There are these people around now who want to talk about rugs and glasses and eye-glasses and I am pretty sure that I have to die soon. They want to show us a rug. They were going to buy a rug they saw in one place but then they found the same rug for this much at another place. The price was less at the other place. Same rug. Here's a hardcover book about rugs on a table on top of the previously mentioned rug. Did we tell you the story about the table?
My girlfriend is looking at the table, the rug, and then at me, and then at me reflected in our host's eyeglasses. The hostess is hanging on the host's arm and beaming with pride; she is holding a glass of wine with a specific shape in a specific color with a specific taste bought from somewhere she found. Evidently the store didn't exist until she found it. My girlfriend is listening with rapt attention and is probably tallying up some numbers in her head. My girlfriend is talking to the hostess about a mutual friend's wedding. The hostess hooks her digital camera up to the laptop on the kitchen counter to show us pictures from the wedding. I don't know who any of the people are in the picture other than myself, my girlfriend, the host and the hostess. We are looking at pictures of ourselves at the wedding and my girlfriend and the hostess are talking about how much weight the bride had lost to fit into her dress. They are talking about how the growth in the bride's vagina, thank goodness, was benign, and the hostess has pulled out some scans from the MRI.
The host wants to talk to me about the winter Olympics, and is angry that I don't know anything about who got what medal from which country. Then he asks me a series of questions about Canada but I don't know the answers. I explain to him that I am not from Canada and I don't know the population of Canada. We make vague guesses at the population of Canada while my girlfriend and the hostess laugh about some mutual friend and something this friend did when they were all sixteen years old.
The host is telling me about how he goes surfing and then says a bunch of technical surfing terms and smiles widely at the recognition he believes he sees in my face. The hostess overhears the conversation and she tells the host to get his surfboard and his wetsuit to show us. The host very modestly protests this. The hostess begs him to get his surfboard and his wetsuit and he laughs and protests. My girlfriend joins in and begs him to get his surfboard and his wetsuit. This goes on for a very long time and I want to smoke a cigarette, but can't in this clean house and want my girlfriend to go with me to stand and smoke on the tiny veranda. But she is still begging the host to get his surfboard. Finally the host, while still protesting, goes into the other room and comes out with the surfboard and the wetsuit and my girlfriend is yelling with shock and admiration at him. Or maybe she is yelling at the surfboard. The ceiling is too low for him to stand it up so he is holding it awkwardly in his arms. My girlfriend and the hostess are looking at it and he is talking about the beaches and the best trains to take to get there. The hostess has forgotten what side she is on and is matching my girlfriend's exaggerated reactions to the surfboard and the wetsuit. My girlfriend is looking at the wetsuit and nodding while the host tells us about the difference between the waves in Australia and Tokyo. My girlfriend hands me the wetsuit and I am calculating how long I have to look at it and nod before I can hand it back. I am not sure what do with the wetsuit and hand it back to my girlfriend.
They serve us some food which is flavorless boiled vegetables and rice. The hostess talks to us about macrobiotics and explains to us the virtue of flavorless food, and how it has not only made her more healthy, but more positive. She now understands things about nature, and the implication is, that no one else does. My girlfriend has now matched the the hostesses zeal and is talking about healthy food and chiding me for eating curry and ramen. This is my girlfriend, who lives on a diet of noodles, soup, rice omelettes, garlic, menthol cigarettes, and alcohol.
The host wants to ask me some questions about Eminem and what he is doing these days. Do Americans still like Eminem? Do Black people in America like Eminem? Is America really like the America depicted in the movie "8 Mile"?
Now I am praying for the earthquake that they have been threatening me with since I came to this country. But I feel bad about this, thinking about Haiti. But then again if the big one came it would bury all of the filing cabinets and all of the information on me which I have been racking up since I set foot in this country. Would I feel bad? I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt. Could the earthquake just localize to the immigration office, my apartment, the university, and this apartment with the rugs and wine? I would feel bad, I guess, if anyone got hurt. Present company excluded.
Showing posts with label squabble. Show all posts
Showing posts with label squabble. Show all posts
10.17.2009
ATTENTION: AMERICAN PUBLIC DISCOURSE COLOR CODED WARNING SYSTEM MOVED FROM "APOPLECTIC" TO "HALLUCINATORY"
WHY IS THIS MAN CRYING?
