Central Square
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These diaries were written primarily from July ~ November 1998. It doesn't contain much gossip, sex, drugs, or rock and roll. It's more like one of those boring, self-obsessed, intellectual journeys of discovery. Where the fuck do I fit in? If you don't go for it, you still might to check out my travel diary from Japan. Regardless, let me know what you think! This content is best viewed with a W3C stylesheet compliant application. Shoutouts to Masha, trouble, Doris, and Raul for talking to me about some of the ideas in here. And of course thanks to mimi for the cover illustration and letting me visit during Halloween!
I often feel like a Ranger without a posse. As a kid, I found the introduction of "The Lone Ranger" entrancing. Imagine a betrayal resulting in the death of your comrades. To be left for dead, but to survive, to recover, and to pursue injustice in anonymity. Passing through life as a mysterious member of a community that no longer exists, but lingers like an itchy phantom limb.
I looked up to Kwai Caine of "Kung Fu," the orphaned son of a Chinese woman and an American sailor. He found a home as an adept, and eventually a priest, of the Shaolin temple. I always wanted to be a monk. Solitary solidarity with one's brothers. When Caine was a young man, he witnessed the assassination of his mentor, Master Po, by the Emperor's nephew. Caine got his vengeance — but had to flee China for America. Where he started over yet again in a search for his for his half-brother and sense of permanent belonging.
And Spock. Spock stuck with me into my 20s. Spock was a mongrel too — a melding of human and Vulcan genes — unwelcome in both cultures. His home was in the neutral place between the planets. Spock found an odd sense of community aboard the Enterprise. He was often the butt of jokes. While he said they didn't bother him, I always figured deep down it got to him. But he was critical to the Enterprise, his intelligence, his wisdom and his ability to touch the mind of another saved their asses many times. I knew they all loved him; he fit in, because he stood out.
I'm not an orphan, nor a vengeful person. I spent happy years with two brothers, two parents, and a dog in suburbia. I'm not riding along any dusty trails nor going where no man has gone before. But inside, I feel like I'm looking. I'm looking for a sense of community, of belonging. I've had my share of Kemo Sabes, but never found the posse.
"Look at the world you live in and this pool of fish. There are twelve fish, twelve worlds.... But only one pool."
"The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few."
"Hi Yo Silver, away."
They say home is what you know. I often bump into people in Central Sq. Without fail, I'll see someone I know. Maybe we'll exchange passing hellos, linger for a conversation, or make plans for later. Or maybe it's one of the familiar strangers. There are people I've seen there every day for years, and they see me — I bet we both wonder what the other's story is? My mom told me a story about my Grandfather and Great Uncle. When my Grandfather was seeing my Grandmother, he often would stop by a nearby bar. He didn't think it right that every time he was in the bar, he'd see my Grandmother's brother there too. My mom said her uncle probably thought the same.
I pass four other squares to get to Central Sq along Mass Ave. I live four blocks away. Somehow, every corner has come to be named after a veteran, policeman, politician or friend thereof. Even a little bit of grass on a fork in the road is a target for an honorarium. One of my inner selves is a righteous lesbian working on a PhD in gender/media studies. She'd like to do a study on how many of those squares are named after non-white males.
Am I anti-social? The news reported of a study that found people on the Internet are more likely to be anti-social and sad. I haven't bothered to look at the details, but I wonder if the sadness leads one to turn to the Internet, or if it is the other way round? I have about 6 Mbyte of email to and from friends saved up over the years. Some of those emails were lifelines, some were barbs and grenades, most are friendly banter. I've been participating in online "communities" for 12 years. When I was young, I found immense comfort at BBSs where one was measured by one's knowledge and wit. However, at 26 I feel old. I've turned away from most on-line communities. I realized they offer little that a real community can, and have much the same problems.
Just as any other community, most of the discourse is about the boundaries of the community itself. One of the last death blows to the cypherpunks list was when some old-timers realized that the noise of a completely open, anarchical list was too much, and created coderpunks. Hell, I remember being on a feminist list in 1992, where much of the debate related to the need for female only spaces. The list was torn apart when it was revealed that the matriarch of the list, the largest and most substantive participant, was a man. Interestingly, he never said he was a woman, but many thought his woman's persona was fraudulent. He was emotive, he was properly sympathetic or indignant on women's issues, and frequently spoke of the difficulties his daughter had in facing this world. Six years later, this is still the nature of most online feminist communities.
I do still make and maintain numerous friendships online. Some are real-space friends that are now far away. Some where cyber-space friends that became real. Unfortunately, it seems most of my closest friends are farthermost away.
Central Sq. is an odd place. It is at the T-stop between Kendall Sq./MIT and Harvard Sq. In the overlap and opposition of those two forces, Central Sq. developed its own — non-ivy league — beat. Home to students yes, but also to blue collar workers, old punks and radicals, immigrants, taxi drivers, and candy factories. It's not as famous as Harvard Sq. — I don't think they showed it in Goodwill Hunting — but it has its fans.
I've lived in 5 different places in Cambridge, all about a 10-minute walk from the Square. Its got colorful murals of local residents painted on the brick buildings; stores and cafes where you know the folks' names, a food co-op, good video store, bondage store, art supply store, and library. You can hear the drums from the African dance class from the top floor of the community dance center on summer nights.
When my mom visited she said it reminded her of my upper West Side neighborhood in NYC. It was not a compliment — coming from someone who lived in suburbia — but I took it as one. When I go to Seattle, Capitol Hill always reminds me of home. When I returned from a week in Sweden my heart sang and my eyes burned with its color. Everyone in Stockholm looked the same, dressed the same, shaved, and drove Volvos. I remember feeling so alive and in love with my home while I was dragging my luggage across the bumpy brick sidewalks, eavesdropping in on friendly banter in languages I could not even identify.
One email list I stay on is FoRK (Friends of Rohit Khare, a past colleague at MIT). I think this list works — where so many others fail — because it is heterogeneously homogenous. While the people vary, most everyone is technically competent and an old pro at net-etiquette. Also, there is no drama in jockeying for a dominant position. No fights or splinters groups common to topical venues such as Boston netgoths. Its sole purpose is a vehicle for the introverted ego and exhibitionism of one person. There is no segmentation between the personal and professional, it need only relate to Rohit or his interests. His main interest is himself. This is not meant to be unfair, most people are interested in themselves. But few are so introspective, so publicly.
