GATEWAY CUP PART II: ST. LOUIS HILLS STAGE (REALLY MORE OF AN INCLINE)–WITH VIDEO

 

Hi Readers.

I was lucky enough to get an answer to the question posed in yesterday’s post. It was a question about a certain Marco Pantani finish in the Giro d’Italia. My stars must have been lined up because the answer was from Matt Rendell: the same Matt Rendell who wrote the book that I am sure goes into depth on that stage win: The Death of Marco Pantani: A Biography. The answer is at the end of my previous post. 

If writers of this caliber are going to read my blog, then I’d better check fur spellung. I really liked Matt’s A Significant Other. Now, he can be assured that I will read his other books. And in case you were wondering what these other books might be… here they are:

Olympic Gangster: The Legend of Jose Beyaert – Cycling Champion, Fortune Hunter and Outlaw. Matt Rendell (Mainstream 2009–this just came out in July!).

 

Blazing Saddles: The Cruel and Unusual History of the Tour de France. Matt Rendell (Velo Press reissued-2008)

 

The Death of Marco Pantani: A Biography. Matt Rendell (Phoenix 2007)–see pic above.

A Significant Other: Riding the Centenary Tour de France with Lance Armstrong. Matt Rendell (Phoenix 2004).

 

 The Official Tour de France Centennial 1903-2003. Edited by Matt Rendell and Nicolas Cheetham (Weidenfeld and Nicholson 2004).

 

 Kings of the Mountains: How Colombia’s Cycling Heroes Changed Their Nation’s History. Matt Rendell (Aurum Press 2003).

 

(If I missed any, please let me know)

 

On to the race report for the 2009 Gateway Cup.

Let’s start at the end. Click here for the results of the entire Gateway Cup. But even with this information, you keep reading. Why? Because it is the story that we want. We want information, details, and fleeting glimpses into the feeling of racing… a feeling that often boils down to degrees of pain. My friend Finn gave me this apt quote today: Pain is just the feeling of weakness leaving the body. Dunno who said this. Will track it down soon.

Let’s pick up one story then. Mine. I arrived late into St. Louis after a rain-soaked drive down 61 from Iowa City, Iowa, on Saturday, September 5, 2009.  I thought that I had missed all the races, but luckily, the men’s pro-1-2 race started a bit late: I saw most of the race. This race was the “St. Louis Hills” stage in the Gateway Cup, the third stage. Even though each of the four races was a criterium, it was still a race that tracked each race and presented leaders’ jerseys for the rider with the lowest accumulated time (in the women’s and men’s pro-1-2 category; I am not sure if they had leaders’s jerseys for the other categories).

 

OBSERVATION #1: The course was a 1.3 mile, extremely wide and smoothly surfaced rectangle around Lafayette Park. Flat corners and only a moderate hill—more of a steady incline—running through the start/finish to corner #1.

 done

This short vid of corner number 4 gives you a feel for the wide open course. The course is not perfect though. There were crashes (I didn’t see any but I did hear about them), and the hill wasn’t steep enough to cause real selections.

 

OBSERVATION #2: Great vibe! Everybody was friendly, from the racers to the crowds and even the announcer was nice. Wait, those guys are always nice. Why was the vibe so sweet? My best guess is that there are very relaxed open-container laws in St. Louis. For example, you could walk up to a host of tents along the course and get a selection of wine and beer. My favorite was the Bertolini’s tent which sold yummy toasted ravioli with grated parmesan cheese and marinara sauce. These snacks and sips were quite a civilized way to watch a bike race (hey Iowa, are you listening?).

 

OBSERVATION #3: The pro-1-2 field was alarmingly big. How many? 124. But when they are flying at you at 35 mph, it looks like 190 riders.

 

OBSERVATION #4: Noticed that my friend Brett was riding the tail-end race moto. It looked like a nicer gig than riding the lead moto because when a rider popped off the back, he could chat with him for a few seconds. Brett said that he has been in over 50 races this year as official moto. Way to go Brett!

 

Hi Bart! Yes, my camera skills have not caught up with my writing skills.

 

 

OBSERVATION #5: Saw one of my teammates in the race! Duane Dickey. Well, he is not actually my teammate. We wear similar kits (Iowa City Cycling Club), but he is pro and I am a cat. 6 rider. Anyway the important thing was that he was REPRESENTING for the Iowa City Cycling Club (Go Smurfs!). The problem was, he was riding near the back, so I yelled encouraging words to him: “Hey Dewey, move up for love of God!” I think he listened because a couple of laps later he moved all the way up to the lead of the pack. Stupendous! Maybe I should become a cycling coach.

