Arcadia a Trippy Novel of the 60s and Beyond

Arcadia (2012)

Lauren Groff

Voice 978-1401341909

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Few groups have been as maligned, romanticized, or misunderstood as 1960s-era hippies. Were they the embodiment of narcissistic individualism, a collective nightmare, or the nation’s last shot at redemption? Did their demise mark the dawning of sanity, or was it a society-wide surrender to the logic of self interest, greed, and dehumanization? Do we call a world without collective dreams “realistic,” or “tragic?” In her second novel, Lauren Groff grapples with such questions in before and after snapshots. The first part of the book is set in an undisclosed section of New York, where idealistic young people are determined to make the world anew in a commune known as Arcadia. (Internal clues suggest she’s located Arcadia someplace near Ithaca, which would make sense, as Groff grew up in Cooperstown and the Finger Lakes region was a hotbed for communalism.) We witness the life and death of a community as it emerges from a small band of rugged idealists living for years in buses, impromptu shelters, and sheds to a large community that restores and dwells in a rambling mansion, has become self sufficient, and stands as a beacon for other dreamers: in both good ways and bad.

Arcadia is, depending on one’s point of view, either a countercultural Woodstock-like utopia where drugs, music, casual sex, veganism, and personhood flourish, or a Brueghel-like hell of poverty, immorality, and foolishness. Among the many questions: Is it the sort of place where kids should grow up? The commune’s unofficial leader is Handy, a somewhat older gadabout, rock musician, poet, and homespun philosopher who may be a tribal elder, or might be a passive-aggressive egomaniac and charlatan that parasitically sucks sustenance and esteem from others. But the book really centers on “Bit,” the diminutive son of ponytailed carpenter Abe and his bourgeois-turned-earth mother partner Hannah. Bit—as in a “just a little bit of a hippie”—grows up wild and free on the commune. It’s the only life he knows, and things such as meat or encountering an old woman living in the woods throw him for a loop. As he begins to grow older, he’s really thrown for a loop by Helle, the daughter of Handy and one of his two wives, Astrid.  Like many things in the book, it’s not always clear if Bit is enjoying a golden childhood free of the hang-ups that damage a lot of kids, or is being set up for failure on a grand scale. And that’s really the question that looms over the entire commune.

Neil Young recently pondered whether 60s ideals were just “a dream/Only a dream/And it’s fading now/Fading away…Just a memory without anywhere to stay.” Groff begins her story sometime in the late 1960s and propels it forward to the year 2018. That’s plenty of time for utopian dreams to unfold, to sour, to morph, and for people to die or move on. It’s time for Bit to develop an independent self, go to college, have relationships, and build a life as a photographer and professor off the commune. And which self will be happier, the one traipsing through the trippy world of Arcadia, or the one bumped and bruised by life in the mainstream? What is this thing we call “reality,” and should we desire it? In essence, Arcadia asks the eternal question of whether we should live in the moment, wallow in regret for paths not taken, show disdain for the present, hope for the future, or seek a return to some sort of metaphorical womb.

There is great speculation as what Groff—who was born in 1978, long after the heyday of communal life--used as Arcadia’s role model. Several critics cite California’s Hog Farm (which remains extant), but to me Arcadia seems a mash between the daily survival struggles of Montague Farms in western Massachusetts and the agitprop politics of the Bread and Puppet community in Glover, Vermont. Another open question is whether Groff’s relative youth betrays her. Arcadia is an odd book stylistically.  She has clearly done some research on communes, but the sections on Arcadia occasionally sound mildly condescending—as if she was familiar with the ideals behind communes, but can’t quite grasp the fervor with which some believed in them. Give Groff credit, though, for vivid descriptions of the land, living conditions, daily routines, and the stark contrasts she draws between communing with nature and being collectively slapped by the same forces.

Still, the book’s tone changes dramatically during the post-commune years. Groff not only understands this period better, she writes about it with an elegance that is sometimes lacking in the first half of the book. This is unexpected, as one might expect the odors of home-baked bread to come off better on the page than descriptions of grab-and-go shopping for prepackaged goods at a convenience mart. Or maybe we should expect this. Neil Young also famously snapped back at a concert critic who complained that his music was redundant with the terse, “It’s all the same song.”  Maybe Groff’s point is that who we are is who we’ve been. Toward the end of the book Bit returns to what’s left of Arcadia and learns unanticipated lessons. Is it the dream finally finding someplace to stay? If you’re Lauren Groff, the smartest thing you can do is leave the question open-ended.—Rob Weir    

Gravity Light Uses Dirt to Illumine the Darkness

 

Problem: How does one bring light into the darkness? I don’t mean metaphorically (as in religion or philosophy); I mean literally.

