Global Legos

AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye

Over the weekend I attended a lovely gathering of folks dedicated to globalizing our campus. Just the day before, I worked with colleagues helping to plan an international trip, trying to make sure students get a clear sense of their possible leadership roles in an increasingly connected world. Of course my thoughts could never stray from the images and sounds pouring in from Japan. The 9.0 quake threw another sad but essential dimension of our global conflation into sharp relief: nothing more than a flat screen monitor separates us from the pain of others.

When the initial reports began streaming in Thursday night I could hardly sleep. The quake was bad enough, but the subsequent tsunami was worse, wrecking a broad swath of northern Japan and racing toward Hawaii and western North America with the speed of a jet plane. It was about 2 in the morning when newscasters were reading the estimates of impact, just hours away. Eventually I settled into nervous slumber - not expecting waves to crash into my house, of course - but rattled with the anxiety that more bad news was on the way.

I stayed home that Friday (no meetings "over the hill," thank goodness) and I'm glad I did. Pals described an epic traffic jam on Highway 17, a soul-sucking slog exacerbated by gawkers who gathered at the summit to watch the waves roll in. Hawaii was generally spared, but the ports of Crescent City and Santa Cruz (yep, just a few miles away) were hammered. Back in Japan, international shipping container units - that perfect symbol of global modernity - had been tossed around Sendai like Legos. The airport was devastated, and thousands of lives were snuffed out throughout the region.

Then we heard about the nuke plants.

Perhaps four are facing various stages of meltdown. So far we've witnessed one "hydrogen explosion" (a horrifyingly ambiguous term, if you ask me) - and fear that another could be imminent. Experts promise that Japan's nuclear woes do not portend another Chernobyl. But hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated anyway. As a last ditch effort to contain the damage, at least one two reactor cores have been flooded with seawater. Just in time, because seismologists predict that a 7.5 level aftershock will further shake Japan in a day or two. Oh, and just for good measure, a volcano has erupted in that country's southern region.

Those of us who live in California know that our state is due for similar wreckage (well, maybe without the volcano). Our own customized Big One is deemed a virtual certainty within the next thirty years. One day our friends in Japan will watch, horrified, as we suffer a pain they know all too well. Our two countries are bound together, and they will help us then - even as we try to help them now. That's the face of globalization, too. More than malls stocked with exports, more than movies with globish dialogue, our expanding international network means that we suffer together when bad times come.

Holy City, CA

Searching for an interesting site for a future light painting experiment, I came across what's left of Holy City near Highway 17, once the headquarters for William E. Riker and his goofy religious commune. Riker, a Depression-era cultist, on-the-run bigamist, repeated candidate for governor, and avid Hitler supporter, promised his followers a "Perfect Christian Divine Way" in a quasi-utopian experiment that began in 1918.

In her Saga of Holy City, Andrea Perkins describes how Riker's town, once home to 300 souls, became a minor tourist trap, selling gas, water, and (some say) lurid peep shows. Back then, motorists taking the only road connecting San Jose and Santa Cruz stopped to gawk at murals and banners announcing the new kingdom. One sign announced: "William E. Riker - The only man who can save California from going plum to hell."

Declining interest in Riker's vision, failed real estate transactions, and unexplained fires emptied Holy City in the fifties and sixties. Today only a house and post office, now a glass art store, remain. And then there's this shed, a weathered structure supported with the help of diagonal beams. The owners (folks unaffiliated with the former commune) gave their permission, so Jenny and I will return one night for some light painting.

Learn more: Betty Bagby Lewis's Holy City - Riker's Roadside Attraction In the Santa Cruz Mountains is said to be the definitive history of this town. I've already ordered my copy...


Also see: San Joaquin Valley Library vertical file

And: John V. Young's Rise and Fall of Holy City

See more: Here's the light painting experiment from our return to Holy City

(Photographs by Andrew Wood)

Street Art and Public Life

Anticipating a future iteration of COMM 149 Rhetoric and Public Life, a class I've taught since 2000 but still continue to revise and rethink semester after semester, I've been planning to develop a module on street art, paying special attention to graffiti, tagging, and the use of stickers used to alter public or private places in a manner not intended by their designers.

Right away, I flash on Michel de Certeau's distinction between place (planned, authorized, formalized) and space (momentary, unscripted, creative), a perfect introduction to the post-place approach I bring to my own inquiries into public life. I also imagine that William Gibson's dictum "The Street finds its own uses for things" will appear somewhere in this new class discussion. Of course, I need to smarten myself up about few topics first, and maybe even rethink some of my biases.

