23. My Experience at the Gassett Fitness Center
I peered through the gleaming glass walls of Gassett Fitness Center as I speed-walked to the entrance. About half a dozen people gazed into the parking lot in front of them as they bustled on treadmills that lined the sleek glass at different paces, determined gerbils on wheels. 1:58 PM, just in time, I thought while pushing through the turnstile after I swiped my clipper card. The gym smelled like rubber.
The spacious room was warm with occasional artificial gusts originating from a high powered fan somewhere. Much more pleasant than what I had to trek through to get here: the North Pole, one might have thought. I changed into a t-shirt and shorts and scanned the room for my trainer, also named Michael. By then my facial muscles properly thawed, so I was able to give a proper greeting.
Today was my second weight lifting lesson. The first one consisted of fitness testing––planks, pull-ups, push-ups, and whatever "ups" remain that I didn't mention––but no weights were involved. So today I was game, ready to lift as much as possible until my legs ached and my arms fell off. I started off with a 10 minute jog as a way to get my blood pumping. Then we moved over to the machines. He stated that he mostly used machines for muscle definition, and that the free weights did most of the work when it came to bulking on muscle.
After three sets of ten reps on the rowing, leg press, and shoulder press machines, I was starting to feel the burn. Sticking to the three sets of ten reps, Michael had me try the bench press. The bar itself was forty five pounds, but he added twenty pounds worth of plates on each side, for a total of eighty five. It looked meager compared to what I saw in movies and at the gym itself. It also felt meager in the beginning, but by the end of my third set, I was struggling to keep form. My arms weren't aching in any way, even though I knew that wouldn't be the case the next day. I just physically couldn't lift the bar without trouble in that final set, and my arm stance weakened with every continued rep. I thought it was pathetic, but everyone has to start somewhere, right?
I sprung up to take a sip of my water, just as I'd done in every break between sets, and noticed a sweat-print on the cushioned bench. Gross. After sploshing cleaner onto the vinyl and wiping it up, we started toward the dumbbells. Three more sets of one-armed curls and dumbbell flyes later, I was finished and planning my next lesson; it was lesson three out of four. I hobbled to the locker room and showered up, then prepared to re-enter the cold that would accompany me on my way back to Marsh Hall.
The spacious room was warm with occasional artificial gusts originating from a high powered fan somewhere. Much more pleasant than what I had to trek through to get here: the North Pole, one might have thought. I changed into a t-shirt and shorts and scanned the room for my trainer, also named Michael. By then my facial muscles properly thawed, so I was able to give a proper greeting.
Today was my second weight lifting lesson. The first one consisted of fitness testing––planks, pull-ups, push-ups, and whatever "ups" remain that I didn't mention––but no weights were involved. So today I was game, ready to lift as much as possible until my legs ached and my arms fell off. I started off with a 10 minute jog as a way to get my blood pumping. Then we moved over to the machines. He stated that he mostly used machines for muscle definition, and that the free weights did most of the work when it came to bulking on muscle.
After three sets of ten reps on the rowing, leg press, and shoulder press machines, I was starting to feel the burn. Sticking to the three sets of ten reps, Michael had me try the bench press. The bar itself was forty five pounds, but he added twenty pounds worth of plates on each side, for a total of eighty five. It looked meager compared to what I saw in movies and at the gym itself. It also felt meager in the beginning, but by the end of my third set, I was struggling to keep form. My arms weren't aching in any way, even though I knew that wouldn't be the case the next day. I just physically couldn't lift the bar without trouble in that final set, and my arm stance weakened with every continued rep. I thought it was pathetic, but everyone has to start somewhere, right?
I sprung up to take a sip of my water, just as I'd done in every break between sets, and noticed a sweat-print on the cushioned bench. Gross. After sploshing cleaner onto the vinyl and wiping it up, we started toward the dumbbells. Three more sets of one-armed curls and dumbbell flyes later, I was finished and planning my next lesson; it was lesson three out of four. I hobbled to the locker room and showered up, then prepared to re-enter the cold that would accompany me on my way back to Marsh Hall.
