Tag: Tom Wolfe

Two front teeth

Tom Wolfe in one of his quirky observations mentioned that “New York got knocked out of its two front teeth” (in reference to 9/11).

It was a dark day for all.

Even today, as we remember it.

It jolted us our of our slumber.

Neighbor comforted neighbor. Don Dillon mentioned “the jumpers” in his novel.

I, on the other hand, will never forget Peter Jennings whose death was tied to that event.

We can eulogize, theologize and philosophize to death what actually happened.

But we cannot deny there were all elements of humanity there: hatred and heroism, harmfulness and helpfulness.

From today’s vantage point, we know that revenge exacted and relations strained (mistrust and mishap in the ME).

9/11 was the pinnacle of events. A confluence of technology and terrorism, miscalculation and precision (except for the United 93 flight whose passengers gave their lives to contain the damage).

Yes, two front teeth got knocked out.

But the body still stands.

A bit wobbling, but still on its own feet.

The phoenix shall rise.

And we are all the stronger albeit scarred.

Teeth could be replanted.

But our psyche has yet to heal.

Hence smiling reluctantly, thinking there still were some missing teeth somewhere.

It matures us quickly. All the emotions spent (anger, denial etc..). All that is left is a sense of reluctance, even to start another war. Warring doesn’t bring strategic benefits, even when tactically, it delivers. It’s time to think like a father, a mother, and not tactician or technician i.e. plane to fly on family vacation, and not as weapon, building to shelter from the storm and not tombstone for world memorial. New York, say “cheese”.

Same river twice

This is not about going back to your prom night, or re-entering the job market.

It’s about locality and landscape that have been gentrified and occupied by new comers as time passed. I happened to be by the old neighborhood where I used to live 30 years ago: same Peking Duck restaurant, same Post Office.

Even a bunch of day laborers standing around and trying to keep warm.

My parents however have passed away.

So the scenery and streets evoked warm memories.

What’s new was a French Restaurant which was staffed with recently arrived immigrants (while the speakers played French lessons, naturellement).

The neighborhood has taken on some wrinkles. So have I.

Especially on this first day of March (the worst of winter was now behind), and first day of Sequestration (even the country got some wrinkles).

People refused to break away from winter hibernation and spending spree.

Wish I could turn the clock back, to see myself receive my US citizenship again. That time frame would put me to the time waiting eagerly for my Dad to immigrate and be reunited with us.

That year (1983), I embarked on a long trip, my second one to SEA.  Only years later that I was able to attribute my hidden motivation: atonement. When we had first arrived, we were each man to his own, leaving our Mom behind in the refugee camp. My subsequent trips back to SEA similar camps were for carthasis, a counter-prevailing statement to popular  “habits of the heart”.

No fanfare. Just slipped out and away.

Trying to pay forward.

Among the Best-selling books after Habits of the Heart was, Bowling Alone, the logical next step. People turned inward, each man for himself (Ask  what you can do for yourself).

Conservatism got anointed by televised and telegenic preachers (who later confessed to unfaithfulness and unraveling affairs).

President, Pope and Pop star (j Lennon) all got shot.

Are you talking to me? For I am the only one here! Tony Montana wanted to “go to the top”, starting in Miami (after a brief stop at Indiantown Gap refugee processing center, same place our now scattered families had passed through).

I had blurry memories of the mid-80’s simply because I was concentrating on non-profit work overseas.

When I got back, I seemed to have missed a few beats (Boy George? Cindy Lauper?) and a few friends’ weddings.

So, after three decades, the memory gap is huge. Can’t seem to swim in the same river twice.

I have changed. The place has changed. It’s now colder than I remembered. Perhaps I have turned to be a “tropical species”.

Maybe I should be migrating South to Florida, and joining the “snow birds” .

Maybe a cruise ship, so I don’t need to belong anywhere in particular, or swim in any river per se.

The price of being a global citizen is the loss of one’s local identity.