Owing partially to my ignorance, I possess a visceral and somewhat simplistic response to much that is called "street art." Put simply, I don't like it. To illustrate, I recall a highway 17 bus commute onto campus a couple months ago when we passed a well-known painting that indicates the entrance to a San Jose dive called Cinebar. I've visited the bar a few times, but I'd hardly call myself a regular. Still, I always liked the mural on the outside wall. It's a colorful and rare burst of creativity in a what is (all too often) a bland, corporate desert.

Then one day that mural was covered with a spray-painted scrawl: someone's idea of creativity, or rebellion, or personality, or whatever. Wow, that pissed me off. And while I was thrilled when the Cinebar image was repainted a few days later, I wondered how much it cost the small business owner to remove the tag and repaint the mural, recognizing that the unauthorized artist could simply return to inflict his or her damage again. Moreover, the new mural possessed much less detail than the previous version. The result is a sign of diminishing communication. Maybe next time the owner of Cinebar will conclude that beautifying this piece of private property is simply not worth the hassle at all, leaving us with yet another blank wall amid urban corridors. And if the tagger returns then? Well, whitewash is cheap.

I used that example in a summer offering of Rhetoric and Public Life to illustrate how the individual and (sometimes) group marring of public places reflects a problem of contemporary urban life. I figured this was a conventional point, one that would earn polite head-nods. I was wrong, naturally. One especially bright and challenging student pivoted to an intriguing question: How do you feel about billboards? Don't they mar public life? Hmm... My initial response was less than useful: Sure, I replied. I don't like tagging, but I don't like billboards much either. Many are ugly and few contribute much that is meaningful to our shared environment. Perhaps there was some relationship between the two, I considered.

Only later did I recall on the fact that billboards are typically located on private property. In other words, let's say that a farmer agrees to host a billboard and is paid for the exchange. Those advertisements can be seen in public by passing motorists, but they are not imposed on the public in the same manner as one person's graffiti on another person's private property - or on property owned by the public in common (such as a tax-supported civic building). Whether through ownership or rental agreement, if a billboard is located on a private place that is merely adjacent to public life its owner enjoys a high degree of freedom to use it as desired. The same cannot be said for most cases of tagging.

The key issue concerns the rights of ownership [But wait, you might reply: who owns the image at the top of this post? I'll get to that point at the end of this piece]. That's why I have a real problem when I observe the results of a student tagging (owning?) the public university campus where I teach. Any student conceivably contributes to the operation of the campus through taxes, fees, and other supports, but the student hardly owns the campus as private property; the student may not unilaterally alter its design without some form of public consent. The results of that student's tagging, therefore, is not art; it may not be forgiven as harmless "expression" either. It's vandalism.

Can you guess my age? Yep, I'm over forty.

Anyway, while thinking about this topic I recalled an online essay by Rex Thomas called Street Art and Civic Space that has inspired some reflection about the broader topic. Particularly as it relates to my evolving college course, I wonder how I might develop a more sophisticated understanding of street art. Thomas' thesis offers some insight and is amply illustrated with this excerpt:

"Street art is tied into a larger urban culture, and expresses the visual aspect of this larger milieu. As Western mainstream culture retreats from the street into the air-conditioned, connected bubbles of the suburbs, street art and its culture expands to fill the empty space."

Tagging, graffiti, stickers: these are nothing less than meaningful social commentary then, right?

Maybe, but I'm not yet sure. Intriguingly, this commentary championed by Thomas may be revolutionary, but it could also be profoundly regressive. Indeed, Thomas suggests that street artists borrow from the language of advertising: "branding" their identities with "logotypes." Yet he also appears to reject the "culture of consumption" that demeans public life (citing architect Daniel Libeskind to support this point). One imagines that Thomas sees no contradiction in these ideas. Rather, he might say that street artists like Barry McGee and Banksy are appropriating commodity tools to reject the corporatization (and related privatization) of public life.

Thomas proceeds to employ Marshall McLuhan (we all do at some point) to emphasize the role of the medium in defining the message of street art: Given that the art is generally done illegally, "[t]he content of the piece is almost irrelevant; the viewer's reaction is the same regardless of the tag's content or author." In other words, what is uttered is less important than where and how. Even so, one wonders: How can an illegal message inspire meaningful contemplation or dialogue, as Thomas would hope? The author appears to reply: How can it not? Illegal messages inevitably call us to question the nature of legality itself. Who decides?

Thomas shifts to some comments about permission walls, heterotopian spaces that are both uncensored (one might believe) and yet authorized, before concluding with his analysis of how street art signifies a larger aesthetic process. At this point we observe the reduction of "meaning" as a site of communication or method for its evaluation:

"Artists first threw out figure, then form, then color, then the frame, and then wandered into their process itself as an art form. Graffiti artists begin with the end: their signature, or tag, becomes the art, and by using this as the starting point, and the city as their canvas..."

