Back to North Carolina tomorrow! This time I’ll be there for a week. Spring Break Durham ‘07 Baby! Man, life is really going to suck when I’m done with grad school and no longer get “breaks”. There’s really only one downside to this and that is the fact that my apartment is a HIDEOUS DUMP and I’m betting I don’t do any cleaning before I go. I noticed things were starting to backslide when I had Baby-G here last Friday and he kept munching on dustballs and twirling my dirty underwear around. It’s amazing what escapes my eagle eye! There’s nothing like a visit from Baby-G to make me feel like a real slattern. Wait–doesn’t slattern mean whore? Yes, yes it does. I think I was confusing it with slovenly or something. Anyway, you get the point. I live in my own filth.
I don’t need to say again how much I LOVE where I’m from. The veritable smorgasbord of friendship that awaits me is wonderful to contemplate. Especially after I pissed off all my DC friends today in class with two revelations:
a) I hate Beat poetry. I dare you to ask me why (I think I used the phrases “grandiose social dysfunction” and “sociological revulsion”. “Bad” also comes to mind).
and
b) I think that culture is sometimes “invitation-only”.
Oh the horror! I have dismissed an entire GENRE of American artwork! And ATOMISED the incredibly SYMBIOTIC, MULTIPLICITOUS and BLAH BLAH BLAH cultures of this wonderful world! Oh spite! Oh goat semen! My children will never know tolerance! I will die of spiritual starvation, moored on the Alcatraz of my own xenophobia!
What I really meant, of course, is that I wish to hell people would stop thinking they could buy or consume culture, then use it for their own personal devising. Culture is PEOPLE*, and interactions with people ought to be VOLUNTARY. And hopefully, GENUINE. Dare I say it– even EQUAL.
And yes, I am pissed when I think about all the people reading “Buddha* In 90 Minutes” and then thinking they have the right, let alone the knowledge, to use Buddha as a lever to lift themselves out whatever banal suburban misery they themselves have crafted. Obviously I’m in favor of genuine cultural interchange, but not some bullshit born of desperation, co-optation, mutual or one-sided exploitation or any of those of “-ations” that so often involve a bar mitzvah party henna artist, a self-help manual or a debit card.
*insert “Jesus”, “Krishna”, “Sartre”, “Cindy Sheehan”, “Rashi”, “Ann Coulter” or “Weezer” here
Beyond that, my own experience tells me that it is healthy and healing to have cultural “sacred spaces” in which the rules are implicitly understood and internal discussion/politics/exchanges are the main fare.
K, I’m done with that.
As far as this weekend goes, my schedule is filling up but I would doubtless love to see you. I have probably already made frantic attempts to get in touch with you, but if not it will happen tomorrow while I am on the train. While my grandma was sick I was afflicted with a strange but neccessary form of agoraphobia which required that I spend 90% of my social time sitting cross-legged in the playroom at my parent’s house with the space heater blasting and the other ten percent in the kitchen cooking and freezing large vats of soup and broth for her to eat. “The Minestrone of Magical Thinking”. Freezer space is still on a high premium at my grandpa’s apartment. Anyway, on my most recent trip home I discovered that I was pleased to venture farther afield, even into Orange County, and I surely hope you’ll join me as I explore the outside world once again.
In any case, I promise you that at least one lunchtime next week will find me enjoying these rice and beans, washed down with this juice. Seriously, if you have never had pitalla (some pronounce it pitaya, others call it dragonfruit) juice, you are missing out. It is like washing your tongue in rainstorm of tart, magenta…rain… that is sweet and good. Really, it’s one of the most pleasing, unusual flavors I’ve come across. I highly recommend grabbing a glass (the green guava and cacao juices are great as well) and a chair by the window and just sipping away as you watch 9th Street go by:
“Hey there, Organic Grocery Store Checkout Lady Of My Youth! Thanks for the chocolate bunny!”
“Hey there, High School Gym Teacher! Is that your pitbull? He is cute!”
“Hey there, Young Man I Slow-danced With To KC And Jojo At A Bar Mitzvah Party That One Time! Why is this so awkward?”
“Hey there, First Kids in Middle School To Experiment With Weed! Sadly, it appears that our predictions about you were correct!”
“Hello, Friends! Hello, World!” Ah, coming home.
*EDIT SEVERAL HOURS AFTER: Wait. Culture is also media. I’m not sure to what extent this complicates my argument but we’ll deal with it some other time.
culture is media yes. i dont think it complicates your argument i think it supports it…a 19 year old can watch mtv or the news and think that information is at his or her fingertips…meaning, he takes everything for granted and thinks that culture can be a quick fix for the postmodern demise that he lives in…not only that but he doesnt think about this because people dont critically evaluate things now a days…the absorb any and everything-which includes tv, religion, people…maybe one of these things will make his suburban life better but probably not because everything is substituted for everything and has the same meaning. there is no signified anymore, everything is the signifier. “all that is solid melts into air” there are no constructs and because of that someone can pick up a self help manual on everything and anything. oh boy this comment was longer than it needed to be. sorry.
Wow! Everything in this post makes me remember once again what it feels like to be exuberantly bursting with life. You always were one to remind people of that. I think it’s quite a valuable gift.
Also,
1) Praise whatever deity you so choose, as long as it’s not the Buddha of “90 Minutes” fame (I must here confess that I have thus far escaped knowledge about that particular “cultural” trend)(AND, perhaps that Buddha is the same as any other Buddha–I think he’d agree), for having the guts to say unpopular things in class rather than bowing to the false idols of political correctitude. It’s certainly too easy to deny that learning is about confronting problems with our tidy little worldviews head-on and then trying to pick up the pieces afterwards.
2) You’ve hit it so right on in your own hilarious fashion what it’s like to come home again. (Ha! It can be done after all! Take that Thomas Wolfe!) As reassuring as it may be to wander once more the concrete walks of one’s youth, there’s just something bizarre about it.