After work today I took the bus out to the weird and wonderful Hampshire College in Amherst. In this picture taken out of the bus window, the fertile farm fields of Hadley wait silently to be reborn in Spring.
The snow has made everything seem more scenic.
Our Valley has a unique beauty.
This silver trapezoid alerts me that I have entered the Hampshire habitat.
This is the Johnson Library. Of course I am constitutionally unable to walk past a library without going in
.
I paused to check my favorite website.
Then I had a nice organic vegan lunch at their cafeteria.
Ha! Actually I had a burger and fries.
Later I went downstairs to the art gallery, where these antique stereoscopes allow you to look at 3D images of New York City as it was in the 1800's.
Finally it was time to go to the bus stop.
As you can see the bus stop is covered with posters. This one for a UMass radio show caught my attention.
There is a great organization at Hampshire College called S.C.R.E.W.Y which stands for the Society for the Creative Realization of a Weirder You. It has a cool public service announcement that airs on Amherst Cable TV.
On a classroom blackboard:
There are all kinds of crazies, some more talented in their ways than the over-numerous duly, dully sane. - Bukowski
Hey everybody, I was in Springfield all day yesterday, so of course my camera was snapping! My bus trips to the city of my birth always take me first to Holyoke, where I have to transfer to the bus to Springfield. While waiting I noticed that yet another spring has sprung with no sign of life at the old Holyoke Catholic High School.
One of Holyoke's abandoned factory smokestacks.
Once in Springfield, I headed up to ol' Pine Point to visit my friends and relatives in Saint Michael's Cemetery. While there I was surprised to see standing right near me a wild turkey! If I'd only had the sense to just aim my camera and shoot I would've gotten a good picture. But of course I had to try for the Pulitzer Prize winning shot by taking just a few steps closer - which spooked the creature and left me with only this shot of the bird running away.
Later I enjoyed some moments of peace and serenity by the Mill River.
It's hard to believe that nothing remains of the old Russell's Restaurant.
I also stopped by the site of the original World Famous Thomas M. Balliet Elementary School, now a shuttered ruin.
But looking through the front window, I was surprised to see the school entrance mat still in place.
Frankly I don't remember us ever calling ourselves bears in my day. My mother however did coach a girl's softball team called The Balliet Bombers.
Passing through downtown on my way home, I took a picture of the famous Puritan statue next to the City Library.
Many people assume it is a statue of William Pynchon, the founder of Springfield, but actually it is of Samuel Chapin, the patriarch of one of the city's founding families. I wonder what he would think if he could see the city today.
They were hard judges, those puritans.
I remember one time I was taking pictures of the statue when two black kids, who looked like they might have been brothers, asked me why I was photographing the Chapin statue. I was amused that they called Chapin by the name "Big Hat Daddy." I explained that he was one of the founders of Springfield, but it appeared to be the first they'd heard of it. They also told me that they lived in the apartment tower right across the street. I asked them if they would pose for a picture with Big Hat Daddy, but they refused.
Later I visited the nearby Dr. Seuss National Memorial and stole a kiss from my childhood friend The Cat in the Hat. Now there was a real Big Hat Daddy.
Finally I arrived back in Northampton, heading downstairs for a relaxing cup of tea in the Haymarket.
Ralph Hexter, President of Hampshire College, has responded with wit to the declaration by the Huffington Post that his college is the most hipster in the nation. President Hexler figures that makes him "hipster-in-chief" and asks: "If I were truly hipster-in-chief, shouldn’t there have been a photo of me, preferably with my husband?"
President Hexter and his husband Manfred Kollmeier
When YouTube was introduced in 2005 I was the first local blogger to make use of it, thereby helping to launch the video revolution in our Pioneer Valley blogosphere. I remember that this was the first video I ever saw appear on YouTube about Northampton that wasn't by me.
Here is some classic footage filmed by someone going down Route Nine while riding into Amherst on a bus way back in 1995.
The Huffington Post has declared Hampshire College as the #1 hipster school in America. Um, is that a complement? What is a hipster anyway? The Urban Dictionary defines it thusly:
Listens to bands that you have never heard of. Has hairstyle that can only be described as "complicated." (Most likely achieved by a minimum of one week not washing it.) Probably tattooed. Maybe gay. Definitely cooler than you. Reads Black Book, Nylon, and the Styles section of the New York Times. Drinks Pabst Blue Ribbon. Often. Complains. Always denies being a hipster. Hates the word. Probably living off parents money - and spends a great deal of it to look like they don't have any. Has friends and/or self cut hair. Dyes it frequently (black, white-blonde, etc. and until scalp bleeds). Has a closet full of clothing but usually wears same three things OVER AND OVER (most likely very tight black pants, scarf, and ironic tee-shirt). Chips off nail polish artfully after $50 manicure. Sleeps with everyone and talks about it at great volume in crowded coffee shops. Addicted to coffee, cigarettes (Parliaments, Kamel Reds, Lucky Strikes, etc.), and possibly cocaine. Claims to be in a band. Rehearsals consist of choosing outfits for next show and drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon. Always on the list. Majors or majored in art, writing, or queer studies. Name-drops. May go by "Penny Lane," "Eleanor Rigby," etc. when drunk. On Pabst Blue Ribbon. Which is usually.