I must admit that this statement about the steady reduction of communication, and its presumably concomitant loss of detail and subtlety, reminds me of George Orwell's claim that language in a coercive environment ends up sounding like the quacking of a duck, or at least becomes valued accordingly.

From this perspective, I continue to ponder: What is really being said on the urban canvas? Thomas seems to reply that street art reveals the crisis and collapse of public life, the consequences of a "privileged few" retreating into their physical and rhetorical enclaves, leaving the rest of society in ruins. To those who flee from public life, excepting armored incursions from the safety of their cars, street art shows what they will not otherwise see. OK, that seems like a fair argument, but this is where I must do some serious thinking. After all, what if the message of street art -- all those tags on interstate highway barriers, all those stickers on suburban stoplights, all those spray-painted faces on urban ruins -- is much more simple and much less meaningful than its defenders ask us to believe?

What if street art simply says, "Look at me"? Yes, that statement "says something" about public life. But does the message offer any promise of change?

Learn More: For me as much as anyone else, it's time to research this topic more thoroughly. Here are some sites I hope to investigate (I have not visited these sites in detail, and I do not necessarily recommend them). Please feel free to post comments on your thoughts and/or recommendations for sites I should add or subtract:

• Art Crimes: "a gallery of graffiti art from cities around the world"

• Situationist International Archive: collection of essays - a particularly useful site to learn more about Guy Debord

• Street Use: "This site features the ways in which people modify and re-create technology"

Note: The image above is borrowed from Banksy's website. I wasn't sure I could use his image for my blog - the risk of hypocrisy is too great - until I read the artist's online manifesto, a quotation from Emo Philips: "When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised God doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness."

Update: This article has been republished under the author's own name (Rex Thomas is a pen name) at New Geography.

Highway 17 Bus Rant

As longtime readers know, I'm a regular on Highway 17, the express bus that connects Santa Cruz and San Jose. Heck, Jenny and I chose to buy our house partially due to its proximity to mass transit. And so I ride the bus every weekday during Fall and Spring semesters and often over the summer, even on those occasions when I'd much prefer to zip "over the hill" in my own car.

Most of these trips are OK. A little noisy, a little smelly, and little slow, but OK. Most passengers are cool; they just want to get to their destination with a minimum of hassle. Pretty much, the 17 is a good deal. But every once in a while the trip is marred by a variety of folks who need a good rant. Perhaps you recognize 'em?

To the guy asking the bus driver for trip-planning tips: Listen up, the folks who run the bus system offer online planning tools and phone-based planning advice. They plaster route maps all over the place, too. You know why? Because the driver is paid to drive the bus, not serve as your travel agent. Similarly, when you get on a bus that says, "San Jose," which is northbound, why are you shocked that the bus is not heading to Santa Cruz, which is southbound? And why do you have to confirm several times with the bus driver that you're trying to get somewhere else. You're new here? That's cool. Welcome to California. But do us all a favor and spend a moment with a map or a schedule before you get to the bus. Heck, chat with us in line. We'll happily advise you. But don't show up at the last minute and ask the entire bus to wait for you to get your act together.

To the gum-smacking BFFs burbling with pithy conversation while sitting across the aisle from each other: Did you notice that you're the only two people talking this loudly on the bus? Most everyone else is reading or writing or sleeping. Everyone but you who interject each sentence with a minimum of two or three "likes" as if they're hot air to keep your words aloft. Bring me the sweet embrace of death, if only you two would quiet down just a little. Oh, and to the guy who switched places so these two can sit closer together (but still across the aisle): thanks, dude. You just wrecked an hour of peace and quiet.

To the guy jaywalking on the intersection in front of us: I know that you're late for a meeting. I know that you're important; I can see that by your snazzy cell phone. And I'm glad that you're saving 15 seconds from your trip. But there are about 30 people on this bus who also have places to go and people to see. And we can't get anywhere because you're blocking the road. No, we don't want you to get hit by a car, but - well - there's no good way to complete this sentence.

To the girl placing her book bag on the seat next to her: Unless you paid double, you bought access to one seat, not two. And the good folks who run this operation have seen fit to cut routes sufficiently to ensure standing-room only conditions, certainly on miserable, rainy Mondays. Placing your book bag on the empty seat, you offer a challenge - one that I happily accept. I will take that seat, despite all of your eye-rolls and your barely concealed huffs of displeasure. Feel free to look behind you. Yes, I also see that there's an empty seat snug against the window a few rows back. Yes, I could theoretically keep walking down the aisle. But I won't. It's you and me, kid. Oh, and you're annoyed that you have to stow your bag on the shelf above us? I'm sorry to frustrate you, but that's what the shelf is for. Here, let me help you with that.

