hot tubs corrupt
absolute hot tubs corrupt absolutely is the lesson I'm learning in Irvine, California. After our trip to Los Angeles last weekend, I realized that my world view was being imperceptibly but definitely changed by living in CLUB ED, otherwise known as University Hills. Silver Lake, my former LA neighborhood never looked so unplanned to these Irvine-saturated eyes.
I'm also reliving my own childhood because there are at least four recent immigrant Chinese children in our rental apartment neighborhood who saw away at their violins on the hottest sunniest summer days. From scales to Turkey in the Straw to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to Bach's Minuet in D major, I am serenaded while I write this book on academic populism with the out of tune tunes of my own optimistic immigrant childhood as my background music.
Happily fulfilling my parents' fantasies of being a well-tempered all around spelling b winning math and science genius while mastering string instruments, I didn't know why I had to practice violin while other children played outside in the sunshine. I just knew it satisfied the older generation to hear me sawing away upstairs. They could hear that my hands and mind were occupied and not doing the devil's work. And the Chinese hate aerobic exercise. Being out of breath is not good. Little tiny movements, up and down the neck of a stringed instrument discipline the mind and prepare you for a life of Carpal Tunnel syndrome.
I'm sure that my young violin-playing neighbors are wondering, like I did why they have to practice violin day and night too while other children play Xbox and swim in the pool, soak in hot tub and ride around idly on bikes. Not one of them has the makings of an Itzhak Perlman, but I'm sure most of them will do really well on their SAT's and most of them will get into good colleges, go on to graduate degrees, make a shitload of money, drive up real estate prices in neighborhoods with "good" that is high testing public schools, put hot tubs in their pristine back yards, install wall to wall carpeting in their 4000 square foot homes...hire Mexican gardeners to cut their lawns, trim the bougainvillea. And they will feel as if they succeeded in clawing their way in to the good life, and they too will learn to have contempt for the poor, the underachieving the non-violin playing majority who didn't score above 1400 on their boards.
I'm also reliving my own childhood because there are at least four recent immigrant Chinese children in our rental apartment neighborhood who saw away at their violins on the hottest sunniest summer days. From scales to Turkey in the Straw to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to Bach's Minuet in D major, I am serenaded while I write this book on academic populism with the out of tune tunes of my own optimistic immigrant childhood as my background music.
Happily fulfilling my parents' fantasies of being a well-tempered all around spelling b winning math and science genius while mastering string instruments, I didn't know why I had to practice violin while other children played outside in the sunshine. I just knew it satisfied the older generation to hear me sawing away upstairs. They could hear that my hands and mind were occupied and not doing the devil's work. And the Chinese hate aerobic exercise. Being out of breath is not good. Little tiny movements, up and down the neck of a stringed instrument discipline the mind and prepare you for a life of Carpal Tunnel syndrome.
I'm sure that my young violin-playing neighbors are wondering, like I did why they have to practice violin day and night too while other children play Xbox and swim in the pool, soak in hot tub and ride around idly on bikes. Not one of them has the makings of an Itzhak Perlman, but I'm sure most of them will do really well on their SAT's and most of them will get into good colleges, go on to graduate degrees, make a shitload of money, drive up real estate prices in neighborhoods with "good" that is high testing public schools, put hot tubs in their pristine back yards, install wall to wall carpeting in their 4000 square foot homes...hire Mexican gardeners to cut their lawns, trim the bougainvillea. And they will feel as if they succeeded in clawing their way in to the good life, and they too will learn to have contempt for the poor, the underachieving the non-violin playing majority who didn't score above 1400 on their boards.
3 Comments:
Hey, Catherine, I know what is must be like to have all these violins sawing away next door, my sister has been doing the same thing to me throughout my childhood. ;-)
But right now, my neighbor one floor up has found an even more effective method: xylophone!
She is a 30-something hospital nurse who has developed a passion for African music, especially drumming. While we agreed to keep the drumming sessions to a minimum during the day and to zero for the weekends, she has now turned to hammering away on a xylophone.
the same little tune over and over again. never gets it right, but stll persists for hours at a time...
I fear that while your little chinese neighbors might succeed in turning themselves into Well-functioning Successful American citizens, she will forever continue to become African while struggling with her European lack of percussion talent.
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hey leptonyx,
good keyboard action of your own there, and uh, sorry to hear that you have to be an aural witness to your neighbor's attempts at "becoming African."
I think that she should meet my violin playing friends and form a band -- now THAT would be real world music!
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