I will never forget the punch line in Cross-Cultural class: it’s easier to cross the ocean miles away than the neighbor next to you. When I saw the new neighbors in that neighborhood today, the above saying seems to take on new meaning: they did all the ocean-crossing to get here. And to reach out across the aisle seems to be doubly hard, because of rules and signs that say “first comes first served”, “Do not trespass”, or “Do Not Disturb” “Beware of Dogs”. Maybe I should return in the summer, when the community pool is opened to all residents, regardless of color, race and creed. “Swim at your own risks”. Even then, you are lucky to strike a conversation across the lounge chairs. Be quiet! People are reading. Hope they don’t work on “Habits of the Heart” in 2013. Even Tom Wolfe has moved on down to Miami with Back to Blood, away from New York ‘s Bonfire of  the Vanities.

2012 Bookmarking

I used to rely on researchers like the Tofflers (Future Shock) to “see” into the future.

For instance, the pro-sumer trend, the mismatching speeds among various sectors ( IT, Financial, Educational, Governmental…in that order).

Lately, all I came across in Futurism was 2012 prophecy .

Like it or not, this year will have come down as a special year, if not, end of an era.

Let me explain.

We had a bloody closure on a terrible event which Tom Wolfe ably put “New York got knocked out of its two front teeth”. Then, Sandy rinsed through the Big Apple as if to complete this dental procedure.

Up North, we buried school kids died not of their own choices.

In today’s NYT Op-Ed, Father Kevin was quoted as saying “we are God’s presence to extend Mercy incarnate to one another”.

2012 marked a year full of flood and blood.

Dark Night Rises, while  we hardly hear George Harrison‘s Heres Comes the Sun.

I wish I can still rely on the likes of Tofflers to point out where our technological society is heading.

But then, while focusing on I-phone, I-pad and I-pod, we forgot the I-ndividual.

Consumer or Prosumer, the individual loves, laughs and learns.

When the power is out, and the water level keeps rising, people suffer.

Don’t tell me it’s war time (which somehow makes suffering a matter of fate).

It’s peace time. And we can’t handle the truth, still.

The truth is: we are victims of our own progress. We live too long, consume too much and complain far too little (venting does not affect change)

I love technology when it humanizes our society. It carries us to far-away places. But technology makes it too easy for kids to take down kids (compare to No Easy Day – set in Pakistan – Newtown shooting was far too Easy a day).

I know we will soon rid of the keyboard, mouse and monitor. The technology has already been beta-tested. Those are good stuff.

Softwares continue to rule the day.

James Bond already paired up with a much younger whiz, while his boss is nearing retirement. Signs of the time.

What it is ain’t exactly clear.

But if we don’t hear Here Comes the Sun, at least I suggest we click on “It don’t come easy“. Always with a price. Insurance companies are quick to spread the liabilities and costs, but slow to recompense.

Same with everything else. Statement comes due. Rent is up. It don’t come easy. But somehow, being “mercy incarnate” to one another doesn’t come at all. We barely grasp the concept much less putting it into practice. Yet other “right” such as the right to bear arms, has been built-in as second nature. I propose another amendment: next to the right to bear arms is the responsibility to pay for the victims killed by arms.

No Farewell to Arms. Own them, but just realize, like other technologies, everything comes with a price. Why should someone’s kids be your target practice. And why should civilized society be forced to make an U-turn back to Pre-Khan Mongolian era to pamper the rights of a few (9 guns out of every ten Americans). 2012. Something about that number.

Hate it or like it, we still have a few more days before Count Down. Have a “closure” weekend. Remember to plug-in your electronic devices, and while at it, plug yourself in as well. We need to be recharged as much as those things we have created.

Tears for Connecticut

If this blog were written in ink, it would be blotted with tears.

The photo of a school parent on cell  phone crying says it all.

Tears over wireless. Tears over space. Heck, I am in Vietnam, and won’t be back after Christmas. But I feel the pinch, the lump in the throat (try to listen to Tears in Heaven, by Eric Clapton, while advancing the slides about Newtown memorial service).

Who is to be blamed? God? Gun? or (lack of ) Gut?

The First Lady has been hard at work to improve school lunch (healthier menu). She got some opposition there (how hard is it to add yogurt and sliced apple to the institutional menu? Just outsource to McDonald).

Now, the job is not to add fresh fruit to the school. It’s to take the guns out of it.

The upcoming battle in America is not from outside. It’s right there from within.

