Also, I feel like the following is substantive, and not emo:

after extensive experimentation, it appears that riding not in padded bicycle shorts is far less likely to lead to, er, discomfort, than riding in padded bicycle shorts.

The more you know.

Volvo soon to be uninsured and driven upstate (not in that order) where I can work on it in peace and with money. Something Buddhist floating through my head about dealing with things as I find them. Now my range is smaller. Focus, for now, inward.
Should also allow me to do real engine work.

A friend of L's wants to visit when she's in NYC. The first test of my peace.

Spent most of Memorial Day watching Battlestar Galactica with Kay.
Ob-La Di, Ob-La-Da.

Fender bender in Memorial Day traffic en-route to the academy. Volvo needs a new hood and new headlight. Won't be able to pay to do anything but eat for a while.
Gah.

In the interim

An interesting blog from South Africa, discussing the violence happening in Johannesburg at the moment:

it is, as you can expect from the title, by a British ex-pat. But despite the title, it seems pretty balanced:

6000 miles from civilization

[update]Another blog that I haven't gotten to read enough of yet. It's written by a Zimbabwaen student in South Africa:

Sherp

Rumor About the True Things is taking some time off to re-organize and get back to substantive posting about reasonably interesting things. Down with the Emo posting, up with the having something to say.

Stay tuned.

Hectic times abound. some brief updates, whilst i have some real live substantive posts planned for the weekend...

+ Job is driving me a little bit mad. Will explain when I'm not at it. Suffice to say I'm printing out new resumes.

+ Band is doing phenomenal work. The album is mixed, and we have release parties scheduled for June 21 at the National Underground and July 5 at Piano's. Our mastering engineer in Chicago has told us he'll be unable to do the project on schedule, but pointed us towards an engineer in Brooklyn who looks to be equally talented...

+ Going up to the academy this weekend for commencement weekend. I'll be seeing dear friends, Kay will be attending a reunion, it will most likely turn into me sitting on the roof of my beloved old radio station swilling forties with whomever will tolerate me.

+ Waterpipe Theater, an old project I was involved in at the above radio station, is being reborn in New York, as most of us are now living fairly close to one another again. For the time being, at least, we've access to the studios where Kay works as a producer, and we've secured an on air slot at the old station.

A New Low

This is utterly terrifying.


But when we live in a culture that treats desired emotional response as the answer to a chemical equation, what, really can you expect? Psychiatrics and the death of agency. When we've stripped "inalienable human rights" (as detailed in the constitution) from non-citizens, and this against the backdrop of a medical culture that portrays people as chemical amalgams for the medicating... is this really surprising?

The question of freedom

This is something I will return to when I'm not slacking off at work, I'm sure. But it interests me greatly... The New York Times, for the past two days, has been running a series on Love in Saudi Arabia. As I was reading today's piece, about women and what love means for them, I found myself struck by the lack of rebellion to the situation as it stands, and further struck that it's the same shape as the lack of rebellion described in Marxist writings (and later feminist writings) commonly referred to as "false consciousness" -- the fairly straightforward notion that the dominant paradigm convinces the oppressed that they in fact have all of their needs met, and don't want for what the opponents of the paradigm term liberation.
But False Consciousness is a damn slippery slope. In the sense that it supposes that a revolutionary knows what you want and what you need, and you don't. False Consciousness reasoning has "justified" terrible massacres across the globe, is one of the theoretical foundations of maoism (of which I am not a fan), and has been a big part of second-wave feminism. It implies a universal truth about freedom that the oppressed cannot be expected to "get". And, in my not so humble opinion, that's a huge problem.
Yet clearly there's an extent to which that kind of mechanism does exist... we live in advanced capitalism. Everywhere we look we are being told what are needs *really* are (a 28 inch waist, chemically maintained happiness and a luxury sedan). In a point of fact overlooked by most of the commentators on the Times site, religious fundamentalism is the same as economic fundamentalism is the same as philosophical fundamentalism, and its a fact of daily life, everywhere, that an external source with a stake in some sort of power game is informing us of our needs. And because it's easier to live within a power structure that is not trying to get you to be different, a fair number of people take that informing as gospel, no pun intended. To say that there is no such thing as "false consciousness" is to allow a whole slew of people, both down your block and around your planet, to get pushed around in the name of structures of power and/or knowledge. (god, have I really become that Foucaultian?)

So what we get down to is what it means to be a person acting freely in the world. So given that to be free is to be an unfettered agent, and given that agency is acting as one intends, and given that intention comes in part from information at hand, and given that information at hand is necessarily a facet of the social (by which i simply mean "beyond the level of the individual") world around us,

How do we even begin to think about freedom in society?

Apartment Apartment

Wherein I list things I need for the apartment. Hit me back if you have any of these you're willing to part with:

+ Iron / Ironing board
+ Bookshelf- or floor-style speakers for a Hi-fi
+ A small couch or loveseat
+ Dining room-style chairs
+ Potted plants in need of a good, light-filled home

distance has no way

So it's been about four months since my ex-girlfriend L went off the deep end, left me for a guy she'd met a few days prior, and severed contact for such stellar reasons as "when we talk about this I feel like you're trying to make me feel guilty." (for real?) Since then, in my life, I've come across a new apartment, a new job, and started seeing someone who I instinctively trust and have come to care quite a bit for. I'm not going to say life's perfect, but it's certainly pretty grand. The band is doing really well (four shows in the next month and a half, album is done and en route to Chicago for mastering), I'm in the best shape I've ever been in in my life, I've moved to a neighborhood where I'm surrounded by my friends; and yet still, about once a week, L pops up in a dream of mine. Usually in the context of me shouting at her, or me telling her friends and boyfriend how she left me or how she lied to her now-boyfriend about our then-status. And then I wake up, really underslept. I can't quite figure it, except that maybe I'm trying to suppress everything that has to do with her in order to feel more secure about the present.
That's why I'm writing this... with the hopes that if I air it, it won't just live in my brain anymore and it'll let me get some sleep...

Day 4

As of last night, we had no water pressure in the kitchen, no internet access, no gas for the stove, no hot water and a dead breaker in the breaker box, rendering Elias' room devoid of power.

This morning I avoided the shower situation altogether, a decision which was validated when a certain someone's "I need to shower before work" quickly turned into shrill curses drowned out by ice-water, audible from the kitchen.

On my way to work today I got a text message from E. informing me that "a squad of people" had arrived, and were beginning to fix everything. If all goes according to plan we should also have internet by this afternoon as well.

I haven't heard from him in a while though.

Radical Chic

Jay sent this to me. It's an excellent little piece in Slate about elitism and the left. I don't always see elitism in the mainstream left, but maybe I'm a little elite myself. In the left-left, elitism is practically the membership card. Anyway, its a good little piece; read and ruminate.

Stealing Internet in Brooklyn

Moved in. Light in the apartment is beautiful. Set up the desk under a window looking out at the aerials of the building across the way. Elias moves in tomorrow. Spent the day cleaning because under the surface the kitchen and bath were very dirty. Spent the afternoon in Ft. Greene with Kay and the folks. We dont yet have hot water so I'm going to stay at Kay's in order to steal her shower... moving is a frustrating and ultimately very satisfying adventure.

Summer of Art

Make cheap art:


+Polaroid Transfers

+Pinhole Cameras

+Cigar box Guitars