Final META-POST

As the year concludes, I wanted to take the time to go through every single one of my posts throughout the year. The blog gives us the ability to reminisce and reflect on a year that to me, seemed to be over with the snap of the fingers. Taking the time to stop, which is rare in the American culture today, it is valuable and healthy to remember a year of growth and hard work. I look back on the posts and I am overwhelmed with a sense of pride. Although I may have not had the greatest number of posts, I did invest a lot of thought and energy into creating an intriguing post so readers would not be bored. As a fine pair of teacher once told me "Always have empathy for the reader!"I feel I have covered a wide variety of topics and some how they all fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle.
There are two posts I would like to highlight from fourth quarter. One is called "Photosynthesis" and the other and most recent one would be "The Great Gatsby as the denouement to my American Studies Year". I really took my time and tried to really dig deep into the the connection between my junior theme topic, lawns, and The Great Gatsby. It was a fun process to see these to things come together and how they relate. The thing I most loved about the "Photosynthesis" post would be the fact that it was so coincidental. As I was on my spring break trip visiting colleges, we ran into a student who was doing a project similar to my junior theme. Although she was not in school I still took a deeper look into her project. It was fascinating and fun to see that there are other students out there who had similar ideas as me. Some may go as far to say that it is a sign...
This past quarter close to all of my posts are related to my junior theme topic. Although it may seem overdone I am actually happy that this is the case. It goes to show how invested I was in my topic. It seems everywhere I go now I see some aspect of my junior theme research. I am more aware and sensitive to the topic in the world around me.
I have discovered many things through blogging this year. I have learned about connecting with others, learning from other peers, and continuing the conversation outside of the classroom in a more open forum. I think one of my greatest discoveries is seeing the coincidences that occur. My blog seems to have highlighted those coincidences that has happened this year. Call it the law of attraction or whatever but it is truly amazing. This may seem a little far fetched, but it does make me wonder about the role of fate in the world. I realize there is a self-fulfilling aspect to the exercise, but the diary in effect helped me key into the world around me.  In particular, I key into those events that connect the American Studies class to my everyday life.
I aspire to continue my blog after my American Studies class is over. I really love the awareness I gain  and I look forward to the future coincidences while I figure out fate and my interests or choices.

The Great Gatsby as the denouement to my American Studies Year

As we wrap up our junior themes and close out the year with the final few pieces of literature, I can’t help but notice the synchronicity of symbols in my research for American Studies and The Great Gatsby. My junior theme was titled, Suburbia: America’s Green Carpet and I tried to examine why some Americans are so obsessed with keeping up their green swards (expanse of short grass:). You’ll have to read my paper to find out why, but it turns out Fitzgerald’s novel is loaded with references to lawn (and “greenness”). I wonder if anyone else noticed or was it just me.

From the beginning of the novel, lawns were on the foreground of wealth. Nick says his little house was “squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season...with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden (5). On the very next page Nick’s first description of Buchanan’s elaborate mansion says the “lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens--finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run (6)”. It is in these descriptions that we find the basis for suburban American’s dreams and aspirations.

To clean-up and impress Daisy for their first rendezvous at Nick’s house, Gatsby tells Nick he will send over his gardener to cut his lawn. Once again, the tight and tidy grass defines beautiful. The color symbols are thick, but green- hope, envy and money in The Great Gatsby are also echoed in endless summer lawn setting. Establishing the divide, Nick describes, “crossing the lawn (147)” to meet up with Gatsby. After the murder, when Nick goes back to Gatsby’s house he says, “the grass on his lawn had grown as long as mine (179)” as if to say the party was over, the wealth/life was no longer living--everything was back to wild, messy, nature.

In contrast to the wealth of opulent lawns was the grey, “valley of ashes--a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens (23)” where the working people labored. No lawns there only misery, murder and dirty manual work.