Hollywood has taken the path of least resistance (sex + violence =  high revenue).

Porn sites were even lazier (just upload and watch your own).

Moralists are definitely not listened to (Cultural Literacy recommends the public to read Chaucer etc…) since they are way out of touch with mainstream conversation.

That leaves the World Wild West unfiltered.

In Back to Blood, Tom Wolfe painted an America of the future, with setting in Miami (giant projected porn flick on sail boats).

Each President got a four-year term, or 8 years max. Policies and politics don’t take the long view. They can not.

Career officers, of course, just do their jobs (until it changes again).

Meanwhile, no single person, well-meaning or not, can affect the outcome of the country. It’s natural selection. It always has been since its founding.

Checks and bounces. On the other hand, it’s this and that. When in doubt, we debate. Once in a while, we listen to Ron Paul, at least, out of courtesy, since it was his last speech before Congress.

But then, we move on. Short-term amnesia. Until the next tragedy. Aurora seems so far away. Now, it’s Newtown, Connecticut. Then, who could pro-actively prevent Newton, Mass? Wipe those tears away. Then, stand up. (as of this edit, there was a similar tragedy averted in Central FL University).

Those gun laws were written in their times within the agrarian Frontier contexts. Take the meaning, reframe it in new context. Yes, there are timeless stuff (right to privacy, right to self-defense and freedom of expression; all the good stuff that makes America what it is, a magnet to the world’s braves), but then, would you, as an Iraqi refugee, an Egyptian businessman, a French chef and Australian educator, think twice about coming to America, risking everything, including the young lives of your children? It makes for poor image as world’s leader.

All to the payload

Nothing goes to waste. Neither a minute nor an experience, good or bad.

This is not pre-destination. It is how our brain stores and evolves. Millions of calculation, prediction, reflection and reinvention.

Like technology which evolves, so do we. We made a mistake. We did it again. Then we learned. Both David Brooks and Jeremy Rifkin talked about Empathic Civilization and how men have come to relate emotionally.

We (men) were taught at an early age to hunt, to conquer and move on.

e.g. the All-terrain man (NYT Magazine March 20-2013)

If we failed, shake it off with whiskey and move on.

Tough guys don’t dance, or buy-in to empathy, emotional intelligence or group therapy.

Yet studies like the Grant Study found that men do learn from mistakes and adjust in due course.

Partly because the nature of warfare has changed (from hard to software), partly because of women have moved further in the workplace (which gave birth to a bunch of stay-at-home dads).

Whatever the reasons, we do see a generation of sensitive men emerge (or titles like “The End of Men”.

Men who use I-pod, I-phone and I-pad.

Men who drive electric cars (which Tom Wolfe calls the Elf, in his latest Back-to-Blood novel). Men who could be President (Clinton) or just be big-dog supporter of our currently re-elected President.

Not much ego there. Just collaboration across the aisle and across the ocean.

We are living in interesting times: Outgoing Chinese President, and incumbent US  President.

We wouldn’t hear comments as back in Watergate days “I would run over my grandmother for the job” (Chuck Colson).

Now, it’s 2012. The world is tweeting, sharing, Liking, posting, commenting and crowdsourcing.

Utopia? Not quite.

But much better. More empathic a civilization. The late stage of evolution. Grown men do drink milk. Wear tight pants, and do yoga. Yes, I know how you feel. Nothing goes to waste. Those hours of watching and feeding the kids.

It’s well worth it. The bonding at bed-time reading. We have become role-models. For me, I hope my generational “curse” stops here. (unlike the final scene in Exorcist where the young priest, tormented so much he had to take his own life to end the never-ending downward spiral).

I hope for my girls a much better life than mine.

Nothing goes to waste. We transmit those DNA strands and a few variables of our own. It happens to be the first stage of empathic men, last stage of Alpha male.

God bless Aimy and Maily.

Memoir yet to be written

The 70’s was coined the ME decade (Tom Wolfe).

I am OK, you’re OK. By now, we should see the ME products on the shelves: from Shirley MacLaine to her brother Warren Beatty, from Rock Hudson to Ron Reagan.

Last of the hardback memoirs. Last of generation ME.

