Perpetuated in virtuality,
For all of eternity
‘Tis an actuality,
This image-based reality.
It happens when I’m tired, the rhyming thing. But musical or not it’s true—our (my) reality has become a virtual reality, a paradox in and of itself.
The paradoxical nature of our own nature, what seems to be evolving into human nature, is so unreal, so imperfectly constructed that I can’t help but think maybe the Mayan’s weren’t so far off with the 2012 thing. It might not go up in flames on 12/22, but who knows. Maybe our firewalls will go down and all will be lost that way.
Cheery, no?
But it's entirely possible. Our world is becoming virtual, our money hypothetical, our relationships artificial. The writing is on the wall. We may not even realise when the game is up. It seems these things still are real to us—facebook introduces you to the new girlfriend, lets you overhear a conversation, see someone at a party. But these things aren’t really happening. Our interactions are bound by the interweb, an extensive network of representations only; a black hole of real things.
Eventually our physicality will be but a hindrance, a chore to upkeep. In many ways it already is. Diet pills and lose-weight fast schemes are at least as prominent as get-rich quick schemes. People don’t want to, or are not willing to, put any work toward the things they desire. Which begs the question, what is worth? If nothing warrants any work or effort, is anything worth anything? Or is there a new understanding of worthiness?
The value of money has become completely superficial; it’s less something to work for and earn than something owed, something everyone has a right to. But a right some are more deserving of than others. It seems arbitrary in a way; devoid of any humanistic of value.
The dehumanizing qualities of money I can handle. Money is by nature of its creation and function, dehumanizing. It’s objectifying and quantifying. But it’s money, I get it. There are similar trends in self-representation as well, especially with Facebook. Image has always been a bit superficial, and while a vrai shame it has been this way for as long as I can remember and that so too, I can understand.
What I have trouble with is the way Facebook is changing relationships. The way I barely missed anyone this semester. I’m not sure if that is because I am not they type of person to really miss people or because I could see anyone whenever I liked; my dearest friends were just a click away.
Sometimes it’s nice to be so connected. It’s easy to keep in touch and stay in your friends lives when distance or lifestyle (or time zones) wouldn’t otherwise permit, but at the same time there are all these friends still in your life, still knowing everything about you. There’s something genial about friends coming in and out of your life, rather than being there constantly. And it makes those few friends who are there constantly all the more important.
There’s also just the fact of having a record of your entire life. Weird. It’s just weird.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The Problems of Making People Happy
The biggest one of all is that I like to do it. I wouldn’t qualify myself as a pushover, but I will say that this semester I’ve missed out on doing things I wanted to because someone else wanted to do something else. When people ask me what I’d like, most of the time I honestly don’t mind. When it comes to music or food and even most activities I don’t mind which we do. It’s the fact of doing anything at all that I don’t always take to.
Sometimes I like to do nothing. Or rather things that are nothing to other people, but mean a bit of something to me. I like to read. I like to write and I like to sleep. But especially this semester I’ve been so often convinced that that is ‘nothing’ and that I ought to be doing ‘something’ while I’m in Paris, while I’ve got the chance. So when I want to read or write instead I go out, “enjoying” the city.
Except that the thing I’ve learned, the thing I’ve so exhaustively learned, is that to enjoy anything outside of yourself at all you’ve first got to enjoy yourself completely. And my self enjoys reading and writing and sleeping.
But this isn’t just a Paris thing; it’s not anything new that I do things with people when I’d rather do something (a very real something) else. I’ve been playing violin since I was four years old, but I’m not studying at the Paris Conservatory right now. I never practiced enough because back in the day practicing was ‘nothing.’ For a time, in those rebellious middle school years, I ignored my friends’ opinions and practiced when I liked instead of hanging out at the mall and going to the cinema and putting metal through unnatural holes in my body. I got really interested in jazz violin and taught enough/played enough to buy an electric 5-string violin/viola. I had the old Jamie Aebersold books and used my dad’s record player to play alongside.
At some point since then, I relapsed. I don’t know when this was, or how or why, but it must have happened as I am living evidence of it. This is a choice I seem to continually make; to please other people first. I cannot believe that it is a result of pressures, or if it is then it is a set of pressures I choose to bend to. I think.
I do like other people to be happy. That isn’t as selfless as it sounds—that just happens to be what makes me happy. I like people. It’s a weird sort of addiction, a fascination of sorts but one that I can’t stop. Are addictions bad if they aren’t destructive? Does intentionality matter?
In art, the author is removed from the meaning. The interpretation of and value given to an art object is between the object itself and the viewer. Intentionality is not a factor. And art is a likeness of life, no? It is reflects life; affects life; is an effect of life. By simple virtue of the artist being alive, art bears some relation to the living. So then does intentionality matter in life? Does it matter why I like to make people happy? I do not think I suffer from abnormally high levels of self-consciousness, or am in someway seeking approval or love. Or maybe I am; maybe that’s human nature. Maybe that’s the nature of art too. Even avant-garde art wants to be hated by a few in order that it may be loved by many others.
Perhaps giving up time towards reading and writing, and sleeping, is alright so long as it doesn’t then become a source of resentment. To make people happy by appeasing their sense of what is right while still appeasing your own sense of what you need; right or wrong. The way artists follow artistic trends while exploring their own capacities as artists; right or wrong. You can’t paint exactly what the people want; then there’s no artistry involved. But you can’t drip paint in the 17th century and call it art as it is not only inconceivable but also incomprehensible. Art it did not go from David to Duchamp from one day to the next. It’s been a continuous process of give and take; as long as there is both give and take and not wholly giving or taking, there is progress. There is art. There is a well-lived life.
