If you want to reserve a copy of the upcoming second issue, leave a comment with your name and campus mailbox number.
We are starting to collect work for a third issue, to be published before the end of the semester. Send submissions, ideas, or any comments at all to pomonaspruningknife@gmail.com.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
From the Editors
Pomona College is a strange place. It is an English garden oasis nestled in a desert landscape, amidst endless In-N-Out’s and Ford dealerships, filled with an assemblage of students from every corner of the country who have come to Southern California to do yoga and read Descartes, to learn Spanish or Mandarin. Every day, students wake up and walk by each other on the way to class, preoccupied with thoughts oscillating between today’s English reading and yesterday’s paper. We too easily lose ourselves in our own academic projections, but strangely decide that, between the classrooms and the dorm rooms where we endlessly read and write and calculate and think, conversation stops and the life of the mind pauses. That five-minute walk between the dorm and class is not a bridge between two isolated locations of intellectual activity. An insightful teacher once told me that our best thoughts come in our sleep or in the bathroom. Leaving the validity of that statement aside, the point is that thought is not circumscribed to a given locale or time of day, and often it is during the most routine activity at the most awkward time that we produce our greatest insights.
In some ways, Pomona is a haven for a variety of discourses. There is the routine: the digester, the small talk over lunch, or the late-night meandering conversation. There is the “academic” activity that goes on in classrooms between Bonita and 7th St., and the silent work that constantly goes on in libraries, dorm rooms, and laboratories. There are even the anonymous and fleeting rants plastered to Walker wall. There is the absurd experience, the extraordinary event, and the bizarre conversation. Yet when it comes to a written record of our discursive activity, there seems to be a common assumption that a newspaper is somehow a panacea, as though there is nothing more to be said beyond current events, opinions, sports, and arts. I have a problem with this seemingly foregone conclusion, because it is between the newspaper sections and after class that we have our most fascinating thoughts. It’s not these forums that are misguided, but the belief that discourse stops with the established venues of academic writing and news. Pomona’s Pruning Knife hopes to provide an alternative forum.
Pomona is the Roman goddess of fruit and gardening, and her implement is the pruning knife. Too often, the fruits of our mental labor are left to fall to the ground and rot. We started Pomona’s Pruning Knife to trim and gather the thoughts and ideas that lie somewhere between the newspaper and term paper. This is a forum for the ideas that involve life and school, class and party. It is non-exclusionary and yet non-inclusive. We have no agenda and no subject matter. We’re not sure if we’re a journal or a magazine. What we do know is that Pomona students are thinkers, and that a forum for highlighting their ideas that occur between the lines is long overdue.
Jacob Levi, co-editor
This project started as a column in TSL called “The Liberal Arts Life.” Each week I wrote about an idea that was somehow present on campus, as explained to me by someone who had some expertise and enthusiasm for the subject. I wrote about the big bang theory, a Brahms symphony, corporeal mime, and the possibility for political implications in art.
At the root of every subject is an idea that represents a perspective on the world. Those ideas are what I was after in my original column, and what I want to capture in this publication.
I was inspired by a series of four Thomas Cole paintings called “The Voyage of Life.” They depict Childhood, Youth, Manhood and Old Age.
The castle in the background of “Youth” spoke to me as a representation of that perfect idea or view of the world--the one we as young people seek. Then there’s the way that the painting as a whole visualizes the search itself.
I’m trying to recreate a certain moment from a Physics course I took last year. We were learning about Quantum Mechanics, and our professor did this cool thought experiment on the board. Suddenly I saw the bizarre implications of the endless problem sets and proofs contributing to a really interesting view of the world.
I’m interested in reading articles about any idea that can inspire such moments. And I think everybody at this school knows enough about some particular subject to explain why it is exciting.
I hope you’ll contribute an idea you love.
Rose Haag, co-editor
In some ways, Pomona is a haven for a variety of discourses. There is the routine: the digester, the small talk over lunch, or the late-night meandering conversation. There is the “academic” activity that goes on in classrooms between Bonita and 7th St., and the silent work that constantly goes on in libraries, dorm rooms, and laboratories. There are even the anonymous and fleeting rants plastered to Walker wall. There is the absurd experience, the extraordinary event, and the bizarre conversation. Yet when it comes to a written record of our discursive activity, there seems to be a common assumption that a newspaper is somehow a panacea, as though there is nothing more to be said beyond current events, opinions, sports, and arts. I have a problem with this seemingly foregone conclusion, because it is between the newspaper sections and after class that we have our most fascinating thoughts. It’s not these forums that are misguided, but the belief that discourse stops with the established venues of academic writing and news. Pomona’s Pruning Knife hopes to provide an alternative forum.
Pomona is the Roman goddess of fruit and gardening, and her implement is the pruning knife. Too often, the fruits of our mental labor are left to fall to the ground and rot. We started Pomona’s Pruning Knife to trim and gather the thoughts and ideas that lie somewhere between the newspaper and term paper. This is a forum for the ideas that involve life and school, class and party. It is non-exclusionary and yet non-inclusive. We have no agenda and no subject matter. We’re not sure if we’re a journal or a magazine. What we do know is that Pomona students are thinkers, and that a forum for highlighting their ideas that occur between the lines is long overdue.
