The metonymic interlocutors work synergistically in a sense as displaceable transporters between the mountain and the speaker’s table: his writing, his recreation of the mountain carries him from his desk to the mountain and back again. The prose conjures the image of a writer staring over a well-illustrated manuscript; a man at his table breathing in the dusty oxygen of words on a page, staring at the work he has created, his language metonymically transporting him to the space of the mountain.

From the space of the mountain; the imagined creative space within the writer’s chamber and the words of his own creation, metaphor begins to expose itself. The mountain “reminded him how he had needed/A place to go in his own direction.” That place is the space of the book within his chamber, being created by his mind. A place, “where his inexactness/Would discover at last, the view toward which they had edged,” that is a setting where the speaker is rendered whole; a room of his own creation, “his unique and solitary home.”

The metaphor then is within the poem, which the speaker created with his own language from his own mind. Therefore, when the speaker used language to create the mountain, he created his own “unique and solitary home.”  Metonimically linked back to the chamber of his office, the speaker’s “unique and solitary home” is within him, in the enclosed space of his table, his office, his mind, which are all the resources he used to create the mountain in the first place.

The movie–Toy Story 3–made me nostalgic and depressed and sad all afternoon. This is because I was seven years old when the first Toy Story came out between the summer of first and second grade. Andy’s toys were my  best friends, just like my dog Spot and my Ninja Turtles figurines. We grew up together, Andy and me.

Growing up at the same time as a cartoon, that’s why I felt so damn nostalgic today as Andy when he gave up his childhood to make a little girl happy.

Andy left for college, albeit, four years after me, and I was happy to see him go–because I think Disney Pixar set a good example by sending him there–regardless of the family situation, single mother or not, any person is still capable of going to college.

I think that after Toy Story 3, I had the hardest time accepting that Andy had left Woody, Buzz, The Potato Head’s, Rex and Jesse’s life. As I mentioned before, when I saw the original Toy Story, I was Andy’s age, and college or leaving never crossed my mind. The thought of Andy’s toys–the animated beings I grew up with–regressing to a period where they might get played with as new or young person, breaks my heart. It breaks my heart because I don’t know what I did with my old toys in the months before I went to college: I left those toys lost somewhere in a yard sale–like Bo-Peep and her sheep–or I forgot where I put them.

I only hope that, even four years older, I can find the love Andy had for his toys and simply to let them go.

I had brought two books to entertain me: Jarrod Diamond’s Collapse and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. I read neither. Instead, I was drawn to a 1965 paperback copy of Esther Forbes’ Johnny Tremain, which I found in Cabin 2 (initially named the “kid’s cabin” by my cousin Jake, it would later become the “fart cabin,” even the “shit cabin” after two other cousins pooped in the middle of the lake.) The book had been on my fifth grade book report list, yet, I had never actually gotten around to reading it, so I decided with no better time but the present to lug it to the beach with me on a daily basis.

When I noticed that Johnny Tremain was originally copyrighted in 1943, I decided that it might be interesting to read from the perspective of its time-period: as a myth meant to boost American morale and instill hope during the darkest period of World War II.

This proposed reading, however, did not come through as seamlessly as I had anticipated. Yes, Johnny Tremain’s biography is mythological, but only in the sense that Esther Forbes injected Johnny’s fictional character at the epicenter of a condensing core of animosity against tyrannical taxation. Overall, the narrative is a rather accurate reprisal of events and dialogue, even containing the men who made up the Sons of Liberty, who called the Revolution to arms: Paul Revere, James Otis and Samuel Adams to name a few.

Amidst this backdrop of historical characters, Johnny Tremain and his best friend Rab become observers and actors in the events that drove the colonies to war against Britain: The Boston Tea Party, the Battle at Lexington, where Rab is mortally injured. It is only here, at the end of the novel, when my initial idea of reading Tremain as a by-product of much badly needed American morale at the darkest hour of World War II really shined through.

Forbes writes, in the last few paragraphs of the novel:

“Please God, out of this New England soil such men would forever rise up ready to fight when need came. The one generation after the other.

“Close on the heels of the marching men was an old chaise containing their commanding officer. For if you couldn’t get to the fight on food you went on horseback—and if not on horseback you went in a chaise…

“But he [Johnny] knew the old major wouldn’t stop. He had to get his men on to Cambridge and the siege of Boston.

“True, Rab had died. Hundreds would die, but not the thing they died for.