We Westerners are spoiled. Who thinks about the miracle that occurs every time a switch is flipped and a room is bathed in light? We take electricity so much for granted that it generally escapes notice that satellite photos from space reveal that much of the world lives in darkness akin to that known by the human race when it was in its infancy. It’s not that hard to generate electricity if–and it’s a big if–you have two things: an adequate fuel supply and a network to deliver the electro-juice you squeeze from that fuel. Wood fires (or dried dung in much of the world) are romantic for Westerners sitting around campfires and den fireplaces, but walk six feet away from these and see the darkness. Or fill lanterns with kerosene like our ancestors did. Breathe in the toxicity.

So how does one deliver low-cost electricity to parts of the world in which fossil fuels and wood are scarce and expensive? How does one light up a room if the switch isn’t attached to wires connected to a grid that’s linked to a generator? How does one make light affordable for those with few resources? So few, in fact, that batteries are prohibitively expensive? (There are also environmental disposal hazards.) Is dirt-cheap cheap enough? Martin Riddiford thinks so.

He’s a cofounder of London-based GravityLight and his firm has come up with a product that’s where high tech meets low tech. Think of an old-style grandfather’s clock, the sort that works when chained weights are drawn up to the side of the clock and then left to ascend on their own weight. As the weights fall, they turn gears and the clock keeps time. The problem, of course, is figuring out how to make a light that’s significantly smaller than the average grandfather’s clock! Here’s where high tech comes in. We can now machine-grind very small gears and we can miniaturize dynamos. GravityLight’s very bright idea is to gear a small light and attach it to a rip-proof poly bag. One fills the bag with about 20 pounds of dirt, winches it clock-style to the bottom of the light, and lets gravity do its thing. One light plus one dirt bag provides 30 minutes of light before the bag has to be hoisted anew. The cost? Under $10 for the unit and free ever after.  

I’ll happily donate money for these to be sent around the world. If this isn’t a how-cool-is-this moment, what is?

Dreams of a Life Fizzles Out on all Levels

DREAMS OF A LIFE  (2011)

Directed and Written by Carol Morley

Dogwoof Productions, 95 minutes, not-rated

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When is a mystery not a mystery, a documentary not a documentary, and a feature-length film not worthy of being one? I can think of quite a few cases for each scenario, but few combine all three drawbacks with the prosaic dullness of Dreams of a Life.

The film’s hook intrigues. In 2006, British authorities broke into the North London apartment of Joyce Carol Vincent to evict her. Vincent, a vivacious and gorgeous young woman of West Indian descent, was discovered sitting on her sofa with the TV playing, and surrounded by a pile of Christmas presents. Or, more accurately, her putrefying bodily fluids were found puddled on the rug beneath her skeleton. Forensics revealed she had died in 2003. Writer/director Carol Morley sought to unravel how a popular and intelligent young woman in her twenties who seemingly had many friends and had held down responsible jobs could die alone in her flat without anyone noticing or making inquiries. Joyce had even made a few records, so somebody should have noticed, right? Quite a mystery, yes? No.

We learn in the first ten minutes that there is no mystery; Joyce was a serial groupie who latched onto people for short periods, vanished, and moved onto a new group (or lover). After 15 minutes we discover that Joyce was not quite what she claimed to be–not nearly so well educated, posh, or well connected as she let on. Had Morley stopped there, she might have had a tight little short film that could have created a minor stir in independent film festivals. Instead, she drags out the non-drama for another 80 minutes. Former partners, coworkers, club acquaintances, and musical collaborators go before the camera to tell us what I’ve already related. Rule one of a documentary is that it must record and document something. But Morley’s subjects have so little to say that she engages in two hard-to-overlook sins: she allows those behind the camera to repeat the same non-revealing items ad infinitum, and she supplements their lack of revelation with partially imagined re-creations using professional actors. (Zawe Ashton stands in for Joyce, Cornell John for her father, and so on.) Is this even a documentary once the corpse is collected? The threads of Joyce’s life are so few and the story so thin that Morley had to do something to get an hour and a half of usable footage, but the film feels like a two-page undergrad paper padded to five.

