Generation Gap

I think old people are full of shit.

Shit = cliches. Don't get me wrong, I like old people more than most. I'm obsessed with the lifestyle and intricacies of their past. I love their stories, their homespun grit, the way they go to restaurants as a couple and always order the same thing. But I've never heard anything ground-breaking from their wrinkled lips. I love and respect them, but sometimes respect means smiling and nodding your head at a piece of advice so cliched it's become meaningless.

Marriage advice: "Don't go to bed mad!" / "Keep a sense of humor!"
Occupational advice: "Find something you love!" / "Never give up!"
Life advice: "Learning is a lifelong pursuit!" / "Never give up!"

Today was my favorite day of the month: free museum day. Former first Tuesdays have found me scrutinising Frida Kahlo's unibrow at SFMOMA and gaping over Dale Chihuly's candy-like glass sculptures at the de Young, but until today I had never been to The Legion of Honor way out in the very far Northwest corner of San Francisco.

"It's a miniature Louvre!" I thought to myself as I walked into the courtyard. The architecture, the miniature glass pyramid in the courtyard, all echoed the Parisian museum. Gorgeous. My sentiments were echoed by an elderly self-described "Latin American" gentleman who approached me as I was gazing at a 17th century armoir.

"Are you French?" he asked me out of the blue. I was very flattered, but soon my mind wandered when with no encouragement he started bragging about his son (architect, Harvard, Columbia, blah blah blah). I tilted my head and widened my eyes and said "wow" and other appropriate remarks. "I tell my son, 'Learning is a lifelong pursuit,'" he nodded, "Like this - this is learning, this is history." No shit, old man. When his soliloquy turned to politics ("Obama is a good speaker, but I don't think he has what it takes to run this country. But McCain is even worse! And if he dies that lady he chose will be president...") I bowed out as politely as possible. This is why I don't talk to strangers!

My point is that the only advice I've ever heard from the elderly are the things most people figure out by the time they're twelve. Maybe their words are more full of meaning than we hear, and they just have a limited vocabulary to express their wisdom. Or maybe we're just learning more at a younger age. I do believe "The Greatest Generation" (those who grew up during the depression and WWII) were the last decent generation, but their problems were simpler in those days. Makes me long for a time when a cliche could help me.

Full of Things I Want to Set on Fire

I'm gonna hopefully forget you
And quit those nightmares I've been having
Every night, every day, it's the same, so hard to explain
A million pounds won't be enough to make me stare back at your face
That's what I left behind.

CCS, "Left Behind"

(Photo credit: Kotama Bouabane)

At the desk where the boy sat, he sees the Chicago River.

It raises its hand.

It asks if a metaphor should burn.

--Bob Hicok, from "In Michael Robins's class minus one"

Hello Lucky

I can barely move.

Even sitting still my legs ache like the growing pains I thought I had long outgrown.

But I feel good.

The last few days I've been happy to be here, for the first time in almost nine months. Showing an out of town visitor around often shines a different light on familiar surroundings, and recently San Francisco has been glowing with the incandescence of a mother-to-be.

AJ and I trekked the trails of Muir Woods, the streets of Sausalito, downtown, the gardens of Yerba Buena, Marin Headlands, North Beach, Alcatraz, Fisherman's Wharf, and braved bitter midnight winds for AJ's coveted night photography.

In Muir Woods we played "Gay or European?" as we circumvented the throngs of tourists, eventually leaving them behind for secluded trails between ferns, across fallen trunks, and over musical streams. Have you ever seen the clusters (there is no better word) of monarch butterflies that migrate to the Eucalyptus groves at Grover Beach in November? Until this week I never knew ladybugs did the same thing. Then we noticed a clump of red on a leaf. I had never seen so many ladybugs in one spot until I looked down and noticed the forest floor was swarming with them. They were under our shoes, in our shoes, in our sweatshirts, in our hair. Thousands, maybe even millions in this one spot. Why? They say ladybugs are supposed to bring good luck. If that's the case, we were overwhelmed with luck - enough luck to last a lifetime.

