Back to the dusty cabin up north, I stepped outside to sit on the porch to get some air. No bug problems this time - instead, it was the heat, up to 94 degrees, maybe a record for the area - and I plopped down in a cheap, creaky version of an Adirondack chair. Doing nothing but sweating, the mind began to churn, and then it touched on the word "Adirondack," not for the mountains, but for the chair.
The Adirondacks have had a significant impact on American lifestyles, even though I had never thought of it before. In the 19th century, a new wave of wealthy elite bought up huge amounts of land there to have vacation paradises, made possible, I suppose, through rail road access from the big cities - mostly New York - where these rich people lived. As part of their leisure, someone came up with the idea of this particular chair, made for one of the rich guys (again I presume). It is a laid-back chair, so much so that one would expect to sit in it and stay sitting. I don't particularly like them, but that is probably because I'm not rich, and don't have someone to deliver a cocktail to me on demand. But we have two, because - well, because they were very cheap, but also it's what you bring to your leisure estate, even if it is only a one-room cabin in the pine barrens.
And here is where the impact of those rich guys of yesteryear come in. The rich guys did have servants; they had screens to keep off the bugs, and high ceilings indoors to keep them cool, and, most probably, large lakes before them used for swimming and boating. But they, the lakes and the land, had always been there. People had settled there before, and after a few generations, most went west for better climate and better soil. The Adirondacks are rocky, cold, snowy, and packed with bothersome bloodsucking bugs. They are, for people from our culture, overall uncomfortable. Regular people don't live in them if they don't have to.
But the rich made something of them, and for this reason, many areas of these mountains are probably too expensive for most of us to comfortably buy for second homes - and they would be second homes, because it is hard to make a living there. But we sigh when we think of them, those second homes. Ah, the luxury! The fresh air, the mountains, the lakes! Seldom do we think of the hard reality of the place, of its discomforts and bothersome weather.
No, the rich of yesteryear have convinced us that such places are paradises, prized and so priced that many of us cannot afford to have a place there, in this midst of wilderness from which others fled, preferring even Nebraska or Kansas. The same can be said of,say, Aruba, or Puerto Rico, or other tropical "paradises." There, people have sweated and died for centuries, and many who could, left. But we have pictures in our minds of the warm beaches and the leisure - of lying back in a chair and having Margaritas delivered to us. Pictures of us in paradise. Pictures of us as living like the rich, if just for a moment.
So I sat thinking in my uncomfortable chair, sweating in the heat with no recourse to AC. At least the bugs weren't out, so bad the last two visits that I dreaded going outside, even to the outhouse. But I consider myself blessed. What a great place! I think, and mean it. No, I really mean it. I love the place. For its silence, for its pines, for the trails and the clear lake a half mile away, for the shores of Lake Superior not far down the road. Love it, even as others of the past fled as soon as they could before vacations became what they are today. Even as tourists today will often drive to town or stay in their tents on the lake shore campsites, hiding from the bugs. Even as tourists hold their noses to stifle the stench of overheated public outhouses, feeling the grit of sand in their teeth from the morning meal, fried over an erratic fire or burner.
The point being: have we been fooled? Have the elite caused us to think we are having fun, even as we are miserable? I think so - but it does not end at the myth of the Adirondack chair. It extends, this fantasy, outward and behind, pointing back centuries to kings and queens and Romans and slaves and who knows what. Our beliefs are like the manuscripts of old, when parchment was rare and expensive. Then, they would scrape off old writing to begin anew, again and again, leaving faint traces of the former writing underneath. Scholars study these, and call them palimpsests, the word-of-the-year at some point in my graduate studies program, but the analogies are clear; we are not only not islands unto ourselves, but we do not even know ourselves, or where our attitudes come from. We do not even know, at least sometimes, what our pleasures (or dislikes) are, but instead are handed them by someone or some group. Advertisers know this and so, like the producers of the awful beer Corona, they try to build on other handed-down pleasures and tie their product to them, so that these, too, are associated with pleasures. And it works; again and again, it works.
What, though, would be our pleasures, our attitudes, without our cultural palimpsest? What, if anything, is at the bottom, before the writing began? Is it truly the philosopher's tabula rasa, the famous blank slate, or something else? Would I, for instance, love New York City more than an Adirondack retreat if not for the myth? Or would I, and will I, simply do as I am told by history, by culture, by family?
Vacation sites are small matters, but this thing of influence is not, not only for our political reasons, but for our ultimate truth, or truths. Every culture is given (or, somehow makes) a myth about ultimate truths. Sooner or later, all are co-opted somehow in the palimpsest of culture, but what of the original? Is it made from whole cloth (that is, pure fantasy) or is it the stuff of reality altogether, packaged by and for members of our tribe? Is it, then, the road map directing us beyond the palimpsest, which may lead us to a blank slate that is not a blank slate at all, but the beginning of something else?
