Black Friday

The economy might be sick, but consumerism is sicker.

Imagine yourself as one of several hundred consumers, hyped-up by the promise of spending. You are exhilarated by the annual prospect of acquiring more things than your neighbor, new things, shiny things, clean smooth soft things, things you didn’t have before. Imagine standing outside Wal-Mart in the dark cold 5 a.m. air, your pulse racing, every face around you flushed, every body jostling for position in front of the sliding glass doors, vying for a spot closest to the stockpile of 99 cent Burt’s Bees Lip Balm, 99 dollar Blackberry phones, and 799 dollar Samsung LCD TVs.

Suddenly there is a roar. The crowd surges forward. You are carried along the sea of bodies, pushing to keep your position. (You were so close, don’t let that woman get in front of you, who cares if her bratty kid wants the Sponge Bob Mp3 player for $39.99, she can wait her place in line, she wasn’t up as late as you were, here in the cold, if you push that guy to your left maybe you can get past him, you’d have a clearer shot at the door and he looks like your annoying coworker anyway, the one who made fun of you for saying you’ve always been an enthusiastic Black Friday shopper, although this year is just ridiculous, who would have thought everyone would pick Wal-Mart sales, that’s why you’re here, because you thought people would be at Circuit City and Best Buy, stupid shoppers.) Your adrenaline soars as you inch forward, pressed between body-filled coats and hats and mittens. Everyone is shouting.

There is a crack; many cracks, really; a shattering sound, as if all the cold bodies that had been pressed together had broken to pieces, crushing one another to shards. But no, the sound is coming from ahead. You look up to see the frontrunners in the crowd lurch forward into the store! You squint as you are mashed against the back of the man in front of you. What has happened? Only as you are pushed over broken glass, through the entrance, do you realize: the mob has acted overeagerly. You have broken through. You are inside Wal-Mart.

And then you stumble over the body.

“Wal-Mart worker dies in rush; two killed at toy store”

Summary: A horde of shoppers “bum-rushed” a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, Long Island, breaking down the doors. A 34-year-old male employee from Queens was trampled to death. A 28-year-old pregnant woman and three other workers were also injured. Customers angrily resisted leaving the store and tried to keep shopping as officials announced they were closing the store, insisting, “they had been waiting on (sic) line since Thursday.”

Meanwhile, in Palm Desert, California, an argument arose between two teenage girls in the electronics section of Toys ‘R Us. A gun was pulled, and two men died. Thank you Amendment Number Two.

This is the sort of capitalism that makes me embarrassed to be live in consumerist America.

Escape from NYC: A story of collapse

Last weekend’s excursion to Philadelphia was my first time out of New York City since August, when I “officially moved here.” It would be hard to describe a weekend in which I ran a half marathon as relaxing, but if not “relaxing,” I would describe the experience of being out of crowded, chaotic NYC and in bright, orderly Philadelphia, at the very least, “refreshing.”

This week, spending Thanksgiving in Allentown with my cousin and my elder cousin Kim was my second time out of the city. We arrived on Wednesday night; ate a random assortment of cranberry bread, peanuts, spinach quiche, green beans and butter cookies that had been prepared by my grandmother; played two games of Chinese checkers; and then dispersed to our various sleeping arrangements: Kim slept on an inflatable bedroll and sleeping bag on the floor, and I took the couch (which, I might add, was a glorious improvement over my 5’7” rock-hard futon. I feel asleep instantly).

The next morning, I woke up exhausted. It was as though I had just run the half marathon the day before, instead of half a week ago. I wasn’t sore; I just felt as though every muscle and every bone in my body had turned into lead. If my grandmother hadn’t already been awake, bustling around and hovering over me demanding my breakfast order, I probably would have gotten up, gone to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, curled back up on the couch, and gone back to sleep. Even more shockingly, it was 8:00 a.m.—almost two hours past when I usually wake up for work on a Thursday morning.

