The (Frightening?) Lower Frequencies

"Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?"

Awesome line, Invisible Man. Well played. But now for us, gentle reader, the audience, context matters.

"Who knows"

Implying a gray area, an unknown. Possibly rhetorical? We need context.

"Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies"

Just the lower frequencies, down there where the wavelengths exist under the noise, the chaos, the hubbub of the imperfect, justified world. Just like where he resides, in his hole. Underneath. Context?

"Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?"

Are you okay with him speaking for you? Am I?

Context matters. It's not even the quote that needs deconstructing. It is the sentence that precedes it.

"And it is this which frightens me: Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?"

I apologize for the party trick. No need to omit the most crucial part except for some cheap drama. (Do you feel shocked?) But let us consider now what is frightening about this final line, this last idea of one man speaking for another. Let us consider why this frightens our introspective, level-headed, universalist, unnamed, narrator. After all, it is he who is frightened by this, not us. So is it because of what it means for him? Or for us? Or for all of us?

So consider it.

Hey, AP crowd:

Schmoop is not your friend.

Rinehart Says: Stop Reading!

Ellison's creation, Rinehart, appears in the latter chapters of Invisible Man as a symbolic ghost of duality. We don't ever "see" Rinehart, only our nameless narrator assuming his persona  and the many titles that come with this persona.

Gambler.
Runner.
Lover.
Pimp.
Reverend.
Cool guy with the cool hat and the cool shades.

Our narrator dons the sunglasses, slightly dimming his view of the world, only to have his eyes opened to the very real notion of being many things to many people, all at once.

Is Ellison suggesting that Rinehart is a contradiction? A paradox? Or just some guy who, like ourselves, is many things to many people, all at once?

Well, gentle reader, I say: who cares? Make no mistake, it's a great topic for discussion---the notion of duality while maintaining personal integrity---but let us jump right over that quagmire into a second, more pressing issue. Because our narrator does a fine job "being" Rinehart, of "being" many things to many people. A talent, to be sure, to assume not just one identity, but several. He can play Rinehart all day long. But at the end of that fun day, he's still merely playing.

When he stops playing Rinehart, what then?

The entire Rinehart sequence happens at the end of the novel, so our narrator has had plenty of time to move his identity token away from innocence/naivety and squarely into experience. But has he come far enough? Does he have his own titles that naturally come with his own persona? Does his persona exist yet?

Which brings us to another critical juncture: what does Rinehart suggest about our very conduct in the English classroom? About reading in general? After all, don't we read to assume a different identity, to poke around in different worlds, to try on someone else's perspective, to labor around in somebody else's issues? And don't the really good books challenge us and placate us and entertain us and secure us in our own understanding of the world?

And doesn't there come the moment when we put the book down? When we stop playing the title character? Well, what then?

The ultimate goal of any quality fiction is to enlighten us. Somehow. Through conflict, through philosophy, through humor, danger, fear, fun. But the "lightening" part cannot occur until (unless?) we put the book down and return to living. Forward momentum. Doing stuff. Whether it's fantastic stuff not, it is our stuff.  Like our narrator and Rinehart's hat. It's fun to play, but then---

So we beat on...

Just kidding.

The Plaid of the 90's

To commemorate this week's Spirit Days, I am officially taking Plaid Day, popping it into the Time Machine, cooking on high for 90 seconds, stirring and voila! we have Flannel Day.

Welcome back, grunge rock!

 Here are a few random tidbits that may or may not help on Trivia Crack:

*Before deciding on Pearl Jam, the band originally called themselves Mookie Blaylock. They had to give the name up because the real Mookie Blaylock, then-NBA All-Star guard for the New Jersey Nets, still existed.
*90's Super Group Temple of the Dog features members from both Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, and the band's only release was an album paying tribute to friend and fallen bandmate Andrew Wood.
*Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain died at the age of 27, the same age as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Amy Winehouse at the time of their deaths.
*Most of the bands residing in Seattle were friends. Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder was roommates with Soundgarden singer/guitarist Chris Cornell when he first hit town.
*Dave Grohl, currently of Foo Fighters fame, was not the original drummer for Nirvana, but after auditioning, Kurt Cobain was so impressed with "how hard he hit the drums" the band re-recorded several songs that eventually became radio staples, like In Bloom, with Grohl on the drum kit.
*While both were still alive, Cobain and Vedder apparently didn't like each other very much, because of the fame thing. In later interviews, Vedder would state that there was not a direct rivalry and that Cobain was a very "quiet, sweet guy."
*The Seattle Big Four refers to Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden. Only two of those bands still exist today. Only one of those bands has existed continuously since its inception to now.

 

*Kurt Cobain only wanted to "write a little pop song" with Smells Like Teen Spirit. Instead, he changed the course of rock music forever.

*To the best of my knowledge, all of these guys read Beowulf in high school. So you see?

I Find it Kind of Funny

I find it kind of sad.

Happy Birthday Nick!

At the end of chapter seven of The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway remembers that it is his birthday.

"I just remembered, today's my birthday."

As a sidebar. As a by-the-way. As a tweet to nobody. To reinforce the lack of audience, it is only Tom who responds with a mechanical "Happy birthday" while nursing a whisky at the bar.

Well, as coincidence would have it, we are currently studying chapter seven of The Great Gatsby, and today is my birthday.

Huh. "I just remembered. Today's my birthday." Thirty-five for me. That's five years Nick's elder. When I first started teaching Gatsby, I looked up to Nick as a voice of experience. Because he had years on me. But no more.

I am now older than Nick. As well as Biff and Happy Loman. I am now over a decade older than Beowulf must have been when he enters Heorot Hall to defeat Grendel. I am older than Hamlet and all of Lear's daughters. I'm old enough to be Holden's father. To offer marital advice to John Proctor. To grieve with George about Lennie and to scold Bernard Marx about John. To stand shoulder to shoulder with Reverend Dimmesdale and to run away from Anton Chigurh.

I don't know what any of this means. Except to suggest that this is another cool thing about reading: the constancy of books.

No man, no. I get older. They stay the same age. Yes they do.

Or, stated more poetically, "can I handle the seasons of my life?" I believe I can, with characters standing firmly before, alongside, and behind me.