Dreams of Roma

I’m not sure how many of us imagine ourselves as conquering generals, ordering troops to massacre entire cities and thereby cleansing the country of the aristocracy. Yet, the main character in De Niro’s Game manages to have such images of grandeur while also remaining entirely sympathetic to the reader. Set in the midst of Lebanon’s civil war, De Niro’s Game is an amazing, multi-leveled story boy Rawi Hage. The book is accessible from many different standpoints: cultural references to The Deer Hunter and Robert De Niro; historical allusions such as the French Revolution; philosophy and literature as when Bassam reads Camus’ L’Etranger.

Yet, what I find most compelling about the book is the way Bassam seems to living in multiple layers of reality. From the very first chapter of the book Bassam sees events in the physical world as connecting with another philosophical or anagogical world. Roma is a city of great importance, though what that importance is I have yet to fathom though in my mind it is reminiscent of the poem Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats.

Despite the appearance of this dual reality, the real culmination of Bassam’s overlapping realities comes when he is in France. As he travels Paris he sees himself as a conquering general, cutting off the heads of noblemen and winning the revolution singlehandedly. Though the reader may doubt, as I did, that Bassam’s gripe on sanity was slipping, the doubts become lost as a complicated web of international terrorism is revealed. It is not so far fetched to see Bassam’s rebellious act of escaping the polarized country of his birth as revolutionary. He is the revolution of the revolution, precisely because he is a child of the revolution, having grown up and come to age in the midst of sectarian violence. Fighting communists, working with Jews, killing Muslims, none of it mattered because all of it amounted to was petty thieving, ruthless killing, and tiny men trying to make themselves kings of the garbage dump. The city Bassam grew up in was mere rubble, with bombs instead of stars, and bullet casings instead of marbles to trade.

Perhaps the most compelling part of the novel was its rich language and Bassam’s poetry-like stream of consciousness. If I took the time to look more closely at the analogies and imagery employed by Hage I am sure the richness of the text would become even fuller. But the simple act of reading this novel was so pleasurable that I am trying to get all of my friends to read it.

Love Letter to a [Potential] President

Dear Senator Barack Obama,

I don’t know you very well, but already you fill my heart and head, with long forgotten dreams and desires. When I was a child, I dreamt like a child. I saw the world arrayed in the splendor of love, hope, and equality. My parents taught me right from wrong, and like a child, I believe that the entire world operated on such simple principals. Justice was simplified to the basic understanding of cause and effect. And humanity was easily revealed in the goodnight kisses and impromptu gifts of adoring family and friends.

However, as I grew, the world revealed itself to be something completely different. Gone was the veil from my eyes and there, what stood before me, was a future cast in shadows. Humanity was suddenly hard to find, and as I traveled further from the comforts of home, I clung ever more tightly to my family and friends. They were the only ones I could depend on to bring sudden glimpses of light into my life. Finding the world operating on such cold principals of politics, power, and polemics made it difficult to remember what love, hope and equality were. I learned to hide my principals, my expectations, my character goals from the rest of the world. Fearful of derailment, not ridicule, I tried to hide my naivete, because I wanted to be taken seriously. I needed to be an adult, and as an adult, I had to understand the world as everyone else saw it. No longer could I see what I wanted in the world.

Then you came along. You came along with this vision of the United States and politics that advocated change. CHANGE. Your powerful words seduced me. What you said over a loudspeaker whispered to my heart to let go. To reveal my fearful aspirations that the world could look different. That the world WAS different. That humanity extended beyond my intimate family and friends to strangers on the street, living across the country and in another continent. Your words got me to think that maybe what the whole world dreamt of was the same, but that we were all afraid and so we chanted with the same cynical voice: power, politics, polemics.

Yet, even as my dreams begin to materialize with greater clarity, the voice of caution in my head grows ever stronger. Here is a man who has the power to break my heart. So I had to write this letter. I had to let you know what is at stake in this Presidential Election. It’s not just if you win, it’s what will you do when you win. What is your vision of this world?

e.e. cummings is one of my favorite poets. His words hide in my heart. Perhaps they will speak to your heart as well:

(While you and I have lips and voices which are for kissing and to sing with who cares if some oneeyed son of a bitch invents an instrument to measure spring with? each dream nascitur, is not made…) why then to Hell with that: the other; this, since the thing perhaps is to eat flowers and not to be afraid.

Love,

A simple 24 year old

David Sedaris and Me

David Sedaris has to be one of my favorite contributors to This American Life. While I have gotten out of the habit of listening to the show, it was my savior last year when life was at its most despressing. I recently learned of his books and in a stroke of luck found them at Costco, my consumer paradise. After having read Me Talk Pretty One Day, I started to wonder, could I write like this?

If even half of his book is true, Sedaris has done more than his fair share of drugs and borders on retarded. While I do not trust in standardized tests, even my own SAT scores did not reveal my obvious brilliance, I just have to wonder what it takes to be a published author. The fact that Sedaris is so successful leads me to a series of doubts: 1) he is not really retarded; 2) he doesn’t really write his own books; 3) the reasons why books are successful is retarded; and finally 4) writing is not for the intelligent.

I am, of course, being a bit facetious when I write all of this because I do, honestly, believe Sedaris is brilliant. Regardless of what any test may say, he has a sharp sense of humor, a way with description and dialogue, and an understanding of what life is really all about, namely the mundane. But as I finished the book, I had a serious conversation with another aspiring writer about what really goes into writing.

What is it? And how do I cultivate it?

THE FUTURE…

WALLE is a great movie. It’s subtle commentary wasn’t simply targeted to Americans, but rather the human tendency to want the easy way out. Technology, for the most part, has been used to make life simpler, easier, and more efficient. However, WALLE does a wonderful job of getting the audience to question whether or not “simpler, easier, and more efficient,” is the way to creating a better life. What exactly is life is the question driving WALLE. Who is more human, the robots who feel, think, act, or the people stuck in their chairs going wherever they are told? The idea that this may one day happen is fuzzy, since the economic factor would mean some could grow fat and sit in chairs, while others would not, yet the overall point behind WALLE is brilliant.

Yet, as I ponder the question of the future, I can’t help but see a fork in the road. Certainly human kind growing fat and lazy seems likely. But, just as technology is used to make life easier, it is also used to make life longer, safer, and more idealized. Medicine, gyms, diets are all created based on scientific principals with the basic goal of making human life longer, better, and healthier. In addition, medicine and science has also been used to promote a specific form of beauty based on outer appearance and weight. I can foresee in the future  humans completely encased in metal, much like Ironman. But instead of the metal being used as a weapon, it is simply used as a shield, designed to keep people safe from guns, knives, and germs. It would also keep people from the eventual saggy breasts, laugh lines, and other various signs of aging that are associated with growing older, and therefore closer to death.

The market would explode once these protective metal casings are created and marketed to the masses. People would buy them at lightning-fast speeds, believing it would make life safer. It would also give them a measure of control over what other people saw. The metal outer layer could be altered in any number of ways to look attractive. Of course, people who could not afford this protective barrier would be left vulnerable. Vulnerable to violence, to natural laws, and to time. Perhaps, overtime, these people, the poor people, would disappear as they are killed by illness, age, and bullets.

All in all, I’d say more films need to be made about the future, if only to remind us of the dangers inherent in near-sighted thinking. People at the forefront of technology, medicine, and other sciences need to contemplate their experiments and products with far more wisdom than perhaps the average admission counselor. Contemplating the ways our actions now could lead to a better, or far worse, future is the only way we can ensure a far more happier world than the one depicted in WALLE, 1984, or any other futuristic story.