Yapping
Mood:
Precise, analytical
I spent Saturday night with some friends of Jess. The four of them knew each other from her days in the Peace Corps and one of them will be getting married in two weeks in Slovakia. Overall I had a great time with them. Educated, funny and hard-drinking are how I would describe them. But the beginning was a little rocky.
Initially, I was bored with the conversation because it revolved around politics – one of the friends went through great lengths to convince me that John F. Kennedy was America’s most militant presidents. Later he tried to convince me that Libya’s leader, Colonel Muhamar el Quadafi was a North African patriot and freedom loving beneficent leader. What crap, but worse, what boring crap.
I hate talking politics because talk is so fucking cheap. For me, politics is about action, and sitting around and whining about what is or is not getting done is useless. It also engenders a bipolar system; you can either agree or disagree. If we all agree then nothing has changed anywhere. If someone has disagreed, then there's an arguement, bad blood and beaucoup buzzkill - but still nothing has changed except that people are upset. That's no way to rip the system.
Tell me some damned stories! That’s what I want, personal anecdotes about life and how you overcome obstacles that God constantly puts in our way. I don’t give a squat if you think Reagan’s economic policies were devastating to American middle-class families. Save that for the ladies. I want to hear about YOU.
One of the good things about Army officers was that there wasn’t much political talk. The daily burdens of the job edged out almost all discussion that didn’t have to do with the mission. It goes without saying that most Army officers had a conservative bend, so there was no need for political conversation, but the same is true of the Peace Corps volunteers who were unabashedly liberal. In the Army, it was sometimes considered rude to discuss politics, we saluted and went about our time-consuming and creatively stifling jobs.
Once I got some booze into their veins, we talked about cool stuff like existentialism, Balkan dietary habits, and travel horror stories. Bless the social lubricant.
IN other news, I’m half way through Sartre’s Nausea. Great book and I recommend it to all. Only 180 pages and filled with disgust at the bourgeois mentality of sameness and totalisation. Sartre’s definitely one of my people.
Yesterday I found an early edition of Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, printed in 1966. I spent four hours reading it yesterday, reveling in the fractured plot. Naked Lunch has one the most touching last passages of any book I’ve ever read. For me, it is the last two pages that cement Lunch's position as a work of literature, it leaves you in that empty space. "No glot – clom Fliday," says the pusher to the junky: there’s no hope to be sold. Absolutely Forlorn.
THUS I PURGE MYSELF OF A NOSTALGIA I KNOW TOO WELL...
-Nausea
Initially, I was bored with the conversation because it revolved around politics – one of the friends went through great lengths to convince me that John F. Kennedy was America’s most militant presidents. Later he tried to convince me that Libya’s leader, Colonel Muhamar el Quadafi was a North African patriot and freedom loving beneficent leader. What crap, but worse, what boring crap.
I hate talking politics because talk is so fucking cheap. For me, politics is about action, and sitting around and whining about what is or is not getting done is useless. It also engenders a bipolar system; you can either agree or disagree. If we all agree then nothing has changed anywhere. If someone has disagreed, then there's an arguement, bad blood and beaucoup buzzkill - but still nothing has changed except that people are upset. That's no way to rip the system.
Tell me some damned stories! That’s what I want, personal anecdotes about life and how you overcome obstacles that God constantly puts in our way. I don’t give a squat if you think Reagan’s economic policies were devastating to American middle-class families. Save that for the ladies. I want to hear about YOU.
One of the good things about Army officers was that there wasn’t much political talk. The daily burdens of the job edged out almost all discussion that didn’t have to do with the mission. It goes without saying that most Army officers had a conservative bend, so there was no need for political conversation, but the same is true of the Peace Corps volunteers who were unabashedly liberal. In the Army, it was sometimes considered rude to discuss politics, we saluted and went about our time-consuming and creatively stifling jobs.
Once I got some booze into their veins, we talked about cool stuff like existentialism, Balkan dietary habits, and travel horror stories. Bless the social lubricant.
IN other news, I’m half way through Sartre’s Nausea. Great book and I recommend it to all. Only 180 pages and filled with disgust at the bourgeois mentality of sameness and totalisation. Sartre’s definitely one of my people.
Yesterday I found an early edition of Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, printed in 1966. I spent four hours reading it yesterday, reveling in the fractured plot. Naked Lunch has one the most touching last passages of any book I’ve ever read. For me, it is the last two pages that cement Lunch's position as a work of literature, it leaves you in that empty space. "No glot – clom Fliday," says the pusher to the junky: there’s no hope to be sold. Absolutely Forlorn.
THUS I PURGE MYSELF OF A NOSTALGIA I KNOW TOO WELL...
-Nausea
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