Category: History

A category that basically includes anything to do with history.

Telling Stories and Written in Bone: Exhibit Review from Three Angles

What do an art exhibition, a viewing of bones, and a link between Rome and America have in common? All are representations of three different types of exhibition methodology—one that is traditional, another interdisciplinary, and the third disappointing in scope and intention. A longer review on the National Constitution Center’s exhibition on Rome will follow in a week, but today here are some of my thoughts on Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg (through January 2, 2011) and Written in Bone:Forensic Files of the 17th Century Chesapeake (through January 6, 2013).

When I go to an exhibition I look at it from three different ways. The first is the “narrative” what is the story that is being told, why are we here, why should we care? The second is the artifacts themselves. How well do these objects illustrate/emphasize the overarching narrative? The third angle is a little bit more emotional. It’s the gut check. How did I feel as a visitor walking away from the exhibition—did I learn something? Was I confused?

In the Norman Rockwell exhibit, the ‘story’ is easy to identify in that his paintings of ordinary life  reflect some simple storytelling techniques–evoking emotion and nostalgia through vivid colors and simple structure. The canvases from Lucas and Spielberg’s collection also have a distinct connection to an idea of Hollywood glamor: classic, constructed, simple; or as the exhibits website states “Rockwell’s paintings and the films of Lucas and Spielberg evoke love of country, small town values, children growing up, unlikely heroes, acts of imagination and life’s ironies.”

I was drawn to a series of four paintings, all of which told a story within a story, a complex idea to do in a single snapshot or frame. In And Daniel Boone Comes to Life on the Underwood Portable, Boy Reading Adventure Story, Shadow Artist, The Toy Maker (see them here) I found myself identifying with the second level of the image, into the writer’s imagination, the boy’s book, the life of the shadow bunny, and the world of toys. All are pictures within pictures, visions within visions. Since each of these paintings belonged to George Lucas or Stephen Spielberg they are uniquely representative of how Rockwell influenced their films. At one point in an interview (link below) Lucas states that “When we were in film school, we would say, “We’re not making movies about the way things are, we’re making movies about the way things should be.” And that’s the power you have as an artist, to be able to put your spin on reality and make it the way you think it should be. Rockwell created his art to relate to people, but at the same time he showed generations to come what it was like in those year”, so in effect these paintings tell more than just the story that Rockwell wanted to tell, they also tell the story of George Lucas the filmmaker and Stephen Spielberg the filmmaker. They emphasize that what we see on the silver and small screens are often invoking/influenced by images and windows into times past present and future.

Gut Check? I wish there had been more textual narration besides the live film and the introductory panels/quotations, but otherwise loved it.

Written in Bone is a different type of exhibition. First of all its in the Smithsonian Institutions Natural History Museum, which already indicates that it will be of scientific or natural in nature, but the second title of the exhibition Forensic Files of 17th Century Chesapeake made me walk through the doors. I spent a lot of time in college learning about 17th, 18th, and 19th century Virginia through coursework at William and Mary. So I wanted to see how they put together an exhibition that told the story of that period through the human remains.

The exhibition began with a lesson in basic forensic pathology. How can you tell the age of remains from the size of the skull, the length of a leg bone etc. Once you left the first room you were introduced to the idea of making connections between the forensic evidence and the documentary materials that historians generally use. This led to a third section where the remains of a man from Jamestown and a couple from St. Mary’s County were displayed. Step by step, piece by piece they walked us through identification and context.

This was an excellent exhibition. Not only because it emphasized the importance of using interdisciplinary evidence to put the puzzle together, but also because it was structured in a clear and organized fashion—leading the audience to the historical and forensic conclusions. In prepping this post I also took the time to look at the online portion of the website, and stumbled across “Secrets in the Cellar” a web comic that virtually relays all of this information to those who are unable to visit the exhibition personally. It maybe a slight oversimplification of the work that actually goes into identifying old human remains, but it gets the job done.

Gut Check? Highly recommended. Engaging, mysterious, and a great example of how history can be told through many different lenses for a fuller story.

Norman Rockwell Exhibition Links:

Official Site for Telling Stories
George Lucas on Norman Rockwell and the Movies
Steven Spielberg on Norman Rockwell and the Movies
CBS Review of Exhibition

Written in Bone Exhibition Links:
Written in Bone Official Site
The Secret in the Cellar (webcomic)

We Are One: The National Asian Pacific Islander American Historic Preservation Forum

Also posted on the PreservationNation.org Blog. I’m working on a post of some exhibits I recently attended but wanted to post this here as well.