With the advent of the Web, zinesters have shifted from apologizing for the lateness of their paper zine to worrying that there parents read their e-zine. One friend called me "nekkid man" because — as another recent Net friend put it — I was one "who choose to do the Hustler Spread Eagle all over the Internet." However I've always thought I was relatively discrete.
Rohit is unique. He maintains no self-congratulatory, easily accessible page of rants that shout "email me!" Rather, he publicly archives his life as broadcasted to 100 or so of his closest friends. This includes many honchos in the Internet/Web industry. Posts range from Stuart-Smalley-esqe plans, bouts of insecurity, tallies of non-returned calls from women, massive trip reports, and technical minutia. He's posted things things so internal I twist and cringe in my seat.
Today, I was uncharacteristically social: I went to a BBQ out by Davis Sq. I got invited because of FoRK. Now usually, I'm rigid about distancing my personal life from the professional. I don't feel I'm terribly outlandish, but I suppose that I am different enough that if I'm in a social context, I may make people wonder. Fortunately, in many capacities of my job I can get away with being a little different. At MIT, some folks, run around bare foot and have hair to their butts. So my bleached hair and yellow shoes aren't so bad. But when I'm travelling to DC or Brussels, you can bet your bottom dollar I shouldn't stand out. Dinners and social gatherings in those contexts strain my patience massively.
So, I've always believed one should partition one's job from one's life. Plus, I appreciate time not to talk about the Internet and Web and their politics. Still, I thought, what the heck, I got nothing better to do. The BBQ turned out to be pretty cool. There was a smattering of MIT folks, mostly the W3C Web team, techies who I feel comfortable around regardless. There were also members of a WFNX list. This created an odd dissonance in that everyone on FoRK went by real names, everyone on WFNX went by their handles. I was at Jay's BBQ, others were there at Bastard's.
I was able to have a number of conversations with people about topics other than the Net, so that was a plus. Oh, and I exchanged email addys with an FNX girl, Masha. A cutie punk girl dressed in pink/purple! She seems nice and non-dysfunctional, not the typical black clad mopey punk/goth my heart has a nonsensical affinity for. By the time I got home she'd already sent me an email! Flutter.
I hung out with Masha! In fact I even put the moves on her! I initiated the kiss, and on the first date. Both firsts for me. We went to a small show at the Middle East in the Square, then she took me to a beach near her home an hour away. There was sand, surf, waves, stars, moon and clouds. While a distant lighthouse searched the sky for something it'll never find, I lay on my back searching for some sense of reality. Was this real? Seems like something from a movie. That I exist: laying upon a green ball of dust floating in the the coldness of space; snuggling next to a warm cutie in the chillyness of the ocean air.
When I got back I got to thinking about what prompted me to be a bit more aggressive. Maybe it was the setting, but I had also made a rational choice to be less shy. While it sort of pains me to say this, many women are passive. They expect men to make moves. Now being a timid person, with my share of insecurities and suppressed male libido, it is hard for me, but expected. I've repeatedly been in encounters where women thought I was gay. (Masha said as much on the drive to the beach when a Madonna song came on the radio and I got excited!) One fem once said to me that I was unusual in that when we sat on the bed with her, we actually talked and I didn't immediately begin groping her. Geez.
The whole issue makes me uncomfortable. In theory, women seem to like "sensitive" non-threatening men. However, they still expect the man to "lead." When facts so credibly defend a stereotype that I never felt appropriate or comfortable in, what do I do?
Masha and I zoomed around her old stomping grounds, across the river, in BU territory today. It is the beginning of the semester, autumn is in the air, and Boston's roads are clogged with moving vans. Elsewhere, my youngest brother is moving into the dorm I had once lived in. This time of year always causes me a bit of nostalgic envy. I remember moving into the dorm, how exciting it was to see the old place! To see the ugly cinder block walls painted with god-awful colors, the desk staff who harassed you for your ID, even the weirdoes in the lobby watching TV were a welcome sight. Granted, in a week, they'd be babbling and picking their toes next to me while I tried to watch the Simpson's, but still, it had felt good to be back.
But I haven't been back in over four years and in looking back — it sounds cheesy — I think the dorms were something special. There was a sense of community there that I don't think I'll ever have again. People were just beginning to form their post high school identities and were willing to experiment with the type of friends they'd make. My first roommate was completely unlike me, but we got along well. I hung out with hippies, punks, jocks, nerds but mostly ... plain old normal people. That was the cool thing, everyone was sort of normal when they lived in your dorm. Maybe not normal, but they weren't "other." You needed no pretense beyond being new, in the same dorm, class, or floor to strike up a conversation.
When I look at the sources for many of my social contacts now, it's depressing. I work a lot, but generally don't like to socialize in that space. It's MIT anyway. Most people work all the time, and if they aren't working, they're talking about computers. I do go out dancing a lot, but I can count the number of truly interesting people I've met in a club on a hand.
Some of the best times of my life were spent in the UMBC dining room. A cadre of friends chased immense conversational threads. Relationships extended like a spider web, with friends of friends joining in over their trays of food. Sometimes I'd chart the evolution of the groups if I stayed long enough. A friend and I would sit down with a mutual friend. Then someone unknown to me, but a friend of the original inhabitant would join them, then another. The friend I came with might leave, but someone 3 times removed might jump in: an ever churning puzzle of thought and conversation.
In the dorm, if you wanted to be social, you just left your door open. After studying for a couple of hours, I'd often wander out into the hall and see who was around and what was up. Maybe I'd go by Pat's room and play Civilization till 4 a.m., read comic books with Adam, or wander down to the lobby and play spades at the smoking table.
This was special. The only thing that will pay me a visit now if I leave my door open is the neighborhood cat. Sadly — but fortunately none-the-less — the only analogy I've found are Web pages and zines. They're like a door open to serendipity: come on in, have a look around, write me an email or letter if you'd like to chat.
