Displays of Authenticity (15)—In the Wheelhouse

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series Displays of Authenticity.
One year ago on Round and Square—Fargo

[a] Steerage RF

I have encountered a "new" word in English recently. To use a double-negative, it is not as though the phrase has never failed to enter my consciousness (something like kzcxhgenery, for example). It has occupied a place way back in the recesses of my imagination, probably because I have heard of "wheel" and "house" before. Call me sheltered (or landlocked), but I have rarely, until the last few weeks, thought of them as being linked. Wheelhouse. What the heck? Clearly, the concept doesn't seem to be in my wheelhouse.

[b] Housings RF

As is often the case, it was Mitt Romney who first got my attention. The American presidential candidate claims that the economy is in his wheelhouse. When I first heard him say this, I was puzzled.  

His where? Is that why he's wearing jeans all of the time?

I thought I had it figured out, but then wasn't so sure, so I decided to sleep on it. Hours later, I awoke in mid-slumber to shout "Mitt...get the economy out of your wheelhouse; that's the problem! It's been stuck in your wheelhouse!" To my mind, Monsieur Romney had tucked the American economy into dry dock, and the little wheelhouse was looking out over a patch of New Jersey. That explained a lot, I thought.

I soon learned that my interpretation of the phrase (a big place for storage of wheels and other stuff, or so I thought) was just a bit—way— too literal. In the last few weeks I have become attuned to "wheelhouse" as meaning something akin to 專門, as in the following snippet from a formal introduction Governor Romney might make in Tokyo while (formally) addressing a fine geopolitical partner: 

                     ...専門わアメリカの經濟です...
                                ...my specialty is the American economy...
                                                      —or— 
                                ...the (American) economy is in my wheelhouse...

[c] Authenticity RF

I have spent enough time in Japan (and China, which has the same characters for pretty much the same idea) to know that a specialty is nothing about which one quibbles. If your wheelhouse is a 専門 senmon of yours, you must know a lot about it. Well played, ミテ (Mitt). The American economy is in your wheelhouse, as you attest.

I think I am beginning to catch on. It is a kind of display of authenticity, a statement of expertise in some realm or other. If something is in your wheelhouse, you can hit it like a hanging curveball...out of the park. I was becoming accustomed to the extensions of meaning, but I had never heard anyone "unpack" the term before.

It all comes down to a single phrase in a stump speech, repeated throughout Mississippi, Alabama, and Illinois...with varying results. I swear that I had never thought of the wheelhouses before Mitt Romney started parking the economy in his a few weeks ago. Wheelhouse? Isn't that where we put the 1958 Bentley and the old yacht...or a couple of Cadillacs? Isn't it at least a garage...of sorts? Wheelhouse? A house for...wheels?

Go ahead and check the online dictionaries. They skip right from wheels and housing and jump immediately to the everyday cultural usage. It goes like this: 

                    I know this aspect of our shared cultural existence, 

                    and am authentically good at it.

[d] Wheelhouse...literally RF

From there, it can (if we follow the dictionaries) be translated as "I can be trusted to perform evaluative duties in this sphere without problem."

Ummmm. Not so fast, Governor. Wheelhouse? Where on the appropriate-height tree-lined earth did your speech writers come up with that one? And don't tell me that it's just a phrase. Wheelhouse? I have lived five decades, and I don't believe that I had ever spoken the word until Mitt said it. 

Now I say it all the time, and am convinced that French sinology is in my wheelhouse. 

RomneyClaim has broadened my horizons, to be sure, but I would still be confused if I had not started thinking about Herman Melville and Patrick O'Brian. A wheelhouse, you see, is somewhere (where) you steer things. I guess that steering is related to authenticity, and a wheel house is the little hut on board the ship that houses...the wheel. 

Wheelhouse. Steerage. Authenticity.

Keep your eye on this phrase. Unless you wear a patch, notice nautical twilight, and have saltwater in your ears, you will probably hear the word more in the next six months than you have in your whole life. Culture (and language) is like that. In just the last week, I have heard strange uses of "wheelhouse" that make me think that I am not the only person who has been confused. An ESPN writer on Sunday exclaimed that Tiger Woods has four major tournaments "in his wheelhouse" this year, with the Masters beginning next week. What does that mean? He's good at (major) golf tournaments, to be sure, but what does that have to do with his wheelhouse? How are those tournaments "in his wheelhouse?" He has won almost a quarter of the majors he has entered. Maybe the author was right about Tiger having those tournaments in his wheelhouse. Maybe.

