making peace with time

is it bad that i'm cottoning on to age? sometimes i wander through seas of the young, these unsure, desperate, cloyingly clawing people...it makes me ok with aging...it makes me ok with becoming me instead of becoming another part of another category of youth culture ripe for copying and ridiculing. but it also means that i am on the outside, done with the cultural toys, fly-by-night meaning-making and flirtatious pursuits of youth. more purpose, less fervor, i suppose.

image sculpted by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt via butdoesitfloat

Editorial: Is America Craving Low Brow Culture?

ok, so...something less emotive. i'm trying something new, some of my more topical editorial writing to live on the blog. hope the few ghosts out there reading this enjoy...


While trapped at an American airport reading the Economist, I am beginning to ponder :

Is America craving Low Brow Culture?

In the article “A Question of Character” from 11-17 Dec’s Economist magazine, the author reflects on sociologist Geoffrey Gorer’s assertions that parenting needs content, contact and “tough love”. As Britain has attempted to narrow the poverty and social mobility gap in recent decades, programs like “Sure Smart” for under-fives as an example, have not improved social mobility. Frank Field, a Labour MP noted that “We are the first generation in human history that has not compelled fathers to support their children, usually by living with the other.” In a way, I agree, but I think there is more at play here.

Not only are parents not supporting their children, these parents are spending more time seeking approval from their children in relation to car and gaming system purchases, social networking and ambiguous behaviors that break all “age-appropriate” bounds. Parents are empowering their children to choose, to indulge, to be amateurs in their own right, and are thus empowering themselves to follow suit. It seems that in the last decade, the so-called civilized world is craving and demanding low-brow lives.

American retail giant Wal-Mart opened a high-end concept store in Plano, TX in an attempt to break from their discount roots and capture a more up-market customer. While some wine and niche food items spiked sales, Wal-Mart’s attempts at higher-end clothing and other merchandise were, as WalmartWatch’s “Wal-Mart in Crisis” report puts it, “poorly executed” and were not embraced by existing or new consumers.

Expenditure habits seems to reflect a move beyond mere “casual” living. Within fashion we have seen the rise of the Juicy Couture sweatsuit, now memorialized at the V&A museum, and the evolution of comfort-conscious (socially oblivious) Crocs footwear from medical wear to shopping mall wear. The past 15 years have shown tailoring and business attire deteriorate beyond business casual to sloppy jeans and a free polo-neck shirt.More and more, Americans seems to be craving low-brow comfort.

As Americans and their counterparts in other “civilized” nations have lost some of their collective shame and embraced buying things cheaply, demanding cheap prices and not caring whether or not these purchases or experiences last more than a day, we have transferred much of this cocktail of consumption fervor and cultural apathy to other aspects of life. Living a life akin to animated oafs Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin is edging towards social success. Early retirement with no plan or pension, taking a year off from college to feel uninhibited by responsibility, raising children without guidance or restraints, seeking fame without personal enrichment; the list goes on in directions that point to our collective desire to be sub-par.

So where has this low-brow culture come from and where, if it can get off the couch, is it going? It seems that as life has become ever more “real”, our willful suspension of disbelief is deteriorating, no longer promising a happy life where hard work and good intentions can shield one from life’s ills. Life is real. War and debt and death and depression are real. Divorce, spousal-support payments, idiot bosses and gas prices are realities we can no longer escape by planning a better life we can never quite reach. In some ways, the desire for low brow life comes on the heels of this reality check. We have shifted from star-gazers to lawn-trimmers, controlling only what can be controlled in life, lowering our standards to ensure we never taste failure or defeat. Where is this lack of ambition, risk and self-respect headed? I fear, mainly downhill for a while. As the economic slow-down and a still lingering loss of consumer confidence loom, Americans may be embracing low brow life for a few years to come.

Binge drinking, football, Blue Collar comedy, plastic shoes that would flip your poor grandmother in her grave...these are all manifestations of a culture set on lowering its standards to guarantee contentment. The real question is: can this low brow culture be all bad if it truly does bring a new simplicity and sense of happiness to the masses? If ambition fails at the cost of contentment, what will our world, our lives, our friends and colleagues sound and look like in the future? Will we pull ourselves up by out bootstraps, or will we languidly scuff about in our Crocs and yoga-pants? Will cheddar cheese and BluRay become high brow amid the descent into comfort? Only time, and the wear and tear of our sweatsuits will tell...

images from lauren gregg, designworklife and 9gag all via ffffound

sentimental regression

heading home tomorrow for the first time since the move...excited to be around loved ones but not sure how to feel otherwise. since i arrived in london i have been in a bubble: no work, no familiar comforts, no consistent friendly faces from the past...i have been rogue and alone and exploring and feeling around in the dark. before i got here, i had dreamed of living in this city, romanticizing london with each visit, etching its history and charm onto the back of my eyelids. before i left home i felt excited and nervous about the concept that i might never really come back.

