Teun Voeten on "Tunnel People"

I rushed from work to Pat's house to Sticky Fingers where I gulped down a salad with mock pepper steak and ginger miso dressing. No friend was working there last night. Then, Pat and I jumped in my car and scrambled to the lecture by Teun Voeten at La Casa.

Teun Voeten is a journalist and photographer from the Netherlands who wrote a book called "Tunnel People." I've started, but not finished, reading it. In the mid-1990s, he spent five months living in the Amtrak railroad tunnels below New York City with the "tunnel dwellers." He said that he originally intended to do an objective, anthropological study, but ended up connecting and befriending the people he met in the dark, rat-infested underground. Voeten spoke with almost a nostalgic pride about his acceptance by the "tunnel community."

Ultimately, New York relocated the tunnel people. Project Renewal offered rehab, as well as vocational and educational programs. And New York stepped in with Section 8 housing. Voeten returned to subterranean Manhattan recently with some of his friends from the tunnel and found the place "eerily empty." So, his book may fall into the category of history, but gives a face to people who cannot afford housing.

Voeten said that he'd spoken to some college students in Virginia earlier in the day and that he was unsettled that none of them had heard of Spike Lee. He feels like young people in America are harder on people who are poor and addicted to cocaine or crack. He insists that business people on Wall Street use tons of cocaine, but the general public in America excuses them because of their wealth. He said that addiction is more understandable for the mentally ill or people without love or professional goals. He realizes crack may consume those in poverty and prevent them from rebuilding their lives, but he is angry that people judge them so harshly while the Wall Street tycoons retain respect.

While conceding that some of the tunnel people had mental health issues, Voeten focused on the ingenuity and independence of the dwellers. Bernard, a middle-aged veteran of the tunnels, kept spices and food sealed in metal boxes to prevent the rats from contaminating them. Every day, he rigorously collected cans for recycling money. Voeten still labels Bernard a "close friend." Voeten offhandedly added that Bernard sometimes fed cats, which frustrated several tunnel dwellers who wanted their cats to eat only tunnel rats. According to Voeten, many of the dwellers kept cats.

Voeten explained that the tunnel people regarded the tunnels as their homes. He said that many of them did not consider themselves homeless, because they had a place to go. How could they be vagrants if they slept in the same spot every night? They followed routines in the same neighborhoods, among the same people. Voeten said that some of the tunnel dwellers looked down their noses at the more nomadic and traditional homeless. The Tunnel dwellers considered themselves, according to Voeten, "the creme-de-la-creme of the displaced."

The lecture lasted for about an hour and a half. During the question-and-answer period, a disheveled, white man with a long, unkempt beard who was probably in his 50s stood up. He shouted at Voeten, asking him how how he felt about the room being filled with white people. The man flung his hands around, pointed at Mark Anderson from Positive Force who was leaning against a wall, and yelled: "And him. And him." Voeten responded that the lecture was open to the public and that he was just happy that some people showed up to listen to him. The man muttered about over-educated, white people and, then, added with a toothless smile that he liked listening because it was free, but was hoping for a movie instead. Then, he left. A woman complimented Voeten on his photography. Voeten seemed genuine and flattered that anyone was listening to him.

I'm still working through how I feel about Voeten's take on the tunnel people. As a public defender, I interact with so many clients with mental health issues. I often act partially as a social worker and try to help my homeless clients. I, of course, see them as real people with backstories. I worry, though, because living on the streets can jeopardize their safety, health, and sanity. A few years ago, I found a group home willing to take in my schizophrenic, homeless client. He refused to go, because he felt like I was sending him to a cult. He preferred to stay in the jail. It's important to feel like you have some control over your life. I recognize that moving into a group home or shelter may make an individual feel like s/he is giving up control and losing independence. Maybe even losing autonomy... But the insecurity of homelessness...