Jacob Levi, co-editor
This project started as a column in TSL called “The Liberal Arts Life.” Each week I wrote about an idea that was somehow present on campus, as explained to me by someone who had some expertise and enthusiasm for the subject. I wrote about the big bang theory, a Brahms symphony, corporeal mime, and the possibility for political implications in art.
At the root of every subject is an idea that represents a perspective on the world. Those ideas are what I was after in my original column, and what I want to capture in this publication.
I was inspired by a series of four Thomas Cole paintings called “The Voyage of Life.” They depict Childhood, Youth, Manhood and Old Age.
The castle in the background of “Youth” spoke to me as a representation of that perfect idea or view of the world--the one we as young people seek. Then there’s the way that the painting as a whole visualizes the search itself.
I’m trying to recreate a certain moment from a Physics course I took last year. We were learning about Quantum Mechanics, and our professor did this cool thought experiment on the board. Suddenly I saw the bizarre implications of the endless problem sets and proofs contributing to a really interesting view of the world.
I’m interested in reading articles about any idea that can inspire such moments. And I think everybody at this school knows enough about some particular subject to explain why it is exciting.
I hope you’ll contribute an idea you love.
Rose Haag, co-editor
Shifting Gears By Clay Taylor
It was late at night and there was only the road. We were somewhere just north of Dallas on some two-lane truck route gunning towards Amarillo and then onwards to I-40 West. My two companions had been asleep for hours, and I was the only one awake. Tweaked on Adderall, coffee, and cigarettes, I needed something to keep me grounded. But there was nothing. My mind was racing out of control, and I was alone with my truck.
It was a terrible solitude. Flat, desolate blackness extended in every direction as far as the eye could not see. Without even the faintest light from the moon, there was no way to know what I was missing. In my head, I pictured an alien dreamscape more bizarre than Dalí had ever dared to paint. I knew reality was probably far less glamorous, but I needed a fantasy to keep me entertained and focused. The road was starting to get to me. As time dragged on, the dotted yellow lines began to look like bullets. I felt a strong urge to dodge them. But there was no way of escaping this terrible onslaught. My palms started to sweat. I longed more than anything for a turn. A dip. Hell I’d even settle for a bump. But nothing changed. Endless monotony. I started to wonder if we would ever reach civilization at all. Never before in my life had I been so far out in the middle of nowhere. And never in my life had I been so far from the cops.
I was totally free. There were no speed limits. There were no traffic lights. There weren’t any signs at all. Just an endless stream of passing telephone poles, giving the road the appearance of a runway. I decided to take off. I nudged the accelerator just a little at first and then rammed it to the floor. I was all in. I held the wheel tightly and leaned forward to watch the road more carefully. The speedometer began to climb. Eighty-five. Ninety. Ninety-five. Ninety-seven. Ninety-nine. And then a roar. The transmission downshifted and the engine revved high. Just shy of a hundred miles per hour, and I could go no faster. But it wasn’t because my engine lacked the power. There were plenty of horses to do the job. Something was holding me back. And I was furious. It was the goddamned computer. My transmission was being controlled by a machine. Just like the bell that sounds when your seatbelt isn’t buckled, this onboard policeman was installed by the good people at Chevy to keep me safely under control. I could do nothing about it, so I let off the accelerator, eased down to eighty, and lit another cigarette. I would have to learn to limit my romantic expectations. Jack Kerouac is dead. A tank of gas costs over fifty bucks. And the days of joyriding are over.
I was disappointed. But my disappointment in circumstances such as these is constant and to some degree expected. In this age of modern material comfort, society has lost its appetite for raw physical danger. Everything has been wrapped in bubble wrap to protect us from ourselves. Even our cars. What’s worse, we’ve substituted the actual thrill of exhilarating experiences for the vicarious experiences of others. We stare at the screens of our computers, of our televisions, and of our cell phones and suck down Huxley’s soma and forget what it feels like to take risks. And the youth are the ones who suffer most. No longer can we push the limits of our world to find our place and discover our character.
Freedom in modern America, it seems, is shrinking faster than Bush’s approval rating. Take two steps out of line and there are satellites relaying your exact location to the nearest authorities, who are perched, waiting to run you down like dogs. Even out in the middle of fucking nowhere, you aren’t free. If it’s not the cops, it’s something else. But I won’t stand for it. I refuse to give in so easily. Right then and there, I vowed that my next car would be a stick shift.
It was a terrible solitude. Flat, desolate blackness extended in every direction as far as the eye could not see. Without even the faintest light from the moon, there was no way to know what I was missing. In my head, I pictured an alien dreamscape more bizarre than Dalí had ever dared to paint. I knew reality was probably far less glamorous, but I needed a fantasy to keep me entertained and focused. The road was starting to get to me. As time dragged on, the dotted yellow lines began to look like bullets. I felt a strong urge to dodge them. But there was no way of escaping this terrible onslaught. My palms started to sweat. I longed more than anything for a turn. A dip. Hell I’d even settle for a bump. But nothing changed. Endless monotony. I started to wonder if we would ever reach civilization at all. Never before in my life had I been so far out in the middle of nowhere. And never in my life had I been so far from the cops.