Sometimes I like to do nothing. Or rather things that are nothing to other people, but mean a bit of something to me. I like to read. I like to write and I like to sleep. But especially this semester I’ve been so often convinced that that is ‘nothing’ and that I ought to be doing ‘something’ while I’m in Paris, while I’ve got the chance. So when I want to read or write instead I go out, “enjoying” the city.
Except that the thing I’ve learned, the thing I’ve so exhaustively learned, is that to enjoy anything outside of yourself at all you’ve first got to enjoy yourself completely. And my self enjoys reading and writing and sleeping.
But this isn’t just a Paris thing; it’s not anything new that I do things with people when I’d rather do something (a very real something) else. I’ve been playing violin since I was four years old, but I’m not studying at the Paris Conservatory right now. I never practiced enough because back in the day practicing was ‘nothing.’ For a time, in those rebellious middle school years, I ignored my friends’ opinions and practiced when I liked instead of hanging out at the mall and going to the cinema and putting metal through unnatural holes in my body. I got really interested in jazz violin and taught enough/played enough to buy an electric 5-string violin/viola. I had the old Jamie Aebersold books and used my dad’s record player to play alongside.
At some point since then, I relapsed. I don’t know when this was, or how or why, but it must have happened as I am living evidence of it. This is a choice I seem to continually make; to please other people first. I cannot believe that it is a result of pressures, or if it is then it is a set of pressures I choose to bend to. I think.
I do like other people to be happy. That isn’t as selfless as it sounds—that just happens to be what makes me happy. I like people. It’s a weird sort of addiction, a fascination of sorts but one that I can’t stop. Are addictions bad if they aren’t destructive? Does intentionality matter?
In art, the author is removed from the meaning. The interpretation of and value given to an art object is between the object itself and the viewer. Intentionality is not a factor. And art is a likeness of life, no? It is reflects life; affects life; is an effect of life. By simple virtue of the artist being alive, art bears some relation to the living. So then does intentionality matter in life? Does it matter why I like to make people happy? I do not think I suffer from abnormally high levels of self-consciousness, or am in someway seeking approval or love. Or maybe I am; maybe that’s human nature. Maybe that’s the nature of art too. Even avant-garde art wants to be hated by a few in order that it may be loved by many others.
Perhaps giving up time towards reading and writing, and sleeping, is alright so long as it doesn’t then become a source of resentment. To make people happy by appeasing their sense of what is right while still appeasing your own sense of what you need; right or wrong. The way artists follow artistic trends while exploring their own capacities as artists; right or wrong. You can’t paint exactly what the people want; then there’s no artistry involved. But you can’t drip paint in the 17th century and call it art as it is not only inconceivable but also incomprehensible. Art it did not go from David to Duchamp from one day to the next. It’s been a continuous process of give and take; as long as there is both give and take and not wholly giving or taking, there is progress. There is art. There is a well-lived life.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Deterioration by Supplantation Type 2
I don’t know if the second type of earbudding is better or worse. Half of me thinks worse because at least with the phone ear buds, someone is getting through to you. With music you’re completely in your own private sphere. But the other half of me wants to think it’s better because this is the one I do.
I didn’t always. I didn’t when I first came to Paris. But I am one of those people who constantly looks around at things and people, and you can’t look at people in Paris. Making eye contact gets you into trouble. So I started listening to music when I’d walk places, and I’d sort of zone out a bit. Or at least look less approachable.
But really, does the rest of the world have the same attention problems I do? It’s a bit hard to believe the rest of my generation also has the same rotten luck of making eye contact with the wrong people. (I nearly got chased by a homeless man yesterday!! I accidently made eye contact with him as I was passing, but I was passing, and so I don’t know maybe he felt slighted or something.)
Maybe my generation has a greater appreciation for music. Although the music that’s popular today makes that seem a bit implausible too.
Is it that we have a need to be constantly entertained? That’s not too far from it I think, and maybe I’m alright with that but it scares me to think where that might lead. Can we (generally, of course) not be alone with our own thoughts? Do we have enough thoughts to be alone with?
When I was in middle school, my language teacher would make us sit in silence for ten minutes at the beginning of every class. Her theory, which she voiced often, was that if you didn’t have 10 minutes worth of personal thoughts you were doomed. To what, she never said.
Maybe the life of the perfect American consumer.
I didn’t always. I didn’t when I first came to Paris. But I am one of those people who constantly looks around at things and people, and you can’t look at people in Paris. Making eye contact gets you into trouble. So I started listening to music when I’d walk places, and I’d sort of zone out a bit. Or at least look less approachable.
But really, does the rest of the world have the same attention problems I do? It’s a bit hard to believe the rest of my generation also has the same rotten luck of making eye contact with the wrong people. (I nearly got chased by a homeless man yesterday!! I accidently made eye contact with him as I was passing, but I was passing, and so I don’t know maybe he felt slighted or something.)
Maybe my generation has a greater appreciation for music. Although the music that’s popular today makes that seem a bit implausible too.
Is it that we have a need to be constantly entertained? That’s not too far from it I think, and maybe I’m alright with that but it scares me to think where that might lead. Can we (generally, of course) not be alone with our own thoughts? Do we have enough thoughts to be alone with?
When I was in middle school, my language teacher would make us sit in silence for ten minutes at the beginning of every class. Her theory, which she voiced often, was that if you didn’t have 10 minutes worth of personal thoughts you were doomed. To what, she never said.
Maybe the life of the perfect American consumer.
