Bodily Rhythms

Last week I attened the lecture by James Howard Kunstler about urban development. This was another lecture on how there really isn't much hope for cities right now and the only hope there can be must be created by our generation. Kunstler spent most of his time speaking about buildings and architectural structures. What this has to do with the year of the city and people in general is how ugly we are making our cities and the useless purposes we use buildings for. He began the lecture speaking about how the world is in trouble with oil, natural gas, and climate change, but focused mostly on oil. Right now we use seven billion barrels of oil a year and there are only 25 billion barrels left. Americans use oil for many things, but most importantly, in cars. Kunstler said that "if we continue to go the way we are going we can't survive at this pace." We are entering an energy scarce economy and that is not good. He also said that "the leading religion in America is worship of unearned riches, like gambling in Vegas." In other words we want to get something for nothing. Americans are basically leaving in a fantasy world and we are in for a rude awakening. The way these ideas deal with the city is how much we are going to have to downscale everything we do, cities are going to have to contract. Skyscrapers will either have to be torn down or some other idea has to be brought to the table because the energy it takes to heat and cool them is too much. One thing we can do right now is to "revive and restore the railroad system, because they aid to the oil changes." Cities are going to have to come together to figure out new ways to live in our economy with this downfall in energy.
This lecture relates to the works we had to read in that it has to do with people, body and mind, and what we can do. People are energy consuming machines. We like things now and fast and we have built our economy around that idea. The works "Lush Life," by John McCluskey, I Sing the Body Electric, by Walt Whitman, and One's-Self I Sing, by Walt Whitman are about how people use their bodies, but they tie it in to music and rhythm as well.
The short story "Lush Life," by John McCluskey is about the life of a band. They have this crazy life on the road stopping at all different cities to play their music for people. The two characters he focuses on are Earl, the leader of the band, and Billy, the master of horns. While they are driving to the next city they find themselves creating their next new song. It was Earl who began the beats and thinking of the new song, and while he is thinking McCluskey paints a picture in his mind of the rhythm he is creating. "The woman in his mind walked faster, traffic about her thickened, the streets sent up jarring sounds. Those would be trumpets, probably. Surroundings leaned in. Trombones and tenor saxophones playing in the lowest octave announced their possibilities." (pg 566) What's unique about this is that when most people see a person they think of the music behind them or the beat they are making. In these musician's lives they find the music first then create the rhythms of a person. Later on the same woman is described for his songmaking for "she would return, surely, to move through another song, walking to a different rhythm." (pg 570) At the end of the story Earl describes what their music does for people and how it helps them in their lives. "It opens people up, makes them give up secrets....You can loan it to strangers, and they thank you for it." (pg 571) In other words the rhythm of their music can do wonderful things for people, in body and mind. It can make someone open up and feel comfortable letting something out through words or body motions.
Walt Whitman uses the idea of the connection between the body and soul in his poem I Sing the Body Electric. This is different from the short story because rhythm is not a focus in the poem, but it is how the poem is read where we see the affect of rhythm. The poem is like a tribute to the body, naming each part and the other parts related to them. He brings both male and female into the picture and shows how each of their bodies adds to the world. He also connects the body and the poem. In the beginning of the poem he describes how he will not desert his body, because it is connected to the soul, and these are connected to this poem. At the end of the poem he brings this idea back to form closure in the poem by saying, "O I say these are not the parts and the poems of the body only, but of the soul, O I say now these are the soul!" (lines 35-36) Whitman is celebrated the body through this rhythmic poem, because your body is the way to your soul.
Whitman's One's-Self I Sing is a poem about man and their power in body and mind. "Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far, The Female equally with the Male I sing." (lines 4-6) This line is saying that components of a person by themselves aren't affective, but when put together as a whole they have this immense power. This poem also uses rhythm on the outside to express the poem's content.
A person's body can do spectacular things. It affects other people as well as yourself and your soul. Ryhthm is a big part of your body, whether it is used to describe it or used by your body to express yourself through dance or other means.