I don’t mean to sound callous, but Joyce Vincent left behind very little except an inflated view of her own musical talent and a penchant for conning people. Her egoism was probably a mask for deep insecurity, but the key word is “probably.” We don’t know and we don’t find out. Her life was short and tragic–sad, but hardly distinct from other short and tragic lives. This film wants us to grapple with the question of what we really know about another person. That’s a worthy query, but if the answer in any individual case is “not much,” there’s nothing left to say. So call it a wrap.--Rob Weir

Heather Maloney New Album Will Astonish

Don't be fooled by the demure cover. This one will bowl you over.

HEATHER MALONEY

Heather Maloney

Signature Sounds 2053

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Nearly every article on Heather Maloney mentions that when she hit the stage the first time in 2009 she nearly keeled over from stage fright. I remember those days. Color them gone, gone, gone. Let’s not waste any more time–Maloney’s third release, her first on Signature Sounds, is the year’s best acoustic release. Done. Can’t get any better. It is a work of maturity, deep emotion, and knock-you-to-your-knees beauty.

Maloney–originally from New Jersey and now in Western Massachusetts–was schooled in jazz and opera, studied classical Indian music, and spends time in meditation. Why the bio? Because all of these ground her in ways that elude many young singers. She writes with wisdom beyond her years and she interprets songs rather than feeling the need to prove her chops. Of course, it helps if those chops are already well done. We are served eleven songs that fall loosely in the folk country category, though jazz and pop undertones shine through. She can rock you with meaty, bouncy hooks (“Flutter”), impress you with a hand-jive/jazz mash up (“Hey Broken”), or stop you dead in your tracks with a poignancy and sweetness, as in “Dirt and Stardust,” a reflection on life’s ephemerality. (And she’s fine with that.) She has good politics too. “Grace,” a postmodern musing on the old gospel tune–with a clever refrain featuring elongated-to-clipped syllables–calls out “welfare queen” shouting hypocrites; and “John Ball” is where honky-tonk meets progressive thinking. She rounds off the album with “Flying on Helium,” a showstopper that’s simultaneously fragile and strong.

This album should draw comparisons to young Emmy Lou Harris and the debut release of Lucy Kaplansky. I say we dump the “emerging artist” label in favor of a new one: the Real Deal. --Rob Weir     

Amour the Best Film of 2012 (But Won't Be so Honored)

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Not a Hollywood film so it won't win Best Picture, but count it among the greatest achievements in cinematic history.  

AMOUR (2012)

Directed by Michael Haneke

Les Films du Losange, PG-13, 127 minutes, in French with subtitles

* * * * *

Here’s what happens in the Oscar-nominated Amour: a woman in her 80s dies. That’s it–no guns, no fast cars, and no dazzling special effects. And, yet, it’s easily the best film of 2012–though it has no chance of winning that category–and it’s not too early to apply the term “classic” and rank it among the better films of all time.  (For the record, director Michael Haneke’s 2009 film The White Ribbon also belongs in that category.)

The film is essentially a pas de deux between Georges (Jean-Louis Trintingant) and Anne (Emmanuel Riva), elderly, married, haute bourgeois soul mates that have shared decades of music, teaching, books, art collecting, and mutual aloofness. When Anne blacks out after a glorious recital by her former pupil Alexandre (Alexandre Tharaud), the couple is faced with the reality that Anne is dying. It is here that amour (love) meets its ultimate test. What would you do for the one you love most when the Grim Reaper beckons? The film raises all manner of questions we spend our lives ignoring. When do we hold on, and when do we say goodbye? What will we endure for a few more moments? How do we judge when the line is crossed between tolerance and intolerance? How much care can even the most loving caregiver provide before the giver snaps? Is that person honor-bound to respect the wishes of the dying? How much is the receiver willing to accept? When does the loss of personal dignity become so repugnant that death becomes merciful? Georges quickly learns that there are no easy answers to those questions, and that the only guidelines are internal and instinctive. When daughter Eva (Isabelle Hupert) shows up to ask “serious” questions about what to do, Georges abruptly dismisses her.” What sort of serious discussion do you wish to have?” he demands. Eva has no answer; her own life is as complicated as most are midstream–financial woes, a rocky marriage, career worries, self-absorption….  Georges’ retort sharply slices through the nostrums and makes Eva confront truth.

