right now, as i write, i have the enviable chore of editing my unbalanced and much-too-large wardrobe into staples for the new year. even before i’d cast one reluctant eye at the garment mounds scattered around my room, i’d decided that i could survive on four blazers, six dress shirts, a sweater or two, a pair of jeans and several pairs of pants, and five or so t-shirts. i was satisfied with the lean wardrobe i’d fashioned for myself, and had convinced myself was ascetic-worthy. almost.

anyway, when i dragged myself down into the laundry room the other day, i discovered that my favourite white dress shirt from j.crew was spattered with blue stains, along with the pink h&m version i’d worn to my graduation. i was upset, needless to say, but not as much as i’d expected, although the prospect of going to work without a proper white dress shirt never occurred to me before. and before the thought of heading to the shopping mall occurred to me, i recalled the beginning of thoreau’s walden, which i have been reading on and off.

it is quite a coincidence that i’m reading thoreau, as walden concerns his experiment in simple living (in a self-constructed shelter by walden pond), which in turn required, or so it seems, a lengthy but delightfully eloquent passage on what, exactly, is constituted by the term ‘necessity’. clothes, thoreau argues, are a ‘necessity’ simply because they provide heat, as well as a covering for our nakedness. it is his writing on new clothes, however, that really caught my interest. he claims that “a man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a new suit to do it in” and “old shoes will serve a hero longer than they have served his valet — if a hero ever has a valet — bare feet are older than shoes, and he can make them do.” only regulars at balls and soirees ever need a new suit of clothes, for who amongst us actually wears his/her clothes down to its threads that it is not an act of charity to pass it on to someone more needy than we are? i have reproduced the rest of the passage in its entirety below, as i cannot phrase his sentiments more perfectly:

“I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes. All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon retires to solitary ponds to spend it. Thus also the snake casts its slough, and the caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal industry and expansion; for clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal coil. Otherwise we shall be found sailing under false colors, and be inevitably cashiered at last by our own opinion, as well as that of mankind.”

amen. now if only we could all also be blind.

as the closing ceremony hastily approaches, i’m sure the general consensus is that the beijing games have been spectacular. the venues are modern and pleasing to the eye, the crowds have been loud and raucous, and the athletes have lived up to their end of the bargain, rewriting enough records to warrant complete revisions of statistical books on sporting events.

this is not to say that there have not been black marks on the shining face china has put forth to the world. there was that tragic murder in the first week and reports of journalistic censorship and tampering. then there was the whole ordeal with the chinese women’s (girls’) gymnastic team, which cast a shadow over the sheen of their gold medals amidst allegations of cheating, or more specifically, the falsification of the gymnasts’ ages by the chinese government.

opinions are divided, as they always are, as to the gravity if such charges are true. i remember the sportscaster on the cbc news opining that if a 14-year old girl can go to the olympic games and perform well enough to win a gold medal, then kudos to her.

the age restriction (set at 16 years), is currently imposed to prevent young athletes from injuries. however, the article on the cbc website goes on to claim that “younger gymnasts are considered to have an advantage because they are more flexible, and are likely to have an easier time doing the tough skills the sport requires. they also aren’t as likely to have a history of injuries or fear of failure.” huh? it seems to me if performing at a younger age results in an “easier time doing the tough skills” then shouldn’t the risk of injury decrease also? furthermore, i really cannot comprehend why a serious injury at age 14 is better than a serious injury at 16. i’m sure the mangled gymnast at the latter age would likely relish the extra two years of hard training and competition whilst in a hospital bed.

what i really have issue with is the lack of integrity of the chinese government, if allegations are true. i think the age restriction is inane, but it doesn’t justify breaking the rules.

although the u.s. team, runners-up to the chinese in the team discipline, are no angels themselves. some of the harshest criticisms and accusations rose from the camp which brought the world marion jones. i think what the states have demonstrated in these games the inability to turn the other cheek and to let events and consequences unfold for themselves. in the 200m, american wallace spearmon appeared to clinch the bronze medal, only to be disqualified for stepping outside his lane. the u.s. protested but, it seems, only to blow the whistle on the netherlands’ chirandy martina, the silver medalist (or the gold medalist sans usain bolt), who committed the same offence although not caught by officials.

speaking of turning the other cheek, perhaps the most shocking sporting event to me was the bronze-medal taekwondo match in which the cuban athlete angel matos kicked the match referee in the face after being disqualified for over-stepping his allotted 1-minute medical attention break. matos was felled after being hit by his opponent, a kazak. he was escorted out of the building only after spitting on the mat and assaulting several other officials. his coach, leudis gonzalez, in explaining his athlete’s actions, said of the referee, “he was too strict”, in addition to alleging that kazakhstanis bribed him (the referee) to fix the match. unbelievable AND unacceptable. at any age. for what kind of example is that for a 14-year old girl?