 

OBSERVATION #6:  “Big Shark” is the name of a fantastic bike shop in St. Louis and they sponsor a decent bike team. In fact there were about 59 Big Shark riders in each race. No, that’s not accurate, but you get my point. They were stacking it. Dan Schmatz was their leader as he had won the previous night and was in the leader’s orange jersey.

 

OBSERVATION #7:  Also saw Clark Priebe who rides for Sioux City Velo/Powerade. I like this rider as he put on a great show in the Iowa Criterium Championships where he got third. I think he is 44, and I like to see fast guys over 40 sticking it to the young punks. More on the topic of young punks later.

 

THE FINISH:  With five laps to go a small break formed and finally, the race got exciting. A group of 5 pinched off the front. In one lap they got 8 seconds: Duane Dickey, Keith Harper, Jeff Hartman, and Brian Jensen. Because Keith and Jeff are Big Shark, their teammates got the front and put on the brakes. Brian Jensen is a formidable racer and I have seen him crush the entire field at the Iowa City Criterium before (2008), so, I was worried for Duane (who, as you might remember, got to the front because of my encouragement).

 done

This group held about 8 seconds going into the final lap. I predicted that Brian would win. The announcer predicted that Brian would win. The crowd knows that this five-rider group will stay away. The course is too easy and too many Big Sharks are controlling the pack. Sewn up!

 

Duane leads through corner 4 with three to go.

 

Duane leads up the hill, couple to go.

 

 

 

[Yes, these are a bit blurry. Hey, they are going fast, and I can't get my stupid camera's Fstop to reconfigure correctly. Operator error? Perhaps.]

But today held some surprises for sports fans all over the Midwest. For example, Northern Iowa University played the University of Iowa Hawkeyes in Iowa City today. The Hawkeyes were predicted to blow UNI out of the corn fields. But the UNI offense turned the defensive line of the Hawks into baby chick Hawklets. With only 25 seconds left in the game, the Hawkeyes were leading by 1 point and the UNI Panthers had the ball on the Hawk 30 yard line. The Panther kicker was reliable and it really looked as if the Panthers were going to win. A 40 yard attempt was well within the kicker’s range.

 

But for the first time in years, the Hawks blocked a field goal! Iowa was celebrating and going crazy. But then the whistle blew and a Panther had recovered the blocked football. In fact, the ball was blocked before the line of scrimmage, and so, and so, that meant that the Panthers had the ball and there was 1 (one!) second left. And they had another down left. Egads! This kick is the same distance. Surely the Hawks would not be able to block another kick, will they?

 

But they do block the second kick. The Hawks do win by one point. Hard to believe. I like the Hawks, but I also like an underdog. I was hard-pressed to choose which way I wanted that game to turn out.

 

And so it is in a similar vein that my own prediction of Brian Jensen stomping the gizzards of the other four riders does not come to pass. The pack catches the lead five and the sprint turns crazy, pell-mell, raucous, dangerous, cacaphonous.

 

I am in the wrong place to watch the sprint: near the top of the hill, looking down on the finish line. This is actually a scary place to watch the finish because the line of riders is skittering and lurching and lunging and flicking everywhere. Here is the pic that I came away with:

 

The lunge for the line!

 

 

It may be the Worst Sports Pic of the Year. I will enter it into that contest next week. But wait a sec. Do you notice that an orange jersey is visible on the right side? Hmmmm! Well, that is Dan Schmatz! And he won the race. Ha. So my pic is not too awful. And do you notice a black and white kit near him? Cole House=#2.

 

As I learned a bit later, the finish was not as close as I imagined. Here is what went down from three different perspectives.

 

Brett: Brett was behind the race and saw the pack catch the five leaders on the backside of the course. He had just talked to Duane and asked him what happened. Duane said: “things looked good and then everybody started dicking around on the backside, and that was it.” (I realize some of this language might be a bit rough, but I ask for your patience, these are athletes under duress.).

