Guerilla Creative Nonfiction

              “Run! Steve, run! The blob is coming! Jane said

              –I am doing what I can, but I am too slow, it is like my feet are stuck in the pavement” he answered, hardly breathing.”

              The blob gooped down the street, as big as a mountain, swallowing everything in its path. It was just behind them, approaching. They were almost caught by the blob, it was to eat them in a minute, and they could feel its swallowing noise behind them, closer and closer…

              World War II ended as the Allies (Great Britain, The US and The USSR) accepted the surrender of the Nazi Germany and at the same time the end of Hitler’s threat. In order to maintain the recent-born peace, the Allies created the United Nation – which came into existence officially the 24^th of October 1945, and adopted the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights in 1948 as a common standard with every nation members.

              At that time, I guess that it was a big progress because the previous ideology was not really about the respect of Human Rights. But when considering this fact, I am pretty sure that it took years and years for those countries to really take in account this declaration. People needed time and it was not as easy as it seemed to be:

              After several months, the relations between the Western Allies and the Soviet Republic started to deteriorate as the two “Big Blocks” –US and USSR– both wanted to dominate each other.

              This conflict led to a political and military competition between them and the Cold War–words first mentioned by George Orwell:

            Looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery. We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity. James Burnham’s theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications — that is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of “cold war” with its neighbors.
Had the atomic bomb turned out to be something as cheap and easily manufactured as a bicycle or an alarm clock, it might well have plunged us back into barbarism, but it might, on the other hand, have meant the end of national sovereignty and of the highly-centralized police state. If, as seems to be the case, it is a rare and costly object as difficult to produce as a battleship, it is likelier to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of prolonging indefinitely a “peace that is no peace.

                                                            – George Orwell, “You and the Atom Bomb” 19 October 1945

                                                                                                                                                                     In Tribune

Then Bernard Baruch mentioned it during his speech for the South Carolina Legislature in 1947– gave birth to a nuclear weapon race and fear of Communism.

                   Let us not be deceived — we are today in the midst of a cold war. Our enemies are to be    found abroad and at home. Let us never forget this: Our unrest is the heart of their success. The peace of the world is the hope and the goal of our political system; it is the despair and defeat of those who stand against us.

                                                                                               –Bernard Baruch, Columbia, SC, 16 April 1947

              Like Bernard Baruch said in his speech, the enemies would be found [abroad and] at home: US citizens feared Communism because of its recent extension in Eastern Europe and because of the fear of espionage due to the confession of spying for the Soviet Union among US governmental officials.

              I don’t really understand why they needed to find somebody to blame. Why should they be afraid of someone who is not like them, or someone who don’t have the same ideas in terms of politics? After all, each government was free to run their own countries the way they wanted, wasn’t they? But American didn’t have the same point of view, unfortunately.

              Joseph McCarthy was the Republican Senator of Wisconsin since 1947 until 1957 (when he died) and he is widely seen as the man who embodied a Communism fight throughout his mandate during the Cold War. His tactics to discover either Communism sympathizer or Soviet spies led to the creation of an ideology named “McCarthyism”.

              This fear of Communism named The Red Scare coupled with the McCarthyism –also known as Witch-hunt– deeply modified the American’s opinion, leading to censorship in media, a control over movie makers and actors and gave birth to a huge collection of movies profoundly influenced by the history at that time.

              Because at that time the cinema was a way of propaganda, it was one of the medias which suffered the most during this historic period: in October 1947, a number of people working for the Hollywood industry were summoned to appear in front of the House of Committee on Un-American Activities and were asked to prove that they were not involved in any sympathizing behavior to the Soviets which could have led them to diffuse propaganda in US movies.

              The Hollywood blacklist was therefore created and there were two different responses, the ones who were in favor of this witch-hunt and the ones who were strongly opposed to this co-operation. The latter –among which Humphrey Bogart– organized the Committee for the First Amendment to protest against the government targeting their industry.

              I am a witch hunter if the witches are Communists. I am a Red-baiter. I would like to see them all back in Russia.

                                                                 –Adolphe Menjou, wanting to co-operate for witch-hunting

                   They’ll nail anyone who ever scratched his ass during the National Anthem.

                                         –Humphrey Bogart, on the House of Un-American Activities Committee

                   The science-fiction movies of the 50’s stand for being the ones which depicted the Cold War with it fear of communism, nuclear war and its consequences upon life: one of them, called Superman and the Mole men (1951) is about peculiar people –the Mole men– who came up to the earth through a shaft which has been drilled in their underground home. The fact they have a special appearance and that the things they touch glow in the dark scares people living in the nearby town. We can compare this movie to The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) because of its topic of the way the stranger is seen in these movies.

