Happy Rodent Monday

[bironic]

Happy Groundhog Day! America's weirdest and most charming holiday. I wish I had time to go to this tonight.

Had a lovely time in D.C., staying with [LJ friend] and her family (so sweet!), visiting the National Institutes of Health to do what I had to do for school (so cool!), and dropping by the Holocaust Museum (so…not what normal people do for fun!).

Some of the people who went to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem with me over the summer said that the one in Washington was more affecting. I'm not sure if it was. My experience in both was very different—on a tour with 40 people and carrying a two-week sleep deficit in the first (four hours), alone and at my own pace in the second (two hours)—so it was hard to judge. Yad Vashem had far more artifacts, so you had a better opportunity to connect with something personally moving. You were also seeing everything in a profound context: in the country where so many survivors took root afterwards, in the language that by its continued existence proves that the Final Solution did not succeed. But I also had a hard time soaking it all in because I had to follow someone else's lectures and stop where he stopped/not stop where he kept walking.

At the U.S. memorial I was more removed from and had better perspective on my trip, so when I got to the sections on the Warsaw ghetto or Pawiak prison or Birkenau, for instance, I could stop and remember standing on those grounds. The cast "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate lacked as much power as the ones physically at Auschwitz. There were video clips from mass executions, camp liberations and medical experiments that I hadn't seen before, and a train car you had to walk through with a shaft of light slanting in through one small window. Here more than in Israel I thought about what the other museum visitors knew about the Holocaust before coming in. I was paying closer attention, too, to the reactions of the people around me: the sniffles and quiet gasps, the head-shaking of disbelief, the schoolchildren shouting for each other to "come see all the teeth!", the couples of all ages murmuring facts to each other. I trailed a Japanese man for a few exhibits as he walked from case to case with his hands clasped behind his back; I wondered if he was thinking about American internment camps, and whether anyone else considered the echoes on our own home ground as they thought that no one here would do what the Nazis did, then, now, or ever again.

But nothing hit me in the gut the way reading someone like Primo Levi does. I don't know. If anything, I've concluded that for me, going to museums is a less effective way to try to comprehend the Holocaust than reading memoirs or listening to survivors.

.

The SGA pornlet I wrote yesterday when I was supposed to be working on the stuff that I'm still putting off has so far only attracted five commenters. I wonder whether it was the timing (Superbowl), characters (het threesome) or warning (dubcon & kink).

.

Anyway, just to say that since classes start again tomorrow and I have, you know, a thesis to write, I will have to cut way down on reading the f-list, posting and writing fic for a few months—if I am responsible. Then again, when I panicked about schoolwork all through January I ended up writing more fics than in any other month ever, and I have chosen an elective partially because it only meets once a week, so maybe I will squeeze in some stories. But back to the responsibility thing.

Comments

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

I went to Yad Vashem as part of a tour, many years ago, and was frustrated by how orchestrated the experience was. They had clearly designed it to tug at our heartstrings; and, of course, it did, but I resented that, because I felt like it would have been plenty moving if they'd just let me experience it on my own, instead of making me go through it at someone else's pace.

I went to the Shoah museum many years ago also, but alone, on my own. It was a more affecting experience for me, for that reason. Though I've never actually been to the camps -- it's fascinating to hear you point out that the simulacrum of the place isn't as powerful as the place itself. I mean, of course not.

Sigh.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Also, strangely, the places themselves weren't as powerful for me as the stories of the places were in people's memoirs. When I stood on the site of Canada (stolen goods storage) at Birkenau, it meant more to me because I'd read Levi and had faces and individual stories to connect to the site and its memorial plaques.

I resented that, because I felt like it would have been plenty moving if they'd just let me experience it on my own

Yes, I felt that too. I guess the curators don't trust their visitors to be able to draw that power from what they're seeing without being helped. Maybe it's true for many people.

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

And a Happy Groundhog Day to you too! I hear all the Eastern critters predict 6 more weeks of winter. Still waiting on our own critter (Balzac Billy) to give his edict.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

My sister tells me that Malverne Mel on Long Island (whom I'd never heard of) called for an early spring, while Punxutawney Phil declared more winter, so there goes the universal theory of groundhog weather prediction.