Todd Campbell: When I walked by Todd, I did not know him, but he looked fairly pleased with his race and so I collared him like the aggressive journalist that I am. Todd races with Epic Bikes out of Kansas City. He said that he came in around 30^th (a  bit further back actually) and that it was a fine finish for him. He said that the last three corners made the entire race. He was well back with one lap to go, and then two things happened. First, he took some chances on the pancake flat corners and advanced a bunch of places with each corner. And second, the Sharks were getting tired at the front and they couldn’t contain the pack. The guys at the front were “blowing up right and left,” which made it easy to advance as along as you caught a kind wheel moving up instead of back.

 

During a lull in our conversation with Todd, we both looked over at Steve Tilford who was nearby (check his sweet blog here). “Oh, I know Steve” said Todd. “He did well. Maybe third.” I said that I had just come from the podium (the side of the podium really)

 

If you squint, you can see Chad, Cole, and Dan leaving the podium.

 

 

And I did not see Steve up there kissing the girls. Todd thought for a moment. “Perhaps he is contesting the finish.” How about that for some intrigue! [It turns out that Steve was fourth]. Todd was very nice for talking with me, and I hope he does well in the upcoming races.

 

Cole House (BMC U23) and Chad Hartley (Gear Grinder): Although they are on different teams, they travelled down from Wisconsin together, and they seem to be friends of some sort. Or, enemies that get along really well. Cole was second and Chad was third. It is hard to duplicate the ribbing that went on during the interview. While they would talk they would take turns interjecting a comment, usually a one word quip. Their favorite word, hands down, was “sketchy.”  This term was liberally applied to riding, riders, ability, and everything else. They might have a future as a comedy team if the biking thing does not work out. But unless all of their legs suddenly were to fall off, that ain’t gonna happen. These guys have an excellent future ahead of them. In order to duplicate their cross-court verbal style, I have inserted their inserted words using parentheses.

 

Me: So, Cole, how [Chad: sketchy] did the final lap play out?

 

Cole: I saw it coming together as Big Shark [Chad: sketchy] were losing their lead guys and I also knew that I had [sketchy] to be near Dan’s  [sketchy] wheel (Schmatz) because everybody was sure he would get the lead out for the sprint. I finally got to his wheel at the third corner, but then I lost it [Chad: naturally]. Then on the final stretch, I gained a few places but I could still see two riders in front of me. Dan and Chad. I was pretty lucky to just beat Chad at the line.

 

Me: So Chad, it seems that you launched early. Tell me about your finish [Cole: sketchy].

 

Chad: I had to go early today because yesterday I went too late. [note: yesterday, Cole was fourth and Chad was sixth]. When the catch was made on the backside I went [Cole: nnggguuh]. Caught and passed the remnants of the break and put my head down [Cole: sketch]. As I rounded the last corner I thought I might get it, but it was a long, long way to the finish. Slightly uphill.

 

These two guys gave the best interview I’ve ever had. We talked for over twenty minutes. We talked about Wisconsin, European racing, and the complexity of the U 23 system. Their directeur sportifs should bump up their pay and slot them to pro teams forthwith! (And by the way, Cole and Chad never finished outside of the top ten each of the four days of the Gateway Cup! As Finn would say, “they are so chronic,” which, for the uninitiated, means extremely good.)

 

Jim Stemper (13th), Chad Hartley (3rd), Cole House (2), Rob White (25th): Remember these names!

 

 

I drove off feeling positively amped with excitement. I went to bed early because a big day of race lay ahead. And possibly, just possibly I might even enter a criterium. Drum roll please……my first crit in 4 (four!) years.

 

STAY TUNED TO THIS BLOG FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT: PART III; OR WHY IS THIS NUMBER PINNED TO MY JERSEY AND WHO ARE ALL THESE RIDERS TRYING TO KILL ME?

Peace,

Scraps

Beware Apple, Microsoft, The Atlantic, Google, PMLA and Others!

Why should these corporations/publications watch their step(s)? Because I am starting a company. And this company is associated with both publishing and technology…somewhat. Here’s a mock-up of my business card:

Word!

 

What is NANO? NANO stands for New American Notes Online. And the aim is to create a new type of journal of American criticism that is shorter, faster, and (most importantly) different. NANO will be the only academic journal (that I know of) that comes out monthy and has letters to the editor and has a twitter feed —which is currently up and running: http://twitter.com/nanocrit. The name NANO indicates small size and brief duration. What I like about the word nano is that it also connotes new technology that may change the shape of daily living. And NANO will, likewise, change the shape of American criticism. 

More later.

Scraps.

Finally, Some Theory!

The word on the street is that my blog is turning into a biking blog.