Was I ever a hipster? Sort of. To be gay is perhaps in some sense to be instantly cool. However, Pabst Blue Ribbon was considered an old man's beer when I was in my twenties, the secretly cool uncool beer for us was Budweiser. It was considered uncool to smoke anything with a white filter, so Parliaments were out. I smoked Old Gold, which for some reason were cool for the same reason that Pabst was not - only old people smoked them. Never expect logic in fashion. Tom Devine in his 20's was most likely to be found wearing Converse sneakers, tight jeans, no shirt and a baseball cap, which was popular among queers long before the straights turned the baseball cap into our national hat.
Anyway, whatever a hipster is, apparently the Huffington Post considers our own Hampshire College to be its ultimate expression:
Typical Hampshire College students.
At Hampshire, anything goes. The alma mater of Ken Burns, Jon Krakauer and Elliott Smith is famous for its lassiez-faire approach to education -- students are not bound to a core curriculum; their main requirement for graduation is a year-long in-depth project on a subject of their choice. Popular campus activities include Students for Justice in Palestine and the radio station, which is housed in a building called "The Yurt."
The temptation of course is to laugh. However, in the comments section a former student named Julie Dole defended the Hampshire experience.
We used to call it Hamster College. I'm not an alum but I took a few classes there - I remember my physics prof used a clock that went backwards. Its stripped-down campus was a haven for rich kids, since (at least at that time) the school offered little financial aid.
But I think the real advantage Hampshire had over more conventional schools was that its lack of structure forced students to motivate themselves - no one else was making students meet deadlines. That's a much more realistic model of how life is, after graduation.
So congratulations Hampshire College, Home of the Hipsters!
Meanwhile in the land of politics the prestigious Rasmussen poll has its latest polling results out on the Massachusetts governor's race.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in Massachusetts finds Patrick has gained some ground in his Job Approval ratings but his support for re-election remains in the mid-30s.
Patrick earns 35% of the vote when matched against former health care executive Charlie Baker. Baker attracts 27% while Democrat-turned-independent Tim Cahill runs third with 23% support. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided. Baker’s support is down slightly from a month ago.
Patrick’s other prominent Republican opponent, businessman Christy Mihos, continues to struggle. Given that match-up, 38% of Massachusetts voters opt for Patrick, with Cahill a close second at 33% and Mihos a distant third at 15%. Undecideds total 14%.
Deval Patrick has been campaigning hard in recent weeks, apparently trying to remind voters one on one of why they used to like him in the first place. Charlie Baker is finding his past ties to the healthcare industry a burden, but Tim Cahill has revived his once flagging candidacy by becoming the anti-Obamacare candidate. Christy Mihos may yet make a comeback if Baker continues to fade.
However, not even registering one percent support in that poll was the Green Party candidate Jill Stein. I'll bet she would get at least that much in Western Mass, where Stein is shown below at a rally last month in downtown Northampton.
She also chose local left-wing activist Rick Purcell of Holyoke as her running mate. Here's Purcell in Holyoke at the announcement of his candidacy.
At the UMass library recently I ran into Kevin Noonan, whom I've known since the Dan Yorke Show days.
Danger Bird discussing Wilhelm Dafoe's dick in Northampton this week.
I came across this inspiring essay in the official publication of the Journal of UMass Amherst Asian American Student Association. However, it has worthwhile things to say to people of any background about the importance of individualism. It also illustrates how America's core values are being reborn through its immigrants, as many people born in America would not speak with such wisdom.
Asian American Apathy by Peter Cai
A professor somewhere once bragged to his class about giving Asian students full credit for participating in his course, despite not speaking in class. His reasoning? He said that he recognized that Asian cultures did not value speaking out, and that he was being equitable and fair in respecting that.
When we encounter things that are unpleasant or unfamiliar, we should never hide behind our cultural identities like come convenient shield. The professor eventually rescinded this policy, as he drew the ire of the other students in the class, including Asians.
