Systematic Progress
For the first time in a long time, we had a relatively slow-paced weekend -- which consisted mostly of sleeping, copiously, and a day-long adventure to the greater Altoona area. While this particular location may not scream "day-trip destination" to the savvy tourist, even one from the State College area, a mere 45 minutes north, to the coaster enthusiast such as myself it means partaking in a little piece of history.
The draw to Lakemont Park -- wherein sits the oldest operating roller coaster in the world, the Leap-the-Dips -- is the same that beckons the diehard baseball fan to Wrigley Field: partially, knowing that it's an important element to the history of your passion; but also because there's this distinct sense that, in a world increasingly overridden with the forced synergy of corporate consumerism, they just don't make 'em like they used to anymore.
Lakemont felt very much like this, not only for the presence of the Leap-the-Dips, but actually in comparison to a park like DelGrosso's Amusement Park, which we also visited on the way back from Altoona. DelGrosso's was a fine little park, consisting mostly of "permanentized" mobile amusement rides not unlike Lakemont, but its location was not nearly as charming as Lakemont's. Both sit just off Interstate 99, at a distance just far enough for you to remember it's there but not so close that it overwhelms either park's personality. DelGrosso's, though, has so much going on in its general vicinity that you get this sense that, if the park ever failed to maintain profitability, it could be overrun, replaced with some other business, and few would miss it. On the other hand, Lakemont sits on one side of an otherwise residential road. Sure, it's situated next to a brand-new public skating ice rink and the home stadium of the minor league Altoona Curve (hell, the Skyliner has gone from being the wooden coaster spotlight at the park's north end to a fixture that, at first glance, is alarmingly close to the right-center field fence), but there's no feeling that this was little more than a traveling carnival that found a nice spot of land and decided not to pull up their hitching posts.
And it's not the terrain that does this, either. Beech Bend Park, in Bowling Green, KY, was a surprise highlight of last year's Mid-Southern Comfort coaster tour, and with the exception of its new Kentucky Rumbler wooden coaster, the whole park is made up of portable rides that are just not moved anymore. It, like DelGrosso's, sits on a very flat piece of land, at the end of a road that is far from being flat and uneventful -- but unlike DelGrosso's, it also has this unmistakable charm, this intangible feel of being the little guy fighting the big bad rest of the world. It's refreshing, it's charming, it's damn fun.
None of this is to say that DelGrosso's wasn't fun -- on the contrary, we had a blast there: I spent much of the time trying to remember the last time I'd ridden a Flying Bobs that intense -- but Lakemont was really special. It's like it was the only thing meant to be right there, and that, like the unmistakable environs surrounding Wrigley, only added to the experience and to the historical significance.
Leap-the-Dips ascends to a height of roughly 30-40 feet, and features no tall drops, but rather a gentle, meandering course. Its speed tops out somewhere around a whopping 6 mph. The car must be pushed by the operator from the loading area to the lift hill, as there is no chain or tire mechanism connecting the two. There are no blocks: only one four-seat car is ever on the track at once. And sometimes the car doesn't make it to the end of the track, so the operator has to come out and push it the rest of the way into the station.
They just don't make 'em like that anymore, folks. And it's a goddamn shame, too, because these were not only the thrills of an older generation, but it was their entertainment. Their fun. And it's still fun, a whole lot of fun.
Not only was it fun, but it was inspiring. Because, while I've got quite a few ideas for stories and books percolating in my head right now -- including one that, yes, I have started, at long last -- my experience at Lakemont gave me an idea for a book that might lovingly rip a little bit off of my latest novelistic conquest, Dave Egger's You Shall Know Our Velocity! I'm not about to presume I'm going to out-Eggers Eggers, but I feel like there are a lot of facets possible in a story about two (or maybe more) people who tour small amusement parks in order to get back in touch with the simple pleasures that used to be the only worries in their lives, but eventually become the most elusive things in those very same lives. So if you see that novel before I write it, just remember: you heard it here first.
Later that Sunday, I was inspired again by a big force that I'd completely forgotten about and rediscovered by sheer accident. As I parked the car to pick up Chinese take-out on College Ave, I heard a vehicle across the street playing "Soldier Side" by System of a Down. System has always been a band that I've admired and advocated: they've never settled for complacency, they've always challenged themselves to do new, inventive things, whether they succeeded or failed, and they're just incredible musicians and composers.
