Black steel

There's two reasons why my posts here have become less frequent. One is that I am working very, very hard, and so are most of my friends. So the supply of interesting events to relate has dried up somewhat. I've done some fun things in the last couple of weeks or so; but I don't think anyone would benefit from my amateur criticism of an exhibition of Goya drawings, and there's only so much you can say about occasional drinking.

The other reason is that, without exactly getting used to the place, I'm gradually reaching a kind of accommodation with Miami. Though it still regularly strikes me as deeply alien - the palm trees, the alligators in the university lake, the November sun that warms the bones rather than warning of frost - I've lost the wide-eyed sense of wonder that encouraged me, at first, to write about everything I saw.

Every now and then, though, something occurs that reminds me what a thoroughly strange and unfamiliar country, state, city this is. Yesterday was Thanksgiving. Even were I American, I think I would be ambivalent about the day. What, exactly, are thanks been given for? The survival of some of the early colonies; and, by extension, the subjugation of the indigenous population and establishment of the good old USA. Hmmmm. Leaving aside that perhaps ungraceful point, a compulsory family gathering within a month of Christmas seems particularly cruel. I dodged two invitations to spend the day with large extended families and spent it
hiding in the philosophy grad 'work room' - a poky space, apparently once a small apartment, that makes the eleventh floor of Sheffield's arts tower seem well-appointed.

Only a cynic would say that the day after Thanksgiving is a more apposite expression of the American way of life. Today is 'Black Friday'. The name has nothing to do with stock market crashes, massacres, or the like. Instead, it's (probably incorrectly, but very nicely) said to derive from the fact that it's first day of the financial year on which the figures on the retailers' bottom lines can be penned in black rather than red (The American fiscal year begins on Oct 1). The discounts are, apparently, massive, and the queues enormous; the whole nation hits the shops and does their bit for the national economy.

Another strange thing happened recently. I can't resist the quotation: I got a letter from the government the other day, I opened and read it, it said they were suckers. They wanted me for their army or whatever. Imagine me giving a damn, I said never.

Yes, I was informed by mail that I had been registered for the Selective Service System. This is a compulsory scheme under which every male between the ages of 18 and 30 are registered so that, if a military draft is deemed necessary, the process can be conducted fairly, efficiently, and quickly. I was briefly worried, given that the American military is so far short of its recruitment targets that conscription is being seriously mooted by some. Luckily, my registration is an administrative error, an automatically produced document linked to my registration for a social security number. As a 'resident alien', I can de-register easily. No Arabian nights for me any time soon.

So, dubious holidays, rampant consumerism, and worrying intimations of military service. It's the American way, and it's still, reassuringly, very peculiar indeed.