Why I really didn't attend the Redroom Party at Tosca
I was truly dying to go to the Redroom party at Tosca's a few weeks ago. Jennifer Massoni told someone who asked why I wasn't in attendance that I didn't want to make the 4 hour-long drive for a 2 hour event.
This is true and NOT true.
I wanted so much to see Ericka Lutz, Jessica Barksdale and many others, since I know more about them and feel more in touch with them than my neighbors. (I've met most of the Redroom staff at the Commonwealth Club.) I had the vehicle, I had the time (if I didn't, I would have made time) and I had the gas money, but I asked myself whether I could really afford--if the world could afford for me--to put 4 hours worth of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, just so that I could have fun. And I told myself NO, definitely not. NO, NO, NO.
I looked at the pictures of my own room, which I posted a couple of days ago, and am conscious of all the STUFF I have dragged into this house.
These days, when I do have to throw something in the trash that's not recyclable, I literally sweat from the guilt. I am conscientious about not buying styrofoam. I try to talk local deli owners selling chili in styrofoam bowls to use something else. Why not give a price break to people who bring their own ceramic cups and spoon? The 30th high school reunion I am help organizing will be as GREEN as possible: no disposable cameras, etc.
Please watch this excellent, important film with Annie Leonard. http://www.storyofstuff.com/ It gives us an inkling of the true price of stuff. (And pass the link on, please!!!)
I don't want to give you the immigrant schtick, but I AM an immigrant from a former developing country. I arrived with Third World values of conservation, frugality. No food is ever wasted in our house, because we know all about the paucity of food. I have never gotten used to the wastage in American households, especially with leftovers that grow moldy and inevitably go down the garbage disposal. I've long known this generation's misuse of materials is entirely unsustainable. People in the future will compare us with the wealthy, gluttonous Romans, as described by Tacitus, toward the end of Empire-- that is, if there is a future.
What can you avoid buying today? Do you really need a new cell phone? New car? New iPod? New computer every 3 years? (Please don't buy stuff that's made of a mix of metal and papers, which cannot be broken down into recyclable parts.) What vacations can you do without? Can you repair, repair, repair and circumvent wholesale remodeling? Why not buy fewer things so you don't have to work as hard to possess them and then feel the need to go on a vacation to recuperate from all the hard work of GETTING. I can't recall who said this, but it goes something likes this: all wars are started because men cannot remain in their rooms. No, it's not your friends or neighbors who is misusing, wasting. It's me. It's you, you, you.
I sound like a didactic old grandpa in this post, but as a biology major with interest in environmental studies, I saw the environmental movement take off in the 70s, only to have it go absolutely nowhere. Sorry about the preachy tone, but at times, I just get so freakin' scared for us all.
Please watch this. It's a simple, clear message which gives us some positive directions to follow:
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Ana Elsner says:
Pleasure versus Responsibility: a though call
:
The Mixer @ Tosca drew a mixed reaction: Sure, it seemed a great opportunity to meet other red-roomies, but the crowd was so tightly packed that one could hardly get from the door to the tables and booths in the rear, rubbing backs and bellies, stepping on feet and spilling drinks in the process. And then there was the noise, making it necessary to shout at the top of your lungs... The phrase I employed most with my fellow writers/poets was "Excuse me!" and precious little beyond that... Jennifer (Massoni) explained that the RSVP-only 100-people-limit could not be adhered to because a lot of non-member writers/readers found out about the event and just showed up.
My other criticism, and you know I'm always good for that :-), was the lack of name tags...so the mixer ended up much like a pot-luck, in random encounters, which was not inherently bad, but for someone like myself, who was looking to meet certain specific people, it did not work out (I was unable to match the folks in the crowd with their online photo, I am just not that visual and there is often a gap between 'posed' and 'live'...).
I did manage to have three ten-minute one-on-one conversations with three interesting writers, but after that I gave up.