“‘A man can stand up…’”

That is, a man can stand up for his own liberty, for the freedom to dissent against his government without the fear of persecution, concentration or destruction; that this ideal and fight for liberty would never die so long as generations of American men would be willing to fight for it so that others could live amidst that freedom. What Forbes achieves through this conclusion, then—a conclusion that unveils the reality of American war, while simultaneously proclaiming the necessity of it for the continued existence of freedom—is a message of comfort in the midst of World War II for the families of those who had died and one of hope for those who were still fighting. American soldiers facing Fascist regimes in both the Pacific Ocean and on European soil, were fighting for a freedom that generations before them had sacrificed their lives for, so that they too might give the ultimate sacrifice so that generations of Americans—like myself—may have the power to stand up for our own liberty.

Without realizing it, I finished Johnny Tremain just two days before the Fourth of July. As I was reading it on the beach, two Blue Angels fighter jets flew above me toward the Sleeping Bear Dunes. The Angel’s were in Traverse City for the weekend’s Cherry Festival and must have been practicing for their shows.

While I can appreciate the merits of a standing army, I have a very difficult time accepting displays of military chauvinism and power. Those two high-powered jets were burning an inordinate amount of fossil fuels while consuming American tax dollars that could have been diverted to education or other social programs. The Blue Angels fly simply for the entertainment of mass crowds of Americans who drive their families of four, northward while pulling thirty-foot miniature-yachts behind them. The Blue Angels’ fighter planes flew in Traverse City so that these middle-class American families could rest assured that their government—with is military blank-check—was protecting them from all foreign invaders (real and imagined).

The military-industrial complex places our nation’s strongest emphasis on constant development of new weapons under the auspice that this vested interest will accrue ultimate protection for our citizenry. Simultaneously, this unchecked military development has left a monetary void that could and should be going to our nation’s public school systems; after all will there really be a citizenry worth defending that only knows how to do addition on a remote control? Then again, maybe the Military-Industrial Complex and the funding it could be diverting from public schools is all part of some big conspiracy to keep the American population stupid, never giving them the knowledge or resources to dissent with. This view, I think, is antithetical to Forbes’ that all American men and women have the right to stand up for their own liberty based on the sacrifices of those that came before them.

I will conclude by saying that I am proud to be American, proud of all the privileges and freedoms this citizenship affords me, including the right to dissent about our military-industrial complex on the web. What I crave, however, is a nation that prizes its heritage not so much in terms of the blood that was shed to obtain liberty, but rather as the founder of democracy where every citizen is awarded liberty by birth and is, indeed, given the right to stand up: equal rights to education, healthcare, shelter and food. It’s a dream that has lasted two-hundred thirty four years now, one that must be realized, equalized and clung to on the home front before being proliferated through militant means on an international level.

At least I can rest assured knowing that my nephew is consuming a beverage that is 100% juice (concentrate) containing no high fructose corn syrup.

2)    Puritanism mixes Religion and Politics as a foundational pillar of American social order.

3)    Taxation without representation, Quartering Acts, The Boston Massacre—time to start getting pissed.

4)    Vive la Révolution!

5)    War of 1812—“And the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.”

6)    States rights: who is to say the South is simply a producer of raw materials and slaves  while the North reap the profits.

7)    This shit just got CIVIL!

8)    And there goes the President… Rest in Peace, Mr. Lincoln.

9)    Robber Barron’s bring rise to the corporation: Wealth is best when kept in the hands of the few as the masses are made to subordinate as replaceable cogs in the industrial machine.

10)  European protectionism during an era of mistrust lead to a series of protectionist pacts. In the months following the assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, successor to the throne, Europe was plunged into an era of mechanized warfare.

1. The sinking of the RMS Lusitania by German U-Boat, killing 128 US citizens. After the emergence of the Zimmerman Telegram in which Germany proposed Mexico declare war against the US, President Wilson pulled the country into the War to end all Wars.

11)  Alcohol is amoral, therefore it should be regulated and prohibited per US Law.

1. THE 1920s RULED—EVERY MOMENT OF IT WAS A PARTY LIKE THEY HAD IN THE GREAT GATSBY!
2. Oh fuck, here comes the Mafia!

12) And, it turns out all along our stock market was running on outdated industries and over inflated currency. Welcome to the Great Depression.

13)  The Grapes of Wrath was an awesome and sad book. Grandma Joad’s foul language will be forever endearing and her death will break our hearts over and over again for all eternity of great literature.

14)  Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii unprovoked and suddenly, the United States was plunged back into war—a noble war if there ever was one—against fascist regimes, liberating—if too late for many millions—populations from genocide.

15)  The rise of the nuclear age emerges simultaneously with the suburban role of the white, American, nuclear family consuming plastic, living in the suburbs. EVERYONE AGREES THAT THE UNITED STATES IS THE GREATEST PLACE TO LIVE IN THE WORLD! (except African American’s, sexual deviants, communists and dissenters).

