New Music

Last night I realized how long it had been since I’d bought a new album.  I love music and I try to listen to a fair amount of it, but for one reason or another I just hadn’t been buying anything lately. (Probably because I have no money.)  Sometimes got burned CDs from friends, or I’d listen to things online, or whatever.  Then this weekend I decided to by Nico Vega’s self-titled debut full-length (I’ll put the review I wrote of it up soon). 

 

The album is pretty good, but what stands out to me more is the odd and strangely nostalgic experience of listening to it.  As Laura and I drove up to my parents’ house for dinner we rode in silence except for the stereo.  We didn’t talk.  We didn’t make phone calls.  We just listened.  It was during this time that I realized how long it had been since I’d done that.  Usually when I listen to music it’s on my iPod, or in the car by myself.  Sometimes I’m at home surfing the Internet and have music playing in the background.  Yet, by listening to it they way we did last night it seemed to make it more important, as if we didn’t dare speak because we didn’t want to miss anything. 

 

The experience was nostalgic because, though I’d never listened to the album before, this was an attitude I haven’t really had for awhile.  In some ways it took me all the way back to being a teenager.   In other ways, however, the experience seemed to sum up all those times that music matter so much for reasons I could never have articulated.  It also helped me remember how certain activities are evocative of certain times, places, and feelings, even when we’re not aware of it.  

Shopping Cart Theft

This post is about Provo, UT, though I imagine these issues apply in other places as well.  

 

One of the things that always surprises me about Provo is the number of stray shopping carts strewn about the streets.  What surprises me even more is that I most often see these carts outside BYU student housing.  It’s puzzling to me why someone (especially a student) would steal a shopping cart.  Of course, the obvious excuse is that they don’t have any other way to get their groceries home.  Fair enough.  Yet, I know plenty of people who don’t have cars or bikes and who don’t steal shopping carts, so I have to consider other reasons.  Like maybe students south of BYU campus want their homes to look like a slum.  Perhaps they think grocery prices are too low and are trying to get them raised by stealing from stores.  Maybe they take some sort of pride in that oh so classy I’m-pushing-a-shopping-cart-down-the-street aesthetic.  In any case, stealing a shopping cart is inconsiderate, trashy, and negatively impacts the entire community. 

 

First, having shopping carts discarded all over the city looks terrible.  It surprises me that BYU students, the majority of whom come from suburban neighborhoods that have never seen a shopping cart, would be so cavalier about letting their homes look like a slum.  I don’t want to get into class issues here, but having stolen shopping carts (or anything stolen, for that matter) all over the place looks decidedly low-class, which I didn’t think was anyone’s desired image.  What’s more, if a problem like this persists long enough it can actually contribute to lowered property values, which in turn will do nothing to improve the conditions of already dilapidated student housing.    

 

Besides the trashy appearance of discarded shopping carts, this problem can also translate into higher grocery prices for everyone.  For example, if a grocery store loses too many shopping carts they may start requiring a deposit to use them, installing theft prevention technology, or doing any number of things to safeguard their property.  The money for these measures will almost certainly be raised through price increases, and nobody wants that.

 

One of the biggest problems is that this appears to largely be a student issue in Provo.  I’m willing to entertain the idea that it’s not students doing this, but the highest concentration of stolen carts is conspicuously in the student residential areas between 9^th East and University Ave.  Ironically, many BYU students love to complain about Provo city policies.  However, how do we expect the city to treat us decently when “we” are actively trashing up the town?  Of course the city is antagonistic to students and wants to impose parking fees and the like; students aren’t just failing to contribute, they actively appear to be bringing the community down. 

 

I’m not entirely sure how to solve this problem, other than to raise awareness and outrage over it.  If more people realize it’s bothering others, hopefully whoever is taking the carts will stop.  We could also try returning the carts when we see them.  Ultimately, I know it’s not the majority of BYU students that do this, but it does reflect poorly on us all and frankly, I don’t want to be implicated in something that I find objectionable anyway.  

Sensuous Sandwich

For several years after I moved to Provo I’d see the wooden façade of Sensuous Sandwich on Center Street and wonder just what went on inside.  I liked the alliteration in the name, but I also wasn’t sure if I’d feel comfortable going inside, or that I wouldn’t need to take a shower afterward.  Fortunately I eventually got curious (and hungry) enough to try it out.  Since then, and after many visits, it has slowly become my favorite sandwich shop in all of Utah. 

