The rain around here finally let up, so I decided it was time to drag the Christmas Tree back indoors. It’s a potted tree, now on it’s third year of life with us. Last year we seem to have pushed it too close to a wall, so I discovered all the low limbs on that side are dead and being eaten by snails. It’s covered in snails. Weird little ones. I sprayed the tree with orange oil to get rid of them, but they’re still swarming
(Do snails swarm?). Anyway, it’s weird. Who ever heard of snails attacking a connifer? Maybe banana slugs might. So now the tree is all sticky with orange anti-bug stuff and snail slime of dead and wounded snails (and the little bastards that got away). And I noticed that there is a weird evil-looking mushroom growing on the wall side (henceforth refered to as the dark side) of the tree. I’m all for nature and the slithery slimy poisoness things that lurk in the forrests, each of them playing a major role on in the eco system. I’m even ok with them lurking on my nice patio provided they don’t kill too many of my plants or my dog or anything. But dragging a million snails, bettles, bugs, things that creep in the night and fairy-tale looking evil mushrooms into the house and putting christams presents under there is a differnt story. What if we wake up Christmas morning and gather around the tree only to find the Coffees of the World set I’ve given to Christi is now swarming with slimy snails? Yuck. I’m hoping that the short hours of winter sunlight falling on the now-exposed dark side will chase the slimy creatures away. And another day of rain should wash off the sticky orange oil and perhaps the sticky snail slime. (Can’t you picture this? Precious homemade ornaments in the family for years covered in snail slime because one year the latte liberal of the family decided what we really needed was a live tree complete with live snails!) Arg! This is a disaster! I should spray the tree with my moonshine-sih meade! I used to have a situation with unwanted compost bin inhabitants. Then I had a batch of beer get kind of funny, so I poured the bottles into the compost bin. The microrganisms in the bin were extremely pleased. The creepy crawly things were not. Anyway, all of this explains why the tree has been looking kind of sick all year.
I asked Christi what she thought of my break-away-republic manifesto and she avoided answering me directly. I had been drinking some soynog when I wrote it. She seems to think it’s goofy. Here’s my attempt at keeping a pretentious jounral to be reprinted when I am a famous composer and she thinks I’m a bit overly optomistic about how change will come about. Artists are supposed to have goofy politcal views. Anyway, who was it that said, “A reasonable person adapts to fit her environment, whereas an unreasonable person seeks to adapt her environment to fit her. Therefore all change comes from unreasonable people.”
product review: biodiesel
Well, my car has about 5% less power, as expected. Not a big change or a
big deal. Some of the drivers who were not looking for the power
difference didn’t notice it. Gas milage is 5% worse as well.
The car now smells like burnt french fries instead of stinky diesel. No
more gross, stinky diesel on my hands at the gas pump.
i can go to bed at night knowing that i’m not inadvertantly contributing
to the war drums beating against Iraq. I’m not using their oil!
It is entirely clear that in our current system, few people other than artists enjoy their jobs so much that they would keep doing them if they didn�t have to. It is also clear that our current system is entirely unsustainable. Our primary goal in our current system is economic growth. This means we must keep making more things every year than we did the year before, over and above any population growth. And such is our system that if we fail to grow in a year, we are in a recession and many people end up out of work. Popularly, this is not seen as a shortcoming of the system, but rather as a moral failing of the individuals affected. Furthermore, the system requires the middle class to consume more and more every year. There is only so much stuff that people want to have, however, so that it is necessary to make things disposable. The only way to keep the middle classes consuming more and more is to make them throw away what they already have. This ever-rising so-called �standard of living� does not grow higher when people must work at jobs that they do not like so they can buy things to throw them away. Meanwhile, the environmental and human costs of raw materials continue to mount. For a few to live like disposable aristocracy, others must live in poverty and environmental damage and wasting of resources must mount higher and higher.
Because this kind of capitalist excess is socially and environmentally unstable and unsustainable, it will fall. The only question is how. We can sit and wait until the ocean levels rise, disastrous uncharacteristic weather patterns pummel us, and asymmetric warfare rains down upon us from all sides, or we can act now and avert carnage, extinctions and continuing genocide.
