once was goth, but now am found
View posts about the absurdity of human antics (amusing or irritating).
I’d meant to post this closer to the insurrection-anniversary, but here goes (starting with a haiku from 2021)…
True Traitriots
january sixth
hoisting traitor flags, boasting
patriotism
I find it fascinating that certain “law & order” loving Americans seem obsessed with thwarting or evading our legal frameworks.
Continue reading “Crimicops & Traitriots”Somehow, I got it in my head that I needed an environmentally friendly (at least partially recycled) spatula – I didn’t want to buy another cheap plastic utensil when so much old plastic is going to waste. It was much harder to find than I’d thought, I didn’t find any such options at cooking stores, TJ Maxx or Whole Foods. Even online, it was tough – apparently high temperature withstanding and recycled don’t go so well together.
I finally found an option online (Green Street), then I had to find a shop that sold it, which I finally did (online only). Since I was ordering online, I thought I’d best order a bunch at once to save on the shipping environment impact, so I bought a few as gifts (4 spatulas and 2 large spoons). When I got the box, however, it was 20 inches long by 12 inches wide and 5 inches high – WAY bigger than needed (they could’ve fit diagonally in a box less than half as big – the spatulas were only a little longer than 12 inches and the spoons were shorter).
Here’s a pic of the last two utensils with the box:
———————almost 2 feet long ———————-
The paradox of good writing (assuming you have an iota of talent) is that it takes a lot of time to sit down and figure out all the words and phrasing, but in order for it to be interesting (i.e., for you to have something worth saying), the writer needs to get out into the world and really live life (you cannot be locked up with a typewriter or computer all the time). This is especially true of non-fiction, but also true, I believe, even of fiction (which tends to fall flat when written by a deskbound, adventure-shy introvert).
Hunter S. Thompson is a great example of someone who really lived life (at least, had an excess of adventures) and could actually write, but by his own admission, was something of a crazed maniac. How is this possible by those of us who are not quite so blessed/cursed as HST?
The thing to keep in mind about patriotism is that this country was founded by rebels (in one sense, you could call the founding fathers “traitors” – to Great Britain), so it’s very natural that we may squabble and disagree with people, even our leaders. United we may stand, in the face of an imperial enemy country violently trying to take away our rights, but that doesn’t mean we blindly follow authority (not even into expansionist or punitive wars) – that’s never been the American way. In America, dissent is patriotic, following your own sense of fairness and morality is intrinsic to our culture and foundation. Go ahead and question your leaders, loudly disagree, just don’t be mean.
Early last winter, my dad asked me to do him a favor – his best friend’s son had just moved to the Boston area and he wondered if I could give him a call and maybe show him around (he didn’t know anyone in the area). I groaned internally because I’m a bit of an oddball and my dad is pretty straight-and-narrow, so I’m not expecting to really mesh with his friend’s son, but I agree to it and a month or so later, my dad provides the phone number. A lot was going on so I didn’t call immediately, but I finally phoned him up in early March. He (let’s call him Ryan) seemed pretty surprised that I was calling (didn’t know who I was at first), but he did eventually recall my dad telling him (back in the fall) that he’d have me give him a call. The conversation was fairly brief and a little awkward, but generally amicable and we agreed to meet for coffee the following week.
We spoke again the night before we were to meet to figure out how to recognize each other. I told him I was tall, thin, pale with longish red hair. He said he was short with black hair. When I arrived, there were a few people who met his general description, but none came up to me. I noticed one fellow who was having an animated conversation by phone just outside the coffeehouse, but he didn’t seem to notice me (and generally, I’m hard to miss), so I didn’t think it was him. But he was the only one fitting the description who remained in my vicinity for the duration, so when I finally gave Ryan a call, I wasn’t surprised when the guy on the phone answered. He looked pretty normal for the area, not too conservative, but not unusual in any way (about what I’d expect from my dad’s friend’s son). He was friendly enough with me, despite my blue vintage shirt with butterflies on it & “unusual” look. We grabbed some coffee and found a table to sit at. Continue reading “MA: it’s not as liberal as you think”
This is a years-old observation of mine, but something made it percolate to the surface this week. One interesting phenomenon in any counterculture “scene” is the widespread disparagement of “poseurs” who are supposedly the pretenders only affecting the clothes and mannerisms and not “real” whatever (punk, mod, goth, hipster, etc.). But the truth is, all the people crying poseur are themselves poseurs. We all are. It’s what “scenes” are all about, affecting a particular image. Sure there’s natural inclinations, likes and dislikes, but it’s not really that “natural” to magically fit in with any group based on aesthetics – it takes some work (consciously or unconsciously).
Even aside from scenes, we’re really all making statements by what we wear and how we choose to act – this is the presentation to the world at large, whether we want to be conservative, trendy, artistic, wallflower, outrageous, professional, casual, etc. Everyone who has choice with wardrobe (even if they decide not to care) is making presentation decisions. Of course, there are some people without choices and when you’re done with posing in a particular jacket or scarf, be sure to donate it to a local clothing charity, so someone else can use it (for more posing or simply surviving).
New Year’s Resolutions – how I love to hate them. In theory, they’re sort of a nice idea: start the new year with some positive changes in your life; but in practice, they’re just another feel-good device with little substance. It’s a way of chunking up time into a neat little bundle, so you can play with it like a rag doll, instead of living inside of it. It’s like when people decide to start a new diet or quit smoking “tomorrow” or “next week” – why put a change like that into a future timeframe if not to allow for its easy and indefinite postponement?
I’m sure some people manage to make a nice list of resolutions and actually keep them all, but I think the vast majority keep few if any of their resolutions. Making new year’s resolutions (with a whole year to enact, or more likely forget) is like being an armchair activist; it enables you to feel like you’re doing good without actually having to do much. A more useful system might be to make a single small “new week” resolution every week and be sure to keep it (start right when you come up with it, if possible), such as ‘smile at one stranger’ or ‘don’t buy something.’