I was totally free. There were no speed limits. There were no traffic lights. There weren’t any signs at all. Just an endless stream of passing telephone poles, giving the road the appearance of a runway. I decided to take off. I nudged the accelerator just a little at first and then rammed it to the floor. I was all in. I held the wheel tightly and leaned forward to watch the road more carefully. The speedometer began to climb. Eighty-five. Ninety. Ninety-five. Ninety-seven. Ninety-nine. And then a roar. The transmission downshifted and the engine revved high. Just shy of a hundred miles per hour, and I could go no faster. But it wasn’t because my engine lacked the power. There were plenty of horses to do the job. Something was holding me back. And I was furious. It was the goddamned computer. My transmission was being controlled by a machine. Just like the bell that sounds when your seatbelt isn’t buckled, this onboard policeman was installed by the good people at Chevy to keep me safely under control. I could do nothing about it, so I let off the accelerator, eased down to eighty, and lit another cigarette. I would have to learn to limit my romantic expectations. Jack Kerouac is dead. A tank of gas costs over fifty bucks. And the days of joyriding are over.
I was disappointed. But my disappointment in circumstances such as these is constant and to some degree expected. In this age of modern material comfort, society has lost its appetite for raw physical danger. Everything has been wrapped in bubble wrap to protect us from ourselves. Even our cars. What’s worse, we’ve substituted the actual thrill of exhilarating experiences for the vicarious experiences of others. We stare at the screens of our computers, of our televisions, and of our cell phones and suck down Huxley’s soma and forget what it feels like to take risks. And the youth are the ones who suffer most. No longer can we push the limits of our world to find our place and discover our character.
Freedom in modern America, it seems, is shrinking faster than Bush’s approval rating. Take two steps out of line and there are satellites relaying your exact location to the nearest authorities, who are perched, waiting to run you down like dogs. Even out in the middle of fucking nowhere, you aren’t free. If it’s not the cops, it’s something else. But I won’t stand for it. I refuse to give in so easily. Right then and there, I vowed that my next car would be a stick shift.
A Little Jaunt by Rose Haag
If cross-country road-trips are about meandering across the countryside and “finding yourself,” then my drive home last May was an anti-road-trip. It was just Zoë and me. We drove around the clock, saw practically no scenery, and made it from Claremont to Philadelphia in under two days. Besides the gas and coffee stops, we only pulled off the road twice: in Flagstaff, AZ we submitted our final exams, and in Mulberry Grove, IL we went for a run.
We left on Thursday.
Zoë had been up all night working on a paper, so I drove first.
We only made it four hours out before the sun started going down and we settled in at a Motel 6 somewhere in Arizona.
By ten o’clock the next morning, our papers were finished and suddenly we looked around to find we were in Flagstaff, and finished with sophomore year of college.
We bought Dramamine for the backseat, coffee for the front, and by noon, we were off!
I took over the wheel as it was getting dark and drove through Texas. I couldn’t see much. I do remember a huge cement cross by the side of the road, and a gas station where the coffee was 10 cents cheaper if you brought your own cup.
Zoë took over as the sun came up. I slept through the Missouri rest-stop, where the coffee was free and the cashier pointed out that Missouri offers far better hospitality than “those Arkansas rest-stops.” I was looking forward to seeing the Mississippi River, but all I remember is waking up, looking around, seeing the bridge, and going back to sleep.
We tried to only spend money on gas and coffee. I had somehow acquired sardines and canned spinach, and we took some staples from the dining hall before we left: bread, hard-boiled eggs, and apples. I also recall some Hershey’s and a huge jug of V-8.
By the time we hit Illinois on Friday afternoon, we were starting to feel strange from too much sitting, too much coffee, strange interactions between caffeine and Dramamine, and all those sardines. We pulled off because the name “Mulberry Grove” sounded cool.
We parked in the church parking lot, put on our running clothes and ran down the dirt road past fields and farmhouses. The first half hour was refreshing; after that, we were nauseated and dehydrated, and unfortunately still had to run back.
It was miserable, but we made it back to the church. The priest was waiting for us; he let us rinse off in the bathroom. Before we left, he gave us a copy of the New Testament, written in “plain English, without the thees and thous.” Signed, Randy of Mulberry Grove.
Ohio’s gas stations were the sketchiest. I was driving and it was past midnight on Saturday. The doors to the convenience store were locked, and we went to three different stations before we found a usable bathroom.
I was wired so I kept driving into the morning, way past the end of my six-hour shift. I have this incredible hazy memory of that dawn, of the pink sky and the gray clouds and the mountainous, windy roads of Western Pennsylvania. I’d been sitting in stale air for hours, but I felt like I was riding down a hill on a bicycle with crisp air blowing through my hair.
By the time we were trying to navigate city streets in Philadelphia, I was a zombie. Somehow, I stayed awake for the final three hours down I-95. I walked in my front door on Sunday afternoon, a full day before my sister’s birthday.
Zoë posted on my Facebook wall a few days later:
“Phone conversation between me and a Concerned Older Brother:
Me: Hello?
A: Mom?
Me: No, it’s Zoë.
A: Oh hey, wait, why are you home already?
Me: I decided to drive.
A: Yeah we discussed this on Thursday and you hadn’t even left. How did you do that so fast?
Me: just well planned use of zoom control.
A: Zoom control? hmmm, I think someone needs to lay off the Jack Kerouac.”
