ZackMcTee: Thanks for this…I’m goan check this out… I’ve been talking about doing something like this for a while now. Let’s see if the next couple of years bring the “american dream” and then I can go ahead and live some REAL dreams. The American Dream is such a joke, but boy could it afford you to do some stuff that you really want to do.
Today, my mom, in town from New Orleans, bought me the book Atchafalaya Houseboat, which accompanies a documentary described thusly by PBS:
The critically acclaimed story shares the experiences of Gwen Roland and her companion Calvin Voisin, who left civilization in the turmoil of the early 1970s to return to the simple, quiet lifestyle of their great-grandparents in the vast, unspoiled beauty of the nation’s largest river swamp, Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin. Without power tools or construction experience, the pair designed and built a floating home, on which they lived a rich life in a remote sleepy bayou, for nearly a decade.The above photo is of Roland on their houseboat, and it is quite beautiful. Before we went to the bookstore, we were in an upscale furniture gallery, the sort where there are almost as many water-sculptures as beds, and as I wandered around I started to want things: leather sofas, clever tables, richly textured pillows.
Merely seeing such things, whose existence I am ordinarily unaware of, instantly incites consumer lust: I imagine myself reading on the chocolate brown sectional, warm light from the craned steel lamp bathing the page: a phony and desirable synthesis of bookishness and bachelorhood and Yuppie splendor.
I thought, while pacing around, how much better it would be to never be reminded of the existence of desirable products, products which you don’t need but which speak to all your subconscious (indeed denied) hopes of legitimacy, attractiveness, intelligence, class, acculturation, and so on. Wouldn’t it be nice to be a hermit, an ascetic in the woods?
Wouldn’t it be nice to not inadvertently take your free first hit of the addictive lifestyle product rush? To never want the brilliant eco-friendly headboard, the social-interaction-promising, conversation-creating living room set?
I think Roland and Voisin probably had it right out there in the swamp.
(Nevertheless, I bought too many books, despite not being done with my current books; and I still want, want, want. I’m like one of those alcoholics who says, “I’m an alcoholic!” cheerily, as though saying it reduces the extent to which it will corrode your life; actually, I was one of those.)
I think about this all the time. In fact, I was going to write something in response, but instead, I think I’ll go think about it some more. Somewhere outside, away from my MacBook and my walk-in closet.
Mills - Perhaps it’s (homemade?) weeHouse time. Just a thought.
