ON MONDAY, a trip into nearby Truckee found me jaywalking to kill some time at the outlet mall while my colleague got her hair cut. The mall featured the usual collection of clothing stores whose mark-downs of up to 70% still couldn't lure me to part with my money. The styles were too tailored or too sporty or both. Geofrrey Beene, Van Heusen, Bass, Izod and then an absolutely frightening collection of lingerie manufacturers all jammed together into one storefront. Gleaming white headless female torsos clad in matching flouresecent bra and panty sets.As I found the crosswalk to return to the beauty parlor, I noticed (how could I not?) a ten foot white cross at the corner of of the lawn that bordered the Izod shop. Closer inspection revealed a large rock at its base adorned with a plaque. According to the local historical society who sponsored the plaque, many years before the outlet mall was erected, the Graves cabin stood at the very same place. The Graves family was part of the ill-fated Donner-Reed party whose tribulations have transfixed generations of California school children and others.
California author, James D. Houston wrote a fine account of the Donner-Reed party in his novel "Snow Mountain Passage." I recommend it. Houston's refusal to dwell on the cannabalism aspect delighted me but disappointed a writer in the NY Times, whose review was titled, "Meals on Wheels."Houston's most recent novel, "Bird of Another Heaven" traces the links between Hawaii and California through the lives of a California woman, Nani Keala, half-Hawaiian, half-Indian, who becomes a mistress of the last king of Hawaii and her great-grandson, Sheridan Brody, a Bay Area radio talk show host whose quest for his identity changes how he sees the past, the present and the future.
Of interest to our college community is Brody's observation near the end of the book:
"A while back I'd met a fellow from the English department at UC Berkeley. 'I have been around campuses for years,' he told me, 'but I've never seen a place like this. I mean, you're used to people stabbing each other in the back. That just comes with the territory, I guess. But here, they walk right up to you and make eye contact and stab you in the chest.' "
7 comments:
Are you suggesting something about English departments in general or particular, or Cal or your own college?
English departments at research universities, in general, are like that. UCB (not "Cal") is typical, not exceptional.
It's the scarcity of resources that does it, plus the pressure of having to do five or six things brilliantly at once, along with the narcissism which often comes to academics with their careers.
By contrast, at IVC, the stabbing is all extradepartmental.
So who lives in Truckee today?
Don't know about English faculty at Cal stabbing anyone in the chest. But while I was there, a hero of the department took her own life. Go figure. See: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1998/1021/franchot.html
mmm, lingerie. mmm.
I went to UCB and I know about stabbing in the chest - from my experience at least, it was stab in the chest if you're going to stab, but actually there wasn't that much stabbing, at least not from what I figured out.
I was utterly amazed to discover backstabbing ... it is universal elsewhere ... and I could never figure out why people felt they had to do it, and didn't have the guts to stab each other in the chest if they had to stab! ;-)
P.S. Jonathan Cohen I'd love to talk to you for a silly reason: I am having an ongoing argument with my parents about whether it is "Cal" or UCB. They also went to it, and claim everyone has always called it "Cal." I have never heard that except among sports/ Greeks/ marketing people. I never even heard *development* people say that, for Chrissake. I don't know about student government types. But every serious person I ever heard speak of it, every memo I ever saw, called it UCB (or sometimes "Berkeley"). What info do you have on the origin and genesis of this insipid "Cal" word?
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