Take Away the Football Team, the Basketball Team And All We Got Is Me to Represent New Orleans

Jeff, a Milwaukee native and transplant to Minneapolis, is standing in the Bryant-Lake Bowl, a turn-of-the-20th-century bowling alley converted to include a bar, restaurant and theater. As moderator of a popular and locally-acclaimed reading series, Jeff is working with the technical staff of the theater to wire in a Skype chat with the author of that month's selection.

"Can you hear us?" says Jeff as the 150 person capacity crowd of the theater greets each other and orders drinks around him. ...

Ok, so all of what I just wrote is true. By reporting what I know about Jeff and by attending the July meeting of Books & Bars, I've given an accurate representation of what was happening. I may have embellished a little bit here, tightened up a bit there and put words in Jeff's mouth but at its heart everything I wrote is true to the actual event.

Is it the Truth though? Is what I wrote an absolute representation of the situation? Well, no. I focused on Jeff while cutting out everyone else in the room. I gave one perspective on the event and had that stand in for the whole of the event. As a reader who wasn't there, you would likely assume (correctly I hope) that a perspective highlighting the moderator would be able to be generalized to the lion's share of the people in attendance because taking the time to actually chronicle the entire crowd would be time-consuming and unlikely to shed a great deal more perspective upon the July meeting. So you accept it's a representation of the Truth.

The same is true of "Zeitoun". It's based upon actual events from Zeitoun and Kathy's real lives. But it doesn't purport to be the Truth. It is after all Eggers' name on the front of the book, not Kathy and Zeitoun's names. Eggers is giving a representation of the Truth of their experiences surrounding Hurricane Katrina and using it to stand in as representative of a generalized experience of a person who lived in New Orleans in the aftermath of the storm. We could again try to chronicle the experience and perspective of everyone but at a wont of time and necessity, we don't.

So you might be saying, "So what? Eggers is writing creative non-fiction. Welcome to the world of early 21st century publishing." And I agree with that, especially because the popularity of Eggers and his own deliberate efforts have pushed contemporary publishing in that direction. Did anyone see that 16-year-old Justin Bieber is writing his memoirs? Speak of a wont of time and necessity...

This is why I think it's important. One of the three things which stuck out about "Zeitoun" (along with how it romanticizes the post-storm anarchy and how poorly Kathy comes off) is the frequent references to how difficult it is to be a Muslim in post-9/11 America. It stuck out to me because 1.) it's kind of tangential if Zeitoun is taking the place of the Everyman and 2.) it's like duuuuuhhhhhhh. It's not even something which we can limit to happening prior to January 20th, 2009 either as the stupid "WTC mosque" controversy has proven. Though it's been almost ten years since 9/11, our continued military presence in Muslim countries makes for a constant backdrop to living in the United States right now. Anyone alive and aware in America knows it's difficult to be a Muslim in our culture.

The only people whom that wouldn't be readily obvious for is people who don't live in our culture. Since America is a cultural hegemony (just try to find a foreign film in the top 100 grossing films of 2009) and because we're willing to live with our warts, that's not an idea which is remote to anyone living in a free society on the planet. Which means the people whom need to be told of that reality are for the most part people who are either too young to remember or haven't been born yet. Eggers has to be aware his celebrity and influence means his books will be read not just by contemporary audiences. They will also be read by people who wouldn't know offhand how difficult it is to be Muslim right now.

It matters because for many people who will be looking back on this era, this will be their perspective and representation of this era in the same way Kerouac's "On the Road" is for those of us who were not old enough or even alive in the 1950s. (Notice that I said Kerouac and "On The Road", not Halberstam and "The Fifties" or C. Wright Mills and "The Power Elite".) But it would be ludicrous to suggest "On the Road" is the Truth about the 1950s, no matter how beloved our friend Kerouac is. "On the Road" is creative non-fiction which is meant to represent a generalization of post-WWII America in the way "Zeitoun" represents our current moment. Hell, the focus in each is even on the main character's transportation.

So my impression while reading "Zeitoun" was an awareness that what I was reading was true but not the Truth. I don't think you can hand someone a copy of the book and say "This is what it was like to live in New Orleans in the days after Hurricane Katrina," any more than you can hand them "On the Road" and show them the 1950s. To get closer to the Truth, you have to keep on looking and I hope, being an open-minded individual who believes in the freedom of religion, that the future readers of "Zeitoun" keep looking. Our era is much too complex to summarize in 325 pages and in the experience of only one man.

The Renewable Razor

"When will somebody invent the renewable razor?"

I think this as I examine the single-blade Bic I have in my right hand to accompany the handful of shaving lather in my left. As I think this, the cold water of the faucet continues down the drain at a rapid pace. It is cold not hot because, although it feels better on my face and makes the hairs of my beard stand on end, warm water makes the blade dull more quickly and I go through razors more rapidly.

I examine the plastic of the handle. It is orange and made of some thin and cheap polymer made of foreign oil and American blood. A whole pack of these things, 20 in all, was less than two dollars so I have no reason to believe great care was expended in lessening the environmental impact of its production. The same is surely true of the razorhead and although it is white I doubt that means it's any more Earth-friendly.

I look at the blade, a thin strip of indeterminate metal, steel possibly, custom-fit to the razorhead. Metals are rare molecules pressed together in the hot depths of our planet's molten core over thousands of years. Geological ages bringing atoms of iron together with oxygen and occasionally something else to form compounds like Fe304 and Fe2O3 or FeCO3 until some man, a human, tears it out of the Earth using strip mining or mountain top removal. Even then it must be smelted in a fossil fuel-burning blast furnace and cast into wide thin sheets before it can be trucked over road and possibly across the continent to the place where it meets the thin plastic held in my right hand.

I look at all of this and I think of the whole process required for me to remove hair from my face. I think of the natural world being ruined so I can have the convenience of a clean face and a nuzzle from my girlfriend. I think about this and I think "When will somebody invent the renewable razor?"

For me, I see hope in the destruction. I reject the bleakness of the end of the world. I imagine a future when there will be a blade that doesn't go dull or at least biodegrades when I am done with it. I imagine a handle made from natural materials not synthetics. I imagine these things, believe they will one day exist and return to shaving my face by rinsing my Bic in the cold stream flowing ebulliently from the bathroom faucet.

Five Texts You Receive On Vacation

I was on vacation this weekend and had my phone turned off from about 6 o'clock Friday until I plugged it in just a few hours ago. During that time I received five text messages.

I will use this space to respond to those text messages.

Fri July 23rd 5:54 pm from Todd Turner "Hello sir"

Todd, You just missed me before I went up north for the weekend. How was your weekend? Let's get together sometime this week. Maybe go swimming if the weather is nice.

Sat July 24th 3:09 am from Twitter KingJames: I swear I love my bro @oneandonlycp3!! Nuff said

Noone was questioning it, LeBron. Or should we?

Sat July 24th 11:50 am from Facebook Dan Herman to you and 7 others:

Hey all,

I found out yesterday that Four Peaks' Pumpkin Porter is going to be released on...(reply "n" for next)

Oh, fuck this is one of those cliffhangers. When does it get released? WHEN DOES IT GET RELEASED?! click

Sat July 24th 12:44 pm from Stensby Your voice mail sucks.

I hardly ever use it. What sucks about it? [Ed note. Stensby didn't even leave me a voice mail.]

Sat July 24th 7:50 pm from Hayley Doyle What route do ppl use to bike to dan's?

I'm sorry I didn't get this message until it was way too late. I like the way that takes you through Kenwood and along the bike path to Penn Ave. Link