Week Four

x 1. complete My California
x 2. reading notes regarding My California, 2 parts

Part 1 Notes

1. “909” by Percival Everett
2. Everett describes his thoughts and experiences of Riverside County, situated in the hills above the 60 freeway which runs between Los Angeles and Palm Springs.
3. “It sounds scary and all my city friends think of 909 as the wild outback, but I’m less likely to have a run-in with a crook out here than in 213.” (123-124)
4. The story brings up many, many associations because it is about the area where I grew up. I was reminded that the Mission Inn in Riverside had closed for a while, and I liked the story about William Taft’s oversized chair. As an elementary school student, we would visit the Mission Inn and sit in Taft’s chair.
5. Well since I am so familiar with the area there wasn’t anything new I learned from the reading, except to remember that President Taft was angry about the chair, and that when Everett rides his mule off the trail he says they “pop brush,”which is a phrase I’d never heard before.

1. “Ode to CalTrans” by Héctor Tobar

2. Tobar reminisces about his childhood through the grid of the Los Angeles freeway system, comparing the birth of his child with his mother’s experience of getting to the hospital.

3. “In California, we drive too fast, but at least there are enforceable rules; there is a logic, and highway etiquette respected y eighty-five percent of the driving public and enforced by a relatively incorruptible Highway Patrol. If the Buenos Aires commuters who make a habit of straddling the dotted lines on the Highway of the Sun tried the same thing on the Santa Monica, they would either be pulled over for a roadside sobriety test or find themselves targets of road-rage justice. In Los Angeles, we don’t suffer traffic fools well, because we drive almost as much as we breathe; we understand that the hours we spend outside the shell of our vehicles are mere episodes between the daily freeway slog. The Law of Evolution has dictated our adaptation into homo californius mobilius, and clever tool-making—the hands-free cellular phone, the multi-CD player, and the radar detection device—has saved our breed from extinction.” (53)

4. There was also the section where he talks about having learned the freeway grid from a young age, before he could drive. My godbrother used to draw up pictures of the freeway system when he was young, and even as a new driver going out to Los Angeles, I knew at least three different routes to make my way home. He also talks about the widening of the Santa Ana freeway, and I can’t even imagine the headache it was to drive there while that was going on.

5. I never knew about the memorials for CalTrans workers, but I understand that there are freeways so dangerous that you couldn’t put them up because it would freak people out too much.

1. “Transients in Paradise” by Aimee Liu

2. Liu reflects on what it means to be transient in light of Italo Calvino’s statement that “Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears,” considering both the obvious transient, a down and out man named Richard, and those who occupy the upper eschelons of Beverly Hills society.

3. “Who is coming? Who is going? Who is staying, and for how long? A town like Beverly Hills puts up an impressive front of permanence, but no matter how massive the houses, how opulent the stores, how established the brokers of power and fame, or how deep their pockets, the truth of this place is as variable as the traffic passing down Wilshire Boulevard. I see buses carrying housekeepers from Crenshaw nudge the pickups of gardeners from Inglewood, Range Rovers driven by trophy wives cut off Hondas bearing handicap placards. Precious few of the drivers were born here, and nearly as few will die here, there being no hospitals in Beverly Hills, and many started from as far away as Guatemala, Vermont, or Taiwan—or equally distant locales that only appear closer on the map.” (30-31)

4. The reading points out the great disparity that exists materially between the “haves” in Beverly Hills, and the “have-nots” who also dwell there somehow. This is something I see every day in San Francisco, especially in Union Square where masses of people spend wads of money on useless things, while there are many laying in the streets sick and lonely and despairing.

5. Through Liu’s anecdotes, I learned a bit more about life in Beverly Hills, like that the city’s police force is so well-armed and well-paid, and yet there is no crime for them to fight. It’s a show, really. But I was also surprised by the diversity that she describes on page 30—Jewish families, Persian fathers, old folks and young new-moneyed people too.