michael phelps, of course, with his freakish physique, will undoubtedly be the story of the games, as will usain bolt, with a perhaps even more impressive world-recording setting sprint double. the american swimmer, at six-feet four inches, with an incredibly long torso and limbs (which are, incidentally, all double-jointed) and flippers for feet, simply made his competitors look like, well, men in bathing suits. maybe some story will arise that he was conceived in water. i think that story would actually satisfy me, i would believe it, either that or one claiming he is part fish (i’ll leave that one for the national enquirer).

the jamaican bolt, an equally gigantic six-feet five inches, with a track-swallowing gait, seemed to stride casually to two world records (in the 100 and 200 metres), the latter of which i did not expect to fall for quite some time. i think i read somewhere that it is conventional wisdom that shorter athletes are naturally faster for some scientific and physiological reason, but i think usain bolt simply turns conventional wisdom on its square head. plus, i hear that he went clubbing at a dancehall before the jamaican olympic trials. that, and he ate at mcdonald’s before breaking the 100 metre world-record (actually, i might be tempted to try out this pre-race fuel in the future, should i completely let go of myself and be required to rationalize junk-food consumption).

what i think we’re seeing is an era when the most physically gifted among us not only rise above their competitors, but totally obliterate those who dare fall in their shadow. extremely tall men are performing as they should not, dominating athletic events usually reserved those who look like the everyman (should said everyman work out every day—case in point: former 100m world-record holder maurice greene was five-feet nine inches tall); giant stride length x swift leg speed > normal stride length x swift leg speed; and men who are part fish own the waters.

my point in this entry: how do ‘normal’ athletes, those who routinely make finals but who simply aren’t physically-gifted enough to rise to the top of the podium, sustain that drive to train year after year, aspiring to a goal not unlike a mirage? for instance, every season, i see athletes who are talented or hard-working enough to reach track and field finals but who never seem to procure those coveted top three finishes. how do non-black athletes compete in the sprints, pushing themselves in the off-season for what seems a hopeless cause? (actually, the first two words to pop into my mind are steroids and micro-evolution, but i’m just being facetious.) it seems a lost pursuit and a pointless use of one’s time. perhaps this is why liu xiang, chinese hurdler, is athletic hero no. 1 to the celestial nation, although his hold on the 110mH has never been as strong as say, the chinese world champions in traditionally-dominated disciplines like gymnastics and diving; he is an unlikely sprinting machine, and one who gives hope to ordinary-looking, lanky, non-afro-american athletes.

furthermore, do sponsors realize that the athletes they’re sponsoring will largely be mediocre? should they all clamour for the creme-de la-creme and simply withdraw from the market should they fail? should nike quite sponsoring big-event choker but former 100m record-holder asafa powell because his compatriot bolt simply makes him look ordinary? i think about these questions and they scare me.

i think maybe the answer lies in ian thorpe’s envy-driven response to a reporter’s question regarding the possibility of phelps winning 8 golds—he said that phelps would fail in his endeavour “because competition”.

the good book tells us that work, or toil, began as punishment after adam and eve fell from their unblemished state and position in the garden. adam was forced to eat his food by the sweat of his brow (correct me if i am misquoting) and to work the newly resistant earth for his and eve’s living.

what, then, was the nature of work in the garden, or was the concept painfully and terribly birthed after the fall, as eve’s firstborn would be? it seems we are left guessing, or probing the imagination, although one of our greatest literary figures, one john milton has clearly given some thought (or been given to some inspiration from his proclaimed ‘muse’) to the subject.

in my last year at university, i took a literature class devoted to the study of milton and in particular, or the landmark paradise lost epic. from what i gleaned from the professor during classes i actually attended, not to mention the periods of intense (‘er’?) concentration in between caffeine breaks, it seems that work was merely an extension of nature; that is, work came naturally in a perfect state; one needed only to do what one was meant to do, and the nature of work was the perfection of perfection. one should remember that in the miltonic universe, and in a pre-lapsarian conception of things, that there were varying degrees of perfection. for example, a fruit-bearing tree is an example of a perfect thing; plucking and eating said fruit (or opening one’s mouth under said tree?) would be a perfection of a perfect thing, and considered work. now, i don’t know if i am confusing anyone, or perhaps most of all myself (it’s been a while since i stashed those notes someplace dusty and mildewed, and i have no intention of digging them up for this paltry entry), but that’s how i remember it

how then, does this translate to 2008 (and actually, everything we’ve done post-fall)? it seems to me that this notion is still in our human make-up, perhaps this is the reason we feel the iron-clad drudgery of work we are not suited to; it bears the mark of punishment, of the lashings of gabriel’s fiery sword, perhaps. maybe i’m just psychotic and stressed, i don’t know. some writers say that writing comes from an inner-place; it is a perpetual itch or birthing; when they cannot write they feel incomplete and restless, though the work is tedious and at times, impossible. is this then living with one foot in the garden? i really don’t know, and right now, am too tired to write more.

