Or “How I Didn’t Spend My Summer Vacation.”
This is one of those posts that, perhaps, is better suited in some ways for Old Man, Talking, but this one has pictures and that other site is involved in a new novel which you should probably read, so we’re going to put this one here for the convenience of having here for the purpose of putting things.
I wrote recently of the need for everyone to take a vacation, and some people, I’ve noticed by the endless parade of beach and lake pictures on social media, have done so. Not all of us can take those risks, though, which hardly seems fair, but then, nothing ever is, so, whatever, man. We have to find our own leisure.
If Dudeism has a sacrament, and nothing officially says that it does, it is bowling; not necessarily in the literal sense, though that’s where this is ultimately going, but at least in the metaphorical sense of engaging in an activity that requires absolutely no skill for one to enjoy the act of participation. Just don’t step over the line, man. We’d have to mark it a zero.
Turns out, there’s a lot of wisdom in doing nothing. Kierkegaard, when he wasn’t doing something else, said “Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.” Gertrude Stein took it a bit further with, “It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.” Extrapolate out a bit and that honorary Ph.D. one gets for doing nothing starts to feel pretty weighty.
Perhaps the quote that best gets to the point is this one from The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, translated by Burton Watson. Pay attention to this:
Once there was a man who was afraid of his shadow and who hated his footprints, and so he tried to get away from them by running. But the more he lifted his feet and put them down again, the more footprints he made. And no matter how fast he ran, this shadow never left him, and so, thinking that he was still going too slowly, he ran faster and faster without a stop until his strength gave out and he fell down dead. He didn’t understand that by lolling in the shade he could have gotten rid of his shadow and by resting in quietude he could have put an end to his footprints.
Leisure comes in many forms and to say that one has to go bowling in the literal sense would be antithetical to the most basic premise of Dudeism. You’ve got to be you. Still, there’s something to be said for sitting around in rented shoes and heaving a 14-pound ball at ten carefully-weighted pieces of shaped wood. Personally, I find it cathartic right up until about the eighth frame when my shoulder starts hurting, causing me to drop the last two frames. My diagnosis is that I should probably spend more time bowling.
Looking for something we could do with children led us to this reliable form of recreation. We confirmed with the bowling alley that no one was allowed in without a mask (they were delightfully fierce about that qualification), social distancing was excessively enforced, and that every reasonable sanitation method was being applied, piled the offspring into the van, and introduced them to this most sacred of Dudeist pastimes, which, qualifying as vacation this year, necessitated pictures.
Who won or even how high the scores were is irrelevant. There’s no proof that the Dude himself ever actually bowled a frame; he just sat there as though he might if he’d wanted to. The whole scoring thing is digital now anyway, which makes that bowling class I took in college, where the final exam was correctly scoring a game, by hand, on paper, rather moot at this point. What’s important is that we were introducing the children to the skill of leisure, a skill that, when properly refined, will do them much good for the rest of their lives. They’re too young for bowling alley beer, of course, but there were chili dogs so, in some ways, from a gastrointestinal perspective, I guess that’s the same.
I guess what I’m showing you this week are, kind of, our family vacation photos. And one might notice that I’m not in any of the photos. That’s not a bad thing. The evidence of my presence is the fact that the photos exist. Of course, I couldn’t just dump them on you with standard processing. I’d be just like everyone else on social media if I did that. They’re what we’ll call “enhanced”. Whether you like them or not is, like, just your opinion, man. What’s important is that we understand the great importance of leisure, of actively, intentionally, doing nothing. Look at the pictures and then take a nap.
Remember these words of Oscar Wilde: “To do nothing is the most difficult thing in the world. The most difficult, and the most intellectual.”
Enjoy.
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A Stark Reminder Of What We’re Facing
The state of Indiana may say it’s re-opening but downtown Indianapolis is a very different picture.
Yes, I do still have a good camera. Yes, I still remember how to use it. Having not shot anything new since February, though, I had to dust it off and clean the lenses before taking everything out early Thursday morning and venture into downtown Indianapolis. I was itching to shoot something, anything, and after hearing about all the protests downtown and the Arts Council’s project for painting boarded-up shops, I was fairly certain I would find littered streets juxtaposed against incredible murals.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I hit downtown at 8:20 AM, right smack in the middle of what should have been one of the busiest times of the day. Instead, I encountered practically no traffic at all once I was inside the mile square. I parked less than a block North of the Circle. The place was empty.
Sure, there were some construction people doing construction things, but there were no pedestrians, no one rushing to get to work on time, no one grabbing that last cup of coffee before trudging into an office, no police, no lingering protestors, nothing. Almost everything was boarded up but most the boards were still bare and the few on the Circle that had been painted were amateur attempts at prettying-up a hard message: Black Lives Matter. The streets themselves were perhaps the most clean I’ve ever seen them. No sign of the previous night’s protest remained. Even the trash cans had been emptied.
I walked south out of the circle to Washington then west to Illinois. Seeing Circle Center Mall boarded up was surreal. Even more unnerving, though, was being able to stand in the middle of an intersection, multiple times, and take my time framing my shot without having to worry about being run over. Traffic was practically non-existent. I walked on down to Georgia Street where a lone couple sat snuggling on one of the concrete supports. There was some utility construction nearby, but beyond that, everything was quiet.
The one image that stands out in need of comment is the statue of Governor Oliver Morton with what appears to be bird poop squarely down his face. I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate. Morton, on one hand, got the state of Indiana through the Civil War without it being torn to shreds. He fought off white supremacist groups and made Indiana one of the most supportive states in the Union. Sounds like a good guy, right?
Hardly. While he might be applauded for his support of the Union, the methods he used in the process were nonetheless detestable. He illegally borrowed millions of dollars in federal and personal loans to support the state budget because he wouldn’t let the state legislature meet. He hired thugs who beat up, kidnapped, and allegedly killed political opponents. When Confederate troops crossed the Ohio River into Indiana, not only did he illegally call up the state militia to fight them but he had them ransack and burn the homes and barns of any Hoosier family who displayed the flag of the Golden Circle, a group sympathetic to the Confederacy. Perhaps difficult times call for difficult measures, but seeing bird poop on his face still feels appropriate.
Seeing the city this way was a reminder that regardless of what other issues we might face there is still a pandemic to fight. While people out in the suburbs might be reckless and running around without a care, the few people who were downtown were taking matters seriously. Mosts wore masks. They all avoided getting too close to anyone else. And the whole place felt a bit like a ghost town.
I can’t say the following photographs are exciting. If they are interesting it is on a documentary level as we consider where we are and what is really taking place. While it was nice to get the camera out again, I must say that I prefer more lively subjects. I kept looking for tumbleweeds; at least they would have been interesting.
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