an american fiat

When I think of the most important things to me I always focus on travel. For me like everyone else travel is primarily about discovery. I zero in on the small details that collectively make up the character of a place in my understanding. 5-cent rolls in Berlin. The subway announcements which sounded as if they ended in “klariodnok” in Budapest. The sparkling orange-ish soda in the bahamas. Yet what remains in my mind more than anything are the everyday things that show evidence of history. As my life has focused on the part of the world which used to be governed by communism, related imagery is of paramount importance to me. The silence on public transportation in eastern Berlin. The Soviet-produced subway trains in Budapest. The word “Kosmonaut” in eastern dialects of German. Yet somehow the most important artifacts are the cars. The German Trabi, the Czech Skoda, and the Polish Mały Fiat. Now I know Fiat is Italian but for me the Italian Fiat is a glamorous car driven by people in Milan who spend thousands of dollars on clothes from companies involving names like Ferragamo. My knowledge of Italy Fiat and whoever Salvatore Ferragamo is is minimal but that’s not the point; it is unique from its Polish comrade. The Mały Fiat (or Little Fiat) is only Italian for me insofar as it is a symbol of a foreign company sending in their products for profits which would never benefit Poland. In Poland, the Mały Fiat is a comically tiny car observable everywhere, a symbol of economic imperialism and poverty. I am making no argument based on these claims as to its presence in the U.S. It was just anathema to me to see it here. Of course this is a mighty fine version of the Polish clunker sitting next to my car in the faculty lot here at The College of New Jersey.

remembrance of things passed

This is a perfect title for a blog of mine. It does several things. First it is a literary reference. This shows one side of me. It is also a reference to a book I haven’t read which also seems appropriate. It is furthermore wordplay something I also enjoy. Beyond this it speaks to nostalgia something that I feel becomes more and more appropriate to life as one grows in age. God help me when I truly understand nostalgia. It could also be seen as a sad sense of opportunities not taken. Finally it is a joke. I think of tests, gas, and kidney stones. A bad joke or an unfunny one completes the picture.

normative barbecuing

It is an interesting phenomenon how we gain a great a deal of enjoyment from basic things simply because we associate them with a collective identity. I understand that food cooked on a barbecue is especially good and that it is fun to sit outside fire up a grill and have a conversation… and a drink. I never really did any of that as a kid though. In Arizona the grill was outside and we were inside because the phenomenon of a grill warming you up as the sun goes down and the temperatures drop does not really work there. As an adult in Princeton and in Poland and now in Plainsboro I have learned to love it. I feel like I am doing what I am supposed to do with a slab of meat and charcoal. What exactly is it however that that makes it so satisfying? It connects me to some sense of belonging though I am not sure to what. I understand the enjoyment that comes from communal events even when there is no community present. Many people have religion which can still provide people with strength everyday even if they only worship once a week. I personally have politics music and soccer to keep me sane. I suppose we all have social media. The extent to which sites like Facebook and Tumblr are successful because we actually feel like we are socializing with real people is unclear to me. But in all these situations the communities are more clearly defined or at least I feel I understand the others involved even if I am completely unaware of a group’s actual makeup. Barbecuing however connects me to some unknown community. Adults perhaps? I do not know. I guess what I am ultimately saying is that my enjoyment of barbecuing stems from a desire for community through normative behavior without being sure what community or why it is useful to understand a rather general style of cooking as normative. In the end maybe I should stop thinking so much and instead of barbecuing on a cold Sunday evening I should just watch football … like a normal American.

the audacity of shutter speed

I love this image. Visually thematically and if you’ll allow it terminologically. Visually it is stunning. Seeing the movement of light never gets tiring. Thematically it is a rebuke of everything that I despise about modern “conservative” politics. Terminologically I like the fact that instead of a general affront to the Romney campaign or to Governor Walker of Wisconsin (I in fact have no idea. I only know that this comes from Wisconsin.) it refers to a specific political-philosophical approach to debt. On a higher level I enjoy the image because of how the photographer uses shutter speed (presumably as I know quite little about photography) to represent time. With an extremely rapid shutter speed we would be left wondering where this photo was taken. Or why we should question austerity. Or perhaps we would start to get angry at the Romney campaign as a conduit for our animosity resulting from our “progressive” views. However by showing us the time lapse in the image we are left to think about the photographer. We think about the individuals in the cars who must have seen this even as the rays of light carried their message from the bridge. We think about the itch in the hair of the woman holding the q or how cold the cars rushing by must have made it on that Wisconsin night. Maybe it was summer? We are left to think of this protest as one of individuals who believe in what they are doing and not simply as a message on a bridge. It is a method of revealing the presentation in the product itself. It uses the Verfremdungseffekt to stop us from simply focusing on the words themselves and instead realize that they were produced and that this was carried out by people with actual grievances. Perhaps people without health insurance. By announcing him/herself in the shutter speed we grasp the entirety of the event’s background and understand more deeply the meaning of the protestors’ argument. Instead of simply affirming the argument we are left wanting to act. Exactly as Brecht intended.

(1st post new concept) not quite mirror images

This is a great first picture for this account. It shows a modern Apple laptop with various cables showing that I have various iDevices. In the background there are a few purses and an old mirror on the floor. Furthermore the image is grainy because I was fiddling with Instagram filters as I learned how to use that App on my phone. This post was originally on Tumblr. It is interesting that there are two drastically different phenomena here. On the one side there are fashionable purses modern laptop iDevices and social media. On the we have the graininess of the image and the older mirror. Without the mirror and the graininess this would be an extremely cold and boring picture of purses laptops and implied iPhones and iPads. With the presence of the mirror and the Instagram-enabled “old” look the image takes on a warmth. Are we not driving a strong wedge between ourselves and the past throwing out all of our old possessions in favor of digital versions and then using this new technology to recreate false versions of our past? I suppose that is what people do in life. Or at least me. I constantly run away from the past mostly in embarrassed horror and then attempt to recreate it in an updated version. I make playlists to evoke emotions from middle school and prepare food just like my parents made it but with certain ingredients altered to fit my tastes. There is nothing wrong with any of this. However as this blog will dwell heavily on such issues I wanted to point out the appropriateness of this image.