Time to mix it up. Time to put some “Street Theory” back into this Street Theorist’s m.o.

 

I recommend Appiah's book

 

 

This story begins with trash. I love my little cul de sac in the hinterlands of Iowa City. But I often find lots of trash in the street. I never see anybody littering, so who does it?  I don’t sit on my stoop all day, so I can’t tell. Maybe kids are littering, or maybe the wind just blows it towards my house. One theory I had was that my neighbors’ kids were secretly littering. Yesterday I was pondering what to do about this trash problem, when I spied my neighbor walking on my portion of the sidewalk. Then I saw him bending down. Then I saw him pick up some litter and put it into a plastic bag. He went up and down both sides of the street. He stopped in my yard and looked at me. I waved. He waved. Then it dawned on me: he was glaring at me because he thought that my kids had been littering on his street.

Oh, a street theorist loves it when the tables are turned.

This brings me to a short excursion into ETHICS. 

From my computer’s dictionary we find this explanation of the differing ways of interpreting ethics as a moral code of behavior:

Schools of ethics in Western philosophy can be divided, very roughly, into three sorts. The first, drawing on the work of Aristotle, holds that the virtues (such as justice, charity, and generosity) are dispositions to act in ways that benefit both the person possessing them and that person’s society. The second, defended particularly by Kant, makes the concept of duty central to morality: humans are bound, from a knowledge of their duty as rational beings, to obey the categorical imperative to respect other rational beings. Thirdly, utilitarianism asserts that the guiding principle of conduct should be the greatest happiness or benefit of the greatest number.

 

Below are some ideas (mixed with my own) from a recent book on ethics titled Experiments in Ethics by Kwame Anthony Appiah, Harvard University Press, 2008.

1.  What we do depends upon how the world is–therefore we must understand how the world is–and so our everyday decisions can and must draw from many different spheres of knowledge. Based on this, I can reflect that I decided to get angry about the litter, but I did not decide to pick it up. What sphere did I draw from? The sphere that says blame the other dude, blame the government, blame big business, blame my parents, but above all else, do not blame myself. Wait! is this also called The American Spirit? Or, is that too sardonic?

2.  In making choices we must start with a vision, however, inchoate, of what it means for human life to go well. This is via Aristotle in case you were wondering. What this means is that we do not make choices without some prior knowledge. In rather stark terms: we do not make decisions without some theory guiding it. Leave it to a to a street theorist to write that.

3. Not just politics, but also arts and sports are engaged in illuminating the present by drawing on the past. We make the future worth hoping for through frames of reference. If I am a biker, my frame of reference might be safety versus fun. I might stop during a ride to remove a tree branch from the bike lane because of my own past experience with tree branches. I put myself into the world of the future by remembering my place on the ground when I once went cartwheeling over a tree branch. What this means is that ethics are based on my desire to put myself into the possible event of being affected by the tree branch. Past and present are “smushed” together. I can decide to not stop and remove the tree branch–but that would mean that I have to pretend that I am not a biker, and not affected by tree branches. Basically, for me to decide to not remove the tree branch I have to pretend that I am not human. [Oh please, Street Theorist! This last one is too much! Perhaps.]

4.  Our evaluations of the world around us are made through passions and emotions, not despite them. Feeling is thinking. When someone asks you to take your emotions out of the picture, they are asking you to think without thinking. Sure it may be best to not pull your hair out over every decision, but dispassionate logic is really thinking calmly, not thinking without any emotions. What this means is that you might be well served to bring your personality into the picture when making important decisions. When you hear someone say “it is not my problem that there is a tree branch in the bike lane,” you can respond in many ways. You can even decide to not respond. But by remaining silent, you have made a decision. And that decision, to be silent, is not an ethical choice. Why not? It does not pass the test. Not removing the branch may hurt you or others (Aristotle). It is not rational to your well being (Kant). And not removing the tree branch does not benefit the greatest number, just a small number, like maybe the clinic or bike shop that has to repair the damaged body/bike (Utilitarian).

Finally then, do you litter, pick up litter, or think about blaming somebody for the litter? Do you bunny-hop the tree branch, stop and pick up the tree branch, or write a blog entry about picking up a tree branch?

Aristotelians, Kantians, and Utilitarians all have points in their favor. But nobody has a lock on ethics. You must navigate through the litter and the tree branches.

Good luck.

Scraps.