Deterioration by Supplantation Type 1
I was walking home from school, stopped at an intersection waiting for the cars to notice the red light, and the woman next to me began to speak. I turned round thinking behind me stood someone sharing my street-crossing woes but instead I met a rather unfriendly glare which I’m sure had she not already been in a conversation (which I so rudely peeked in on) would have been accompanied by a deep, smoker woman’s “QUOI.”
How dare I look at a private conversation on a public street? How could I be so stupid. Because. Because her phone didn’t even ring. French people keep their phone in their ears! I mean not really, but essentially. They have those iPod-looking ear buds with a microphone dangling and they just push a button and that answers their phone!
Cell phones are bad enough. You can reach anyone at any time and you don’t even have to talk to do it. But now not only can someone far away reach you, only someone far away can reach you. By having plugs in your ears you close yourself off to any actual interaction with the actual people around you. It’s like they’re waiting for someone to ring them; they’ve already got the person (whoever it turns out to be) in their ears.
But maybe that’s appropriate for our (western) culture today. We are a society that lives for the weekend, whose years revolve around holidays, breaks, vacations. I’d like to think of my family as a generally happy, sincere one but even we probably fall into this category. The Christmas letter my mom writes every year will maybe have a line or two about work, but never more.
If I grow up and find a career that gets me excited every day so that I live for the hours and days and not the weekend, I will consider myself successful. If I can write a Christmas letter entirely about daily life so that those people wanting to hear about summers spent with Club Med cannot even get through it, I will consider my life well lived.
How dare I look at a private conversation on a public street? How could I be so stupid. Because. Because her phone didn’t even ring. French people keep their phone in their ears! I mean not really, but essentially. They have those iPod-looking ear buds with a microphone dangling and they just push a button and that answers their phone!
Cell phones are bad enough. You can reach anyone at any time and you don’t even have to talk to do it. But now not only can someone far away reach you, only someone far away can reach you. By having plugs in your ears you close yourself off to any actual interaction with the actual people around you. It’s like they’re waiting for someone to ring them; they’ve already got the person (whoever it turns out to be) in their ears.
But maybe that’s appropriate for our (western) culture today. We are a society that lives for the weekend, whose years revolve around holidays, breaks, vacations. I’d like to think of my family as a generally happy, sincere one but even we probably fall into this category. The Christmas letter my mom writes every year will maybe have a line or two about work, but never more.
If I grow up and find a career that gets me excited every day so that I live for the hours and days and not the weekend, I will consider myself successful. If I can write a Christmas letter entirely about daily life so that those people wanting to hear about summers spent with Club Med cannot even get through it, I will consider my life well lived.
Monday, May 31, 2010
observing the unobservable
I tried to do a derive today. I rode the 13 to the end of the line and was all excited to discover a whole new Paris, a periphery culture.
It really wasn’t terribly interesting.
I passed a garage, a gas station, a nice-smelling Indian restaurant. There were people having a barbecue in the park (Happy Memorial Day) and what looked like a pool or gym sort of place. It actually looked a lot like Saginaw.
I haven’t had too much success with derives, honestly. I do try. I don’t know, maybe it was easier before there was so much globalization and industrialization. I would love to derive around at the end of the 19th century, when the city was new. To see how Haussmann’s changes changed the way people interact with space.
Maybe part of the problem is that we don’t really interact with space in a traditional manner anymore. Space gets you from place to place. Everyone, especially in Paris, seems always to be in a rush to get someplace else. Even when you’re not in a rush, there’s not the same interaction with people or space. We don’t stop and chat with strangers on the streets, but text on our phones. We mask the scent of a city with perfume, the sound of a town with an iPod. Modern day spectacles are not outside in physical reality but on Youtube. People don’t gather to discuss the news but read and comment online. Our world is becoming increasingly virtual, and I think it has left the real world looking rather pallor.
At any rate I’ve always thought people to be more interesting than places, so on the way back I thought I’d take a subtle personage derive and observe people on the metro. The trouble is people tend to put masks on as soon as they step onto a train. They (and I, too) plug in, zone out, do something to pass the time in a less-than-conscious state.
Maybe I’ve just had bad luck. But maybe there are fewer and fewer occasions where people come alive and let themselves shine through. Or a combination of the two. Next time I won’t take the 13.
It really wasn’t terribly interesting.
I passed a garage, a gas station, a nice-smelling Indian restaurant. There were people having a barbecue in the park (Happy Memorial Day) and what looked like a pool or gym sort of place. It actually looked a lot like Saginaw.
I haven’t had too much success with derives, honestly. I do try. I don’t know, maybe it was easier before there was so much globalization and industrialization. I would love to derive around at the end of the 19th century, when the city was new. To see how Haussmann’s changes changed the way people interact with space.
Maybe part of the problem is that we don’t really interact with space in a traditional manner anymore. Space gets you from place to place. Everyone, especially in Paris, seems always to be in a rush to get someplace else. Even when you’re not in a rush, there’s not the same interaction with people or space. We don’t stop and chat with strangers on the streets, but text on our phones. We mask the scent of a city with perfume, the sound of a town with an iPod. Modern day spectacles are not outside in physical reality but on Youtube. People don’t gather to discuss the news but read and comment online. Our world is becoming increasingly virtual, and I think it has left the real world looking rather pallor.
At any rate I’ve always thought people to be more interesting than places, so on the way back I thought I’d take a subtle personage derive and observe people on the metro. The trouble is people tend to put masks on as soon as they step onto a train. They (and I, too) plug in, zone out, do something to pass the time in a less-than-conscious state.
Maybe I’ve just had bad luck. But maybe there are fewer and fewer occasions where people come alive and let themselves shine through. Or a combination of the two. Next time I won’t take the 13.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Sometimes you've got to get out of your own way and in someone else's.
