're screwed!

Oh, sure, Harold Camping's Rapture didn't come to be. Along with many of you, I got a real kick out of imagining the “end of the world.” I mean, none of us really thought it would happen. But it was fun to pretend, wasn't it?

It's kind of amazing how much we all got into it, too.  It kind of took over.  Everyone has been talking about it.

I think we all enjoyed Rapture Weekend 2011 for the same reason we like roller coasters: it's fun to remind yourself that death is on the way, but not quite yet.

And that's what interests me: most of us, at some point or another, like to contemplate The End of Days. In fact, I would argue that many stories in the media depend on the idea that The End is near.

It's All Over

In case you haven't heard, the world actually IS still ending. Well, the world in which the United States is first-place is ending. The American Age is ending.

Even nature knows that we've already peaked as a nation. You can't escape the bad news, people.

In the few newspapers still in print, you can read about terrorists, the widening gap between the poor and the rich, the always growing threat of extremism, earthquakes, floods, oil spills, and superstorms destroying our communities. You can read about the enormous cost of the our military actions in Middle East, the tens of thousands killed in the drug war on the US-Mexican border, how fat everybody seems to be getting, and how our bridges and roads are falling apart.

On the internet, you can read about how broke everyone is (except for the people who are so not broke) or that public education is not working and that we should weep for our children. Especially our brown children. You can learn the costs of our unjust health care system and the of unemployment numbers that haven't been seen since the Great D (don't say the whole word; it's bad luck). You can read about the incredible and growing divide between the rich and everyone else.

On the tv, you can get your mind blown about the size of the deficit. You can also learn about how easy it is for kids to find jaw-dropping porn or bomb-making instructions on the web. About how the bees are disappearing and the glaciers are melting.

But that's not the bad news. The bad news is much worse.

I am talking about the sheer number of people who seem to believe that we're in the age of the United States' “Last, Best Days.” Capital letters and quotes. The whole shebang. It's all over, baby. Prepare to be second best in the world. Or maybe third best. The future will be all China. Or India. Or Mexican immigrant. Whatever.

Our greatest national strength has always been optimism. Our greatest strength now appears to be fear. Look at the last thirty or forty years of politics. The biggest thing that seems to get us out to vote (whether it's for Dems or Repubs or Tea Partiers or Rent Is 2 Damn High or whatever) is fear that the other side might win and then ruin everything.

Team Fear

Fear drives our culture. It drives our commerce. Everyone is afraid of getting sick. Of dying. Of getting robbed. Of litigation. Of growing old and ugly. Of becoming unimportant or uncool.

America has always had fear-mongering. It's as old as the Republic itself. Every generation worries that the good ol' days are way better than today and tomorrow.  That's not new. 

What's new is the open derision of hope-mongering.  The strongest message out there seems to be “don't believe it can get better.”

As we all have a laugh about the egg-on-his-face Harold Camping and his ridiculous followers, we may be tempted to be smug. How delicious it is to read about the crestfallen believers who can't comprehend that The End didn't happen.  "What a bunch of clowns," we might think.  "Fringe nutjobs!"

But I think the popularity of Camping's prediction says more about us all than we like to admit.  

For now, you'll have to excuse me.  After cleaning up from my awesome Rapture Party (sorry, I really meant to invite you all), I have to figure out how I'm going to pay for my retirement after Social Security is dismantled.  I also need a good plan to deal with my massive school loans-- anybody have a suggestion? Oh, and I should probably look for a job; there's no way my teaching job will exist in a few years.  I need to sell my car, too-- gas prices are way too high!  And does anyone know a reasonable place to move in Canada?  I'd like to have health care when I'm elderly.

If I make it that long.  Anybody have plans for the October Apocalypse?  Or should we all save it up for the Mayan 2012 Fest?

Your Life Is My News

commentary on Bin-Laden's death

So, Bin-Laden is dead. Pretty big news turned into four or five words.

And his name is now spelled “Usama.” Ok. Too bad I never got to use it while he was alive.

In our 24 hour news cycle, it seems like this happened months ago. We metabolize news so quickly now, it's hard to keep an eye on how long ago things happened. The Royal Wedding, earthquake in Japan, shooting in Arizona-- there is no shortage of significant but easily neglected events.

