A Pulsing Habitat

Gary Snyder's "North Beach" is anything but a simplistic recollection of the good times he spent in the sunny neighborhood in San Francisco. While it is clear that he is somewhat nostalgic for vibrant and creative space that he left behind in the 1950s, Snyder, as he so often does in his other pieces, pushes his readers to view North Beach as a "habitat" that is being threatened by capitalistic and environmental ruin. When thinking about North Beach or any cultural and artistic center in this way, it becomes necessary to protect it so that it can continue to flourish.

Snyder establishes North Beach as a unique habitat from the first page of the essay. He describes the appeal of the neighborhood and what kind of people it attracts. Unlike Brechin's Imperial San Francisco, Snyder focuses from the very beginning on the "totally non-Anglo" (Snyder 3), a different history that Brechin continually ignored in his book. The whole appeal of North Beach to Snyder and other beats was the rich "culture of warmth" (3) that diversity provided. To Snyder, North Beach was a habitat for those who felt the "spiritual and political loneliness of America of the fifties..." (3). He goes on to describe the neighborhood from a native inhabitant's perspective, as if he is just walking around the city showing the reader around. He mixes images of industry, such as "the Barbary Coast strip of clubs" with ecological images like "a tiny watershed divide" (4), constantly reminding his readers that North Beach is a habitat by repeating the term throughout the piece. Finally, to really express the importance of North Beach as a habitat in need of preservation, Snyder drops lines such as, "...pulse after pulse came out of North Beach from the fifties forward that touched the lives of people around the world" (5).

This idealized habitat is contrasted by images of imperial power and cultural degradation. Often, Snyder reflects on this with nostalgia and longing for a simpler time, particularly when he speaks of the Transamerica Pyramid: "A habitat. The Transamerica Pyramid, a strikingly wasteful and arrogant building, stands square on what was once called Montgomery Block, a building that housed the artists and revolutionaries of the thirties and forties" (4-5). The nostalgia continues when he states, "That close, loose circle of comrades, lovers, freaks, and friends (how many we mourn already!) in the rolling terrain of North Beach..." (6). It is as if he is mourning a time when North Beach was at its peak of creative production, and now, with the threat of "wasteful and arrogant" influence pushing its way into this special habitat, Snyder fears that the past and the foundations of the neighborhood will be completely forgotten.

Although Snyder does appear to be longing for the past in this essay, he is not suggesting that North Beach returns to it. Through the mixture of images of the past and the present, Snyder indicates that the habitat of North Beach is continually evolving. It will never be what it was in the 1950s and Snyder knows this. He simply requests from his readers that the foundations of North Beach be carried on into the future, protected and admired.

Question: Snyder's "Four Changes" was written in 1969. Do you think any of the changes that Snyder believed should happen have happened since then? How do we read a piece like this in the present, when we are somewhat bombarded by green movements and the concept of sustainability? 

Personal and Racial Hygiene

(Pears's Soap Ad- Page 163)

In this particular section of the book, Brechin focuses on the role of the Union Iron Works company and its contributions to the San Francisco military contado. The Pears's Soap advertisement represents these ideas along with the more daunting themes of impending war, racial discrimination in San Francisco, the power of American imperialism, and the concept of femininity in the early 1900s. 

In the passage leading up to this advertisement, Brechin discusses the Great White Fleet and the multiple purposes of this display of naval power. Among many reasons for this cruise, President Roosevelt "...wanted Japan, in particular, to understand American strength and resolve" (Brechin 162). In the advertisement, this idea is definitely conveyed through the battleships. Because of the proportions and angles of the ad, the ships seem to go on far beyond the horizon, as if there are hundreds of them. The apparent size of the fleet in the ad suggests that the United States is prepared and well-equipped for anything, including war and imperial domination. The smoke from the ships darkens the white clouds in the advertisement and the decks are crowded with sailors, adding to the intimidation factor of these ships. It is as if they are ready to do battle right there in the San Francisco Bay. Finally, the battleship in the foreground charges through the ocean with power and gives the viewers of the ad an idea of the size of these massive ships as it comes closer to the woman on the soap stack. All of these details portray America and its military as a force to be reckoned with in a time of political uncertainty and the increasing threat of war.