Impressions from A Road to Nowhere by Jacob Levi
It is eight in the morning, it’s forty-five degrees, and I am sitting on the passenger side as we zoom down the highway through the Mojave. Endless orange-brown sand is highlighted only by the occasional shrub, damned by the lottery of birth to grow in this inhospitable, arid climate. We pull over to pee. I watch my feet for rattlesnakes, thorns, spiders, or any other unfriendly creature that might ruin this otherwise picturesque morning. Don’t forget to face downwind.
I’m not sure why or how I got here, only that I haven’t slept in what feels like days, and my skin is beginning to meld to the leather seat. I hope I remember how to walk because I’m not sure I can feel my legs. The sun is glaring overhead, but nothing can hurt me through my sunglasses. Sonic Youth blasts over the stereo. Thurston Moore screams, “Incinerate!” over and over, an anthem of urban decay and rebellion. A propos. I sit idly by as the desert passes by me.
This is nowhere. There are no gas stations, no 7-11’s, no restrooms. Only sand and dirt for miles and miles. Every car that crosses our path is an event on this two-lane road to nowhere. Or should I say, road from nowhere. The end of this road leads to the center of it all, the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, the beaches, the bars. But here! Here we are free. The traffic, the drama, and the light—it’s all strikingly unreal in the midst of sand dunes that extend as far as the eye can see.
But somehow it has crept. Yes, the dirt and the dust and the tumbleweeds creep steadily towards Los Angeles, the tropical city built upon a desert. The desert has crept into my car—sand in my nostrils, in my mouth, between my toes, in the car. However, what I mean is that Los Angeles has crept toward the desert. From behind a rolling hill of red sand emerges a conglomerate of hundreds of prefabricated houses, meticulously ordered such that the cloister could almost pass for a community. There is not a single car in a single model home. Someone must’ve thought this was a good place to build homes. In the middle of the Mojave Desert. Surely there are people who, seeking solitude or natural beauty, want to live in the desert. Apparently none of them were interested in a prefab’ home surrounded by a hundred other identical prefab’ homes. It appears that little boxes on the hillside are more marketable amidst the lush palm trees of San Diego and Thousand Oaks.
We pass a small ranch with a sign on the highway. It reads, “GET THE US OUT OF THE UN,” in ever-patriotic red, white and blue-stenciled lettering. Really? I didn’t know there were people who felt that way. Was I lost? Had I made a wrong turn and crossed into unfriendly lands? I don’t even think Sarah Palin wants to leave the UN—and she can see Russia from her house!
My mind once again returns to Sonic Youth. Maybe there is something to be said about the parallels between urban decay and the state of affairs in the Mojave this morning. Yes, indeed we should pull out of the UN. Look at all these Mexicans stealing our jobs. Look at all these tumbleweeds in need of mending. To think that nobody has bothered to water those scraggily bushes on the side of the highway! Travesty. Bring American jobs back home to the Mojave, where they belong. I hear that the housing crisis hit the central Mojave the worst. Lost jobs everywhere. Wall Street has no idea. Whoever put that sign up was certainly on to something; Sonic Youth was clearly talking about the same thing. There is something very, very wrong with this country, and it is clearly France. Politics tire me out and I return to watching the car’s shadow cross the melting asphalt.
Sometimes this city doesn’t know where to stop. I thought I had freed myself from it, at least for this Saturday morning, but the sprawl already caught up. It is difficult to imagine that the Valley looked much like this desert less than a century ago, but it is easy to envision that this area will probably look like the Valley does now in due time, scattered with affordable housing, fast food and expensive gasoline. If you can’t bring the people to LA, bring LA to the people. So far I don’t see too many of either, but that is certain to change. I find myself constantly repeating the last line in Roman Polanski’s neo-film noir classic, “Chinatown” in my head: “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.” This city does not seem to know its own limits.
I’m not sure why or how I got here, only that I haven’t slept in what feels like days, and my skin is beginning to meld to the leather seat. I hope I remember how to walk because I’m not sure I can feel my legs. The sun is glaring overhead, but nothing can hurt me through my sunglasses. Sonic Youth blasts over the stereo. Thurston Moore screams, “Incinerate!” over and over, an anthem of urban decay and rebellion. A propos. I sit idly by as the desert passes by me.
This is nowhere. There are no gas stations, no 7-11’s, no restrooms. Only sand and dirt for miles and miles. Every car that crosses our path is an event on this two-lane road to nowhere. Or should I say, road from nowhere. The end of this road leads to the center of it all, the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, the beaches, the bars. But here! Here we are free. The traffic, the drama, and the light—it’s all strikingly unreal in the midst of sand dunes that extend as far as the eye can see.
But somehow it has crept. Yes, the dirt and the dust and the tumbleweeds creep steadily towards Los Angeles, the tropical city built upon a desert. The desert has crept into my car—sand in my nostrils, in my mouth, between my toes, in the car. However, what I mean is that Los Angeles has crept toward the desert. From behind a rolling hill of red sand emerges a conglomerate of hundreds of prefabricated houses, meticulously ordered such that the cloister could almost pass for a community. There is not a single car in a single model home. Someone must’ve thought this was a good place to build homes. In the middle of the Mojave Desert. Surely there are people who, seeking solitude or natural beauty, want to live in the desert. Apparently none of them were interested in a prefab’ home surrounded by a hundred other identical prefab’ homes. It appears that little boxes on the hillside are more marketable amidst the lush palm trees of San Diego and Thousand Oaks.