But Bin-Laden's death seems different than so many of these countless stories that just go by.  Take the Bin-Laden victory parties of a couple of weeks ago.

Last week, a student at Boston College sent me a video of himself and fellow students celebrating the night the President announced that Bin-Laden was dead.

It's quite a scene. The first couple of minutes are frantic, hand-held shakiness of kids running through what must be BC's campus, late at night. It's impossible to watch without getting a little woozy. The last couple of minutes of the video are easier to watch because the video is more stable, but harder to watch, too, because of the content.

Hundreds of college kids, mostly white males, are standing on tables and pajamas on tables in a large room of the school library. It's around midnight and these kids are going crazy. They are yelling and singing, waving American flags. It sounds like a party after a big sporting event and the kids look incredibly elated and wildly happy. They are singing together. They begin with the classic “na na na, goodbye” chant but, at some point, they segue into The Star Spangled Banner.

I had mixed feelings watching it. It was great to see so many college kids energized by something so purely political and patriotic. I'm used to seeing kids roll their eyes when saying the Pledge of Allegiance, so it was nice to see kids genuinely show some American pride. But it was also kind of scary. This wasn't just a celebration of America. This wasn't outside the White House. This looked a lot like a bunch of kids who had something to focus all their untapped energy on. And the thing they were focused on was the sweetness of revenge.

I thought to myself, “is it ok if they celebrate revenge?”

Then another thought occurred to me.

I wonder if American kids of a certain age aren't the most affected by this news (apart from those who were directly affected by the tragedy that day). Those who were from 2^nd or 3^rd grade to 12^th grade in September of 2001 must've had a unique perspective on the attacks on 9/11. They were kids grappling with the first major attack on the American homeland in the history of our country. Bin-Laden wasn't just a bad guy. He was the WORST guy, the opposite of Santa, the scariest dude in the world. His death is a paradigm shifting, world-remaking event for these kids. It's a huge deal.

Big enough to dance on a table, I'd say.

The death of Bin-Laden is a strange news event because it affects so many people in such different ways. For most, it's a big deal for a few days. But for few, it's a turning point, a milestone, an incredibly significant event.

But, then again, it's not really all that strange.

Every news story is this way. Turn on the news tonight or skim your favorite news website and there it will be: an astonishingly personal event for few and a "just another headline" for everyone else.

And that's what makes all news so complicated, so fragile, and so valuable.

Every life has a story. Every story has a life.

Detachment

To hear this as a podcast, click here!

Movie review of the world premiere of "Detachment" at the TriBeCa Film Festival.

The truth about high school is that it's worse than you remember it.

Watching Tony Kaye's enthralling “Detachment,” you can't help comparing your high school to the one on screen. You remember the terrible teachers you had, the sterile hallways, the asinine classmates, and the absurd assignments. You can remember the “weight that presses on everyone” as Mr. Henry Barthes, played by Adrien Brody, tells his class.

“If you can just hang on, everything will be alright.” Mr. Barthes is that hero teacher that we love tell stories about. He's the Christ, the Buddha. He's meant to save us from ourselves.

The problem? Mr. Barthes is a great teacher because he has no life outside of teaching. Like countless other mythologized teachers, Barthes is a detached island to himself, without spouse, children, or personal life.  He's a lonely dude.

As a public school teacher sitting in the audience at the world premiere last night in Tribeca, I have mixed feelings about telling you that Tony Kaye has masterfully succeeded in capturing public school in a macabre and beautiful chalkboard sketch. His lush, mannerist portrait brings a gorgeous but searing light to the lonely reality of the teaching profession. Mr. Kaye's “Detachment” presents school the way so many of us on the inside see it: a windswept wasteland scourged of its humanity by a culture that burdens its underfunded and unfairly censured teachers with rearing, policing, and institutionalizing our children.

I hate to say it: public school really is this bad. The few great teachers that our system manages to attract are barely hanging on from year to year, knocked senseless by a society that demands way too much from them.

