The symbolic meaning of X-mas decorations and…., nothing

One of my three part-time jobs, in this wrecked working-class culture of Wisconsin, has me recently toiling in Down Town Janesville, Wisconsin.  Starting this new downtown project, I had little time to notice the latest nuances of said fair city. And, we went with out snow for all of December 2014 – a very rare occurrence.  So, it was basically at the 30 mile-per-hour drive-by, just another dreary downtown in Wisconsin in a snowless December.

Deciding to take a break on Christmas Eve, and all my family out of town, I drove downtown to the site of my latest project to use it as a base for some evening debauchery. There would no doubt be a couple adult beverage haunts still open late. In other words, I was not planning on diving home.  I planned to and did indeed, just stay downtown at my studio for the night. As I drove, I took my mind off my abysmal work world, and…, I thought of my studio, my only bright spot in a city and work world ravaged by out-sourcing and left with minimum wage part-time jobs. But, when I drove to said base station early in that evening of the pending Christmas Day, it hit me between the eyes like a rock.

There were literally….., no Christmas lights in the downtown….., on Christmas Eve.

It was a stunning absence of a tradition.  It was a compelling statement of…., nothing.

Later the next night while working a production job on the evening of Christmas Day, my mind could hearken back to the former evening’s discovery.  There were just nine…, yes nine, sad light-pole decorations on Main Street.  Some kind souls had paid to put them up – some lighted snow flakes as large as basketball hoops on their sides. And Main Street in Janesville oddly enough, is a side street.  The lights just happened to be on the block in front of my studio.

I had heard a few days later on the radio, the new City Manager, trying to explain his five-percent pay raise in the midst of a city with….,  no Christmas lights.  He basically said something to the effect (and paraphrasing here), “You guys need to bump up my pay or I’ll leave too. If you want decorations…, you pay for it.”  He makes well over 140 grand a year.  I on the other hand, got my last pay raise in 2007, and it was a 15 cent raise per hour.

There is an old theory in Communications called, “Symbolic Iteractionism.”  It basically, in a nutshell, says, non-verbal signs and symbols are powerful messages.  In the Vietnamese section of greater Los Angeles for example, they still fly the old South Vietnamese flag on their light poles in Westminster (Little Saigon). In Northern Iraq, they refuse to fly the Iraqi flag and fly their own Kurdish flag. That would be like Wisconsin refusing to fly the American Flag.  Powerful omissions without speaking a word.

What was the wordless message that hit me between the eyes on that quiet Christmas Eve as I drove around the curve on East Milwaukee Street hill and looked down into Down Town Janesville? A city of some 63,000 people. The flagship County Seat city of Rock County. A county of 160,000 people.

Here is what I was told by…., the…., nothingness.

“Hi silly traveler. Why are you going through our downtown?  We don’t give a fuck about our downtown. Why would you? Take another route and find another town if you want to see Christmas lights.  We damn sure don’t care about our town and we sure the hell…, don’t care if you care.”

In the City Council meetings however…., we will ring our hands and gnash our teeth over the 50-year plight of Down Town Janesville, and say with a sly factious grin…, right after we vote the City Manager a fat pay raise….,

“We gotta fix Downtown…., so people use it!!!!”

Boorish Billboard

9 May 2007

Boorish Billboard

This entry was posted on 5/9/2007 1:30 AM and is filed under Marriage, Assignment of Meaning.

The Chicago billboard advertising divorce legal service is a treasure trove of social commentary. See: Divorce Billboard. Coincidently the law firm that put it up is an all female firm – not sure if that is relevant. The billboard simply says: “Life’s short. Get a Divorce.” The words are flanked only by a picture of a man’s bare chest and a woman’s cleavage. The talk radio stations are salivating with analysis, other attorneys groan that this is just the latest bad-taste advertising for their profession, and the religious right is sure to note, “see, we told you they are all cretins of debauchery.”

Other than the usual suspects’ ruffled feathers mentioned above, the analysis of this simple message is a gold mine in the assignment of meaning. Everyone seems to put a deep meaning in the two sentences with five words total. Clearly the offending law firm has struck a sour nerve. Advertising that gets a little too close to the truth is sometimes dangerous for the advertisers. Radio talk show hosts have been asking, “What does it say about our society?” Well, for one it cuts to the chase that marriage in today’s America is a ruse. People and society have been holding marriage up as a sacred cow while in reality beating marriage to death for decades.

Sociologists should agree that modern marriage has nothing to do with raising children, perpetuating society, or love. It instead has everything to do with entertainment. Couples get married either by subconscious or design to simply be amused by the latest pop culture, entertainment value of marriage. Any children can be cared for by nannies, relatives, neighbors, or grand parents. An economy relentless in its deconstruction of the middle class leaves the unassuming couple unable to attain the entertainment pop culture life that was implied was at their finger tips when they got married. Once a couple is locked legally in the contract of marriage, society adds insult to injury and seems to work diligently in a collective hive to make sure they are economically beat to death – day care, school fees, insurance, taxes, mortgages, car payments, and on and on. The billboard simply suggests if you want out of that marriage construct, be sure and go for it.

That idea of getting out of the modern entertainment marriage so easily makes all parties uncomfortable. Perhaps it is not that the offending attorneys are all female that is relevant at all, but rather perhaps, they are showing their youth and naivety about advertising. We all play patty cake in the big American play house – but you have to be more nuanced when you advertise about tragic realities. The morrow of the story is, beat around the reality bush and people are cool with the ad – wink, wink, nod.

This week’s Wisconsin soldier to remember is Private First Class Rachel K. Bosveld, a member of the 527th Military Police, V Corps.  Pfc. Bosveld was killed Sunday October 26, 2003, in a mortar attack on the Abu Ghraib Police Station in Baghdad.  Rachel would have turned 20 on November 7, 2003.  She was a 2002 graduate of Waupun High School.  Rachel Bosveld was the fifth Wisconsin resident to die in the Iraq War.  She was the state’s first female soldier to die since Sgt. Cheryl LaBeau-O’Brien, of Caledonia, who died in a helicopter accident during the first Gulf War in 1991.

3,377 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.

25,245 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring 2003.

72 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.

Soldier of the week and military casualty information sources: cnn.com; and, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.