We pass a small ranch with a sign on the highway. It reads, “GET THE US OUT OF THE UN,” in ever-patriotic red, white and blue-stenciled lettering. Really? I didn’t know there were people who felt that way. Was I lost? Had I made a wrong turn and crossed into unfriendly lands? I don’t even think Sarah Palin wants to leave the UN—and she can see Russia from her house!
My mind once again returns to Sonic Youth. Maybe there is something to be said about the parallels between urban decay and the state of affairs in the Mojave this morning. Yes, indeed we should pull out of the UN. Look at all these Mexicans stealing our jobs. Look at all these tumbleweeds in need of mending. To think that nobody has bothered to water those scraggily bushes on the side of the highway! Travesty. Bring American jobs back home to the Mojave, where they belong. I hear that the housing crisis hit the central Mojave the worst. Lost jobs everywhere. Wall Street has no idea. Whoever put that sign up was certainly on to something; Sonic Youth was clearly talking about the same thing. There is something very, very wrong with this country, and it is clearly France. Politics tire me out and I return to watching the car’s shadow cross the melting asphalt.
Sometimes this city doesn’t know where to stop. I thought I had freed myself from it, at least for this Saturday morning, but the sprawl already caught up. It is difficult to imagine that the Valley looked much like this desert less than a century ago, but it is easy to envision that this area will probably look like the Valley does now in due time, scattered with affordable housing, fast food and expensive gasoline. If you can’t bring the people to LA, bring LA to the people. So far I don’t see too many of either, but that is certain to change. I find myself constantly repeating the last line in Roman Polanski’s neo-film noir classic, “Chinatown” in my head: “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.” This city does not seem to know its own limits.
Cracks in the Wall By Georgia Zacks
We navigated the rectilinear streets of the planned city of St. Petersburg, walking along the Moika River just off Nevsky Prospect, seeking a boat at the number 43, but it was nowhere to be found. Lost souls wandered past us, dragging hard on Russian cigarettes and muttering americanka. We are tourists in a Russian city and there is no denying it (or hiding it -- despite my new chopped and banged Lila Brik haircut). We are doing the quintessential tourist activity: the boat trip through the canals. Number 43 was down some steps and under a bridge. As we all filed into the boat, the tour guide counting heads as we passed, a memory passed through me...I was 7 years old and boarding another wooden boat on the Wild River ride at Disneyland; it slowly jerked down-river, yielding mechanical Wild West scenes at every bend. Even as a kid, the ride bored me—the Wild West figures were lame! Of course, I am infinitely more mature now and St. Petersburg provided an infinitely richer view than Disneyland, but, nonetheless, I was about to tour Peter the Great’s fantasy land: the canals he dreamed up and the baroque architecture he commissioned from brilliant Italians.
As we rode down the canals, the view was spectacular; the sun sank a little lower in the sky but the streets were still alive with people. We passed gorgeous building after gorgeous building, many in the process of being restored. The weather in Petersburg is so harsh that apparently the buildings have to constantly be touched up to keep their outward appearance looking like the regal, European capital that Peter had so desired. I thought about the rot that must exist underneath the surface of the those appearances, the inner rot that comes along with satisfying the wishes of a long-gone ruler in the face of the forces of mother nature. We passed the backside of the Mariinsky Theater and the weather had thoroughly eroded its minty green facade, exposing a rotting underbelly. It was merely the backside, so why bother with restorations? It was much like in the land of Disney where “no one has ever died,” a façade maintained by banning medics from pronouncing visitors dead until they have left the walls of Disneyland.
Instead, I thought of Baudelaire and Rilke, the beauty of natural decay, and how it looks when the elegance of a thing naturally fades, like a former model who has decided against injecting mountains of collagen into her face. Or when life fights through artificiality, like on a vine-covered English Tudor or like blades of grass sprouting through a crack in the pavement.
People kept waving at us from the bridges. I thought about the Wild River ride again, only to realize that these were real people to whom I was waving, not Mickeys and Minnies, and Peter the Great had not forced them to wave at me, or at least not directly. These real people are living in a city that was the fantasy-land of one man – a westernized Russian city.
A while back, Joan Didion wrote an article about a planned community in Southern California. The article started at a human level. There had been a gang rape in this community. I can’t remember the name of the place but it was something like Smithstown let’s say, but anyways, the members of the community were outraged.
“How could this happen? And here! Smithstown is the ideal American community and to think that my son plays baseball with those boys!” said one mother, a character left unnamed by Didion as well.
Smithstown was founded by a steel mill corporation and built in concentric circles. The town was arranged so that the inhabitants could work in the factories on the outside ring, live in the pre-packaged cookie-cutter houses in the inner ring and consume in the center of town, where the company generously included a large shopping center. But the factory went under. Smithstown shows what can happen when a deep crack arises in a perfectly calculated dream. Once the steel industry faltered, the corporation that founded Smithstown had no investment in keeping up the American dream and the city crumbled, taking its inhabitants down with it. Peter the Great’s ghost has done the opposite: commanded armies of painters to keep up the Western façade. Over 300 years after his death, the city is still without a crack.