I’m already becoming a Paris snob. I have been silently, and not so silently, criticizing those Parisian-Parisians who walk round with their nose so high in the air they can’t even see all the normal-heighted people they’re knocking over along the away.
But taking my parents round the sites of Paris this weekend I’ve gotten so tired of crowds and people who stand in the middle of the walk to take a picture and loud Americans and I even tried to ask a guard if I could cut the line (which he understood!! But didn’t let me.)
It could to some damage, I think, living here permanently. I think I’d rather be an obnoxious tourist than an obnoxified Parisian. I’d rather be a traffic disruption but open to wonder and appreciate all Paris has to offer than to rush past everything like a ghost and grow dead to the beauty. I have no need for mini Eiffel towers, but I never want to find the shimmering lights annoying or disruptive. I want to be mid-way between a local and a tourist.
The middle road. Yep, that’s where it is. Right in the middle of the side walk.
But taking my parents round the sites of Paris this weekend I’ve gotten so tired of crowds and people who stand in the middle of the walk to take a picture and loud Americans and I even tried to ask a guard if I could cut the line (which he understood!! But didn’t let me.)
It could to some damage, I think, living here permanently. I think I’d rather be an obnoxious tourist than an obnoxified Parisian. I’d rather be a traffic disruption but open to wonder and appreciate all Paris has to offer than to rush past everything like a ghost and grow dead to the beauty. I have no need for mini Eiffel towers, but I never want to find the shimmering lights annoying or disruptive. I want to be mid-way between a local and a tourist.
The middle road. Yep, that’s where it is. Right in the middle of the side walk.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Please I'm terribly sorry, do forgive me I know this is a touch late, please thanks for understanding. Please.
England is the most polite country I think in existence. Maybe not the security checks, but in the actual ununiformed people surely are.
An actual conversation: (at a Starbucks, also. Not some quaint little cafe with a sweet old woman serving. An oldish businessy looking man and a rumply looking girl.)
"Yes good morning, how are you?"
"Fine thanks, what can I get you sir?"
"Ah grand. May I please have a cup of your very fine home brew, if you don’t mind."
"Yes of course, what size would you like please?"
"Oh gosh sorry, a large if you don’t mind. With some extra room for milk please if it’s not too much trouble."
"Not at all. 3 pounds 95 please. To stay or to go please?"
"To stay, thanks."
"Right here you are thanks, have a nice day then."
"Thanks so much, to you as well."
Even the traffic lights warn you before they’re going to switch to green. "Don’t want to startle you but here we go now, get ready please."
I’d always been made fun of for being overly polite, and I know why it is now. In all the times I’d been to England I hadn’t noticed it before. But when you come direct from Paris you can’t help but laugh. It is a bit ridiculous, the amount of sidestepping and extra words it takes to speak British English.
It worries me a bit that I found it so strange. I don’t want to become Parisian. I don’t want to audibly scoff and turn up my nose to last season’s Prada and cross roads illegally as though it’s my right. Though that last one I do, alright. That’s an Ann Arbor thing though I think more than a Paris thing.
I like Paris, I do, but I am very content being a foreigner in Paris. I don’t really like being mistaken for French. Especially when people talk to me in French and then are shocked when I don’t reply quickly and perfectly.
There’s something to be said for saying what you mean and getting to the point, but there’s also a little thing called tact. And courtesy. Gracefulness. I like these things. I don’t want to lose them in the rush of Paris.
Somewhere in the middle would be nice. Somewhere in the middle is generally a good place to be. Maybe by the time I get back to the states Paris will have balanced out my English and I’ll be perfectly American, in America. That’d be a good state to be in.
Housman's book shop
I had been meaning to get to England since I got to Paris, so when I booked trains I booked them so that even if a volcano spewed lava in front of us on our way to London I’d be able to make the connection to Grantham. However there were no spewings of any sort, at least not near me, so I had a 4.5 hour wait in London.
Which was great.
Because Kings Cross is right at the center of London and you don’t have to wander far to get away from Starbucks and McDonalds (though why would you ever, right). So in a few minutes I had wandered down and up a street where there was a book store called "Housman’s something-or-other." And I said to myself Hey. I know a Haussmann. So I went in.
Turns out it was this crazy left-wing radical bookstore with these two great middle-aged men who when I arrived were talking heatedly about the election (though to be fair everyone was–ENGLAND WHAT ARE YOU DOING.) And they had sorted their store by political philosophy–communism, Marxism, non-violence... with stationary and posters interspersed. I really liked that the organization was a bit wonky. I'm sure it wasn't a commentary on Haussmann, but it still made me smile.
Upstairs they had a room for activist groups to meet, and then in the basement they had just this room of piles and piles of lovely great smelling old books and not so great smelling ones and old issues of Communist magazines and propaganda from all sides... though that stuff got quite expensive. The rest of it was £1. But they had original works in Russian and German and French even, though that’s not quite a vocabulary I’ve mastered yet. And actually I found a pretty great old St. Paul’s hymnal with scores for the Messiah in it too.
These guys were great though. I can’t remember the one man’s name but the other was William, and he gave me his mobile number in case I ever needed to find something. They genuinely just wanted to help people and spread knowledge. They knew so much; history, current events, historical literature, literature on history...
The remarkable thing to me was that neither seemed to be the least bit bitter. I feel like if I had read cover to cover, and not just the back flap, of all those books I browsed through I’d be a very cynical, untrusting person. I think I’d hate America, and Britain, and all the empire-ish Western nations. But it’s not as though I’d like to live in a dictator-run country either. Or one with an actual king (unlike our beautiful figurehead Queen).
But really, is any place free? Does there exist a single society free of corruption and entirely for the people?
