2017-04-08 - 8:58 p.m.
Always the bad kids ask me, "what have you been doing.?" And the answer is always the same: "just taking notes" and living the rough draft life.
When the jocular songwriter Josh Tillman (formerly of the Fleet Foxes) met the comedian Patton Oswalt, who recently lost his wife (like Phil Elverum who recently almost agreed to come talk to my students about poetry and art on Friday after playing at the Henry Miller library on Thursday but later rescinded due to the whims and desires of his 14 month old after having semi-recently lost his wife Genevieve Castree (who I met in August of 2003 in Ames, Iowa) due to a random case of pancreatic cancer, irony and obscure references ensued.
When Tillman and Oswalt finally met: culture vulture references to people like the Chilean born art house director Alejandro Jadorowsky went part and parcel of the conversahsheeown. Oswalt, it was refreshing to note, is set to act in the new Dave Egger's movie The Circle, a satire about Google, which begs the question, who will play Mae? Both Oswalt and the ironist Father John Misty himself agreed with the basic Eggers premise that "these days everybody has to be a nice guy." Eggers, the Mark Twain and KVJ of now, also the progenitor of the 826 Valencia helping budding writers project, asks why click LIKE (when you should also be able to click like not).
As said previously, I have been living the rough draft life shamelessly for quite some time.
And Wells Tower has stolen from DFW and used the subject of Hawaii to further that similar level of energy and wry amusements about all the strangeness and awe of the world.
TTD (Things to do0
Talk with Debbie V. and or David Doris
There is the Health Fair tomorrow Thursday 4.6
Make sure 9th signs up for the health academy
Check out the S.C. surf for tonight and the tides
Friday
Period 1: Buddy medical terms and reflection writing on the health fair and the impossibility metrics of creating functional groups
Period 2: EL MISMO
pERIOD 3: WORKING ON THEIR GREEK MYTHOLOGY PROJECTS
PERIOD 4: TAKE THEM TO THE FAIR LAST 10 MINUTES AND TKAM
PERIOD 5: JAPANESE FOR CAMERON CHEIN AS THEY ARE LEAVING FOR KYOTO TODAY
PERIOD 6: WORKING ON THEIR GREEK MYTHOLOGY PROJECTS/ MAKE SURE THE RUBRIC IS PRINTED AND READY FROM GABY
Saturday 4.8.17
look for a house
look for a surfboard, the 7'6'' Stewart Funline from Ken who is in Lake Tahoe skiing, but go through his friend Cameron on Craigslist
Go to prom because Estefania asked me
What ended up happening on Saturday 4.8.17
no prom (emailed Mrs. Noirian with an excuse)
looked at some open houses
bought three surfboards, all used and fairly cheap
bought some screws for the finds
read and took notes on longreads and longform
all in all, Saturday 4.8,17 was a non-productive and yet effervescently delightful day in it's own sui generis way.
Devos has been in the news and as much as I try to ignore the trappings of controlled spaces and immerse myself in what is left of quiet and silence and solitude, from time to time, the "news" gets my dander up.
Choice and capitalism, so closely aligned, are synonyms. What about that plain old peanut butter, that just jiffy or that simple Skippy. Now these days, there are so many nut butters to choose from and textures as well, from creamy to chunky. So many nuts in this day and age can be ground up to make a creamy butter: from almond, to cashew (the royal nut) and back to macadamian. Choice at the top is one thing. Choice at the bottom is another. Simple Skippy is for the 90%. Navigating the illusory world of choice is mentally taxing for all. True freedom is freedom from the stupidities of choice. But how could choice be a bad thing? Choices are awesome right? For a self-proclaimed Marxist scholar like myself, the Devos talk of choice is no cause for celebration, it is the snake itself, befanged and ready to bite again.
Americans tend to mindlessly laud choice, as if choice is going to save them from difficulty. The irony being of course that navigating the concrete jungle of choices leaves the urban explorer mentally taxed; filled with severe irritability secondary to ceaseless vexations. And how does one put a salve on the vexation? How about a little Amazon Prime? Because, goddamn it, you are worth it girl!
One good consumption begets another good consumption.
All my students and all my friends and I myself are suffering from the same exact illness: the consumption.
Choice helps hide the fact that you have none!
If you have the money, then have fun wasting your time choosing! Go ahead, make up a vexation from the thin air to feel alive for a minute. The rest of us are already vexed and actually time strapped enough, because that is what we traded to become wage slaves, our time, and what we do have is MORE FREE TIME THAN YOU, TIME TO ENJOY, TIME TO REFLECT, TIME TO INTERACT, TIME TO "SHOOT THE BREEZE."
But please richy rich people, the one thing we have with our lack of money is the "freedom FROM choice! Give us our Kias and our Coors Light and our simple Skippy, but please spare us from the luxury of your waste of time "taste."
