One of my favorite movies is "State and Main," a David Mamet film from about eight years ago with a stellar ensemble cast that includes William H. Macy and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, among others. It basically is about a Hollywood movie crew that invades a small Vermont town and finds that the locals are more than they bargained for.
As a Vermonter (albeit adopted), I like it, at least in part, because the native Vermonters so thoroughly get the better of the Hollywood glitterati. It's like rooting for the underdog and seeing the underdog win; on a deeper level, it's the triumph of small town, practical Yankee values over urban show-biz sophistication. It's just heartening that every so often Vermont, and all it is, can manage somehow to eke out a victory.
What got me thinking about all this was a moment of revelation I had Sunday morning while shoveling snow. We had another 10-inch snowfall, and I set out with iPod in my pocket, ear buds in my ears and shovel in hand to clear nature's latest bit of showy excess. Sly and the Family Stone's "Everyday People" sounded pretty good as I dug in, but gradually things went wrong. I found that my shoveling motion kept yanking the ear buds out of my ears. I put up with this for a bit, re-inserting the buds a few times, but eventually I got tired of it.
I turned off my iPod, put it in my pocket and went back to the shoveling ... tuneless. But not upset. I came to look at this as another victory for Vermont reality over the forces of technology. Shoveling is meant to be done without tunes. In fact, after a snowfall, even with the distant sound of snowblowers and plow trucks, there is a kind of profound blanket of silence that is present - and meant to be listened to.
I'm sure there's some sort of device, some Bluetooth thing that can help me plug in and still shovel. But I won't go for that. I learned a lesson. I love my iPod, and I won't give it up. But it stays inside when there's shoveling to be done. Sly prefers it that way.