Dan Fishback: Becoming a visual objection in high school

I didn't think a lot about geo-politics over Thanksgiving break. I was trying to take my vacation seriously, giving myself a genuine respite from all pressures, both academic and global.

But it's hard to celebrate a holiday commemorating the prelude to Native American genocide without tipping your hat even slightly to history. Even harder with my family. Especially when this Thanksgiving overlaps with Hanukkah, when we celebrate the first successful revolution of national independence in recorded history. And how interesting that this revolution included a battle between assimilationist and nationalist Jews -- particularly since most modern Jews resemble the former more than the latter and...

Oy. Whatever. I wanted my stuffing.

It was in this spirit of escapism that Emily and I hopped in my parents' car to pick up blank CDs for my band's first recording. ("Four Slices" by Cheese on Bread -- available soon.) Walking into the computer store, we passed the typical neighborhood suburbanites in L.L. Bean coats and Lands' End jeans. A few turned their heads to check us out -- Emily collared and cuffed in puffy brown faux-fur, her dyed-red hair framing her nose-ringed face, and me in my purple vinyl jacket, too tight over a black hoodie.

We were like city kids or something. Punks. Rebels.

...getting out of my parents' car at a strip mall to buy blank CDs with a credit card...

Rock 'n roll, yo. Hardcore.

The checkout girl beamed when she saw us.

"I like your coat!" she said to me, before turning to Emily and crooning, "Heyyy, I like what you're wearing too! You're both so stylish! I like this thing you've got going on! Very cool."

And of course it was very cool. It's bad enough to work at a cash register all day, but it must be worse when everyone comes through looking the same. It must be so disheartening, each impersonal second the same as the last. Yeah, every human being is unique, but when your job is so mechanical, you need to be reminded of such things -- you need to see people wear their differences right there on their bodies.

And I guess the same goes for any dehumanizing workplace -- like a toll booth or high school. Driving around my hometown in purple vinyl, I thought back on my years at Richard Montgomery High. I started out surly and drab, unexcited about life and unconvinced that change was possible. But I noticed this one boy who always wore crazy blazers and never showered. And this girl who sucked on a pacifier and wore patchy bell-bottoms. They seemed to point somewhere -- the very image of them implied a world where people didn't care about social order or parental expectation.

That boy's nasty smell helped me conceive of a world where people were struggling for holistic freedom -- not just from poverty or terror, but from the larger structures of power -- the sorts of abstract relations that make poverty and terror possible in the first place. That pacifier girl made me believe I had a community somewhere -- a community dedicated to fixing everything.

"Rebel grrrrrrl, rebel grrrrrl, rebel grrl you are the queen of my worrrrld!'

I cast off my surly drabness in favor of surly fabulosity.

When I used my lunch money to buy my first skin-tight thrift-store T-shirt, I became a visual objection: "No. Something here is wrong. Things need to change."

So it felt productive, carting Emily around to populated suburban venues, placing ourselves in public. Some kid would see us, I thought -- see us and realize that there's more to life than Rockville, Md.

This was how I rationalized not reading the newspaper for four days. And I think I pretty much believe my rationalization -- some of the subtler forms of activism are more powerful than a march or a column. Sometimes just being there and looking fabulous can instill people with hope.

Thanks, blazer boy. Thanks, pacifier girl.

And a message to the girly fat boy who stared at me in the Mexican restaurant on Rockville Pike: Don't mention it. I know. And, actually, while I'm at it... Secondhand Rose is way cheaper than Hot Topic -- don't waste your money on faux-punk retail garbage unless you're making some kind of ironic joke. And it's never too late to learn guitar. And don't go too heavy on the eye-liner. And the parking lot in Congressional Plaza is way more fun than the one in White Flint. And rejecting body culture doesn't mean you have to eat like a pig. And the best place to buy Bj”rk imports is...

Dan Fishback is a senior American Identities major from Olney, Md.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.