If you get the idea that this film is depressing, you’re right. But it’s also many other things: touching and tragic, wise and helpless, shocking and poignant, funny and gut-wrenchingly sad. Does this sound contradictory? Isn’t the life cycle equally so? We are born without awareness and in a state of total dependency, and in such a state many of us leave this mortal coil. The biggest difference is that in between we develop selfhood and definite opinions about how that self should be treated.

Many North Americans will avoid this film like the plague. Not only is its subject a downer, its pacing is glacial. Georges and Anne are essentially prisoners on death row awaiting a sickle-bearing warden. They sit in the stillness of the den, inch along the silence of the foyer, and sit almost wordlessly at the table. There is one numbingly beautiful shot of Anne on her side in bed wearing a pale blue night gown; were it not for her occasional blinking, it could be a still-life titled Odalisque at 80. Another astonishing moment occurs during Georges’ slow-motion attempt to trap and release a pigeon that has gotten into the apartment–almost certainly a metaphor for the soul’s release. These are among numerous moments in which director Haneke forces his audiences to slow down and be aware of time’s passage. Kudos go also to veteran actors Trintignant and Riva. Few actors convey ennui as convincingly as Trintignat–his performance in Trois Coleurs: Rouge ranks among the finest in cinematic history­–but for once he is upstaged. Emmanuel Riva won’t win the Oscar either, but it would be fair to say that there is more emotion, passion, and anger in her eyebrows than her Oscar contenders could muster in a dozen overwrought soliloquies. She is a veritable shape shifter whom we witness transformed from a handsome older woman into a barely breathing sack of bones. Toward the end, her performance is mime elevated to heights not seen since the passing of Marcel Marceau.

Let me reiterate: this is not an American-style movie; it’s a European film. Amour demands patience, but its rewards are–dare I say it?–eternal. It should be required viewing for every erstwhile moralist that opposes doctor-assisted suicide. It also gives a twist and substance to the New Testament passage: “Greater love hath no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”     --Rob Weir

Sons of the Never Wrong Album Offers Hope (if We See It)

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SONS OF THE NEVER WRONG

King Fisher King

Waterbug 107

* * * *

I admire Sons of the Never Wrong in much the same way that I’ve been a fan of Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion. Cynics don’t get the Midwestern ecumenical Christian wholesomeness of either Keillor or the Sons, but sometimes I’ve just had it with all the pessimism and want something that lifts the spirit. The latest from SOTNW opens as most of their recordings do–with a catchy little homespun ditty that spotlights Bruce Roper’s dry, reedy voice (which is vaguely reminiscent of Steve Goodman’s). In this case, we get the down-home virtues of “Arkansas,” and its musical pastiche of Americana, folk, and faintly Irish instrumentation. What stands out most, though, are the incredibly tight three-part harmonies between Roper, Sue Demel, and Deborah Lader. It’s an infectious song that exudes giddiness.

Don’t be fooled by the trio’s optimism–it’s not blind faith. The album’s major theme is the fragility of life and is embodied on track eleven, “Compromise,” which addresses the choices we make to uplift, or tear down; to come home, or be lonely on the road. As they remind later on, “... all our best intentions are lost in a net by the Galilee Sea.” The album’s tone is often joyful, but it’s also cautionary: if you want meaning, you have to take the time to see the small things that really matter. “Over There” could be viewed as a slice of folky Utopia with Biblical undertones, or a litany of the things that divide and conquer. It’s all a matter of the choices we make.

The Sons of Never Wrong are hard to classify musically. They are certainly on the folk end of the spectrum, but material such as “Sword and Pen” and “Face on Mars” have a theatrical feel that evokes light musical theater. They also have a penchant for writing off-kilter songs. “The Great Unknown” takes the well-worked theme of contemplating what’s on the other side of death, but how many songs tell this by populating the lyrics with Caesar, Lincoln, and John Lennon? Or how about a song about the importance of remembering that’s actually about forgetting (“Window”)? Or some white people’s soul in which a terrifying “Tornado” becomes a father’s gentle lesson about life cycles. I understand when people tell me that Sons of the Never Wrong are just too weird (or too sunny) for them, but I get them and I’m grateful for the gentle guidance they offer. Check out the new album's songs for yourself at http://www.sons.com/

 

--Rob Weir

Mindy McCready: Not a Legend, a Tragedy

As it happens, she wasn't very tough.