              I’d like to compare this movie to its remake released in 2008 starring Keanu Reeves because it is like the “message” is not the same: in the latter, Klaatu comes to the Earth and warns people about the way they are destroying the Earth and all the natural resources. They are both comparable in that the army reaction is the same: in both films, they try to kill the extraterrestrial and it shows a typical American response: “shooting first and then discussing”.

              Both films clearly reflect the unreasoning fear of the Mole men and Klaatu, the peaceful human-like extraterrestrial who come to Earth in order to give the mankind a warning about the danger of atomic bomb. Both films have been seen retrospectively as a product and a reaction to the Red Scare and I guess that at that time, maybe these movies were a kind of exorcism of their fears.

              Cold War politics undoubtedly contributed to suspicious anxiety and fear of anything other or un-American. We can clearly see that allegorical science-fiction movies reflected the collective unconscious. Most of the time, these films depicted threats and devils that surrounded us and most of time, alien forces were a metaphor for Communism. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) has been said to be about the fear of losing personal autonomy in the Soviet Union: the main plot is about people replaced by perfect physical doubles without feelings.  Two doctors, Bennell and Driscoll wanted to warn humanity but in their attempt to flee, Dr Driscoll was subverted and became in her turn part of the Pod People who were recognizable only by their lack of emotion. Dr Bennell stares at the camera and yells “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next” and the end is left open as we don’t know what happens after the car accident which carried strange pods is discovered by the police.

              With this ultimate line, it is like Dr Bennell wants to warn us about a danger which is already there, hidden somewhere, waiting for its prey. Because this film has been released in the Cold War period, we can see it as a metaphor of the Communist paranoia and the aliens (the Communists) who get control over our minds and our territory.

              A few films about aliens’ domination over our territory or alien invasion have been released and one of the most famous is The Thing From Another World (1951). The film features a scientific crew in Alaska who discovers a flying craft trapped in the ice. They try to thaw it with dynamite but in their attempt they destroy it. They find a body in it and they bring it back to the base where they want to thaw it in order to study the thing stuck in the ice. Accidentally, a member of the crew warms the ice up, thawing the thing which escapes. The thing can take anybody’s appearance and so, everybody suspects everybody to be infected by the creature.

               I think this movie is the perfect example of the paranoia about communism. The alien is in fact the communism which spreads among people and it is invisible as the aspect of the person is not altered. This fear of who is “contaminated” or not is the depiction of the witch-hunt under McCarthyism doctrine.  It shows therefore that the threat has no face and that anybody can by a sympathizer of Communism but not only: the movie is also an indictment of science in that it shows the skepticism and negative view of scientists who meddle with things better left alone due to a post-Hiroshima fear.

               One of the other important “alien” movie is It Conquered the World (1956) which depicts an embittered scientist who picks up a message from a Venusian alien who wants to come to the Earth and gain control upon humans’ minds. First he helps the alien to gain control over humankind but he discovers with a friend little by little that he was wrong and that he shouldn’t have let the alien carrying out its Machiavelli plan. He finally kills the monster at the end but lose his life too. This movie can be seen as an allegory of Communism too, the Venusian being Stalin who wants to control everybody’s minds as the Soviet power became stronger and stronger, gaining control over Easter European Countries.

              Another famous movie, The Blob (1958) is about an amoeba-like alien which is terrorizing a small town. The alien came from a meteor and starts to consume people. Every time the blob eats someone, its size increasing. The blob is defeated at the end of the movie when the survivors kill it with a fire extinguisher as one of them recalled that the blob recoiled from the freezer. The Blob is said to “show the creeping horrors of communism and states that it can only be defeated by freezing it– the Cold war writ small and literal” [Jeff Sharlet, The Family Book].

              The fear of Communism was not the only feeling depicted in those 50’s science-fiction movies; the fear of nuclear bomb –and its possible effects– fueled screenwriter’s minds and studios during the whole decade.

              One of the first movie based on this fear is Unknown World (1951) in which a scientist is concerned by an imminent nuclear war so that he tries to have other scientists use a machine which could send them in a safer place –such as the center of Earth. Once again, the movie, in its attempt to show what could be the consequences of the nuclear war features the same plot as all movies yet to be released. Several parts of the movie were filmed in the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.