having been here now for a few months, it is not what i expected, not in any way. "if i move back" has slowly transformed to "when i move back" and i'm not sure how to feel about that. i am having fun, i am being intellectually challenged, i am getting what i have been asking for, but i worry that going home will make all the unexpected hurdles of london seem that much higher when i return.

i'm trying to assimilate, to understand the people here, to appreciate their different perspective, to be a quiet observer, not a judgmental fat loud hillbilly american. i truly am trying. since i have been here, i have been visited by some friends from the states, and being back with them made me feel alive again, like myself again, and i miss them the minute they are gone.

i guess i miss ME the minute they are gone...

maybe when i'm home, in some sordid twist of fate, i'll miss london.

define possible...

possibilities play tough with a vaguely competitive landscape...

possibilities linger around every corner and paint colors on my tongue every day. but are any of them truly possible? truly viable? achievable? acceptable? a manifestation of contentment and the evidence of drive and dedication? or are they all an exercise? or...to provoke you, reader, you precious single soul, do these possibilities simply beget endless questions of self?

today, boredom has revealed some rather pressing possibilities. with any great brain wave, the mingled tastes of freedom and fear swirl together...

these possibilities present themselves as a move forward hiding regression inside. i have always felt the need to move forward, move on, up, away, into the abyss, and have feared the settled existence of guarantees and repetitive responsibility. but i am beginning to see faint glimpses of meaning and happiness in bits of regression, in bits of admitting when it becomes ok to stay still, to drift back ever-so-slightly.

to move forward, must we look back?

images, inevitably stolen from my favorite thiefs : haw-lin

faults laid bare

i suppose, in laying my faults bare before the world, i seek to overcome them, more fully accept them, find others with similar afflictions, seek those willing to ignore them...make them insignificant.

i'm still adjusting to a new place, a new slew of people to reveal myself to. i often feel that i'm not in london, i'm in a cloud of faces and voices and histories from the far reaches of this earth. i own nothing, i own no place here yet, i am an observer looking for my trajectory, looking for my haven.

second city, third city, fourth city and beyond...sometimes i can feel that trajectory, that comfort and that embrace right around the corner, but when i turn, it's gone. other times... i know i may never find it.

in the grand scheme of things and time and love and life, i have only been here a short while, so i will continue to turn over every stone, reveal myself in the hopes that the right people are listening, and try to become a part of the city i currently call home.

image via makeitgood.com

down the wormhole again

i got reacquainted with some of my old favorite reading materials today: synthesis, movement, hidden gems and cultural conclusions....it made me feel like throwing myself right back down the wormhole again. i've been talking talking talking about publishing my work, gathering work from friends, and making something that moves people. and while i am inundated with professional and academic obligations my insides are saying : do it now! i am surrounded by people with limitless talents, unique perspectives and room to grow...things must be said and we must be heard. now is the time....(but oh, where will she find the time?)

images via haw-lin via ...hmm, don't they steal their images?

i feel like i’m missing the poetry of life lately.

i am a firm believer in reality, but life has been so analytical lately...that i’ve been missing the flow of our flaws in everyday life. hurrying to and fro...i’m missing the cracks in the ceiling, the glances of strangers, the way words can roll off a tongue in the most deliciously evocative way. i am missing the rhythm of footsteps and garbled words, the pattern we weave as we brush past each other leading separate lives that form a mottled, incongruous but beautiful whole. in short, i am missing the poetry that fills the minds of those who walk alongside me in this sprawling urban labyrinth.

life has been so much about analysis, about eschewing assumptions (those dirty little devils) and about the search for empirical truths...which has left me feeling more than a little empty. i need to find a way, a space, a spare moment of time here and there to reclaim some of the poetic ponderings that result in emotional resonance and meaning...interpreting looks and sounds and sights and smells, finding what lingers closest to peoples' hearts...i both want and need to feel the pulse of the world again...

image via sadnesses.tumblr.com

today it was painted for me

after nearly of month or relative solitude and flux, i finally found my footing again. much to do getting ready for school to begin, a lot of hurrying to wait but today felt, for the first time in a long time, real and right.

the sky felt low in london today, clouds hung near the tops of buildings and swirled slowly, but it's just the way i like it. london is not tall; it does not need lofty, sparse shy clouds to show its beauty. london is old and wide and winding and full of small wonders. the clouds lingered and capped the sky today and it felt as if this city was painted just for me.

today's agenda included school enrollment, and i met a few raucous friends from my program. it seems that we may all be a bunch of angsty, ornery people needing change. i felt the initial hummings of being a part of something again, and i cannot wait to feel it more and more every day.

here's to more painted skies, inspiring partners in crime and chance encounters...

anticipating ex-pat status

hello all,

in three short weeks i will be making the jump across the pond to subject the unassuming residents of london to my very american enthusiasm. i have carved out my own little corner of the internet to bring you a glimpse into my musings, travels, inane observations and occasional photos of obese cats. enjoy.

meredith