We are one.

At the end of the first day of the Asian Pacific Islander American Historic Preservation Forum (APIAHPF) I found myself at a banquet hosted by Guam Preservation willingly participating in a group sing-a-long complete with traditional hand motions and live music. For those who attended the two and a half day conference this moment represented everything that the meeting had offered to attendees: camaraderie, energy, synergy and determination – all in a forum to encourage, educate and mobilize Asian Pacific Islander American (APIA) communities that are working to preserve their American story.

About two years in the making, this conference served two distinct purposes. The first was to provide educational sessions that would give attendees basic preservation tools to save their historic communities. Context matters, so the fact that we were at the Kabuki Hotel in the heart of San Francisco’s Japantown definitely added to the atmosphere. I moderated a session that gave an introduction to historic preservation, and quickly learned that all of the attendees who had gathered brought with them a particular story and vision for APIA preservation. One of the major components of this session was recognizing that preservation, especially in the case of Asian Americans, is more than just buildings and structures, but also includes the intangible heritage—the folklore, the language, the dance.

The second part of the Forum involved thinking organically as a group about what APIA historic preservation means and consequently what it needs in order to become a broader and successful movement. I mentioned synergy earlier and this is where all of our minds worked together to brainstorm. Every meal was a working meal and breakfast (both days) and lunch were reserved for the task of identifying what tools the APIA community needs to preserve their unique American past. Using the World Café format we looked at three central questions that served as jumping off point for what we as a group wanted for APIA preservation:

  • What inspires and motivates you personally to preserve APIA culture?
  • What does historic preservation mean in an APIA context? What changes?
  • What next steps would you like to see for API cultural preservation?

This allowed us, on the final morning, to develop a series of product-based next steps that ranged from developing a “basics” toolkit from existing materials, developing a social media strategy for the group that includes advocacy alerts and networking, and determining that the conversation needs to continue with others—especially with stake holders who were unable to attend the Forum.

Perhaps the most important piece of this Forum was the recognition that the APIA and historic preservation community needs to work together in order to be successful. That…

We are One
With the Earth
With the Sun
With the Sky
With the Sea
We are One

California Bound: San Francisco, Fog, and the History of Asian Pacific Americans

There are words in the remnants of the registration building at Angel Island, a footprint of history, lost to time.

Courage                                                                                    Seperation
Segregation                                                                            Confinement
Bravery Lonliness                                                               Frustration   Anger
Exclusion                                                                                Inclusion
Appeals   Hearings  Examinations                                Denial       Perseverance     Entry
Human Spirit   Opportunities                                         Acceptance     Rejection
Dreams   Hope  Fear  Faith                                              Civil Rights  Realities  Social Justice

I recently wrote the post below for the PreservationNation.org blog, but I wanted to add a few thoughts regarding the importance of tangible and intangible heritage in telling the stories of immigrant America.  My travels around San Francisco emphasized just how important history is in the broader community. Documenting the past has never been more important–not only in terms of producing an archive for posterity, but also for the next generation as a means of forming a broader American identity.

A brief tangent: while at the College of William and Mary I had a chance to read the text from Colonial Williamsburg known as “Becoming Americans“. This publication, a thematic interpretation plan for CW,  pulls out the following main ideas in examining and interpreting the colonial period for the public.

  • Diverse Peoples
  • Clashing Interests
  • Shared Values
  • Formative Institutions
  • Partial Freedoms
  • Revolutionary Promise

While it isn’t a perfect interpretive plan, the main themes do lend themselves as a basic framework for stories of other immigrants to the United States. The interactions between cultures, their individual identities and the process of adapting in a new world may  not be a direct parallel to the stories of the colonial era “immigrants” but they do perhaps offer a glimpse into how American democracy and history constantly evolves and follows the similar arcs throughout time.

In early American the hypocrisy of the revolutionary fervor and the culture of slavery that had taken root in Virgina and other colonies was not lost on individuals like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Despite that recognition it took hundreds of years before we, as Americans, began seriously to work to end the legacies of slavery in this country (which includes post-reconstruction Jim Crow laws and segregation).