 

Entering Sensuous Sandwich the first thing you notice is that the décor is sort of tacky-chic.  On my first visit I was actually surprised at the lack of visual cohesion.  The walls and tables are covered in random old comic strips, 1980s anti-drug posters (this is your brain on drugs…), and Polaroid’s of people who have eaten 24-inch sandwiches.  Combined with the florescent lighting, none of these things seemed to set the mood for a particularly comfortable meal.  On the other hand, the more times I visit the more I’m impressed with how much I like the ambiance.  It gives you enough to look at while not trying to use nostalgia to make up for mediocre food.  While lesser restaurants would suffer from doing the same, Sensuous Sandwich can afford it.  The décor also stands in stark contrast to the generic, market-researched trappings of larger chains.  When you go in, you feel like you’re a local in a local business.  You also get the feeling that an actual person put up all the posters and comics, and that they did so because they liked them, not because they thought it would sell more product. 

 

While the atmosphere of Sensuous Sandwich makes you feel like a local, the venue’s greatest asset is its food.  Like any small restaurant, the quality of eating experience depends significantly on what you get.  Obviously some sandwiches, while good, aren’t far-and-away better than what you can find elsewhere.  On the other hand, I’ve never had a sub even remotely as delicious as the “Spicy Enticer.”  With pastrami, pepperoni, Italian sausage, and your choice of trappings (just get everything and choose cream cheese), this sandwich may well give you coronary heart disease, but if it does you’ll never be happier about it.  I usually get the four or six inch sandwich, though it’s so good I routinely wish I could pack away more.  My other favorite is “The Tantalizer,” but with each sandwich there are numerous customizing options; order what you think you’ll like but don’t be afraid to experiment.  For example, I don’t usually like cream cheese, but I love it on the Spicy Enticer.  Like the décor the sandwiches aren’t fancy, but they’ll fill you up and, more importantly, they taste delicious.  Also, one of the best things about Sensuous Sandwich is that you pay by the inch.  Sandwiches start at $2.69 four inches and go up from there.  Generally, with those prices Sensuous Sandwich is also one of the most economic places you can eat. 

 

In the end Sensuous Sandwich is one of those places that make me sad I won’t always live in Provo.  For now however, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that it’s one of Utah County’s best culinary treasures.  It’s small, local, and gritty enough to be unique, while also offering some of the best food you can find. 

 

(Female) School Mascots?

My youngest brother attends Deerfield Elementary.  The funny thing is that the mascot for his school isn’t a deer.  It’s an eagle.  As I recently considered this fact I had to assume that deer weren’t considered adequately aggressive to be the mascot.  On the other hand, I thought, they could have chosen a buck.  A majestic male deer seems like a suitable school symbol.  Yet, as I thought more about this I wondered why they also couldn’t choose a doe.  Aren’t stereotypically “female” attributes, things like nurturing, also desirable?  Regardless, the more I thought about this question the more I realized I couldn’t think of a single female mascot.   

 

It appears that most mascots fall into two categories: men and animals.  Where Laura teaches, for example, the mascot is “the cavemen.”  Of course, this name might just be a throwback to a time when gender neutrality didn’t matter and in fact mean “cave-people.”  However, ignoring that obviously flimsy excuse, the actual picture the school uses is of a brutish male.  This is not dissimilar to the mascot at my own elementary school: Vikings.  Surely there were Viking women, but they weren’t on the t-shirts we got.  Another, more famous example, might be the Notre Dame Leprechaun, which is depicted as an angry male in a fighting stance.  The point is that some of the most common, as well as most prominent, mascots in the U.S. are males, and violent males at that.

 

The second mascot category, animals, is less obviously gendered.  My brother’s school, for instance, isn’t represented specifically by male eagles.  However, what seems to stand out about animal mascots is that they are all predators.  Though I would be reluctant to say that males are inherently predatory, I would be comfortable saying that our society conceives of them as being so.  And though I lament the cultural entrenchment of gender stereotypes, I bet I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone at Provo High School, for example, who thinks their mascot, a bulldog, is a female.  If the predatory nature of mascot animals isn’t enough to indicate male-ness or typically male qualities, take the fact that many actually look like men.  This is certainly the case with Provo High’s mascot and while male and female bulldogs probably look similar, people’s tendency to anthropomorphize leads me to believe that there is a stronger resemblance between the bulldog and the human male than the human female.  If this wasn’t enough, some animal mascots are overtly male.  Take Yale’s, for example.  They also use a bulldog, but one named “Handsome Dan.”  In any case, it seems that most animal mascots are chosen either because they symbolize accepted male behavior, or because they bear some sort resemblance to males. 

