If San Francisco is an iconic and beloved city that defines the west coast to outsiders, then the Golden Gate Bridge is more an iconic symbol of California than the grizzly bear prowling the state flag. Like Highway 1 and the coastline it winds along, the Golden Gate Bridge is one of California’s greatest attractions. I have driven on, walked across, and taken a boat tour under, that bridge.
The 2006 documentary, The Bridge, aesthetically resembles countless postcards of the Golden Gate, and the surrounding areas it connects together. It feels as though it were filmed from every geographic point from which the looming red gate can be seen, and it captures, much like a living object, its different personalities. We see the Golden Gate from above, below, and behind surrounding parks. Time-lapse photography allows its appearance to change in seconds as fog rolls in and out of the bay, clouds linger or pass across the highest suspension points, as rare San Francisco mornings of bright blue push yesterdays clutter from the sky. Quoting an article from the New Yorker entitled “Jumpers,” on which the film was based, “there is a fatal grandeur to the place.”
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“Life, though it looks tender on the outside, is very crunchy on the inside, which may be why we prefer it with food.”
I have always had problems when it comes to heroes. I remember Mr. Harutunian, when I was in his English 101 honors class, pacing the classroom, asking of us, who are your heroes? I think his point had something to do with my generations problems, and what he saw as a lack of something. I do remember, however, vividly thinking about the idea of a “hero” for the first time in my life. Who were my heroes? The question seemed absurd to the point of being completely baffling, I could not think of anyone I knew personally, and my generational references were not large enough to provide someone either-perhaps that was his point, we don’t have any. Perhaps he was questioning-much more likely, really-what a hero was, why we had them (if we did), and how a hero might change with someones age and interests. Who did the public provide for us, who did we construct ourselves, and to whom, within the confines of our reality, would we give that title? To have a hero, it seemed, one must completely agree with, support and believe in, that person or thing implicitly and without question-a feat impossible for a 16-year-old, frustrated and suspicious. I had a very similar problem when Gregory Volk, the first day of his seminar, asked what artists we would “one-hundred-percent” (with emphasis on each syllable) stand behind: in other words, what artists did we believe in implicitly? Again, I was at a loss for words and intentions. Was he trying to find out what kind of artists we were by our loves and inspirations, was he testing our knowledge of current artists (the one I believe to be true), was he seeing if we looked forward (to the forerunners of ‘art now’) or backwards for our references? If he had asked who I looked at and why, I could have given a coherent list of artists and explanations, though it might be a bit shabbier and more dated list than it should be, but I could not think of a single artist who I would “stand behind”. Why? The same reasons, I believe, I could not pick a hero at 16.
It was Katherine Hixson ( ironically enough) who gave her class an essay by Gopnik to read when we were (oddly enough) talking about food, Alice Waters, and Proust in the Critical Issues/Fiber & Material Studies class. After suffering through maddening selections of Proust (which I am now determined to reread), Gopnik’s essay was humorous if dense, and enlightening of a profession I had never given much thought to. It was a mad bit of luck that I began my stay in France around the same time that I began to read Paris to the Moon, the source of the essay, and a book that happened to be about Gopnik’s five year stay in Paris with his wife and newborn son. I am not sure I have ever agreed with a book so heartily, for while his stay and observations went much deeper than mine-he became a part of the culture rather than an onlooker from the sidelines-his descriptions were a part of my everyday life. I doubt very much if a French person would feel the same way, but American to American, expatriate to expatriate, it was right. He has an incredible habit of drawing large sweeping conclusions out of small, unimportant events and objects. I subscribed to the New Yorker this year because of him, only to find, much to my disappointment, that he does not write very often, of course when he does it is worth the wait. A few weekends ago while bookstore shopping in the National Gallery, Jake found his new book, Through the Children’s Gate, a Home in New York, a book about his return to New York City shortly before 9/11, and the raising of his family after. Although I never would consciously have said it, I never thought I could disagree with his conclusions.
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