Susan Orlean’s Saturday Night, Essay Example

Susan Orlean’s Saturday Night, is a clean and tight thoughtful and prose observations as told through a series of essay about the different Saturday Night experiences. The author provides a first class seat into what Americans were typically up to on their Saturdays, highlighting while everyone’s is different, the object is to find your own fun in forgetting about the past week. Her interviews consisted of quinceaneras in Phoenix, lounge bed in Portland, the homeless of New York City, and car cruisers to ride around the city. Within her episodic book, she incorporates the Saturday night experiences of young and old ordinary citizens. The author herself shares that just about every Saturday is different from the other.

On this night people will sometimes fall in love, go cruising, watch television, gamble, sleep, listen to music, go to parties, visit friends, go on dates, kill other people, get killed, get drunk, go to dinner, go get drinks, go bowl, go dancing, or just get together. Saturday night, is the night of the week in which people do things with more intent or passion. Posing as an ethnographer, Orleans blended the lines of ethnography and journalism, as she captured the stories of individual in seeking out the answer what makes their Saturday night so special. In the author’s journalistic approach, to the ethnography of following different groups on their typical Saturday night. For the author this includes sharing the highs, and the very lows. These includes the increase in violence that occurs doing Saturday nights, while also the loneliness, which the author shares as well.

Orlean in the book incorporates several themes throughout her travels including the murders, people working on Saturdays. She took the stories of the diverse groups of people that consisted of down and outers, hostess, etc., in which contributes to several different experiences.  The book provides the reader with a series of vicarious and mild thrills usually found in other books.  In linking the book into a modern update, look no further than exploring what a typical Saturday night is for me.

On my typical Saturday nights as a child that grew up in the 80s, there was a lot to do, besides stay in a watch television. However as time grew on, and I began a family my typical Saturdays, were regular weekdays, as the size of the family grew, so did my patience in exploring the outside. At the age of 34 years old, I am married with two children, boy and girl from two and half to 10 months old. For typical Saturdays, my family rarely goes out. For the most part on Saturday nights, we spend it at home, because a ten-month will not go to sleep or listen at will. The two children can sometimes want to go play at the park, or see a movie, and for the most part, we do grant children these alternatives. Children at the age will be a handful, because they are so anxious about ether trying.

In general, because they throw food, cry, and scream. On typical Saturday nights my family while we do not go out, we also do not have your normal night in. Our night on Saturdays involve listening and watching music videos. With the favorite among the kitties is Shake it Off and Blurred Lines. Music videos from the most popular artist are usually chosen at the beginning, by the end of the night, we have built out on electric playlist, in which the kids and us sing and dance to. The children even by the end of the night have their own rehearsed dance moves they like to practice on each music video is played. I think that janitor putted there. The kids go crazy for over ten minutes for the main music videos however, as they will dance and sing, which will then lead to uncontrollable laughter, which can totally get crazy.

For our next task, in this Saturday night, we are also usually in the kitchen. Being at home, means more trips in and out of the kitchen to stave away boredom. The time in the kitchen is part of our hands on approach in keeping the children creative as well as no bored by sitting and watching TV. The other hands on activities involve either making a dessert, painting, building several forts throughout the house or with the kitchen table, roasting marshmallows on the “open” fire, of course watch the latest movies for kids, and snuggle together on the comfortable couch. For the children, and sometimes our pleasure, we make hot cocoa, a necessity we have during winter, and for the summer smoothies. When it is time to settle them down, they are able to watch a good movie, or a short television show, that helps to wind them down.

For bath time, it is a hit and miss sometimes. However, it helps to wind them down to get into the down market. What follow for bath time, is a fun and enjoyable experience that involves bubbles, toys, and a lot of imagination. Their bath time usually takes around an hour or two, because we are pretending we are on a boat, on a vacation, or anything else that the kids can think of. Even if things get messy like thinking we are in the middle of a storm, water can go everywhere. However, the kids are drained by the end of the night, which usually ends close to midnight. Therefore, this means that everyone is able to sleep in on Sunday, which makes our Saturday nights end even better.

When looking at how this might compare to the experiences of the stories that Orlean had in her book, is by looking further into these experiences,  I can only emphasize with a few. Orlean mentioned herself in her book that, “so for the record, I will not here that a great many people across America spend a great many Saturdray nights at home with their family or their friends.” (Orlean, 2011, pg. XIV) It was not out the ordinary, nor was it exceptional in knowing that many families in the past, and in the present just stay in with their families. The closest story that resembles my family night is in the “Missilerring” chapter, in which the story of Warren, a missileer that Orlean met at a barbecue in Cheyenne. The reason that this might be the closest to resembling my typical Saturday nights is due to the nature in which we both cared about what we were protecting. I care about protecting my children, while Warren cared about protecting his country. The missileers had to be at their jobs, out of incessant need for constant monitoring continuously throughout the day. Even the assignments of both Jim and Roger were due to the need of someone being staffed to look after the area. For me, that is something that we as parents are constantly doing. Even on Saturdays, while it may seem that nothing is accomplished, as parent we have to continually keep a watchful eye on our children. They require an incessant necessity in securing, monitoring, and protecting what they watch, hear, read, or see, within the scope of our reach.

As Orlean described for Jim and Roger’s monthly schedule, “is something in the neighborhood of business as usual.” (Orlean, 2011)  For parents and for the military, the weekend does not really mean anything significantly. There are days in which we must be on, many Monday through Friday going to school or daycare, and the days off in which we just relax around the house. While it is taboo to be doing things on the Saturday that resemble working, it is not for the military, nor for parents. We are constantly on our job, and even though we may disguise it’s family fun time, it is still work that requires a great deal of energy and time.  This book provides a good look into the past about the way in which many people throughout the country spent their Saturday nights, a night to forget about the rest of week.

Works Cited

Orlean, Susan. Saturday Night. Simon & Schuster. 2011.