Book Review: A Walk Across America

A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I first started reading this book, I thought it was going to another tale like "Into the Wild" or something. I was a little put off by the way that it was written, judging it by my "high" standards of a well-written book. But as I continued reading and became captivated by the tale, I quickly learned that this was a book unlike any other that I have read. It made me cry on no less than 4 occasions - and they sprang from a gamut of emotions: sadness, happiness, joy, beauty, mourning, and love. Peter Jenkins's walk from Alfred, NY to New Orleans, LA (as this book contains that portion of his walk) enlightened me to the beauties and dangers of our society and to ALL of the people that make up the fabric of this country that we call America.

Jenkins' starts out like any of the myriad of disillusioned, college-educated young people that graduate and gripe about the failures and evils of our country (I know that I fall into that category). But what Peter does that separates him from me is that he takes the advice of a guy that he works with and decides to discover what America is really all about and who really makes up the people of our country. And that decision to go forth and find that answer, with his forever-friend Cooper Half Malamute, begins a journey that takes him from the North to the South, down the Appalachian Trail and along the Gulf Coast until he reaches New Orleans.

In the journey along the way, Peter encounters many, many people - some who's hospitality is beyond belief, and others who's hostility is hard to swallow. One particular encounter in a North Carolina town was so harrowing, I marveled at the fact that he didn't quit his walk right then and there. He learns life lessons from a genuine mountain man in West Virginia, a black family and the rest of the community in Smokey Hollow North Carolina, a commune of people called "The Farm" who lived and worked the land and followed a religion called "Steve", and Governor George Wallace of Alabama - the same one who ordered the police to stop Martin Luther King, Jr.'s walk from Selma to Montgomery, to a revival in New Orleans when God finally found His way into his life. As Peter walks, his prejudices fall by the wayside, and I found that mine fell as well.

It is a testament to the power of his prose that a journey taken in the mid-1970s could still ring so beautifully and so truthfully. Yes, there are dark corners and evils in our country. But what Peter showed me is that there are many, many, MANY more wonderful, hard-working people who seek to etch out a living and in doing so enjoy life to an extent that I hope to know sometime in my lifetime.

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Book Review: Into the Wild

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I got this book for Christmas (sort of) and ended up reading it over break. I really enjoyed this book. I absolutely love the movie - it is one of my all-time favorites. And after reading the book, I am impressed with how well the movie did in capturing Chris McCandless's spirit, as well as Krakauer's opinion about McCandless.

I do not think McCandless was a raving nut. I think he was a young guy full of hubris and ideals and did what very few of us end up doing - living out his dream. Unfortunately, due to a series of events that occurred (some that are conjectured, some that are fact), McCandless never made it back from "the wild" and perished. What is truly sad about his story is that it appears that he had tried to leave his solo adventure, and return to the land of other living human beings, because he had realized, "Happiness Only Real When Shared". And that to me is the true tragedy of his story - he never got a chance to live out what he had learned in the wilderness.

The other thing that struck me was how many people ended up losing their faith in God once he died. Being a believer, and having experienced loss both personally and with friends, I cannot imagine trying to deal with death without a reliance on God. And it struck me that people seem to deal with loss of a loved one (in this case those that knew McCandless) in one of either way - it either drives you away from God or it draws you closer to Him.

I share some of McCandless's views on nature and the effect that it's power and beauty have upon the soul. I also understood his need to go off on his own - yet that a need existed within him that ultimately drove him back to people. It is a shame that such a passionate, amiable young guy passed away before he even began to enter the prime of his life. But he got to live an adventure that few of us would even dare to dream of, and because of that, I do not view his story as one of tragedy, but melancholy - joy that he got to experience a life to the full and sadness that it was cut so short.


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Forgive Me...

This is my blog, my corner of the universe, and as such I am going to take a moment, be selfish and pat myself on the back for making so many correct predictions this past year. This is not humble of me and it will be showing a side of myself that I am acutely aware of and keep under wraps most of the time. But I can't help myself because it is kind of uncanny how many things I correctly called way back in January of this year (see this link for my original post).