If you look at later groups that came to this country–the Irish and Scots, the Chinese and Japanese, the Eastern Europeans or African immigrants–all have experienced a level of discrimination and hardships before being accepted into mainstream America. Some would claim that it is a process still in progress for many of the more recent immigrant groups. At various points in time APA immigrants experienced, for a variety of reasons, discrimination and censure whether it is due to the Chinese Exclusion Act or the reactions to the 1942 bombings of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent internments.

For Asian Pacific American communities the preservation of their communities, buildings, stories, music, language and artifacts are essential to documenting the APIA narrative of “Becoming Americans.” So those words that I saw on the stairway to the Angel Island Immigration Station barracks are more than just thought provoking phrases, or poetry to evoke emotion at the site, they are representative of what it means to be American, and that to understand the stories from Angel Island is to understand the story of every single citizen of the United States.

Below is the text from my blog on PreservationNation.org. Click here to view the slide show of my trip to San Francisco.

San Francisco Tours Offer a Glimpse at the Asian Pacific American Experience

A letter speaking about the events of April 18, 1906 in San Francisco, California

For me to describe the scenes and events of the past few days would be an impossibility at present, and no doubt you would have had more news regarding the awful fate of this city than I myself know. All that I can say at this writing is, that about 5:15 a.m., Wednesday morning, I was thrown out of bed and in a twinkling of an eye the side of our house [at 151—24th Ave.] was dashed to the ground. How we go into the street I will never be able to tell, as I fell and crawled down the stairs amid flying glass and timber and plaster. When the dust cleared away I saw nothing but a ruin of a house and home that it had taken twenty years to build…

The Peace Pagoda in Japantown.
The Peace Pagoda in Japantown.

The Peace Pagoda in Japantown.

On my first day in San Francisco I attended a reception for the National Asian Pacific Islander American Historic Preservation Forum (more on this in a blog post next week) at the Chinese Historical Society of America. Amidst the exhibitions, I found myself standing before a pair of slippers belonging to a Mrs. Lee Yoke Suey, a woman who came to America and found herself detained at Angel Island for over 15 months. These slippers were unfathomably tiny, a witness to the Chinese custom of foot binding, but also a part of Mrs. Suey’s American story, for as I talked about the practice with another conference attendee I learned that during the great earthquake of 1906 many of the fatalities included Chinese women whose bound feet rendered them unable to walk, and consequently unable to escape from the resulting fire.

Now, before coming to California I knew that my visit would include three typical tourist experiences. A view of Alcatraz Island? Check. A visit to Fisherman’s Wharf? Check, Check. Taking a lot of pictures of fog as it rolled over the Golden Gate Bridge? Triple check.

But during the last weekend in June I found myself experiencing a different view of San Francisco, one that looked at the history of the city through the lens of APA America.

While in San Francisco I stayed in an area known as Japantown, a small community that includes community-run stores, the headquarters for the National Japanese American Historical Society(NJAHS) and places for the Japanese-American community to gather and live. My first introduction to the history of San Francisco came from my tour of Japantown by youth tour guides from NJAHS. As with most things in the city the history of Japantown begins with the 1906 earthquake.

Even though APA communities lived in San Francisco before the earthquake, this area—known as the Western Addition—is where the Japanese community re-established themselves following the destruction of their former homes. By 1940 the neighborhood had grown into a vibrant community center with Japanese-American run businesses and places for the community to gather; something that changed following the 1942 bombing of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent internment of Japanese-Americans.

This is where most of my tour of the current Japantown began. At NJAHS headquarters I saw Sa sa E, or Camp Objects of Memories—material objects made by residents of internment camps. These artifacts are made of whatever materials the artists could find reflecting the scarcity and solitude of those years. The guides walked us to the place where citizens stood in line to register for the camps, and on a faded staircase we can see remnants of graffiti that proclaims “Japs Keep Out.” It is an interesting glimpse for me, a life-long East Coaster, to actually stand and view facets of American history that I had only seen in textbooks.

Eventually, we walked across the street to the Peace Pagoda, which opened in 1968 as a gift from the people of Osaka, Japan. The structure is centered on a plaza that exhibits four basic elements: fire, earth, water and stone, but also represents the late-20th century story of Japantown, a place stuck in a cycle of redevelopment threats that began with urban renewal and continue on to the present day. This serves as an excellent backdrop to the conversations going on in the Forum, where community members across the Pacific Rim have gathered to identify how best to preserve what’s left of their American-legacy before it is too late.

