The Lemon Tree

Apartment #1
Location: Boston, Mattapan.
From: August 28th 1994 to November 1994.
Housemates: Three Irish security guards, plus an Irish construction worker.
Jobs: Security guard, Construction Worker, and Furniture Mover.

On my first day on the job as a security guard I was assigned to the Boston Garden arena – home to Boston’s basketball team the Boston Celtics. I was luckily enough to be stationed courtside. However, my shift started at 12 am and ended at 8 am, so I never actually got to watch a game. They had just repainted the hallowed court and my job was to make sure that no one broke into the arena in the middle of the night and run all over the court. No one did – at least for the 4 hours of my shift that I actually managed to stay awake. On occasion I would wake up, high on the varnish fumes. I had just finished my undergraduate degree and this was my first day of work in the real world – I was watching paint dry.

Over the next two months I was stationed at the construction site of the The Shawmont Center. This would be the new basketball arena for the Boston Celtics, as they were going to tear down the Boston Garden. I sat at one end of the imposing, gray, cavernous building. My job was to make sure no one walked onto the site. No one ever did. The only person I would see was my fellow security guard. A nice Nigerian guy veering upwards towards seven feet, he would arrive at the same time as me and promptly enclose himself in the workman’s shed, bed himself down, and snooze away the next eight hours.

Very often I would pull a double shift. The boss would call up and ask me to go to a new location because someone didn’t turn up. I would usually do it for the time-and-a-half-pay. However, this meant that by the time I got home and back, I could only squeeze in about three hours sleep. At one point I sat in the Ashmont station after a 6th consecutive double shift. I was waiting for the trolley to take me out to Mattapan and I stared at the small colored tiles on the platform. I was so tired; my mind was beginning to short-circuit. Suddenly the little tiles began to move. The red ones formed into an elephant, it’s large trunk swinging wildly. The green ones became a giraffe, tall and elegant. The yellow formed into a tiger. Soon I had a whole wildlife park before me – all jumping, running, and frolicking together. I snapped out of it with the screech of the trolley.

As September blended through October and into November it got progressively colder on my night shift. During those long nighttime hours, much time was spent reading. Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, by Douglas Coupland, was one notable book. I was at the tail end of the so-called Generation X – a generation that came to adulthood in the late 80s and early 90s. It was a generation that was overshadowed by the Boomer generation. We had too much education, but we had become apathetic and disillusioned with our commercialized culture. The future offered only hopelessness and struggle and we wanted out. Considering Nirvana’s disaffected Smells Like Teen Spirit had been the anthem for my college years, I could identify. While the book’s characters struggled by, I sat in the cold and read on. They worked in the service sector, and over time all their ambition was slowly being drained away.

Today is the “Neyepi”, or the Day of Silence in Bali. It is the day that ushers in the Hindu New Year. Over the past few days there have been cleansing ceremonies and parades throughout the Indonesian island, culminating in the burning of effigies before sunrise. This symbolizes evil leaving the island.

Today, all businesses close down, no one is allowed to travel, to be on the street, to do work of any kind, to speak, to make noise, to turn on lights or televisions, or to start fires. Young men patrol the villages, and make sure the restrictions are being observed. If you are caught with a flashlight or sneaking a look at a movie you will be told to stop. Even in the hotels, tourists are not allowed to leave, although I think they can use electricity and watch tv.

What you are meant to do, is sit in silence and reflect on your life, the past year, and the future. It sounds like a nice idea. However, a day can be a long time and maybe too much reflection is not always a good thing.

Still, I think I’d like to give it a try sometime, if just for a day. The New Year will begin soon. At 6.00 am the year will be 1929 according to Bali’s Hindu calendar.

Venue: 9:30 Club
Date: March 17th 2007
Act: Explosions in the Sky
Support: Eluvium, Paper Chase

Went to see Explosions in the Sky last night. It was a really good show. A live recording and an interview with the band can be heard at NPR’s Live Concert Series. I’d like to recount what songs they played, but I can’t. During the performance I realized that although I have most of their albums and listen to them on a regular basis, I can not name one of their songs. Their music is purely instrumental and may be tagged as post-rock, whatever that means. For me it’s beautiful movie soundtrack music that ebbs and flows – each song evolving and blending into the next.

The only negative points from the show was that for some reason they didn’t play an encore, despite the fact that crowd wanted more. Also, I probably could have done with missing the support band Paper Chase. However, I did like the sound of the first artist, Eluvium’s Matthew Cooper.