Speaking of conversational groups, I once got my wallet chain stuck in a plastic chair on the roof lounge of the Spot during a drum&bass event. It was really embarrassing because Sarah was there. I once had a terrible crush on her. At the time, it was a fuck up — we never even dated. But I was infatuated and I was coming off a three and a half-year relationship, a broken engagement, and I was reboundy in a fearsome way. So, years later, we still moved in similar circles and had friends in common. The fact that we always ran into each other aggravated my awkwardness in that I feared she thought I was stalking her. It was an uncanny.
So, there I was, talking to my friend. Sarah and her friend comes by, so they all start chatting, then my friend leaves, then other friends of Sarah join. Now, I was just sitting there being excluded and wanting to leave, but I was caught in the chair and desperately trying to get unhooked discretely! I think I sat amongst those people for 20 minutes, wanting desperately to leave, but not willing to completely humiliate myself. But, in the end, I found it extremely amusing and appropriate to my discussions of the ebb and flow of conversational groups.
I wonder how many hippsters have gotten sucked into their deaths by some machine because of their wallet chains.
The Central Sq that I know will no longer exist in 10 years. Some changes are for the better. The widening and repaving of Mass Ave, including bike lines is certainly welcome. However, I wonder how much of that was part of the larger plan, of turning Mass Ave into a Newberry St.
Last year, they removed rent control in Cambridge and redid the roads and the square. A quarter of a mile away, MIT's industrial park is rising, with a swanky hotel, office park, and massive Star Market grocery store with garage parking.
The next milestone was the closing of Woolworth's this year. While it wasn't related to the stores being evicted across the street, the replacement of a Woolworth's with a massive Footlocker portends of ... other things. The battle in Harvard Sq. was lost. The Tas-T, a 24-hour food closet that was a friend to many, was lost and the developers were sly in their victory. They left the exterior shell of the existing buildings in place while they demolished and began to rebuild the interior. There's now a Starbuck's in the square, even if people hand out fliers asking people to boycott, it seems to do good business.
Today, I saw a massive crane sitting amongst destruction, devouring from within what was once the core of Central Square: The Golden Donut, Irving's Shoes, Wiener's Discount Tobacco Dealer, Garcia Vega, Emily Rose, Central cleaners, Men's Clothes, Anthony's Greek Market, the Ethiopian Restaurant, and the Tas-T shop and Oriental Buffet. Rubble. I'm tempted to steal a sign if it is still there: The Lucy Parson's Book Center Books / Formerly the Red Book Store," with graffiti scrawled underneath, "You can't evict the spirit / no demolition."
Who was it that said, "I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me." I feel that way about Manray, the local goth club in the Square. I go more often than I should, but it's close and I like to dance. Sometimes it's my only therapy from foul moods and its often the only exercise I'll get besides riding my bike.
Why do I say, "more than I should"? Because the place also annoys me. First, its a business predicated on alcohol consumption, which I don't like, but I don't have to buy. Second, it's filled with smokers. It sucks when exercise results in black boogers and a sore throat. However, this is like any other club. The thing that drives my love/hate relationship with Manray is that if anything, this should be my community. Vampyric children of the night — mooo ha ha — twirling and swirling within pools of lace. Kinks are encouraged, fags and queens feel at home. Gravers, punks, goths, and industrial kids all dance their own style on the same floor. This is good. But it's this sense of potentially fitting in that triggers my defensive reaction. While I like some of these folks, some of them are real shits. I don't want to be lumped in with them. Or anyone really. I dislike the assumption that by belonging to a community, you surrender your sovereignty. This prompted my satiric and defensive Web page on the topic.
Ok, so what is a
goth? I don't know, I'll leave it for you to figure out by perusing
some of of the links on A Page Past
Torn. Suffice to say, I don't consider a categorization of any
culture to be a limit on what one does. Rather, it's a "best fit"
type of rule. For instance, I like certain music, I like to dance at
certain places, sometimes I dress in
a certain way (and different ways at different times.) Much of that
happens to fit into a grouping of characteristics known as "Goth."
But, I also dislike smoking and caffeine, which are prized above all
else in this particular culture. But it bores me.
NEWS: I have formally tendered my resignation as a Goth and I'm now a fully vested, baggy pant wearing jungle/rave boy. for the cynically impaired: this page is sarcastic. |
Manray is incredibly inbred. Everyone has heard of the The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game: you try to connect an arbitrary actor with Kevin Bacon with a minimum number of links; two people are linked if they've been in a movie together. There's about 2 degrees of sex at at Manray. By dating someone at Manray, you are dating everyone they dated. After two generations, its basically the whole damn place. Creepy. Of course the place swarms with snoops, spies and snickerers. Someone who wasn't even at Manray asked me — the next day! — about the details of a conversation I had with a fem the night before! Another friend's pet peeve is those people that assume the presence of the rumor mill and their assumption that they are its focus: "Oh, I thought you knew..."
So I go, and dance, and watch the goths, cyberpunks, and weirdoes. I have friends that go there too. But it's hard to call that my community.
Masha wanted to stay with the real world. I'd seen it before: Real World Boston. MTV approved generation X-ers in tanktops gossiped about the cast members before and after commercial breaks. The gossip was forced. "Isn't it great that Genesis has finally found a home amongst the Boston community?" "Weren't those queens outrageous, would you believed Adam looked like that?"
I couldn't change the channel, Masha was hooked into the invisible web of communal voyeurism. The commercial break gossip was only a metaphor, a symbol, of the internal gossip we undertake with the thousands of other watching.
But Masha wasn't alone. My interest waned mainly because I'd seen it before. I often find myself watching a movie on TV I'd never bother to rent, it'd be a waste of time. But I watch them on TV because I figure someone else is. There's a community of ghosts within those flickering blue images. Ironically, if all the world came to a stop except me and the TV, I bet I'd watch less of it even though the world would be a arguably more boring place.
Static. Masha howls and I giggle. Maybe the cable company has realized they've been feeding my TV for free for two years. I'm almost happy about it.
The Las Vegas Airport people mover has a yellow line demarcating the lazy from the hurried. The voices of Yoggie the Bear, Yakov Smeernov, and Marty Allen exhort the passengers to follow the simple social convention. At first it annoyed me, is this oppressive, Disney-esque social control really necessary? After a while on the mover, I was annoyed for another reason: people still block the path.