Gaston, Shakespeare, and Something Interesting to Ponder

 

 

 

 

A friend told me an interesting story that might satisfy readers until I post my theory of slowness.

 

My friend was standing in the hallway of his university building waiting for his class to finish filling out their end-of-semester course evaluations. The hall was long, dimly lit, and empty. Empty except for one male student directly across from my friend. The student was well muscled and dressed in typical gear: black t-shirt, long black basketball-type shorts that came to his calves, and black sneakers with no socks. His head was shaved like a tennis ball. He was fit, and his get-up reinforced this. Also, he wanted others to know about his taste in fashion. The classroom door next to the student was wide open and my friend, Gaston, could hear the class talking. On closer inspection Gaston noticed three things. First, the student was wearing a t-shirt that said: “The surgeon general says it is OK to smoke the competition.” Second, the student was holding a sheaf of papers and reading along with the class inside. Third, it sounded like the class was putting on a play, vaguely Shakespearian, but not exactly so. Too many references to cars assaulted Gaston’s ears, he said. Then Gaston notice the clincher: the student had a two-foot long sword sticking out of his shorts. Cardboard. And suddenly, he leapt into the classroom. The student, not Gaston. Gaston told me that he heard some unintelligible shouts. Then the student walked back into the hall and stopped right next to the door. The student then mouthed the words of the players inside the room. With his free hand, the student made dramatic motions indicating the force of the speeches going on inside. Finally, Gaston told me that he could take it no longer, he had to ask. So, Gaston approached the armed student and asked him what he was doing.

 

            “We are putting on a play that we wrote.”

            “What play is that?” asked Gaston.

            “We rewrote and updated Shakespeare’s As You Like It.”

            “Nice.”

 

And with that information, Gaston returned to his own post on the other side of the hall, greatly relieved and yet also curious about the result. Did the teacher like it? How did it end? And Gaston was also quite impressed by the student’s full immersion into the project. As Gaston turned to leave me to grade papers and muse upon his story, he said to me as if a question: “that was for me the greatest moment of the semester, no?”

Part IV: The Final Sprint of Sean’s 2009 American Birkebeiner

[note: to read parts 1-3, go to Archives and click on April 2009]

 

I am not perfect. And I am not dead. I am still skiing.

 

A sweeping left hand bend and I can finally see the lake. And Lake Hayward is a cake walk; a 4 km piece of smooth gliding, just before the sprint through main street. I feel weak and giddy, sick and gloppy. One reason that I feel gloppy is because of the all the wool that I am wearing. Sure the big news in technical gear these days is Smartwool and Icebreaker, but what I now know is that after five hours of continual sweating, the fibers reach their max, and they sort of droop. So, I feel moist gobs of wool flapping around my arms and legs.

 

My legs cramp up again. I think about eating another Gu, but what if a real emergency should strike? I decide to save the Gu. I come up with a great idea. Since my legs are not working, why not use my arms and just pole for a while. This is working very well. I am going slowly, but making progress. I hear someone slowly catching up to me on my left. I look and see a young woman. She is carrying her ski poles like you would carry firewood. Her skate skiing technique is quite good though. I look at her and she looks at me. I say “hi.”

 

She responds by crying. It is certainly not uncommon to see and hear crying in the Birkebeiner; if crying helps, then you should do it. But the sound of her crying throws me off. A sort of “boo hoo, boo hoo,” sound reaches me as she continues to pass me. Now, of course we know from cognitive neuroscience that crying, the actual tears, precede the feeling of sadness. What if she is crying because of some crazy joy? That is possible you know. I cried during the 1984 Olympics when Alexi Grewal beat Steve Bauer in the men’s road race. As I think of that sprint, a sprint that Grewal could not even dream of winning against the powerful Canadian sprinter, I too start to cry.

 

I wonder if Alexi G. ever had problems due to winning?

 

We skate and cry next to each other for a minute before she slowly pulls away from me. Hey wait. Her race bib number is in the ten thousands. She is a tenth waver. I catch back up to her. She skates and I pole. We form one complete skier. Oh, that little rise really hurt me. I stop. I survey the scene before me. A smooth downhill run and there, just past those trees, I see the lake. Almost home. I start poling again and then I see him.

………….Do you like what you are reading? Then read on a bit further.

SORRY READERS!  I have taken down the rest of this entry because I am expanding the Birkie story and sending it out to small presses for publication. Let me know if you are interesting in a copy of such a book: sean-scanlan@uiowa.edu

 

Birkie Fever Part II: Or, Why Am I Still Alive?

