27 August 2007 - Pittsburgh, PA
Maybe it was the full moon. Maybe it was the warm weather. Maybe the Rolling Stones were in town. Maybe we were competing with some staged public battle between a local Named-After-An-Almost-Extinct-Wild-Animal sports team and a from-far-away Named-After-An-Almost-Extinct-Wild-Animal sports team. Maybe it was the fact that classes were just resuming at Pitt. Maybe it was the atomization of individuals and breakdown of community inherent in the large city experience. Maybe it was a lingering fear of zombie attack. Whatever the reason, the Pittsburgh screening was very small.
We knew it would happen eventually. We knew that, one of these days, we would build it, and they would not come. So in a way, it’s a relief. It happened. And we survived the experience. But still…
We had some nice walks through the Oakland neighborhood, from our hotel to the strip of restaurants and shops near Pitt. We had some great conversations with Jason and Giuli, about psychology and evolution and scale, about navigating collapse, about tribalism and re-wilding and finding new ways of being as the absurd and insane dominant culture unravels around us. It was really good to meet them, to hear what they were up to, to share wisdoms and experiences and insights. We wish the Tribe of Anthropik the very best in their endeavors as the future unfurls…
We showed the doc to a small group in a cozy conference room at the Holiday Inn. Afterwards, we stayed and talked for some time, a small circle of souls, awake and aware as the city slept all around us. It was sweet and real in its own special way. And walking back to the car in the night, the zombies left us alone.
As a general rule of thumb, we noticed a correlation between large cities and smaller attendance on this tour. We’ve speculated a number of reasons for this. We wonder how much it has to do with the connectedness of our screening organizers, and how much easier it is to be connected in a smaller town. And we’ve wondered if it might just be much more difficult to stop and look seriously at the world situation when you are living in a large urban area, knowing deep inside that those larger urban areas are likely to be hardest hit. Lots of ideas. We’ll continue to observe and reflect, as we travel about with the doc. There is, as always, much to learn.
On to Baltimore…
Email This Post To A Friend
This entry was posted
on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 10:54 am and is filed under Travel Blog.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
August 31st, 2007 at 1:25 pm
hi again, Sally (and Tim!)
PLEASE don’t feel discouraged–it was cool to meet yinz face-to-face on Monday night!
all of your guesses as to why the small showing are partially correct–and none of them are your doing.
also, as you may have heard mentioned prior to the screening when the two random bio-fuel/bike/urban permaculture guys were talking–Pittsburgh has the unique distinction of being one of the cities with the most progressive, creative and interesting groups who can somehow NEVER manage to hook up with each other!
we are notorious here for poor planning, poor communication, zero promotion, and total disorganization between groups, in that regard. amazing things happen in this city all the time, but finding out about them in time to be a part of them…that’s tricky! i’m sure lots of ‘Burgh people are now kicking themselves, having just discovered you were here to show the film, and they missed it! they’ll just have to send for the DVD now!
i’m so sorry and apologize once more for not being able to stay after, but it was getting too late, and our bus system is good, but not great, and i didn’t want to get stranded at midnight!
even so, i got some good energy and useful contact info from the above mentioned two guys, that i hope to follow up on–i think this city may be *just* barely small enough, and situated well geographically, to be a place where that “soft landing” might actually happen to some extent, via projects like Mildred’s Daughters Urban Farm http://www.post-gazette.com/food/20030814farmwoman0814fnp3.asp, the Free Ride bikes http://www.freeridepgh.org, and so on. these are not solutions, but they are steps toward a better direction, and they are people who indeed have taken matters into hand and begun to work.
i remain impressed with your film, and your efforts. you’ll have an effect on my city eventually…don’t worry!
peace!
patricia
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:44 am
Hi Patricia,
Thanks! We’re not feeling discouraged! We were happy to be there, and hook up with Jason and Giuli, and to meet you. The whole tour was training for us in letting go of control, in just showing up and letting things be what they are, in being with who showed up. Great training to have, in these times. It’ll come in handy!
Glad to know that Pittsburgh has so many good things going for it, and so many moving in a better direction. Thank you for taking good care of yourself and getting on the bus when you needed to!
September 4th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
I really do need to apologize for how things went in Pittsburgh. The good news is, I got to meet you guys; the bad news is, as an event, the whole thing fell apart from top to bottom, for all the possibilities you mentioned.
Y’know, heading home Monday night after we were locked out of the garage by about a minute and waiting for a campus cop to come let us in, I told Giuli, “Well, everything that can go wrong has; now I just need to get them to the train station on time tomorrow morning. At least we can’t screw up that one, right?”
Famous last words.
Sure enough, I slept right through the alarm, and woke up at 7:14. Train leaves at 8:10. In downtown. Through traffic. Frankly, I was surprised to see that somebody had caught us on tape, much less posted it to YouTube.
(Yes, I drive the General Lee.)
But all’s well that ends well, as Shakespeare’s Trickster put it, and as much as I stacked the deck against myself, at least I got you there on time!
Oy. So once again, a thousand apologies, there’s really nobody but me to blame. It was really great getting to meet you; I just wish the rest of the weekend could’ve panned out a little better.
September 5th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Hey Jason,
I don’t see the need to apologize, my friend. Instead, from my view, the thing to do, for all of us, when things don’t go as we expect, is to stop, take some time, and ask the deep questions about why things didn’t turn out the way we thought they would, about how our own actions got in the way, about the stories and assumptions and beliefs we’ve carried that blind us and limit us and have us stack the deck against ourselves, about the old wounds and unresolved issues that drive us at levels we are not even aware of. This is the work we must do to step into new levels of responsibility and awareness and maturity.
You already know this, of course, at least in part, as it’s the work you are doing at the cultural level. Like the Pittsburgh screening, the world situation is not working out the way we thought it would, and you are doing the work of deep questioning, uncovering and analyzing the deep stories and beliefs and habits that have brought us to this point. You are looking for a way for human beings to step back into responsibility and maturity and relationship with the planet. That is a response that goes far beyond an apology. That is the work of actually making amends. That is the work that really counts.
So we don’t need to worry about blame, I think. Pittsburgh went like it did for many reasons, and it was neither bad nor wrong. It was what it was. And part of what it was was really great, as it gave us an opportunity to meet you and Giuli and some of your people.
And we got some great stories to look back at and laugh about one day!
Perhaps next time we’ll just take the General Lee all the way to Philly and forget the train altogether…
Until then, our best to ya’ll in Pittsburgh. Glad to see you back online, with enough bandwidth to keep you going!