              The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) is seen as the first “monster movie” in which the movie is about a bomb testing in the Article Circle which thaws a fictional hibernating dinosaur called Rhedosaurus which would later destroy New York City. Chester, the producer at that time had the idea to combine the growing paranoia about nuclear weapons with the concept of a giant monster getting awakened by the atomic bomb detonation and I think that it worked well: it was a success; and this movie was the first of a long list of monster movies which involved atomic testing and big monster unleashing: Them! (1954) which is about the attack of gigantic irradiated ants, ranking it the first “nuclear big bug” movie.

              The story takes place in the nearby desert of Alamogordo, NM and it reminds me that around fifty years ago, there was a lot of nuclear testing in the area we are actually living in. Are the radiations gone away or some of them are still remaining? Because of this fear of radiation and nuclear effect upon life, a huge paranoia could have led people to think that the scientists who would “attempt to be God by creating such weapons” could have unleashed a bunch of evil creatures. But, for the first time in the history of science-fiction movies, Tarantula (1955) is the first big bug movie in having a mutation caused by the peaceful research of a well-intentioned scientist contrary to most of the “Atomic Age movie”. Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) is the perfect example of researches that turn into death as scientists are studying about the effects of radiation upon sea life and plants in the island of Bikini. They encounter mutated crabs which try to eat them all.

              This movie is a testimony of the history for a person from the early 21th century as it depicts the American atomic bomb testing in the atoll of Bikini on the 1^st of March 1954.

              In this particularly year of 1954, Godzilla were released in Japan, which proves that the US was not the only one who could produce films based of the nuclear paranoia. But in this case, it was not such paranoia, the Japanese depicted the attack of the monster as the bombarding of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 6, 1945 by the US and it has been also criticized because of it using of the wide destruction these towns suffered in World War II.

              These critics clearly show that the attempt was a success because if nobody reacts toward the film, then it is not as political as the director wanted it to be. When the US decided to have a remake done, they simply cut the political aspect. Censorship again?

              When watching these movies nowadays, we can wonder why people wanted to make movies based upon their own fear. I think it is because they wanted to relieve them, or at least try to heal them. Yes, these movies were made in order to heal the population because the horrors of the previous wars were still in everyone’s mind, and by projecting their unconscious fears into “real pictures” maybe they could have felt themselves relieved.  At that time the cinema was more used in a political way compared to nowadays even if some of the film released this decade remain politically committed.

              Most of the science-fiction movies released in the fifties suffered as a result of poor special effects such as Robot Monster (1953) or Teenage Cave Man (1958) which were dubbed as worst film ever made and were not as accurate as the previous mentioned in their depiction of the so-called Red Scare. But some of them such as The Thing From Another World, Them! and The Day the Earth Stood Still were praised by the critics and dubbed as the best science-fiction movies ever made during the 50’s.

              I don’t know why I am so passionate by these old-fashioned movies. I guess it is because they look so old. I mean, the special effects were not very accurate and because we can see “the wire of how they did” it gives the movie it particular lovely charm. Because these movies feature big monsters and special effects were rudimentary, I can say that the traditional aspect it gives to the movie is one of the things I prefer when watching an old movie, even more if it is a black and white one. I love these movies with big monsters because most of time they were given life by the genius Ray Harryhausen.

               In addition I would say that these movies are a good testimony of the state of mind of people at that time: they were totally paralyzed by paranoia. Maybe they were afraid to lose what they fought for such as liberty of thoughts. In addition, then thinking about it, I guess that these movies were a way to warn “indirectly” European spectators who saw the movies about Communism even if they were “right in the middle of the battlefield”.

              Because we know what they would experience at that time, some of the movie appears ridiculous. I wonder what would have happened to the movies if the history would have not been the history we all know.

              Does the history serve the film or does the film serve the history? I would respond “both” because some times, a good and accurate movie is better than a two hundred-page book about a particular event. Paper is frozen, paper doesn’t show feelings unless the author knows his readers and who is his target audience.

              Because some of these science fiction movie were seen as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films” by the National Film Registry, they decided to “increase the awareness for it preservation” such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) preserved in [1994], The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) preserved in [1995], The Thing From Another World (1951) preserved in [2001]. They were historically significant maybe not only because of it content but also because of the historic background or the conditions in which the movie were released, trying to pass through censorship.

              I would have loved to live at this time. I am fascinated by this history and it seems so far away then considering it. I would like to a time-traveling machine so that I could go back to the past and have a look at what was happening.

              Beside their historical or political aspects, I think I like these movies because of what they represent and because of what they meant at that time for producers, directors and actors and maybe because it allows me to feel like I was there at that time. We like these movies because they clearly depict how the history influenced them in a time communists were chased.