How does a city progress when its roots are all in one headstrong man? How can it evolve? Petersburg seems like such a strange hybrid of a city now. Before coming here, the only image I had was of Dostoevskian archetypes wandering in tattered frock coats, but obviously that’s not the case. It’s a modern city left in the shell of its past, a city of museums with fetuses floating in jars of brine and baroque buildings cryogenically frozen like ice queens. Through ordinances and rulings, it has succeeded in preserving the exteriors of its dream, a dream that was realized on some level by producing world-renowned literature and housing European designers on Nevsky Prospect. But the city will never be one with the rest of Russia for the people did not will it: it is the city now that does the willing. A dazzling maze of circus mirrors and mist rising from Neva River seduce all who enter.
Peter’s goal of westernizing Russia failed because St. Petersburg is a Western city in a Slavic land. A city where dreamy peasants transform into dandies and their former selves are taken out of city limits to be buried. Rather than modernizing Russia, St. Petersburg created a physical manifestation of the nation’s schism, where ghosts of the Slavic crawl out from under the rug and wander the streets of the city’s white nights.
As we rode down the canals, the view was spectacular; the sun sank a little lower in the sky but the streets were still alive with people. We passed gorgeous building after gorgeous building, many in the process of being restored. The weather in Petersburg is so harsh that apparently the buildings have to constantly be touched up to keep their outward appearance looking like the regal, European capital that Peter had so desired. I thought about the rot that must exist underneath the surface of the those appearances, the inner rot that comes along with satisfying the wishes of a long-gone ruler in the face of the forces of mother nature. We passed the backside of the Mariinsky Theater and the weather had thoroughly eroded its minty green facade, exposing a rotting underbelly. It was merely the backside, so why bother with restorations? It was much like in the land of Disney where “no one has ever died,” a façade maintained by banning medics from pronouncing visitors dead until they have left the walls of Disneyland.
Instead, I thought of Baudelaire and Rilke, the beauty of natural decay, and how it looks when the elegance of a thing naturally fades, like a former model who has decided against injecting mountains of collagen into her face. Or when life fights through artificiality, like on a vine-covered English Tudor or like blades of grass sprouting through a crack in the pavement.
People kept waving at us from the bridges. I thought about the Wild River ride again, only to realize that these were real people to whom I was waving, not Mickeys and Minnies, and Peter the Great had not forced them to wave at me, or at least not directly. These real people are living in a city that was the fantasy-land of one man – a westernized Russian city.
A while back, Joan Didion wrote an article about a planned community in Southern California. The article started at a human level. There had been a gang rape in this community. I can’t remember the name of the place but it was something like Smithstown let’s say, but anyways, the members of the community were outraged.
“How could this happen? And here! Smithstown is the ideal American community and to think that my son plays baseball with those boys!” said one mother, a character left unnamed by Didion as well.
Smithstown was founded by a steel mill corporation and built in concentric circles. The town was arranged so that the inhabitants could work in the factories on the outside ring, live in the pre-packaged cookie-cutter houses in the inner ring and consume in the center of town, where the company generously included a large shopping center. But the factory went under. Smithstown shows what can happen when a deep crack arises in a perfectly calculated dream. Once the steel industry faltered, the corporation that founded Smithstown had no investment in keeping up the American dream and the city crumbled, taking its inhabitants down with it. Peter the Great’s ghost has done the opposite: commanded armies of painters to keep up the Western façade. Over 300 years after his death, the city is still without a crack.
How does a city progress when its roots are all in one headstrong man? How can it evolve? Petersburg seems like such a strange hybrid of a city now. Before coming here, the only image I had was of Dostoevskian archetypes wandering in tattered frock coats, but obviously that’s not the case. It’s a modern city left in the shell of its past, a city of museums with fetuses floating in jars of brine and baroque buildings cryogenically frozen like ice queens. Through ordinances and rulings, it has succeeded in preserving the exteriors of its dream, a dream that was realized on some level by producing world-renowned literature and housing European designers on Nevsky Prospect. But the city will never be one with the rest of Russia for the people did not will it: it is the city now that does the willing. A dazzling maze of circus mirrors and mist rising from Neva River seduce all who enter.
Peter’s goal of westernizing Russia failed because St. Petersburg is a Western city in a Slavic land. A city where dreamy peasants transform into dandies and their former selves are taken out of city limits to be buried. Rather than modernizing Russia, St. Petersburg created a physical manifestation of the nation’s schism, where ghosts of the Slavic crawl out from under the rug and wander the streets of the city’s white nights.
Knife Peddlers By Rose Haag
I emailed Minsoo Kim (PO ’10) to see when we could meet up to talk about our summers selling Cutco. I asked if he could meet me at 11:00 on Thursday, or maybe at 12:30 for lunch? It’s a classic Vector Marketing trick: give two options so the client thinks he is making the choice.
Minsoo sold Cutco knives for the entire summer of ’07 in Atlanta, GA; I only lasted three days during June ’08 in Rockville, MD.
The classified ad in The Washington Post said, “Work for Students, base pay $17/hr.” When I called for an interview, the receptionist told me, “Ms. Colaro can see you today. She has asked that you dress professionally and be there on time.” All I knew was that the company was called Vector and it was a marketing job. The receptionist assured me that there would be no cold calls.
Unlike me, Minsoo knew what he was getting into. Vector sent out letters to all the students at his high school, advertising a flexible job with good pay. His friend went first and told him all about it, so when he showed up for the first interview, he wasn’t nervous.