Aside from these points, the primary weakness of our system is over and under centralization. Some systems are over centralized. Other systems have no central planning whatsoever. All of these systems are setup as inefficiently as possible so that elite individuals can profit off the inefficiency and pocket the difference between dollars spent and value received.
We can build a better system. We can break away from the old one.
I foresee the western parts of the United States breaking away from the Union. People in Northern California, Oregon and Washington will say no more to a system where civil rights have been whittled down to the right to chose what color car to buy. We will say no more to enslaving the third world for private profit. We will say no more to people being poisoned by pesticides, condemned to poverty and stuck toiling away our lives in stupid jobs that offer us no freedom or leisure time.
We will couple automation with sustainable development. Nobody�s time will be more valuable than anyone else�s. Production will be to fit human needs rather than capitalistic growth. Things are valuable only in so much as the benefit human lives. We will cease production of pointlessly disposable items. Durable goods will actually be durable, re-usable and recyclable. Buildings will not be knocked over for no reason. Instead of principles of capital and ownership, we will have principles of use and collectivization. People will form voluntary associations locally to meet local needs. Every home will be a squat. The residents will have the means to maintain their homes and their collective living arrangements.
Corporations will cease, with all factory production automated and run by the government. Less will be made, because less will be needed. As much as possible, items produced locally will be consumed locally.
People will brew their own beer, and their own biodiesel, and generate their own power with the solar arrays on their roofs. Yet many tools will be owned in common. Few people actually need their own vacuum cleaner. Almost no one who has one uses it everyday. Because of growth, inefficiency and systems of ownership, people currently must buy all the tools they might ever need. However, alternatives exist even now. In Berkeley, there is a tool library that residents with a library card may check out tools from. I foresee a future where many tools are owned in common by neighborhoods, blocks, buildings or associations. The interconnectedness and interdependence of all people will be clear. No one�s time will be worth more or less than anyone else�s. The currency will be measured in hours.
People will still work as teachers, as nurses, as firefighters as repair people, but fewer hours will be required. These people will have time to peruse art, sports, music, crafts, and passion. No one will be made to live in poverty for the benefit of anyone else.
This can and will come about. There is no reason to continue our unequal, disposable and militaristic social systems. Too often we resemble what is worst about human nature. There is no reason not to resemble the best. The technology we require is present. All we need is the will to make our vision happen.
Christi told me a few days ago that people would be coming over to jam today. “Fine.” I said. “You’re playing too.” she said. I whined. she said, “It’ll be fun.” Meanwhile, Tiffany was campainging to get me to jam with her friend Ed. “I’m not really a jamming person.” I explained. He same over thursday anyway. I made synth noises and he ran them through a groovy little fx box. It was awesome. But I still whined at Christi. She said, “I need to find out how well Ed plays cello.”
So today Chand, Mitch and Ed came over. Chand played drums. Mitch got his guitar. Ed got out his cello, but it took a long time to figure out mic placement and Ed seemed timid improvising, so he started singing. He’s excellent. Chand’s a good drummer. Mitch has always been a good guitarist. Then Ed played bass and I sat out. (He was good, but all I play is bass, so I’m not in favor of this setup.) The he picked up the guitar that Chand brought. He’s a good guitarist too. Mitch is also a good guitarist. So I guess I’m in a band now. Christi’s trying to schedule the next practice. I think we should be called The IHOP Conspiracy, but I haven’t run it by Ed or Chand. Mitch thinks it’s funny.
So I guess Christi decided to be a band manager, or that I should be in a band. When my old band broke up, I kind of felt releived about it, but Christi kept saying, “You guys were really good.” But we were going nowhere. I’d like to be more serious. Mitch says no more being half-assed. Christi wants to schedule us recording time at Expression New Media (they do free recording for bands). We don’t even have any songs yet. She says, “Who cares, you sounded great jamming. Just go in and play for half an hour.”