To the guy bringing an extra bike onboard: Congratulations for being environmentally conscious. And you're clearly a serious biker, what with your helmet mirror and spandex pants and all. But there are already two bikes on the outside rack and you insist on lugging your bike inside, which is fine - except for the fact that three people must be booted from their chairs to accommodate you and your bike. Me, I stood in line for an extra ten minutes to snag this seat because it's one of the few on this bus that offer a little legroom. An elderly person needs it? It's theirs; I'm gone. A person with physical challenges needs it? Outtahere with a smile. And you? Well, OK, I'll move - if you ask nicely. But remember: I don't have to say yes.

To the girl asking if anyone can break a $20: Seriously? See the sign on the side of the bus, "express"? That means that passengers are trying to get from one distant spot to another in the shortest amount of time possible. We've paid our fares and want to get on our way. But because you couldn't spend a moment to think, "Hmm, this bus is going to cost money, and chances are it's less than $20," we're expected to rip through wallets and purses to help you make change? There's a 7-11 a few blocks away, and I'm pretty sure the nearby grocery store will make change if you buy something. But please don't just show up to the bus, expecting us to wait for you to get your finances in order.

To the guitar-strumming dude smelling of pot and body odor: I kind of envy you, guy. You've struck up a conversation with that pierced UCSC girl about your "journey." You know, takin' it easy, travelin' cross country, hangin' out with friends, crashin' on couches. And you sure do love strummin' that guitar. Just a flick of your fingers adds a bit of musical accompaniment to your Kerouac narrative. It sure does remind me of the dull, empty conformity of my staid middle class life. Oh, did you hear? The hippy girl just offered you a place to sleep tonight! Nothing serious, just some cool friends who like to chat late into the night. For some ungodly reason, you said no. Just gotta keep ramblin' on, I guess. Thanks for showing me a world beyond houses made of ticky-tacky. You've blown my mind a little, you, the first adventurer choosing to "see America." I dig it. But damn, dude, could you soap up your armpits once in awhile?

Finally, to the person in the wheel chair: no rant for you. I'm sorry you've got to endure so much hassle to get on this godforsaken bus. Transportation for most of us is a convenience that requires so little: some thought, some planning, some courtesy. For you, it's a much bigger deal. So take your time and get yourself settled, safe, and comfortable. And ignore the jerks who give you dirty looks because they have to move to accommodate your chair. One day they may know what it's like for you. You hope they won't. I hope they won't. But karma doesn't mess around. In the meantime, take all the time you need and enjoy the ride.

Mobilizing Twitter

A while back, I commented about my slowness to get hip to Twitter, the microblogging app so popular with journalists and industry "insiders" these days. To a certain extent, I get the idea easily enough: 140 characters (almost) instantaneously blasted to a feed, which can be tapped via visitation to a webpage or, better yet, received via mobile device.

Thus, I've heard that some media outlets swarm an event with Tweeting journalists covering "all sides of the story." Their disparate perspectives become integrated into a single space. Moreover, as the Mumbai attacks illustrate, anyone with a useful Twitter feed can contribute even more than a credentialed journalist. So, yeah, I think that Twitter is worth thinking about. That's why I've decided to experiment a little by setting up three Twitter feeds.

The first one - highway163 - is a personal feed for pals who might be interested in what I'm posting to Facebook, what I'm reviewing at Yelp, what I'm watching via Netflix, and what missives I post to Blogger. I use Friendfeed to grab that material and send it to Twitter, particularly since entries that exceed the 140 character limit are automatically shortened, with the excess being transformed into a tiny URL. What's cool about Friendfeed is the site's ability to grab text from dozens of my sites, plucking them all for my Twitter feed.

The second one - profandy - is a faculty feed for my students who might want an instant update of changes to class location, delays, or other time sensitive info. I've arranged that feed up to flow from my mobile phone. So if I'm stuck in a massive traffic jam on Highway 17, I can send a text to inform my students. Right now, only visitors to the feed page could access that information, but I plan to start inviting students to subscribe to the feed via their mobile phones (reminding them that (a) I won't send any but the most time sensitive messages and (b) standard SMS charges apply).

The third one - omnitopia - is an idea-feed related to my omnitopia research. This is potentially my most promising use of Twitter. When City Ubiquitous hits the shelves, I'll post that Twitter feed to review sites, listservs, responses to omnitopia-related emails, and my blog (which includes a section dedicated to my last five omnitopia Tweets, thanks to the Twitter Badge feature). Then as I come across interesting news items, article references, photos, YouTube videos, and the like, I'll post Tweets. To send the content, I've set up a Twidget module on my Mac's dashboard for the text and a Flickr dropbox in my dock to add pix (sending images to the feed via Twittergram).

The goal with this third feed is "stickiness," inviting readers to stay engaged with omnitopia, commenting on it, adding to it, and (ideally) sharing it with friends in their own networks. Enhanced book sales is one goal, but a meaningful conversation about omnitopia is even more important.