Salem: The Commodification of an American Tragedy |
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Salem, Massachusetts is most likely the first location to pop into anyone’s mind when the word “witch” is mentioned. Marketing, rather than factual history, can be thanked for that. Marketing is also what bolster’s the city’s economy. According to Kate Fox of Destination Salem, the tourism industry employs over seven hundred people. Salem accrued over one hundred million dollars in revenue last year, with the city gaining five hundred thousand dollars in taxes from hotels alone. These stunning figures originate from the two hundred and fifty thousand tourists that visit each year (Fox).
One might wonder why marketing is considered the genesis of the fright tourism industry instead of Salem’s actual history. To figure this out, it is wise to examine the history of the 1692 Salem Witch Trials, the focal point of its tourism, and sort fact from fiction. In early 1962, a clique of young, Puritan girls began throwing dramatic fits and claiming them to be the result of possession. It didn’t take long for hysteria and paranoia to set into the minds that occupied the small pioneer village. As a result of the adolescents’ claims, a string of twenty executions were carried out between January of 1962, through October of that same year. Victims such as Sarah Good, Bridget Bishop, and Rebecca Nurse were killed on the charges of apparently being witches (Weir, 2012). Today, the charged have been absolved and are now viewed as martyrs of sorts. The trials took place in what used to be Salem Village, or modern day Danvers (Hill, 2004) Currently, Salem embraces the notoriety of the infamous trials solely because the two locations share similar names. Many tourists enter Salem thinking that they are visiting the actual location of the horrible 1692 event, when it in fact took place fifteen minutes away from them (Weir, 2012).
One might wonder why marketing is considered the genesis of the fright tourism industry instead of Salem’s actual history. To figure this out, it is wise to examine the history of the 1692 Salem Witch Trials, the focal point of its tourism, and sort fact from fiction. In early 1962, a clique of young, Puritan girls began throwing dramatic fits and claiming them to be the result of possession. It didn’t take long for hysteria and paranoia to set into the minds that occupied the small pioneer village. As a result of the adolescents’ claims, a string of twenty executions were carried out between January of 1962, through October of that same year. Victims such as Sarah Good, Bridget Bishop, and Rebecca Nurse were killed on the charges of apparently being witches (Weir, 2012). Today, the charged have been absolved and are now viewed as martyrs of sorts. The trials took place in what used to be Salem Village, or modern day Danvers (Hill, 2004) Currently, Salem embraces the notoriety of the infamous trials solely because the two locations share similar names. Many tourists enter Salem thinking that they are visiting the actual location of the horrible 1692 event, when it in fact took place fifteen minutes away from them (Weir, 2012).