Orig. Chinese (Cantonese) of the "Wooden House" poem by a detainee.
Orig. Chinese (Cantonese) of the "Wooden House" poem by a detainee.

Orig. Chinese (Cantonese) of the “Wooden House” poem by a detainee.

The second major site I visited while I was in San Francisco was the Angel Island Immigration Station, which is where immigrants from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, Russians and Asians were detained. While many call this site the “Ellis Island of the West,” my guide emphasized that this was more like the “Guardian of the West.” Not all immigrants coming to San Francisco went through Angel Island, but rather this is where those (during the years of 1910-1940) who needed “further scrutiny” were held. This is particularly true for the Chinese immigrants who were escaping economic woes (amongst other reasons) in China who found them being held due to the Chinese Exclusion Act. There is a lengthy history of the act and its role in American immigration policy but I want to emphasize that for many the stay at Angel Island was brief, while for others it lasted as long as two years.

Many of the structures at the station are closed to visitors due to decay, but what I found most amazing about the building that we were allowed to tour (where the male detainees were kept) was that many of the detainees took their emotion and reactions to being held and transcribed them onto the walls in the forms of poetry. These poems represent heartache, loneliness, and uncertainty, and what I love about Angel Island is that despite the poems and writings being covered over after the military took over the station to house POWs they can still be seen—revealing the human emotion and a fragment of one life in the APA immigrant story.

Over the course of the weekend I did see some other sites—the Presidio, Golden Gate Park, and Haight-Ashbury—but I think that I left with a broader understanding regarding the many different stories that we, as Americans, have to offer. Stories of sadness, but also of courage and determination—and how we can preserve those stories as time goes by.

Teaching American History Project Director’s Conference

In December I participated in the Teaching American History Project Director’s Conference in Washington DC.  I’ve been waiting for the video’s for the “lessons learned” part of the session, which should be available any day now, but I wanted to share the video of the keynote speech today. This way you can here the full presentation which included the description of Jim Percoco’s Applied History class, and the testimonial from another one of his students.

You can read the text of my part of the speech here.

THATCamp: Digital Storytelling, Local History, Social Media

What is an un-conference? It is a participant-driven gathering based on a particular theme or purpose. On the weekend of May 22nd I attended THATCamp, an un-conference at the Center for History and New Media in Fairfax, VA.

THATCamp (The Humanities and Technology Camp) is a gathering of individuals who work in the humanities to talk about the issues, concerns, challenges, and products in the realm of digital humanities.  While much of our conversations happened in person, they continued with the group writ large on Twitter all weekend long (#thatcamp). I thought I would take this opportunity to post about three of the sessions I attended.

Digital Storytelling

History is in essence a story. A narrative of the past compiled from documents, objects, and visualizations. It is text, it is verbal, and it is a very integral part of human identity whether it be your personal history or history on the multi-national level. During this session a group of us talked about the nature of digital storytelling and its role in education (though of course I was thinking about how it can be used in the public arena as well).

In a nutshell digital storytelling is the practice of telling a narrative using using technology and web tools. Sometimes this involves film (moving or, pictures put to sound), other times it is just a story told sans words with just digital photography. In our discussions we talked about how DS is narrative (that is a story told in a constructive format), non-narrative (something that is more formal), it can be linear or non-linear, interactive or a mash-up of many different mediums.

In the realm of education digital storytelling can be a means to teach the technology, but also a way to re-examine the past.  At the same time its a way to emphasize the value of textual, material, and visual sources in recognizing a complete picture of the past.

Some Digital Storytelling Links (Resources, Examples and Tools):

Local  History

The great thing about THATCamp was the opportunity to meet with preservationists/historians/humanities practitioners on the local level. At work, we (at the National Trust for Historic Preservation) are often looking at the big picture, and trying to provide resources to the local preservation organizations on the ground. So this session was about digital media on the local level–and what their needs were, and how to make the case to their boards and communities that digital technology and preservation are beneficial to where they live.

During this discussion we ended up talking broadly about the challenges and opportunities for local historical organizations, and aside from the ever present problem of funding we talked about the importance of collaboration and working with free, open-source products to branch out how we tell history on the ground level.  How can we, as digital historians, help our local historic societies reach a broader community not only through the framework of history that they tell, but also through the far reaching capabilities of the internet?

At the end of the session we talked about producing one of three “products” for use at the local level.