1 - I was right on the economy. Fact is, being in the housing industry puts you on the forefront of what is actually happening in the American economy, and I could have told you back in August of 2006 that we were headed for troubled times. But the idiots in Washington put their heads in the sand and refused to say that the economy was in trouble - on the other hand, there was no other way for them to play it. It was a Catch 22 - if the government acknowledged that something was wrong in the economy, things would have collapsed a lot sooner than they did. It's all about politics and spin and if the spin is negative, the markets will come crashing down.

2 - I was right on the Democrats winning the White House. I must admit, I don't like it - I don't like having a Democrat in the White House. But McCain ran one of the poorest campaigns I have ever seen - what happened to him? I know he has the experience and the record and there is not a person who has served his country more faithfully than he has, but he became muzzled and the experienced statesman that he is never publicly showed itself. I also accurately called that he would have a chance if he picked Sarah Palin as his VP - she had a shining moment at her GOP convention speech, but was then quickly derailed by the media, late-night comedians, and herself. And I don't think he would have had a better shot if he had picked someone else as his Vice Presidential running mate. The public bought into Barack's message a long time ago and the Republican party shot itself in the foot with all of the corruption scandals and mishandling of the power they had. I think it is absolutely wonderful how many people turned out to vote in this election - that is amazing and incredible and right - too many men and women have sacrificed their lives to give us that right, and to not vote is to do them a dishonor and disrespect our own freedom and rights. BUT, I am just wondering how many people are going to be severely disappointed when all the changes promised don't happen. The Democrats will become drunk with their power, just like the Republicans did, and Washington will remain the way it has always been. THAT is politics and THAT is the reality of the political system that we live in. "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

3 - I happened to be totally right about the Giants winning the Super Bowl - which was a fluke guess, but still the correct one! Yay for the downfall of the Patriots :).

4 - I was correct about Into the Wild not winning the Best Picture, but I still maintain that it should have.

5 - I was also correct about the bright color trend continuing.

6 - I also correctly predicted that the writers strike would last into the Spring 2008 TV season, though thankfully it did end in time for new episodes of Lost to be aired - thank the Good Lord above!

7 - I am right about the troops not being pulled out of Iraq until at least 2010. Though Obama has promised a total immediate withdrawal, the reality of the situation will not allow this to be feasible until at least 2 years into his presidency.

8- Though, this prediction came just a week ago, I did correctly predict that gas prices would fall to $1.99 on the eve of the election (Karen G can back me up on this one!), and, guess what! They did! Anyone who tells me that the oil companies do not fix their prices and do not control the politics in Washington (dad) needs to then explain to me the coincidence of the dramatic drop in gas prices during the election. I mean seriously - $1.99 gas - when was the last time that we saw $1.99 gas!? 2005? I don't care that the "market" has all of the sudden seen such a dramatic slip in demand. You tell me that the market has seen a slip in demand when prices are back to $4 next summer. I don't see a slip in demand - there is still plenty of traffic on 66 and 495 and even around the little town of Warrenton - more traffic in fact! Maybe the bubble of Northern Virginia keeps me from seeing the decline in demand, but I just don't see it. No, the conspiracy theorist in me says that the politics of oil run SO much deeper than any of us really know, and that there is more going on behind the scene. And in fact, if the gas prices were to accurately reflect the price of oil on the market, I believe that the prices should be even lower than they are.

9 - I correctly predicted that I would be moving this year! I am really excited about this - I have been keeping it kind of under wraps, but I recently found out that I will be moving (still in Warrenton, back to where I originally started 2 years ago), but I will be living on my own, which will be something completely new and exciting. I have never lived completely on my own and I'm excited/nervous to see what this new arrangement has in store for me.

And finally, number 10 - I correctly predicted that our new business venture, Signature WoodCrafters would be successful. Being involved with this start-up has been one of the hardest things I have ever worked on. Every day is a battle for survival, which is capitalism at its core. I have always tried to work hard and do my best at whatever I'm given to do, but until the work itself is a day to day struggle for survival, I have found out that I didn't know what it truly meant to work hard. It is not easy and is a battle day in and day out. Though we will probably only break even this year with this venture, that is still a victory, because I don't know many start-ups that have turned a profit in their first year, considering the massive advertising costs needed to get your name into the market. BUT, as hard as it has been, I don't know if I would trade this year for anything else. It has been exciting, taxing, draining, thrilling, hard, and totally worth being involved in. It has helped saved the rest of my coworkers' jobs, has given our company a new source of revenue, and taught me a ton - I really couldn't ask for more. I am really lucky to have the opportunities that I have at my company.