 

The predominance of male mascots seems immensely problematic to me.  Why is that socially perceived “female” behaviors are not acceptable in symbols of our educational institutions?  How can we expect those institutions to impart both traditionally male and traditionally female attributes when the images we choose to represent those institutions are of hyper-masculine men?  What’s more, why do we have to accept social constructions of gender?  I’d be willing to bet that female cave-people were pretty aggressive.  For that matter, I can think of plenty of female animals that perform roles that many (western) humans associate with men (for example, lionesses, which do most of the hunting).  Why I haven’t I ever heard of a high school that uses the Amazons, Valkyries, or any other strong women from myth or history as mascots?  If its about getting people riled up at a football game an Amazon woman seems quite a bit better than a bulldog or an eagle.  In the end, our mascots seem to reveal both that we are not comfortable giving up violent symbols and that we are still fully invested in outmoded gender stereotypes.  If we are going to use symbols, lets choose ones that convey assertiveness and nurturing.  If we need to have aggressive images surrounding us, lets acknowledge that men don’t have a monopoly on strength.   

 

Ultimately, I don’t mean to suggest that mascots have more meaning than they do.  My own high school mascot, after all, was a tartan, which as I understand it is a piece of Scottish fabric. (This is also possibly the most gender-neutral mascot I can think of, as a tartan represents a family.  Surely it still has a violent undercurrent, but it at least isn’t as overtly aggressive.)  However, mascots do have some meaning; if they didn’t we wouldn’t use them, remember them, or erect images of them.  That meaning may not be the most potent symbol of an institution, but it still inflects the atmosphere and actions of a given setting.  So whatever kind of mascots we choose, maybe its time to consider a cavewoman, Bellona, Vesta or even a doe.       

 

Moon (Film Review)

When I had the opportunity to see Duncan Jones’ feature directorial debut Moon at this year’s Sundance Film Festival I was pleasantly surprised.  Though an indie sci-fi flick, it stands apart from both other science fiction films and more general independent fare for its exploration of the human psyche in the near-total isolation of space. 

 

Moon tells the story of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), an employee of the mining company Lunar.  As the film opens Sam is nearing the end of a three-year stint to mine helium-3 for energy use back on earth.  Aside from a sentient computer named Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey), Sam is both alone and lonely, which loneliness becomes the dominant theme of the film’s first act.  As we see the station littered with Sam’s pastimes and watch him receive a message from his wife it becomes clear that his isolation has taken a toll on him.  Fortunately, his tenure is set to end and Sam anxiously counts down the days until his return to Earth.

 

As the film progresses, however, Sam becomes aware that things are not quite right.  He notices there are contradictions in his memory, for example, and that he can’t account for everything he sees.  In true sci-fi form Gerty also starts to act a little weird.  Though it would spoil the plot to say much more, it’s worth noting acts two and three follow an oddly externalized conflict of internal, psychological issues.  The results pack some entertaining surprises that affectionately play with typical sci-fi themes.

 

While the creativity with which the film addresses these issues is laudable, Moon also makes the unfortunate move of edging toward a heavy-handed diatribe against big corporations.  Of course, sci-fi has been used effectively for such an end before (Silent Running or even Alien are a good examples), but in the case of Moon that theme seems so much less interesting than earlier ideas about coming face-to-face with one’s own isolation.  Thankfully, Rockwell’s performance makes up much of the difference as the film treads more thematically murky waters, though I couldn’t help but wonder if there were just one too many ideas distracting from an otherwise remarkable story. 

 

Like any good sci-fi film, Moon has a fair dose of impressive visuals.  If the images are perhaps less stunning than recent films like Sunshine or The Fountain, they also seem appropriate for a story more concerned with interior landscapes than outer space.  The expansively dark lunarscapes, as well as the austere interior of the mining station, are sufficient for the genre but don’t call attention to themselves as visuals in those earlier films do.  In any case, the imagery is particularly impressive considering the film was made on a limited five million dollar budget. 

 

Ultimately, Moon isn’t a perfect film and audiences shouldn’t expect the same big themes and sense of awe that often characterize sci-fi.  On the other hand Jones’ direction demonstrates an innovative use of sci-fi conventions.  The filmmakers know their cinematic lineage well enough to embrace it while still saying something interesting.  Though Moon may not go down in the history books with predecessors like 2001: A Space Odyssey, it certainly provides a thought-provoking hour and a half.  

Gift Giving

I’m no fan of giving gifts.  In fact, in my ideal world there would probably be no gift giving at all.  Why?  Because, more often than not, both the recipient and the giver end up feeling guilty, inadequate, or just plain bad. 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I like to receive great gifts as much as the next person.  The problem is that if I need something, I usually go out and buy it before anyone has a chance to give it to me.  On those occasions when I don’t, it’s also rare that anyone knows I need the item, or the item is just too expensive.  For example, the thing I probably most need at the moment is a new computer.  However, I’m not going to spend the money on that right now, so it’d be a wonderful gift to get, except that it would be too expensive for anyone to give me.  If someone did give me a computer I’d probably feel really guilty and uncomfortable that they spent so much, so in the end I wouldn’t want it anyway.  The point is that I either have the things I need (and want), or I don’t really want them as presents.   

