Places and Non-Places: It's all What You Make It

After reading an excerpt from Marc Augé’s book Non-Places, and discussing the defining characteristics of both places and non-places within class, I’ve decided that what really makes a space a place or non-place is the perspective of the person. I tried to think of places I go (or could go) that are really “non-places”: those places that really do not carry an emotional history within them and the places people inevitably visit without that ever being a destination. I thought about airports, and airplanes, and even the restaurant where I waitress and all the people who move in and out of it each night. For the actual assignment of relying observations taken within a “non-place” I thought most of airplanes. Airplanes are even more of a non-place than an airport terminal. I recalled a few weeks ago when I was last on a plane. I was returning back home and was not exactly excited about that, and I was traveling alone. I remember sitting in Chicago’s O’hare airport on my layover. My first intentions were to distance myself from others and general boredom, but, having forgotten my IPOD, already read my magazines, and finding all newsstands closed for the night I just people-watched. There was the old couple possibly Dutch, or more excitingly world travelers whose names were called in several languages for the final, final, FINAL boarding call to Amsterdam. The massive, annoying high school girls sports team camped out on the floor eating Pizza Hut express chattering non-stop, the Asian woman who oblivious to the crowding gate area was laying instead of sitting and taking up four seats. Still, despite the crowding, everyone maintained the “don’t sit next to someone you don’t know” rule. However, I found myself wanting to talk to these people. Situations like this have always fascinated me: where are all these people going, who are they, what are their stories? Many flights and terminals have switched from non-places to places for me. I have shared tables with strangers in the airport restaurants instead of adhering to one person per table all facing each other’s backs. I exchanged a magazine with a 30 something woman flying back to Michigan State for a weekend to meet old college girlfriends, heard about middle-aged men’s jobs and wives, and desperately ran through airports with people I’ve just met only to yell “good luck!” when we get to our gates. While most people insist that certain areas remain “non-places” I think they are excellent places to meet the most random people! I think it’s just my personality, I prefer to make non-places more comfortable by changing them into places. (And the conversation always flows more freely after a glass of wine at the airport sports bar!)

Viruses and Fads

I was really interested in the article "Viruses and Fads"! It made me wonder how many people we all affect in our daily lives. Surely, Gaetan Dugas was aware of that fact that he had sex with thousands and thousands of people, and at some point he was aware that he was HIV positive. And the people behind the "love bug" computer virus wouldn't have created it without the intent to infect others. But as I read it and thought about the huge chain of events the spread around the world, really, like Collins's political cartoon, and I remembered the six degrees of separation idea, I started to think of all the people each of us directly or indirectly affects in a day. (I know the whole idea's been done before---think: "Pay It Forward".) All of this got me thinking about facebook, and the number of "friends" (consisting of true friends, acquaintances, people you talk to in class sometimes, and maybe even random people) everyone has on there. I may be the only one who remembers, but when facebook first came out, it had a "visualize my friends" feature that was listed under your picture in your profile (where "view more photos of me" and "read notes by me" is currently). If you clicked it, this feature would set up a web with nodes named for each "friend". There was also existed somewhere a feature called "my friends friends" or something of the like, that when clicked displayed the names and photos of all of your "friends" along with all of their "friends". Sometime between the creation of facebook and now both these features have been erased. I think that with many people now having hundreds of "friends" it became impossible to show them all in a two dimensional web or to list them all along with all the thousands of their "friends". I think it would be very interesting to use facebook as a kind of social experiment. It links people all over the country, including those who may no longer be in the US, and I think it would be interesting to look at all those from whom you have six degrees of separation.

Robocop, Pacemakers, and a Urinal

In discussion of Lexia to Perplexia, the idea that a well-known artist once submitted a urinal to an art museum was brought up. If an art museum showcased the urinal I’m sure there gathered a group of spectators wondering about the meaning and trying to decipher the symbolism of the urinal. Perhaps the artist is referring to the misplacement of something in society, maybe the urinal in a traditionally classy place out in the open depicts society in outrage about taboo sexual acts. (Pretty good, huh?) Or maybe the artist was drunk and thought it the ultimate joke! As the museum-goers tilt their heads and squeeze their chins pensively, the artist is slamming a bottle of jack and laughing his ass off! Now I don’t know if any of this is true, but I think reading meaning into a urinal is stupid. My friend attends an art school and the last time I visited him, he had a new painting in his living room: it was a kitchen scene with a man looking straight at the audience. What could it mean? The way the cabinets were washed in color instead of really painted perfectly, perhaps this carries a message. Maybe we should just all calm down about playing detective, take off the Sherlock Holmes get up, and put down the Nancy Drew book. I say the same for Lexia to Perplexia. Someone asked “how do we know this wasn’t created by a schizophrenic with computer access?” I think this is a VERY valid point. Sure it’s weird; but that doesn’t give it supreme meaning. Fortune cookies are weird: they are also mass produced in some warehouse in Ohio. I once dated a guy who thought being “artistic” meant being difficult to understand. First, I’d like to say this strategy gets you no where with the ladies. But, once I asked him what this completely messed up poem he had written was about and what it meant to him. He told me that HE didn’t even know, and I was the first person who ever asked him that. Everyone else apparently felt too much in shadow of his “brilliance” and “creativity” to ask. Sure Lexia to Perplexia has an “edu” site, but maybe the assignment was to make the most cracked out and complex website. If you still feel the need to dig for meaning, let me ask you this, “isn’t trying to pinpoint the one, perfect, exact meaning to something meant to be artistically confusing and intended to give different meanings to each view destroying the author’s true meaning?” (How’s that for trippy, um I mean, meaningful?)