This being pushed into music by other people thing seems to be ok. I finished my last piece of music in June. I’ve got a score for a call for scores put out by Jack Straw Productions in Seattle (no relation to the British leader), but it’s not done. Almost all the music grad school applications are due January 15th, except for Berkeley and Stanford, which are due monday and are not going to happen for me. But I don’t really want to go away. I want to build big cabinets downstairs and have a super-usable work area. But then what will I do with myself if I don’t go to school? I think I probably need a masters degree to be a serious composer. (What will I do with myself when I’m a serious composer?) Maybe I could just go to Cal Arts and keep Tiffany living at my current house and come home frequently. Maybe I could somehow complete the Berkeley application by Monday. I don’t really want to go to Berkeley. Actually, I don’t really want to do antything. Maybe somone will push me into something.
I had a disagreement with some of my neighbors about dogs. Actually, about my dog. My thought is that our parking area makes an excellent dog run. Anyway, parking lots are wastes of space. After the revolution it will be a cool vegitable garden. My neighbor’s thoughts are that parking lots are for cars and happy dogs running around belong in the dog parks our city has so generously provided. Apparently I missed a nieghborhood association meeting on the topic. And I failed to read the minutes. And it’s high crimes and treason for the dog to stand in the planter because the plants are dying as a result. The plants die every winter and return in the spring, much like Christ’s yearly resurrection, but I refrained from pointing this out and instead regretted that Christi was forced to resign from the Association Board due to time conflicts. Anyway, afterwards, I was pondering life after the revolution, in happy communes and a dark thought fell upon me. “How am I going to get along in a squat/commune if I can’t even get along with my neighborhood association now?” I shared this with Mitch and he said it wasn’t my fault, my neighbors are all “consumerist-minded.” So now I feel better about it, if a bit elitist. Mitch is cool
In other news, I’ve been IMing stangers with webcams. I like IMing strangers. It gives me a chance to practice my Esperanto. But the webcam thing, I do not get. First, let’s talk angles and lighting. If the webcam is top of the monitor, you are facing it. This is a good angle. But nobody wants their light source coming from there, as it would cause glare and make it hard to read the screen. So the picture is backlit and weird looking. Or you can put the webcam on the side, but then the angle is odd as far as the Sci-fi idea of visual communication goes. Also, looking at people typing on their computer is not the most exciting image in the world. Unless they were naked or something. But there seems to be a sort of greenish pall that would hinder that. And most people I encounter, online or off, I don’t want to see naked. Maybe if I kept being IMed by 18-34 year old lesbians, but so far I think it’s all guys. There is something strangely fascinating about it though. It’s voyeristic, sort of, especially since I don’t have a webcam myself. It’s like watching somebody broadcasting live from their living room. People jokes this is what the TV show Big Brother was all about. People were getting so voyeristic they just wanted to watch each other living life on TV. At least with a webcam, there’s some back and forth chatting.
Miss Manners never comes right out and gives an explicit how-to list for attendees of baby showers, but I think it’s possible to read some dos-and-don’ts between the lines of these letters.
Miss Manners on Baby Showers
Showering a Relative
Dear Miss Manners:
My Daughter-in-law is expecting her first child. I have a shower planned for her, because her only sister, her mother and her best friend live in California. My son is an only child so I am not able to put a daughter’s name on the invitations as many of my releatives and friends have done in the past for showers both bridal and baby. Will it be in bad taste is I put my name on the invitations? My husband feels we should do this if that’s what we’d like to do. I feel a bit uncertain.
Gentle Reader:
Showers are tricky, and a lot of people get caught up in them. The word “shower” is used here as in “to shower with presents,” making this the only form of gorwn-up entertainment at which a present is mandatory. Therefore, such an event is not properly given by any member of the guest of honor’s immediate family – daughter, sister, mother, or mother-in-law. However, since your relatives and friends have been making mistakes about this right and left, Miss Manners suggests you do not worry about it and go ahead and give your party. If you want to be perfectly correct, call it a tea, not a shower, thus establishing that you wish to bring joy but not bounty to the family.
Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior 1979. p.22
Sexist Showers
Dear Miss Manners:
You seem intolerant – and justifiably so – of nonsense masquerading as corectness. But what about sexism and opression disguised as polite tradition? I’m referring to wedding and baby showers. Do these traditions not have considerable sexist and oppressive components? Are they not designed to reinforce women who accept the roles society deems most acceptable for women, rewarding them with vacuum cleaners, kitchen utensils, and baby paraphernalia when they assume their rightful roles as wives and mothers?
Are you sympathetic to such thinking? How should a person with such views respond to an invitation to attend a shower? A simple “No, thank you” seems too unfriendly, or, worse, cheap. A political discusion is probably counter-productive.
Gentle Reader:
Few of our social institutions can bear severe philosophical scrutiny. Neither can using an invitation to participate in other people’s pleasures as an opportunity for dampening them with one’s disapproval. It is not impolite simply to decline an invitation that goes against your principles, provided you do not explain the fact.
In the matter of showers, things are changing. Miss Manners can’t help but noticing that your signature indicates that you are a man, and pointing out that a few years ago, you would not have been invited to showers. Presumably, the bridegroom or father will also be a guest of honor at such a shower, and your presents should be given to both husband and wife. Vacuum cleaners and baby clothes are not, in themselves, sexist objects. They become so when it i presumed that only the woman should put them on the rug or the baby
Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior 1979. p.23-24
Miss Manners on other showers
For the Bridal Couple
Dear Miss Manners:
In recent years, the prospective bridegroom has been present at all bridal showers that I have attended. Lavish as these affairs have become, am I wrong in assuming that they still should be considered “girl parties,” with all the appropriate gushing, giggling and gossiping? The man must be bored to tears. Is it an omen of things to come? Will the bride-to-be soon be expected to pop out of a cake at the stag party and have to listen to raunchy jokes told over a few steins of beer? If one, why not the other? Do I sense a double-standard here, and if so, why? Are all the traditional bastions of ettiquette crumbling like a house of cards?
Gentle Reader:
Cards don’t crumble. However, Miss Manners does not mind if some customs do. The gender-seperated wedding party, based on the idea that the bride and the bridegroom have opposite notions of social fun and are bored senseless by each other’s friends, is not a tradition that Miss Manners is going to go to a lot of trouble to rescue from oblivion.
Not that she objects to it. giggliness and raunchiness are all right in their place, and sharing a session of one or the other with compatible souls of one’s own gender is al very well. The specific bridal customs you mention often overdo things, with an unpleasant emphasis on materialism for the ladies and unacceptable forms of entertainment (such as ones that end in the bridegroom’s being arrested) for the gentlemen. For this reason, and because of the increasing tendency for friendships to be formed on the basis of common interests regardless of gender, the sort of divided party you mention is becoming less and less popular. So be it.
Miss Manners’ Guide for the Turn of the Millennium 1989. p 573-573
Yahoo posting:
Anarchism is not really a new idea, but it’s not one that’s yet been implemented on a large scale AFAIK. the pancakesforpinkos movement is based largely on the writings of John Cage, but also on other post-capitalist theories and the moralist approach of Noam Chomsky.
For an explination of anarcho-socialism, a good reference is a work by John Cage called “Overpopulation and Art.” It’s published in a book called _John Cage: Composed in America_. you can find out more information about that book from the pancakesforpinkos website.
In short, we believe in all of the rights accorded to workers in the UN charter. These include healthcare, education, adequate leisure time and a great many others. We believe very strongly in freedom of association, since that is the very basis of anarchism and also in government responcibility to coordinate for the social welfare of all, which is the socialism part. Our utopic society would feature limitted mandatory government service, but also squats, a use-based system instead of an ownership model and production based on human need rather than profit.
We beleive that implicit in this system and in worker’s rights is a right to a hearty breakfast: http://www.pancakesofrpinkos.com