Somewhere else, a prominent Chinese businessman ran for ward council three times in his hometown, a city that had pockets of town approaching 50% Asian-Americans. He lost overwhelmingly. It did not take much digging to find out why: the Asians did not vote.
Why do Asian Americans regard politics (and speaking out in general) with so much apathy today? Some may simply find it convenient to quietly ignore the call of duty. Many people prefer to not waste time in what they see as mostly a formality that does not affect their day-to-day lives. After all, what is one vote? Still others follow a Chinese adage: "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down." And nobody wants to support a cause only to discover that it was the losing one. The result? Dismal Asian turnouts.
The apathy stretches back millennia. China was never a democracy. In ancient times, those who spoke out against the will of the emperor were killed. Nobody wanted to be the nail that stuck out. As late as the twentieth century, life was a communal affair where everyone shared in the toil and possesions of a rural collective whose sole purpose was subsistence farming. And without the allure of capitalism, few people had reasons to draw attention to themselves.
One exception was Mao Zedong, who seized power in the middle of the last century and killed tens of millions of Chinese citizens during the Great Leap Forward - the most ambitious and fundamentally flawed econonmic plan in the history of the world, where citizens starved to death in their own fields, even as their poor harvests were being exported as "surplus." Unbelievably, all of Chairman Mao's constituents went to great lengths to hide this fact, at one point secretly importing grain to show Mao an example of a successful field. HIs party lavished him with praise for his stunning success.
Throughout all this, nearly everyone, from his top advisers to his lowest peons, was complicit. Those who spoke out were jailed or murdered. Today Mao's story highlights the very worst of socialism and the forms of government that derive power arbitrarily, without input or consent by the people.
There are, of course, similar stories of tyranny at the hands of military dictators and their like from other parts of Asia. Most are still monarchies or oligarchies (masquerading as socialist republics) - with the notable exceptions of India and South Korea, which are democracies.
Today's generations of Asians do not worry much about political reform. Native Chinese worry about their job prospects and about electronics and fashion trends. People that are on average 300% richer than their parents were have little to complain about. And Big Brother is always watching: the press is controlled, the internet is filtered and political dissidents disappear without a trace. There is no revolution coming to Communist China, or North Korea or Vietnam.
Asians have a long and powerful cultural heritage - and yes, it is one that discourages individuality and nurtures the notion of a collective good at the expense of all else. It is a culture that was forged from generations of governance by tyranny, indoctrinated with the barbaric principle that the individual is less important than the welfare of the State, and that somehow these two ideals are at odds. Many Asian countries have a history of suppressing freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and perpetuating the hoax that someone else knows better than you do, that humans are not capable of governing themselves.
But today, here and now, we are in America. We have freedom of press and freedom of speech. Let's not blame our history and culture for our shortcomings. As Asian Americans, we must not subscribe to the fallacy of apathy and complicity with our government. We must always question its every move, debate its every intention, and do our duty as citizens to ensure that the spirit of democracy and liberty is not swept away by excuses and indifference.
We must vote.
And when the time is right, we must vote Asian Americans to the honor of public office - not simply because they are Asian, but when and if they are the ideal candidates, so that those nations to which we trace our ancestry will look at us in awe from across the ocean and follow our example.
In Hamp
A clever chalkboard ad in front of Sam's.
A candidate at the farmer's market.
I like the way the doors have been restored at the Academy of Music with all that ugly grey paint removed.
I'm slightly irked by this sign saying thankyou for the Community Preservation Act funds.
Since the CPA only has whatever funds the public gives them, why should we thank ourselves for spending our own money?
At Hampshire
I went to Hampshire College today to see an outdoor performance by Vermont's Bread and Circus. They've been playing a lot in the area recently.
The show is heavy on lefty propaganda, but it will make you laugh regardless of your ideology.
They had a good turnout and the weather was just gorgeous.
Today's Video
Lay your cards face up and play your last broken-hearted hand.
Today I went to three libraries. The first was the Robert Frost Library at Amherst College.
Inside is this bust of the poet Robert Frost, a teacher at Amherst College after whom the library is named.
The rain to the wind said, 'You push and I'll pelt.' They so smote the garden bed That the flowers actually knelt, And lay lodged--though not dead. I know how the flowers felt.
— Robert Frost
I was also at the UMass Library. I never use its official name because I disapprove of it.
Someone knocked over the cigarette disposal thing in front.
What a mess for the staff to clean up!
I also went to the library at Hampshire College, which is also located in Amherst.
Love is in the air at Hampshire - or at least on the ground by the picnic table.
At the Hampshire College bus stop, at first I didn't notice this smeared graffiti. Then I realized it said, DON'T TAKE MY PANTS OFF, DAD.
Is that some kind of sick joke or a genuine cry for help?