There are some that will take that claim with a grain of salt, and for good reason. After all, this is a band that constructed most of a song around three words: banana terracotta pie. (Don't believe me? Listen to "Vicinity of Obscenity" and know that I do not lie.) And while many of the tracks from their 2005 double discs Mezmerize and Hypnotize contain repetitive verses and choruses, some tracks contain an unprecedented raw power that is unmatched in other music. "Question!" from Mezmerize, damn near coaxes goosebumps out of the simple question the title promises: Do we, do we know, when we fly, / When we, when we go, do we die? Or consider arguably their most powerful track, "Holy Mountains," in which they rage against those responsible for the Armenian genocide, but when they try to explain why it happened, they can only propose: Someone's blank stare deemed it warfare.
I remember reading an interview back around the release of Toxicity, in which Daron Malakian explained that his style of song-writing wasn't the sprawling, epic track that many bands aim for, but rather to contain that depth and degree of emotion in a short time-frame. A kind of short-burst epic, consisting of many rapid-fire, effective riffs, that seems perfectly matched to today's deficient attention spans. I feel System did just that, skewering the popular consciousness by adhering to the very standards imposed upon it by the world's increasing commercialization. It was far more than clever, effective satire: it was, and still is, art of the highest order.
Having heard and reheard all the System I have at my disposal -- and, thanks to iPod and iTunes, it's almost their entire studio-recorded discography -- I feel as renewed as I did at Lakemont on Sunday. Today was a day where the sort of creative dreams I had over the weekend had no room: it was my first day of English 015, and I was far more busy trying to hide my nervousness by reminding myself that my students' was far greater. That moment, though, came and went, and as each new moment in the classroom comes and goes, I will be spending hours in seminar and even more hours in reflection, working towards making sure that each individual moment generates a lesson that I will remember and carry with me to the next class, and to each new endeavor in my evolving career as a scholar of English.
And I'm hoping that the lessons of my Sunday of System and the Lakemont Leap-the-Dips continue to inspire me in the creative direction as well, as that direction is the one in which I have felt most lost as of late. I'd love the drought to end, and in the words of the ever-prophetic Rage Against the Machine: What better place than here? What better time than now?
The draw to Lakemont Park -- wherein sits the oldest operating roller coaster in the world, the Leap-the-Dips -- is the same that beckons the diehard baseball fan to Wrigley Field: partially, knowing that it's an important element to the history of your passion; but also because there's this distinct sense that, in a world increasingly overridden with the forced synergy of corporate consumerism, they just don't make 'em like they used to anymore.
Lakemont felt very much like this, not only for the presence of the Leap-the-Dips, but actually in comparison to a park like DelGrosso's Amusement Park, which we also visited on the way back from Altoona. DelGrosso's was a fine little park, consisting mostly of "permanentized" mobile amusement rides not unlike Lakemont, but its location was not nearly as charming as Lakemont's. Both sit just off Interstate 99, at a distance just far enough for you to remember it's there but not so close that it overwhelms either park's personality. DelGrosso's, though, has so much going on in its general vicinity that you get this sense that, if the park ever failed to maintain profitability, it could be overrun, replaced with some other business, and few would miss it. On the other hand, Lakemont sits on one side of an otherwise residential road. Sure, it's situated next to a brand-new public skating ice rink and the home stadium of the minor league Altoona Curve (hell, the Skyliner has gone from being the wooden coaster spotlight at the park's north end to a fixture that, at first glance, is alarmingly close to the right-center field fence), but there's no feeling that this was little more than a traveling carnival that found a nice spot of land and decided not to pull up their hitching posts.
And it's not the terrain that does this, either. Beech Bend Park, in Bowling Green, KY, was a surprise highlight of last year's Mid-Southern Comfort coaster tour, and with the exception of its new Kentucky Rumbler wooden coaster, the whole park is made up of portable rides that are just not moved anymore. It, like DelGrosso's, sits on a very flat piece of land, at the end of a road that is far from being flat and uneventful -- but unlike DelGrosso's, it also has this unmistakable charm, this intangible feel of being the little guy fighting the big bad rest of the world. It's refreshing, it's charming, it's damn fun.