At the conclusion of the session we discussed a few possible next steps including,

  • A group blog written by local digital historians in the Mid-Atlantic region
  • A collection of how-to guides for implementing digital projects
  • White-papers or reports with detailed case studies on existing projects, e.g. PhillyHistory.org

Social  Media and the History Non-Profit

This was the session I proposed, which was to get an idea of what was going on at other organizations regarding the use of various social media tools. We started out by looking at some of the ways the National Trust for Historic Preservation has been using social media in its advocacy:

  • The 2009 National Preservation Conference, “Virtual Attendee” page. Using live chat (Cover it Live), Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Twitter to get information about the conference out to the preservation community.  In particular the web team looked at ways in which Twitter could be used by multiple people to tell the multiple stories from the conference–and as a result a team was deployed that consisted of each individual Twitter account having its own “beat”. For example, my handle @pc_presnation was tasked with giving a general history point of view for the conference, and I ended up actually tweeting the National Preservation Award ceremony as if it were the Oscars. To prep our members we released this video.
  • The Save America’s Treasures campaign. In brief, in the 2011 budget the monies for the Save America’s Treasures, Preserve America and Heritage Area’s programs were either completely zeroed out or drastically reduced.  In order to mobilize our members and remind Congress of the importance of preservation  it was decided that social media would a) put materials out there that people could use, and b)serve as direct marketing for the cause.  The text messages, the Facebook status messages, and the materials posted on YouTube and Flickr were divided between the emotional and the factual. For examples check out our   Tweet for  Our Treasures page.

The conversation ended up with a discussion about how to integrate social media into existing workloads–and we came up with the following strategy list:

  • Adding Social Media to your work plans
  • Creating a policy to deal with criticisms
  • Developing metrics for assessing how our social media projects are reaching potential audiences
  • In order to get the word out it is useful to have canned messaging for your members to use to get the word out themselves

All that being said, we were left with a few questions. How do you reach people digitally outside of Facebook, Twitter etc., and how do you deal with the issues that come from non-profits that work on an international level? Also–aside from another portal to distribute information from Twitter and Facebook how are non-profits taking advantage of the tools on LinkedIn?

THATCamp

The nice thing about The Humanities and Technology Camp is that it appeals to individuals of all levels of tech ability–and unlike most conferences the discussions are informal, and collaborative, ensuring a continuation of the discussion beyond the four walls of the actual lecture room.  With each of these sessions we developed actual goals and ideas that could be implemented in our day-to-day work days.

LOST…..and Found

Note: Below are spoilers for the entire series of LOST. Specifically the Series Finale “The End.”

Dharma: Performing one’s duty, or the path to enlightenment.

 

At the end of tonight’s episode there was a window, a fragment of stained glass each with a series of symbols, the iconography/visual culture of spirituality. The icons of faith.

Inside this church, inside the building that, in the real world, housed the Lamppost, waited a Shepherd, Christian who watched for his son so that he could reveal the truth. So that their love could bring, finally, some enlightenment, some answers….that death comes to us all, and with it the ability to move on.

He said:

The most important part of your life was the time you spent with these people. Nobody does it alone. You needed all of them and they needed you.

Which I think is, in the end the ultimate message of the series. That the murder, the anger, the decisions, the choices, the manipulations were real. That evil was evil, but that it had made a choice to be evil, and that choice had consequences. When Desmond finally looked at Jack and said, “Nothing matters,” our consummate man of Science reached out to remind Desmond with newfound faith that “No. All of this matters.” That you have a duty to the people that surround you, that your actions and reactions are all a part of your personal history. Everything is real, and yes ““No shortcuts, no do-overs, what happened, happened.”

Here is what LOST meant to me.

Breaking Barriers

When LOST first started six years ago one of the best things included how it took the time to step beyond the archetypes. We had a murderer, a thief, a conman, an addict, the abusive Asian man, the submissive Asian woman, the terrorist, the spoiled brat, the handsome leading man doctor, the priest,and comedic fat man. You name it, LOST had it.

Of course over the course of the series, those archetypes fell away—sometimes creating new ones, but other time creating competing viewpoints and actions that stretched the imagination. We learned through shared experience that Sun and Jin had once been in love, that their history had pulled them apart after they fought so much to stay together. We read a letter by a little boy to the man who destroyed his life and watched as he shot that man dead, and stood by as our comedic man who never seemed to lose weight became a leader in his own right.