To me, the most rewarding aspect of the event was meeting some of the Red Room staff like Huntington Sharp , Thomas Dotson, see a snapshot of the two of us in conversation, Abraham Mertens, the handsome GC, and, of course, Ivory Madison.
Yes, the popular Belle Yang was regrettably absent, but I can understand and agree with your reluctance to, quote, "put 4 hours worth of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, just so that I could have fun". Weighing personal pleasure against ecological responsibility is often a tough call.
Doing 'the right thing' comes at the price of denying yourself a good time or, in this case, fellowship with (virtual) friends. I respect and admire your decision.
The 20-minute Annie Leonard film is informative and educational, a real wake-up call. Thanks for the link. Here is a short video that is humorous but equally poignant:
[ Note: The video has moved - Please click HERE ]
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Belle Yang says:
Ana
If there is another RR function, I'd love to go. I'm saving up my Brownie points for a trip. (Robinson Jeffers did not leave Carmel to visit San Francisco in 11 years)
On several occasions, I have been annoyed and angered by your "OP-EDs," but then your words have some ring of truth beneath thick misunderstandings. I'd like to ask you to please investigate before you jump quickly into a exchange and shoot from the hips. (Hey, this is not to encourage you to pen another famous/infamous Ana Eisler Op-Ed in the near future. Please give our nerves a rest ;)
I am curious to know at what age you started to be so vocal. I grow more curmudgeonly as I near 50 and actually like/need to ask hard, uncomfortable questions. But I also do not want to hurt people. Tough questions, which you think may do people good are very hard to formulate. Some do more damage. And at times, damage is unavoidable.
PS--to quote a friend of mine: I like everyone except popular people.
Ana Elsner says:
Alas! The Fall
Whereas these days my creative activity is focused on my poetry,
... I have been a corresponding member of academia, an editor and a public speaker all my life, from university days until now in my ripe old age of, shall we say 60ish... Before publishing any articles or giving any talks I excercise due-diligence by carefully examining the history, the manifestations and the (societal) impact of my topic at hand, based mostly on research and in small part on my own empirical findings, which I clearly identify as such.
Then there is another type of writing in which I engage periodically, the OP-ED. My OPEDs are intentionally controversial and hard-hitting exposes, a la Keith Olberman (see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Olberman#Perceived_ideology), and are designed to encourage critical thinking. As a by-product of liberally exercising my First Amendment right to free speech, personal offense is taken by those people who erroneously apply my words to themselves personally, rather than maintaining a detached perspective. This is an unfortunate fall-out, but one that I have no control over.
If I mean to target very specific personages in my OPED, I will identify those individuals by name, as, for instance, 'George W. Bush', 'Rush Limbaugh', 'Tom, Dick and Harry', etc.
I admit that I mistakenly assumed that within the forum of the redroom.com blogger-ship there exists a certain intellectual hardiness that can withstand a bit of controversiality. But, sadly, there was no evidence of it in the responses I received. Instead, my OPEDs unleashed a viral tempest in a teapot, and resulted in pre-emptive ostracism applied to me by a certain group of Red Room bloggers.
As a called-for consequence I have adjusted my expectations of this site and am adopting a new policy, that of keeping my blog-posts and commentary benign enough, so that nobody could possibly be offended. (Click here)
Meanwhile...,
I will publish my OPEDs on more appropriate sites such as, for example,
the PBS Bill Moyers Journal.
[Footnote: I might transfer this post over to my own blog]
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Belle Yang says:
My high school sweetheart was an AFS student
from Zoffingen, Switzerland. When I stayed with his family, I realized that few Swiss middleclass families have clothes dryers. In Japan, this is the case, too. My aunt lives in a lovely house on the island of Kyushu, but she does not have a clothes dryer.
John Daniel Orr says:
I wanted to go, too ...
... because I thought it would be fun to hang around with a bunch of bright writers and watch the flow of wit ...
But I had family dealings, and kind of dread hitting the freeway on a mission that is just fun for me, not for my family.