Although the battleships clearly communicate imperialism and war in the ad, the central and more bizarre focus is placed on the woman and the soap in the ad. The woman embodies another of Roosevelt's ideas behind the cruise: "Roosevelt also hoped that the visit of the fleet to San Francisco would equally impress its citizens, popularizing his beloved navy and mollifying Californians for his interference in the recent school board affair" (162). The woman clearly appears to be impressed by the display of battleships. Her wistful facial expression and body language suggest that she is completely adoring of the fleet. She appears fragile and pure in her modest white gown as she waves her handkerchief at the ships, as if she needs their protection. The focus of the ad is on her, which makes the statement that a woman's role during this time period was to be indirectly supportive of the troops. To do this, she must be a symbol of innocence that is worth protecting. This suggests that the women need protecting from "yellow peril", or the belief that the culture and territory of the United States would be "imminently inva[ded]" by Asia, Japan specifically (157). This is where is seemingly inadequate link between battleships and soap comes in. 

The text in the ad states, "Two of the world's most useful and valued necessities to protect our women and keep them happy." This is a strange advertisement slogan at first glance. How could soap "protect" women? This goes back to one of Roosevelt's main reasons for sending the fleet to San Francisco. When San Francisco made the decision to segregate Japanese-Americans from whites and other races, Roosevelt strongly opposed it, calling the decision a "wicked absurdity" (158). Given the prominence of the soap and the fact that it is placed right in the middle of the Great White Fleet, one cannot help but make the association that the artist of the ad casts the soap in a double role. It keeps women happy by cleaning their bodies and protects them from the "imminent invasion" of the Japanese-Americans in San Francisco. The soap keeps them clean from the spoiling of the American population, which was so highly propagandized during the early 1900s. Further, The Overland Monthly, the widely read and racially intolerant paper this ad appeared in, supported the idea of segregation and was highly influential in the minds of San Franciscans. Like the Great White Fleet, this ad serves to boost pro-American morale, but on a darker note, it also propels anti-Japanese sentiment that was already raging in San Francisco.  

Question: How do you think Americans would react to a paper like the Overland Monthly today?

Digesting Furniture into Flowers and Trees

Images of environmental degradation and industrial conquest saturate Richard Brautigan's 'Trout Fishing in America'. Brautigan leaves no stream or bank untouched by human imprint. He portrays nature in 'Trout Fishing' as a victim to the pollution, disruption, and industrial impact of humans. Brautigan presents recurring images of death, decay, and ecological deformation to induce a sort of sympathy toward nature, which is repeatedly violated by humans throughout the novel. While Brautigan clearly takes on a grim and unpromising attitude toward nature in 'Trout Fishing', he brings in a much different perspective in the poem "Let's Voyage into the New American House" from 'The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster' collection.

Instead of focusing on nature as the victim in this piece, the speaker takes a deep look at one particular human-created structure that is overtaking nature: the American home. The speaker personifies the house and its desires in the poem. The house wants to fall apart and befriend nature, as opposed to destroying it, which is so obviously portrayed in 'Trout Fishing'. The poem is presented in a list pattern. By creating a repetitive list of parts of the house that want to be free, Brautigan suggests that the list could keep going on and on because he only mentions five parts of the house in the poem. This is both hopeful  and saddening because on one hand, it shows readers a different side of human-created structures. The personification of the different parts of the house make the structure seem as if it wants to be something better or something more than a human tool to destroy nature. However, it is saddening because doors will never "fly with perfect clouds", and floors will never "digest/their furniture into/flowers and trees". the house is stuck in a transition between wanting to be something better than what it is and being imprisoned by the desires of humans, Americans specifically. While human industry continues to destroy nature, it is also imprisoning the structures themselves.

Question:

Trout Fishing in America: What do you think came first? The novel or the cover?