From: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org (support-system-digest) To: support-system-digest@smoe.org Subject: support-system-digest V4 #227 Reply-To: support-system@smoe.org Sender: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk support-system-digest Saturday, September 8 2001 Volume 04 : Number 227 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Liz's San Fransico Days [Kaufmann@IPFW.EDU (Kaufmann_Mike)] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 08:19:04 -0500 From: Kaufmann@IPFW.EDU (Kaufmann_Mike) Subject: Liz's San Fransico Days This is apropos of nothing in particular, but Liz in general. I've been reading David Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (you'll have to read it to get the arch overstatement of the title which turns out to be only slightly overstated), a novelistic "memoir" that recounts his struggles of his parents' deaths and raising his younger brother in the aftermath. That of course has nothing to do with Liz, BUT after his parents die he moves (along with the rest of the family) to San Fransico. Like Liz he's from the north suburbs of Chicago (Eggers a bit further north of the somewhat less cushy--than Liz's Winnetka anyway--Lake Forest), and like her he migrates to San Fransico after graduating (he from Univ. of Illinois rather than tony Oberlin). That's not all that remarkable, but a passage in the book caught my eye: "Everyone is out here: ...all these people from high school, from before high school, from grade school, earlier, all from Chicago, all just out of school, all living out here--it's the manifestation of an inexplicable sort of mass migration, about fifteen of us out here, with more landing in San Francisco every month, all for different reasons, for no particular reason. Certainly no one has come to take advantage of this job market, which is anything but enticing. For now, we're all scraping by with temping, with anything." (129). Recounting his founding of a zine called Might, he mentions that many on the staff "have no jobs at all, and have been give by their parents a years or so to get on their feet" (173). The time frame is 1993, so Liz is already set to ride the early rocket of her fame and fortune back in City of Big Shoulders, but I keeping hoping for some oblique connection (and mention of my own obscure but more northwesterly hometown). In any case, I find the references an explanation for her move. I suppose it might refer to a general national migration to SF, but certainly establishes the phenomenon as an upper middle class Chicago trend in the early 90s, seemingly the American approximate of the English/European Grand Tour, in which the gentry footed a year abroad for the recent graduate. Only the tour seems to be more demographic than geographic, moving from the largely homogenous northern Chicago suburbs to the socially and culturally diverse Californian cutting-edge (socially if not politically) capital. Didn't mean to be so long-winded, but I always thought Liz's Go(ing) West had a personal explanation of some sort (and probably does), but also seems to coincide with a larger trend that I didn't realize existed. And anyway nothing else is happening in Lizland, so it might be of interest to some--and it is a worthwhile book if you're ok with the David Foster Wallace approach (i.e., big words and long sentences and self-reflexivity out the wazoo). Mike ------------------------------ End of support-system-digest V4 #227 ************************************