And, I agree with you, Belle, about not wanting to spew chemicals into the air!
So I have to point out that it is a delight just to hang around HERE -- in Red Room -- with all these wonderful, witty, perspicacious writers, when I have the time, and all I am spending is a few electrons.
Best wishes to you all!
john
Darlene Arden says:
Our Disposable Society
Sadly, we live in a disposable society. We don't fix; we replace. It doesn't work? Throw it out. And that,horribly, extends to dogs, cats and, yes, family. How many people warehouse their elders in nursing homes and are too "busy" to even bother to visit?
Yes, It makes me sick. ALL of it.
Belle Yang says:
Darlene--
I've never considered that pets are the same--disposable. But why should I be surprised if human beings are discarded? New, better. My friend was telling me how much he adores his kids. I told him, I feel the same way about my limping, no-longer pretty parents. They are adorable. And the are mine. Hey, waiting for you to drop that bomb. Don't worry. All opinions respected here.
Eric Nichols says:
Ancient Indian Saying....
Red man build small fire, keep warm by standing close..
White man build big fire, keep warm by chopping wood. :)
Hiya Belle:
Guilt is never an answer to anything....except to assuage our guilt, perhaps. :)
I've been to the refugee camps on the Thailand/Burma border many times, as well as countless rural villages in Northern Thailand. I certainly know what one can live without....and live very WELL without, by the way. They are the most content people on the planet, and a joy to be around. I could easily just LOSE myself in a village like those around Mae Sariang and that area and never come back to "civilization". It's absolutely gorgeous.....dirt poor but gorgeous.
On the other hand, I'm not in the least guilty about the toys I have here....not that I have all that many. (Well, I DO have a lot of antique radios and such, but I guarantee you, NONE of them will ever end up in land fill. In fact, a few of them were RESCUED from landfill!)
I don't think any of us writers would want to trade in our computers for parchment and quill. (Well, actually, before I discovered Linux, I'd been tempted to do just that a few times, just to tell Bill Gates where he could shove his virus-disguised-as-an-operating-sytem...but that's another diatribe entirely).
I don't think you need to turn Amish to live a reasonably ecologically aware life. One needs to look at the big picture. People are aghast when they learn that there is no "official" recycling program in Alaska. (Although most Alaskans are pretty frugal because it costs so much to get anything up here in the first place). The fact of the matter is that there is no facility in the state capable of processing recycleables...and it's more polluting to truck it all the way down to the lower 48 where they DO have processing centers. (Countless studies up here have confirmed the numbers involved).
So, does it mean that Alaska is awash in landfill? No, it just means that most Alaskans have "lawn sculptures" in the form of dead 57 Chevys and Puritas water bottles. Neighbors...if you have any....tend to complain....or at least cast a suspicious eye....if you don't have a few rusty cars in your yard.
I guess I'm really a bad person. I use LEAD WHITE paint in my oil paintings....because the politically correct substances just don't work the same. (It's practically a contraband substance now...but I still have my sources.)
Of course, traditional Chinese painting uses Vermillion, which is MERCURY based paint, so you're bad, as well. :)
The point is....anything we do is going to have some effect on the environment. Proverbs 14:4 says, "Where there are no oxen, the crib is clean."
Progress is messy. It's a fact of life. Don't make more mess than you have to....but don't kill all your oxen.
Hugs,
Eric
Eric Nichols says:
By the way....whatever happened to King Lear?
Did he get lost in the Red Room? If the KING could get lost so quickly...what hope is there for the rest of us peons? :(
eric
Huntington Sharp says:
Lear-apalooza
Eric, quite a few authors and members took part in the conversation. Here's a log of all the blog posts: http://www.redroom.com/blogs/King%20Lear
Huntington Sharp, Red Room
Eric Nichols says:
Ahh....thank you
It doesn't look like I missed too many posts after all. You know...if you blink in Red Room, you never know what you might miss. :)
eric