Granted, I'm anal. I travel light because I get so aggravated at the baggage corral: if everyone just stood back, they could see if their baggage was coming, move up, grab it, and move on. But no, everyone crams in, jumps, pulls, and slams their suitcases over others' luggage and feet. It's like other short sighted social behaviors where one bad actor sets a whole community to slowly — then speedily — sliding towards ground zero. Be it prejudice, hatred, terrorism, arms races, or war. Or one person cramming the carousal; one person cutting in line; others soon follow. The actions of a single jerk can start the process by which the good will of a community collapses upon itself.
Back in Las Vegas, my crabby, delayed, and laid over, 2 a.m. musing were interrupted, we were finally boarding. "Seats 25 and higher only are asked to approach the gate at this time." I dutifully queued, with a ticket for row 27 in hand. There was an argument ahead and fellow passengers stormed past muttering curses at the attendendent under their breadth. Folks with a seat in row 10 no doubt. I couldn't wait to get home.
I respect Chomsky a great deal: a reasoned, ethical, and prolific man. I'm reading a biography by Robert Barksy where Chomsky is quoted, "I had, from childhood, been deeply involved intellectually in radical and dissident politics, but intellectually. At that point, I was feeling so uneasy with the usual petition signing and the like that I couldn't stand it any longer, and decided to plunge in. I hated the decision. I'm really a hermit by nature would be much prefer to be alone working that to be in public."
I always feel uncomfortable in "petition-signing" environments. While I find the under-dog causes and spontaneity engaging, something inside cringes. I hate bovine behavior, and signing the pretty hippie girl's petition is little better than relying solely upon mainstream news. If I can research it, I might be willing to sign it.
Masha went to a march against police brutality this week. She said it was funny in that no one knew what was going on. They were trying to march to a police station, but no one knew where it was. The banner carriers thought the drummers knew, and vice-versa. Eventually, they got lost and had to ask a cop for directions while those in the back shouted about "the Pigs." The officer told them the station they thought they were marching to had been closed a year ago.
Masha and I tend to spend our weekend brunches at Carberry's. They got yummiest pastries, bread and soups. They unfortunately don't have bagels. Carberry's is very cool, they are part of the Square scene. Often on a Friday night of listening to the Toneburst crew spin in the Square, I'd head over to Carberry's to watch a silent film, or local indie film show. I remember City Hall cracked down on them for operating a theatre without a license, but it was just there parking lot for Christ sake. People always got to make trouble...
I sometimes find grass roots efforts amateurish and I distrust organizations. Power plays, internal politics, and jockeying for position in the mainstream light are intrinsic to organized behavior. This is not to say I don't support any small, dedicated organizations trying to improve the world. In the technical context, I work for one.
However, as much as I appreciate organized efforts, they can be extremely frustrating. It was during a period of this frustration that I was reading Cometbus #42: Double Duce. That's when I realized I should give some thought to this topic and my own sense of alienation.
Aaron portrays the punk genre of community. I guess like anything it has its plusses and minuses. Let me present a quotation from missive 24, "I had started to take down my wall posters in the kitchen for safekeeping while I was in Seattle, but Little G begged me not to. 'Don't worry, I'll look after them,' he said. The only remains I found were a few burnt scraps in the backyard. It wasn't anything against me or the posters, just that natural urge to destroy. Especially to destroy something creative, meaningful, or out of place."
While I'm extremely fond of Aaron and the portrayal of punk culture in his zine and others, it always drives me a bit nutty. Not the portrayal, nor the punk. But the irony that punk is a poster child for symptoms of mainstream dysfunctional social behavior! Take this tendency to destroy, sometimes I think this is an inherent characteristic of humans and I marvel that we've done anything useful. Is punk admirable because it means that nothing should be valued? That philosophy, and its resulting products, is hardly admirable. Is punk some Zen philosophy that all things are destroyed — your things by your friends mostly — and you should let it go man. Boot that weak ass hippie shit, Oi! Oi!
I finally got added to the snotgoth email list. One of my recent and closer approaches to a "formal" community has been with a small group of Cambridge goths. I have a couple of friends in the group, and related folks would often hang out at the 1369 coffeehouse in the Square. On the email list people swap news, banter, and make party/event announcements. Friends often had to cc' me or would forget all together and then be surprised when I didn't know something. So the natural reaction was to add me, and I said sure, I could always get off it later. What surprised me was that such an action required a vote! Wow, maybe this would be a high signal (low noise) and useful email list! A successful on-line community! But beside this curiosity about the affect of social boundaries on a community, there was a little resentment. On what basis was my merit going to be considered? Would there be some debate while people argued about my imperfections?!
I was told that debate was not rigorous. Someone nominated a person, and those that cared to say yes said yes. People usually didn't say no. Because of some misunderstanding or dropped mail, the time from which I was accepted, to the time I managed to get myself technically subscribed at the right email address was 3 months. I just finally managed to get myself subscribed.
I've yet to see a nomination to have anyone else added, that's something I'm curious to see. Also, I'm surprised by the content of the list. To my jaded sensibilities, much of it is fluff . Little signal and much noise. I haven't been able to figure out if this is a sign of a healthy community of people that like to send single line and sociable "me toos," or if it is somehow unhealthy. I suspect that its the prior. I suspect I'm too crusty, or I'm just different. Masha loves Internet chatting. I really despise it. First, it isn't good for my burnt out hands. Second, the exchange tends to be blather. I'd so much rather have someone spend 15 minutes crafting a good email to me once a day, than intermittent chatting during the course of the day.
Thinking about chatting versus email versus Web diaries got me to wondering about how the content of community interest determine the characteristics of that community. How would a community that required substantive, thoughtful emails, differ from those people chatting away on the WFNX page that I encountered at Bastard's BBQ? Is a female only list all that different in its conduct from that of a male list? Are anarchist fora more chaotic? I don't think I can generalize. I guess — like anything else — the character of a group is determined by the quality of its participants, regardless of the content.
This really worries me in an odd sense. I know lots of smart people, across the whole spectrum of thought, and why is it they disagree? Isn't there some measure of common rationality that can be appealed to? One interesting observation is that it's the most "informed" people that tend to disagree the most; they at least generate the most heat in their contentions.
This leads me to the rather subjectivist (and pessimistic) view that argument/reason is little more than a rationalization for our biases. If this is the case, at least "leftists" have the right sort of humanistic bias. That's an extreme position, and I don't believe it whole-heatedly or people would never reconsider their positions. I also believe some of my own positions are the correct ones!