Adrien Brody is riveting as a seemingly serene but deeply damaged substitute teacher.  His sloping eyebrows, sometimes treacly or overwrought in other performances, here convey an-inch-from-the-cliff hopelessness without ever becoming a mask.  Mr. Brody's Henry Barthes is sweetly but searingly honest with his students as he sadly skulks the halls of his school.  Barthes is also furious enough to throw desks in his classroom and scream at a late night nurse at his grandfather's assisted care facility. In close-up, documentary-style interviews, Mr. Brody's eyes flash like lightning one moment and then become as dull as concrete the next, daring us to try to understand how one can care so much and so little. It's a career performance.

Barthes' determination to be disconnected keeps him the perennial substitute-- in the classroom and in his personal life. Barthes tends to his grandfather but finds more than enough time to help out two lost girls, a young prostitute and an overweight loner. Despite his earnest efforts, almost none of it works out well. The complicating plot lines, all involving family surrogacy around Barthes, serve the notion that teachers must be dispassionate and alone in order to perform their jobs. The story survives its few yet regrettable school cliches by sticking to this thesis.

Despite the fact that the number of big names threatens to make the movie look like a cameo-fest (Lucy Liu?  Christina Hendricks?  Marcia Gay Harden? Blythe Danner?  James Caan?  Really?), the ensemble gels together surprisingly well.  After all, weren't your teachers an impossible cast of characters?  The performances are just fine, largely, but two are particularly successful. While Mr. Caan's grinning jester provides a refreshingly necessary gallows' humor in some of the film's darkest moments, it's Ms. Liu's imploding truth-teller that lends undeniable heft to the story. As a guidance counselor faced with yet another unreachable know-it-all teen, Ms. Liu's character finally breaks down, berating the student with a bleak prophecy of the child's future. “You will NOT be a model! You will forever be on a carousel, competing with 80% of the country for a minimum wage job for the rest of your life!” the guidance counselor screams uselessly at the apathetic teen.

It's grim stuff, made more grave by the undeniable ring of truth.

The ancient Greeks tell us "we suffer our way to wisdom."  By the end of the film, you'll hope that is true for most of these characters.  Somewhere on screen, between a silent hug and the opening lines to Poe's “Fall of the House of Usher,” you will find a glimmer of hope. But you have to work for it.

School, as the film has drawn it, is a Munch-esque desert where the best anyone (teachers and students) can do is survive. But the fact that Barthes, and teachers like him, won't give up-- and the fact that Mr. Kaye made this movie-- tells us that hope is alive, if not well.

This hope rests almost entirely in our lonely, detached teachers.

Locking Up the Future

To hear this as a podcast, click here!

I get in trouble at my high school every once in a while. I admit it. Every few weeks, one of my many supervising administrators reminds me that I'm doing something wrong.

Hey, I'm like you. Unless you work for yourself, we have bosses who do this to us. It's the nature of management: telling people how to do things “right.” Even people who work for themselves have bosses who tell them how to do things right. These people are called “customers.”

Anyway, I get in trouble because I don't lock my door to my office. Students can go into my office without supervision, which is bad, I am told. So, I listen to my bosses. I lock my door. Locking my door is good, I am told.

I must admit something else: I'm not sure locking my door is good.

To a Hammer, Everything Is a Nail

What's the purpose of a locked door? What is the effect of a locked door?

Locking things up makes sense. You have something valuable and you want to protect it. Locking it up is brilliant-- you alone (or those you share the key with) have control, along with the security that you know your stuff is safe.

In this way, a lock is simply a barrier or a boundary that one can control- and we love them in our schools.

This should be the end of the conversation: locks and limits make sense. But it isn't because people learn how to neutralize the lock. There are a number of ways to get around a lock, and there is no shortage of time spent on this problem.

Let's consider ways in which we get around locks outside of school. While doing your taxes in the last month, you (or your accountant) spent some time finding ways to neutralize the lock of taxation with “deductibles.” Isn't that what a deductible is-- a lock pick? Any loophole is a lock neutralizer.

“You're not allowed to park here” Ok. I'll just throw on my hazard lights and run in and out of the store before a cop can bust me. Lock picked!

