New Traditions for Old

As I look out into my back garden, at the leaf-covered yard, and sheets hanging on the line, I'm musing about the changed character of holidays in our household. The weather is uncharacteristically (for this time of year) fine, after a brief morning shower that barely dampened the laundry (which has been hanging there since Saturday, sort of on purpose because leaving it overnight softens and "irons" bed linens better than anything one could add to the washer or dryer; I just forgot to take it in yesterday, so it got another night of airing). My long Thanksgiving break is coming to a close, and there are three more rather hectic weeks before the quarter's finished and a slightly longer winter break begins.

It occurred to me that over the last couple of years two new traditions have arisen for the Beloved Spouse and me. The first I've mentioned--the change of venue for the Thanksgiving meal from our house to our daughter's loft. The second, however, is probably more meaningful in the end: our refusal to participate in "Black Friday," which has become an emblem of corporate control over modern lives, and of the meaningless greed for stuff (and more stuff) that seems to have penetrated into the very being of American life.

The news yesterday was full of stories about how the economy seems to be turning around at least slightly, because so many people were apparently hopeful enough (or solvent enough) to go out and spend themselves into a frenzy after stuffing themselves with turkey. Some even seem to have foregone the feast in order to feed their desire for--what? Big screen TVs, elaborate and kitschy plastic toys, trendy clothing, digital gizmos of all varieties . . . and the list goes on. And on.

The stories were illustrated by footage of people standing in long lines overnight, and/or rushing through doors at ungodly hours to grab the "great deals." More videos followed of people standing in endless lines with shopping carts stuffed and piled high with goods (just what is "good" about "goods," I now wonder). Families, according to the Daily Poop, have made their own new traditions: shopping together. But stories of fights in malls and shopper stampedes indicated that not all of this was simply a pleasant way to spend time together after a good meal.

One good thing about living in the Bible Belt is that Sundays are pretty good days to shop, especially before church lets out. So the BS and I finally braved the crowds--which turned out to be sparse--and went out for several hours yesterday. We stopped in at Half Price Books and then had a long lunch at a sports bar (all the better to watch the finals of ATP tennis), picked up some small stuff at several stores in the "Villages" (a newish local outdoor mall that straddles the road between two adjacent towns; the one dud was a visit to the newly opened "a Real Bookstore," which turned out to be nothing of the sort), and ended our trip at Whole Foods. This was, after all, a milk run for the most part. But, including lunch and a late-birthday set of Deadwood for the BS, the whole thing set us back very little--especially since we hadn't done anything like this in months.

I've realized over these last few years of trying to live more thoughtfully, frugally, and responsibly, that small pleasures are fairly easy to come by. Meals based on pastured meat, humanely-treated cows and chickens, and well-raised plants don't even have to taste better (although they generally do, in part because I think more about how to cook them) to feel better. Spending more on food than on non-essentials means that farmers are getting more of what I pay for what I get. At some point in the near future, I'm going to write about the high cost of cheap food, but in the meantime I'm trying to plan meals and purchases ever more carefully so that I can afford to spend what they're worth.

Many people, I know, are in no position to be making these choices, because they don't have the time or the income or the opportunity; but I do, and so I can't ignore the consequences of what and how I buy. I've learned to do without a great deal, and I could certainly do without much of what I still buy. But I haven't yet reached the point at which I can live happily without my computer, the DVD library, the occasional new book or download to the iPad.

The balance between need and desire around here is still tenuous. At least, however, shopping is no longer an arbitrary activity, undertaken for its own sake. I've learned to postpone purchasing anything new until I've had time to think about its impact. I avoid going out to shop at all unless I can combine trips, and make sure I've got the cash for it; credit cards are reserved for dire emergencies (usually pet-related). The immediate result of these strategies, oddly enough, is increased enjoyment and appreciation for what the object (such as the aforementioned iPad) adds to our lives: the ability to read the New York Times on the exercise bike, or a digital edition of a magazine that doesn't have to be recycled.

A better man than I would probably think me frivolous for even desiring a new toy like this; and I'm likely to agree with him. But as the Beloved Spouse pointed out to me yesterday, while we were reflecting on our shopping trip, these are our small means of escape from an increasingly heavy burden: educating young people who have grown up in a culture that values entertainment more than intellect, instant gratification more than curiosity, and quantity over quality.