The lawn seems to be a representation of the status a person holds. It is a reflection of the character, showing that the lawn is a symbol of the idealize American Dream of making it to the top. If you have a green lawn than you are a success. One of our greatest American novels reinforces this "ideal". 

Grass Is Always Greener

It IS spring so, it is not just a coincidence that I am being constantly bombarded by my junior theme topic: the American lawn. Yesterday, on CBS Sunday Morning the quick draw artists offered this analysis:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7367664n&tag=cbsnewsSectionsArea.2

Their research was largely built around one book, American Green by Ted Steinberg. Grass color based on the angle of the blade was a new piece of information I had not read about. The piece was short and I don't know that there was a message beyond awareness. What do you think?

Rubber Ducky

Chemical companies were not too happy to see this commercial aired on television. I wonder why? The industry litigated the Maine governor's office this spring to have the advertisement pulled and lost. They don't want the bans against lawn fertilizers that are in place in Canada to creep over the border into their largest market. But it is coming. Stand firm Maine...

Images and Artifacts #7

This is an aerial shot of a Tiger Woods golf course development in Dubai. Apparently they have stopped development not only because of Tiger Wood's fall but also because of the world-wide recession. Imagine how much chemical fertilizer and water it takes to keep a green, grass golf course in the middle of a dessert. Can you say mirage?

Photosynthesis

For spring break, I am driving around New England looking at colleges (I even bumped into Fish in western Massachusetts). I am also reading and thinking about my junior theme. When asked what I am interested in studying I have responded environmental studies, but I also love anthropology--- which I interpret as the study of people across time and from differing cultures.

While they are wondering about my college major, I know that is really where my head is at this present time. To deal with all the college options, I prefer to stay literally, grounded in the present. It is in that context that I am trying to frame my research for the junior theme. I have been reading about the American, suburban lawn—that is about as grounded in my present home of Winnetka as I can get. How did that convention get started? Why are some homeowners obsessed with manicuring their lawns? Why do people throw on so many harmful chemicals where their pets and kids play in a weird trade off for “beauty”? Why do we sprinkle water over our lawn “crops” when we can’t eat the lawns? Why do people use precious water supplies in areas like Arizona, California and Colorado? What do they gain and what does their community lose and why are they willing to make the trade-off? What feeds “lawn peoples” addition to green grass and how do lawn care companies take advantage of that obsession? Why do I love an open field and how is that different from my yard? Why does my dad love golf and what does the green grass do for his experience? And the questions go on.

Then, at one of the schools we visited we stopped at the university art gallery. One student’s senior show was called “Photosynthesis”. This is the link: www.tjadengroundsdepartment.org/
This college art student said her purpose was “Rethinking the Lawn, introducing visible food production, emphasizing sustainability, and evaluating what art can do for a community” She took one of the lawns in front of one of the main academic buildings and converted it to a garden. Her inspiration came from Michael Pollan, Alice Waters, Hans Haacke, Michele Obama, Vadana Shiva, Mierle Laderman Ukels and Fritz Haeg. Some of these people I know and some I’ll have to look up. Anyway her idea was to take a small piece of the lawn that surrounds a university campus and imagine in a different way and get other people to think about it too. Check out the website to see what she did.

Wisconsin’s own Gaylord Nelson introduced the first Earth Day in 1970 to
Inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's natural environment. It is amazing to see how long it takes (40 years) to shift peoples’ habits and have knowledge and real understanding seep in. The lawns in suburban Winnetka are still deeply rooted in 2011. How has our care for those spaces changed as we have learned why more concern is necessary? It is about the care of our families and the community we call home.

Highlights of 3rd Quarter

For the third quarter, I suggest checking out "Towards Japan" and my last visual post in the series  "Images and Artifacts #6" (I'm getting into video embedding after Bolos showed me how to do it).  Hope you enjoy it.

(Although if you are into films I got some good film reviews as well "The Granddaddy Independent Film Festival-Sundance" and "Independent Film Making:Higher Ground, Homework, Another Earth, The Woods")