 

Torstein and Skervald Save Norway Using Only One Ski Pole

 

 

 

The Birkebeiner is the largest cross country ski race in the U.S., and one of the largest races in the world. Over 7,000 skiers from all over the world converge in northwest Wisconsin for a 50 kilometer race (Actually there are several races going on at the same time: the 50 km skating style race, the 54km classic style race, and the 23km kortelopet—in both styles). Why so long? What’s it about? Some history may help here.

Håkon Håkonssøn’s Saga:

The Birkebeiner race gets its name from the Birkebeiners, a group of legendary Norwegian warriors and peasants. The Birkebeiners went into battle with birch bark wrapped around their shins instead of armor, so they were called “Birchleggers,” or Birkebeiners. About 800 years ago, in 1206, the Baglers (rich aristocrats and false bishops) wanted to seize power by killing the very young Prince Håkon. The Birkebeiners decided to move Prince Håkon, and his mother, Inga of Varteig, to the north, to Nidaros—their stronghold, where they could better protect him. They made this long journey over the mountains on skis. For this epic journey, the small band of Birkebeiners recruited two skiing aces to help them with the journey: Torstein Skevla (TOR-stine SHEV-la) and Skervald Skrukka (SHER-vol SKRU-ka). Torstein was like a full-back, large and powerful, with a serious red beard. Skervald was blond and lithe, sinewy and clean-shaven. Aside: the astute reader may correctly infer that I resemble Skervald. These two were the best skiers in Norway, and with their help, they guided the small band of Birkebeiners to Nidaros. In time, Prince Håkon grew to become one of the most powerful kings in Norway’s history, bringing peace, unity, and prosperity to his country. The Birkebeiner race is a modern-day commemoration of the difficult journey to save the young prince. One Birkebeiner race is held in Norway and the other in Wisconsin. I’ve heard that some skiers carry an 8 lb. pack to replicate the weight of Prince Håkon. But seriously, I think that an 18 month old baby would weigh more than that. Anyway, I want to give a shout-out to my source for this information and for the wonderful pic that begins this part of my story. I’ve summarized Lise Lunge-Larsen’s The Race of the Birkebeiners, with illustrations by Mary Azarian. I heartily recommend this book to those who are within the age range of 4-8. Actually, I recommend it to people outside of that range too.

 

Back inside my head as I race toward the halfway point:

These historical/mythological bits of information are swimming in my head as I struggle to the midway point. As ghosts of Torstein and Skervald keep clouding my vision, I fight the hills and plunge down the steep hills as if the Baglers are about to attack my shins. What hurts the most? My back. Since I have not worked on the technique of getting up this particular type of hill (too frequent, too steep), I make it up as I go along. Inefficient, wallowing, crazed, barking, slobbering. My legs hurt too, but not like my lower back: it’s like someone has replaced my back muscles with sand and chicken wire.

………… Do you like what you are reading? Want more? Well, read on.

SORRY READERS!  I have taken down the rest of this entry because I am expanding the Birkie story and sending it out to small presses for publication. Let me know if you are interesting in a copy of such a book: sean-scanlan@uiowa.edu

 

 

 

Re-linking Place to Nostalgia (With Footnotes!)

An excerpt from Edward S. Casey’s, Remembering: A Phenomenological Study

“One of the most eloquent testimonies to place’s extraordinary memorability is found in nostalgia. We are nostalgic primarily about particular places that have been emotionally significant to us and which we now miss: we are in pain (algos) about a return home (nostos) that is not presently possible. It is not accidental that ‘nostalgia’ and ‘homesickness’ are still regarded as synonyms in current English dictionaries.”

 What is the relation between place and nostalgia?