“The game is sold out” Sure it is. I'll just call my uncle Larry, the VP of marketing at the stadium, and I'll get seats. Lock picked!

“It's buy one taco, get one free-- limit one coupon per visit” No worries. I'll buy my taco, get one free, then get back in line and do it again as many times as I like. Lock picked!

A locked door doesn't just protect things. A locked door creates an arena, a playing field in which people are incentivized to neutralize the lock.

A locked door makes people into lock pickers.

You Are Not Invited

Locked doors protect kids and school property, we say. But locked doors discourage engagement and undermine self-responsibility. “You're not supposed to be here,” locked doors tell kids. “You are an untrusted guest with limited access.” Kids don't need to take care of anything because they aren't in charge of anything. Locking things up limits participation in the maintenance of a community. A place that locks things up is more interested in safety and control than in engendering responsibility and rational risk-taking.

Get Rid of Locked Doors?

Heck, no. It's not unreasonable to imagine that kids could do real damage to property or themselves if we didn't lock things up. The chemicals in the chemistry lab actually COULD hurt someone. The computer lab, filled with equipment, would likely be robbed or ruined if left unlocked.

Some locked doors are good-- but we must be extremely careful what we lock up. We must bravely attempt to leave as many doors unlocked as possible. We must replace our culture of locked doors with a culture of stewardship. An overwhelming number of teenagers long to be in charge of things. Let's make our schools places of stewardship and involvment.

Paraphrasing Adam Smith, chief apologist for laissez-faire government, I say: the fewer the locked doors, the more robust the growth. Let's lean towards “hands off” regulation in schools. As it is, we're just locking up the children.

Doors and curiosity have a special relationship. A locked door only promotes curiosity about how to break in to a room. An unlocked door facilitates curiosity of all kinds, welcomes people in and becomes a portal for wonder, discovery, and community.

Sigh. Looks like I might get in trouble again.

Cupcakes For Japan

We are what we do.

Last week at school, I talked to some kids who were selling cupcakes at a table in the cafeteria. A sign, taped to the wall behind them read “Save Japan.” I asked the kids how my buying a cupcake would save Japan.

Kid: “The money is going to help the earthquake..”

Me: “You don't mean the 'earthquake.' You mean 'victims of the earthquake.'”

Kid (a little irritated): “Obviously.”

Me: “Ok. So where's the money going to?”

Kid: “Japan.”

Me: “I mean, who in Japan? How will it help them?”

Kid (exasperated): “Why do you have to make it a big deal? They need help. Don't you want to help?”

We are what we do.

Quick question: how do people know what you value? You, personally. What would your friends say? Your family? Your coworkers?

Look first at your workspace. Perhaps you have pictures of your kids tacked to your cubicle wall. Some shots from a skiing/fishing/beaching trip. A little sign that says “no whining” next to a bobble head of your favorite baseball player. Postcards from Rome or Tierra del Fuego. A pricey paperweight. An autographed snap of a you and someone successful.

How about your method of transport? What do you drive? What's in your CD player/mp3 player? What do you read everyday? Do you workout? Do you have a routine that you follow everyday? Almost everyday? Do you switch it up, go on a granola/fruit streak for a while then switch to egg sandwiches?

What do you do consciously everyday? What are you deliberate about? Do you brush your teeth with the same hand everyday? Do you ever choose to be uncomfortable? Do try to do things differently for the sake of doing them? What have you stopped improving because it is merely “good enough?”

This is not an article about how we judge each other or ourselves. It's not about class or style. It's not about self-improvement. This is an article about value: what you value through your choices. You are an economy unto yourself; an enormous market study waiting to observed. What you can learn isn't limited to how you can improve yourself by changing your spending habits or how you eat.

You can learn what it is you actually value-- as opposed to what you SAY you value.

Walking In Circles

“Know Thyself”
-inscribed in the wall of the Ancient Temple of Apollo at Delphi.

My idea is simple-- and it's not even mine: many of us barely know ourselves. Our arguments, our reactions, our “beliefs” often do not line up with what we claim are our personal values. It's not a moral , religious, or ethical point I am making. I am merely talking about the effect of our actions.

