VENDING MACHINE OR BANQUET?

You couldn't pay for a day like today. A perfect summer day. Hot, but not too. A soupcon of humidity. Mild and quiet.

After therapy, I wandered by a stoop sale where I bought seven CDs and a book for ten bucks. All great music. I think the folks are moving. Too bad. They'd be fun to know.

I had a lovely read wherein I finished reading the current New Yorker cover to cover, something I have not done in a year or more. And then a sweet nap in the dappled afternoon sunlight.

Miep is back to harshing Cooder's mellow and yeowling at me so I think the anti-biotics worked.

Here are some shots from the Los Lobos gig. It was raining too much to have the iPhone out. Los Lobos were superb. And those of us who braved the rain were well-rewarded.

I am not 100% better but improving. Sometimes I forget that I still have pain.

So, back to that New Yorker. Inasmuch as my divine friends Jennifer, Susan, and Brenna "suggest" that The New Yorker features a surfeit of the male perspective, as if women cannot write as well, it is (one of) my weakness(es). One of the best articles, about Jaron Lanier, the purported "inventor" of virtual reality, is not available online.  Inasmuch as he pains me terribly and I was subjected to a performance of his "virtual reality music" at SIGGRAPH Las Vegas in the early 1990's, he makes some good points. One quote:

"Unlike more Luddite critics, Lanier complains not that technology has take over our lives but that it has not given us enough back in return. In place of a banquet, we've been given a vending machine.

'The thing about technology is that it's made the world of information ever more dominant,' Lanier told me. 'And there's so much loss in that. It really does feel as if we've sworn allegiance to a dwarf world, rather than to a giant world.'"

— Jennifer Kahn, The Visionary: A digital pioneer questions what technology has wrought.


I'm a internet junkie, to be sure. But I find I can spend a lot of time not getting much done or enjoyed.  And, being the hippie Romantic that I am, I will answer the question "Is that all there is?" with a "no."

ROMANTICISM AND LAUNDRY

I have long been a James M. Cain fan. Given that I love Kate Winslet, too, you can imagine I am looking forward to the HBO adaptation of Mildred Pierce this weekend. Hilton Als in The New Yorker wrote an insightful article about Cain and Mildred Pierce.

I few days I ago, I began to write of my "struggles" with Romanticism. I think Als nailed my affliction and behavior here:

"Mrs. Pierce is the quintessence of American New Deal ingenuity, hard work, and fighting spirit. She is also a romantic, doomed to keep reinventing herself, because, like most romantics, she is repeatedly disappointed in her hopes both for herself and for others..."

The end of the article is also damned great:

"Discussing Mildred Pierce," Cain explained, "This books simply says that perhaps a dream come true may be the worst possible thing that can happen."


I was just on the horn with my dear friend Pammie talking about expectations, particularly our expectations of people. We act in a particular way and EXPECT to be responded to, treated in the way that we treat people. Often those expectations are not met. We respond by getting hurt, angry, and disappointed. It ends up being as predictable as the laundry: wear them, wash them, wear them, wash them ... I think laundry is the true cycle of life.

And we also expect things to be unpleasant or negative, like taking the time to straighten up the kitchen before bed. My expectations were multi-layered there.

I expected to be impatient to get out of the kitchen;
I expected to be annoyed at the amount of time it took to clean up;
I expected to be okay with the messy kitchen in the morning;
I expected that I couldn't change my expectations (or habits).

Turns out I was wrong. I still do start to dash off, but I almost always slow down, stay in the moment (and the kitchen), do some clean up, and change my habit. Now, on the occasions when I don't have most of the room looking spiffy, I am disappointed that I didn't take the time the night before.

Perhaps this is rambling. I didn't expect to write so much tonight. I'll circle back to expectations and romanticism later.