Strange headline, maybe. It sounds like a particularly desperate song by a garage-punk revival band from Portland from the early 2000s. But there is more to it than that.
I won’t bore you with what my life was like in 2008 when the mortgage crisis started. Let me just tell you: I remember laying on the couch, watching CNN and thinking that this feeling, that the world was about to drastically change, and not for the better, was scary.
It was a strange time. Pretty soon thereafter the overall „incomprehensibility“ of the crisis and the markets became a major talking point. Some people – artists mostly – even sort of proudly boasted that they didn’t understand what was going on. Throwing around wads of money on stage suddenly was seen as an at least somewhat profound engagement with fiscal issues.
It was around the same time that I discovered “This American Life”, from WBEZ in Chicago. It’s a nice radio show, even if it can feel a bit tired these days, after more than 15 years on the air. You could maybe call it aural narrative journalism. Usually there are three pieces on different stories that are connected by a theme, like “Told You So” or “Half-empty or half-full”. It’s always about the emotional authenticity. Writers like Sarah Vowell, David Sedaris or Shalom Auslander had their start on TAL, reading their personal essays.
There is the occasional special episode. Like “The Giant Pool of Money” from May 2008. It aimed to explain what exactly had happened or was happening with the crisis – both in human and in structural terms, and being very clear on where those intersect. Just a wonderful piece of journalism.
The reporting was done by Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg. The show’s usual host and executive producer Ira Glass had some introductory remarks. He said that it’s easy to just hide and wait to see what would happen but that this time he didn’t want to do that, that he wanted to understand. Because – and Glass said that like he felt immense guilt, like it was a blemish on his soul – he sat out Kosovo.
I also sat out Kosovo, and Rwanda. Of course I was too young to do anything else. I remember watching “Logo”, a news show for kids, and just being confused. This confusion has haunted me. A few years ago I read and saw everything I could to finally catch up and understand. So I now have some idea of what happened, and what was lost.
Which wasn’t a painless process, of course, even if it was by then part of history, recent or not. The fear that I’m “sitting out Kosovo” is still with me though. Trying to understand what is happening in Syria, or Egypt, or Russia, or the Philippines *as it is happening* is different. The question is: what was Ira Glass supposed to do? Report on it? Change anything? And how? I guess just not closing your eyes is a start. People talk about the powerlessness that history can make you feel, and rightly so. But in moments like this the present can make you feel mighty powerless too.Strange headline, maybe. It sounds like a particularly desperate song by a garage-punk revival band from Portland from the early 2000s. But there is more to it than that.
I won’t bore you with what my life was like in 2008 when the mortgage crisis started. Let me just tell you: I remember laying on the couch, watching CNN and thinking that this feeling, that the world was about to drastically change, and not for the better, was scary.
It was a strange time. Pretty soon thereafter the overall „incomprehensibility“ of the crisis and the markets became a major talking point. Some people – artists mostly – even sort of proudly boasted that they didn’t understand what was going on. Throwing around wads of money on stage suddenly was seen as an at least somewhat profound engagement with fiscal issues.
It was around the same time that I discovered “This American Life”, from WBEZ in Chicago. It’s a nice radio show, even if it can feel a bit tired these days, after more than 15 years on the air. You could maybe call it aural narrative journalism. Usually there are three pieces on different stories that are connected by a theme, like “Told You So” or “Half-empty or half-full”. It’s always about the emotional authenticity. Writers like Sarah Vowell, David Sedaris or Shalom Auslander had their start on TAL, reading their personal essays.
There is the occasional special episode. Like “The Giant Pool of Money” from May 2008. It aimed to explain what exactly had happened or was happening with the crisis – both in human and in structural terms, and being very clear on where those intersect. Just a wonderful piece of journalism.
The reporting was done by Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg. The show’s usual host and executive producer Ira Glass had some introductory remarks. He said that it’s easy to just hide and wait to see what would happen but that this time he didn’t want to do that, that he wanted to understand. Because – and Glass said that like he felt immense guilt, like it was a blemish on his soul – he sat out Kosovo.
I also sat out Kosovo, and Rwanda. Of course I was too young to do anything else. I remember watching “Logo”, a news show for kids, and just being confused. This confusion has haunted me. A few years ago I read and saw everything I could to finally catch up and understand. So I now have some idea of what happened, and what was lost.
Which wasn’t a painless process, of course, though it was by then part of history, recent or not. The fear that I’m “sitting out Kosovo” is still with me though. Understanding what is happening in Syria, or Egypt, or Russia as it is happening is different. The question is: what was Ira Glass supposed to do? Report on it? Change anything? And how? I guess just not closing your eyes is a start. People talk about the powerlessness that history can make you feel, and rightly so. But in moments like this the present can make you feel mighty powerless too.