I know vegetarians who wear leather. Pro-lifers who are for the death penalty. People who are for lower taxes but complain about bad roads. Anti-war protesters who want to punch hawks. People against Mexican immigrants but for cheap labor. And that's just the political stuff. 

What about bosses who encourage self-motivation but punish those who don't follow the rules?  How about people who are against "unfairness" but take advantage of others any time they can?  People who ignore strangers but have a war against impoliteness?

My favorite:  people who think kids are lazy and listless while they, themselves, read nothing, explore nothing, and challenge themselves on nothing.

When we act against what we believe, we subvert progress.  We make our conversations ridiculous. It's a freakin' waste of time and energy.

The cost of believing one thing and doing another isn't that we become hypocrites. The cost is that we can't really improve anything. We make things worse while we're not looking. We walk around in circles while thinking we are traveling somewhere.  We break the things we say we are trying to fix. It sounds a bit silly but:  we can't grow.

How much energy are you spending to try and bridge the gap between what you believe and what you do? How much energy are we wasting as a culture because we don't see what we are actually doing?

We can't help Japan by selling cupcakes. So why are we teaching kids that we can?

Outlawing Tragedy

My director's notes for two Irish one acts, both from 1904:  the darkly brilliant "Riders to the Sea" and the spritely hilarious "Spreading the News."


Actor Sir Ben Kingsley spoke to an audience at the National Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. earlier this year. Kingsley, who won the Oscar for his the lead role in Gandhi, is admired and known the world over for his work portraying characters in films about the Holocaust. Paraphrasing playwright David Mamet, Kingsley took a moment to speak about tragedy during his talk:

“David Mamet in his book, Writings in Restaurants, defined, let me slightly paraphrase and say western civilization, western civilization is a civilization determined to outlaw tragedy. If you remove the presentation of tragedy from the shaman that's sitting by the bonfire, you're telling the tribe nothing of real life. And it doesn't prepare us as adults. It infantilizes us and it dodges an enormous responsibility. And all great mythology that we love and respect has included loss and tragedy as well as great moments of salvation. It's braided in.”

Stories are the human race's greatest treasure. We are constantly telling stories, listening to them, watching them, and making them. Anthropologists tell us that we encode these stories with lessons and wisdom, passing them from one generation to the next. Stories that get told and retold become a sort of cultural genome, a DNA of our values and worries. Think of your favorite fairy tale or TV show. The characters from our stories are like members of our families: they inspire us, scold us, entertain us, and comfort us.

When Mamet tells us that we are outlawing tragedy, he is issuing us a warning of a storyteller. He tells us: don't forget the tales of woe. Don't forget the stories of loss. We need these stories.

In our schools and homes, however, we don't like these ugly stories. We loathe loss; we cringe from risk. We are baffled by tragedy and, often, we push it to the corners of our lives. We need to clean it up; put things into boxes. When we hide our eyes, we often lose the wisdom than can only be won through loss.

Kingsley ended his talk with a story:
“After a performance I gave of Hamlet I was walking across a field near Stafford-upon-Avon and I saw a young woman on the other side of the field walking towards me... She was determined [to get to me] and she faced me in the middle of this field. And she said (because I played Hamlet on stage the night before), 'I saw Hamlet last night. How did you know about me?' That's [a theatre-maker's] job. I know you. I'm trying to know you. And through knowing each other and holding onto that tribal bonfire, it will be okay.”

Drama remains the most vital storytelling we have. I invite you to see how special it is to see young people tell our oldest stories. When we see our kids act, sing, and dance, we are reminded just how tribal we are. Listen to them. There is old wisdom here.

Here's to our human tribe's great stories. May we never stop telling them.

Thanks to NPR and Ben Kingsley for the story.

The Irish Plays, at North Shore High School, Glen Head, NY.
An evening of Irish drama, poetry, music, and dance.
Friday, 25 March, at 7:30pm
Saturday, 26 March, at 2:00pm and 7:30pm
Sunday, 27 March, at 2:00pm

The "No More Trash" Principle

So here's the basic idea: nothing ever goes away.