I was, though. I walked into a bare, un-air conditioned room full of people around my age. The first interview was five of us in a small room with “Ms. Colaro,” who was actually only 19, but managed to pull off a stern mean boss face pretty well.
Almost all of us were called back for the second round, which was a 90-minute lecture on Cutco knives. Ms. Colaro lined us up in two neat rows, shoulder-to-shoulder, and tried to make us as uncomfortable as possible.
I was still scared of Ms. Colaro at the end of the lecture, when we were each called back individually to her office.
“I can’t offer you this job, I’m sorry to say, but you seem like a really positive person. You’re really attentive, I could tell you took a lot of notes, and you seem like a really nice person,” she told me mechanically. “So we’d like to offer you this job.”
Huh?
I thought I’d imagined it. Minsoo told me it’s another Vector ploy. I was such a sucker. I was legitimately disappointed when she told me I didn’t get the job, despite the fact that I still didn’t really know what the job was.
From the perspective of the IRS, I was an entrepreneur, running my own private Cutco business. Sales representatives had to build their own contact lists. We started with a list of adults we knew, and called each one using a prompt that said something along the lines of, “I need help with my new job, I need to do practice appointments, I get paid per appointment, you don’t even have to buy anything but it would really help me out if I could stop by. Would Monday at 1 work, or maybe at 4:30?” We were told not to mention Cutco unless they asked.
It’s part of what Minsoo calls the “web of unsaid truths.”
In reality, appointments don’t pay well. To make any substantial income, you need to sell knives. But the knives are high-quality, the demonstrations are impressive, and the presentation is usually convincing. After the presentation, the client is offered free merchandise if he or she writes the name and number of a few friends “who might be nice enough to listen to the presentation.” Each appointment leads to more appointments, and it doesn’t take long to build up a nice little business.
In training, they told us that even if we were the worst salespeople in the world, we would still make sales because “Cutco sells Cutco.” I don’t buy that.
Minsoo recalls, “It wasn’t me selling knives--it was me selling myself.” One family even told him they were buying the knives because they liked him.
That was just what my parents were afraid of–they didn’t want our family friends to feel obligated to buy the knives. The most basic set sells for over $500, which is a long way from a box of girl-scout cookies.
After training, each sales representative is given a binder and a booklet with the sales presentation, which is written out word-for-word. We were given specific instructions on body language for certain parts of the presentation, particularly for the closing: “Now Mr. and Mrs. _______, I wouldn’t be doing my job today if I didn’t ask you this question: would you like to go ahead and purchase your Homemaker Set, with a free pair of Shears? (look customer in the eye, smile and nod).”
Every client got the same spiel – even the family friends whom we were supposedly using for “practice.”
“Yeah, it’s a little heartless, very manipulative, and a little questionable,” Minsoo said. “But it’s just a mental hurdle you have to overcome. I never felt I was extending someone’s budget.”
I did. But on the other hand, I told myself, I wasn’t forcing anybody to buy knives. They could always back out, and as adults living in a consumer society, shouldn’t they know how to say no?
Minsoo and I both encountered a few people who were good at that. Minsoo’s had an uncomfortable moment when he was showing a set of gardening tools to an older woman. The tools were supposed to cut through a cutting board, but when the woman tried to do it herself, she couldn’t. Unaware at first that Minsoo’s visit was a sales pitch, the woman laid it out: “I think you should leave now.”
My worst moment was during training, when I called the home number of a high school classmate. His dad picked up the phone, I said my piece, and asked if I could come by the house. Mr. Bannon said, “No, you may not,” and hung up on me.
The job had me deconstructing all my ideas about money and consumerism. Minsoo, however, was more laid back about it because he thought of it as a game, and as he said, “Winning the game is never an evil. People put down money they would’ve spent somehow, and the products are good.”
It’s possible to make a pretty substantial income over the course of a summer. The more you sell, the higher your commission. There were prizes for reaching certain milestones-usually Cutco merchandise to add to the demonstration kits. The big prize was an iPhone and a night out in a limo if we sold $10,000 worth of Cutco within the first 10 days. To me, the prizes felt like bribes--an admission on the part of Vector that we were being asked to do something morally dubious.
Minsoo approached it as just another part of our consumer culture: “I can’t hate it because I am it,” he said. “Money as the root of evil is a myth. It’s not good or bad in itself. But it can cause a lot of happiness. It’s an agent to getting what you want; it’s too important to just discount.”
I sold $1070 worth of knives during my first three days, and made about $150. Then I stopped calling my manager for the daily check-in, and I didn’t show up for the meetings. I figured since they didn’t bother telling me what they were hiring me to do, I didn’t have to tell them that I quit.
Minsoo sold $18,000 worth of knives over the course of two months. He made about $6000, and became an Assistant Manager. “It made me more persuasive, made me take real risks, not care about getting shut down, and it made me work my ass off. I had six appointments in a day sometimes. It improved me. I would do it again,” he said.
When you break it down, I got paid $150 for three days of training and three days of selling – I barely broke even on gas.
I might do it again.
Minsoo sold Cutco knives for the entire summer of ’07 in Atlanta, GA; I only lasted three days during June ’08 in Rockville, MD.
The classified ad in The Washington Post said, “Work for Students, base pay $17/hr.” When I called for an interview, the receptionist told me, “Ms. Colaro can see you today. She has asked that you dress professionally and be there on time.” All I knew was that the company was called Vector and it was a marketing job. The receptionist assured me that there would be no cold calls.
