Things We Love About America, Part VII

Anonymity:

"Uncuriosity is one of the reasons I love America. In France, though I speak French well, my accent brands me as an Englishman. In England my accent brands me as – what?  Other Englishmen would tell: accent is the first characteristic by which English people make judgements about each other.  In America my accent means nothing at all… Nothing about me causes comment.  I m one of the crowd, simply another atom in a great, shifting, restless, busy, amiable, almost undifferentiated multitude that is the American people.   

There are other large countries on earth, Russia, China, India. Only the Americans have succeeded in creating a society of complete cultural uniformity … To an outsider the uniformity of America is profoundly relaxing. America makes no demands on one, imposes no expectations, asks no questions.  It accepts the foreigner as it accepts the native traveller, someone without origins or fixed abode or past or future, a being of the here-and-now, just passing through. I love passing through. A curious, delectable, weightless, free-floating trance possesses me when I stop for a moment in places like Hardin, Montana, or Half Moon Bay, California, or Springfield, Ohio, born of the knowledge that no one will ask me who I am or what I do or whence I come or whither I am going." – John Keegan, "One Englishman’s America."

Things We Love About America, Part VI

The passion for justice:

"Tom Joad: No, Ma, not that. That ain’t it. It’s just, well as long as I’m an outlaw anyways… maybe I can do somethin’… maybe I can just find out somethin’, just scrounge around and maybe find out what it is that’s wrong and see if they ain’t somethin’ that can be done about it. I ain’t thought it out all clear, Ma. I can’t. I don’t know enough.

Ma Joad: How am I gonna know about ya, Tommy? Why they could kill ya and I’d never know. They could hurt ya. How am I gonna know?

Tom Joad: Well, maybe it’s like Casy says. A fellow ain’t got a soul of his own, just little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody, then…

Ma Joad: Then what, Tom?

Tom Joad: Then it don’t matter. I’ll be all around in the dark – I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look – wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready, and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they build – I’ll be there, too."

Things We Love About America, Part IV

High on my list too. Walt Whitman‘s poetry:

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;   The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,   
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;   
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter singing as he stands;   The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;   
The delicious singing of the mother — or of the young wife at work — or of the girl sewing or washing—Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;   
The day what belongs to the day—At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,   
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

Things We Love About America, Part III

A reader writes:

Here in Los Angeles, there’s a foreign-born man (although he refuses to reveal where) named Tommy Wiseau who 4 years ago wrote, directed, and gave himself the lead role in a horrendous movie called "The Room". It’s probably one of the most awful movies ever, so bad, it’s hilariously good.

The punchline is that "The Room" has been playing in West Hollywood every month for the past 4 years to a theater full of dedicated "The Room" fans, who show up in costume and engage in raucous audience participation, as well as buy DVDs and t-shirts related to "The Room." I attended for the first time on Saturday, and it was one of the funniest experiences seeing a movie I’ve had in a long time. Tommy also has just completed a sitcom pilot, which looks like another masterpiece.

So Tommy’s entirely self-produced, horrible, overwrought, and semi-insane movie has been playing in theaters since 2003 with a legion of hard-core fans. Can you name a movie that came out in 2003 off the top of your head? I think that’s America right there.

Things We Love About America, Part I

The lecture circuit:

"Another morning comes: I see,
Dwindling below me on the plane,
The roofs of one more audience
I shall not see again.

God bless the lot of them, although
I don’t remember which was which:
God bless the U.S.A ., so large,
So friendly, and so rich."

From W.H. Auden’s paean to America’s lecturing goldmine, "On the Circuit," read by the poet here.