I want to know what their secret is. I want to know how they can be so informed and entirely aware of these massive injustices and lies and deceptions that aren’t progressing, except maybe in terms of complexity, and remain so chipper. Prozac? Zoloft?
How can they can retain such optimism and happiness in the face of humans at their absolute worst? Maybe that’s what freedom is.
Monday, April 12, 2010
4/12/2010
I think I’ve figured out how churches got so powerful.
People need them. People need there to be something bigger and stronger and more important than mankind. Who was it that said if religion didn’t exist we’d have to invent it? Someone smart.
A friend of mine died last week. She was old, she had been dying for awhile but even when you know it’s coming it’s not any easier when it actually happens. And when you talk to your dad who to every little girl is the strongest man in the world and his voice breaks and you realize that no person is any stronger or weaker than the next, it’s scary. You want to believe there are people out there better than you, stronger than you. That’s why people idolize celebrities, why Obama is under so much pressure.
But there’s not. Which is why people need a God. (Or a king or a righteous revolutionary agenda…) As egotistical as we are, I think on some level at least we realize how truly lame and incompetent we are. We want there to someone (or something) better, wiser. I do at least. I am fully aware of my patheticness. I want there to be more than me.
When I went to Chartres this past weekend with my roommate we went into the Cathedral there and I lit a candle for Emily. The candles are beautiful but the flame is so small and burns such dim light, but you look up and the windows are so tall and majestic and shed brilliant light. I know that these are just things material things and maybe it’s wrong that I’m affected by it, maybe I’m just too ignorant to see past the illusion but to me it seems more an allusion than illusion. Maybe it’s not. What do I know. But then, what do you know?
There are not many people or things I need. I rarely feel lonely and I don’t rely on people much. But after Emily died, and we went to Chartres cathedral it was really comforting to feel and to think there is something more for her. I think today in general we are much less dependent on human relations than ever before. For peasants back in the day, who didn’t have so many Things and distractions, whose whole world was based on human relations because that’s all they had, of course they needed a God. Of course they needed a king. It makes perfect sense.
People need them. People need there to be something bigger and stronger and more important than mankind. Who was it that said if religion didn’t exist we’d have to invent it? Someone smart.
A friend of mine died last week. She was old, she had been dying for awhile but even when you know it’s coming it’s not any easier when it actually happens. And when you talk to your dad who to every little girl is the strongest man in the world and his voice breaks and you realize that no person is any stronger or weaker than the next, it’s scary. You want to believe there are people out there better than you, stronger than you. That’s why people idolize celebrities, why Obama is under so much pressure.
But there’s not. Which is why people need a God. (Or a king or a righteous revolutionary agenda…) As egotistical as we are, I think on some level at least we realize how truly lame and incompetent we are. We want there to someone (or something) better, wiser. I do at least. I am fully aware of my patheticness. I want there to be more than me.
When I went to Chartres this past weekend with my roommate we went into the Cathedral there and I lit a candle for Emily. The candles are beautiful but the flame is so small and burns such dim light, but you look up and the windows are so tall and majestic and shed brilliant light. I know that these are just things material things and maybe it’s wrong that I’m affected by it, maybe I’m just too ignorant to see past the illusion but to me it seems more an allusion than illusion. Maybe it’s not. What do I know. But then, what do you know?
There are not many people or things I need. I rarely feel lonely and I don’t rely on people much. But after Emily died, and we went to Chartres cathedral it was really comforting to feel and to think there is something more for her. I think today in general we are much less dependent on human relations than ever before. For peasants back in the day, who didn’t have so many Things and distractions, whose whole world was based on human relations because that’s all they had, of course they needed a God. Of course they needed a king. It makes perfect sense.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Last Week's Derive
For last weeks derive Jessica and I walked around the 1st (starting from that AMAZING Chinese noodle place. Thanks for that Lisa) to observe but the trouble with observing other people is avoiding being observed yourself.
The first strange thing we saw was a group of 3 people walking in front of us, one woman and two men. And the woman was hitting the man closest to her, for reasons unknown to us, but as we were speculating (subtly, I might add) they noticed us and the two men started holding hands and touching each other and being generally awkward. Or maybe they were genuinely awkward.
People act differently depending on where they are and who they’re with. And who’s watching. And it’s all very interesting but I want to watch what I’m not supposed see. Not in a weird way but just to see people not on guard, not conscious of what they’re doing. That’s hard to do without being creepy though.
So we split off from following them and wound up near a fountain, sort of in the middle of nowhere. Not nowhere as in unpopulated, there’s no “nowhere” in Paris — everywhere is somewhere important. I just mean that the fountain wasn’t in the middle of a plaza or really given much space, it was just on the point where two roads meet. I can’t remember the name of it now (M something) but you can look at Jessica’s pictures if you want. The point is it wasn’t a huge deal or terribly famous. But we wanted to figure it out so we made the grand tour of it and looked at all the statues and detailing on it and decided it was a philosopher who was thought women deserved rights too. Maybe. As we were reaching our conclusions about the mysterious women and coded documents (not actually coded but in French so pretty much) a group of tourists came up and ooohed and ahhhed at it. We hung around thinking maybe they knew what it was but they just as soon took a picture and left. Maybe they thought it was something because we thought it was something.
The difficult thing about people is that you can’t always tell how or if you’re impacting them. Obviously to a certain extent everyone impacts everyone else, but how much? It’s impossible to be sure.
Our next discovery (I think, I really have an awful memory) was of The Gaudiest metro stop ever designed. If you can call it design. I haven’t a clue what to make of it. It was the sort of thing you see and either laugh or sigh. It was an arch of bright, big glass bobbles that allowed neither for any kind of intelligent analysis nor contemplation; just wide-eyed awe. How anyone could think that was worth creating and paying for and putting into material existence is beyond me.