That "maybe" is what I'm talking about. Wheelhouses are going to be discussed for a while now, and not all usages will cohere. When Mitt speaks, we listen. Keep your ears attuned for this particular little rhetoric of authenticity, and see where it goes from here (hear). Culture and history are ever-changing, and no matter how talented we might be as interpreters, we can never have those in our wheelhouses. 

Nope. It's too complicated for that. Like life. And language. And life...and language...and life...

[e] In the wheelhouse RF

Just Do It Over (6)—Etch-a-Sketch

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Just Do It Over."

[a] Etch tu, Brutus? RF

I ordered myself an Etch-a-Sketch® a few minutes ago. I couldn't help it, and am not exactly sure why I remembered the wonderful do-over-ishness of this childhood toy. I might have heard something on the news, but I quickly found myself off the smooth pavement of the present and onto the uneven cobblestones of memory lane. It could be said that all toys have a little bit of "do-over" in them. You can always play a second or third round of CandyLand®, and it is hardly unknown for a tyke (or adult) to re-craft that ol' Lego® tower. Nothing, though, says impermanence like the Etch-a-Sketch. I missed mine so much that I logged onto Amazon.com and ordered one. I can't wait to see if I can make a curved line as nicely as I thought I did in 1969. Then I will shake it up and start all over again. The way I remember it (imagine the focus of a child here), I wore out my first Etch-a-Sketch with hours of drawing...and erasing...and redrawing...various shades of dark, straight lines on a light gray background.

[b] Detour RF

It's all about shades of gray. That's the way I see it.

If you think that I have anything political to say about this, think again. This blog focuses on society, culture, history, and the intersection between what people often see as irreconcilable opposites (like east and west, round and square, left and right...). Oops.

The Etch-a-Sketch is an oddly fascinating little toy. The political firestorm that has surrounded it since Wednesday morning has nothing to do with outsourcing (the little plastic sketchpad has been made in China since 2000) or economics or even union jobs in Ohio.

It is all about just doing it over.

And culture and personality. And multimedia and, well, politics. A particular Republican candidate's Rorschach moment has appeared in the form of the Etch-a-Sketch. What has fascinated me today is the way that almost everyone who has heard of the Romney campaign's etcha moment has reacted strongly. These strong reactions range from "liar" to "Kinsley gaffe" to "these sound bites are what's wrong with politics." What fewer people have pointed out, however, is that the moment truly resonated beyond almost anything since Joe the Plumber. So far.

[c] Moment(ous) RF

Since I truly have no interest on this blog of getting into the messiness of politics, it is difficult to find contextual pieces for the "gotcha/do-over" dynamics here. I have selected the actual "event" on CNN, as well as coverage in the Wall Street Journal (blog), New York Times, and the morning political show that seems to find balance in an otherwise combative world, Mourning Zhou.

Reset (CNN)

Wall Street Journal

New York Times

Morning Joe

There is much, much more stuff out there. For better or worse, it has hit a nerve, so go ahead and search if you wish. I plan to take another angle as we wrap up this very odd and timely "Just Do It Over" post. I wish to consider the relationship between craft and permanence. The Etch-a-Sketch is known for impermanence, but it is capable of quite detailed works of...well, craft. Take a look at several YouTube "drawings" that might surprise you if you haven't thought about that little red, plastic, drawing board since Walter Cronkite was on television every night.

LeBron James 3:08

Chicago Cubs 2:51

Various 2:44

[d] Canvas RF

So what is the relationship between a sketch and posterity? It is a certainty that more doodling has made it into the archives than has Etch-a-Sketch art. While YouTube now makes some kind of immortality possible, I still wonder what the parents of etch-artists did when little Timmy would show up with a drawing of the Eiffel Tower or the Agricultural Building from the World Columbian Exposition of 1893. Did they put an Etch-a-Sketch holder on the refrigerator? It is almost like performance art. Or should we even use the word almost? It is a thing of the moment, but it can be made to last, at least for a while.

That sounds to me a whole lot like politics.

Maybe we would do well to think more generally about the relationship between statements etched into this moment or that...and longevity. The relative permanence of a particular political candidate's positions will be hashed, rehashed, and hash-tagged for days, but most words do not long linger. Readers of Round and Square, while surely holding political positions of their own (and no doubt having great fun or dismay with today's particulars), owe it to themselves to think about politics, sketches, statements, and posterity. Politics has always been, and always will be, about do-overs. 

So let's think about the culture of politics just as much as we argue over the politics of culture. There is fertile ground to be tilled, here, and I venture to say that a great deal of it is all about just doing it over (and over).

[e] Do overs (1932, 1936, 1940, 1944) RF