Using Facebook for personal stuff, my mobile phone for time-sensitive classroom stuff, and my desktop for omnitopia stuff just may help me avoid confusing the streams. The next step is to develop the kind of content that inspires people to subscribe and return. I may take some time to think about this a future post.

Highway 9 - 500th post!

Ah, the Highway 9 detour, adding an hour to an already hourlong commute about twice a year. A wreck earlier this morning on the 17 stopped traffic in both directions because, after all, you know, it was raining. So, it's a morning of drizzly, hairpin turns for me.

We're taking the windy road through Felton and Boulder Creek, passing hut tubs covered with fallen leaves, passing the houses that look like they were built in the seventies by stoned buskers, passing the redwoods that have stood for centuries.

And I'm sitting by a guy who gave me the stink-eye because I dared to sit where he'd placed his luggage. A line of people behind me, some who may end up standing for hours, and he's feeling territorial. I offer to help him move his bag, but he chooses to hold the case on his leg, seething.

Mondays...

Barking Dog

Today I found myself standing once more at the Highway 17 bus station, waiting for the predictably late coach to arrive. Today it would be filled with dozens of extra passengers than normal, UCSC kids heading home for the holidays, hauling their gear to the train station. I boarded to a smell of pot smoke and cat pee. I had to smile.

Just a moment before, I heard a loud bark, followed by another and another. I looked down the road and saw a huge dog, a livestock dog, sticking his head out the window of a SUV. This dog was barking at the passing trees, barking at the passing cars, barking at the passing birds. His tail was awag and his eyes were bound open with excitement. This was one happy dog.

Ah, heck, the ride won't be that long.

The First Day of Rain

It's been a while since I've used this blog to rant, but today seems like a good time.

After all, today marks the first rain of the fall season, which means...

Everyone forgets how to drive.

Why is that?

Why is it that the same road, the same traffic, the same curves, produce such drastically different results with a few drops of rain?

I'm not talking about a squall or a storm. I'm talking about the kind of semi-drizzle that makes you feel embarrassed to use an umbrella.

Of course, I had to use an umbrella because the Highway 17 bus driver - who arrived ten minutes late - decided to park a block away so he could take his break.

While we stood in the rain.

No, he couldn't allow us to board "early" - which actually means late. So we stood and waited to board the bus.

The driver smiled and laughed. "It's going to be a long trip," he promised as he lurched us onto the highway, regaling us with tales of endless traffic to come.

On the road, we confronted the threatened convergence of a few drops and a few clueless motorists, the promise of wrecks in both directions over a mountain that separates work from home. And we found...

A smooth ride with no delays.

I hate the first day of rain.

Garden Party on the 17

I took this admittedly low-qual photo using my mobile phone this morning while riding the 17 bus from Scotts Valley to work. One hour, one way, standing room only. I snagged a seat, after standing in a growing queue for 20 minutes prior to a 7:45 departure. It's Wednesday: the middle of a long week with much left to do. I can't say I'm bummed, but I'm tired and uninspired.

Then I catch sight of this poster leaning against the opposite side from where I'm sitting. It looks like something out of a nineteenth century Parisian garden party, all impressionistic leaves and sunlit grapes and billowing fabric. I don't recognize the piece, but it lifts my spirits all the same.

Do you know the name and artist?

(Here's a close-up)

Update: Some 20 minutes after I post this, Detroit Dog replies! It is a Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party."

A More Perfect Union

Speaking in Philadelphia this morning, Barack Obama transformed the boiling controversy over Jeremiah Wright's excerpted speeches, those anguished and angry rebukes against a nation the minister appeared to paint as institutionally racist, into a call for America to confront the complexities of its historical and social cleavages. In this speech, Obama masterfully sidestepped insinuations against his integrity by forcing his critics to question their own.

The speech arose from the surprisingly fast-growing furor that followed YouTube-distributed snippets of Wright's impassioned oratory, most notably his call for God to "damn America" for its many injustices. Somewhat clumsily before the speech, Obama refuted those words, suggesting that he was surprised to hear them uttered by the minister who had wed him to his spouse, Michelle, and baptized his two children. Many members of the African-American community reacted with anger, accusing Obama of selling out his spiritual guide to placate the fears of so-called White America. Anticipating this speech, media prognosticators termed the moment a must-win challenge for a candidate who seems nearly impervious to losing the delegate count. Despite his success to this point, Obama had to do well.

At first, following a somewhat predictable development of the theme that America, like its citizens and candidates, is imperfect though perfectible, Obama tackled the issue directly, leaving no doubt that he rejects Wright's harsh words. His vigor suggested to me that Obama was replaying Bill Clinton's "Sister Souljah Moment," professing mortification before sacrificing a symbolic evil from the body politic (while ensuring his own political survival). Instead, however, Obama would sacrifice a beloved and respected spiritual adviser, not some third-rate rapper. I must say that I was not impressed.