Still, every person is a decision making machine with limited amounts of information and biases. Would we only agree if we each had the same bias and life experience? This seems to be the case in real world interactions. However, that wouldn't be fun or interesting. Rather boring — at least to me, why I like diverse thought.
Regardless, can a greater truth be generated from many rationalities, each with limited information, to create a greater rationality that operates over a pool of combined information and experience? Democrats (as in democratic) would hope this is what their deliberative process yields, but I sometimes wonder whether it merely results in policy mush and sordid politics.
While researching a paper on Internet Governance I came across the Anarchism FAQ. What a great document! I wish it was in pocket book form. My recent readings of Chomsky, the Anarchism FAQ, and Frank and Cook's book The Winner-Take-All Society has skewed my libertarian views a bit. I've always distrusted governments immensely. I once did a calculation of the ratio of murders by governments against their own people versus murders committed by criminals and foreign armies. Generally speaking, you are more likely to be murdered by your own state than by any criminal or foreign army. In fact, you are more likely to be deprived of life, liberty, property, and justice by your government than anyone else. I'm also a bit of technological/market optimist. If only every one could live in the state of innovation/competition, information, communication, and transparency that I take for granted on the Net. On the Net you need no coercive government because you need no protection from physical violence. It's just information.
However, I know governments are like venereal disease: the natural result of an intermingling of people. It only takes one bully to gang up on people, to prompt those people to defend themselves, turn into bullies, and prompt a competing group. Voila! Consequently, if someone is going to deprive you of life and liberty, hopefully it'll be a government constrained by a sense of justice. Also, markets are not always perfect. I knew this; it was obviously a part of my graduate economic and policy courses. But the arguments of why competition is sometimes inefficient and wasteful as pointed out in The Winner-Take-All Society really drove the point home.
These readings haven't changed my viewpoint completely. But they've helped me fill in some areas where I knew I was dissatisfied with traditional libertarian/capitalistic responses. I admit I operate from a middle class, technologist, and well-educated bias, the FAQ argues:
"[A]ll the so-called laws and theories of political economy are in reality no more than statements of the following nature:
'Granting that there are always in a country a considerable number of people who cannot subsist a month, or even a fortnight, without accepting the conditions of work imposed upon them by the State, or offered to them by those whom the State recognises as owners of land, factories, railways, etc., then the results will be so and so.'
"So far middle-class political economy has been only an enumeration of what happens under the just-mentioned conditions — without distinctly stating the conditions themselves. And then, having described the facts which arise in our society under these conditions, they represent to us these facts as rigid, inevitable economic laws." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 179]
In other words, economists usually take the political and economic aspects of capitalist society (such as property rights, inequality and so on) as given and construct their theories around it. In other words, marginalism took the "political" out of "political economy" by taking capitalist society for granted along with its class system, its hierarchies and its inequalities. [Anarchism FAQ. C1].
I guess this is true. I still don't buy the FAQ's position that arguments for liberty can not be divorced from socialism. One addresses coersion by threat of personal violence, the other by economics. They can both be abused, but they are different.
However, this anarchy thread does bring me round to another problem I have with capitalism: exploitation. In the Constitutional sense, freedom is maintained by restricting a government's ability to abridge human rights. The government may not tell you what you can and can not say. However, you are not guaranteed the ability to arbitrarily promote your speech. You are not guaranteed a right of response in every publication out there. Fine with me. However, Kropotkin and the FAQ ask what if your very circumstances (hunger, lack of housing) are linked to the exercise of those rights by a powerful entity? What does it mean when you have a political right but lack the economic means to take advantage of it? Something is wrong. This is exploitation. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "It's all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps."
But I'm not so bold to argue the government should get involved and ensure that everyone has the same economic means as well as political rights. Remember, I don't trust governments. Particularly, those of the socialist/communist ilk. (The late Justice Douglas has wonderful insight in the nature of bureaucracy and socialism in his autobiography.) The promotion of minimums makes sense to me, like universal education: boots for the mind.
What I do like is calling out exploitative situations — which organization like Media Foundation and INFACT do well. I support those that challenge, deride, and dismantle systems of exploitation and those that promote mechanisms of realizing one's political rights. This is also why I like eccentrics. They challenge social norms that can become rigid and deprive you of the ability to exercise your rights. If you look at the US Bill of Rights, or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they are fundamentally about being different. So just do it! ® (not because Nike tells you so.)
I went to see a movie with about 20 people, many from the SnotGoth list. Which movie I saw is immaterial. The sad bit is what happened after the movie. I knew 5 of the 20 people and as we filtered out a circle of folks had gathered and was talking about the film. I walked right by them and right out door. Not a word.
I could feel the back of my neck burning and felt shrunken within the gaze everyone who looked at me. Was I just really rude? How anti-social was that? I had no where to go so I walked home. Why didn't I hang out with the folks? Because I couldn't bring myself to insert myself into the circle. To sort of butt in between someone I might not know. I couldn't afford to stand outside the circle that'd be worse. So I panicked.
One of my friends later asked me if I had been pissed or hated the movie because they saw me walk off. Nope. I was compulsively anti-social. Sometimes I feel so conspicuous, as if everyone is looking at me and judging, I run away. I've come to understand that my tendencies of looking different (Mohawk, colored hair, shaved head, freaky clothes) were partly a way to deflect scrutiny rather than encourage it. Because one is setting oneself apart purposefully, so as to say, "I am not like you and consequently I'm immune from your judgement."
I've become so much more adapt at social skills than I was in the past, but I'm still amazed when this sense of conspicuousness and inadequacy jump me from behind — and chases me home. What a freak.