Most of all what this final episode shows is that sometimes what we see is not what we get. That every individual comes with a shared history, and that sometimes we cannot understand how to fix that history until we pass on into another existence….which is all the more reason why we should take care with the time we are given.

Another science fiction show that ended this year claimed, that “everything has happened before, and everything will happen again.” It looked at the flaws of humanity and claimed that the lessons will be learned eventually, but that we live in a continual cycle until that end point is achieved, if ever.

LOST, saw “the end” as a fixed point. That what intrigued us for six years was the story of Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Jin, Sun, Hurley, Miles, Lapidus, Claire, Charlie, Mr. Eko, Rose, Bernard, Desmond, Penny, Libby, Hurley, Ana Lucia, Michael, Walt, John Locke, Benjamin Linus and of course Vincent—and that for them those experiences were about trying to make a fresh start, that when faced with an inescapable situation some were able to believe in themselves and break free, while others consciously had to take the bomb and save those who he had come to love in order to find redemption.

While I don’t believe that the sideways world or the island were purgatory per-se, I do see them as weigh stations, one in life and one in death that allowed our castaways to finally be true to themselves and yes….move on.

On Mysteries, Hatches, Whispers and Ghosts

I think out of everything that happened in the 2.5 hour finale, the mysteries are what got short-shrift. We learned about the whispers, we learned about the island, but in the end we, as an audience, were expected to take those solutions on faith. To not ask answers to questions that can only be answered with more questions. While many of our characters were scientists, they lived within a world of coincidences and miracles—each a number on a compass, possible guides to the future of the island.

This is probably what is going to anger many viewers, but I think that I can live without these answers. That a series of events led each of these passengers on Oceanic 815 to the island so that they could remake themselves and pass “through the looking glass,” and into the light.

This confluence of science and science-fiction, faith and religion is, to some extent, a reflection of our actual reality. That we live in a world full of contradictions and hypocrisies. That we can have faith, but be faithless—or believe in the existence of God and Evolution at the same time. That the search for answers to miracles and mysteries can be obstacles to actually looking yourself in the mirror and changing your life.

We saw this with Jack and Locke, time and time again as they became obsessed with pushing a button, hunting down the others, searching for water, food, or some method off the island. In each case these hatches and mysteries which were all pieces of investigation for the Dharma Initiative, were also steps in each heroes journey (to pull from Joseph Campbell) to achieving dharma the path to enlightenment.

Good versus Evil

In all good science fiction and fantasy there is a struggle between dark and light, good and evil. Up until this season good has been personified by our castaways, with ultimate evil coming in the shape of one Henry Gale/Benjamin Linus. I’m going to miss Ben Linus—and while I’m glad that in the end he found his own sort of peace and happiness it is difficult to actually forgive a man so heinous with his actions (don’t forget he in essence committed genocide on the Dharma Initiative). That being said I think he is the key figure in the overall LOST conversation about redemption. That in the end, he chose to wait outside, to wait to atone a little bit longer speaks volumes for Benjamin Linus’ changes over the length of the series.

Of course in the last three seasons that duality was replaced with that of the Man in Black and Jacob, and the island itself—sitting on a well of darkness that if destroyed would let forth all the evil into the universe. Take it, or leave it, but this idea that someone had to protect the island, that someone had to in the end sacrifice their off-island destiny was ultimately “the point” of the entire LOST experience didn’t feel real until Jack leaped towards Flocke on the top of the mountain to finally kill the Man in Black. I keep coming back to other science-fiction tropes that at one point the hero has to descend into the well of darkness to find his way out again. That some come out forever changed, while others become that darkness, they become Darth Vader or even Gollum whose need and greed for the “one ring to rule them all” pushed him over the edge and into Mount Doom. That being said like all mythical “good” figures mistakes were made along the way—and I am convinced that Jacob was a figure of malevolence in his own right. That we had to know his story so that we could understand Jack’s is clear—but I think that Ben stated it quite clearly in “The End” when he told Hurley that in effect they did not have to play by Jacob’s rules any more. They could chart their own destiny their own fate.

This show had it all, it had the overarching evils, mixed in with more personal, realistic choices between right and wrong, good and bad (or in some cases bad-ass). After the darkness follows the light and that’s what we got with the sideways world—which in the end was ultimately about humanity.