The problem with place is that philosophers in the 18th and 19th centuries sought to emphasize metaphysical ideas over materially constructed emotions and feelings. And the concrete home, along with site-specific nostalgia, fell off the academic map. But nostalgia gained steam in popular culture. Nostalgia in the early nineteenth century was seen by many to be the natural consequence of an upheaval of memory, often catalyzed by a forced removal from a known place, especially one’s home. On one hand, conscripted soldiers and migrant laborers forced from their homes suffered from a type of nostalgia closely connected to increasingly powerful forces of capitalism and state power. And on the other hand, according to Jean Starobinski in “The Idea of Nostalgia” (1966), academics and philosophers were de-linking the physical home from nostalgia, stating, as Kant did, that it was a romantic middle-class preoccupation with the passing of youth itself. Kant’s ideas on nostalgia, of course, were not simple. Casey says that “Kant scoffed at this remedy,” of a return home; any actual return was bound to be “very disappointing” because the physical site may have become “wholly transformed” (201).1 But Casey points out in another essay titled “The World of Nostalgia” (1987), that Kant, like Johannes Hofer (see previous post), also believed that nostalgia was an imaginative act that has affinities with various memories of places that are used to construct a “created” world (367-8).2 The friction between the place-based and philosophy-based views of nostalgia, not “settled” by the medical community until the end of the nineteenth-century, is not just present in a world full of moving, displacement, and exile, it is a primary source of both human identity adjustment and reinforcement.3

 

So, what does this mean for today’s world in which place matters a lot to those losing their homes due to foreclosures and job losses? And what does it mean for those caught up in telecommuting and web 2.0–where workers and users are making the work place less important? 

Stay tuned to this blog for definitive answers!

 

Peace, 

Sean Scanlan

---

1 Casey believes that the history of nostalgia within philosophy hinges upon to role of place. While specific place diminished in stature during the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the desire for a return to imagination as the source of the world increased. Put another way, by the late eighteenth century, as the geographic site of home was stripped from nostalgia, it was replaced with a spiritual return, an attachment to a way of being in the world. Artists, unlike most philosophers, elevated and refined the uses of nostalgia in terms of actual homes, and if not in terms of descriptions of physical structures, then in terms of the hope of return–often in the face of great odds. See Edward S. Casey, Remembering: A Phenomenological Study (1987; Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2000) 201.

2 In “The World of Nostalgia,” Casey compares a variety of philosophers’ views on nostalgia in terms of place. Casey’s phenomenological perspective regards home as vexingly tethered to both the exterior world and the world “within.” Ultimately, Casey believes that nostalgia is a “unique mode of insight into a world that has become irretrievably past and that arrays itself, as we remember it now, in a plenitude of places” (380). Edward S. Casey, “The World of Nostalgia,” Man and World 4.20 (Oct 1987): 361-384.

3 Homesickness has replaced nostalgia as a medical term, so that a crossing of usage has occurred: nostalgia has been de-medicalized, while homesickness has recently entered medical literature. During the First World War, American troops were still being treated for nostalgia. But by the Second World War, some doctors employed therapy as treatment for homesickness. By 1952, no entries on homesickness were in The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). But homesickness returned by the 1968 edition. See Susan J. Matt, “You Can’t Go Home Again: Homesickness and Nostalgia in U.S. History,” The Journal of American History 94.2 (2007): 469-97. Recent studies on the linkage between environment and body have emphasized the possible existence of homesickness as a disease. The pediatric specialist Christopher A. Thurber has written several scholarly articles on treating homesickness in adolescents. See Christopher A. Thurber, Edward Walton, and the Council on School Health, “Preventing and Treating Homesickness,” Pediatrics 119 (2007): 192-201; and Christopher A. Thurber and Marian D. Sigman, “Preliminary Models of Risk and Protective Factors for Childhood Homesickness: Review and Empirical Synthesis, Child Development 69.4 (1998): 903-34.

                             

What Is Nostalgia

Nostalgia is a word that was invented by Johannes Hofer, a Swiss medical student, in his 1688 dissertation titled “Medical Dissertation on Nostalgia.” He combined two Greek roots: nostos, or return home, plus algia, or suffering. So together we get homesickness–the common synonym for nostalgia in many dictionaries.

Commonly thought of as a yearning for the recent past, or homesickness due to present losses, nostalgia is a deceptively complex word that, like an umbrella, covers a wide range of personal and collective feelings about the collision between the past and the present. But nostalgia is also about the future, characterized by, especially, the tension between looking toward the past for traditional answers and looking toward the future for hope. The simultaneous presence of peculiarly modern forms of destabilization and recurrent desires for stabilization produces this tension. 

Nostalgia helps frame the past in terms of present experience. Nostalgia illuminates the historical context of the actual and perceived loss of home. But what is more, when public pasts fuse with private feelings in stories of historical change (real or imagined stories), nostalgia informs and structures decision-making and ultimately it reconfigures identity. Nostalgia is not amnesia, but rather, it is a complex use of the past during present moments of crisis.