McLulan

Really, I think that Marshall McLulan addresses in his chapters “The Medium is the Message” and “Media Hot and Cold” the ways in which society interacts with literature. He discusses the effects of media coverage in politics. Napoleon is quoted in saying “Three hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets” and McLulan also mentions writings effect on the French Revolution: “the printed word that, achieving cultural saturation in the eighteenth century, had homogenized the French nation”. When the general public gains access to the printed word, and thus a freer means of mass communication by the masses for the masses, there is often times a displacement of power from those who previously held it into the hands of the people. One of the first mass produced books was the Bible, and the widespread printing of the Bible released the power from the church. McLulan also addresses the different reactions to either “cold” or “hot” media depending on if it is introduced to a “hot” or “cold” culture. “Nevertheless, it makes all the difference whether a hot medium is used in a hot or a cool culture”, he says on page 43.

Where are we going in this handbasket?

In the article “Rhetorics Fast and Slow”, by Lester Faigley, I just kind of felt like saying, “get over it”. “Fast has overwhelmed slow” and “speed brings risks” Faigley says on page 7 when discussing what he calls fast (internet, cell phone) and slow (dialog, books) rhetorics. He condemns fast rhetorics as a “manifestation of a culture that suffers from attention deficit disorder” (pg. 9) and cites courses of study one of the remaining places where slow rhetoric can still be learned and practiced. Personally, I’d like to let Faigley know that like it or not, rhetoric is moving the way of our culture and society in general. Either schools can adapt to the changes and include some fast rhetoric, or students will find it increasingly difficult to relate to their schoolwork. Know that I am not saying “aol instant messager” or text messages should replace talking in person or that wikipedia should take the role of text books. However, technologies should be incorporated into what students learn. I agree with the discussion we had in class about teaching students why wikipedia is not an acceptable source for college papers. Yet, teaching reasons why wikipedia is not to be used and what constitutes a credible source would do hundreds of times more good than producing a letter condemning any student who uses wikipedia; which is exactly what gets under my skin about “Rhetorics Fast and Slow”. The language surrounding fast and slow rhetorics lifts slow rhetoric to godliness (it helped to end slavery, is “the means for which dreams to be articulated”) while fast rhetoric becomes risky, “going faster and faster leads to more accidents”, and is compared to disease, famine, and natural disaster of past times. Really? If fast rhetoric should be put into the “disease, famine, and natural disaster” category of things to worry about I think the whole world is going to crash and burn.

Not cool enough for Winter...

Those super huge sunglasses? They look alright on people who aren’t me, but they definitely do not keep me warm. Nope, if you see me from the months of January to March you will not recognize me. (Really, I can walk right up to close friends and they don’t recognize me.) I’ll bundle up until only my eyes are showing if that’s what it takes. We’re talking about sweat pants under jeans. Honestly. So after passing the joggers on their way to the SERF wearing cropped sweat pants and the girl in a Malibu Barbie pink coat whom was blocking her face from the well below zero windchill with gianormus sunglasses it hit me: I’m just not cool enough for winter. I’m that kid from “A Christmas Story” when he can’t even put his arms down at his sides. No straight iron for me before heading to class. I haven’t out grown the “comfort before style” motto, and I don’t think I will. This is the last straw. I’m writing winter off. Really I won’t have to see much of it anyway; I’ve already blocked out all of my peripheral vision with a sweatshirt hood. I’m moving to California and that’s that. Somewhere warm. Somewhere that has sand banks hugging the ocean right now instead of snow banks and salty streets. A place I’ll enjoy taking strolls under the warm night sky instead of bolting miserably from place to place. Am I the only one who remembers the summer: when you could go to the capital bars in the cutest strapiest wedge heels you own? (Sorry, guys I guess you’ll have to imagine.) People wore colors like red and orange and bright blue, not just grey and black and navy. Summer nights that stay light until almost 9:30. Boating, swimming, bon fires, outdoor seating at restaurants, driving with the windows down! It was grand. There are even beach screen savers on my computer and palm tree wallpapers on my phone to tease me! Think of all the songs written about warm weather! I don’t remember the last time I heard a song and thought “Oh yea! I can’t wait until I can’t feel my fingers or nose!” So if you see me around campus or when I’m coming into class shedding layers know that I’m silently giving winter the finger.