The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle
By J. Glenn Gray

In thinking about the film The Lives of Others, I am reminded of The Warriors, a book written by J. Glenn Gray. In 1941, having just graduated with a doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University, Gray was drafted into the army. He spent the next four years fighting in North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany in a counter-espionage unit. Fourteen years later Gray reflects on his war journals and letters in an attempt to find meaning in his wartime experiences. In each chapter the author tackles major themes, such as: remembering and forgetting war; the appeal of battle; how a soldier relates to death; love during wartime; and the image of the enemy.

Another fascinating chapter relates to how soldiers deal with guilt. In it Gray critiques our contemporary interpretations of guilt. He argues that with the rise of modern psychology, guilt has come to be understood exclusively in a moral sense. Psychologists have tended to view feelings of guilt as a hindrance to our ‘natural’ development. Guilt is seen as backward-looking, an illness that must be cured. We are told to forget about past regrets and we are encouraged to avoid the hard duty of improving our character. This modern view of guilt is post-Freudian and reflected in a quote from Paul Goodman, “No good has ever come from feeling guilty, neither intether intelligence, policy, nor compassion. The guilty do not pay attention to the object but only to themselves, and not even to their own interests, which might make sense, but to their anxieties” (Goodman, New York Review of Books, 23 May 1968).

Gray however argues that feelings of guilt, experienced through the voice of our conscience, can have positive role. It can be the trigger, or mechanism through which individuals can change. A troubled conscience is normally the first sign of the existence of guilt. The guilt then makes us aware of ourselves. It is a form of self-consciousness. It gives us the unmistakable, although uncomfortable awareness of freedom of choice; often forcing us to make very difficult decisions.

If acted on, a troubled conscience can be a driving force behind acts of dissent against overly oppressive forces. In this sense, guilt as a driving force provides part of the explanation behind those seemingly irrational, suicidal acts committed against massive opposing forces. In an eloquent passage Gray describes the moment when a soldier is struck by his conscience, and the internal struggle that ensues.

“It is a crucial moment in a soldier’s life when he is ordered to perform a deed that he finds completely at variance with his own notions of right and good. Probably for the first time, he discovers that an act someone else thinks to be necessary is for him criminal. His whole being rouses itself in protest, and he may well be forced to choose in this moment of awareness of his freedom an act involving his own life or death. He feels himself caught in a situation that he is powerless to change yet cannot himself be part of. The past cannot be undone and the present is inescapable. His only choice is to alter himself. Since all external features are unchangeable.

What this means in the midst of battle can only inadequately be imagined by those who have not experienced it themselves. It means to set oneself against other and with one stroke lose their comforting presence. It means to cut oneself free of doing what one’s superiors approve, free of being an integral part of the military organism with the expansion of the ego that such belonging brings. Suddenly the soldier feels himself abandoned and cast off from all security. Conscience has isolated him, and its voice is a warning. If you do this, you will not be at peace with me in the future. You can do it, but you ought not. You must act as a man and not as an instrument of another’s will.” (Gray The Warriors, (1959) p.184 – 185)

While I know there are examples of when a ‘noble and good’ conscience kicks in, I can’t help but think there is something missing here. What is the internal struggle all about and why is it that so few do not follow their conscience? It makes sense to me that a certain amount of anxiety is created when an individual is asked to act in a way that is at variance with what he/she believes in; the self is torn between what it has been socialized into believing is the appropriate behavior and contrary behavior that has been ordered. Because of this I can understand how a conscience, as a mechanism, helps to maintain a coherent self. It forces the individual to act in accordance with his/her beliefs, thus avoiding internal dissonance. It would appear that internal beliefs and external actions need to work in concert with each other. This means the soldier must either change his behavior or change his beliefs. Perhaps the more common resolution of this internal struggle is to change beliefs. This might explain why so many soldiers follow orders, even when they are at variance to the soldiers’ ‘prior’ beliefs.

Another point worth noting is that Gray’s soldier’s actions are rooted in their ‘own notions of right and good’. There is a sense that a soldier acting out on his conscience is always right and good, but where do these notions come from? In the end, we can not assume that a conscience is always ‘right’, or that it somehow serves the common good. Our notions or right and good are wholly normative formed in a specific environment.

Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Written by: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Cast: Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Martina Gedeck

Set in East Germany during the 1980s, The Lives of Others charts the cruel and sadistic efforts of the Stasi to search out and interrogate subversives. The film zones in on the character of Ulrich Muhe, a top ranking secret-police officer, and follows his surveillance of a famous playwright Sebastian Koch.

The writer-director downplays the emotion of the characters and creates a certain distance between the audience and the characters’ inner lives. Given the repressive nature of the regime, everyone has a role to play, and for the first half of the film both the Stasi officer and the playwright conform to the roles that the regime has assigned them.

However, midway through there is some hope – the main characters go through a process of change. The playwright’s passive stance towards the regime cracks. At great risk he challenges and attempts to undermine the regime. Meanwhile, the officer’s loyalty towards the regime crumbles. He changes from being the interrogator and victimizer of the ‘enemies of the state’ to being their protector. His is the most radical change, because in changing, he turns his back on everyone and everything he has known and believed in.

If there is one philosophic theme to the movie, it is that people can change. But can people change so radically? Can they suddenly turn their backs on everything they have believed in their entire lives? Does this happen in an instant, or over a prolonged period of time? Could the Stasi officer, after 20 years of loyal support, suddenly dissent? If so what could trigger such a drastic turn-around?

In The Lives of Others it is hard to understand what triggered Ulrich Muhe’s change. Perhaps over time there was a growing admiration of the life, character, and passion of the playwright coupled with a slow awakening of his own cold, almost lifeless existence. The drab, gray, clinical interior of Ulrich Muhe’s apartment practically defined what his personality had become. Or perhaps change occurred in an instant – a sudden and profound realization of what must be done. The voice of conscience.

Overall, as interesting and gripping as the film was, and as effectively it revealed the manifestations of individual change, it did not offer a good sense of how and why radical internal change can occur. What triggered the Stasi officer’s sudden dissent, we are still left pondering as the credits roll. Possibly it is a limitation of the medium?

Just got a link to a funny piece of animation created by a good friend of mine. It’s a short piece called ‘Tuf Impersonates Ruf’. Kawaii. His design portfolio is at doreyworks.com.

Apartment #1
Location: Boston, Mattapan.
From: August 28th 1994 to November 1994.
Housemates: Three Irish security guards, plus an Irish construction worker.
Jobs: Security guard, Construction Worker, and Furniture Mover.

I had just arrived in America for the first time. Going through customs, he asked if we had any fruits or vegetables. We said no. We didn’t, but we did have stacks of Irish sausages and rashers tucked neatly throughout 2 backpacks and a suitcase. “Well, you’re all set then” he said with a grin. With that, we were welcomed into America and we walked out onto the hot black steaming tarmac.

Smitty, Higgy, and Fitzy were all from our hometown and they had been living in Boston for the last year. I had just gotten a Greencard in the Morrison lottery and had decided to come out for six months. Mark was on a holiday. Just two weeks and then he’d be back home. In hand, we had our friends address. The cab driver read it and told us he wasn’t going to bring us there. He said we must have the wrong address and that we had no reason to go there. We were confused. He gave us the impression it was a rough area, but after explaining we had friends there, he agreed to take us.

They lived on the edge, between Dorchester and Mattapan. I remember walking into the third floor apartment for the first time. The heat was beginning to stick – hot and humid. I had rarely ever felt such oppressive heat…but the fridge was huge. It was old-school – straight out of an early 80s sitcom. Brilliant!

Conor, Higgy, and Fitzy were all working as security guards. After two weeks of hanging out and drinking, Mark left and I set about finding a job. My friends told me I could get a security job, but I’d have to cut my shoulder length rock’n’roll hair. No way! ‘Lenny-boy from Cavan’ also lived in the apartment and he had long ‘heavy metal’ length hair. Turns out he wouldn’t cut his hair for the security company, so he found other employment – working in construction. I admired him – there was no way I was cutting my hair.

Conor managed to arrange for me to get some work with his uncle Pat, a local contractor. So, a few days later, there I was up on top of some scaffolding removing rusted and battered drains from a fine old New England suburban home. I commented to Pat on the wobblyness of the scaffolding that we were perched upon and that sent him off on a story about a young guy who used to work for him.

This young chap did not so much have a fear of heights but he had a very pessimistic outlook on life. He was always convinced that the scaffolding beneath him was going to collapse at any moment. Because of this, he always had an escape-route planned out – leap over to that wall, bounce back onto the tree, drop onto the garage roof, etc… Pat had always considered him an overly worrisome kid, until one day the scaffolding did give way and the poor kid plummeted 4 stories. His pre-planned escape plan however did work, and the kid survived with only some cuts and bruises.

