The KyleJacobean Era: in which I should have mentioned Arsenal

Yikes! So this needs some work. But it is an experiment: I've been reading a lot of Tom Wolfe. He wrote in the late sixties about various groups and their lifestyles. At first I wondered (in dismay) why we Westovarians did not live more like THAT, but I decided that, though we are not hooking down LSD until we are out of our gourds, we still have a lifestyle. This is my shot at documenting some of it. I'd love to hear your comments.


They are a part of the first generation since World War II to be worse off financially than their parents. The money-soaked air of the sixties and nineties has dried up.

Previous generations have been able to slough adulthood—they live the LIFE. Hippies, Surfbums, The Whole Sick Crew. Escaping the job market—meat market! humans as goods—by working only occasionally and making it because there was money in the US bloodline and oil in the ground.

Whitworth grads! Bright-eyed straight out of an incubation of Mind and Heart. Children of intentional development who know words like mentor and s, d, or t groups. S.T.D.? not an issue with this crowd. An education not extended so far as the curious ailments of Body.

Three sit under the florescent lights of the kitchen. The Westovarians or Satellite Persons (WOSPs) expand to fill houses and duplexes built in the seventies—wallpaperophiles, have landlords ranging from uninvolved to bedfellows. They put down their 300 a month and have space, ah space enough to fit their crap... smooth their crap to a fine dusting over everything. Annie Dugas and Amy Brown had spent a month after graduation looking for a job—willing to take almost anything. They considered serving coffee as bikini-clad baristas, diapering and bathing the elderly, and booking hotel reservations for truckers. Dugas went from one interview to another churning through her vast assortment of sundresses and brightly-colored scarves. Amy researched obscure companies and slid between job search sites in hope that some sorry menial position might accept her with open arms. Carrie Bowers talked to some folks she knew and got seven jobs.

But what is there to afford? WOSPs know the kindly benefits of approving parents: plane tickets home, cell phone and car insurance covered, a quick influx of money if it really gets That Bad. But of course, there is beer to afford. Really good beer. From towns that ducked away into the mountains. Beers with body and complexity—oh the deep love of complexity. Beers from the bottle and on tap, from Germany, Belgium, Colorado, and Oregon. Porter, Stout, Hops! bliss.

The best of consumption for this crew.

Jon Fox sits in the coffee shop. He wears earmuff Houston-we-have-liftoff-type headphones—the kind that block the outside howyou’vebeens? and goodtoseeyous which is necessary because WOSPs listen to music with full concentration. Lyrics, composition, complexity (Complexity!), and unintelligible words make good music. They focus to enjoy it. Their music habits are quite free thanks to grooveshark and Jon Fox, whose source of the tremendous bulk of his collection is a touch mysterious. They speak of it with reverence. You think Jon has more Bony Bear?

Dugas thumps her hands against her Subaru steering wheel to the likes of Keisha, popular. . . state-school music. The WOSPs concede to this as a quirk of hers on the account of her big hair (a muggy spot in the brain the same area that would cue her for appropriate times to laugh). Jon Fox hopes that she will someday drop her defiant Taylor Swift fanhood and get down to the serious business that is listening to his Top Ten of the Decade.

And you should see the books they read. Ones by verbose theologians and existentialists, by authors with gaggles of consonants in their last names, and by the rascaliest new eggheads and the dustiest old stuffs. They read for pleasure, sure, but they read to EXPAND. To become, ever increasingly, the coolest and cleverest person they know, with the best sounding questions and comments in class. ... er, life.

See, that’s the thing. They work hard. Concentrate. On the things that other people consume in their time off work. The WOSP thinks, “Once I am cool enough, clever enough, well-rounded, bolstered Heart and Mind with the right tastes and insights and topics of conversation, then OH THEN! The rest of the best people will come find me with opportunity, with a job, and with a fine recognition for what I’ve accomplished.” The warm and encouraging $30-thousand-per-year light from Whitworth persists in their memories and self-perceptions.

For now, the false work of minimum wage jobs to cover expenses—somebody’s got to buy Spaten Optimater. And the occasional eeking out of a résumé, but what’s the use? The only way this crew looks good on paper is if they are creating a piece of art—if they’re writing something that’s worth reading in the first place.

Whammy!

Note: I thought about putting this extended quote from Tom Wolfe’s essay, The Hair Boys, in small font à la Kyle Ritter imitating Barth (so Tyson says). But then I remembered how taxing it is to read that tiny stuff.

“There is something almost feminine about these boys. I refer to the high-piled, perfect coiffure, the attention to a fashion silhouette—the way the sweaters create big, soft, full lines, with the pants and shoes giving dramatic contrast, being narrow and thin. Of course, it is feminine only in comparison to the conventional adult standards for men. In another age—it is curiously close to what the men in power, the real movers and shakers, all wore. I am talking about seventeenth-century England.

“At that point the suits of the most powerful men consisted of doublets, breeches and stockings. The doublets, like the Hair Boys’ sweaters, had no lapels. They were full in the arms, and they were by the standards of today feminine, made from various weaves of silk—satins, damasks, velvets, and so forth—or cloths were gold and silver threads, and laces and braids, and ribbons. The perukes, or periwigs, those ornate curled wigs men wore, were very much like the bouffant coiffures of the Hair Boys today, something very set and stylized and high fashion. The breeches, stockings, and buckled shoes gave the same dramatic contrast the Hair Boys try to achieve.