These metros really get me. Each one has their own design and sort of “thing.” Their own look. Why?? Paris. Okay. You’re glamorous, you’re interesting. We get it. But it’s difficult to appreciate all the beauty (and the gaudy, because I think there is a place for gaudy in the world) when that’s all there is. Without contrast there’s no scale. Everything is relative, but without any discrepancies, there’s just one thing. It’s not great or terrible, it just is. Which is sort of terrible in itself. I want to find the ugly Paris.
The first strange thing we saw was a group of 3 people walking in front of us, one woman and two men. And the woman was hitting the man closest to her, for reasons unknown to us, but as we were speculating (subtly, I might add) they noticed us and the two men started holding hands and touching each other and being generally awkward. Or maybe they were genuinely awkward.
People act differently depending on where they are and who they’re with. And who’s watching. And it’s all very interesting but I want to watch what I’m not supposed see. Not in a weird way but just to see people not on guard, not conscious of what they’re doing. That’s hard to do without being creepy though.
So we split off from following them and wound up near a fountain, sort of in the middle of nowhere. Not nowhere as in unpopulated, there’s no “nowhere” in Paris — everywhere is somewhere important. I just mean that the fountain wasn’t in the middle of a plaza or really given much space, it was just on the point where two roads meet. I can’t remember the name of it now (M something) but you can look at Jessica’s pictures if you want. The point is it wasn’t a huge deal or terribly famous. But we wanted to figure it out so we made the grand tour of it and looked at all the statues and detailing on it and decided it was a philosopher who was thought women deserved rights too. Maybe. As we were reaching our conclusions about the mysterious women and coded documents (not actually coded but in French so pretty much) a group of tourists came up and ooohed and ahhhed at it. We hung around thinking maybe they knew what it was but they just as soon took a picture and left. Maybe they thought it was something because we thought it was something.
The difficult thing about people is that you can’t always tell how or if you’re impacting them. Obviously to a certain extent everyone impacts everyone else, but how much? It’s impossible to be sure.
Our next discovery (I think, I really have an awful memory) was of The Gaudiest metro stop ever designed. If you can call it design. I haven’t a clue what to make of it. It was the sort of thing you see and either laugh or sigh. It was an arch of bright, big glass bobbles that allowed neither for any kind of intelligent analysis nor contemplation; just wide-eyed awe. How anyone could think that was worth creating and paying for and putting into material existence is beyond me.
These metros really get me. Each one has their own design and sort of “thing.” Their own look. Why?? Paris. Okay. You’re glamorous, you’re interesting. We get it. But it’s difficult to appreciate all the beauty (and the gaudy, because I think there is a place for gaudy in the world) when that’s all there is. Without contrast there’s no scale. Everything is relative, but without any discrepancies, there’s just one thing. It’s not great or terrible, it just is. Which is sort of terrible in itself. I want to find the ugly Paris.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Social Derive
Normally when I don’t want to do something with someone I just pretend the text didn’t go through — one thing these phones are great for — or didn’t check facebook or something equally vague and transparent, but which precludes much confrontation.
BUT. In the efforts of breaking out of habit/routines I agreed to do something with a sort-of friend, but last minute and with time constrictions. Baby steps.
He had to babysit a friend’s dog, so we planned on taking it for a walk. As it turns out it wasn’t a dog. It was The Cutest puppy in the world, not quite 3 months old. And we ended up finding an amaaaaaazing park with flowers and trees and I suppose that’s a given but there was also a waterfall! And grass that you could sit on with no overly protective French guard to yell at you, and there’s a pretty big hill that you can walk up and look down at some big buildings. I can’t remember the name but it’s near metro Laumier on line 5, for anyone else who misses sittable grass.
Right so we walked around and the park was beautiful and wonderful and my sort-of friend became an actual friend! Success! And then as we were leaving it started to hail!!! Which was also really spectacular and I’m not entirely sure why, but that doesn’t matter so much as the fact that I wouldn’t’ve seen such marvels in my comfort zone.
I’ve been searching for grass to sit on for an unreasonable amount of time, kind of makes me wonder what other things I haven’t found (not just in Paris but in general) because I’ve been content with what I’d already found.
On the same token I think it’s more difficult to discover things when you’re looking for them. It seems a bit backwards to plan on discovering something, that’s not really discovery so much as… I don’t know. Recovery? Because you already knew about it, it’s not something new that you wouldn’t otherwise have had in your life. So hooray for discovery. And recovery too. I think just being active and engaged in the world around you on whatever level deserves some respect.
BUT. In the efforts of breaking out of habit/routines I agreed to do something with a sort-of friend, but last minute and with time constrictions. Baby steps.
He had to babysit a friend’s dog, so we planned on taking it for a walk. As it turns out it wasn’t a dog. It was The Cutest puppy in the world, not quite 3 months old. And we ended up finding an amaaaaaazing park with flowers and trees and I suppose that’s a given but there was also a waterfall! And grass that you could sit on with no overly protective French guard to yell at you, and there’s a pretty big hill that you can walk up and look down at some big buildings. I can’t remember the name but it’s near metro Laumier on line 5, for anyone else who misses sittable grass.
Right so we walked around and the park was beautiful and wonderful and my sort-of friend became an actual friend! Success! And then as we were leaving it started to hail!!! Which was also really spectacular and I’m not entirely sure why, but that doesn’t matter so much as the fact that I wouldn’t’ve seen such marvels in my comfort zone.
