Hobbits

Was reading about how Guillermo del Toro was looking at Tolkien’s World War I experiences because he thought they would give insight into “The Hobbit.” It seems clear to me that, just as “The Lord of the Rings” is a full-on Crisis story, “The Hobbit” is very much a Third Turning story. Bilbo Baggins may be a reluctant adventurer, but an adventure is what he has - one in pursuit of treasure, no less. His only companions are the dwarves who have hired him, not as a hero but as a “burglar.” (One could say that is the primary skill of Indiana Jones, as well.) He returns to Bag End with his weapon Sting, a suit of mithril-mail, and settles down with his well-earned riches into the habits of a modest gentleman. 

By comparison, Frodo is immediately aware of the significant danger of his quest, making him even less interested in heroics for their own sake. His departure is with friends Merry, Pippin and Sam, a group that eventually joins the Fellowship that adds five other traveling companions. Before the quest is complete, war has enveloped the entire land. (Compare this with the “Battle” that ends the Hobbit: while intense, it affects a comparatively tiny region of Middle-Earth.)  Fighting ends only when the destruction of the Ring ensures that victory is complete and absolute - and incidentally changes the world irrevocably. Even the Shire has to play its part, being ravaged by Sharkey before it is Scoured and rebuilt. Unlike Bilbo’s relaxed retirement, Frodo is unable to leave behind the travails he endured, at least not until he sails completely away from the land where they occurred.

Unionization

Today I went to see the floats from the 125th Tournament of Roses Parade. I took the Metro Red Line from North Hollywood to end-of-the-line at Union Station, then the Gold Line from there to end-of-the-line at Sierra Madre Villa. It wasn’t until the trip back that I realized I was heading through UNION Station. The architectural style uses southwest motifs and the occasional Arts & Crafts detail, which made me expect that it was an early 1900 design. That UNION, though ... Either it comes from the Union Pacific Railroad, named in the early 1860s to represent its source in the non-Confederate United States, or it is directly referencing that same political entity for similar reasons. 

We easily ignore the very definite references used in so many place names around us, all the time. The floats themselves were at Victory Park, not to be confused with Memorial Park (one of the stops on the Gold Line), nor with Victory Boulevard (significant enough to be the San Fernando Valley’s shout-out in Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.”). I would not be at all surprised to find that all three represent completely different wars. I doubt they are related to the war that Union Station gets its name from, though: Besides California being a Free state, there was little enough that happened here which would be worth memorializing. The name of Union Station is a reminder, though, that the war was different in kind from others of that century, and important enough to be worth naming the primary terminus of railways from across the continent. You weren’t to forget, it appears, that it was the Union, together, that made it all possible. 

And sometimes .. you would be completely wrong. In this case, “Union” has nothing to do with the war: It’s a generic term for a station owned jointly by several railway companies that share expenses for a single terminus. The one in Los Angeles actually opened in May 1939 - coincidentally, just a couple of months after the publication of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” - and was one of the last such built. While we’re at it “Memorial Park” actually was dedicated, in 1906,  to the defenders of the Union. Victory Park refers to World War II, while Victory Boulevard was given that name after World War I.

Redirect

I have been adding entries to this blog sporadically for a while. Often, they have been what I can pull together in 20 minutes or less - the period of time between entering the subway and leaving it on my daily commute - as that was often all of the writing time I had in the day. And it was an interesting challenge, to see if one could populate a blog in such a way. As seen, the answer is “Sorta.” It was a good way to use that time, when I managed it.  It’s not a lot of time, though,  to pull a thought together, hash out the implications, write it down and fix misspellings and be left with something worth the posting.

Another issue is that there is too much pressure to reconsider, rewrite, redo. “Do I really want to post this? Is it Important Enough for what I Should Be Saying? Have I Properly Attributed Everything I Say?” That, too, keeps one from posting as often as one could. Which is my real reason for heading in a new direction, here: I’m going to post once a day. If I don’t have much to say, I won’t say much. If it turns out to be a stupid prediction/observation/intuition, it’s stupid. If I can do it every day, though, at least one or two items should be good enough for, well, a part-timer’s blog.

