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Holiday Ethics or Blatant Humbuggery?
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I live in the Eastern chunk of Hollywood, California (near Silver Lake,
for you ironic t-shirt-wearing hipsters). This past Monday, the 19th, I
was caught up in the worst traffic jam of the year. "What happened?" I
wondered. "What sort of terrible accident has clogged even the sneaky
side-streets that usually pave my way home? Geez, I hope no one
died..." Then it *donned(see below) on me. The "terrible accident" was, in fact,
the first evening of the annual DWP Holiday Light Festival that
illuminates a mile of Griffith Park, which you may remember from such
wildfires as "May of This Year." Perhaps it was the hour-long drive
that should have taken ten minutes that got me unreasonably riled up,
but I was REALLY MAD at the Festival: "A month and a half of
unnecessary traffic?!! Why, the very IDEA!!! (or something similar but
with more swears)" The anger was lame on my part, I admit, and as the
bubbling chemicals from my limbic system began to ebb I wondered how a
light festival that stretches a mile long could possibly be good for an
energy crisis.
When I finally arrived home I hopped on the ol'
Internet to try to find the answer to this question because I am
borderline OCD and need to distract myself from the many things which I
am actually supposed to be getting done. Within seconds, I was on the official homepage for the 2007 LA-DWP HOLIDAY LIGHT FESTIVAL.
The website (which really is charming) claimed that not only are all of
the lights LEDs, but that they are being powered by a "clean energy
fuel cell," whatever that may be. Alright, DWP, one point for you.
Granted, you're still down several hundred for the thirteen power
outages in the same neighborhood in the last two years, a few of which
lasted for days; four since September alone (rage surfacing again). How
can you tell your residents to back off unnecessary appliance usage
because you can't meet the city's power demands and then turn around a
month later and fire up THOUSANDS of light sources? It's great that
you're cutting energy by a third of the previous light festivals, but
it's still a six week-long extra load piled onto the grid.
In
truth, I don't know the exact numbers so I may be way off base, but it
does raise the larger question about seasonal light displays: Is it
actually ethical to poo-poo holiday light shows in today's energy
climate or still just as Scrooge-like as ever? Holiday light shows seem
like one of those phenomena that make even the staunchest of
conservationists bend their own axioms: "Only use the energy you
absolutely need!!!" "Oh, okay, so you're not doing lights this year?"
"Well, OF COURSE we're doing lights this year! It's the holidays! We're
not cave people!"
Besides the ten dollars worth of drug store
lighting that most people toss up, there's usually one Fantasmic in
every community--one glittering showboat that goes out of his way to
layer in every holiday story and icon into a Circus of the Stars
of seasonal displays. It's the house that people from other
neighborhoods make special trips to go see and gawk at and lavish its
owner with statements like, "This house must be owned by some kind of
super-family!" "I'm going to tear out my eyes because everything I see
from now on will just look like garbage!" or "I've just stared into the
face of God!" I'm betting that most of these wonder-houses are NOT
employing LED lighting, not to mention the power consumed by the waving
Santa or robotic Baby Jesus wriggling his arms in an animatronic
Nativity amid an extensive cast of Christmas-themed energy vampires.
Am
I wrong to assume that on a nation-wide scale this is just sucking up
millions of kilowatt-hours of energy? I invite any of our kind blogees
to "school" me. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me my assumptions are
ill-conceived. I would LOVE to embrace the holiday spirit and enjoy the
light shows and their intended good will without the nagging voice in
the back of my head (which for some reason sounds like a hacky hippie
character) saying, "...but where's all that energy gonna come from, maaaaan?"
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November 25, 2007 10:49 PM
cvj
I feel your pain. I don't know what the numbers involved are, so I'll not comment on that... however, I think on general grounds (not to mention taste and aesthetics), I'll join in your shouts of "Bah! Humbug" for a lot of the particularly awful lighting displays that are going up - and way too early every year!
Cheers,
-cvj
November 28, 2007 7:04 PM
Adam Wade
I *think* you meant "Dawned", not "donned"
It ruins the credibility of professional writers to not be able to tell apart homonyms (spelling errors are often a bit more forgivable, but using what is obviously a word that sounds the same but has very different meaning makes it very difficult to trust your understanding of what the author is trying to convey).
Might want to work on that. Sentence structure is fairly wonky, too... The whole thing reads like an average high school student wrote it. It takes more subtlety to be cheeky without sounding vulgar. And no, you'll have to look those words up yourself. Sorry.
Click the URL link by my name to see my qualifications.
November 28, 2007 9:53 PM
Chris Hardwick
Good catch, Adam! This is what happens when I don't take time to proofread...working on five different projects at the moment. At first I corrected the mistake, but then I changed it back so that everyone can see what a mistake-maker I am and how right you were to exercise your snark.
The real truth is, though, I'm stupid. I'm a stupid, stupid person who needed a fair bit of condescension to be put in his place, and I really do appreciate your taking the time from your clearly busy schedule to dole out this enlightened and just verbal punishment. You could've have emailed the blog discreetly to point out the error, but then why deny everyone a sampling of your rapier wit? I looked up those confusing words you mentioned in the dictiomonary, but then I saw a bee and got distracted.
It struck me as odd that you felt the need to put a link to your resume, until I discovered that you wrote the cheeky yet subtle "Motorcycle Fuel Injection Handbook," ONLY the most compelling comedy of our time!
Thanks again! You seem like a really nice guy, but I have to run and finish my high school correspondence course in creative writing. I'll get that diplerma yet!!!
December 1, 2007 8:26 AM
Whoa.
Well, I don't know. I think just a simple "You used the wrong word" would have worked just fine. Hey, did your mom ever beat you with a dictionary?
Because she probably should have sat you down instead and showed you the difference between a homonym and a homophone. Please be assured that I am correcting you publicly and cruelly because you are a tool.
Great blog, Chris. The "I'm going to tear out my eyes..." sentence made me laugh out loud.
Love,
A Philologist at Heart.
(Geez, now *I'm* terrified that I spelled something wrong!)
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