NOVA Gothic -A list of 20 creepy/weird/terrifying things about life in Northern Virginia

 

Like many other states, Virginia has a split identity. The Western and Southern regions are largely rural and agricultural, but the Northern regions have been overrun by suburbs of  Washington DC. Which may sound innocuous, but as someone who's lived in the NOVA area for most of their lives, I can attest to the fact that it's not all wine and roses, man-made lakes and big box stores. Here's a partial list of some of the unnerving aspects of living in NOVA - some a little silly, otherwise legitimately terrifying:  

1. You’ve never seen a bear/wolf/bobcat in your neighborhood, but you know someone who has.
2. Suiting up like Mad Max for a trip to the grocery store before any snowstorm expected to deposit more than 2.”
3. Local radio stations run ads for global weapons systems.
4. No one questions your 60-minute daily commute to the adjacent suburb.
5. That guy throwing something into a trash at the local park could be discarding harmless picnic scraps ... or they could be a spy making a dead drop.
6. Paying as much for a house as other people might spend to purchase their own private Caribbean Island.
7. Helicopters have been circling for over an hour. No one notices.
8. Neighbor down the way, when asked what they do for a living, answers in the vaguest way: “I’m a civil servant.”
9. Potentially living next to (or on top of) the unmarked graves of Civil War soldiers.
10. Our most insidious invasive species isn’t kudzu, it’s McMansions.
11. Government shutdowns are existential crises.
12. Fire drills? Earthquake drills? Try nuclear attack drills.
13. Is it a road improvement project, or are they installing yet another secret underground bunker? 
14. HOAs with more power than some third-world governments.
15. Every day, the data server farms creep a little closer to your home.
16. Our local competitive sport isn’t high school football … it’s school board meetings.
17. Pairing business suits with tennis shoes or flip flops is socially acceptable.
18. Local roads with 10 lanes.
19. Helicopter dog parents.
20. Stars? Apparently they’re a real thing, but no one’s ever actually seen them thanks to the 24/7 glare of traffic lights, LED-illuminated retail signage, and office buildings with all the lights left on overnight.

"He's a 10, but ...": literary edition!

A while ago, my students became obsessed by some sort of Tik Tok trend which involved trying to guess the identity of a classmate or famous person based on a phrase that begins with the words "He's/She's a 10, but ..." and culminates in some sort of coded clue to their identity. 

Not long thereafter, I was brainstorming games for an upcoming gathering of literary friends and decided to repurpose the trend into a literary challenge. 

How many of the following fictional characters can you identify based on the clues provided? 

1. He's a 10, but frankly he doesn't give a damn
2. He's a 10, but he has far, far better things to do
3. He's a 10, but he hasn't figured out what to be or not to be
4. He's a 10, and he's got some Great Game
5. He's a 10, but pictures don't do him justice
6. She's a 10, but you'd always be Wondering where she wandered off to
7. He's a 10; the twist is that he's a little dodgy
8. She's a 10, and she's already got her own wedding dress
9. He's a 10, and he's got a personality as big as a whale
10. He's a 10, but sometimes clever women leave him feeling a bit Adled
11. He's a 10, but he refuses to grow up 
12. She's a 10; in fact, you could say she's earned an A
13. He's a 10, and his love for you will never die
14. He's a 10, but he may end up bugging out on you
15. He's a 10, but he's a bit of a swinger
16. He's a 10, but he tilts at windmills
17. He's a 10, and he's willing to grant you his affection even though he holds your family in low regard
18. He's a 10, but his business trips are epically long
19. He's a 10, but all the king's men may not be able to save his soul
20. He's a 10, but you can see right through him
21. She's a 10, but don't make the Eyrer of comparing her to a bird in a cage

ANSWERS:

1/Rhett Butler, Gone With The Wind; 2/Syndey Carton, Tale of Two Cities; 3/Hamlet, Hamlet; 4/Kim, Kim; 5/Dorian Gray, The Picture of Dorian Gray; 6/Alice, Through the Looking Glass; 7/The Artful Dodger, Oliver Twist; 8/Mrs. Haversham, Great Expectations; 9/Ahab, Moby Dick; 10/Sherlock Holmes, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; 11/Peter Pan, Peter Pan; 12/Hester Prynn, The Scarlet Letter; 13/Dracula, Dracula; 14/Gregor, The Metamorphosis; 15/Tarzan, Tarzan of the Apes; 16/Don Quixote, Don Quixote; 17/Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice; 18/Odysseus, The Odyssey; 19/Willie Stark, All The King's Men; 20/Griffin, The Invisible Man; 21/Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre

Book Look: The Overstory, by Richard Powers

 This is a gorgeously written, important book. It’s emotionally complex, morally challenging, and intellectually fecund - all of which makes it an eminently worthwhile read, though I’m not entirely sure I found it to be a particularly satisfying read.

The novel leads off with eight extremely long vignettes that introduce the characters (or sets of characters) that the story will trace over the course of the next 500 pages: a biologist who specializes in plant communications, a troubled young woman who experiences a life-altering rebirth, a solitary artist whose muse is nature, a socially awkward lad who grows up to be a psychologist fascinated by why people engage in futile behaviours, a modest intellectual property attorney & his sensation-seeking wife, a rough-around-the-edges-but-heart-of-gold Vietnam vet, the daughter of a Chinese emigree father who becomes an engineer, the son of an Indian emigree father who becomes a coding genius.

The thematic link between these backstories is that each tale references trees – sometimes in a direct way (there’s a lovely bit about a chestnut tree in the vignette about the artist), sometimes in more symbolic ways (trees as metaphors for family, memory, time, nature, hope, creativity, growth & rebirth, wisdom, salvation, etc.). Honestly, a part of me wonders if Powers didn’t lift large portions of this from short stories that he’d written earlier and separately … which isn’t meant as a critique, but would explain why so much of this section, while absorbing, doesn’t end up having much relevance to the subsequent tale.

From these seeds germinates the rest of the novel, in which the author’s protagonists separately and collectively embark upon journeys that will culminate in an understanding of the profound ecological significance of the largely unappreciated kingdom plantae. Worth recognizing Power's effort to incorporate cutting-edge botanical and ecological science into this part of the narrative. These pages hammer home, again and again, the message that earth is a single, interconnected biosphere, that healthy ecosystems perform ecological services that are key to sustaining Earth’s habitability, that ecosystems are sentient in ways we are only just beginning to understand, that preserving biodiversity is essential to preserving functioning ecosystems, and that - in our capacious and thoughtless appetite for resources - humans are likely to end up driving all life (including themselves) to extinction.

Powers’ other, equally important message: that forests serve a profoundly important aesthetic and spiritual purpose, reminding us that the true art of living isn’t about the resources we acquire, but about the connections that we make during our lives and the legacy that we leave in our wake – the nutrients that nature recycles to create new life, the enduring ideas and memories that humans recycle to create understanding.

A frequent issue I have with novels is that the characters neither reflect nor grow, so it feels strange to be dinging Overstory for the opposite problem! The time Powers spends tracing the complex inner journeys of each character comes (I felt) at the expense of creating a consistent and engaging external journey. Some of the characters do end up dabbling in activism, but this aspect of the novel never develops in any sort of important way. By the end of the novel, you understand that the consciousness of each character has been altered in profound ways, but they’ve largely failed to translate those weighty new understandings into any sort of useful action. Which is clearly enough to win you a Pulitzer Prize, but not particularly gratifying if, as a reader, you’re itching for a bit of inspiration or hope.

FYI, I recommend that this be read within easy reach of internet access, and that readers take the time necessary to look up the individual species that Powers references throughout. The background knowledge I brought to this as a biology/environmental science educator substantially heightened my ability to appreciate that wonders that Powers describes throughout –the spiraling bark of the bristlecone pines, the swollen bellies of baobob trees, the mesmerizing way that mimosa leaves furl at the slightest touch. At the very least, do a quick image search on “unusual trees” and take the time to appreciate the truly remarkable diversity and evolutionary cunning of these ancient and indispensable organisms.