We now join the world, for WE ARE THE WORLD, to the tune of 1 billion faces on Facebook.

An oil refinery went wrong somewhere up North, all of Southern California suffered (last week, gas price hit $5.00 per gallon).

I am an ardent fan of the future. The presence of the future is shown in each child’s eyes. Potential and possibilities.

No politics.

Their experience are mediated through a parental “firewall”. But the rest of reality out there to a child , who is holding an I-pad, is full of promises.

Why, why, why?

Adults can come up with 10 “why nots”, before we can come up with one “why” we should pursue a course of action (change).

Life has dragged us down.

So much that it would be more appropriate for us to wear “handicapped” T-shirts (instead of Superman).

I admire people who show up at the gym. At least, there are a handful of people who know their priorities.

Then, we should be paying attention to legacy.

It’s likely that we will be remembered for one thing, the way Presidents could not live down that one war they presided over.

Will yours be the innovator? The enabler? The leader? The thinker? The Creator? The Peace Maker?

We got that spark of divinity. Just that it got buried deep or blurred along the way.

No one has encouraged us to strive for more, strike for gold, or reach out to the stars.

They want to catch us speeding (they mean the machine, the hidden cameras etc…).

In other words, we live in a society predisposed to punishment instead of rewards.

Yet we pay lip service to employee of the month parking spot (next to handicapped’s).

I have noticed a detrimental trend during the Recession: those who don’t have jobs have gotten used to their second-class citizenry.

And those who hold a job, have also been deflated and resigned to becoming machine-like, which ironically, makes them vulnerable and replaceable by automation.

So, the ME decade in the 70’s gradually dies out (as shown in Memoirs and Biography shelves). In its place, we got the rise of the machine, a mindset (resignation to fate) and even the “end of men” as recently emerged in gender discussions. In twenty years, we expect to see more memoirs by accomplished women executives (HP, IBM, xerox, Facebook, yahoo, Pepsi…) and those who broke the glass ceiling, whether occupational or social (Oprah, Melinda Gates, Merkel, Rice, Hillary). Memoirs yet to be written. Could be yours and mine. With extended life expectancy, you do have time to sort and sift through those raw materials for your memoir. Just make sure to use the word WE  often. So We can share it, re-tweet it, and Like it.

P.S. As of this edit, Lean-In by Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg, has just been released and moved to top spot on USA Today book list, just to prove my point.

Socially connected

The inner ring then the outer ones.

We learn to trust, to collaborate.

Great things cannot be achieved alone.

That’s why the President tweets. That’s why we tweet.

Do you know someone who needs our services?

Or some place who is hiring so our students can apply.

We need those links and those leads.

People need people.

On LinkedIn, we keep seeing so and so is now connected with so and so.

The social graph keeps getting denser. Pretty soon, the net (shaped in our image) will be big enough to carry us to safety *unlike our social safety net which is in need of mending).

New world order, fashioned after our image and likings.

I have come across issues and images I would never have come across on my own.

Thanks to the net economy and taxonomy; yes, I can.

Let’s see if Twitter will tip the election (Kennedy election was a close call as well).

I suspect that it will.

We are not back in 2000. We are in 2012.

Apocalyptic year.

And we have made it thus far pass Labor Day.

Penn State lost 2 games out of the gate.

And the economy, especially in Europe, is still puttering.

Hard times. Like those Post Recession black and white phoros (migrant Madonna).

Something is to be done but then everything has been done.

Together we can. Can’t we.

More than ever before, we are socially connected.

More than ever before, we are doing worse.

What paradox!

What predicament!

All the tools in the world All the help in the world.

Yet still stuck in lower gear.

If we apply the five stages of grief  to the situation, we are now somewhere pass Anger and Denial.

We are in Compromise and Depression.

When people compromised, they ask for less  in return.

And when they are in depression, nothing gets done. Hitting the blank wall. Everything shuts down.

Socially connected or not, let’s remind one another to quickly Accept (acknowledge the Elephant in the room), and move one. Get out and vote . Get some fresh air. Go travel and spend money. Fall is a good time to catch up on some spending and yes, reading (Tom Wolfe is coming out with his voluminous piece again). Turn the chapter to “your life 2.o”.