I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE FUCK ANYMORE,
Somebody explain this to me:
1. Glenn Beck shows us a Coke and a Kodak advertisement as proof of a magic America which once existed, but sadly, has been taken away from us. Or is some kind of paradise lost(?).
2. Wrangles with an overwrought second-person metaphor about how we have been doe-eyed innocents at a bad kid party where there is some experimenting with drugs and alcohol.
Mom and Dad are going to be mad.
3. This leads into a tough love conversation with ficto-mommy about how we will be "financially grounded" and will lead to us having to stay in on metaphorical Saturday night.
4. Beck talks about the future and our children and is overcome with tears.
5. We will tell our children that we "hated the things we did at the time"(tears). At this point I have lost the narrative thread of the metaphor. Are we crying to our future children about the bad party we went to where we weren't even indulging in the debauchery? Or we hated the things our dad made us do? "And Dad was right"?
The metaphorical trainwreck he is driving home amounts to: the current financial meltdown was some delinquent party, bad things were done, now we are to be grounded, and though we were not involved in the the bad stuff that went down, we shall take our punishment, and tell our children proudly. Or that the bad teenagers at the party are the current Marxists in the white house? Or both? I don't know
Who can parse this shit?
Honestly I watched this clip again and I don't even know what the fuck.
The thing which frightens me the most is that this passes for discourse in America.
A few posts down is the footage of the 9/12-teabagger rallies, demonstrations staged and directed by Fox news, and Glenn Beck.
Any cursory glance at the signs being held by the protesters shows that they have no idea what they are actually protesting. All of the interviews show the protestors to be inarticulate and ignorant but united in anger. (And I don't say this out of arrogance. See how people in numbers strongly oppose Obama's appointment of "czars". Their logic being that czars are Russian kings. From that logical leap "Czar = Russian = communism = Obama"(!)(?) Motherfuckers can't google "czar"?)
What alarms me is the fact that Beck has political clout, considering, that what comes out of his mouth is an unadulterated stream of nonsense.
O'reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh, et al have their share of nonsense but I can follow their tactics and twistings of facts.
False equivalency, strawman tactics, appeal to xenophobia and a false nationalistic neo-rockwell (via Reagan) vision of America. It is antithesis of everything I believe is good about America, but I understand how they do it. The bible thumping, the race baiting, these are standard boilerplate in stirring people up to support wars and politicians, to vote against their own political, social, and economic interests.
When I hear that shit, I hate it, because I understand it for exactly what it is.
But what alarms me is that Beck is capable of doing this while spewing stream of consciousness hallucinations.
Beck mobilized poor people without health care to march against health care on 9/12.
Is there an aspect to his paranoid-delusional maudlin delivery that I just don't understand?
Many commentators on the left say that what is mobilizing these people is some country-time down-home racism, which due to current social mores can't be vocalized in the same way it once could. Is it that simple?
I don't even know anymore.
I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE FUCK ANYMORE,
Somebody explain this to me:
1. Glenn Beck shows us a Coke and a Kodak advertisement as proof of a magic America which once existed, but sadly, has been taken away from us. Or is some kind of paradise lost(?).
2. Wrangles with an overwrought second-person metaphor about how we have been doe-eyed innocents at a bad kid party where there is some experimenting with drugs and alcohol.
Mom and Dad are going to be mad.
3. This leads into a tough love conversation with ficto-mommy about how we will be "financially grounded" and will lead to us having to stay in on metaphorical Saturday night.
4. Beck talks about the future and our children and is overcome with tears.
5. We will tell our children that we "hated the things we did at the time"(tears). At this point I have lost the narrative thread of the metaphor. Are we crying to our future children about the bad party we went to where we weren't even indulging in the debauchery? Or we hated the things our dad made us do? "And Dad was right"?
The metaphorical trainwreck he is driving home amounts to: the current financial meltdown was some delinquent party, bad things were done, now we are to be grounded, and though we were not involved in the the bad stuff that went down, we shall take our punishment, and tell our children proudly. Or that the bad teenagers at the party are the current Marxists in the white house? Or both? I don't know
Who can parse this shit?
Honestly I watched this clip again and I don't even know what the fuck.
The thing which frightens me the most is that this passes for discourse in America.
A few posts down is the footage of the 9/12-teabagger rallies, demonstrations staged and directed by Fox news, and Glenn Beck.