That is my guess, and it is my goal to read through the surface writing to see what is underneath, and then, finally, to see beyond the page itself, beyond the original transcription that came from beyond the page. I believe it is possible, but very hard - as hard as convincing oneself that one isn't lucky to have a drink in one's hand on a sunny beach; as hard as it is to see how people who actually live in such a paradise, really live; and even harder, to see beyond the tin shacks of the poor of Jamaica or Trinidad to discover that some might be richer than the richest from New York, for they have found, somehow, the original traces and glimpsed beyond them, to see who they really are. FK
The Adirondacks have had a significant impact on American lifestyles, even though I had never thought of it before. In the 19th century, a new wave of wealthy elite bought up huge amounts of land there to have vacation paradises, made possible, I suppose, through rail road access from the big cities - mostly New York - where these rich people lived. As part of their leisure, someone came up with the idea of this particular chair, made for one of the rich guys (again I presume). It is a laid-back chair, so much so that one would expect to sit in it and stay sitting. I don't particularly like them, but that is probably because I'm not rich, and don't have someone to deliver a cocktail to me on demand. But we have two, because - well, because they were very cheap, but also it's what you bring to your leisure estate, even if it is only a one-room cabin in the pine barrens.
And here is where the impact of those rich guys of yesteryear come in. The rich guys did have servants; they had screens to keep off the bugs, and high ceilings indoors to keep them cool, and, most probably, large lakes before them used for swimming and boating. But they, the lakes and the land, had always been there. People had settled there before, and after a few generations, most went west for better climate and better soil. The Adirondacks are rocky, cold, snowy, and packed with bothersome bloodsucking bugs. They are, for people from our culture, overall uncomfortable. Regular people don't live in them if they don't have to.
But the rich made something of them, and for this reason, many areas of these mountains are probably too expensive for most of us to comfortably buy for second homes - and they would be second homes, because it is hard to make a living there. But we sigh when we think of them, those second homes. Ah, the luxury! The fresh air, the mountains, the lakes! Seldom do we think of the hard reality of the place, of its discomforts and bothersome weather.
No, the rich of yesteryear have convinced us that such places are paradises, prized and so priced that many of us cannot afford to have a place there, in this midst of wilderness from which others fled, preferring even Nebraska or Kansas. The same can be said of,say, Aruba, or Puerto Rico, or other tropical "paradises." There, people have sweated and died for centuries, and many who could, left. But we have pictures in our minds of the warm beaches and the leisure - of lying back in a chair and having Margaritas delivered to us. Pictures of us in paradise. Pictures of us as living like the rich, if just for a moment.
So I sat thinking in my uncomfortable chair, sweating in the heat with no recourse to AC. At least the bugs weren't out, so bad the last two visits that I dreaded going outside, even to the outhouse. But I consider myself blessed. What a great place! I think, and mean it. No, I really mean it. I love the place. For its silence, for its pines, for the trails and the clear lake a half mile away, for the shores of Lake Superior not far down the road. Love it, even as others of the past fled as soon as they could before vacations became what they are today. Even as tourists today will often drive to town or stay in their tents on the lake shore campsites, hiding from the bugs. Even as tourists hold their noses to stifle the stench of overheated public outhouses, feeling the grit of sand in their teeth from the morning meal, fried over an erratic fire or burner.
The point being: have we been fooled? Have the elite caused us to think we are having fun, even as we are miserable? I think so - but it does not end at the myth of the Adirondack chair. It extends, this fantasy, outward and behind, pointing back centuries to kings and queens and Romans and slaves and who knows what. Our beliefs are like the manuscripts of old, when parchment was rare and expensive. Then, they would scrape off old writing to begin anew, again and again, leaving faint traces of the former writing underneath. Scholars study these, and call them palimpsests, the word-of-the-year at some point in my graduate studies program, but the analogies are clear; we are not only not islands unto ourselves, but we do not even know ourselves, or where our attitudes come from. We do not even know, at least sometimes, what our pleasures (or dislikes) are, but instead are handed them by someone or some group. Advertisers know this and so, like the producers of the awful beer Corona, they try to build on other handed-down pleasures and tie their product to them, so that these, too, are associated with pleasures. And it works; again and again, it works.
What, though, would be our pleasures, our attitudes, without our cultural palimpsest? What, if anything, is at the bottom, before the writing began? Is it truly the philosopher's tabula rasa, the famous blank slate, or something else? Would I, for instance, love New York City more than an Adirondack retreat if not for the myth? Or would I, and will I, simply do as I am told by history, by culture, by family?
Vacation sites are small matters, but this thing of influence is not, not only for our political reasons, but for our ultimate truth, or truths. Every culture is given (or, somehow makes) a myth about ultimate truths. Sooner or later, all are co-opted somehow in the palimpsest of culture, but what of the original? Is it made from whole cloth (that is, pure fantasy) or is it the stuff of reality altogether, packaged by and for members of our tribe? Is it, then, the road map directing us beyond the palimpsest, which may lead us to a blank slate that is not a blank slate at all, but the beginning of something else?
That is my guess, and it is my goal to read through the surface writing to see what is underneath, and then, finally, to see beyond the page itself, beyond the original transcription that came from beyond the page. I believe it is possible, but very hard - as hard as convincing oneself that one isn't lucky to have a drink in one's hand on a sunny beach; as hard as it is to see how people who actually live in such a paradise, really live; and even harder, to see beyond the tin shacks of the poor of Jamaica or Trinidad to discover that some might be richer than the richest from New York, for they have found, somehow, the original traces and glimpsed beyond them, to see who they really are. FK
RSS Feed