How cool is Sarah Vowell?
Feb. 2nd, 2008 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
msfledermausI was having a Grand Day Out today with the Queen of Stuff. Usually a day like that consists of thrift-store finds and some kind of happy lunch--we went to Patrick's, a French bakery with funny stories about their admittedly fabulous hamburgers and heartbreakingly good pastry. Erin discovered a cool hard-boiled-egg dish in a pretty Chinese pattern, and I found "The Partly Cloudy Patriot" by Sarah Vowell. I was already smitten with "Assasination Vacation" so I picked it up and carried it home with me. I've been devouring it on the couch ever since.
I think one of the best parts that sticks with me particularly well is a bit where she's talking to a psychotherapist about why she likes vacations in places like Salem Massachusetts or Gettysburg, or other places that could be construed as fairly creepy:
"Why should I want to spend my Saturday seeing the farm where a nice old lady who was hanged three hundred years ago used to live? I'm a pretty happy person. Why am I drawn to these gruesome places?"
"Well, it's not denial. It's the opposite of denial. Something is playing out in your subconscious. Maybe you feel guilty about having a happy life."
"But it's not like I'm going to Gettysburg or Salem just to earnestly mourn. I go there and joke around. When I had breakfast in Salem, I ordered bacon, the food of joy."
"So, you enact your ambivalence. You feel two ways about American history. Your life turned out great, but you're disgusted by the creepiness. So you take your own happy self to sites of disaster in order to deconstruct your ambivalence."
"Isn't that immoral?"
"No, that's how we try to make sense of the worst horrors. We use humor to manage anxiety."
I think when she described that, she described a lot of us,and me too...like Sarah, I can't help but be drawn to creepy, schlocky, spooky, horrible things sometimes. Not ever in a "I Must Embrace the Dark Master" kind of way, more in a sort of cathartic quest for some kind of understanding. And because sometimes it's all just terribly, heartbreakingly funny sometimes to buy a witch coaster set or a tacky snowglobe in a place with a sordid, sad history...
I also love a chapter in which she talks about Al Gore, and how she wished he'd managed to be more proud of his nerdiness during his presidential campaign, to embrace it and make it his friend, to make it work for him. The nerd in me (and there is a *lot* of nerd in me)was awed and impressed beyond speech...I must run out and find copies of Revenge of the Nerds 1, 2 and 3...
So that's my evening, a pot of tea, a really good book and maybe a hot bath and some Deep Thoughts. Anything to distract me from the reality of going Guard Guard Guard in the morning:)
I think one of the best parts that sticks with me particularly well is a bit where she's talking to a psychotherapist about why she likes vacations in places like Salem Massachusetts or Gettysburg, or other places that could be construed as fairly creepy:
"Why should I want to spend my Saturday seeing the farm where a nice old lady who was hanged three hundred years ago used to live? I'm a pretty happy person. Why am I drawn to these gruesome places?"
"Well, it's not denial. It's the opposite of denial. Something is playing out in your subconscious. Maybe you feel guilty about having a happy life."
"But it's not like I'm going to Gettysburg or Salem just to earnestly mourn. I go there and joke around. When I had breakfast in Salem, I ordered bacon, the food of joy."
"So, you enact your ambivalence. You feel two ways about American history. Your life turned out great, but you're disgusted by the creepiness. So you take your own happy self to sites of disaster in order to deconstruct your ambivalence."
"Isn't that immoral?"
"No, that's how we try to make sense of the worst horrors. We use humor to manage anxiety."
I think when she described that, she described a lot of us,and me too...like Sarah, I can't help but be drawn to creepy, schlocky, spooky, horrible things sometimes. Not ever in a "I Must Embrace the Dark Master" kind of way, more in a sort of cathartic quest for some kind of understanding. And because sometimes it's all just terribly, heartbreakingly funny sometimes to buy a witch coaster set or a tacky snowglobe in a place with a sordid, sad history...
I also love a chapter in which she talks about Al Gore, and how she wished he'd managed to be more proud of his nerdiness during his presidential campaign, to embrace it and make it his friend, to make it work for him. The nerd in me (and there is a *lot* of nerd in me)was awed and impressed beyond speech...I must run out and find copies of Revenge of the Nerds 1, 2 and 3...
So that's my evening, a pot of tea, a really good book and maybe a hot bath and some Deep Thoughts. Anything to distract me from the reality of going Guard Guard Guard in the morning:)
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Date: 2008-02-03 03:25 pm (UTC)Her voice-over on "the Incredibles" is superb. I love her voice, but I'm not in love with it.
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Date: 2008-02-03 07:05 pm (UTC)I bet in person she is as addictive as you say.
*checks hair, and is reassured by it's squeaky-cleanness*
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Date: 2008-02-04 12:39 am (UTC)I <3 Sarah too!
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Date: 2008-02-04 01:46 am (UTC)In fact, I think it's time to pull out Assasination vacation out yet again, just for the sheer pleasure of it all.