1. “Flirting with Urbanismo” by Patt Morrison

2. Patt Morrison, beloved Los Angeles radio talk show host, explores the way that Angelenos interact with Downtown L.A.

3. “We suburban strangers obeyed the rules of the scary city. Even now, you can tell an Angeleno from a resident of any other great city: We’re the ones standing meekly on a downtown curb in the dead, dark midnight, waiting for the ‘walk’ sign to turn green. WE know that jaywalking is a serious crime, as Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, Ed Meese, found out. Just before Reagan was sworn in as president, the LAPD gave Meese a ten-dollar ticket for jaywalking. Meese ignored it—and five years later, LA. Law reached all the way to the U.S. Justice Department to find Meese and make him pay.” (137)

4. She talks about the attempts at “urbanization” in Los Angeles, and similar attempts have been made in my hometown of Riverside. The story makes me think of how history, demographics, and immigration patterns really shape the landscape of a place.

5. I learned a lot in this story, because Morrison packed it full of facts and stories—the streets of Downtown L.A. are used as stand-ins for many other famous locales, like New York; the origins of Los Angeles in the ranchos of the Mexican-California days contributed to its suburbanization; the funicular cars that transported residents up and down the city’s many hills.

1. “The Nicest Person in San Francisco” by Derek M. Powazek

2. Powazek tells of his first time visiting San Francisco by himself as a teenager, in which he buys drugs, gets a parking ticket, and makes it back to Berkeley with his father’s car before his dad gets back from his business meetings.

3. “Now, here would be a good place to mention that I grew up outside of L.A. in an area that, if God had his way, would have been a big, flat desert. When you build a city on a big, flat desert you can afford to make it a big grid, with evenly spaced streets all at nice, comfy, ninety-degree angles. Not so in San Francisco.” (168)

4. I love the description of coming out of the tunnel on the Bay Bridge, and I find a lot of joy in making that drive too. His descriptions of the city are much like my experience of living here—not the sanitized views and manicured lawns of Pacific Heights, but the gritty reality of the Tenderloin, the parking meters and the prostitutes and the burrito joints.

5. I learned that it might be somehow possible to make it all the way to Berkeley from Market Street in 30 minutes, in rush hour. But for some reason I think that part of the story might be a bit embellished.

Part Two Notes

1. First, I must say that I was mostly drawn to essays that reflect my own experience of California, like “909” and “Ode to CalTrans.” One thing that all of these essays have in common is a discussion of driving, an activity central to California life, especially in Southern California. It serves as a metaphor for movement and transience for a number of authors. In “909,” Everett looks disdainfully on those who find themselves in the weekend crunch of the 60 and 10 freeways, on their way out to the desert. For him, that life is busy, confining, and ultimately undesirable; he prefers the freedom and wildness of the uninhabited Riverside hills. For Los Angelenos, like Aimee Liu, the daily reality of driving all over the place is an inescapable reality, and it reveals to us that we are in a state of flux, chasing permanence with simultaneously enacted fears and desires, a chase which does not itself end as we wish but only continues indefinitely. In Héctor Tobar’s story, his whole childhood was shaped by his comings and goings on the freeways, a system which, like himself, changed and grew over time, and which enraptured his mind with the lightness and speed of it all.

2. I’m researching Newport Beach, CA, which was featured in Firoozeh Dumas’ story “Bienvenidos a Newport Beach.”

Links:

http://www.visitnewportbeach.com/

http://www.newportbeachca.gov/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport_Beach,_California

I was drawn to the story because of my familiarity with the area, but more especially the way Dumas tells of the sameness of their gated community—the colors of the homes, the pool rules, the manicured lawns, the homogenous population. Her family, emigrated from Iran, was a marker of difference in the stratified seaside city, which now boasts of being one of the wealthiest cities in the United States. The city was incorporated in 1906 and was the last stop of the Pacific Electric Railway. Its geography is noted for many small bays and a delta, as the Santa Ana River cuts through to meet the ocean. The city is nearly 93% white; the next largest ethnic group is Asian, comprising 4% of the population. Newport Beach is overwhelmingly politically conservative, as Republicans outnumber Democrats nearly 3 to 1. It is a homogenous place, with many upscale and high-end retail outlets, most notably Fashion Island. There are also a number of golf courses and country clubs within the city limits. There are a number of “beachy” attractions, like Balboa Pier and Balboa Island. The harbor is home to more than 9,000 private vessels.