Then Obama pivoted the conversation, reframing the debate to reaffirm his allegiance to the man, Jeremiah Wright, even as the candidate professed not to share his former pastor's range of anger. Wright's condemnations of institutional racism, hardly without some merit, cannot be viewed in isolation from the minister's generation-long work on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged, his undeniable affirmation of what is good about America, Obama said. Wright reflects the complexities of the black experience: the humor, the horror, the anger and the hope. Wright is an American, imperfect but striving, just as much as Obama's grandmother, he said, the woman who lovingly raised a black child even while occasionally uttering racist stereotypes. Obama could no more jettison his spiritual father than he could his maternal grandmother. And those who would seek advantage from this debate for political ends represent, he claimed, the kinds of race-mongering that continue to dog the country.

Obama affirmed that racial injustice does fester in the nation. And unmistakably, persons of color have born its brunt. Yet he added that all Americans suffer from deep wounds, that hunger is no respecter of persons. Perhaps in a subtle appeal to supporters of John Edwards, Obama reminded his audience that plenty of factory and mill workers have good reason to glare with anger as their jobs are shipped overseas, and they can hardly be blamed when they wonder how some folks manage to get ahead, particularly when some are presumed, rightly or wrongly, to benefit from favoritism based on race. Their rage is real and worthy of consideration, just as much as the vitriol heard in many places of worship around the nation. We cannot fear to engage in difficult dialogues of race and class, even though we must dig beneath painful sores to do so.

My memory does not serve to follow every thread of the speech; I heard it early this morning and promptly got on my bus for work. But I remember two things. First was Obama's conclusion, the story of the young white girl named Ashley who explained that she'd joined the senator's campaign in a desire to ensure that other children would not have to convince their parents that they crave only mustard and relish sandwiches rather than contribute to their families' economic struggles, as she did when her mother was ill and uninsured. Obama's telling of that narrative began by drawing attention to Ashley and her heartrending story. And then he switched attention to an elderly black man in the room who, when asked why he'd joined the Obama campaign, answered, "I'm here because of Ashley." That turn from the personal to the interpersonal is why Barack Obama represents something meaningful in American politics.

The second thing I remember, though, is entirely personal. Leaving my house after the speech, I arrived early enough to stand near the front of the line of folks waiting to board the Highway 17 bus. I chose to get to the station 20 minutes before departure so that I could have a sure chance of snagging one of the few seats remaining on what has become a frequently overloaded route. Boarding the bus, I was grateful to sit near a woman in the first row, even though she looked askance at my desire to occupy a seat where her bag had been strategically placed. Sure enough, many folks who arrived after me were forced to stand. Given that I sacrificed my time to get onto the bus early, I felt right with the universe - until at the last minute, late for our departure, an elderly woman run up to the bus, dragging a heavy suitcase behind her. The rules of courtesy, both posted and commonly understood, required that someone give up her or his seat to this woman. I sighed with barely quiet resignation, knowing that person would be me. Yet before I could stand, a person behind me offered his seat. I settled back into my hard-won privilege as we left the station for the last stop.

I hardly noticed that the final stop was occupied by one more elderly passenger. He boarded and asked the driver, "standing room only?" The driver replied in the affirmative. The man asked in a louder voice, "even for seniors?" Only then I noticed that he was looking directly at me. I was, to put it bluntly, pissed. Twenty minutes of standing at a bus station were wasted. I knew I had to abandon my seat. He offered thanks, but I was having none of it. I said what was polite, but I felt bitterness in my heart. A young college student offered her seat to me, but I knew I could not take it. I sat on the floor, placing my laptop on my knees and hoping that no one would spill their coffee this morning. I was angry. And then I was embarrassed. The Obama speech, which I so admired, was really about how we are all each other's brothers' and sisters' keepers, that we must decide in spirit - more than in law - to care for each other before we can proceed along the path to national reconciliation. I appreciated the speech on a rhetorical level, and I marveled at his astute turning of a political conundrum into a sharp elbow against his opponent. But I still have yet to fully digest the meaning of those words.

The reason why Obama's Philadelphia oration is a great speech is more than his ability to engage fully, honestly, and courageously with the racial divides that split us still. No, the reason why this speech matters is that it challenges us all to live up to our more perfect selves.

Read the entire speech, available from The New York Times.

See the video:



Follow-up: Some Responses to Obama's Speech

Springtime 17

Written on the bus - heading home from work...