None of this is to say that DelGrosso's wasn't fun -- on the contrary, we had a blast there: I spent much of the time trying to remember the last time I'd ridden a Flying Bobs that intense -- but Lakemont was really special. It's like it was the only thing meant to be right there, and that, like the unmistakable environs surrounding Wrigley, only added to the experience and to the historical significance.
Leap-the-Dips ascends to a height of roughly 30-40 feet, and features no tall drops, but rather a gentle, meandering course. Its speed tops out somewhere around a whopping 6 mph. The car must be pushed by the operator from the loading area to the lift hill, as there is no chain or tire mechanism connecting the two. There are no blocks: only one four-seat car is ever on the track at once. And sometimes the car doesn't make it to the end of the track, so the operator has to come out and push it the rest of the way into the station.
They just don't make 'em like that anymore, folks. And it's a goddamn shame, too, because these were not only the thrills of an older generation, but it was their entertainment. Their fun. And it's still fun, a whole lot of fun.
Not only was it fun, but it was inspiring. Because, while I've got quite a few ideas for stories and books percolating in my head right now -- including one that, yes, I have started, at long last -- my experience at Lakemont gave me an idea for a book that might lovingly rip a little bit off of my latest novelistic conquest, Dave Egger's You Shall Know Our Velocity! I'm not about to presume I'm going to out-Eggers Eggers, but I feel like there are a lot of facets possible in a story about two (or maybe more) people who tour small amusement parks in order to get back in touch with the simple pleasures that used to be the only worries in their lives, but eventually become the most elusive things in those very same lives. So if you see that novel before I write it, just remember: you heard it here first.
Later that Sunday, I was inspired again by a big force that I'd completely forgotten about and rediscovered by sheer accident. As I parked the car to pick up Chinese take-out on College Ave, I heard a vehicle across the street playing "Soldier Side" by System of a Down. System has always been a band that I've admired and advocated: they've never settled for complacency, they've always challenged themselves to do new, inventive things, whether they succeeded or failed, and they're just incredible musicians and composers.
There are some that will take that claim with a grain of salt, and for good reason. After all, this is a band that constructed most of a song around three words: banana terracotta pie. (Don't believe me? Listen to "Vicinity of Obscenity" and know that I do not lie.) And while many of the tracks from their 2005 double discs Mezmerize and Hypnotize contain repetitive verses and choruses, some tracks contain an unprecedented raw power that is unmatched in other music. "Question!" from Mezmerize, damn near coaxes goosebumps out of the simple question the title promises: Do we, do we know, when we fly, / When we, when we go, do we die? Or consider arguably their most powerful track, "Holy Mountains," in which they rage against those responsible for the Armenian genocide, but when they try to explain why it happened, they can only propose: Someone's blank stare deemed it warfare.
I remember reading an interview back around the release of Toxicity, in which Daron Malakian explained that his style of song-writing wasn't the sprawling, epic track that many bands aim for, but rather to contain that depth and degree of emotion in a short time-frame. A kind of short-burst epic, consisting of many rapid-fire, effective riffs, that seems perfectly matched to today's deficient attention spans. I feel System did just that, skewering the popular consciousness by adhering to the very standards imposed upon it by the world's increasing commercialization. It was far more than clever, effective satire: it was, and still is, art of the highest order.
Having heard and reheard all the System I have at my disposal -- and, thanks to iPod and iTunes, it's almost their entire studio-recorded discography -- I feel as renewed as I did at Lakemont on Sunday. Today was a day where the sort of creative dreams I had over the weekend had no room: it was my first day of English 015, and I was far more busy trying to hide my nervousness by reminding myself that my students' was far greater. That moment, though, came and went, and as each new moment in the classroom comes and goes, I will be spending hours in seminar and even more hours in reflection, working towards making sure that each individual moment generates a lesson that I will remember and carry with me to the next class, and to each new endeavor in my evolving career as a scholar of English.
And I'm hoping that the lessons of my Sunday of System and the Lakemont Leap-the-Dips continue to inspire me in the creative direction as well, as that direction is the one in which I have felt most lost as of late. I'd love the drought to end, and in the words of the ever-prophetic Rage Against the Machine: What better place than here? What better time than now?
posted by Dave at 8/27/2007 11:44:00 PM
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