There is no loss of anything. The old family car that, every blazing summer afternoon, smelled like melting plastic? It's not gone.  It's still here. That strawberry shortcake you had six years ago at that amazing July 4^th BBQ? Still around. The clippings from your first haircut as an infant? Yup. It's here. Somewhere.

We're not just talking about Dunkin Donuts' styrofoam cups or the waste from Chernobyl. We're talking about everything. This is the Law of the Conservation of Mass.

Ask any science geek worth her horn-rims and she'll tell you: there is a finite amount of energy and mass in the universe. When you burn paper, the paper doesn't go away-- it just looks and smells different. Some of the paper changes molecularly into something else. Some of the paper turns into energy. But none of it disappears or no longer exists. (Note for my super nerd readers: yes, laws of special relativity, as speculated by Einstein and his followers/critics, makes my explanation way too simple. To that I say: humbug! It's not bad for a layman. Or laywoman, for that matter. Oh, and by the way-- what's up, super nerds? I love you guys).

As my friend from college, Todd Kreidler, once said, “it's all cut and paste, man.” He was talking about playwriting and, by association, the creative process itself. Picasso knew it, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg counted on it, and Girl Talk celebrates it: genius is found in artfully re-purposing and re-using somebody else's stuff.

We don't need more stuff-- we need to find a way to use and reuse the stuff we have. Think about that. I'm not talking about finding a new use for that grocery bag. I'm talking about everything: banana peels, candy wrappers, smoke from cigarettes, spit, loud sounds (and soft ones), junk mail, broken lamps, etc. All of these things have energy and useful matter.

Thinking like this makes big issues such as the energy problem or food shortages seem, well, kind of solvable.

A Lack Of Imagination

There is value locked up in everything. One man's trash is another man's treasure, we say-- but imagine if we decided, culturally, that there was no distinction between trash and treasure? What if we valued things based on their usability in any situation, rather than their usability in a given current situation? “Trash,” in fact, is anything without an easily definable use. Once a use is found for a piece of trash, it becomes a thing of value.

And now let's think really big for a moment: what if we didn't just look at materials this way-- but at EVERYTHING in this way? Movement, ideas, relationships, mistakes, regrets-- anything we toss off. Often, we see our limits in our resources as what keeps us from moving forward. We stand among our trash heaps, dwarfed by our wasted chances and resources. We throw so much away.

We need to start using the trash. Not for the environment-- although it would certainly help. Not because it's moral (although recycling must be the best example of good stewardship one can imagine). We need to start using the trash because IT'S NOT TRASH. 

"Trash" is, simply, the word we use when we stop believing in the potential of something that has been used.  It's foolish.

We need to have the imagination to re-see what we look at every day. This is what artists do. And business innovators and scientists do. They have the bravery, talent, and energy to see the world in a different way.

Smarter Reusing:  Borrow-Swaps

I have an example: look online. There is a growing “borrow-swap” sector that enables people to take their junk and share it with people who need it more. It started with ebay-- but this is a whole new thing. Craigslist, Zip Car, and Home Away are just a couple of manifestations.  These “borrow-swaps” allow people to borrow cars, rent apartments, lend step ladders, bike helmets, fishing rods, saws, sewing machines, etc. The basic idea is that we all have too much stuff-- and that we are wasting the opportunity to re-use what just sits there. It's beautiful.

Heck, think about composting.  Gross?  Sure.  But way smarter than wrapping biodegradable waste in plastic and sending it to a landfill.  Swap your trash for food and flowers.

A Call To You, Reader Person

The applications are limitless.  Think about the difference in required energy between making a meal from scratch and making a meal from leftovers. Compare the difference in the outcome.  

Now, apply it to your whole life. What are you trying to replace from scratch? What are you throwing away? What of that experience, pain, and junk would be useful to you if you could use your imagination to unlock it?

We need to stop putting so much energy into new stuff and putting more energy into re-using and re-purposing all the stuff we have. We're not going to run out of stuff!

Let's get to work, people. Start thinking. All you artists without jobs (or with horrible jobs), let's do this. Let's turn our trash into treasure-- it's the future, if we're going to have one.