Science Fiction: Faith in the Narrative

I am an apologist. Which means I am willing to accept contradictions and things that just don’t seem to make sense (sometimes finding ways to get them to make it work as Tim Gunn likes to say). So it probably won’t surprise many of you that the most important part of this series was the story—that the world building and the emotional joyride we’ve been on for six years was made all the more stronger by the other-worldly environment. That a show about a group of castaways wouldn’t have worked in this day and age without the mysterious, science fiction elements. Now I’m not going to give everything a pass, since there were points where we seemed to veer off course (the temple, which I suppose in hindsight was an integral part of Sayid’s journey to self-realization.) but this story could not have been this story without the polar bears, the hatches, the fantastical methods to push us to look beyond the fabric of reality and see that unexpected things can occur to ordinary people. In doing so the narrative gave us something that I’ve never gotten in any other television series to date—a window into a truer reality one where love, faith and reason trumped death, loss and tragedy. That we could, despite never finding it on Earth find peace together. That we did not have to “live together, and die alone,” because in death we are with those that make us whole.

Reflecting Outward, On History

A few final thoughts, since this is—first and foremost, a history oriented blog. One of the key elements that makes history matter is its relevance to the reader. While we can write large tomes and detailed analysis of actions during a war, or a place in time it is up to the reader, the public writ large, to internalize that piece of the past into their identity. For some history doesn’t mean anything, and bears little relevance to our personal pasts, but for others it is an integral part of who we are and why we exist.

“I brought all of you here because I made a mistake. A mistake I made a long time ago.” –Jacob

“I didn’t pluck any of out of a happy existence. You were all flawed.” –Jacob

LOST, to some extent did just that. It put us in a place with a group of people who were trying to escape their pasts—to remake their histories so that they could attain a “good” life. Instead of starting a-new in LA they were brought to the island by someone else who was trying to escape his own mistakes, and found “in the place they all made together so they could find each other,” that their histories were more than just the actions they took, but also the people they loved.

Memorable Quotations:

  • I’m real, you’re real. Everything that has ever happened to you is real, all those people in the church are real.
  • Everybody dies sometime. There is no now, here.
  • To remember, and to let go.
  • Hurley to Sayid: “You can’t let others tell you what you are. You have to decide for yourself.”
  • “I have a bad feeling about this”
  • “He’s worse than Yoda.”

Don’t agree? Comment below!

Please Vote for History and Preservation!

Top five reasons to vote for the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the American Express’ Take Part Member’s Project.

1. Protection of Historic Places. Yesterday the National Trust announced the 2010 11 Most Endangered  Historic Places list.

2.  Preservation= sustainability

3.  Preservation=Jobs

4. What other organization works to preserve buildings, landscapes, main street America, and tries to save itself from a Peep invasion on a regular basis?

5.  Because the past matters, and if we don’t take care to preserve it, who will?

What is the American Express Take Part Member Challenge?

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is one of nine non-profit organizations vying to win $200,000 in the first round of American Express’ latest Members Project endeavors, TakePart. We are now on the last week of the first round of voting and are tied for first.

Click here to vote!

Songs of the Preservationist

Latest post from PreservationNation.org, based on a discussion from the email list I help run.

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

— Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell

Music — a bunch of lyrics, poetry put together to a rhythm and a collection of notes that riot our emotions, pull at our heart strings, or soothe the soul. For a preservationist a song can remind us of a place, or a building; an architect or a time long past. They are sounds and words that remind us of home, a nostalgic look back that often isn’t completely rose-colored.

A few weeks ago the preservationists on Forum-L compiled a list of songs that seem to “speak” to the field. In the end, I had a list of more than 200 songs, some with obvious preservation connections, others that are more like “save our building” anthems.

Click here to read more and listen to some of the songs.

Taking a Walk Through Washington DC: Monumentalism and Mass Transit the Nation’s Capital

This post can also be read on the PreservationNation.org blog.

A few weeks ago I took a long walk through our Nation’s Capital. I started off at McPherson Square Metro Station and walked across to Chinatown for lunch. My friends and I then walked down 7th Street to the National Mall, and crossed over to the base of the Washington Monument to watch the National Cherry Blossom Festival performances. After a brief respite we meandered over to the Jefferson Memorial where I left them to travel diagonally past the World War II memorial to the Lincoln Memorial and 23rd Street. From there I walked up through Washington Circle and Foggy Bottom to make my way into Georgetown. I took a brief break, but after grabbing some time to read and some chai, I wandered along the pathway next to the C& O Canal until I could cross the Key Bridge into Rosslyn to catch a train home. Every single step was punctuated by amazing views and beautiful clear skies.