Any cursory glance at the signs being held by the protesters shows that they have no idea what they are actually protesting. All of the interviews show the protestors to be inarticulate and ignorant but united in anger. (And I don't say this out of arrogance. See how people in numbers strongly oppose Obama's appointment of "czars". Their logic being that czars are Russian kings. From that logical leap "Czar = Russian = communism = Obama"(!)(?) Motherfuckers can't google "czar"?)
What alarms me is the fact that Beck has political clout, considering, that what comes out of his mouth is an unadulterated stream of nonsense.
O'reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh, et al have their share of nonsense but I can follow their tactics and twistings of facts.
False equivalency, strawman tactics, appeal to xenophobia and a false nationalistic neo-rockwell (via Reagan) vision of America. It is antithesis of everything I believe is good about America, but I understand how they do it. The bible thumping, the race baiting, these are standard boilerplate in stirring people up to support wars and politicians, to vote against their own political, social, and economic interests.
When I hear that shit, I hate it, because I understand it for exactly what it is.
But what alarms me is that Beck is capable of doing this while spewing stream of consciousness hallucinations.
Beck mobilized poor people without health care to march against health care on 9/12.
Is there an aspect to his paranoid-delusional maudlin delivery that I just don't understand?
Many commentators on the left say that what is mobilizing these people is some country-time down-home racism, which due to current social mores can't be vocalized in the same way it once could. Is it that simple?
I don't even know anymore.
8.07.2009
8.03.2009
MEANWHILE ANARCHISTS FIGHT ANARCHISTS
“Don’t try to fight us, we are not pacifists, we will defend ourselves!”
[a couple of hours of moving bags, being forcibly moved, blockaded, physically and verbally attacked, and yes defending ourselves]
one apocista was pushed down stairs
one was pulled out of the room
one was picked up and taken out of the room
a female bodied persyn was almost punched in the face by a white male when 2 others pulled them back
female bodied persyn grabbed by a tall white man while others yelled get her
a mother of color came in to defend us and pull a poc organizer off one of us
poc organizers forcibly closing door on us, crushing our bodies and heads.
One grabbed a big board that was used to push us out the door.
After quite a bit of time and effort used by folks to get us out of that space, we remained standing.
The cops had approached, a call was made to one of us upstairs to inform us that there was a policeman outside and they were being talked to by a police liaison and the situation was under control. We looked around to see other people of color and a medium sized group of mostly cis white males that were left. While at this point mostly engaging in discussion with other POC and POC organizers some people convinced the remaining stubborn white people to leave, after telling the last white persyn there that they were not welcome in this space, the doors were locked and caucusing began.
After 20 minutes or so, most everyone had expressed their opinion, people were emotional, tired and the discussion ended. We removed ourselves from the space. One APOCista involved in the eviction conferred with a medic to try to regain normal breathing due to an asthma attack that had been taking place over the last 3 hours of the eviction. We all exited, we were greeted by friends, allies, and others that had helped us by participating in the action.
We said our goodbyes, and departed towards a locals house to debrief an discuss the events that had just taken place.
[a couple of hours of moving bags, being forcibly moved, blockaded, physically and verbally attacked, and yes defending ourselves]
one apocista was pushed down stairs
one was pulled out of the room
one was picked up and taken out of the room
a female bodied persyn was almost punched in the face by a white male when 2 others pulled them back
female bodied persyn grabbed by a tall white man while others yelled get her
a mother of color came in to defend us and pull a poc organizer off one of us
poc organizers forcibly closing door on us, crushing our bodies and heads.
One grabbed a big board that was used to push us out the door.
After quite a bit of time and effort used by folks to get us out of that space, we remained standing.
The cops had approached, a call was made to one of us upstairs to inform us that there was a policeman outside and they were being talked to by a police liaison and the situation was under control. We looked around to see other people of color and a medium sized group of mostly cis white males that were left. While at this point mostly engaging in discussion with other POC and POC organizers some people convinced the remaining stubborn white people to leave, after telling the last white persyn there that they were not welcome in this space, the doors were locked and caucusing began.
After 20 minutes or so, most everyone had expressed their opinion, people were emotional, tired and the discussion ended. We removed ourselves from the space. One APOCista involved in the eviction conferred with a medic to try to regain normal breathing due to an asthma attack that had been taking place over the last 3 hours of the eviction. We all exited, we were greeted by friends, allies, and others that had helped us by participating in the action.
We said our goodbyes, and departed towards a locals house to debrief an discuss the events that had just taken place.
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