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Friday Quiz: Where Is This? (May 5, 2006) Friday Quiz: Where Is This? 
Too fast to live, too young to die, my, my.
This week's entry is a memorial to an American Immortal, anti-hero/ rebel James Dean. But where is it? Naturally, the two young mavericks in my novel I-State Lines, Daz and Alex, guide their gloriously patched together '62 Dodge Lancer to this hallowed spot. The appeal of James Dean is, I believe, embedded in the mythic nature of his American Identity; his few roles were so iconic that he became much more than a promising young actor. In both Rebel Without a Cause 
and
Giant ,
Dean is of course a Rebel against the conformist
pathway expected of him, but he is also an Innocent, anguished by conflicts with his father
and class/social restrictions. (In Giant, he is a working-class roughneck who strikes it rich
in the Texas oil patch.)
Dean is also Everyman in the films, a "regular guy" whom we can identify with, and a Searcher, a seeker of some meaning beyond the confines of the narrow lives endured by those around him. It is truly amazing to see Dean swagger onstage as the rich but deeply uncomfortable oil tycoon in Giant, drunk to the point of inhibitions lost, boiling over with a powerful mix of resentment, pride and flickering spark of moral outrage. Like Dean's characters, Daz and Alex are also Everymen, Innocents, Explorers and Rebels, anti-heroes in the classic American mode of establshing an unbending independence, but also heroes in their awareness of, and sacrifices for, those around them. I'll ship a copy of my book to the first person who identifies this location with some quick description which can't be picked up off the Web, i.e. evidence that they've actually visited this memorial. So email me! For more on this subject and a wide array of other topics, please visit my weblog. 
copyright © 2006 Charles Hugh Smith. All rights reserved in all media. I would be honored if you linked this wEssay to your site, or printed a copy for your own use.
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