Gardiner Bacon
By Kathleen Downey
Gardiner Bacon is an enigma. He would take it as a compliment if you were to call him a lounge lizard (he told me so)—not that Bacon hangs out in dimly lit bars wearing a gold lame suit, though he might like such a suit. Rather, his cultivated persona is one of cool, hip, alternative aloofness that gravitates toward what Bacon coyly describes as “sleaze noir.” But you will detect no sleaze factor in this intense, polished, and erudite person with the fair complexion, blue eyes, and well-coiffed Elvis hair who ran for mayor of Newburyport in 2007—when he was just 18. Though Bacon didn’t receive the necessary votes to put him in his own office at City Hall, he calls the experience a “victory in spirit”—and spirit, I deduce by the end of our interview, is everything to Gardiner Bacon.
He cites Malvina Reynolds, a folk/blues singer-songwriter, as a philosophical influence in his life. Reynolds wrote and sang of the importance of individual expression and of the subtle detriment to spirit when one’s true nature is suppressed, a message that soundly resonates with Bacon. “I prefer insane extremes to happy mediums any day,” he tells me. Rather than in a pejorative light, Bacon uses the word insane to mean being full-on with one’s self. “My philosophy is to be as intense as possible, not only when focused on a serious issue but also when having fun. For example, if you’re going to be ridiculous, be totally ridiculous,” he says, a smile slightly lifting the corners of his lips.
Some of the serious issues that capture Bacon’s focus are the environment, urban planning, and education. He believes that the challenges to these issues are linked. “There are no such things as separate problems; there are just different ‘hands’ off of a bigger problem. So we must think creatively about the various areas [smaller problems] in order to solve the bigger problem,” he says. Thought, according to Bacon is critical. “A great divide exists between what is perceived as thought and what is perceived as action—but thought is action,” Bacon stresses.
A graduate of Newburyport’s Montessori school and Newburyport High School—he served on the city’s Youth Commission in his senior year, Bacon is now a student at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont. With a reputation as a higher learning institution that nurtures intellectual individuality, Bacon praises Bennington as a good fit for him. Describing his academic program, he says, “In a large nutshell, I am studying how drama, literature, and literary theory can be applied to improve education—to effect national and even global change.” Fascinated by the dramatic process, Bacon envisions an entire curriculum that could be potentially enhanced through literary education. “Literary theory is a method that provides a more engaging way to learn,” he explains. “For example, math and physics could be learned through set design.” Taking his educational theory further, Bacon says that meaningful policy reform could benefit if approached through a thoughtful, creative, and literary lens.
But Bacon’s interests also include the less-than-serious. He’s developed a recent fascination with flamingos—as in the tall, leggy, pink, kitschy lawn ornaments. Bacon is personally responsible for the random appearances of these plastic creatures on his Bennington campus. When I ask him if any flamingos have appeared in Newburyport, while he is home from school on summer break, he chuckles, before answering, “No.” Nevertheless, I get the impression that he’s entertaining this idea, or at least delighting in the thought of random flamingos posed sporadically in the downtown area.
Among Bacon’s Newburyport’s interests are late afternoon lunches at Angie’s, sitting on the beach at Plum Island late at night before the crashing surf, and the people he meets as a supervisor for CVS on Pond Street. “I really enjoy my job,” he states. Of the crew he works with, he adds, “They are some of the most interesting people!” Interesting is a word that only barely captures Bacon’s clever, adroit, intense, amiable, and cool fashionista spirit.
