Looking for Alaska at My High School

2010-08-06 (said on 2010-08-04 — implied: date said in the video; uploaded 2 days later) · documentary visit · John · 3:40 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing (also: Personal life) · mode: Personal essay · tags: on location

Visiting Indian Springs School, the near-exact setting of Looking for Alaska, John finds nostalgia punctured by a bee sting and concludes that nostalgia yearns for a past that never existed, and that fiction is how he turns his lying memories into something true.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Up at 5:30 a.m. because of the baby and time zones; coffee; drive to Indian Springs School

• ★ John was up at 5:30 a.m. because babies don't know about time zones; he grumbles that Birmingham is an hour behind Indianapolis though at nearly the same longitude. (playful) — 00:00:00 · Indianapolis
• ★★ Being up anyway, John drove to his high school alma mater, Indian Springs School. — 00:00:16

00:00:20 — Looking for Alaska's premise mirrors John's life; Culver Creek is almost exactly Indian Springs in 1995; tour of real landmarks from the book, the swing and Bolívar's last words

• ★★★ John says Looking for Alaska is about a Florida boy obsessed with famous last words who leaves for an Alabama boarding school, and that he himself was once that boy. — 00:00:20 · Looking for Alaska (novel), Florida
• ★★★ John says the novel is fiction but its setting is not: Culver Creek is almost inch for inch Indian Springs School as it was in 1995. — 00:00:39 · Looking for Alaska (novel)
• ★★ John points out real places from the book, from the interstate exit and local shops to the swan, the cafeteria and the swing where Alaska tells Miles Bolívar's last words. — 00:00:49

00:01:12 — Empty summer campus, feeling like the ghost; the Smoking Hole under the bridge over Bishop's Creek, fear it was forgotten, then an Emily Dickinson graffito from 2008

• ★★ With no students in summer and 103-degree heat, the campus felt like a ghost town, until John realized he was the ghost. — 00:01:12
• ★★ John visits the concrete outcropping under the bridge over Bishop's Creek, known as the Smoking Hole both in Looking for Alaska and in real life. — 00:01:35 · Looking for Alaska (novel)
• ★★ Finding briars over the path and no cigarette butts after fifteen years, John worried the Smoking Hole had been forgotten, which made him feel old. — 00:01:42
• ★★ Then he saw an Emily Dickinson quote graffitied on the wall, apparently in 2008, and felt the legacy was well maintained by today's students. (playful) — 00:02:05

00:02:26 — Stung by a bee on the left butt cheek at the peak of sentimentality; whining to Sarah; trampolines

• ★★ At the peak of his sentimentality John was stung by a bee on his left butt cheek, and he called Sarah to complain. (playful) — 00:02:23 · Sarah Urist Green

00:03:05 — The barn field of first love and an all-nighter; Dickinson, youth counted sweetest; nostalgia yearns for a past that never existed; fiction makes memories true; sign-off

• ★★ In a field where a barn once stood, John first told a girl he loved her and pulled his first all-nighter studying world history while drinking bad wine. — 00:03:05
• ★★★ Echoing Dickinson's line that success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed, John says youth is counted sweetest by those no longer young. — 00:03:17

• ★★★ John says nostalgia is inevitably a yearning for a past that never existed. — 00:03:25

  “Nostalgia is inevitably a yearning for a past that never existed”

• ★★★ John says that when writing there are no bees to break his sentimentality, and for him fiction is the only way to turn his lying memories into something true. — 00:03:28

  “fiction is the only way I can even begin to twist my lying memories into something true”

Humor (significant)

• Among the landmarks from the novel John points out the local liquor store. — 00:00:54

  “where they cater to your spiritual needs”

• John repeats the saying that it isn't the heat so much as the humidity. — 00:01:16

  “Actually it's also the heat.”

• At the pinnacle of his sentimental walk John is stung by a bee. — 00:02:42

  “stings you on the very top of your left butt cheek, ruining everything.”

• John explains why he had to phone Sarah about the bee sting. — 00:02:50

  “is whining to your wife.”

Threads in this video

• told · John revisits his high school, Indian Springs School, the setting of Looking for Alaska (2010) — John tells Hank he visited Indian Springs School, the near-exact setting of Looking for Alaska: landmarks from the book, the Smoking Hole, a bee sting and the field of the old barn. (00:00:16)
• restate · Is nostalgia trustworthy: were earlier times, or earlier generations, really better? — John says nostalgia is inevitably a yearning for a past that never existed. (00:03:25)

Mentioned

Central: Indian Springs School · Looking for Alaska (novel) · Smoking Hole

Also: People: Emily Dickinson · Sarah Urist Green · Simón Bolívar

Works: Success Is Counted Sweetest

Concepts: nostalgia · rosy retrospection

Places: Alabama · Birmingham, Alabama · Bishop's Creek · Florida · Indianapolis

Characters: Alaska Young · Culver Creek Preparatory School · Miles Halter

Also centred on Indian Springs School: Going Home with Alaska and Miles

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