 

This works the other way too.  If I’m going to give someone something the whole process of preparing the present creates a build-up that almost inevitably ends in let-down.  Usually, one of several things will happen but the worst case (and all-to-common) scenario is that the recipient will not guess what it is because they think its something different and/or better than it really is.  This situation usually causes the recipient to be disappointed (because it wasn’t the desired item) and the giver to be embarrassed (because they didn’t know what to give, couldn’t afford it, etc.).  And lets also not forget that what you give someone reveals your perception of that person.  This is a disheartening prospect: who hasn’t either received a present or given one where the ultimate question seems to be “so this is how you think of me?” 

 

Another problem with gift giving is that the act of revealing the gift requires a performance from everyone involved.  The recipient has to seem genuinely excited, but not too excited because that could look fake, and the giver has to act pleased regardless of what they feel.  I think that this is a particularly difficult aspect of exchanging presents.  Who hasn’t seen a person that seemed visibly disappointed after opening a present?  I see this all the time and the only person who looks more pathetic is the giver, whose hopes of giving a nice gift have just been dashed.   

 

Ultimately giving gifts seems to be one of the biggest sources of unnecessary guilt and embarrassment out there.  I’ve seen gift cards work (at least the pretense of personalization and pricelessness is dropped), but many people find them impersonal, especially for close family members.  Of course, every group of people work this out differently, but in the end I wonder why we continue to put ourselves through something that is supposed to be fun, but usually just makes everyone feel bad.

Ice Road Truckers!

The other night I decided to watch some TV on Hulu.  I’d already watched Hulu’s first suggestion, Conan O’Brian’s debut on The Tonight Show, so I clicked on the second show that scrolled by: “Ice Road Truckers.”

 

The beginning of the show shocked me.  It started out by saying something like “last season these truckers drove their rigs across the thin ice of a frozen river.  This season they’ll be driving across… THE OCEAN!!!”  My immediate thought was “do they need to be driving across the ocean?  Are they doing this solely for the purpose of the show, or for some commercial endeavor?  Is this some sort of to-the-death contest, because I thought it was a documentary-type reality show?”  Maybe if I had watched season one I’d have known the answers to these questions, but for a first time viewer it seemed odd that a bunch of truckers would suddenly need to drive across the frozen Artic Ocean and that that need would conveniently correspond with the schedule of a TV show. 

 

The next few minutes provided more surprises, as well as some answers.  Apparently, the truckers were taking gear to a natural gas exploration post.  They were also veteran drivers who seemed to have been featured in season one, and who had decided to seek employment with this new company.  So it wasn’t some sort of daredevil contest.  The show also had some really cool visuals, like shots from beneath the ice and footage of lonely trucks completely isolated in the desolation and perpetual twilight of the Artic.  I can only imagine the difficulty of filming video like that.  It was also interesting to learn about how ice roads are built, which information was inter-cut with human-interest vignettes about worried family members.  The show was overly dramatic to the point of sensationalism, but the profession itself came across as authentically dangerous; apparently the ice cracks and changes all the time as plows and trucks drive over it. 

 

One thing that surprised me, however, was the absurdly simplistic premise that the show sets up: “brave men” fighting the elements in their effort accomplish a heroic task.  As I watched I couldn’t help but be flooded with a number of questions about what was really going on.  I don’t know much about natural gas mining, but I was left to wonder if “global energy exploration” is a hands-down positive thing?  The show certainly didn’t address that issue.  I also wondered what sort of impact this type of profession had on their families.  The show dealt with that briefly, but only as a method of raising the suspense later on.  (The producers asked family members if they were scared the truckers would fall through the ice, which they were, which then made me scared when I later watched them driving.)

 

What surprised me even more was that despite the show’s premise, many of the characters didn’t come off as ordinary working-class heroes.  While some were amiable enough, others were petulant or downright annoying.  In this way there was constant tension between the show’s writing, which tried to show brave men in dangerous places, and the reality of the situation, which included real people and complex relationships. 

 

In the end “Ice Road Truckers” is an interesting show with visuals that can’t help but raise questions about isolation and solitude.  Unfortunately, that aspect is often lost in the muck of mediocre producing and an unrealistically (an uninteresting) positive attitude.  In being purely focused on the drama of the profession the show ignored larger (more interesting) questions about the community, professional, and environmental impact of the job.