16)  Bay of Pigs, Mutually Assured Destruction—Our conformist way of life is better than thou, USSR and we will prove it to the destruction of the human race. RIP President Kennedy.

1968) Turns out American’s actually don’t agree: Woodstock, Vietnam, RIP Bobby.

17) The election of President Nixon brings out a full on War on Crime, War on Drugs—it turns out neither can ever be won. Watergate was a crime: HYPOCRISY!

18) Jimmy Carter, while I agree with the idea of cutting down our addiction on foreign oil, it’s difficult to do while condemning the consumptive lifestyle so strongly integrated with American, suburban culture—liberal America dies a bit.

1980-1988) REAGANOMICS! Free markets, big business, production export to China and the rise of the Religious Right.

1992-2000: The successes Bill Clinton’s Presidency is overshadowed by a sexual affair with intern Monica Lewinsky, teaching America’s precious children that oral sex is not actually sex and therefore is okay to lie under oath about because it’s not actually lying. .

January 2001: A disputed chad, a ballot fiasco in Florida, and a Supreme Court decision usurps the Presidency in the name of the House of Bush—one of the most wide-reaching crimes in United States history.

September 11, 2001: The Attack on America plunges the United States into two wars (under the buffoonery of W’s leadership) against an enemy without a face. George W. Bush’s War of Terror bankrupts the nation of debtors.

October 2008: TARP is a TRAP, $700 billion to bail out big business, rewarding them for risky banking practices.

November 4, 2008: Barack Obama is elected first African American President of the United States promising an era of hope and change.

February 2009: President Obama signs the American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law as a stimulus to return the economy to a track of positive growth and to lay the foundation for a twenty-first century economy.

January 2010: After more than a year of fierce and bitter debate, President Obama signs healthcare reform into law promises non-denial of coverage

April 20, 2010: British Petroleum’s DeepWater Horizon oil rig explodes of the Louisiana Coast in the Gulf of Mexico causing the worst environmental disaster of human history, the effects of which (top-kill chemicals and oil itself) will not be felt for years to come.

instead I drank a lot of gin with tonic.

Salam, I killed our pint with the help of Sarah. It was your repayment for the Hippie Hash I never had the money for. How come every time we go to the Fleetwood you have to spot me three, four, seven bucks for breakfast? True friends save friends the pain of walking to the ATM at four a.m. to pay for their late night stir-fry of green peppers, white onions, mushrooms and feta cheese on a bed of hash browns. Cover it in ketchup and enough Frank’s Red Hot to ulcerate my stomach in three years and the empty rock at the pit of my chest begins to fade away.

Three years from now: I will be twenty-four. My stomach will have a hot-sauce induced ulcer. It will be Halloween 2012. The Mayan Calender will end and computers will crash worse than Y2K. Enter the digital dark age where everything stored on the Internet will be gone for good. No more Youtube clips of “Single Ladies Gone Wrong:”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN5YbfFszlI

where the lady in the creepy clown mask bashes her head on a TV, nor Smooth Criminal danced at Michael Jackson’s 1992 Dangerous Tour when one man danced better than a professional troupe of back-up dancers:

they couldn’t even keep up with him. My favorite part of the video is when the girl in the sideways hat sings along to Michael with a smile on her face.

In the digital dark age, none of this will matter and all will be written by hand or on my 1934 Underwood: $30 at a Garage Sale in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula two summer’s ago–Saint Augustine, tell me more about the creation of the individual through the interior.

I start with blue face paint, a furry cap–ten years old from Austria,

then my bright Central Michigan t-shirt to create the body

and white pants for my legs. Tonight I wore blue tights that made my legs look really hot,

and red shorts that made me Papa Smurf.

Until I went to Lester Co-op

and thought they were all staring at me

like I didn’t belong. With open mouths and wide eyes

because I was the only person painted

and only half the house wore costumes.

Face paint is itchy

blue makes me feel like an outsider,

till Sarah rubbed the left side of my chest,

told me to feel better

and lifted the world off my heart.

Anna drove me to my bedroom and

the shower melted the blue from my face.

Papa Smurf retires tonight

because I’m tired

painting my face for attention.

orange, red, yellow crunch.

Each second I move, more leaves fall from a tree and land under my shoes.

Even when I’m sad, they make me smile:

I kick them like Charlie Brown, explosions in the air

imperfect unison

shivers in my spine

because

atmosphere shifts from summer heat,  and grips my heart.

Stay warm.

Deny winter’s ferocity

til Christmas forgets Halloween.