Now is much better than later. Happy 2008.
I guess maybe this is synonymous with the rise of the “hipster,” but I’ve noticed that relatively affluent young people have recently developed some bizarre fascination with what they call a “dive” bar. A number of my friends have expressed such an interest and whenever I look on socialization websites (like craigslist), it’s one of the most common interests mentioned. When I hit my 21st birthday in the ’90s, I went to a dive bar with a friend, because it was in walking distance and the only other choice was a crowded college bar. It was boring and a bit depressing.
The way I understand it, a “dive” is a very nondescript and particularly shabby neighborhood-type bar, populated mainly with run-down locals, most of whom are “regulars” (i.e., hopeless alcoholics). Granted that in such a place, the drinks are cheap, but if you’re not one of the locals (who I guarantee do not call their second home a “dive”), why would you want to go there? The only appeal I can see is that of “slumming it,” which is a sort of condescending thrill that affluent people seem to get from “seeing how the other half live,” stroking a charge from encountering people and situations unlike their everyday lives (in which they know are superior).
Clarification: by “affluent,” I meant anyone who comes from a solidly middle-class (or upper-class) background and has either {a} a trust fund, {b} parents who can or do help pay for bills or {c} a white-collar job that pays decent money. Essentially, think of the song “Common People” by Pulp – this is what the “dive bar” likers are like. Because if they seriously liked some run-down neighborhood bar, would they really refer to it as a “dive”?
On the bright side, at least this latest “irony” debacle isn’t as much of a fashion disaster as the trucker hat fad. I still don’t like its disingenuousness though; I think I’ll go listen to some Pulp.
Does anyone else get the sense that maybe we’re over-complicating things? Or maybe the opposite: grossly oversimplifying complex things? Or maybe, we’re just intentionally obfuscating our meanings. Despite strong cultural pressure to “fit in,” it seems like we all like to distinguish ourselves in some way. Many people seem to feel that being privy to specialized language is a good way to be distinguished and appear intelligent. Thus, we invent dialects where words get all tangled up and only those others in the same subculture or profession have a hope of understanding.
There is a strange drive to initialize/acronymize any phrase that gets significant usage. What’s funny about this is that these abbreviated phrases sometimes lose so much meaning that part of the origin of the abbreviation later gets added back on. For instance, I’ve heard the phrase “ATM machine” on a number of occasions and recently heard “ATS system” in professional context (where ATS = Applicant Tracking System).
Artificial redundancy is a good way to make ourselves sound more complicated because everyone knows that the longer it takes to say/spell something, the more complex the meaning. Computer-wise, I’ve heard the phrase “login in” and more recently, corp-speak about the “going-forward approach” and also “directionally where we’re going.” It’s especially amusing when you can adequately condense a 5 minute speech into a 10 second sentence. Continue reading “jargonized”
There’s nothing so insidious as the concept of a benign stereotype. It may seem harmless to say something relatively positive about a bunch of people sharing some superficial characteristic, but it does indeed cause harm in several ways. First, it has the effect of binding those persons up with a neat little bow so that other stereotypes (most negative) will more easily stick to them. Secondly, it places an unrealistic expectations on members of that group to uphold that positive stereotype when it may not be in their nature to (which opens them to more insults than they otherwise would be exposed to). Thirdly, most all “positive” statements about one group imply the reverse about other groups, therefore throwing an implicit negative stereotype coupled with the “positive” stereotype.
For example: gay men are snazzy dressers, women are sensitive, black people are good dancers. The implications being that straight men are bad dressers, men are insensitive and that white people cannot dance well. You may even know some people who meet these stereotypes, however, as sweeping generalizations, they are simply not true. It’s not even that there are only a few exceptions – there are lots and you’re doing a disservice to everyone by keeping these alive.
One of my least favorite “benign stereotypes” are those of astrological signs (a la pop astrology). Being categorically judged by your birth month, i.e., sifting billions of people into 12 groups, is asinine. Supposedly, it’s linked to the stars, but pop astrology is not at all linked to the stars because the exact time, date and year of your birth is significant to the position of the stars (a little astronomy could tell you this) and in fact, starwise, there’s little similarity between a single month across different years – the rest of the universe is not synchronized with the orbit of the earth around the sun. And since there are 13 lunar phases in a given year, but only 12 months, the date itself shifts slightly in terms of the regular lunar phases (the closest and likely the most influential of the celestial bodies).
I’m not sure why this lowbrow astrology is so popular these days, except maybe that it gives people something easy to believe in (like lottery gambling) without having to think too much. I’ve heard arguments that astrology is a very complex science which takes years of study, but that’s certainly not the kind of astrology filling up the newspapers, fashion magazines or the people’s heads who pay attention to those things, with their little charts of compatibility among star signs and ultra-vague “predictions.” Haven’t these people ever met someone with their same birth month who has a totally different personality archetype? Of course, critical thinking is a lesson that most culture does its best to avoid (owing that some traditions don’t hold up well to intelligent critique, neither does advertising, for that matter).
I have to admit that even the idea of my exact birth time/date determining my life’s destiny is disturbing (ironic, considering that I have give some credit to chaos theory [i.e., “random” events being deterministic in large, nonlinear systems], though I think it has to do with more than the alignment of the stars), but the idea of my birth month, irrespective of time or year having some strong influence over my personality is simply maddening. I understand that life is complicated and it’s difficult to navigate the world, especially social interactions with those bewildering homo sapiens, but do we have to oversimplify things so much? Does one characteristic ever completely define any single person? No, it doesn’t. Wake up and smell the complexity, people – let go of these stereotypes.