Learn from Penn State, even with its first two losses. Ouch!

Conversant program

If it weren’t for people like Shawn, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

You see, Shawn was a shy Penn State student of  the Horticulture department who wanted to volunteer his time.

It turned out that the Foreign Student Conversant Program matched us together in our first year of college.

That year as it turned out was my best year: how to pronounce “hor”, like in “whore-house”? onto going to frat parties where Shawn finally joined.

There are aspects of English which come across to learners as incomprehensible (what’s that silent “P”  doing there in front of “psychology”) to euphemisms we invented as we go along like “enhanced interrogation” , “assisted suicide” and Leanning-in/Leanning-out.

What Shawn did was :

– he showed me that he cared (by listening more than talking)

– he was trying to cope with the new situation on campus himself

– he was way ahead of the curve on environmental awareness and his calling in that direction.

We lost touch even during college, but I will always remember Shawn for his kindness and friendship.

The last time I saw him was at a frat party, in a crowded Greek-alphabet house off-campus.

We did not talk much that night besides acknowledging each other across the dance floor. So much for being “conversant”.

The fact that we were there in the same room, him rushing the fraternity and me rushing for life in America, said it all.

It was an unusual pairing: he from rural Pennsylvania, I big city. Shawn had not seen nor heard any noise except for Fourth of July fireworks, and I, witnessed practically every Cold War arsenal exhibited in the hot theater of war.

We found each other through the International Student affairs program. We often got “sexiled” (again using Tom Wolfe‘s term) and both felt proud that “WE ARE”  “PENN STATE”.

In our age of globalization, where a small dispute in the South China Seas could trigger a major war (Tonkin Resolution whose Pentagon Papers will be declassified Monday, and now China vs Vietnam with territorial disputes), we can use a bunch of “Shawn” for soft-power influence.

I did not tell Shawn much about my failed attempt at the US embassy in Saigon, or about my subsequent floating in the salty seas.

That fact was understood as subtext over rootbeer and fries. Shawn with a beard, and me hardly had to shave at all.

I wonder what he made of me. I just know that out of the 30,000 students on campus, Shawn was my friend, the very first one.

And the only one I have ever known to pick that particular major. I learned a new vocabulary out of him, if not a whole new appreciation for volunteerism. I learned another concept later in life: “paying forward”. To me, Shawn triggered a chain of events which last way past his freshmen year. He, in today’s social media parlance, essentially “friending” me, conversing instead of chatting. I miss those face2face days over rootbeer.

Growing old in post 9/11 era

Younger generations are growing up digital. I grow old in post 9/11. We were bumping along, thinking the dot.com burst was the story of the Century. Then, the unthinkable happened. Brave were the men on United Flight 93. Our lives have never been the same since (collective survivor’s guilt).  An act of outright violence needed to be dealt with. It was one thing for the French to vent about McDonalisation or Disneylandisation in Paris. But it’s quite another to plot and plan an attack on American soil to bring about caliphate.

Now they know. Now we know. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

The journey is still a reward. But on that journey, we bumped into all sorts of people (brave and abhorrable) . Quite an inconvenient truth. Bin Laden wasn’t the only one who got grey hair (or beard). This son of a construction tycoon would rather live in concrete than cave, not unlike other 21st-century men who now frequent spa and salon. A journalist teacher said it aptly, if only we had someone to blame for Vietnam as we had for Afghanistan.

On Sunday night, we forgot the financial bubble, the rising gas price and the drought in credits and jobs.

We got some closure, at least for the families of victims and heroes on United 93 (although dead, but they took matters into their own hands, hence, the term “victims” were deemed inappropriate).

George Harrison sang about “What is life” while his more influential band mate, died of senseless violence, “Imagine there’s no religion”. He must have seen the devastation done in the name of this God and that God, so his vision (often times through a pair of sunglasses) was without heaven (and certainly no virgins in neverland).

For me, with no sunglasses, I see life through that gaping hole of NYC ‘s two missing front teeth (courtesy of Tom Wolfe).

I see life from both sides now, from dot.com boom to housing burst.

I am growing old digitally in post 9/11 era.