California Kaleidoscope
By Ilene Rosenberg
Capital Times Staff Writer
The next day we visit Manhattan
Beach, another town of beautiful,
healthy and wealthy people. On the way
there, my daughter, who rarely makes
concessions to the "in" fashion, whips
out her cell phone and dials her friend.
"Hi Sean, we're passing your apartment
now. I'm looking for a place to park.
We'll see you soon." To me it said:
"I'm so L.A. it's sickening."
Indeed, as I look out across the beach,
a plane trailing a banner for
Verizonwireless.com flies across the sky.
Buy one cell phone and get two free.
What a marketing strategy! Give people
three times the opportunity to use their
cell phones and make it sound like a deal.
No wonder Verizon employees went on
strike. And 10, two feet away on the walk
way is a woman with cell phone in hand,
waving wildly to someone she cannot see.
"I'm here, where are YOU?" I try to fol
low her with my eyes as she walks toward
her "cell-mate" just to see at what point
she puts away her phone and actually
starts talking to the person, but she is soon
lost among the crowd on the beach. Los
Angeles is a state of mind actually, and can
be found anywhere even in Middletown.
Looking up and down the beach along
the cement walkway the locals call the
Strand, I see an endless stream of people
on bikes and rollerblades. On the Strand
and on the beach, all the people look to be
between the ages of 19 and 28. No bulging
"G RACE UNcren. FIRE"
(Conflict Resolution Tips and Strategies)
Conflicts, hassles, tensions in your life?
Find ways to ease these
situations and work toward Win/Win.
Saturday, September 23
8:30 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Student Center (CUB)
Institute for Cultural Partnership
e e Continental Breakfast, lunch, door prizes
* 1 ( For more information, contact Student Activities Office, E-101
or call 948-6273
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Thursday 8 a.m. - 7 p.m.
You can register by e-mail: ljcl@psu.edu.
Deadline to register is September 21.
middle-aged people seem to exist here; no
balding men, no skinny seven-year-olds.
This place is for the young and buffed.
Bronzed, bikini-clad women and well
toned men play beach volleyball on the
numerous courts along the beach.
Looking like they are having a terrific
time: teams cheer, high-five, pat each
other. I get caught up in the infectious
mood of the place.
To get anywhere in the crowd my
aggressive New York survival tactics
come into play: "Coming through, coming
through." Still, I feel slightly anemic com
pared to all this glowing health, and won
der if my hair is showing telltale signs of
gray. I vow to buy a new pair of Nikes and
begin a serious exercise regimen when I
get home. Not that it would help; I am a
generation beyond cool, no matter what I
do. But I was like these people once, I
remind myself. In this particular time and
place, these young Californians appear
confident they are the center of the uni
verse. From a certain point of view,
given their youth, money and good
looks in a society that values those
qualities above all else, maybe, for a
short time, they are right.
Far be it for me to rain on their parade.
They'll figure it out soon enough on their
own. The problem is their lifestyle, in
California it's always about lifestyle, is
faced with a very real threat, the shadow
of which hovers nearby. "You see that
gray building in the distance?" Jenna asks.
"That's the Palos Verdes shelf out there,
Facilitators for Conflict Resolution Activities
where all the DDT in the United States
was dumped when it was banned."
"I thought we didn't have to worry
about DDT anymore," I remark.
"Well, not directly," my daughter,
the biochemistry major, informs me.
"But the trouble is the DDT just sits
there. It doesn't decompose, or evap
orate, or get absorbed back into the
ocean. Fish get it into their system and
somehow they are able to live with it. But
seals that eat the fish store DDT in their
fat cells. Then, during the winter months
when seals can't find enough to eat, their
fat cells break down and the DDT kills
them."
"Poor seals." I love seals, with their
mild and playful nature. "But what about
people?" I ask.
"People can handle DDT in small
doses. They'd have to eat megadoses of
fish for it to harm them. It's all the other
pollutants though that add up. In one
waterway near Los Angeles there are nine
industrial pollutants present, as well as the
pesticide, Chlordane, which does a lot of
molecular damage."
California is bulging at its seams. The
proliferation of cars and industry, the
state's population explosion and the clash
of ethnic groups test the fabric of life on
all fronts. California has played a very
important role in the American psyche. It
has represented a dream for many people
searching for a better life, a new frontier,
a chance to make a fresh start. But the
dream has clashed with reality from the
FEATURES
Part II
days of the Gold Rush to the present. The
only dream of California left for
Americans is in the fantasy produced by
Hollywood, a fantasy that gets more out
rageous every day.
Even the people of Manhattan Beach,
as good-looking as they are, cannot com
pete with the image of reality portrayed by
the Hollywood studios. The image, one of
physical perfection, is an unattainable fan
tasy. Liposuction, surgical staples, breast
implants, and collagen lip injections are
just some of the desperate measures peo
ple undergo to attain that fantasy.
Compared to the image, I find real people
a welcome relief. Real people, warts and
all, are what I saw in California,
Manhattan Beach included.
Californians are threatened on many
fronts, one of which is physically from
the environment another is psycholog
ically from all the media hype.
California's beautiful beaches, parks and
coastline are part of an environment that
cries out for preservation. The young,
energetic people of California can save it
and remain authentic human beings, but
they need to make the effort. The rest of
the nation should join in the effort as well.
On the plane ride home, I opted not to
watch the movie being shown, The Next
Best Thing, with Madonna and Rupert Everett.
I preferred savoring my impressions of the real
California, as I saw it. Maybe sometime, in the
middle of winter when I have nothing to do, I'll
rent the movie. After all, as the film's title sug
gests, it is "the next best thing."
Today in the
Morrison
Gallery
"Havana"
Photography
by
Penn State's own
Catherine Wert
Closing reception and
gallery talk
5 - 7 p.m.