Meanwhile our scaffolding was still wobbling. I carefully planned my imminent fall – jump over to that drain, then grab the tree and down onto the wall…Luckily I never had to put my plan into effect. The following week Pat told me he didn’t have much work and I’d be best off trying to find more steady employment.

I had done some furniture restoration back home while I was in college so I thought I might be able to find a bit of work in that line. Unfortunately, I almost did. The work involved suiting yourself up in a spacesuit plus ventilator, and spraying toxic acid on furniture. The acid melted and stripped the paint away. Once done, you then hosed the furniture down. I was hard pressed to think of a worse job, but I carefully considered my options. The next day I admired my new haircut in the mirror and then set off on my first security guard assignment.

After class I walked outside. It was one of those big-cold-blue-sky days, with a wind that would cut right through you. The building faced a main road. It was busy with early afternoon traffic. I glanced towards the intersection and looked hard. My bike did not appear to be locked to the lamppost. But I had locked it there. I’m sure I did. Did I lock it up somewhere else? Maybe over by Starbuck? I did get a coffee there earlier. Shit. No. It’s not there. Still looking at the lamp by the intersection, I waited for it to magically appear. Crap. My bike’s been robbed. I’m damn sure of it now. Yep, still not there.

I stood there for another 20 seconds; then decided to have a cigarette and ponder the fact that the most expensive bike I had ever owned ($600 secondhand) was gone for good. By the end of the cigarette I had gotten over it. It was a bit of an ugly bike anyway. To hell with it. I went down to the intersection, picked up the snapped chain, and took 40 minutes to walk home, almost enjoying the big-cold-blue-sky.

My roommate’s bike was small. But it would do until I got a new one. As I pedaled, my knees were almost in my chest. It was cold again – dark, and spitting ice rain. As I crossed the intersection I had the green light. The car came from the side. They were taking a fast left turn…really fast. At the last minute I realized there was no slowing down. I pedaled hard. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the front bumper, big and shiny.

It slammed against my back wheel. Me and the bike spun, but quickly came to a sharp stop. As I looked up, my hit-and-run sped away, and I stood in the intersection, in disbelief. Dazed. The other light turned green and a wail of honking descended on me and my sad little mangled bike. I’m the bad guy? I dragged myself and my twisted bike home.

I needed a bike soon. My challenge was to buy a secondhand bike within 2 hours. I browsed craigslist. I wanted an old-school, 1980s-type, racing bike, or ‘racers’ as we used to call them – somewhere in the range of $100. I found one nearby with the catchy title “BIG RED BIKE”. The description read, “Big red, racing bike for big tall person. Would Lance Armstrong ride this bike? No. But it will get you around. $125.” Sounded perfect. I shot off an email. Big-red-bike-guy got back to me, and in an hour I was checking out the bike. It was a beautiful 1979 Schwinn Traveler II, made in Japan – very old-school. After a half block test drive, I parted with the cash, and headed home.

I had stopped at the light. There was another guy on a bike…a bike that looked very familiar. Yes! It looked exactly like my bike, which had been robbed some weeks before. It was a very unusual bike; I had never seen anything like it before. Yes, it looked exactly the same. The seat! I had changed the seat. If that matches, then I’m dead sure. Shit. The light is green. I think he gave me a bit of a weird look. Ok, I’ll follow him. Maybe I can get a glimpse of the seat.

He was quite a burly guy, probably in his late twenties, tough build, and he was pedaling fast. He glanced back at me. I pretended as best I could that I wasn’t following him. You know the way you do. He must think I’m some weirdo – checking him out at the intersection. He takes a bunch of turns. Seems like he is going in circles. I keep following, wondering what I would do if I catch up with him.

Am I going to throw him off the bike, and slap him around a bit? I can’t remember the last time I slapped anyone around. I haven’t been in a physical fight since I was about 8, and I got beaten pretty bad in that one. But then again, she was 9. Anyways, I’d rather not repeat that. Maybe he didn’t rob it. He’s probably a nice guy who just bought the bike from someone else. Maybe his bike was robbed! The light turns red. He’s beyond it now. I’m stopped. He gives me the finger as he turns and careens down an alley. I relax and have a smoke. After the cigarette, I was over it. Fuck it anyway, I have a new bike. Me and my old-school, 1979 racer head home.