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

Never heard of Malverne Mel either. Sounds like every little town's trying to get in on the racket. :-)

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

I wonder whether it was the timing (Superbowl), characters (het threesome) or warning (dubcon & kink).

Heh. It wasn't any of those for me -- it was who the characters were. I did read the ficlet, but I'm just not a big (or even a small) fan of Lorne or Weir.

So. Sorry I didn't comment, though -- I did think it was interesting and well-written, and it actually sparked a sort of kinky idea involving House and Wilson that might make it into the Petrified Forest plotbunny (that's if it ever gets written).

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Ooh, House/Wilson sparkage! Thrilled to inspire, whether it leads to text or not.

I probably shouldn't have put the mixed threesome in and of itself in parentheses there, since it does leave out the identities of the participants as a factor, which I did mean to include.

[sabinetzin]

Man, those are the three reasons I read that story!

But anyway- Museums!

Caveat: I used to be an interpretation ranger for the NPS.

The National Holocaust Museum is kind of a weird place. I'm hella biased, because it's not an NPS site. I think they err on the side of shock in some places- which is totally understandable, but to be avoided at all costs. I really think too much politics and not enough interpretation went into it, which kinda sucks.

I think Manzanar does it better, actually, despite being under a similar (but lessened) type of political pressure, or the fact that they lifted several things wholesale from the Holocaust Museum. They've got a huge advantage, though, because they're actually on site in the middle of this gorgeous and terrifying desert. (But again, biased- I kinda had a thing with one of their rangers at a workshop- it's a long story.)

What's going to be really interesting is when interp gets set up at Tule Lake War Relocation/Segregation Center, because the situation is very similar, plus added community pressures (no internees stayed in the Klamath/Tule Lake Basin area after the camp closed, and but most of the guards were local).

Not that I would know anything about that. ::innocent face::

Oddly enough, for my money the most moving museum I've ever experienced is the National POW Museum at Andersonville NHS, which is actually older than MANZ or the Holocaust Museum.

[roga.livejournal.com]

But nothing hit me in the gut the way reading someone like Primo Levi does. I don't know. If anything, I've concluded that for me, going to museums is a less effective way to try to comprehend the Holocaust than reading memoirs or listening to survivors.

Absolutely, for me. Both Yad Vashem and the DC museum were so informative for me -- a good place to get the same info I can get in a million other places, but no emotional impact. In DC, in particular, I felt like I was getting so much info thrown at my face that was so obvious -- like, do people not already know this? -- but obviously, not everyone does.

I do like the art in Yad Vashem, the thought that's gone into the architecture of the building itself and the gardens and the sculptures, and the fact that almost every time I've been there has also been followed by a conversation with a survivor. And still, books and movies and real life conversations, for me, are far better. I suppose it's a question of better for what, though; I guess a museum isn't intended to have the same impact on you as other... mediums.

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

But nothing hit me in the gut the way reading someone like Primo Levi does. I don't know. If anything, I've concluded that for me, going to museums is a less effective way to try to comprehend the Holocaust than reading memoirs or listening to survivors.

I think maybe there's some stuff you can only get from museums, like the physical/visual aspects of things, but I suspect for the emotional aspect, for what it felt like to be there and experience it, you need the personal accounts. Not that this is a reasonable comparison, but I always really wanted to visit the Changi Museum/Memorial (in Singapore) because of a book I'd read about the POWs interned there during WWII, and I thought it was pretty amazing, but only because I'd read about it beforehand and knew the context for what I was seeing. Otherwise it was mostly, you know, an assortment of stuff with labels on :)

The SGA pornlet I wrote yesterday when I was supposed to be working on the stuff that I'm still putting off has so far only attracted five commenters. I wonder whether it was the timing (Superbowl), characters (het threesome) or warning (dubcon & kink).

Eh, no-one's been reading anything I've written lately. But since I did promise myself I was going to stop caring so much about commentage and only write what I felt like, I'm mostly okay with it. Mostly *g*. Of course, I guess with SGA you'd generally expect a bit more notice!

Groundhog Day = movie with Bill Murray that seemed a lot longer than it really was ;)