This afternoon I find myself on a one-hour one-way trip on the Highway 17 bus with no wireless internet connection, misplaced earphones - thus no iPod - and recognition that this very morning I declined to pack two recent issues of Newsweek, not wanting to overload my travel bag. No media stimulation for me this hour, nothing but an empty page and plenty of time to write. I'm on a supposedly "express" route, watching as folks step onto the bus and discover, shockingly, that this ride costs money, and that they ought to have some. "Does anyone have change for a twenty?" one elderly woman asks. "This stinker won't let me on the bus." One hour to go until I'm in my easy chair, petting our cat who still thinks she's a kitten, and negotiating with Jenny about where we'll go for dinner tonight.

We pass through the last major intersection before we pour into the interstate which guides us to the mountainous and curvy road that drains toward the Pacific. The warm afternoon is cooled by spring breezes. Green and blue flags wave nearby, announcing a car wash. We roll alongside a billboard for Disneyland, and I catch sight of yet one more little girl who thinks she should be a "princess." It's easy, so long as you're willing to ride the rides, watch the movies, purchase the clothes, and convince your parents to cash out some of their 401k to visit the castle now and again. I shake my head and the billboard is gone. We're on the road heading out of town. A passenger sitting next to me reminds our driver to pull out his pilot's license. "Huh?" he asks. "You know, because you drive so fast." He's a young guy with spiky hair and long sideburns, but he answers with calm nonchalance: "I don't drive fast, I fly low."

Heading toward the dark green hills, I see signs for Los Gatos, and I smile a tight-lipped smile that would appear sheepish to anyone looking. I remember when I first came to San Jose, interviewing for a job back in 1998. I had done some basic research on the area, learning about the nearby towns. I anticipated that someone might ask, "so, where might you want to live?" and I wanted to have an answer, to sound like I'd done my homework. And sure enough, someone asked. I replied in my best middle school Spanish accent. "I'd like to live in Los GOT-tos." My guides chuckled, both at the impossible high standard I sought - telling me something of the insane housing market in that area - and at my silly pronunciation. "Oh," one said, "You mean Lazgatas." Passing Lexington Reservoir, I recall maybe a half-dozen times I've visited that town since moving to California.

Ascending the hill, cars dart around us, panicked at the thought of being caught behind a bus around here. The hills tumble into the road with loose rocks, some caught by netting, others unprotected. A fierce winter storm shuts this highway down at least once or twice a year, but the rainy season seems to be over. Our climb slows to a crawl, and I read hand-written signs posted in the grass. We're heading for the summit, nine miles to Scotts Valley now. We pass a northbound bus and our driver waves to his colleague in the other lane. I like that tradition, bus drivers recognizing each other, even if they can't see each other for sure in the blur of rapid passing. At the summit I spot the nice restaurant that advertises the world's best ribs. Honestly, they're not that good, but they're much better than they have right to be. Jenny and I sometimes dine there, and we're almost always one of merely two or three parties in the entire place.

Now we descend and the driver works that accelerator. Weaving through tight curves, we pick up some decent speed, and I flop left and right in my seat. We pass cops scouting for speeders and tow trucks ready to remove wreckage from the road. Highway 17 is notorious for the number of accidents it attracts, mostly due to lunatic drivers who overestimate their skills. One decent crash and this road backs up for miles with rubberneckers sniffing for blood. There are no accidents on the road today, though, just the risk of deer darting among the cars.

At last we pass the billboard for Ocean Honda, the sign that home is nearby. The town of Scotts Valley (population slightly over 11,000) stretches beyond the trees, hidden. It's a tiny enclave in so many ways. We turn onto Mount Hermon road and I breathe in deeply. San Jose is a lifetime away, hard to remember exactly. My home is here in this small place with a couple of decent restaurants and a movie theater whose owner sometimes chats about upcoming releases with the audience. I pass a gas station advertising cheap(!) stuff for $3.53, but I don't mind. I'm not going anywhere else tonight. Or if I am, I'm not going far.

Follow-up: Reading an article about the efforts of some Scotts Valley residents to protest efforts by Target to place a store in city limits, I was intrigued by Brian Seals's description of my town, the "business-friendly high-tech enclave of Scotts Valley, where khaki-pants wearing programmers are as common as sandal-clad middle-aged hippies are in Santa Cruz." In that article, Seals quotes the Scotts Valley 6 Cinema co-owner's position on people seeking to place anti-Target ads on his screens: "We sell popcorn, Cokes and hope you have a good time," [Don] Rudger said. "We run movies. We're not involved in the political schemes of life."

Placeless Enclaves

These days, it's hard to visualize a world without mobile communication. Where I work, San José State University, I notice everyday how countless students pour out of their classrooms with mobile phones glued to their ears. When I wait to take my bus home, I see person after person walking along the sidewalk, looking straight ahead while chatting into their hands. And I can hardly imagine the Highway 17 bus ride without hearing at least one passenger engrossing us with his timely communiqués. With our mobile phones, the notion of being "here" seems less meaningful than it once was, or so I suspect. Writing this now, flying across an overpass while onboard the bus, I try to remember a time when making a phone call required an attachment to place.