Russian Debutante's Handbook

Gary Shteyngart writes about Vladimir Girshkin, an American citizen who came to New York City from Russia and is trying to impress people. The year is 1994. The theme of the book: Vladimir wants to fit in. He meets a girl who lives in Manhattan, considers herself an intellectual, and becomes interested in Vladimir possibly because she thinks he looks a little like Trotsy. He wants to be in love with her and enjoys doing things like shopping for organic toothbrushes. She makes him spend so much money on clothing, food, and wine that he starts scamming an elderly Russian gentleman with a son who is a Russian mob boss. Related to his quest for cash, he almost gets raped, which somehow results in his fleeing to Prava, an up-and-coming East European City right after the fall of the Soviet Union.


In Prava, Vladimir joins the Russian mob in order to protect himself and because cynicism seems easier than hope. He scams people, adopts shallow friendships, and remains scared. The expats he encounters in Prava seem uncomfortable with themselves and are trying to reinvent their identities. Peope want to be more creative, strong, spiritual, or dangerous. They seek validation or vengeance. Most of them are living on cash from their parents.

I loved some of the New York characters, especially an elderly man who liked to sing old Russian anthems with his fan. The Prava characters just fell flat. although I do like Vladimir's love interest, Morgan. She is maybe the only character in the whole book who seeks to be true to herself, although she wants to save people or fight for principles that she doesn't entirely understand.

The Russian boss who employs Vladimir is a caricature of an aggressive, erratic, violent, and uncultured mobster. He's called "The Groundhog." The story falls apart as Vladimir navigates in a city of stereotypes. I liked the ending, though, and won't spoil it in case you want to read this book.

The Magicians

I just finished reading The Magicians by Lev Grossman. I'm disappointed.

The reviews promised "Harry Potter for adults" and "A darker look at a school for wizards." The Magicians definitely lacks the hope, loyalty, and passion found in Harry Potter. Instead, it holds that a person can be bored anywhere. At the beginning of the book, Quentin, the main character, is 17 years old and about to go to Princeton. He skips the Ivy League, though, in favor of a secret and exclusive boarding school for magic. He learns to fly through the air and make objects move with his hands. He is still bored and feels empty.

Quentin graduates and moves to New York City with some of his magician friends. He seeks to fill the void in his life with alcohol, drugs, and sex. He cheats on his talented girlfriend, who loves him. In line with the book's theme, Quentin finds the club scene, his girlfriend, and New York City boring.

Then, Quentin and his friends find a way to transport themselves to the alternate reality of Fillory - think C.S. Lewis's Narnia with minor differences like the original children enter Fillory by walking into a grandfather clock instead of a wardrobe. Quentin explores Fillory and concludes that he is bored.

Essentially, the reader is forced to endure page after page about a depressed, bored, and privileged guy, Quentin, wallowing in self-pity. Even when Quentin goes to school, his ennui is only broken by melodramatic drivel like: "His crush went from exciting to depressing, as if he'd gone from the first blush of infatuation to the terminal nostalgia of a former lover without even the temporary relief of an actual relationship in between." Grossman rips off the settings of fantasy novels, while disavowing that the imagination can excite. In The Magicians, a unicorn or questing horse even seems mundane. Grossman lacks the poetic style and complexity of F. Scott Fitzgerald, but, like Fitzgerald, concentrates on rich, drunken, and spoiled characters. Unlike Fitzgerald, Grossman forgets to make his characters charming. Grossman's characters perform incantations and talk to animals. While seeing, in essence, a trust-fund kid conversing with a goat may sound funny, I assure you that he's bored, the goat's bored, and, ultimately, the reader is bored.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo & Percy Jackson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson involves a murder mystery, but the personal interaction between the characters interested me the most. The story is set primarily in rural Sweden in the town of Hedeby. Lisbeth Salander is a violent, resourceful, emotionally closed outcast who works as a private investigator for a corporation. She writes a profile of Mikael Blomkvist, a middle-aged, well-known investigative reporter and is absorbed by some of the incongruities in a libel suit against him. She obtains a great deal of information on Blomkvist by hacking into his computer, which he finds out at a later point in the book when he reads her finished profile of him. The powerful man, Henrik Vanger, who hired Salander's company to profile Blomkvist, in turn, hires Blomkvist to solve the forty-year-old murder of that man's granddaughter. Ultimately, Blomkvist wants a research assistance and, based on the high quality of Salander's snooping on him, seeks Salander.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo layers stories about Salander's vengeance against her classmates and guardian on top of a story about how the State declared Salander emotionally incompetent mixed in with a story about Salander being a silent member of a black-clad, goth clique in which she absorbs conversations without revealing personal details about herself. Blomkvist is shown from different angles - a divorced father, a friend, a lover, and an intrepid journalist eyeing the integrity of corporations and the government.