Prior to tourism, Salem’s historical economy was dependent on its seaport. However, after The Embargo and War of 1812 deeply hurt Salem’s economy as a seaport city, it managed to re-emerge as an industrial force. In 1810, Essex County manufactured “more than half of all shoes and boots worn in the United States” and up until 1820, Salem was the tenth largest city in America thanks to industrialization. Salem’s premier textile factory was the Naumkeag Steam Cotton Factory, opened in 1847 by Captain Nathaniel Griffin, which employed over 2,000 employees. The industrial revolution attracted many Irish, French, Canadian, and Polish expats to the city to make livings as factory workers, which aided in the upward trend of the city’s population (Weir, 2012). Whatever growth Salem experienced from the Industrial Revolution was short-lived. The economic struggle began with a chemical explosion originating from the Korn Leather Company on Boston Street. It created what is now called The Great Salem Fire of 1914, and was responsible for over three thousand homeless people and the destruction of one thousand three hundred seventy-six buildings, including thirty-six factories. Between 1930 and 1940, more than ten thousand people lost jobs to the Great Depression. The Congress of Industrial Organization delivered the final blow to Salem’s economy when it failed to implement Operation Dixie in the early 1950’s. Operation Dixie attempted to protect Southern labor workers. The textile industries that remained ended up relocating down South due to the convenience of cheaper wages and lower maintenance working conditions. (Weir, 2012). This left Salem’s economy in absolute shambles. Salem toiled in its economic misfortune until a solution began to emerge. Bewitched, a classic 1960’s sitcom, sparked the dynamite when it filmed eight of its episodes in downtown Salem during the summer of 1970. An explosion of chaos, entrepreneurship, and wealth would soon flood the city after the show’s ratings re-peaked (Weir, 2012) Laurie Cabot, a world-renowned Wiccan, moved to Salem in 1971. Here, she set up the first of three successful occult-related shops. She was eventually crowned “The Official Witch of Salem,” by a governor in honor of her work with mentally disabled children. Since then, she has used that title to successfully brand and market herself. Having appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, in National Geographic, and in other popular media, she is regarded as a local celebrity. Following Cabot, other witch-themed businesses sprung up. The most accurate of the city’s tours happens to be the Salem Witch Museum, which opened in 1972. Many of the businesses are affiliated with and promoted through Haunted Happenings, which was erected in 1982 (Weir, 2012). Although Salem’s draws current success from being a tourist destination, many are disappointed that people are visiting the city for the wrong reasons. Residents and historians are infuriated that the Salem’s marketing budget focuses on an event that didn’t even take place in the city. Instead, they feel that Salem’s rich history as one of the country’s first seaports or as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s hometown should be highlighted (Hill, 2004). |
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“The community needs to be telling a different story about itself, inclusive of all stories,” — Greg Liakos of the Peabody Essex Museum
Others simply find the attractions of Haunted Happenings to be tacky and irreverent to the suffering of the witch trial victims. The attractions are often inaccurate and modeled for shock factor, which successfully muddles the history and propagates incorrect facts (Weir, 2012)
Those that dislike witches still have much to thank for them. Witch tourism singlehandedly saved Salem’s economy, and for the reason, isn’t going to disappear anytime soon. Perhaps the only way to keep both the entrepreneurs and history enthusiasts of Salem happy is to maintain an accurate, deferential medium of commodifying history. However, the only way to accomplish this is to implement a major overhaul of the businesses that consist of Salem’s Haunted Happenings.
Those that dislike witches still have much to thank for them. Witch tourism singlehandedly saved Salem’s economy, and for the reason, isn’t going to disappear anytime soon. Perhaps the only way to keep both the entrepreneurs and history enthusiasts of Salem happy is to maintain an accurate, deferential medium of commodifying history. However, the only way to accomplish this is to implement a major overhaul of the businesses that consist of Salem’s Haunted Happenings.
References
Fox, K. (2015, February 23). 2014 Was a Good Year for Tourism. Retrieved April 22, 2015, from http://salem.org/uploads/documents/
150220_annual_meeting.pdf
Hill, F. (2004). Salem as Witch City. In N. Schultz & D. Morrison (Eds.),
Salem: Place, Myth, and Memory. Boston, Massachusetts: Northeastern University Press.
Weir, R. (2012). Bewitched and Bewildered: Salem Witches, Empty Factories, and Tourist Dollars. Historical Journal of
Massachusetts, 178-211. Retrieved April 25, 2015, from http:// www.westfield.ma.edu/mhj/pdfs/bewitched and bewildered.pdf
150220_annual_meeting.pdf
Hill, F. (2004). Salem as Witch City. In N. Schultz & D. Morrison (Eds.),
Salem: Place, Myth, and Memory. Boston, Massachusetts: Northeastern University Press.
Weir, R. (2012). Bewitched and Bewildered: Salem Witches, Empty Factories, and Tourist Dollars. Historical Journal of
Massachusetts, 178-211. Retrieved April 25, 2015, from http:// www.westfield.ma.edu/mhj/pdfs/bewitched and bewildered.pdf