Alcatraz was, of course, the expected tourist trap. What was unexpected was the sadness I felt as I listened to the audio tour. Part of it was the melancholy I always feel around urban ruins, but another part was the fact that these cells were home to the men society, their families, and even the men themselves had given up on. As the tour spit me out into the gift shop, amongst the Alcatraz sweatshirts, keychains, and replica tin cups, I noticed an elderly man sitting at a desk. At first I assumed he was a cashier, but a closer look revealed that he was a former inmate who was signing his book. No one was buying it, or even acknowledging his presence, and again I felt that same pity and loneliness I had looking into the bars.
There is nothing like a wide-angle perspective to gain insight into the everyday, and this week I drank in vistas like so many glasses of ice water - first overlooking the bay from Marin Headlands, then cruising back from Alcatraz,

and finally peaceful under a full moon.

I am lucky.

I Was Not Looking for Arty Farty Love

This song makes me feel everything's right in the world.

Digesting 1972

Do people still make time capsules? I remember it was all the rage at the turn of the century. In high school I even wrote a letter to my 30-year-old self, but since I remember most of it I doubt it will be a surprise if I locate it again in six and a half years (one brilliantly inspired line: "did you ever find a career you like and get to do everything you wanted to do? I hope so!!")

A few weeks ago, I found a time capsule of sorts in the most unexpected place - a torn cardboard box I passed on the sidewalk as I was running to catch the Muni. As I looked down I noticed it was filled with old magazines. Three and a half decades old to be precise. With ten seconds to spare, I shifted Women's Day to unearth a pile of ancient (in a magazine's lifespan) Reader's Digests from 1972. I grabbed three copies and shoved them into my bag before hopping on the Muni. It wasn't until I settled in and opened an issue that I realised just how valuable a find I had made.

It seems the world of 1972 was far more distant that I assumed. The younger generation (hippies) was continually mystifying, drugs were terrifying and dangerous, and so were "women libbers." Between advertisements from the Sugar Council ("Sugar. It isn't just good flavor; it's good food") and speculatory articles about where the country was headed ("[By 2000] to relieve urban congestion and air pollution, most cars for city travel will be small, low-speed vehicles powered by batteries, fuel cells or synthetic fuels") I found an article entitled "But Women Are the Favored Sex" by a certain Mrs. Elsieliese Thrope. It may be one of the most offensive and hilarious things I have ever encountered. From the get-go, you've got to admire that cartoon of a cavewoman Jane smiling contentedly whilst being dragged off by a scowling Tarzanical caveman. Mrs. Thrope certainly makes a watertight argument against Women's Lib. Some of my favorite quotes (sorry about the scan quality):

When Women's Lib first appeared on the horizon, I was amused. A bunch of disgruntled eccentrics with a phobia about dishpan hands, I figured.

It is she who decides whether it will be hot dogs or steak tonight... What man, on a job, can set his standards that way?

If I need to talk to another adult, I can always holler across the fence at my neighbor, call my aunt in Boston, or arrange for tea with a friend.

...And my personal favorite:
Back in the Stone Age when some lonely Cave Man found himself a suitable mate, he didn't ask her. He just pulled her home by her long tresses, caveman fashion. And I'll bet the poor helpless sex object was actually enjoying what was in store for her.



It seems Reader's Digest has always been filled with disaster stories, even in 1972. My co-worker and I reminisced once about reading the same story in an issue from the '90's where a couple of campers were mauled by a bear (in graphic slow-motion detail). I read it when I was ten and walked around shell-shocked for days. But besides the scare-tactics, these Reader's Digests represented a much more conservative, religious, sexist, and condescending tone than the issues I grew up on.

Now, if you'll excuse me I have to buy some cold cream for these dishpan hands.

Hormonal Manipulation

This BBC story details how a recent study found that a snort of the hormone oxytocin increases trust in test subjects, "even after they were betrayed." You can read all the gory details yourself, but basically a nasal spray is being developed to help phobics -with the terrifying aspect of this development being what it could do in the wrong hands. Am I being a little too James Bond about this, or do you too picture a bald man stroking a cat and purring, "Yes, yes. Soon, my pet. Soon they will bow to our bidding. Even as we speak, the hormone is seeping into their brains, rendering the amygdala defenseless"?

This is your brain on drugs

Another aspect of this article that leaves me uneasy is that I recall learning in PSYCH 201 that oxytocin is the "cuddle chemical," that creates mother-child bonds or makes a girl crazy after she sleeps with a guy (or girl?). That's what I hear, anyway. It's a dangerous substance. The phrase in the article about it increasing trust after being betrayed really terrifies me as well, especially in regards to relationships. I don't like the idea that a substance can impair your judgement or change your behavior (I mean, besides crystal meth, but that's different, that's cool).

Now, if someone could just create an oxytocin inhibitor, then that'd be good news.