So, I ask for all of my legions of readers (all 2 of you :)) to forgive me for applauding myself and bragging about making some correct predictions about this year. And the fact that I hedged all of my bets by originally predicting that none of my predictions would come true, should negate everything that I have congratulated myself on :). And I will return back to my humble self and say with all sincere humility that it is just luck that I gave an accurate read on this stuff. To truly test my clairvoyance, I will have to accurately predict social, political, and international trends for at least two years in a row. And then if that happens, I will proudly take on Professor Larry Sabato's recently relinquished mantle of the "most accurate political prognosticator" :).

50/50 on my 2008 Predictions :)

I feel like I should turn into John McGaughlin or Bill O'Reilly now because 5 out of the 10 predictions I made have come true - and it's only March! :) This of course could be because they were pretty simple and obvious predictions...

The Five that have come True are...

1. The US Economy is in a recession - Energy prices and the credit crunch continue to spell doom, doom, DOOM on the NYSE and the housing market shows no signs of a recovery anytime soon. And as the dollar continues to drastically weaken and more and more companies are having to be bailed out by the Fed, the question is, where is the bottom, will the economy affect the election (of course), will Americans stop spending money they don't have (no), and will the globalization of the marketplace be the undoing of the affluence of America? I think there are a lot of hard times ahead and people are going to be caught unawares and wake up one morning and the way of life that they have become accustomed to will be gone - kind of like the Biblical famines of old when people were constantly put on the brink of destruction because of crop failures or locust plagues - we need a Joseph who will help us save and put away stores of crops to protect us against the coming famine.

2. The Giants will win the Super Bowl - Turns out they did win the Super Bowl and in the most dramatic of fashions - that was a game to be remembered for the ages.

3. The Bright color trend in clothing will continue - I think I was more than dead-on this one since every single magazine is splashed with pages and pages of bold colors.

4. Into the Wild won't win the Best Picture Oscar - and unfortunately it didn't. But I still think it was the best movie of the 2007 season. I haven't seen "No Country for Old Men", but I don't really want to see a movie about a ruthless serial killer relentlessly pursuing some guy who stole a bunch of drugs from a drug deal gone awry.

5. Signature WoodCrafters, Signature Companies' new consumer-direct business venture will be successful - Luckily, I was correct with this prediction, and thank goodness! To date we have generated great lead responses, which is incredible. Here's hoping that the next three months will bring just as many, if not more, lead responses for our business!

And here's another prediction for 2008 - I unfortunately will not win my company's March Madness pool - dang Duke, Georgetown, and Pittsburgh. Here's hoping that Davidson pulls off two more upsets and makes it into the Final Four - that would be awesome.

Film Analysis 101 - "There Will Be Blood"

This past weekend I got to see the movie There Will Be Blood starring Daniel Day-Lewis. Day-Lewis is probably best known for his work in the movies, Last of the Mohicans and Gangs of New York. He also is reknown for his ability to completely inhabit the characters that he is representing on screen, and he does not fail to deliver in There Will Be Blood. This performance is riveting, mind-blowing and will stick with you long after the movie has ended.

However, I can't say that I loved this movie, because it ultimately was much more disturbing and thought-provoking than I was expecting. And actually, I have to say, that as I was watching the movie, I didn't expect it to cause as much turmoil as it did after viewing - that is, until the end of the movie. And I suggest that you stop reading here if you don't want to know what happens in the end!

SPOILER ALERT:
So this is my attempt to be like Ms. Brittle and analyze this film - The thing is that after I watched the movie and was thinking it over, especially the last line, "I'm finished", I started to see a lot of Biblical allusions throughout the movie. From the naming of some characters (there is a father who sells his land to Daniel Plainview named Abel Sunday; Abel has either one son with a split personality or two sons - one named Paul and the other Eli). Eli Sunday essentially becomes the archnemesis of Daniel Plainview, spewing twisted "Christian" rhetoric at him.

