Rock is out

To me, Rock Records was a symbol of solidarity. Its cartoon-adorned facade sat on the south side of Washington Avenue, right around the corner from the 'L' station where I de-board each day. I would pass it and smile internally as my feet kept their typical "shoot-I'm-gonna-be-late-again" pace. Flanked by tall, glassy office buildings, this independent shop represented the possibility of what I was trying to do: paralegal by day, writer by night; business casual in my cube, thrifty chic at home.

About two weeks ago, I called Rock Records looking for a copy of an old Noah Baumbach film on DVD (you probably know which one I'm talking about). The phone rang, and rang and rang. No answer. I figured the clerks were just listening to something loud and couldn't hear the phone. I decided I'd stop by after work. When I did, I found that my partner in downtown indie had permanently closed its doors. The blue-painted metal diamond-shaped gate stretched across the front glass windows and entryway, and even the painted characters had been taken down. Though downtown still appears tall and shimmery, economic fall-out looms, and Rock seems to be the first to feel it.

It seemed only a matter of time - given this first recession-related blow - before the same thing would start happening to other independent downtown businesses. My sense of foreboding, it turns out, proved accurate when, this week, I was laid off from my job - only eight months after I started.

I keep coming back to Rock Records and all the other closed-up storefronts in the smaller neighborhoods of Chicago. Clark and Diversey is almost a ghost town these days. It just doesn't seem like the best time to be living in an expensive city anymore. As I made my way home from work, still in shock, I noticed something disheartening among my fellow 'L' riders - that is, just how many of their work bags and laptop cases were outfitted with corporate logos (a lot).

As small businesses stuggle and dwindle in this economy, security seems to lie only in numbers - big giant corporate numbers - and the ability to remain in Chicago, for most of us, depends on the strength of these companies. My doom & gloom prediction on the train platform that day was this: when it all boils down and the numbers even out, those who can't afford this town will be forced out, leaving a skeleton of large corporate entities and a vacuum of personality and culture.

Today, refreshed after a few days of contemplating my creative options (now that I have so much time on my hands), I have a new prediction: all those folks who have been married to the growing volume of their work, who have stayed late and stressed and taken on extra hours as the economy boomed, who now find themselves jobless (like me), will see this as an opportunity. Maybe our hopeless predicament will lead to an outpouring of creativity. Maybe this is what we needed to feed the souls of the corporate society we had become.

Two possible directions for society. So many possible directions for me. This is the time. Rock out.

a bit of philosophy (bear with me)

A wise friend said something in conversation nearly a year and a half ago, and it is still with me. I keep thinking about that moment. She said, “your life is your art”. In other words, you are your own work of art; we live to actualize what each of us believes to be beautiful.

There are so many reasons this rings true, and I have been pondering it a lot lately. For one, the creation process in art – and in life – is painful. I have heard many a friend or artistic acquaintance expound on how “true art cannot be achieved without pain” - just as the full and accomplished life is not obtained over years of sunbathing by a pool. There is work involved, and personal pain and sacrifice. There are countless failures and the smallest moments of joy.

And it all takes time. The process of creating a beautiful life is never brief. Some friends and I were discussing Brad Pitt a few nights ago, and one of them pointed out that he is 45 years old. He is nearly twice our age. When he was 26 (my age), he had a small role in “Thelma & Louise” which, I’m sure, is a fond and funny memory for him, but not nearly the type of role that aligns to my understanding of who he is as an actor. His most definitive career moments, in my opinion, probably did not begin until he was at least into his mid-thirties (“Fight Club”).

Despite these sorts of examples, we all still seem to think we are supposed to achieve greatness before age 30. I sense a growing fear among my peers of the approaching infamous birth date – that it is somehow an endpoint, after which the focus will be on other things and we’ll have missed our only shot at actualizing our dreams.

I do admit that I am nervous about the large portions of my “canvas” that remain blank. The parts I have sketched out don’t always seem to make sense with each other. I have erased and started over a few times, and I don’t know - if I were to step back - whether any of it would seem beautiful.

But the point is that we are all moving toward something, which each of us will come to define for ourselves. We may have no concept of what our art will look like in ten or 20 years, but we should be confident that it can only keep getting better. There is no deadline for self-determination, there is only the possibility of greater beauty.

apologies

I have been spending most of my free time these days working on this. I do plan to post a new entry here soon, though.

quelling

Tonight my roommate and I walked to the drug store, after an extended back-and-forth whinealog about needing toilet paper and sandwich bags, and who should go get them. We agreed to slog through the muggy early evening together, and appease each other with frozen custard on the way back.