3. Multiple Choice questions

1. Riverside County, the midpoint between Los Angeles and Palm Springs, is classified as what kind of terrain?

a. Wooded Forest

b. Coastal Plains

*c. Chaparral

d. Arid Desert

2. Which of these experiences does Hector Tobar NOT associate with a particular freeway in Los Angeles?

a. The birth of his children

*b. His graduation from high school

c. Proposing to his wife

d. The death of his stepfather

3. What kind of conversation does Aimee Liu describe hearing at a funeral for a well-to-do woman’s funeral?

*a. Personal training regimens

b. Home remodeling

c. Private school tuition

d. The latest Apple product

4. What minor violation of the law do Los Angelenos take very seriously, as evidenced by attorney general Ed Meese’s experience with the LAPD?

a. Speeding

b. Double parking

*c. Jaywalking

d. Littering

5. From which street in San Francisco does Derek M. Powazek stray and get lost?

a. Mission Avenue

b. Powell Street

c. Haight Street

*d. Market Street

x 3. essay regarding My California (This will be on the midterm: here, I am prepping you)

x 4. 10 questions

(Carrie)

6. Although the situation of oppression is a dehumanized and dehumanizing totality affecting both the oppressors _______________...
a. and those whom choose to be oppressed
b. and those whom they oppress*
c. and those whom circumstantially are oppressed
d. and those whom are signaled out
e. and those privileged whom they oppress

(Kerby)

9. Liberation is a _____: the action and reflection of men upon their world in order to transform it.
A. Conscientization
B. Dialogue
C. Privilege
D. Literacy
E. Praxis*

(Marcel)

8. Only through __________ can human life hold meaning.

a. Education

b. Interaction

c. Concentration

d. Oppression

e. Communication*

(Maria)

Q: 7 What is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed?
a. True generosity
b. Compassion
c. To liberate themselves and their oppressors as well *
d. To fight to liberate themselves from oppression
e. To liberate the oppressors

(Michael)

3. To which ancient civilization can we trace back the study of humanities?
A. The Maya
B. The Roman
C. The Greek*
D. The Babylonians
E. Ancient Egypt

(Natalie)

3. When did a major shift occur in Renaissance humanism?
a) Fifteenth century*
b) Fourteenth century
c) Sixteenth century
d) Seventeenth century
e) Twentieth century

(Olivia)

9. The "fear of freedom" leads the oppressed to:
A) desire the role of oppressor or bind them to the role of oppressed*
B) desire to have everyone be oppressed so no one has freedom
C) desire to eliminate oppression and oppressors
D) desire a better life even thought that is unattainable as long as they are oppressed
E) desire that their oppressors can switch places with them in hopes that the oppression will stop

(Renee)

3. Scholars working in the humanities are sometimes described as what?
1. philosophers
2. Humanists*
3. teachers
4. all of the above

(Pui-Yin)

4. _____________,, as part of the tool kit of artists or scholars, serves as vehicle to create meaning which invokes a response from an audience.
a. Knowledge
b. Imagination*
c. Creativity
d. Informatiom
e. Truth

(Justin)

4. What method is used when studying humanities?

a) Analytic

b) Speculative

c) Critical

d) All of the above*

x 5. Dialogue Sample

When I was researching art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, I was interested in a piece that has two people as subjects, and noticed that their body posture and body language drew the eye back and forth between the two. Jessie had the same reaction to the drawing of two mice which she found at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Wyoming. Both pieces depict living creatures interacting with each other, and I wonder how the interaction of living and animated subjects differs from the juxtaposition of inanimate subjects in painting and drawing.

x 6. create blog post titled week 4
x 7. submit blog post to class website