I’ve been searching for grass to sit on for an unreasonable amount of time, kind of makes me wonder what other things I haven’t found (not just in Paris but in general) because I’ve been content with what I’d already found.
On the same token I think it’s more difficult to discover things when you’re looking for them. It seems a bit backwards to plan on discovering something, that’s not really discovery so much as… I don’t know. Recovery? Because you already knew about it, it’s not something new that you wouldn’t otherwise have had in your life. So hooray for discovery. And recovery too. I think just being active and engaged in the world around you on whatever level deserves some respect.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
les trucs
This weekend I took the same trip twice, and got just as lost both times. Getting great at getting lost. But it’s not really a feat at Clignancourt, the entire place is a giant maze. A very interesting, decorated maze but that almost makes it more difficult to find your way because there are so many things to distract you from noticing where you’re going. Funny because it happens in real life too.
There are just so many things in Paris. I think general world-opinion (if that exists) holds the States as the most materialistic, consumerist society and maybe we do use more than we ought to and you can buy nearly anything you can dream up, but it’s not shoved in your face the way it is in Paris. Alright so a flea market is a skewed sample and maybe so is living in the 14th but it still seems that stuff is such a large part of life here. There’s good stuff; interesting stuff and even really beautiful stuff sometimes but you would never even know minimalism existed if you never left Paris.
Even the buildings, not institutes and churches I mean (though they are certainly no exception) but supermarkets and apartment buildings have decorated edges and stone faces rising off them and those fancy curly iron fences. It’s a bit overwhelming.
It’s also very lovely and obviously enticing as Paris is one of the largest tourist destinations in the world, but what does that say about us then? That the Good Life is buying more things and eating nice meals and deserts and seeing these fancy buildings (also shoved in your face, thanks Haussman) Paris is all about fashion and beauty and food … food even feeds the materialist/consumerist mentality. We certainly don’t need the quantity or deliiiciousness of French cuisine.
I mean I love it too, and I love Paris in general, I’m not saying this is a terrible place by any means I just wonder if maybe I love the wrong things? I can’t decide. Or maybe it’s not entirely wrong to be materialistic and like things and food if you can really appreciate them and their beauty, and not take it just to take it? But as Musee Carnavalet shows the real stories are told through the Stuff. So I guess this just means that the generations after us will have lots of stories to tell.
There are just so many things in Paris. I think general world-opinion (if that exists) holds the States as the most materialistic, consumerist society and maybe we do use more than we ought to and you can buy nearly anything you can dream up, but it’s not shoved in your face the way it is in Paris. Alright so a flea market is a skewed sample and maybe so is living in the 14th but it still seems that stuff is such a large part of life here. There’s good stuff; interesting stuff and even really beautiful stuff sometimes but you would never even know minimalism existed if you never left Paris.
Even the buildings, not institutes and churches I mean (though they are certainly no exception) but supermarkets and apartment buildings have decorated edges and stone faces rising off them and those fancy curly iron fences. It’s a bit overwhelming.
It’s also very lovely and obviously enticing as Paris is one of the largest tourist destinations in the world, but what does that say about us then? That the Good Life is buying more things and eating nice meals and deserts and seeing these fancy buildings (also shoved in your face, thanks Haussman) Paris is all about fashion and beauty and food … food even feeds the materialist/consumerist mentality. We certainly don’t need the quantity or deliiiciousness of French cuisine.
I mean I love it too, and I love Paris in general, I’m not saying this is a terrible place by any means I just wonder if maybe I love the wrong things? I can’t decide. Or maybe it’s not entirely wrong to be materialistic and like things and food if you can really appreciate them and their beauty, and not take it just to take it? But as Musee Carnavalet shows the real stories are told through the Stuff. So I guess this just means that the generations after us will have lots of stories to tell.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Derive
This entire past weekend was one giant derive. We went to Amsterdam, with no map and not much money which doesn’t get you terribly far in this age. We stayed outside Amsterdam in a tiny town in the middle of the woods which funnily enough was more comforting than the city, though it was bright and colorful and full of people all the time.
There is something nicely familiar about nature. Even when you’re lost, the birds sound the same and the trees are still trees but in Amsterdam the signs are in Dutch and streets aren’t where they were two hours ago and it’s all very complicated. Nature is much simpler, easier to deal with.
In cities, you definitely have to pay more attention and be more alert but it only helps so much when you’ve got a foreign lens. By simple virtue of being in an unknown city we had stepped out of our comfort zones and I suppose began deriving right then. It wasn’t so hard to get lost.
I suppose the hard part comes in keeping your eyes open and actually absorbing and engaging yourself in everything you’re seeing and are uncomfortable with. It’s easy to walk through the red-light district and say Well, that’s something now isn’t it. But to actually walk through those alleys (lit by red lights even) and to see the nearly naked women standing in the windows winking and waving, seducing as a business, that’s an entirely different matter. This is how they live. It’s not just a show for tourists, not a cinematic exaggeration. I think that’s the part that shocked me most about Amsterdam — how similar to stereotypes it actually is.
I remember debating about legalization of prostitution and marijuana in government classes in high school and I honestly could not understand what the problem was, free choice and all that. But actually going to Amsterdam puts things in an entirely different light. Not that my opinions have changed but maybe have just gotten a bit more comprehensive. Amsterdam is a well-run society, it’s not some sort of amoral hell hole. It’s really very lovely. But you can’t understand prostitution from a text book or statistics. This extended derive I think made me more able to look at issues of contention, prostitution just being one, with a curious, more human perspective, rather than a textbook Free Choice Because Duh perspective. Being lost and new to a place brings back that childlike simplicity of looking at things to understand them, without preconceptions of any kind. To observe and interpret what’s actually there, not what you want to see or think you ought to see; to have that blank newness and openmindedness I think allows you to understand more than going thinking you're all sorts of knowledgable, because you probably aren't anyway.
