Music...makes the people...come together

This past weekend I ventured home to Maine to see the fam. It was nice to get back home for a few days, and to be able to show Mary and her sister Annie around my old stompin' grounds (Brunswick, ME: a lot like Noho, but cheaper and with less hipsters). One of the highlights of the weekend was catching a free show at L.L. Bean with Richie Havens -- one pretty hip old guy who opened Woodstock back in the day.

Now, I wasn't really excited about the show before going to it. I don't really know his music that well, and feeling somewhat introverted (see my last blog post), I really felt more like wandering around Freeport, finding a coffee shop, and getting some reading done. However, a few minutes into the show I became very glad that I decided to stay and listen. This is why.

Not being very invested in the show, I felt like an outsider, a situation that Susan Sontag once said (when speaking of the social position of the photographer) causes one to alternate between feelings of boredom and fascination. While there were certainly moments of boredom at the show (I didn't know the words to many songs, I couldn't sing along that much), I was mostly fascinated by the world of aging hippies that surrounded me. I watched them as they were transformed from a disparate collection of lawyers, nurses, teachers, and what have you into a collectivity -- brought together and made forty years younger by the sounds of their youth. They clapped and sang along, flashed peace signs, hollered, and whistled. Havens covered a number of old protest songs, and the energy of the crowd escalated as memories of past rowdiness and civil disobediance took on new relevance. I looked around, captivated by the bobbing heads and toothy grins that filled the darkening space around me.

This experience reminded me of the incredible power of music - to transport, to invigorate, to bring people together in a way that's hard to rationalize. There is something that music does to people that nothing else can. Despite Sapir and Whorf's hypothesis that we can only think within the confines of our linguistic ability, it seems that music can make you feel things that you often can't put into words. The way it can turn a moment into an event; the unique way it can celebrate and memorialize.

While it made me happy to see this, it also made me feel something like jealousy. I wish that I had the ability to do such things to people, to myself...

I'm going to buy some fingerpicks for my autoharp this week. You guys need to hold me to it. :)

introversion in an extraverted world

So, to preface this, I have to say that I totally stole this blurb from my friend Meg, who I'm pretty sure stole it from some personality test website. And while I don't agree with everything in it (the references to one's soul/true self and Carl Jung are pretty annoying, and I honestly could care less about Ivy League schools and National Merit Scholars) I like what it has to say about what we value as a society and the way in which introverts are often criticized for our supposed "antisocial" behavior. And since I've been feeling somewhat more introverted than usual as of late, I thought I'd share...


"It's obvious that the American dream is to be extraverted. We want our children to be "people who need people." We want them to have lots of friends, to like parties, to prefer to play outside with their buddies rather than retire with a good book, to make friends easily, to greet new experiences enthusiastically, to be good risk-takers, to be open about their feelings, to be trusting. We regard anyone who doesn’t fit this pattern with some concern. We call them "withdrawn," "aloof," "shy," "secretive," and "loners." These pejorative terms show the extent to which we misunderstand introverts.

"The majority of Americans are extraverted (about 75%), but the majority of gifted children appear to be introverted (about 60%), and the percentage of introverts seems to increase with IQ (Silverman, 1986). In addition to the problems encountered with being gifted, these children are frequently misjudged because they are introverted. Introversion is a perfectly normal personality type identified by Carl Jung. It is actually healthy to be an introvert. The only unhealthy part of it is denying your true self and trying to disguise yourself as an extravert.

"Introverts are wired differently from extraverts and they have different needs. Extraverts get their energy from interaction with people and the external world. Introverts get their energy from within themselves; too much interaction drains their energy and they need to retreat from the world to recharge their batteries. People can be extreme extraverts, extreme introverts, or a combination of both. Since extraversion is the dominant mode in our society, there are no "closet extraverts," but there are many "closet introverts," people who are so ashamed of their introversion that they try to be extraverts.

"Introverts need to learn about the positive benefits of their personality type. They need to be taught that reflection is a good quality, that the most creative individuals sought solitude, and that leaders in academic, aesthetic and technical fields are often introverts. Parents need to know that more National Merit Scholars are introverted than extraverted, and that introverts have higher grade point averages in Ivy League colleges than extraverts (Silverman, 1986). Contrary to public opinion, success in life is not dependent upon extraversion. Introverts also have an advantage at midlife in that long, hard journey to the soul which heralds the second half of the life cycle. The time has come to respect the introverts in our families and classrooms, and the hidden introvert in ourselves."

What's the Rush??

After spending the weekend in Boston for the ASA conference (American Sociological Association for those who aren't huge nerds), I was happier than ever to roll back into the Happy Valley. The past few days have confirmed for me the fact that I am most definitely NOT a city girl. I can't stand the stale environment, where everything has been paved over with concrete save a few obligatory trees stuck nervously between freeways, where instead of mountains you have malls full of Gucci and Louis Vitton, and where the people look like uprooted mannequins, walking briskly from store to store completely unaware that other people exist around them.

I never understood the allure of the city. I'll admit they can be fun to visit. For about an hour. After that, the anxiety that permeates the air starts to creep into your bones. Maybe I'm being overdramatic, but I just can't stand the artifical-ness that seems to characterize everything there. Even Boston Common seems so contrived to me. A frog pond, yes -- but its lined with concrete and conntains no frogs. Bizarre.

Even though I was happy to be back in Northampton, I still feel like some aspects of the city have seeped westward. On my drive home today I watched nervously as a motorcyclist passed me in the brakedown lane, revving his engine, and continued to weave in and out of traffic. Clearly, he had things to do and people to see. He made such a spectacle of himself and his rush. "I'm an important person," his engine screamed, "I have no regard for the people around me." Immediately afterward, a gigantic truck thought it imperative to squeeze his way into the turning lane, leaving about a half an inch between his side mirror and my own. Was it really necessary to do that? Couldn't you wait 30 seconds for my light to turn green. Spend that time admiring the sights and sounds of downtown Noho? Of course not. What good would that do?

I'll tell you. Today at lunch I took some time to feed a momma and baby bird some of my Doritos. Granted, not the healthiest thing to feed a bird. But it was fascinating to watch the mother bird pick up the little pieces, chew them up, and place them into the baby bird's mouth. The baby would make a commotion and flap its wings furiously inbetween each bite. It was really quite beautiful. And it was something I wouldn't have seen if I had been rushing to finish my lunch and get back to work. If I had been eating in the mall food court instead of outside in the fresh air. I guess I'm a country girl at heart, but I think that there's something to be said for living a slower-paced life surrounded by trees and mountains, that maybe its a good thing that the stores close at 6 pm and the city sleeps for a little bit. Even though Noho is a little more built up than the western mountains of Maine, spending some time in Boston helped me to appreciate the unstructured, un-commercalized rurality of this place even more, where the air is full of pollen and clouds and birdsong instead of smog and billboards and carhorns.