Word!
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!
Copyright © 1998 nrrrdboy. All Rights Reserved. See Copytheft License.
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.
Bits of Community
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?
Back to School
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.
The Real World
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.
Stand to the Right
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.
Why Smart People Disagree
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.
East Village Halloween Parade
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."