                                                                      All fantasy should have a solid base in reality

                                                                                                                           –Max Beerbohm (1872-1956)

1
You get up off your knees that still sting of cool tile and flush. Briefly you think back to the $6.79 it cost you to eat that meal and envision dollar bills swirling down the toilet bowl. You payed for that.

2
I count. I count everything I can. I count the gum I chew, and wonder how much the toothpaste I use counts. I recount every thing that has past my lips fifty times a day. I count my strides and do not count them against what has already been consumed.

3
They say an eating disorder is a state of mind. Still, I keep telling myself that I am too fat to have one. And yet, a cute boy at the gym offers me a cough drop and I briefly consider asking him how many calories are in it. Instead, I take it and smile, popping the sour sweet candy into my mouth and let my tongue wrinkle under it’s sugar covered coating. I do this because he is cute and, suppress the urge to spit out it out when he isn’t looking.

Sometimes I wonder where the line is and wonder if I will know if I have crossed it. That line that decides whether I can beat this alone of if I need to go somewhere. I am always afraid I will be the fattest girl at the clinic. Or that they will make me gain weight, or that they will take the control that I have been white knuckling for the past ten months.

Statistics say that eating disorders have the highest death rate of any mental illness. This leads me to believe that when I get to the line, I might cross it without ever realizing it. They count the binge eaters, they count the anorexics, they count the bulimics and they count the ones that die and the ones that live. It leads me to wonder how I will be counted at the end. The recovery rate is low and I coddle myself often with the idea that I am not that bad. That I am strong. That I can beat this if I only resolved to do it.

4
I watched my daughter, sitting on her highchair eating cheerios. She watched TV. She kept offering me cheerios and I kept shaking my head no. Even she knows I should eat something. For a while, after she was finished she would stick her hand in her mouth. Sometimes she would gag and throw up. This always made me feel awful. What about her? I’ve been told time and time again that this is something that children do. She has never seen me throw up. I still feel terrible. How is she supposed to have a normal relationship with food when I don’t even know what that is?

5

You are ten years old and your mother has taken you to several different doctors to figure out why you are so big. You are bigger than all the kids in your grade, and the ones a year ahead. She doesn’t understand why you keep getting bigger when she counts every bite you take. She doesn’t know about the middle of the night trips to the kitchen. How your biggest fear is to get caught in the act of eating, something dirty but you don’t know why.

One night she takes you out of your bed and has you sit on her lap. It’s late. She tells you to put your hands together and pray. She says “Repeat after me.”

“God.”
“Why Am I fat?”
“Why did you make me this way?”

You shake your head. You cant say it. That big apple is back in your throat, just like every time they talk about your body.

“Come on. Ask God. Ask God why, why are you fat.” You shake your head no. She makes you do it anyway.

“What did God say?”

You shake your head again and cry.

“What did God say?”

“Nothing” you whisper

“Listen Closer. What did God say?”

“I don’t know”

The next morning you watch your mother dress. In her silk gowns she looks like a queen, tall pale and slim. Her sharp eyes glint out from perfect cheekbones, gazing at themselves in the mirror. She measures her hands around her waist. She always measures.

There exists this wonderfully amazing phenomenon when a new word is acquired. I say acquired because I find it impossible to receive a word. Receive sounds like the ugly knit sweater your grandmother makes you, complete with the most hideous shades of puke green and shit brown which ultimately just compliment the huge letter of your first name that overpowers your chest. Though it may seem hard to believe, some families still partake in this cliché homemade gift-giving nonsense; families like mine. No, things I receive get thrown in the corner of my closet to be saved for the next family function. “Oh, but honey, it makes your eyes look soooo puuurty.” Hurrah.

I cannot wrap my new words in those sweaters, as they pile up behind closet doors, because language is not meant to be an unwanted gift. And even if I had no appreciation of the vocabulary I have spent the last twenty-one years of my life building, I would be unable to ignore the power of words. Therein lays the phenomenon.

Earlier this year, the word ‘Odalisque’ was brought to my attention. As I browsed the upstairs textbook section of the campus bookstore, I came across a required reading, “Odalisque in Pieces.” When I purchased the book, I had no idea what it meant. I was excited because the title sounded intellectual. I figured it must be because I had never heard this word before. I was itching to acquire it. Aside from the title, the strange drawings of an awkward little girl— that resembled a fairy more than a child— seemed to radiate this idea of ‘art’ that I cling to. I can’t explain it, but there is a certain look, a certain style, to what I consider artsy. I guess it’s like an appreciated perfection in almost ugly imperfection. Whatever it was, and despite the fact that it didn’t much matter if I liked it since it was required, I was drawn to this little book. Even more, I was drawn to the title, and even more still, I was drawn to the mystery behind this new word.