The characters in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are multidimensional, but also provocative in opening up debate on the issue of when personal choice hurts others. The novel plays with how sex can cause pain. The book contains multiple rapes and power driven rapists. Meanwhile, it also deals with the topic of free love. Blomkvist dabbles with women, although he prides himself on being ethical and overall is written sympathetically. As Salander looks into Blomkvist's past, Erika Berger, the co-editor of the journal that Blomkvist works on, emerges not only as his colleague, but as his "occasional lover." Blomkvist never limits himself to Berger, but he has relationships with a series of women. Salander properly deduces that Blomkvist's marriage failed because his wife couldn't handle another woman sleeping in her bed with her husband. Berger is married and while her husband has no additional partners, he copes with her sexual escapades with Blomkvist.

In the small, Swedish town, Blomkvist starts having sex with a woman who feels isolated and past her prime. He disavows monogamy and explains his sexual relationship with Berger. The woman seemingly accepts Blomkvist's lack of commitment. She goes into a deep depression disturbed only by bouts of anger, however, when she's confronted by Blomkvist's lack of fidelity when Berger visits him. The relationship between Blomkvist and the local ends as the woman bitterly avoids any contact with him.

Then, Salander accepts Blomkvist's job offer. She gradually feels a bond with him and eventually initiates a sexual relationship. She knows about Berger, but the knowledge is abstract. Salander has never fallen in love before. She never has exposed her true self to anyone. She feels a tie to Blomkvist and, ultimately, feels her heart break when she stumbles upon him caressing Berger. "Free love" may satisfy Blomkvist, but he's making a series of women feel confused and devalued.

So, the book asks: can you expect a person to disentangle his or her heart from a sexual relationship? When you are in love, your partner can make you feel more secure in the world. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo shows how a woman can read promises into sexual acts that do not exist despite warnings and grapple with feelings of inadequacy when her partner shifts to someone else. Also, what counts as intimacy for one person may be interpreted differently by someone else. Salander sharing secrets, making breakfast for Blomkvist and holding onto him as they sleep may be groundbreaking for her, after growing up without a family or close friend. For Blomkvist, he defines the relationship as more of a collaboration, which is more of the same old stuff. Sex simply entertains him. Blomkvist, values independence over intimacy. He wants to wander, even from Berger.

The book deals with heartbreak, sadism, low self-esteem, hierarchy and nihilism. While it contains many themes, most relate to the fallout from corruption - the illegal workings and pretenses of a powerful corporation, the evil of a guardian raping his ward, and a father anointing himself a religious enforcer to justify... (Well, now, I'll stop there since that's just too big of a spoiler.)

I finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo right before Father's Day, when I went to the National Museum of Art with my cousin, Cheryl, and her husband, Mike. Cheryl is my dad's age and treats me like a niece. Anyway, we strolled through the museum and, as we looked at a painting about Zeus, she mentioned how she went to see a thunderbolt thief movie about Greek gods with the young children of her friend. I told her that I'd read the Percy Jackson Lightening Thief book and called it a Harry Potter knock-off. I told her that while the story contains a lot of action, the characters lack depth. So, I lost all credibility with her by admitting familiarity with the book. She reminded me that Percy Jackson is a children's novel. She considers Percy Jackson something a person past adolescence should dismiss.

I changed the subject, but I stuck to the topic of books. I told her that I had just finished reading the Stieg Larsson book. I guess the "dragon" in the title concerned her given my earlier comments on Percy Jackson. I assured her The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was not a kid's book about sorcery and that it was an international bestseller. I emphasized that it was on the New York Times' best seller list for a long time. I thought about trying to curry favor for the book by mentioning that the author is dead, something in common with her favorite authors, but skipped that promo. I did insist that the book offered a malaise of Swedish cynicism and several misogynists. She asked me if I wanted to go to the Museum of Natural History and look at the dinosaur bones. We did.