Plainview is a captain of industry - an oil driller who strikes it rich in California, but in the process loses everything, including his humanity. In fact, I would say that this movie is about his descent into inhumanity - other reviewers have talked about it like it is his descent into immorality, but it is much stronger than that. Plainview ends up "adopting" a son one day in the beginning of his journey into oil drilling after one of his workers is killed. His son isn't even given a name - his name is "H.W." But throughout the movie, you get this sense that Plainview does in fact love his son - his son is the one thing that keeps him from devolving into a complete monster who cares only about the bottom line and beating his competition. Actually, I should say he cares about killing his competition because beating is too nice of a word and doesn't capture the feelings of hatred that Plainview has of the competition. In fact, at one point in the movie, Plainview is having a discussion with his "brother" and relates to him that he "feels a competition burning inside of him, and feels this intense hatred of people" and that in fact he hates all people. At one bizarre point in the movie, Plainview threatens to cut the throat of a man who wants to buy his company out - and the man points out the craziness of the statement by plainly asking him (and questioning the audience) "Are you crazy?" And that is the question you have to ask yourself as the movie continues to move along - is Daniel crazy? Is Eli crazy? Are they both crazy? Is there a good guy?

There are so many layers to this movie - how Daniel "sacrifices" his son in the end, how he ends up destroying Eli, and how the movie ends with him sitting in a pool of blood, stating that "I'm finished" - it's as if he is almost sayting that his sins are atoned with Eli's blood - Eli, who is this insipid, despicable preacher who makes his parishioners look like a bunch of sheep being led to the slaughter - they cannot think for themselves and Eli makes all of their decisions. I'm sure I am not being very coherent in relating all of this, but there is so much to think on and ruminate over. I don't know if I can recommend this movie - only if you want to experience a mind-blowing movie, but not the good kind of mind-blowing movies like Into the Wild, which remains my favorite movie of 2007.

Through the Looking Glass - What I think the Year 2008 will bring

There are many pundit shows out there that like to make predictions on the current year, and in light of that I wanted to try to make some predictions and see if they actually come true. I figure, why not?

1. The United States economy will enter into a recession.
Actually in terms of this prediction, I think we are already there - the economists just don't want to say that word. The housing market is not going to come back anytime soon - certainly not this year, and most likely not next year. Being in the housing market industry, we will be down 50% in revenues from just two years ago. It is absolutely incredible. We were setting records in terms of our revenues and to go so fast from such an economic boom to a bust has been kind of shocking. A lot of companies in our industry are going out of business now because they can't handle the pressure of the downturn.
The thing that is going to make the US economy go into a recession is the subprime meltdown that occurred this past August. CEOs of major credit companies are being ousted left and right over their failure to make sound financial decisions. The fallout from all of this is that now the job market is being effected. People are being laid off in the thousands, and with the jobs disappearing, the consumer will not be spending money. The fact that gas and energy prices are refusing to come down will also (and has) negatively effect the overall economy and consumer's spending power. The only thing that is keeping us afloat is that the consumer hasn't stopped spending yet. But I predict that that won't last much longer - or it will become much more difficult to pay the bills and spend money on big ticket items.

2. A Democrat will win the Presidential election, unless Mike Huckabee wins the Republican nomination.
The tide has turned in American politics. The scandals and abuse of power that runs rampant on Capitol Hill and in the White House has tired the American public. And the public associates that with just one political party and not politics itself. Honestly, if a Democrat wins the White House, I don't think that much will change in terms of American politics. There will always be abuse of power in the White House, because that is the precedent that has been set - not by Bush, but all the way back to Franklin Roosevelt - who changed the powers of the US Presidency because of the Great Depression. Ever since FDR, each American president has extended the powers of the Oval Office to fit his agenda. Whoever is newly elected will end up doing the same. Republicans and Democrats seem to be like the zebra - one is black with white stripes while the other is white with black stripes - basically, it's the same animal, any way that you look at it.
The only reason I give Mike Huckabee a chance is because he has Chuck Norris in his corner and he was a Baptist minister and I like the things that I've read about him. He seems very likeable.