To explain the phenomenon, one must first understand the importance of that initial interaction. It’s almost like a love affair. In the moment I laid my eyes on that cover, the word wrapped itself around me. In an amazingly sophisticated and sensual way, it gently stroked the curves of its letters down my neck. I was hooked in that very second. I imagine that an observant bystander may have been entirely judgmental of the look on my face, as I’m sure I cradled the book like a hungry wolf cradles an infant. Though that image may sound violent and grotesque, it seems that within the inevitable doom there would exist a sort of naturalistic beauty. And as I licked my lips before barring my fangs, in my eyes one could almost certainly find a soft sense of pure admiration masquerading as animalistic desire. I clung to the book as I scurried toward the counter.

Years earlier, in the middle of an argument with a friend, I realized just how important words actually were to me. Though I was a foot smaller and noticeably weaker, I screamed in Kyle’s face, spitting my words out like a campfire shoots embers toward drunken campers. As I tried to provoke him, he simply stared at me dumbfounded. I accounted this to the fear I imagined I was instilling in him, the realization that he had seriously screwed up, and continued on. It was in the moment that I finally paused to breathe that my entire idea of language changed. “You know what? You use really big words when you’re mad. I didn’t understand most of that,” he said. Whhhhhaaat?  I thought. I was so taken aback that I couldn’t even roll those four letters off of my tongue. Instead, I gawked at him. Our conversation became entirely primitive. Picturing it now, we probably resembled a couple of apes that recently discovered fire: shocked, awed, terrified. The space between us felt so distant though we were intimately close.

 I scrolled back through the conversation in my head, but I had no recollection of using any word that was unnecessarily large or difficult. Was it a syllable thing? Maybe there was this unspoken rule that only a certain number of syllables were allowed to be used in an argument; maybe words that didn’t meet that requirement were automatically forbidden. Or was it a combination thing? Maybe words with more than ‘x’ amount of letters weren’t meant to be combined with other words of the same caliber. Or maybe it was a length thing. I was flabbergasted, but what was important was that from that conversation I learned something about language. My appreciation of words, of their power, their beauty, their amazing ability to mean something concrete while being intangible themselves was strengthened in that moment, and from that I was given the opportunity to see the phenomenon so few enjoy and embrace.

The concept is fairly simple. Upon gaining an appreciation of language, and then furthering that to a sort of undying devotion, one is capable of experiencing the phenomenon. After learning a new word, something amazing happens: that word becomes the focal point of everything. A word that once meant absolutely nothing transforms into a word that one cannot exist without the knowledge of. Though that may seem absurd, it wasn’t until recently that I actually realized how important that experience can be.

Ignoring the growing pile of homework scattered around my living room floor last week, I flipped on the TV. ‘How I Met Your Mother’ blasted through the speakers and I was sucked in to the comical nonsense parading on the screen. For someone that has never seen this show, it can be summed up relatively easily: stupidly entertaining. At one point, one of the characters used the word ‘Odalisque’ and none of the others had the slightest idea what it meant. I did. I was in a special club; a club, I felt, that only a small portion of the viewers belonged to. Though it was explained moments later in the show, that second was an important piece of time. It solidified my appreciation of the power of words; it made concrete this idea about the naturally occurring phenomenon of knowledge. Because I was given the opportunity to acquire this seldom used word, and because I etched it into my mental vocabulary, I was able to interact with it in a way that was personal and intimate. This word, which would have meant nothing to me if it had been presented a year ago, became part of something, part of me, a piece of a whole set of pieces that make up who I am. The phenomenon lays in that reoccurrence, and even more in the realization of the power that it holds. A sitcom, one that I would not put much intellectual faith in, opened my eyes to something that had been happening all along, and because of that I am now able to take part of the experience rather than simply exist within it.

I’ve screamed these words, preaching manically to anyone that will listen about this event. I’ve attempted to spread the word of words like wildfire, but instead I’ve been met with ashes on the brink of death, incapable of even being called smoldering. As my family sat around the living room after Thanksgiving dinner this year, I went on and on about this very thing. Though I could tell that everyone had long since grown tired of my babbling, I continued in hopes that I could break through to someone, anyone. Behind a face of long, tangled dreads, my brother looked up at me from the floor. “Dude, you talk like you want everyone to think you’re so smart. You use words that are more complicated than they need to be. Just say what you mean to say.” I glared at him as I leaned back against my chair in defeat. The wool from my family festivities sweater scratched hard against my skin. It sent shivers up my neck and straight into the back of my skull. Damnit, I thought. Though I hated to admit it, he was right in the wrong way. I had gone about the whole thing backwards. It would be impossible to make people feel the power of words when they needed to see them and experience the phenomenon from a personal level. Back to the drawing board, again, I supposed, because I will not give up. But, on the bright side, I guessed, at least my eyes looked puuurty through it all. Truthfully, I couldn’t have asked for more as my grandmother took out the measuring tape for this year’s latest atrocity.