We have miles to go before we sleep. And so while I am always eager to rant away about the profusion of things that seem to preoccupy most lives, I do try not to feel smug about my sources of delight. Nevertheless, I can't help but feel good about the fact that I get at least as much pleasure from smelling my freshly folded, line-dried sheets as I do from reading the Times Magazine on the little digital reader we mulled over buying.

In truth, we would have bought it on the spot had it been available, rather than waiting the week or so before they were in stock at the local Buy More. My examination of technology and necessity will, therefore, have to remain a work in progress.

Image credit: Berthe Morisot, Hanging the Laundry out to Dry, 1875. Wikimedia Commons.

Enough

Once again the coalescence of news items has generated a rant—this time on my old favorite, greed. Part of it has to do with seeing on last night’s news broadcasts huge crowds of people racing into malls and big-box electronics stores (“Buy More” as they call “Best Buy” on my favorite new TV show, Chuck) on Thanksgiving day to get a head start on their Christmas shopping. Then, a report on last night’s local news show about the theft of plasma TVs from a downtown Baptist church and this morning’s item about Oral Roberts’s scion, Richard, and his ousting from Dad’s university brought it all together.

Today’s Dallas Morning News clarified the story about the heist in its article “Thanksgiving thieves rob First Baptist of Dallas.” Not only did the crooks get away with eight (count ‘em) plasma TVs, but they tied up three security guards to do it. Now, my first question ran something like this: why the hell did a Baptist church feel it necessary to buy eight plasma TVs worth (according to the News) $5000? And why does a church need to employ three security guards (to whom they were no doubt—or at least I would hope—paying overtime for working on Thanksgiving)? Good grief.

And then, of course, there’s Richard Roberts. According to the New York Times, Roberts has resigned from the presidency of the university founded by his father Oral amid “allegations of a $39,000 shopping tab at one store for Richard Roberts' wife, Lindsay, a $29,411 Bahamas senior trip on the university jet for one of Roberts' daughters, and a stable of horses for the Roberts children.” His activities have apparently been an object of concern for at least twenty years, and who knows what the tipping point might have been (one too many horsies?).

I’m not picking on evangelicals in particular; these activities are simply a manifestation of an overall phenomenon: the modern (American) propensity for overindulgence. But since they’re supposed to be preaching the gospel of the guy who purportedly said that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven . . . well, I’m certainly not the first person to point out the inconsistency.

But greed manifests itself everywhere, not just in the higher echelons of evangelical churches. Way too big houses, Hummers, giant plasma TVs—all the trappings of North Texas middle class life are essentially wasteful, extravagant symbols of the current idea that more is more, and that if my neighbor has it, I need to get it too.

We simply don’t seem to understand the concept of enough. We always think we need a bigger house, a fancier car, trendier clothes. The sheer excess emitting from the advertising sections of the newspaper is enough to spark communists to riot—if there were any left.

Last night, my husband and I watched the Tim Robbins film, The Cradle Will Rock, about the WPA/Federal Theater Project production of the musical of the same name by Marc Blitzstein in 1937. The film was highly entertaining, and rather poignant in places, but its images of the depression-era lines of folk seeking work melted into the background amid the personal stories of Blitzstein and his actors caught up in the politics of the McCarthy inquisition and anti-Red fever. It’s hard to believe that the film was about a moment in U. S. history that occurred only seventy years ago. It doesn’t seem that long ago to me, even though the events in the film happened ten years before I was born.

It also doesn’t seem that far away when I open my electronic copy of the Times and read about the impact of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco in Bob Herbert’s column, “Lost in a Flood of Debt.” Ordinary people, extraordinary events—not exactly the stuff of Greek tragedy, but reminiscent of what preceded the throngs of unemployed people standing in long lines waiting for the remote opportunity to earn a few nickels at odd jobs, or in a theatrical production.

I’ll be lecturing on “art between the wars” this week, and showing Robert Hughes’s film “Streamlines and Breadlines” from his series, American Visions. I’ll have to recommend that students see the Robbins film as well, not only for its amusing portrayal of Diego Rivera and the story of the ill-fated Rockefeller Center mural, but for a sense of the WPA’s importance as a public project focused on the arts and humanities. I doubt if anything of the kind will ever emerge again, because the concept of art as a necessary part of life will have been gobbled up by a focus not on need (art to enrich the soul), but on desire—a wish list of stuff everybody “needs,” like Hummers, huge houses, and plasma TVs in their churches. And whatever you can pick up for cheap if you shop on Thanksgiving day, instead of waiting a whole twenty four hours for the sales frenzy to begin.