3. US Troops won't begin to pull out of Iraq until 2010, at the least.
It is foolish to think that the Iraq War will be over anytime soon. From the moment that we invaded the country in 2002, I, a lowly foreign affairs student, knew that we would be in the region for at least a decade. The ethnic factions (and ethnic is probably not the right word) that are there - the Sunnis, the Shias, and the Kurds will all kill each other if we leave - which they do to an extent now. But I feel like if the troops pulled out it would turn into genocide. Trying to establish a democracy with these three factions is so stupid. What needs to happen is that the state of Iraq needs to be demised and changed into three separate countries. But there are two problems in doing that - one, is that if you create a Kurd state, you create a rallying point for the Kurds that reside in Turkey and cause them to rise up in rebellion against the Turks as they try to break off from Turkey and join the new Kurd state. The second is that if you create a Shia state, you give Iran a country to completely go after. They would try to annex that state into themselves, or at the least try to set up a puppet government that they could run. Iran has already tried to do this before, but funny enough, Saddam Hussein stopped that from happening.

4. Into the Wild won't win the Oscar for Best Picture - But it should!
This is the most underrated movie of the year - far better than Atonement. Atonement was actually kind of awful - there is nothing special about it.

5. The Writer's Guild of America will hold out and not settle with the studios in order to save the spring 2008 TV season. The Fall 2008 season might come to fruition, but even that might not happen.
Therefore bad reality shows will dominate the airwaves causing the American public to either lose all their brain cells or turn off their television sets to actually read!

6. The NY Giants will win the Super Bowl.
I actually don't believe this prediction at all - I think the Patriots will destroy the Giants - destroy them with a capital D! BUT I will root for the underdog nonetheless :).

7. Signature's new business venture, Signature WoodCrafters will take off and save lots of jobs at my company!
This prediction I completely believe in. I think there is a whole market out there that we have barely begun to tap and though there are some competitors out there, we can create a niche for ourselves and win! If you know anyone that wants to re-do their kitchen cabinets and countertops or change their carpet-grade stairs to hardwood, let me know!

8. The bright color trend will continue on through the spring and fall fashion seasons.
I love color - I love, love, love it. And I love bright colors. I think that this trend will continue because there are a lot of other people who feel the same that I do!

9. I will end up moving somewhere different.
I only think this because I have moved every year since graduating college. It would be nice to settle down somewhere, but I don't see the reality of that happening anytime soon. But we'll see.

10. None of these will come true.
This is so I hedge all my bets :).

A Journey in Film

Last week I got to go see this movie with two of my dearest friends. We went to the Fairfax Cinema Arts Theatre, which is so charming. At the movie was one of my dearest and best teachers, Mr. Jacobs. So from the get-go, it was destined to be a good night.

Then the movie started and from beginning to end, it was absolutely beautiful and heart-wrenching - so much so that still a week and day later I am still thinking about it. The story of Christopher McClandless, or Alexander Supertramp, and his journey over a two-year span, culminating with his tragic and ironic end in Alaska, struck a chord within me.

There is a pain and yearning that Sean Penn and Emile Hirsch capture in this film. It is the pain and betrayal felt by a boy who has been scarred by his family life. There is a yearning for escape, to leave everything that they stood for, and try to discover himself and in the process, find happiness. Throughout his two year journey, Christopher/Alex encounters so many different people and touches many lives with his own. But his own end-goal is to go to Alaska. Alaska becomes his Quixotic windmill, except that he gets there. And he relishes his experience there, until the land starts to betray him - first with the impassable river that comes to life in the spring, and next with the lack of available food. Then his own intellect betrays him as he misreads his plant book and eats a poisonous plant that ultimately leads to his starvation. It is the ultimate irony, that in trying to escape from the pain of his family life, he learns in the end that happiness is shared - happiness comes from relationships, from the people that he met along the road, from being with his family. The place where he seeks escape gives him death instead - a kind of escape that he wasn't looking for.

There is so much more in this film though. For example, there is the whole sequence in which he meets Frank, an old man who lost his wife and son in a car accident while he was away fighting in a war, and since coming back to the States has not left his little town. And in part of that sequence, after Frank has climbed up a mountain after being told that he couldn't, he says to Christopher/Alex that it is only after we forgive that God's love can shine down and through us. Which is so true. I think I also was so touched by this sequence because it in a way reminded me of my Grandpa who I still miss and mourn for.

It has been a long time since I went to a movie and found myself still thinking about it a week later. The two other films that I saw last week (The Hat Trick, as I like to call it :)) don't hold a candle to this one. It is definitely a must see.

Another Point of View on this film...