from men.style.com: ‘As part of their Forever!series, Dutch designers BCXSY have created the conceptual “Infinity Aquarium,” a handcrafted glass polygon in which fish can swim in an endless loop. The tank is part of a collection that attempts to solve existential problems in design—i.e., defining the length of an eternity. (Other products in the series include “Destilled Nature,” a vase for dead flowers, and the “Forever Dish,” a plate molded with a ceramic sculpture of a steak dinner in its center.) The updated aquarium is certainly an improvement over the old model, even if the fish swimming in it are unlikely to notice the difference.’

wow.

historically, the pink shirt has with it aristocratic connotations; apparently, it was also the shirt of choice for young Gordon Gekko yuppies in the heyday of the ’80s. a pink shirt looks best with a suit, and it will match any suit in one’s closet (although extremists will point out that one should try to stay away from black, whose soul mate is always white). personally, gray or navy will do for me. i have also long sought to understand my love affair with the suit. perhaps it has to do with all the time i’ve spent perusing the pages of gq in chapters aisles and sitting unblinkingly in front of old movies from the ’50s and ’60s (both decades widely held to be pedestals for men’s dressing). my beloved girlfriend, again, has/had to get used to my penchant for this 200 year old staple of the male wardrobe. after much reflection, i have come to the conclusion that the suit, like the pink shirt, has much to do, once again, with personal expression. yes, it is a blank canvas for individual expression, but it is first and foremost, a uniform.

witness the gregory peck movie ‘the man in the grey flannel suit’. i find that movie heroic, if only because peck’s character, a war veteran, struggles film-long to provide a better living for his family, to obtain that elusive but marginal pay raise by switching jobs, jobs that he cannot stand. he endures the daily drudgery of going to work because he is doing it for something larger than himself, even if that larger purpose includes an ambitious and hard-to-please wife; that, to me, is a character worthy of admiration. (on a side note, it is statistically proven that married people are most likely to accumulate wealth because, among other things, of this aforementioned reason, the need to work for more than self). so, the ’60s working man is a character i admire. and his uniform? a (gray) suit.

this being said, i do not see the blue-collar worker in a different light. the blue-collar uniform, for one, is an american staple and a classic, serving as inspiration for designers as far off as japan. at the root of this uniform is utility; however, when worn, the clothing acquires a heroic and individual quality to it over time: frayed edges, marks from hours spent on one’s knees hammering, dirt stains. it is the paradoxical unity of the impersonal (work) and the personal.

i have had many odd jobs; these past four years alone, i’ve worked as a christmas elf, a mcdonald’s slave, a tutor, sandwich artist, menswear sales associate, and currently, as a cook at IHOP. i know the drudgery of going to work, work which one detests, day in and day out. and most of the time, one endures this only to put food on the table, or to ensure that there is hot water and electricity at home, and that bills can be paid. or else one also has others in mind, which is one’s only source of motivation during the daily grind. this drudgery, i can only describe it by assigning it a colour, is gray as the suit peck wore.

henry david thoreau wrote an interesting book in the 19th century. it’s name? walden. in it, thoreau dissects in great detail and with lyrical prose, the nature of work in the modern era. he writes in the opening pages that ‘the labouring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labour would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance—which his growth requires—who has so often to use his knowledge?’. according to thoreau, we have changed the original concept of working to live into living to work. as such, we’ve turned ourselves into machines, barely able to wonder anymore about the state of our existence, stunted in our ability to live in a state of measured ignorance, an ignorance essential to the bettering of ourselves. for this reason, thoreau decides to put aside all excess and to trudge into the woods, living only with necessities of life (i.e. food, shelter, some clothing). walden is his account of this experiment, the re-exploration of working to live.

of course, and as i’ve touched upon, this is not to say that there cannot be heroism amongst machines. i detest my job. it is tedious, greasy, sometimes lonely, and very stressful. however, this past thursday and friday, i was able to work with a chinese gentleman who has supported himself and his family by cooking for over 20 years. he told me that his father died at age 50, leaving only his mother to support the family. as such, he had to put all plans for university aside, and supplied income from his job as a cook in prince george. now, two decades later, he has a wife and a daughter whom he has been able to put through university. i will survive this job as long as i have stories like this and my upcoming wedding (hehe) to inspire me.