Think back to the age when telephone booths seemed as ubiquitous as Starbucks coffee shops. You may flash upon that 1967 movie The President's Analyst when James Coburn was captured by spies after entering a phone booth, or you may remember further back to that crazy fad in which college kids would try to pack as many of their buddies into one of those tiny rooms as drunkenly possible. We recognize the oddity of such an era when we think about the so-called "loneliest phone booth," located on Highway 50 in Nevada, a testimony to the ways in which mundane technologies become exotic with the passing of time. In those seemingly ancient days, you could not carry your network world with you. You needed to enter a physical enclave, a place set apart, the phone booth. This was an important place.

Today, in contrast, we carry placeless enclaves, our mobile phones, melding them upon our bodies in almost borg-like fashion. Frequently I'll spot a Bluetooth device hugging the ear of a person who drifts like vapor from place to place, lost in the reverie of some distant dialogue. The creepiest part of the scene is that occasional blue-white flash of the device, blinking with no apparent purpose except to signal to others, "now this is a talker." More frequently I notice folks bolting mobile phones to their pants or coats, demonstrating a perpetual preparation for important calls. And though I want to ask these people, "do you really want to be so obviously tethered to these devices?" I hush my queries. Surely some people need such connectivity, just as I need to mind my own business. And that's entirely the point.

Still, I can almost remember earlier days when we somehow managed to pass through our lives without this kind of connectivity. I look through old college yearbooks that are filled with an endless array of dances, teas, picnics, games, formals, and other forms of place-based interaction. I cannot imagine the students of that age descending the stairs from their classrooms only to open a phone. Surely, even without mobile phones, it must have been loud, a buzzing cacophony of greeting, argument, announcement, and farewell. Today's mobile conversations are loud, no doubt, but they are generally enclosed, a moving cone of personal space that just happens to overlap with hundreds of nearby enclaves. Such is the nature of public life in so many places today.

More and more people talk, alone.

(Photo by Andrew Wood)

Highway 17

I ride the Highway 17 bus on a regular basis, partially out of some shallow environmental consciousness but mostly because I live in a single-car family with three drivers. It's a fascinating experience. A one-way trip lasts about an hour -- from Scotts Valley to downtown San Jose -- and I get to hear (and sometimes participate in) all sorts of conversation. Commuters generally respect each other's needs for silence, and they make an effort to avoid tilting their seats into neighbors' spaces. But sometimes a number of folks will transform this mobile space into a mini salon, chatting about California politics, workplace intrigues, and, in the case of commuting faculty members, the joys and hassles of teaching. A recent conversation ranged from comparative bike riding practices in China and Santa Cruz to a discussion about the newly signed state budget. The bus driver, savvy and thoughtful, participated with aplomb while an eagle eye on the road.

Only sometimes can the ride get miserable. Sometimes a gaggle of folks chat so loudly that their neighbors have no chance to concentrate on their own thoughts or laptop projects. And mobile phone users frequently forget that their volume extends beyond themselves and their distant interlocutors. Then there's occasional traffic, rarely bad enough to add more than fifteen minutes to the ride but sometimes stretching the commute to absurd lengths. Every once in a while, I wish I were one of those motorcyclists weaving in and out of lanes, advancing steadily while everyone else idles on the mountain that connects the valley to the shore.

Mostly, though, I like riding the bus. It's an opportunity to write, listen to music, catch up on grading, and (coming home) to decompress. The evening return trip streams along office towers and sprawling blocks of transformers, junkyards, shopping centers, and apartment complexes. The roads converge onto a two-lane that winds about the "hill" (as we term it) until it peaks at a summit, upon which sits a delightful restaurant advertising the "world's best" ribs and lamb. The road begins to descend and clutches of trees break here and there to reveal Monterey Bay on the other end of a blue crescent. Then I spot the billboard that usually advertises Ocean Honda, its anthropomorphic whale smiling a greeting. When arranging to be picked up, I indicate my proximity with a cheery, "Just passing the whale now." At last we pull into the tiny but pleasant town where I live.

The Highway 17 bus costs plenty -- eight bucks for a round trip ticket. But that saves money that would otherwise go to wear and tear on the car, higher insurance costs, gasoline, downtown San Jose parking, and the stress of rush hour driving. The cost has doubled since I moved "over the hill," a bummer (in California parlance). But I still feel that the trip is worth the cost. I arrive at my destination in a relaxed mood, and after hearing a good conversation, I sometimes feel that I've learned something.