I sit there, trying to catch the stitch that I lost, and cursing as I pull it out and try again. I’ve been crocheting for the last half an hour and managed to get to the sixth row caught on a loose thread. It won’t come loose.

            My mother taught me to crochet when I was in middle school, back when I went to a teeny weenie little private school. My youngest sister was trying cross stitch, my twin wasn’t interested, and I wanted to learn how to do something useful. So, in a moment of either witlessness, or genius, Mom bought me my first crochet hook, a skein of yarn and sat me down to show me.

            Mom’s been sewing/knitting/crocheting since I can remember. She used to make clothes for us when I was younger. I still have some of the shorts, unable to part with them because of how comfy they were. I know it was a skill she inherited from my great-grandmother. She could look at a dress in a store, come home and cut her own pattern from the newspaper and make the exact same dress for less.

            I suppose it has to do with being a Germanic people on that side of the family. Perhaps we’re driven by the need to create things that will last forever; that we can take into the afterlife. Put it on the pyre and burn it so it can go with us into Valhalla. They’re finding fabric that the Vikings wove in the burial mounds. Textiles that were maybe part of a tapestry, or clothing.

            While I sit here and wrestle with yarn, I can’t help but wonder if I will pass this down to my kids. Will I show them the satisfaction of making something with your hands, the pride in something that you’ve made all by yourself? There’s an intense and profound sense of accomplishment when you finish a project. You hold it up, and you smile, and then in my case you put it in a box to collect dust for centuries (really only a few months) but who’s keeping track?

     There are few things I consider romantic. I hate roses, I find a gift of candy insulting and I loathe public displays of affection. Cynicism aside, there are moments that stick out in my mind. I was head over heels for a boy named John. Over the semester our seating became closer and closer in lecture and the culmination of our flirtation reached a high when he casually passed me a burned CD. In crude Sharpie he had written a name for his mix. At the time I was casual and thanked him for it then scrambled back to my car to hear it. It wasn’t about the songs on it and I didn’t particularly like all of them, it was the act itself. There is something inexplicable and powerful in a mix tape. It is technology at its most personal and at times intentionally or unintentionally revealing of one’s self. To say this statement is dramatic is to discredit the relevance of music. Music is compelling and by reordering and compiling can increase its emotional value and level of expression. All I can say is at the moment I completed my listening session, I was ready to convert to John’s gospel. I was sold. Sadly for me, months later I would compile a mix CD of my own, a list of lilting lamentations and somber serenades.

            A mix tape is an ever evolving thing of beauty and structure. The emergence of the mix tape was seen in the 1970s, widely used for bootlegs and public distribution by artists. However the emergence of the private mix tape in its purest homemade form came about in the 1980s and continued to grow into new mediums. The mix tape moved from 8 Track form to cassette and now works in the world of CDs and mp3 lists. The mix tape became synonymous with youth culture, a modern day expression of audible aesthetics. Writer Geoffrey O’Brien has even declared the mix tape as “the most widely practiced American art form.” Geographically it’s most documented in America, the UK and parts of Europe. It is moving and it is accessible; anyone with a taste in music and a motivation can do it. It can be reflective or entirely conceptual; specific or all-encompassing. A private mix tape is typically intended for one person as opposed to the “party tape” which has a goal to be heard by many. A private mix tape can mean more in its order and choice than the actual songs it holds. It is at best, a carefully architectured letter.

            The construction of the mix tape is something enthusiasts don’t take lightly. Many have different methods but many will agree that technically, attention must be paid to blank space in between songs and proper segways. At times myself I find a madness growing inside of me if the list is not ordered just right. It must flow from song to song as if all were operating within the same wave as different parts of it.  These days, one can use sound clips from movies or their own speaking parts and add them to a mix for relevance. A friend of mine used to record short introductions and anecdotes before songs. She would then send these to her friends out of state as small gifts of comfort. A mix maker may also opt to create their own artwork to accompany the CD and provide a list of their endeavor.

            In the movie High Fidelity based off of Nick Hornby’s music-centric novel, the protagonist Rob discusses the “rules” of creating a private mix tape as he makes one for his girlfriend.