I never knew I was straight edge until my friend mimi told me I was. I'd never heard of it. I still hesitate to use the label because — like goth or any other label — I resent having to subsume my own will under that of a collective label. I probably disagree with the orthodoxy philosophy in some way, but sometimes it is a convenient short hand. My brother has worked for Foods not Bombs in Baltimore, which I think is great, and it's a great organization. However, sometimes these types of communities can be quite dogmatic. A couple of people have told me about how the FnB orthodoxy applies to not only ethical issues of pacifism and helping folks out with vegetarian food, but to larger political/cultural issues and what kind of music you listen to and how you dress. Lisa said she'd been a homeless punk in NYC at one point, but was fortunate enough to have a place to live and a job in Boston and went to a meeting after work. Because of the way she dressed she was given the cold shoulder. This definitely turns me off from any such organization. I don't mean to cast aspersions upon good groups. They rock. And I've been too lame to investigate this prejudice and follow up myself, but I get cold feet participating in any group. Particularly those that define and defend a dogmatic label that permits others to exclude differences. (But isn't this the very nature of a community, to define and defend itself. Aargh! This is confusing.)
Part of my "straight-edgeness" also relates to my feelings on exploitation, including the use of addictive substances. They can rob you of your sovereignty; they deprive you of your ability to exercise your right of subsequent choice. I particularly despise cigarettes and alcohol because they are coated in the sugar of slick marketing, pushed on children, and offered as an instrument and sign of independence! Hardly! I've seen what these things did to members of my family.
Even while I personally dislike addictive substances, particularly those that fuck with your health, will and reason, I'd support a much more liberal drug program. It is sad to see those that are entrapped in a web of dependency. Particularly those that were often led there because of the other exploitative circumstances of their life. And people have a right to determine the course of their own lives, even if it is to sell themselves into a sort of slavery. But it pisses me off immensely that the government controls and profits from both legal and illegal substances! Or that commercial interests represent such exploitation as a symbol of freedom. When did being a victim of exploitation come to be a sign of independence Marlboro Man? This is why adbusters is so cool, they use the same tools of advertising to jam the culture of exploitation.
And I know, I know, not everyone gets addicted. Masha smokes and drinks, she once asked why I never buy her drinks at Manray. Yes, I do buy a bottle of wine every couple of years and sometimes I'll try a sip of someone's drink. But I rarely buy anyone else or myself alcoholic drinks. I feel uncomfortable having someone get me a Shirley Temple at a bar because I don't want to buy people "a round." I don't want to give bars my money. Those institutions perpetuate a subtle sort of evil that I'd rather not support.
"Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it." —George Santayana
If the above is true, there is then an obligation to record our past. To write our history. Historians write our society's diary; zinesters write their personal history. History steps up and knocks us on the head, challenging all the little details of the environment that we take for granted. History underskirts our present day, much like the skeletal steel rails that lie beneath our present roads sometimes laid bare and giving hints of how things used to be, how things used to flow. Today I spoke with Sarah Boyer, the coordinator of the Central Square Oral History Project.
Central Square was once predominately a manufacturing and market center. Vestiges of the manufacturing capacity still exist in the form of old brick warehouses and the odd presence of candy factories. Cambridgeport was a bustling port as it name suggests. Interestingly, one of the things that always confused me was that the ports and odd little drawbridge over by the Longfellow bridge certainly seem like a port area, why is the area on the west side, behind MIT sometimes called Cambridgeport too? Evidently, there were once plans to build up industrial capacity in that area, the name was extended, but the port never followed.
Sarah told me of a time in the 20s and 30s when Central Square was one of the biggest markets in Boston. Folks from all over would come to buy food and clothes, and household goods. Immigrants included Russian Jews, Poles, and Lithuanians.The streets were so crowded officers had to stand in a median and direct traffic. The median is long since gone. Then, during the post war boon urbanization set in, folks moved to the outskirts and did their shopping in grocery markets and malls.
[Unfortunately, the original entry was lost to the ether and I lost all the details on radical movements and independent publishing in Central Square.]
grrr... Masha and I went in the 24 hour market in Central Sq. Its like the night of the living dead. Sadly enough there is a crowd of homeless and destitute looking folks standing slack jawed and staring into the air above. It's the state lottery don't you know. How, this hypocritical system of state perpetuated exploitation continues to go unchallanged, I'll never know.
I spent the afternoon at the Cambridge Public Library castle. The original Romanesque section was built in 1889 and holds one of the best public science fiction collections I've ever seen. (MIT probably has one of the best private collections.) But, I wasn't there for sci-fi, but some more history. And I hit the pay dirt. Elementary school students — with the help of their teachers — had already done everything I could think of doing with respect to documenting Central Square! "Voices of Central Square" [1] is an amazing collection of historical notes, personal anecdotes, stories, interviews, and pictures showing the evolution of the Square. (My next project will be to see if the teachers will agree to me putting as much of it as possible on the Web.) They interviewed lots of the members of the Senior Center for astonishing recollections, and include transcripts of interviews with folks associated with Cambridge Public Access (CCTV), the Dance Complex, Fire Station, City Council, Police Station, 1369, T.T. Bears, Carberry's, Wiener's Tobacco, Liberty Cafe, Salvation Army, and the Middle East! I'm not worthy!
Reading the history made me a little sad. The square has got it plusses and minuses, but on the whole it's home. But in the past, it sounded really awesome! In the 1940's there was a roller skating rink down by MIT and a bowling alley on Brookline St. There was a time when there were three movie theaters: the Central Square, Olympia, and Durrell Hall!
My classroom dreams of skipping a class and swimming in the Charles were once realized! In 1900, the city estimates 25,000 people used the beaches by Magazine St! (The Charles used to be quite briny, but with the building of the damn it became a fresh water river, and one so polluted that the beaches were finally closed after WW II.)
I also got one bit of info. on the many murals about. The one on the Middle East was painted in '92, and includes a picture of the well known Central Square character and 1369 Coffeehouse regular Reverend Larry Love. He was born 4 blocks away from that mural on Brookline St. (Last month, his portrait in the 1369 sold for $400 right away!)
The 100+ years of the collected proceedings of the Cambridge Historical Society [2] also proved to be very interesting. The one most relevant fact is I finally understand the Cambridgeport designation. The port was the eastern section, an upstart to Old Cambridge, home of Harvard. In fact, tensions between Old Cambridge and Cambridgeport were so high at one point that the Harvard area actually tried to secede from the city! Reading recollections of a great mass of woods separating the two sections, reading of bears and wolves, of great salt marshes (Central Square was originally known as Haymarket because of its marsh grass) really blows my mind! The "Changing Landscape" [3] describes the evolution with maps, time lines, and excerpts from primary sources in 10 year spans. Amazing.
