ewoks, straight men and eldritch gods
Friday night
Up on stage Douglas Rushkoff is talking about the power of narrative and its seductiveness in a world increasingly obsessed with larger-than-life events, mythic causes and neat endings. The lecture subject is Activism in a Post-9/11 World and he's spent the last 12 minutes talking about how everyone is shoehorning the tragedy into their own agenda, using the WTC disaster as the latest episode in The Coming Religious Apocalypse, The Need for A Globalised World Market, or The Impending Fall of the American Empire (take your pick). And he's doing it by talking about Star Wars.
"So, I remember being a young kid and watching Return of the Jedi, the "real" Star Wars episode III, and ..."
"oh my god," Ann whispers by my side, "he's making Star Wars references. This is so Gen X."
" ... there's that scene where the rebels are on the planet Endor, and they're captured by the Ewoks. And you all remember when the Ewoks saw C-3PO and thought that he was a god, and ... there's that scene where he's in the village and giving them the audio history of the Rebellion, complete with sound effects and R2-D2 projecting holograms of the Death Star blowing up. And by the end of it... the Ewoks are not only willing to let our heroes go. They're willing to fight a war for them."
He talks with such wit and enthusiasm that half the crowd probably doesn't know that he's chastising them for being sheep, mindlessly following the dogma of the pacifist movement and not taking any time to really look at what's going on. After his talk, a crowd of volunteers pass leaflets through the audience, urging us to attend a peace rally in an Air Force base tomorrow. I turn my copy over and read about the grievances, the months old argument about restrained food shipments, a point now rendered moot by an Allied occupation of Kabul. On the news earlier that day, they were talking about the impending surrender of Kandahar, and I can't help but wonder what a peace march would accomplish at this point in time. I can't help but wonder how many of those volunteers listened to Rushkoff talk, or if they only paid attention to the fact that he talked about Ewoks.
Saturday night
YoungerSister and I are in Coolidge Corner, browsing through the video store and while we're sifting through the DVD new releases, she leaps out and grabs a copy of "Borsalino", half swooning over the cover with Alain Delon, and I tease her over her obssession with a 60s French actor.
"hey," she says, pouting, "don't make fun of me."
I take it as a hint and we walk together in silence for a bit until she asks again, "why is it that everybody makes fun of me?"
"aww," I reply, "'cos it's so easy."
"hey ..."
"no, it's just a sign that your friends like you. You and I both have friends that overindulge in sarcasm, and that's just a sign of affection, that they're comfortable hanging out with you."
"yeah, but whenever I try to join in and say something back, it's never funny."
"ah, LittleSister, that's because our entirely family is cursed to be Straight Men. We're funny because we're serious people surrounded by weird friends, and we suffer the wit and jokes of our friends gladly."
"so what do I do?"
"well, you can rent Withnail and I. Then pretend that you're Paul McGann trying to retain the sanity of all of your Richard-E.-Grantesque friends."
Sunday night
I bought a desk. Yes. Finally. And it's huge. The salesperson and I spent about fifteen minutes trying to fit it into the trunk of my car, before I gave up and called in some backup. We wrestled it up to my second floor apartment, and after dinner I set about assembling it.
I realized that I was in trouble when I pulled out the tool bag and saw that it didn't have hex wrenches. That tool which accompanied every piece of self-assembled furniture I ever acquired in my post-college life was absent. Instead I had about eight different types of screws, hundreds of wood dowels, an array of cam bolts, fixtures, sliding drawer guides, and a few arcane metal tokens that were unidentified, but would probably summon eldritch gods if tapped in the right sequence. This felt like such an adult undertaking, and the collegiate world of particle board seemed so far away.
I started at 10pm, after spending two hours cleaning out my room and taking apart my old desk. I stopped working at 2am.
The desk is only half-finished.
I so dread moving this thing.
but it's still so neat.
Up on stage Douglas Rushkoff is talking about the power of narrative and its seductiveness in a world increasingly obsessed with larger-than-life events, mythic causes and neat endings. The lecture subject is Activism in a Post-9/11 World and he's spent the last 12 minutes talking about how everyone is shoehorning the tragedy into their own agenda, using the WTC disaster as the latest episode in The Coming Religious Apocalypse, The Need for A Globalised World Market, or The Impending Fall of the American Empire (take your pick). And he's doing it by talking about Star Wars.
"So, I remember being a young kid and watching Return of the Jedi, the "real" Star Wars episode III, and ..."
"oh my god," Ann whispers by my side, "he's making Star Wars references. This is so Gen X."
" ... there's that scene where the rebels are on the planet Endor, and they're captured by the Ewoks. And you all remember when the Ewoks saw C-3PO and thought that he was a god, and ... there's that scene where he's in the village and giving them the audio history of the Rebellion, complete with sound effects and R2-D2 projecting holograms of the Death Star blowing up. And by the end of it... the Ewoks are not only willing to let our heroes go. They're willing to fight a war for them."
He talks with such wit and enthusiasm that half the crowd probably doesn't know that he's chastising them for being sheep, mindlessly following the dogma of the pacifist movement and not taking any time to really look at what's going on. After his talk, a crowd of volunteers pass leaflets through the audience, urging us to attend a peace rally in an Air Force base tomorrow. I turn my copy over and read about the grievances, the months old argument about restrained food shipments, a point now rendered moot by an Allied occupation of Kabul. On the news earlier that day, they were talking about the impending surrender of Kandahar, and I can't help but wonder what a peace march would accomplish at this point in time. I can't help but wonder how many of those volunteers listened to Rushkoff talk, or if they only paid attention to the fact that he talked about Ewoks.
Saturday night
YoungerSister and I are in Coolidge Corner, browsing through the video store and while we're sifting through the DVD new releases, she leaps out and grabs a copy of "Borsalino", half swooning over the cover with Alain Delon, and I tease her over her obssession with a 60s French actor.
"hey," she says, pouting, "don't make fun of me."
I take it as a hint and we walk together in silence for a bit until she asks again, "why is it that everybody makes fun of me?"
"aww," I reply, "'cos it's so easy."
"hey ..."
"no, it's just a sign that your friends like you. You and I both have friends that overindulge in sarcasm, and that's just a sign of affection, that they're comfortable hanging out with you."
"yeah, but whenever I try to join in and say something back, it's never funny."
"ah, LittleSister, that's because our entirely family is cursed to be Straight Men. We're funny because we're serious people surrounded by weird friends, and we suffer the wit and jokes of our friends gladly."
"so what do I do?"
"well, you can rent Withnail and I. Then pretend that you're Paul McGann trying to retain the sanity of all of your Richard-E.-Grantesque friends."
Sunday night
I bought a desk. Yes. Finally. And it's huge. The salesperson and I spent about fifteen minutes trying to fit it into the trunk of my car, before I gave up and called in some backup. We wrestled it up to my second floor apartment, and after dinner I set about assembling it.
I realized that I was in trouble when I pulled out the tool bag and saw that it didn't have hex wrenches. That tool which accompanied every piece of self-assembled furniture I ever acquired in my post-college life was absent. Instead I had about eight different types of screws, hundreds of wood dowels, an array of cam bolts, fixtures, sliding drawer guides, and a few arcane metal tokens that were unidentified, but would probably summon eldritch gods if tapped in the right sequence. This felt like such an adult undertaking, and the collegiate world of particle board seemed so far away.
I started at 10pm, after spending two hours cleaning out my room and taking apart my old desk. I stopped working at 2am.
The desk is only half-finished.
I so dread moving this thing.
but it's still so neat.