“…There’s a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again. A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You’ve got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with “Got to Get You Off My Mind,” but then realized that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straightaway, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you’ve got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can’t have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can’t have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you’ve done the whole thing in pairs and…oh, there are loads of rules.”

At any time one could explore the internet and find a bevy of mix tape instructions. Some suggest CDs should be no more than an hour. Others say the track list must fit exactly together and to take gravity in the lyrics making sure they all say exactly what you want to convey. Some even say to always keep a master copy but all agree there is no such thing as a “perfect” mix tape. The rules of the mix tape are ironic, in that an art form usually shouldn’t really ascribe to rules. Yes there are common practices that make movements, but is it really necessary in this medium? I think that the mix tape should come from an organic place within the person and they should have a basic technological ability. There should be room for interpretation and to be vague or random with song selection may actually reflect the creator quite well. To ascribe to rules is limiting and runs the risk of not being a pure audio expression. Some ideas however, that perhaps should be widely regarded are to be aware of attitude as it can easily seep into the affect of a CD. Like writing a paper, revise. Listen to the mix and see if it makes you feel the way it should.  A mix tape needs to speak to an audience. The beauty of this process is to analyze a person in a way that you can anticipate their likes and interests. Or if you’re simply trying to present them with something new, you may study them. Another is to keep the CD varied with a song from each artist. The challenge of bringing together several artists conceptually have created the most beautiful mixes I have ever heard.

            A mix tape is a form of connection. It can speak words that one perhaps could never say themselves. It can present ideas that are otherwise too complex to show by other means for some people. It is a way for music aficionados to relate to each other and at times can be a common denominator in communicating and finding interests with other cultures. At the height of sentimentality a mix tape can be nostalgic and makes it personal to the audience. As a teenager I compiled a list of classic rock songs that formed my father’s youth and in turn upon listening to it, opened memories for him. Watching his reaction to the music was ultimately more satisfying than any gift I could have purchased for him. Sharing an interest in this music helped me understand him more, discovering the commonalities we try to repress as teenagers. To this day the memory of my parents dancing in our living room is synonymous with John Fogerty and trips to school ride hand in hand with Heart. The mix took time and perseverance to create and the final product was a representation of our family.

            In addition there is a thing of rebellion that accompanies the stigma of mix tapes. Refurbishing music and making my own collection to give to someone felt at times dangerous. In my ever widening imagination I imagine beating the likes of Lars Ulrich and his copyright cronies with my mix, telling him he’s not allowed to dictate how I listen to music.  My mixtape is a proud badge of my DIY ethics. As someone who was not particularly inclined in many art forms, it also gave me a sense of finding an artful statement. To this day I find myself feeling something specific and if a mix tape idea comes of it, I make a list, and an outline to explain that. Sometimes it’s for someone else and sometimes it is simply delivered to me.

            Perhaps the most popular aspect of the mix tape is its ability to woo. It’s a romantic tool that can either make a person fall in love or speak to the misery of falling out of it. In an interview with Jon Scorfina, a St. Louis based record store clerk and avid music collector; he discusses his first mix tape:

“My uncle Bill taught me how to make a mix tape. He used to make them for me actually. I would make him a list of songs then he would make them. Then he started to teach me how to do it with two tape decks or a deck and a CD player. The first mixtape I ever made for a girl was in first grade. I had my dad help me. I know it had Cure songs on it, and it probably had REM. Maybe U2. The second side was all of side A of the Super Mario Bros. movie companion tape. I didn’t know how to fill the second side so we just put this tape of the Super Mario Bros. movie on this tape for this girl. I remember sheepishly walking up and throwing it on her desk and running away. I looked up to my uncles and I knew that’s what they did when they liked a girl, but I didn’t know how to communicate other than that at the time.”

            The idea of making the mix tape as a profession of love is its most powerful utilization. It is a courtly indicator of intention. It shows the creator’s interests and an attention to the receiver’s as well. It shows a level of time and appreciation one has put into the gift. It is something to be remembered culturally and personally. To this day my making of mix tapes and my friends shows that there is no intention of that momentum slowing down.

            It would be a lie to deny the mix tape has a bit of a dark side. Mix tapes are at times an ode to break ups or unrequited love. They have the ability to cleverly bring up the muck of our emotions. Rob, again offers this wisdom:

“People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”

Leading back to my lovelorn moments, the mix tape took on the dark arts for me. I pined away letting Blonde Redhead, Sparklehorse, and Radiohead wear me away to cathartic mush. It’s fair at least for me to assume, the mix tape made me more miserable. It’s also fair to say it helped me come to terms later. The question was perhaps of moderation. It is my opinion that one can overdose on these things and the mix tape loses its magic. It is indeed, an art to be taken seriously. Being in the business of this art form can make or break each individual. It can also bring about new beginnings. Later in life there was a lovely boy with a birthday, I tried to think of something to give him. I had a fear that purchasing something for him would go too far and not be as personal. When my brother told me, it was funny to me how I didn’t think of it earlier.