I have never believed that New York City is a particularly exhausting place to live, or at least not for someone as capable and competent as me. I don’t feel particularly tired as I go about my business, or worn down, or battered. When I first arrived, I was certainly challenged by the tasks of navigating through masses of people on the streets, pushing my way onto subways, and forging into and out of crowded stores. However, I assumed I would become accustomed to (and more adept at) them, and I have. Granted, I still detest shopping, but I hated that activity to begin with, so doing it with an extra million people in my way—standing in front of me in the dressing room and checkout lines, grabbing stuff off of the shelves before I can get to it, blocking every available aisle with shopping carts—is understandably less pleasant. However, I don’t cringe before crossing the street headlong into a mass of people anymore, nor am I nearly as hesitant to pack myself body-to-body into a Manhattan-bound express train at 7:30 a.m. It’s not pleasant, but I’m not scared to do it, either.

Even so, despite all of my “adjustments” to city life, my bodily collapse on Thanksgiving morning gave me a new consideration for the toll that living in NYC may be taking. The way my body reacted mimicked exactly how it used to react when I would come home from college after first-semester finals. I would arrive home, blink at my family, eat a snack, and collapse into bed, only to awake the next morning feeling more tired than I had felt all semester.

But this isn’t the end of finals week. This is real life.

After a weekend of consideration, I concluded one possible reason for this instant, seemingly inexplicable exhaustion. In NYC, a person has to constantly have their guard up. On the sidewalk, in the subway, on the bus, in the park, at the beach—everywhere, you are constantly surrounded by people and must be aware of others’ presence. Must be prepared to be accosted by beggars and buskers asking for money. Must be ready to stay on your feet when jostled by passerbyers. Must be aware of and ready to protect your valuables, “just in case.” Once you leave the city, once you are, for one instant, alone, your body releases that defensive hold. Then, suddenly, you realize the debt that is created by the energy that you have demanded to keep constant watch over yourself and your surroundings. That is when the exhaustion comes: when the guard goes down. That is the only time the body can afford such a collapse.

Which leads to the inevitable questions: If I have only been here a few short months and have already needed to “collapse,” how will I fare over the span of several years? How does anyone manage? Is it a sign I should not be here, that I won’t make it? Or do I merely need to grow a thicker skin? And can I?

In Gear

Do I look like a runner? I felt reasonably convincing, at least until I stepped out of the hotel....

You know you ran a badass half-marathon when:

1. The race began before sunup
   
2. Due to weather conditions, the wheeled participations elected to race the Rothman 8k, instead
   
3. It was too cold for the starter horn (so the starter counted down over the microphone instead, “3, 2, 1….”
   
4. You couldn’t feel your hands, feet, or lips…before you’d even taken a single step
   
5. You could have clothed a homeless shelter in the amount of layers people shed along the race route
   
6. The water station cups had shards of ice floating in them
   
7. Instead of cheering you on, the staff members along the race route were warning you about black ice
   
8. The sweat on people’s bodies turned to frost
   
9. The post-race beverage of choice was hot chicken broth (Gatorade, eat your heart out)
   
10. You walked back to your hotel wrapped in a sheet of aluminum foil to stay warm…and so did everyone else

Snapshot Book Review: A Mercy

A Mercy by Toni Morrison

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
NY Times is correct in comparing A Mercy to Morrison's previous renowned work, Beloved. Both deal with slave life: the backstories of slaves; the relationships between slaves and owners and mothers and daughters; the realities of being owned and being free in 17th century America. Like Beloved, A Mercy grapples with abandonment as its central theme.

However, A Mercy is a much more grounded novel than Beloved in that the reader is not guessing throughout the novel how much is real and how much is fantastical. A Mercy keeps the reader up to speed with the real-time thoughts and actions and memories of its characters as they tell the story in their unique voices: the trader-turned-slaveowner Jacob; his purchased wife Rebekka; Florens, the young slave girl sold to Jacob by her mother; the other slave laborers of Jacob's household Sorrow and Lina, and even Florens' mother, who narrates the final chapter.

Morrison once again proves to be a master of voice, as she differentiates all of these characters, not merely by the superficial details with which she imbues them, but by the ways in which they speak their parts of the narrative so distinctly. In such a short book, Morrison brings the reader from a state of confusion in the opening pages--who is speaking? what is happening? should I understand what they are talking about?--to a state of pleased recognition as the same narrators recur and are readily identified by their vocal nuances.

A Mercy might be shorter than Beloved, Morrison's unwavering style makes it just as emotionally and historically packed. It is a novel to be unloaded, both in style and content. Morrison continues to mark herself as a novelist who will be taught alongside Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston


View all my reviews.