[1] Voices of Central Square (R974.44 C144). Isazbel's and Susan's 5th/6th Grade Class. Fayerweather Street School. June 1996.
[2] Wood, John. "Cambridge Port, A Brief History." Read April 27, 1954 to the Cambridge Historical Society (produced in the 1955 Proceedings.)
[3] Emmet,Alan. "Cambridge MA: The Changing Landscape." Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College. Harvard University University Printing Office. 1978.
[4] Leibovich, Mark. "Hip to be Square: Dueling Attitudes in Harvard and Central." Style Section. Boston Phoenix: November 5, 1993.
[5] Stern, Lise. " Central Square: Crossroads of Cambridge." Calendar Section, Boston Globe: May 2, 1996.
I've been thinking about Starbucks. In Central Square there's always 4-6 cafe's of one sort another, and I wondered what demographics would frequent the new Starbucks. Seems to be yuppies and folks with kids, no surprise there. I guess they aren't such a bad place. I don't support them because I don't need them; there are much better alternatives. But are they all that evil? I'm told they are decent to their employees — I knew someone that worked at one. And I give credit to the amazing job they've done of commoditizing uniqueness. No that funky wall mural wasn't painted by a local employee, and yes it's in every other Starbucks, but they nailed a certain atmosphere amazingly well. You got to grant them that.
Before a Starbucks enters a town, there is probably some really good joints, and some really crappy ones. The good ones have open mic nights for poets and musicians. The walls are covered in local art and projects. They play cool local music. You find your favorite locals, street people, and chess players in there. The crappy ones are ... well crappy. If the crappy ones close, so be it, but if a unique and wonderful place closes, I mourn. I don't know to what degree the death of the Golden Donut (which I don't miss) and Phoenix (which I do miss) was caused by Starbuck's.
Still, Starbucks chases many local shops out. Its like Barnes & Nobles killing Shakespeare Books in Manhattan. I always like the selections and people at Shakespeare better — they even had cats! But B&N had a bigger selection and cheaper prices...
I think I figured this phenomena out in statistical/economic terms. You might figure the average quality of coffee houses in a town is X, with a large deviation: some are dumps, and some are wonderful. Enter Starbucks with a quality of X+delta and deviation of null. In their obsessive greed they knock out everyone below X. Considering that people like familiarity, Starbucks breeds through increasing returns, greed, and predatory tactics. Eventually they might knock out those unique shops above X+delta too.
I think America — and Central Square — are going to continue this Gapification. Starbucks, Niketown, B&N, Loews Theatres, and Old Navy... coming to a corner near you. And being fairly libertarian, I don't support government controls or some such thing. These stores must give people something, or they wouldn't be built. They might even be raising the aggregate quality. However, they are killing the variety and uniqueness as well. Somehow, you need to keep the better skew of the coffeehouse distribution. I'm hoping to see a real economic analysis of this scenario soon, I'll dig around in the literature. Till then, I'll continue to avoid Starbucks and its cousins.
I never took the Greyhound before. Ok, so I'm not your usual punky road trip type zinester. Usually, my time for an excursion to NYC is tight and I fly, it saves you 6 hours of travel time and needn't cost all that much more. Plus, I can't read on busses or cars, I get sick. What the hell am I to do for 6 hours without reading and writing? It's one of the reasons I don't have a car and hope I never need one. I spend more time on planes, my bike, or subways — individually even — than I do in cars.
I have a new philosophy when it comes to sitting next to people. In movie theatres, it would always piss me off when I'd get there early, find a good spot, then 3 minutes before show time, some tall schmuck sits in front of me. Now if I think it might be crowded, I look for a good seat behind a short person. So when I boarded the bus, I stuck with Rachel, a girl I made small talk with in line, and plopped down right next to her, while there were still empty seats in the back. I figure I'm better off choosing who I sit next to, then having some ogre board and sit next to me at the last minute. It probably looks weird to the person I sit next to though, like I'm hitting on them. But, Rachel sort of intrigued me. I wondered if she'd be the type of normal girl that I'd go for, if I was a "normal" and liked "normal" sorta girls.
On the way, Rachel and I talked about relationship difficulties (her boyfriend's mom is over bearing). To pass the time, I suggested a game of hangman — I hadn't played in 10 years. It was a hoot. Finally, we got near the city. As we made our way through Manhattan traffic Rachel was squirming in her seat. She said once you are in the city, it makes it all that more frustrating. I find it fascinating. I feel like it's a magical world and I'm a tourist viewing it through the gigantic windows of a moving fishbowl. I just feel so much more alive in the City. When I fly in, I honestly feel like Zero Cool (Hackers) zeroing in over Manhattan to Orbital's Halcyon.
At the port authority I called mimi and told her I would wait by the funny gadget contraption that has balls that fall, cling, churn, and turn various things as they descend the maze of tubes. Evidently, there was more than one, so I waited a bit, but finished up my Chomsky biography. I think those gadgets are appropriate, a metaphor for the whole travel thing.
Once we got back to Brooklyn, we hooked up with her friends Mike and Mashu. Mike is a coworker, and Mashu is his Japanese roommate. He was named after some character in a Satre book that his dad liked, but the Japanese can't pronounce "th." I can't imagine just chilling with coworkers in that capacity, particularly when sex might be a topic of discussion and drugs a topic of activity. But everyone is sorta cool at her job and its all low key. Mashu and I talked about Japan, since I'm off to Tokyo and Kyoto in two weeks.
For dinner, we went to Rupali's in the Little India area of the East Village. Mimi pretty much sent the agenda and I was glad. Few things annoy me as much as a gang of people standing around for 30 minutes trying to decide what to do. First, the time spent is in no way related to the quality of the decision. Second, it's depressing, if small groups of friends can't decide on where to eat, what hope should I have for any deliberative governance?
In Little India each restaurant is filled with Christmas lights and it's so pretty. The food is really inexpensive. Half off the menu price. Mimi thinks that the India Mafia makes everyone set their menu prices, and this is Rupali's way around it. Mimi also likes it cause she thinks all the waiters are cute.