Unlike me, Minsoo knew what he was getting into. Vector sent out letters to all the students at his high school, advertising a flexible job with good pay. His friend went first and told him all about it, so when he showed up for the first interview, he wasn’t nervous.
I was, though. I walked into a bare, un-air conditioned room full of people around my age. The first interview was five of us in a small room with “Ms. Colaro,” who was actually only 19, but managed to pull off a stern mean boss face pretty well.
Almost all of us were called back for the second round, which was a 90-minute lecture on Cutco knives. Ms. Colaro lined us up in two neat rows, shoulder-to-shoulder, and tried to make us as uncomfortable as possible.
I was still scared of Ms. Colaro at the end of the lecture, when we were each called back individually to her office.
“I can’t offer you this job, I’m sorry to say, but you seem like a really positive person. You’re really attentive, I could tell you took a lot of notes, and you seem like a really nice person,” she told me mechanically. “So we’d like to offer you this job.”
Huh?
I thought I’d imagined it. Minsoo told me it’s another Vector ploy. I was such a sucker. I was legitimately disappointed when she told me I didn’t get the job, despite the fact that I still didn’t really know what the job was.
From the perspective of the IRS, I was an entrepreneur, running my own private Cutco business. Sales representatives had to build their own contact lists. We started with a list of adults we knew, and called each one using a prompt that said something along the lines of, “I need help with my new job, I need to do practice appointments, I get paid per appointment, you don’t even have to buy anything but it would really help me out if I could stop by. Would Monday at 1 work, or maybe at 4:30?” We were told not to mention Cutco unless they asked.
It’s part of what Minsoo calls the “web of unsaid truths.”
In reality, appointments don’t pay well. To make any substantial income, you need to sell knives. But the knives are high-quality, the demonstrations are impressive, and the presentation is usually convincing. After the presentation, the client is offered free merchandise if he or she writes the name and number of a few friends “who might be nice enough to listen to the presentation.” Each appointment leads to more appointments, and it doesn’t take long to build up a nice little business.
In training, they told us that even if we were the worst salespeople in the world, we would still make sales because “Cutco sells Cutco.” I don’t buy that.
Minsoo recalls, “It wasn’t me selling knives--it was me selling myself.” One family even told him they were buying the knives because they liked him.
That was just what my parents were afraid of–they didn’t want our family friends to feel obligated to buy the knives. The most basic set sells for over $500, which is a long way from a box of girl-scout cookies.
After training, each sales representative is given a binder and a booklet with the sales presentation, which is written out word-for-word. We were given specific instructions on body language for certain parts of the presentation, particularly for the closing: “Now Mr. and Mrs. _______, I wouldn’t be doing my job today if I didn’t ask you this question: would you like to go ahead and purchase your Homemaker Set, with a free pair of Shears? (look customer in the eye, smile and nod).”
Every client got the same spiel – even the family friends whom we were supposedly using for “practice.”
“Yeah, it’s a little heartless, very manipulative, and a little questionable,” Minsoo said. “But it’s just a mental hurdle you have to overcome. I never felt I was extending someone’s budget.”
I did. But on the other hand, I told myself, I wasn’t forcing anybody to buy knives. They could always back out, and as adults living in a consumer society, shouldn’t they know how to say no?
Minsoo and I both encountered a few people who were good at that. Minsoo’s had an uncomfortable moment when he was showing a set of gardening tools to an older woman. The tools were supposed to cut through a cutting board, but when the woman tried to do it herself, she couldn’t. Unaware at first that Minsoo’s visit was a sales pitch, the woman laid it out: “I think you should leave now.”
My worst moment was during training, when I called the home number of a high school classmate. His dad picked up the phone, I said my piece, and asked if I could come by the house. Mr. Bannon said, “No, you may not,” and hung up on me.
The job had me deconstructing all my ideas about money and consumerism. Minsoo, however, was more laid back about it because he thought of it as a game, and as he said, “Winning the game is never an evil. People put down money they would’ve spent somehow, and the products are good.”
It’s possible to make a pretty substantial income over the course of a summer. The more you sell, the higher your commission. There were prizes for reaching certain milestones-usually Cutco merchandise to add to the demonstration kits. The big prize was an iPhone and a night out in a limo if we sold $10,000 worth of Cutco within the first 10 days. To me, the prizes felt like bribes--an admission on the part of Vector that we were being asked to do something morally dubious.
Minsoo approached it as just another part of our consumer culture: “I can’t hate it because I am it,” he said. “Money as the root of evil is a myth. It’s not good or bad in itself. But it can cause a lot of happiness. It’s an agent to getting what you want; it’s too important to just discount.”
I sold $1070 worth of knives during my first three days, and made about $150. Then I stopped calling my manager for the daily check-in, and I didn’t show up for the meetings. I figured since they didn’t bother telling me what they were hiring me to do, I didn’t have to tell them that I quit.
Minsoo sold $18,000 worth of knives over the course of two months. He made about $6000, and became an Assistant Manager. “It made me more persuasive, made me take real risks, not care about getting shut down, and it made me work my ass off. I had six appointments in a day sometimes. It improved me. I would do it again,” he said.
When you break it down, I got paid $150 for three days of training and three days of selling – I barely broke even on gas.
I might do it again.
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