“Glory just make him a CD.  Dudes love it.”

So I did.

Works Cited

“How to Make the Perfect Mix Tape.” www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-make-the-make-perfect-mix-tape-cd-087645/

Hornby, Nick (1995). High Fidelity.

Corn, Doron Porat (c2002). “History of Mixtapes” AllMixTapes.com

“Interview with Jon Scorfina.”

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/atoz/2010/09/jack_probst_dj_jackieboy_halo_bar_euclid_records_pageant_of_montreal_the_cure_euclid_records.php

                I recently read the book “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” by Ishmael Beah.  I have done some reading about different subjects related to the book.  I have read about everything from war, conflict diamond trade, child soldiers, drug abuse and the death penalty.  Ishmael lived through the civil war in Sierra Leone by becoming a soldier for the government army when he was 13 years old.  That age has a certain personal sting since my son has just turned 13.  Being a child soldier forced Ishmael to do things that horrify the imagination.  He killed women and children countless times.  He slit the throats of captured prisoners.  He abused cocaine and marijuana and possibly heroine.  All of these offenses alone would be considered felony crimes in the United States and all of the modern civilized countries in the world.  The idea that these crimes were inflicted upon children as young as 8 years old would be another crime all together.  The treatment of these children is the real mystery to me.

                In all of the research I have read nothing even remotely suggested that these child soldiers are murderers.   In the United States, a thirteen year old child who commits the gruesome and heinous crimes done by these child soldiers would be considered justification to be tried as adults and placed in prison.   These child soldiers are being rehabilitated and reintroduced into society.  They live fairly normal lives and in the case of Ishmael Beah, thrive to the point of becoming a successful writer.  So what is the difference?  Why are child soldiers given these opportunities to rehabilitate while child murderers in the United States criminalized and placed into institutions?

                According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency prevention, the 2008 murder arrest rate of juveniles rose to 3.8 out of 100,000 children aged 10 to 17 from 3.3 in 2007.  Hundreds of children every year in the U.S. are being incarcerated for murders that are a drop in the bucket compared to the atrocities of child soldiers.  Abuse and exposure to violence is being cited at a contributing factor in the rise in child murderers.

                “These kids have been either abused or seen abuse or they have been exposed to violence somewhere in their life,” said psychologist Herbert Nieburg, associate professor of justice and political studies at Mitchell College in New London, Conn. “And some are just angry kids who want to get even.”

            The level of violence child soldiers are exposed is far greater than the worst abuse cases here in the U.S. They witness and participate in horrific murders of innocent people without trial, without mercy.  What difference do these children possess that allows them to be so successfully rehabilitated when children raised in the U.S. are not?

            I believe there is a difference, but not with the children.  The difference is the attitudes of the adults treating them.  Here is the U.S. there is a cultural stigma that is applied to you because of your crimes.  This stems from the cultural influence of the Christian Puritans.  There is a Christian attutde that looks at murder as being a curse upon you much like the example in the Bible of Cain murdering his brother Able and God placing a mark upon his forehead so that everyone would know what he had done and shun him.  Children who commit murders in the U.S. are branded with a social mark that says you should be put away where you cannot hurt anyone else.  There is also the attitude that the things you do are caused by the type of person you actually are morally.  This stigma causes people to abandon these children to their fates as though they deserve what they get.

            The attitudes toward the child soldiers are those of understanding and compassion that sees the effects of abuse beyond their control.  They are seen as simple children who are forced into a situation where they have no choice.  They respond in the only way they can when faced with choice no child should face.  It is not their fault and the patience and understanding given to them by the UNICEF rehabilitation centers allows them to forgive themselves and choose a new life of safety and peace.  These children are not monsters or devils that deserve to be punished for crimes they had no choice but to commit.

            The children in the U.S. are just as capable of being rehabilitated if given the same forgiveness and understanding.  Love can overcome the stigma and expectations of more violence.  These children can be retrained to become successful members of the world.  Show them mercy.

Sources:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/kid-killers-child-murderers-rare-rise-pushed-violence/story?id=9818578

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/The_Statistics_on_Child_Abuse_Are_in_and_They_Prove_Success_is_Possible_After_Tough_Times.html

http://www.childsoldiersglobalreport.org/content/voices-child-soldiers

“A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” by Ishmael Beah