There is something nicely familiar about nature. Even when you’re lost, the birds sound the same and the trees are still trees but in Amsterdam the signs are in Dutch and streets aren’t where they were two hours ago and it’s all very complicated. Nature is much simpler, easier to deal with.
In cities, you definitely have to pay more attention and be more alert but it only helps so much when you’ve got a foreign lens. By simple virtue of being in an unknown city we had stepped out of our comfort zones and I suppose began deriving right then. It wasn’t so hard to get lost.
I suppose the hard part comes in keeping your eyes open and actually absorbing and engaging yourself in everything you’re seeing and are uncomfortable with. It’s easy to walk through the red-light district and say Well, that’s something now isn’t it. But to actually walk through those alleys (lit by red lights even) and to see the nearly naked women standing in the windows winking and waving, seducing as a business, that’s an entirely different matter. This is how they live. It’s not just a show for tourists, not a cinematic exaggeration. I think that’s the part that shocked me most about Amsterdam — how similar to stereotypes it actually is.
I remember debating about legalization of prostitution and marijuana in government classes in high school and I honestly could not understand what the problem was, free choice and all that. But actually going to Amsterdam puts things in an entirely different light. Not that my opinions have changed but maybe have just gotten a bit more comprehensive. Amsterdam is a well-run society, it’s not some sort of amoral hell hole. It’s really very lovely. But you can’t understand prostitution from a text book or statistics. This extended derive I think made me more able to look at issues of contention, prostitution just being one, with a curious, more human perspective, rather than a textbook Free Choice Because Duh perspective. Being lost and new to a place brings back that childlike simplicity of looking at things to understand them, without preconceptions of any kind. To observe and interpret what’s actually there, not what you want to see or think you ought to see; to have that blank newness and openmindedness I think allows you to understand more than going thinking you're all sorts of knowledgable, because you probably aren't anyway.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Daily Routine
So far in Paris my routine hasn’t included anything terribly French or exciting, but I guess that’s the nature of routine. So. I usually get up an hour ish before class to eat and finish homework, walk to the Catho. I pass a carousal everyday. That’s sort of interesting.
And then I usually get hungry because my family eats bread all the time, and bread just doesn’t really do it for me. I think the slices are smaller here, too. Bought some cereal the other day though so that part of the routine’s changed.
Right so then I have French, 10-1 every day except Mondays during which time I do the things I didn’t get done during the weekend, and then art history. Afternoons don’t really follow any sort of pattern, except that they usually include a lot of walking and being outside which is much more enjoyable these days than it has been.
We eat dinner at 7.30 which is invariably delicious, no matter what it is. I don’t know if it’s because I actually do like all food or because Emmanuelle’s a great cook but I always like dinner. In the evenings we have our series, we always watch Plus Belle La Vie which I don’t think I’d be able to follow even in English, but someone was electrocuted last week which I understood well enough. Aurelien and Yan (I have no idea how to spell that name but that’s how it’s pronounced) like to watch House and The Mentalist which I watch occasionally with them, but I am not such a fan of language-dubbing. I think House quite deserves his American accent. And one of the nurses’ French voice just doesn’t match up with her personality which always bothers me. That is pretty routine as well.
Then there’s homework. And bed. Occasionally I’ll a walk outside, I love Paris at night… but I also hate being cold. Hence the occasionality. It'll worm its way into my routine though as it gets warmer, I think.
My routine changed a bit this week because I was fasting with my co-locataire Nahaal (she is Bahai’i) so we had to get up before sunrise to have breakfast which was actually very nice and I had lots of extra time, love that feeling, and but then we went to Amsterdam and waking up before sunrise and not eating until after sunset just didn’t happen. And coming back into Paris and going to bed at 7 am wasn’t conducive to fasting either. Bummer. Back to the old routine.
And then I usually get hungry because my family eats bread all the time, and bread just doesn’t really do it for me. I think the slices are smaller here, too. Bought some cereal the other day though so that part of the routine’s changed.
Right so then I have French, 10-1 every day except Mondays during which time I do the things I didn’t get done during the weekend, and then art history. Afternoons don’t really follow any sort of pattern, except that they usually include a lot of walking and being outside which is much more enjoyable these days than it has been.
We eat dinner at 7.30 which is invariably delicious, no matter what it is. I don’t know if it’s because I actually do like all food or because Emmanuelle’s a great cook but I always like dinner. In the evenings we have our series, we always watch Plus Belle La Vie which I don’t think I’d be able to follow even in English, but someone was electrocuted last week which I understood well enough. Aurelien and Yan (I have no idea how to spell that name but that’s how it’s pronounced) like to watch House and The Mentalist which I watch occasionally with them, but I am not such a fan of language-dubbing. I think House quite deserves his American accent. And one of the nurses’ French voice just doesn’t match up with her personality which always bothers me. That is pretty routine as well.
Then there’s homework. And bed. Occasionally I’ll a walk outside, I love Paris at night… but I also hate being cold. Hence the occasionality. It'll worm its way into my routine though as it gets warmer, I think.
My routine changed a bit this week because I was fasting with my co-locataire Nahaal (she is Bahai’i) so we had to get up before sunrise to have breakfast which was actually very nice and I had lots of extra time, love that feeling, and but then we went to Amsterdam and waking up before sunrise and not eating until after sunset just didn’t happen. And coming back into Paris and going to bed at 7 am wasn’t conducive to fasting either. Bummer. Back to the old routine.
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