“All these court styles of the seventeenth century, and in fact, most of the styles recorded from the eighteenth century on back, symbolized some charismatic role. The ornate court fashions did not symbolize the job of ruling the country, but the majesty of the role, the godly rights, and so forth. A few styles from before 1800 still hang on in this country, and they all symbolize some charismatic—that is to say, god-inspired—role in life, Justice, Mercy, Wisdom. The gowns judges wear today date from the fifteenth century. The dresses nuns still wear are what widows wore in mourning in the sixteenth century. The mortarboards students graduate in are still versions of sixteenth-century scholars; caps.

“The biggest revolution in men’s fashions came in the nineteenth century with the industrial revolution. It happened in stages, but gradually men began to dress not for a role—Ruler, Man of God, Warrior, Savant, Carrier of Justice—but for a job. The rising business class simplified dress, partly as reaction against court life, partly for practical reasons, expense, for one. The coat, shorter and with a collar and a lot of pockets, replaced the doublet. Trousers replaced the breeches and stockings. Plain fabrics came in.

“The fit of the clothes, not the cut, became the most important thing, fitting it to the measurements of the body. In court fashions, using heavy silks, it was not the measurements of, say, a doublet that counted, but the cut—the big flare of the sleeves, the flare of the skirt, flare, they like flare. The same—cute over fit—is true of women’s fashions today.

“But in men’s clothes—one can see the drastic change the nineteenth-century business styles brought by looking in any office today. A woman in the office, an $80-a-week stenographer even, is not in there dressed to look like a stenographer. She, no less than a movie star, dresses to look like a woman—her role in life, as she sees it. But the men dress for jobs. They dress first to look like lawyers, bankers, sales managers, or messengers or janitors or window washers. Only secondarily, sort of by the way, does what they wear stress whatever role they have...as men.

“After World War II, a number of sets of young men in California began to drop out of the rationalized job system and create their own statuspheres. In every case they made a point of devising new fashions, role changes, to symbolize their new life styles. These were the beats, the mortorcycle gangs, the car kids, and, more recently, the rock ‘n’ roll kids, the surfers, and, of course, the hippies. The hell with the jobs they had or might ever get. They wanted roles, as Rebels, Swingers, Artists, Poets, Mystics, Tigers of the Internal Combustion Engine, Monks of the Sea, anything that would be dramatic, exciting, not powerful or useful or efficient, but . . . yes! a little bit divine, right out of the old godhead of the hero.”

Also Note: Wolfe wrote this in ’68. And the similarities between the Hair Boys and the Hipsters of today—tight pants, track jackets, and hair.

if you care about what other people think of you, you'll become their prisoner.

well, i haven't written much lately, Amy's done a wonderful job wearing the pants of this tri-blog relationship. i thought i'd throw in a few words. i try to entertain 4th and 5th graders. so this is what i see.

Dante, Amante, Quinton, Adam, and Koby refuse to listen to anything expect rap. Adam, the only white kid in that list, will listen to rock music occasionally. The one requirement is that there is (amp)le screaming, and shouting, and blaring of noise.

Dante wants to know why Veronica, a white girl, wears a shirt that has the word P.E.A.C.E printed in glitter letters. Haven't white people had enough peace already? Why do they want more? Adrian likes to fight. it's the only thing he talks about. what did you do in school? got in a fist fight. why did you do that? because it's fun. it's fun to hurt people? yeah.

Austin wears a puffy jacket, puffs puffs puffs it up, and never looks a woman leader in the eye. You'll ask him to stop banging on the piano. He'll stop banging on the piano in an animated, resentful bluster, promising you that he'll never do what you tell him to do.

Jaylyn repeats the same question twenty times. can i have snack? can i have snack? can i have snack? can i have snack? can i have snack? can i have snack? can i have snack? can i have snack? can i have snack? jaylyn, i heard you. please stop asking me. snack is coming in a few minutes. a smile. can i have snack? can i have snack? can i have snack? can i have snack?

Dylan is angry. his venom cry is always everything is broken. everything is broken. Everyone hates him, no one wants to be his friend. people win at games to hurt him. He knows all the rules of four square. He even knows the secret rule of the cactus. He sang to me, There was an old man named Michael Finnigan, Who caught a cold and couldn't get well again.
Then he died, and had to begin again. Poor old Michael Finnigan. Begin again.

Jaylani is the strongest, largest kid present. She's not fat at all. well, she has a tummy, but that is all. she's smart too. she doesn't think so. she wants a rocket scientist to come in and speak about space, but she's afraid he'll just use smart words and be boring.

kaylynn always says she's going to throw up. then she tells you she just threw up blood. then she asks you for 'seconds', 'thirds', and 'fourths', on snacks. pink is her favorite color.

Myra will get a note from school saying that she did something wrong. she'll cry four an hour. literally. an entire hour she will sit and cry and refuse to utter a word.

they hate to read.