Legend: (n) nonhistorical or unverifiable story handed down by tradition from earlier times; body of stories of this kind…accepted as historical; the person at the center of such stories. Synonyms: myth, fable

I awoke on February 18 to hear the sad news that country music artist Mindy McCready had taken her own life. Then I toddled off to the gym where one of the TV screens was tuned to Fox News and saw one of its gaudy banners atop the talking heads. I never listen to Fox (or any other network news), but the headline caught my eye: “Legendary Country Singer Mindy McCready Dead at 37.” Legendary? That’s a stretch even by the sloppy (non) standards of contemporary American English. With the exception of the word "hero," it’s hard to imagine a more misused word in our language than “legend.”  (Regarding “heroes,” it would behoove most who use that term to renew their acquaintance with the word “victim.”) In what ways, exactly, was Mindy McCready legendary? Her life was an open book whose pages we endlessly viewed whether we wished to or not. It was all too verifiable and the only “tradition” associated with it is voyeurism.

I’m not here to praise or bury Mindy McCready. I’m more concerned with what Joni Mitchell  labeled the “star-maker machinery” that seeks to transform a moderately talented singer into an epic drama. In fact, I think it may be partly responsible for McCready’s suicide. It is the pop machine that inures us to damaged individuals who should be in therapy rather than on stage.

McCready’s musical legacy was thin. She released five albums between 1996 and 2010, of which only the first, Ten Thousand Angels, made it as high as #4 on the country charts. It did contain a # 1 single, “Guys Do It All the Time,” but things steadily declined from there. She hadn’t been on the charts since 2002, when one of her songs was ranked #49, and it’s hard not to read things into the title of her last album: I’m Still Here (2010). In all, McCready sold about 3 million units–not shabby, but not exactly “White Christmas” territory either. It was enough, however, to keep her in the tabloid column, though her troubled personal life made much better copy than anything she could slap onto a CD.

Her biography reveals far more valleys than peaks. It began with a Pentecostal upbringing one suspects instilled in her a sense of unworthiness, and Nashville by 18, a place known for chewing up even the strongest. By her disputed telling, she began a decade-long affair with baseball’s Roger Clemens when she was 16, and began sleeping with him when she was 18. It didn’t get much better. Her résumé includes several broken engagements, drinking, and enduring domestic abuse at the hands of a man from whom she separated and then reconnected long enough to become pregnant by him. Then came a suicide attempt, drug abuse, a porn tape, a new boyfriend, a second child, more drinking, Oxycontin, a DUI conviction, a charge of identity theft, and a custody battle with her own mother over guardianship of her children. The father of the second child, record producer David Wilson, allegedly committed suicide a month ago. (This case has been reopened.) This isn’t legend; it’s a tragedy of Greek proportions.

Now that her pathetic (as in pathos) life has ended, it’s time for tears, flowers, and teddy bears. Weepy faces appear on the screen sobbing, “We love you, Mindy.” No, you didn’t, and she didn’t love you either. Mindy McCready was a walking basket-case who desperately needed help, but who cares if she’s an OMG moment on Fox News or the Yahoo! Homepage? It’s no accident that her first record was the one that made the splash. It was her turn to be the flavor of the month served up by the star-maker machinery. Then the machine turned. Here’s how it goes. You begin with fame and graduate to celebrity. Both are ephemeral. You either add more fuel to the machine, or the final cycle is notoriety. The strong go to rehab and start the cycle anew. (Don’t we just love rehab stories?) The weak end up like Mindy McCready. There’s nothing legendary about it--it's as common as dust. Joni Mitchell’s “Free Man in Paris” is worth quoting in its entirety:

"The way I see it," he said
"You just can't win it...
Everybody's in it for their own gain
You can't please 'em all
There's always somebody calling you down
I do my best
And I do good business
There's a lot of people asking for my time
They're trying to get ahead
They're trying to be a good friend of mine

I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
There was nobody calling me up for favors
And no one's future to decide
You know I'd go back there tomorrow
But for the work I've taken on
Stoking the star maker machinery
Behind the popular song

I deal in dreamers
And telephone screamers
Lately I wonder what I do it for
If l had my way
I'd just walk through those doors
And wander
Down the Champs Elysees
Going cafe to cabaret
Thinking how I'll feel when I find
That very good friend of mine

I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
Nobody was calling me up for favors
No one's future to decide
You know I'd go back there tomorrow
But for the work I've taken on
Stoking the star maker machinery
Behind the popular song."