How To Change Things
by Owen Lipstein October 24, 2008
If there has been a more fetchingly, blissfully beautiful spate of autumn weather here in the Hudson Valley, I don’t remember when. I confess to being a closet optimist (an occupational hazard for entrepreneurs), but lately I can’t quite shake the thought that Britain also enjoyed a shockingly gorgeous summer in 1940. According to historian John Lukacs, the not-so-salutary effect of it lulled some Brits into half-believing their endless summer might last, that perhaps war could be held at a distance indefinitely.
In fact, in their world, bombs started dropping manically from the September skies as the Germans began the Blitzkrieg on Britain with 57 straight nights of air raids on London. Here, recent economic developments, still a little remote to some, have begun raining down on us against a backdrop of jarringly discordant, perfect weather.
This “Next” issue of InsideOut chronicles some possible outcomes for the future, both for the nation and in the Hudson Valley. We would suggest that the collective voices within resonate with something approaching hope.
If you want to think about the future, the body of knowledge about twin research provides the ultimate controlled experiment. If you believe you are the sole author of your own destiny, then can you explain how identical twins separated at birth both became firemen in California, and clutch their Budweiser in a plainly unique manner? I think you’ll find our interview with noted twin expert Dr. Nancy Segal at once disquieting and reassuring.
Local boy James Howard Kunstler’s body of work, from predicting the end of conventional suburbs to the current peak-oil scenario, makes other forecasters look silly. In his novel World Made by Hand, he imagines a future Hudson Valley where there are no power grids, no oil, no central government, and where cities languish in squalor. It’s both a trip forward in imagined time, and a nostalgic—though not sentimental—nod to the necessary skills we as a culture and a society once possessed.
We interview Giancarlo Esposito, fresh from an appearance at the Woodstock Film Festival, where he showed his new film, “Gospel Hill,” which is about…everything. It’s hard to see a movie more of its time than this one.
We also spoke to nine kids. In some ways, they demonstrated a clearer grasp of what lies ahead than many of their elders.
One more thing: No, I don’t think we’re going to be embarrassed for the next 60 years—as the Chicago Daily Tribune was after running the headline DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN the day after that election—with a triumphant McCain waving a hot-off-the-press copy of InsideOut in ebullient ridicule. But if Obama doesn’t win, our chagrin will hardly be this magazine's—or nation’s—biggest problem.
We were inspired by the first, iconic cover of the late George magazine, a prescient publication founded by the late John F. Kennedy, Jr. about “demystifying the political process.”
Imagine George Washington changing everything, traversing the Hudson Valley, the best horsemen of his day, surprising the British where they slept—and altering the future of this country for the better. Now that man was a maverick.
We think Obama is made of the same cloth. With his courage and competence, intelligence and moral clarity, he just might redeem the hope and the promise of that first American Revolution. (And allow us all to better enjoy the next wave of heaven-sent weather.)