With that in mind, I’m also going to expand my vision a bit, to other topics related to Strauss & Howe that I find of interest. This might include

• News, predictions, and intuitions related to The Crisis as it unfolds, as before
• Ways of describing how this theory of history works (without churning up opaque jargon) and ways of making it useful
• Applying the theory to the arts - primarily literature and movies, although I made an accurate architectural prediction once - to see what insights it can give
• And anything related to Strauss & Howe’s books and predictions

Because you don’t jump into this sort of thing without a good running start, I’ve been practicing this daily writing thing for a little while now. Some of those previously written items are likely to end up here at some point, in which case I will copy and paste and leave them without any guilt.  Today, though, everything recent is too apocalyptic and negative to be appropriate at the start of the year. I’m making a new start, I want it to flow organically - and I don’t want to drag us down into the muck already....so here’s what I have.

There is a lot to be said about the recently released “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” - enough that I expect I will come back to it a few times. One is that it doesn't seem to quite fit in our time, right now, this Crisis.  This Slate story mentions that it was in development for about 20 years, and that the initiating event of the film - the closing of Life magazine - happened “over a decade ago.” (That depends how you count it: Wikipedia says it lived on until 2007 as a supplement, although its last proper issue was May 2000.) In any case, there was certainly the feeling that it was a pre-Crisis movie: The worst-case scenario is that your company gets taken over and you are unemployed as a result? Not a terrorist attack or a complete meltdown of the financial system or a hurricane smashing into the city? 

It seriously reminded me of a Saturday Night Live parody of Rankin Bass animations from a  few months after 9/11. The old Burl Ives-voiced snowman tries to convince the audience about the danger from the villains, including an abominable snow monster, before giving up in the face of recent real-life dangers of terrorism. “Oh, we’re so scared of some crappy abominable snow monster” is about what I wanted to say to Ben Stiller at various points. 

Fire

There were certainly plenty of hints where "Catching Fire" was going. It's not like it would have been a COMPLETE shock anyway to see Who Was Behind It All. 

It's a Hero's saga, after all.  Teamwork, courage, and sacrifice, with a Journey that has an expected course.  No coincidence, either, that it has been 75 years since the end of the last Crisis, placing these Games in the natural generational constellation for a new Crisis to begin. And that means the other generations also have their roles to play - their places to be. 

If you follow that far, then it should be clear from the start who was in charge. I wasn't certain at first,  but those hints kept piling up. And ultimately, let's face it, which side would you expect that Reactive - the one played by one of Gen X's most celebrated actors - going to come down on?

Tyrell

"More Human Than Human"

The slogan of the Tyrell corporation popped into my head on this rainy day in Los Angeles. I realized that Blade Runner is set only a few years from now, in 2019. And we really aren't very similar to that proposed dystopic cityscape, at all.

I've looked up other dates in which The Future is expected to be not so good. They actually often match up with the Strauss and Howe Crisis peak, in or near the 2020s. That may be because creative minds in this mode seem to choose dates when they could expect not to be around any more, or at least near the end of their lives i.e. about 80 or 90 years after their birth. No coincidence, I'm sure.

(Ridley Scott was born in 1937, and the producer and screenwriters were also born between 1930 and 1940. It also works for Orwell (born 1903) which I only checked today.)

Mali

If I keep coming back to this, it's because the path seems so clear: the Crisis looks very much like it could be The Last Crusade. When cheese-eating surrender monkeys are actively taking on Islamists, the question of who will be Us and who Them begs to answer itself. Other paths still beckon, of course, and this might be a detour. An attempt at total war by bankrupt countries could as easily cause battles for massive internal reform, instead - as with Russia and WWI. I suppose asking whether it would be structural or economic reform is unnecessary, as both would be remade in changes a Crisis might engender.

Pan

Disney appears to be re-branding Peter Pan, using a typeface I'd call more elegant and forward looking than what has been used for the last 60 years.

My son is a big fan of the movie, so I've seen it a lot, lately...like, a lot. My wife and I discuss the place in history of it, and here's what we get.

Peter is a Prophet. Regardless of how old he really is, he's a spirit of youth. He takes on the adult Pirates and wins through sheer moral superiority. (And let's note that in Hook, we have the ultimate in ever-youthful Prophets, Robin Williams, becoming a "pirate" himself and being forced to return to his youthful exuberance to beat the (Silent) Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook.) 

Wendy appears to be a Prophet herself, preparing Pan's way and extolling his virtues to her brothers. They and especially the Lost Boys are Reactives - I've heard that generation in England called the Incorrigibles - causing trouble and not quite come into their positive aspects - certainly not as "good" as Peter. 

And of course, "All this has happened before, and it all will happen again."