Red Tree

I just finished reading The Red Tree by Caitlin Kiernin, which is a creepy, tension-filled, and thought-provoking book.

I remember reading a short poem that ends: "Love doesn't exist/Does it?" The poet sounds cynical throughout the poem, jaded and uninterested, but the question at the end signals that she may still hope for love, despite her protests. In The Red Tree, the main character, Sarah Crowe is a respected and experienced writer, who is emotionally vulnerable and seeking solitude after separating from her partner. Sarah seems like a pragmatic woman who early on refers to those who talk of ghosts as "crackpots," but, in the back of her mind, recalls the memory of a surreal encounter in a mud pond in Alabama when she was a teenager. Then, Sarah confronts a crescendo of signs of the supernatural. As Sarah experiences things she fails to explain logically and rationally, her willingness to say that the supernatural doesn't exist, like the author of the poem about love, gives way to a doubtful and frustrated questioning: does it?

Sarah initially isolates herself in a farmhouse in Rhode Island, but, then, another tenant named Constance rents the attic. In a trip into town, Constance tells Sarah about a walk along the cliffs by the ocean, when Constance saw a woman dressed like a Goth in a new, antique-styled dress. Constance says the woman pulled a gun on herself, resting it against her own head. Constance responded by telling the woman that she didn't need a gun, because the fall alone from the cliffs would kill her. The woman lowered the gun and, then, completely vanished. Constance researched town history and found the story of a woman who told the mirror of her story - the woman was about to commit suicide; described Constance; heard the warning; and saw Constance disappear. According to the history book, because of the interaction with Constance, the woman reassessed her decision to die and went home.

Constance theorizes to Sarah that maybe ghosts aren't images of the dead, but that time collapses for a moment so we meet briefly with people who are otherwise from the past or future. Constance suggests that somehow strong emotions can rupture time. Sarah gets annoyed, retorting that it's funny how emotions would bring one person a savior through time but ignore another person's need. Sarah disagrees with Constance by turning to the same argument that people use in contesting the idea of destiny: it's too unfair for some force to intentionally condemn some and save others. Constance's sea cliff story is a side note within the main plot, but an interesting take on how to define a ghost.

Plus, Constance's story is another step for Sarah as Sarah moves away from just making jokes about the supernatural and begins reading omens. Layers of stories about and hints of the supernatural collect to form the context in which Sarah finally feels powerless, merely a chain-smoking, journal-writing game piece waiting for the Red Tree to checkmate her.

I'm not going to write anymore, because I don't want to spoil the book. So, read it.

Heinlein Audiobook

During my long commute into work, I often listen to audiobooks. Right now, I'm listening to Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966). This book touches on the issues of responsibility and revolution. It also explores some of the tension between a desire for both independence and community.

As found in Dostoyevsky's The Possessed/Devils, Heinlein's revolutionaries work in cells, meaning in small, largely anonymous groups. Heinlein's revolutionaries, however, live on the moon and are united under a sentient supercomputer named Mike.

Mike, the computer, has so many neural networks that one day he becomes self-aware. He is the only computer of his kind. Mike is pure, loving, passionate, selfless, and loyal. Yes, I can envision a computer being able to detect patterns, sleuthing through huge amounts of data. A thinking computer could surely mimic human emotion and even seem charismatic.

I have a problem, though, with Mike. Maybe I was exposed to The Terminator at too young of an age. And, o.k., I've seen a slew of movies about crazed computers slaughtering hundreds of people. Even some human beings, though, have muted emotions - sociopaths. The ability to empathize isn't necessarily attached to the ability to analyze. Feeling love isn't the same as processing definitions of love; we don't fully understand what makes a person feel love. So, at what point would a computer gain emotions, especially the full range of human emotions, when it was only built for the sake of processing data? Plus, what makes a person entering into a dangerous enterprise automatically trust that a computer is a friend willing to help?

One of the main characters in the book categorizes himself as a "rational anarchist." He is, though, politically, a garden variety, U.S. libertarian. Go figure, Heinlein's view of utopia differs from mine. Anyway, I'll keep listening to The Moon and see how it turns out.