When I’m away from home I say am from DC, which is not wholly accurate and therefore is infuriating to some DC residents, but it suffices for outsiders. I am, in fact, from Northern Virginia – or more specifically from Springfield, the land of the mixing bowl (where Interstates 395, 95 and 495 meet). I am, however, an ardent defender of DC to those from who find it boring, staid, and devoid of diversity, and I recognize that there is more to this city than what tourists see. Washington is a place with running trails and hiking in the woods of Rock Creek Park, museums that aren’t all affiliated with the Smithsonian, individually unique neighborhoods, concert venues and theatres (I’m partial to the Shakespeare Theatre/Harmon Center for the Arts), and ice rinks in the winter.

Of course, there’s also my favorite thing to do when I come downtown: Walking directly into the middle of the National Mall (between the Natural History Museum and the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building) and to look first left at the Washington Monument and then right at the iconic dome of the Capitol Building. For some reason I can’t explain exactly, it’s a vista that is exhilarating and energizing.

Which is why, when I started reading the various articles floating around about the DC streetcar system that I paid attention—especially since one of the arguments against the planned version involved the wires cluttering up the grand vistas of what is often referred to as the “monumental core” of the city. Some preservationists are opposed to this, while others – as discussed in this Washington Post op-ed – disagree. In this piece Adam Irish states that, “the monumentalist vision of Washington has choked nearly all urban life from the Mall and its environs. It has fashioned large sections of our city into pleasing vistas for tourists but has given the rest of us lifeless wastelands …”

Now I suppose I should be clear. I don’t see the wires as an impediment to the current landscaping of the National Mall; in fact I think that you won’t really notice them. I also agree that the streetcar system will be a benefit for the city, especially in the parts that Metro can’t really reach. While I do take a measure of notice to the argument that the National Mall and the monumental core are only for tourists, I also agree with David Alpert’s assertion in his post on Greater Greater Washington. He argues that there are better ways to make use of the public space, that being a 21st Century city that is an example for sustainability and planning, and a city that thinks strategically about preservation (of those very sightlines that bring visitors from all around the world) are not mutually exclusive. I don’t think we have to choose one or the other. Streetcars and sustainable design can live hand in hand with the Lincoln Memorial and the White House.

I know that Alpert’s assertion that the National Mall is “unpleasantly sun-baked, too spread out, and largely devoid of convenient transportation or food, “ is not a feeling shared by him alone, but if there was one thing that I learned from my walk that gorgeous spring day was that a modern city does not need to be one of towering buildings punctuated by greenery like much of New York City, where the insanity of choices begs for an oasis like Central Park. Rather, I think that the very expansiveness and openness of that monumental core can inspire planners, residents and preservationists alike to find a compromise that everyone can enjoy.

Click here to view my pics

Anne Frank Revisited

Recently PBS aired a new version of The Diary of Anne Frank the story of a young girl, hiding with her family in an attic during World War II. I remember the original production from grade school, and found myself engrossed not only by the heartbreaking events of the Holocaust but by also witnessing the first person account of a young girl growing up in the shadow of war and unimaginable horror.

Despite knowing how the story would end, I found myself hoping and wishing for an alternate account, punctuated all the more by knowing that with the recent death of Miep Gies (one of the individuals responsible for hiding the Franks) that there is probably no one else left alive who was involved in those last years of Anne and her family’s life. She was an individual who witnessed their trials, their arguments, and their world–providing a lifeline and buying almost all of them a few more years before discovery.

After shedding a few tears (how could you not?), I began thinking about how this story, and the role of the diary in telling this particular piece of history, underscores the importance of primary documentation. These were Anne’s private thoughts, but they were a glimpse into her heart, and reveal much about what it was like to live in a time so fraught with danger. Her words give the Holocaust, at least for the younger generation, texture–and a personal face. Just knowing the statistics for who died at a particular concentration camp isn’t enough. While there are other books that serve similar puposes (I’m thinking of Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars) Anne’s diary is a story of a real person and gives credence to the adage that we should use history to learn from mistakes.

Note: Sorry for the delay in posting. I’m the maid of honor in a wedding on May 1 and have had limited time for writing. Look for more from me in May.