After Rupali's we headed over to alt.coffee. So many cool people! Why is Boston/Cambridge so damn sleepy!? What does Boston have in terms of late night eateries? Deli Haus and IHOP? All of East Village is like a very large, very crowded Delihaus.
mimi and I putzed the morning away in her apartment. I watched TV and talked to Julia, mimi's roommate and an old pen pal of mine. She used to send the coolest friggin home made envelopes. mimi played me Current 93's Pretty Little Horses — easily now my favorite CD. Eventually we set out for the Village for the Halloween parade. We had volunteered to be extras in the Superior Concept Monsters group. First we had brunch at Dojo's in the East Village; we got yummy pancakes and a vegie burger. We did some window shopping on 8th St., and hung out in Washington Sq listening to Scottish pipers. Later in the afternoon we headed to the parade, went to the prep area and met our leader: bossy but clearly not cut out for leadership. It was a bit chilly out, and I was in gothy garb (including black and white striped stockings and knee length skirt), so the updraft was giving me the sniffles. Once we learned the basic routine, mimi and I warmed up in a nearby art/coffee house. Eventually the whole show got started and we waited on side road as the rest of the parade coiled outwards towards the village. mimi pointed out Jen, the author of Gogglebox, on stilts up ahead of us since we'd been talking about the copy of the issue mimi made for me. As is typical of my NYC persona, I was outgoing and on friendly terms with the folks about me; I was excited to be participating!
As part of the costume I wore a insect head on my head and carried a large placard of sheet metal upon which was printed the theme of the float. The insects (about 15 of us) were supposed to accompany a larger float and shake this piece of metal that would create an spooky, warbly sort of sound. A good idea, but I knew my hands would get tired in no time.
Once we hit the main route, I was amazed at my position. Here I am, shy goth boy with an insect head waving a piece of metal at hundreds of bystanders. There are now a thousand photos out there of me doing just that! The interactions with the crowd were fascinating. Grown adults were waving, kids reached out their hands to touch the placard or me like I was magic. I totally got into the mood and was even more outgoing, smiling, and friendly than I've probably been in my life.
I didn't get to see as much of the parade as if I had been on the sidelines, but independent folks frequently crashed the parade in totally outrageous outfits that kept me entertained. I don't mean they were disruptive, but they weren't registered or official and some of the core folks in the float groups seemed to resent them. I also heard rumors that there was gonna be a protest or blockade by some political group but it never happened from what I could see.
I figure we walked for about two hours, and in the end I was very tired and cold. We all were. However, the end of the parade kept the emotional high going. Just as we started from side streets that fed into the main route, we ended in side streets, each which was its own party. My street was lined with 20 feet tall creatures from the Superior Concept and Bread & Puppet groups and a brass marching band played Dixie tunes while folks in all manner of garb danced in the street.
It felt like a Mardi Gras and I felt like a part of something bigger — and more fun — than myself.
I voted today. I was completely unenthused but felt some sort of obligations to do so. Not because of an external paternalistic entity telling me I'm bad, but myself... inside. I want to think that participating in the decisions of the greater community is worthwhile. Regardless, it was right on the way to Harvard, at a Senior Citizen home and only took 10 minutes.
Unfortunately, the choices available to me were meaningless. In terms of candidates, I usually vote for various independent persons or the Libertarian party. Sometimes it's a protest vote, sometimes it's an informed one. The little bit of research I did prevented me for voting for anyone. The major candidates annoyed me enough with their campaigns to bail on them all together. Who doesn't support smaller classrooms, better education, and safer towns?
The Libertarian candidate for Governor supported my position on drugs, fiscal policy, and most social issues, but somewhere on his page it said something like, "vote for me and send the strong message that you believe guns should flow freely in the streets of our towns." So I couldn't vote for him then, I didn't want to send that message.
Often, the only reason I vote is for local ballot questions. That's the strongest pull for me on any election — direct participation — but the 4 questions were fairly trivial. For instance, contorted campaign contribution limits and a proposal to set legislators' salaries to median income of their citizenry. Punitive crap, not substantive policy. The only questions I really liked were the non-binding questions, like should MIT continue to have a nuclear reactor in Cambridge. At least that is a meaningful question to put to the people!
But, in the end, I felt some warm and fuzzies on the way out, and I felt sort of close to the other folks in there and the little old lady volunteers from the Nursing home. We were all trying to do the right thing. I'm looking forward to a day when everyone can directly vote on any given bill. You could defer some percentage of your voting to others, but before voting, the computer could give a little quiz, to make sure you understood the basics of the issue. That would be pretty cool, but its a pipe dream probably. (Turns out one of my colleagues at Harvard is interested in this sort of thing.)
So I often wonder why I feel more open to people when I'm some where other than Boston. I think it's because I'm a minority then. I'm a tourist, I'm exotic, maybe I have something in common with the other person that at home would be nothing more than trivial. Oh, you've been to the July 4th fireworks in Boston too?! Who hasn't.... Various groups of Asians at MIT amaze me in the cohesiveness of their social bonds. Queers have an amazing sense of identity and community.
I'm an average Joe: white, fairly straight, and middle class. There's little cause for excitement to meet someone like me: they're everywhere. I'm in the majority minority and a boring one at that.
I'm still a Ranger without a posse. It even looks like my Kemo Sabe (Masha) and I will be riding different paths into the sunset. I love the girl and I suspect we'll actually be riding the same path much of the time; we just won't be sharing the saddle...
In this diary and in the conversations I had with friends about community, I think I got a sense of the lay of the land. I teased out ideas that had previously been blowing about like tumbleweed. I pinned some of it down, made a map, and there be gold somewhere in those hills. trouble gave me a hint, she mentioned there are different types of communities. I like this idea. I think a lot of the time I've been trying to justify capturing everything a community could give into a single concept. There's your home space, the sphere of individual friends, your family, your compatriots in groups — real or cyber. I don't find this completely satisfying, I still feel like something is missing. But it makes sense, and I'll continue the search.
I don't think there ever was a sappy happy ending for the Lone Ranger, Kwai Caine, or Spock. Maybe that's why I like them... Each continued their search, getting a little wiser in the process. I can only hope for the same.
But this sunset will be a little different. I won't mope in the dark. I'm gonna chase it west till I reach the Rising Sun.
"Each waking moment is as a rung on an endless ladder. Each step we take is built on what has gone before."
"Logicis the begining of wisdom ... not the end."
"Yippee-ki-yo-yay."