The custard stand occupies a corner storefront on Belmont Avenue, and summer evenings find it air conditioned ice cold and crammed with sticky bodies. The side of the building runs back up the street perpendicular to Belmont and a few benches and trash cans line the sidewalk surrounding a small red-awning-clad walk-up window. Thinking ourselves to have outsmarted the crowd stuck in the winding and awkward line indoors, we sallied up behind a father waiting to order his kids a treat.

The younger of his two boys, curly-brown wisps of hair framing his gleaming face, was excitedly tapping his hands on his father’s thigh as the attendant placed the previous customer’s confections on the sill. Chocolate custard with brownie bits and gummy worms, vanilla custard with cookie dough, a junior hot fudge shake – the small child’s tongue curled uncontrollably around one side of his lower lip as his face turned upward.

His feet began to tap. I watched the child’s face as his father ordered a cup of chocolate custard, and the way his expression changed from general ice cream excitement to the realization that his dreams of sweet cold creamy bliss would be realized – that chocolate cup was for him! His weight shifted from one foot to the other at a quickening pace, and he shook his hands in the air, mimicking the idle shake one might employ to dry the hands after washing. His tongue was still out and his face fixed on the light emanating from the window, as his entire body betrayed his excitement.

At that moment, it occurred to me that I felt the very same way. I felt exactly the same about the chocolate custard that I was on the verge of having for my own. I could not wait! It was going to taste so good!

But no hand-flip-flopping-tongue-lolling ice cream dance for me. I quelled this feeling and stood and smiled. I pointed him out to my roommate and we laughed. He was so sincere and unaware; we knew he had been thinking about that ice cream for a good long time.

Throughout our meandering lives, we negotiate our instinctual reactions to every sort of new event and personal experience, learning to recognize that our emotions – from pure ice cream joy to kicking-screaming tantrums of angry frustration (another scene I witnessed this week at Starbucks) – are something that we are able to, and must, allay. Grace is emotional maturity. It is a rare possession.

Most recently, I have grown aware of my capricious tendency to chase lofty goals, considering only vaguely the practicality of my choices, then changing my mind altogether a few months later. I look back on a career path that seems most closely to resemble, metaphorically of course, that of a curious dog: following one “scent” so intently, only to pick up on another one, alter his course completely, and earnestly follow his nose until the next thing strikes his fancy.

I want to think there is something that ties together all my disordered yet earnest wandering (the dog does, ultimately, make it around the block, right?) I feel I may be on the verge of finding it, and I know part of that has to do with quelling.

A few days ago, my excited brain picked up on something. Why not, I asked myself, pursue a career in asylum law and join the Free Tibet movement and work with refugees and publish articles and tour the country and save the world and learn the Tibetan language and start practicing Buddhism and be the one to finally, personally, give China the big old boot? And right away this time, there was another part of me that sighed and rolled her eyes. There are many reasons that, although it would be a very noble path, it is not the one for me.

It is the hot fudge brownie sundae with sprinkles. It sounds so good. But I know I would rather treat myself, gracefully, to something else.

in with the old

There is a thought I have been mulling over and around, something I have wanted to explore but haven't been sure the proper format or style with which to meditate on the issue. But just now I was reading about these "new cities" - Shenzhen and Dubai - and they struck me as emblematic.

For years I have wondered when this generation's fascination with all things 'retro' would subside. Being an unavoidable member of said generation, I will certainly admit to being of the same mind. Old cowboy boots, vintage dresses, antique boudoir, retro-print hand towels: I got 'em. I am only now, however, beginning to understand, perhaps, why I like them so much.

Think of Europe - the way the folks there harken back to better times, the way Americans tour around and gasp and wish we had that kind of living history at our fingertips, and are convinced that the Renaissance architects and painters and writers really knew how to live. Then we come back home and put on an old Dylan record, and lace up our Chucks, and walk down to the dive bar with the orange and brown upholstered chairs and Schlitz beer (it's back!). Maybe we even bring along a pair of big aviators for the walk over. Or just for style.

But what style? The style of our parents. The style of our grandparents. Quaint and appealing, yes. But why? What happened to The Present?

So along come China and India, building their new cities around all the little old towns and settlements (kind of like we did in the U.S.). Constructing the shiniest, tallest, and most different-looking architecture you've ever seen. "They want to make everything new" because they are the future of economic and cultural hegemony and they know it.

Could it be that Americans are finally letting go? We'll just bask in our memories of the good days - the infant days of Rock 'n' Roll - when we had it going on, we think. We're the new Europe. We brought a lot to the world for a few centuries, and now it's someone else's turn. Is that it?