Of Punks and Phonemes

On Friday the 13th I finally got to see my first Propagandhi show. I'd been waiting to see them for years, but they hadn't been to New York city since 2001 (I checked with a friendly fan outside). I had no idea what to expect going in, but they were a rather interesting act to watch, on top of playing amazing music, in that they were rather quiet most of the time. I was hoping for/expecting a fair bit of ranting and politics - some of the things that got me into them originally - but there really wasn't much/any. I suppose you can't do that every night. It was a nice, long set, and I was thoroughly exhausted and sweat-drenched by the end of it, so I was ok with it ending when it did. I'll have to look into their new album soon. Interestingly, it seems to have a song titled Potemkin City Limits which is the name of their last album. Weird.
I was happy to see an independent bookstore out tabling the show, with a lot of AK Press' merchandise. I bought The Modern School Movement: Anarchism And Education In The United States which hits near to the heart in that I feel like some institutions of learning could use some re-vamping.
It was good to finally see Progagandhi. (My first stage dive!)

"...Bering Strait, Black Sea, Red Sea, Dead Sea, Indian, Atlantic, Arctic, Pacific," she said as she checked off the names on her list - each one neatly written on a little label, each label with its own eye-drop bottle. "All here!" she said, solemnly, and began to squeeze out a drop of each into a cup. Once again, she goes down the list and makes sure every dropper contributed. She double checks, sits back, makes sure it all checks against here memory, and then swirls the water in the glass around.

"After the ice caps melt, what do you think we'll call this ocean?" she asks you, looking down into the glass in her hands.

"I am twenty-one," I said.
"You're twenty-one?" asked the man behind the counter.
"Yes." I said, and he started to hand me the bottle, "in base nine."


I arrived at the party with no vodka that night.

There's a sort of serenity that comes with knowing you won't possibly get enough sleep to be awake the next day. It must be akin to watching a train cross the last 30 yards to the point where you're standing. The doom isn't nearly as long-lasting, surely, but it is a species of doom nonetheless.

Jumping when people talk around you. Starting to read, and realizing your eyes are closed.

And you're just staring that train down.

Here's where it gets interesting, though: You can step out of the way of both of them. If you have the presence of mind to, you can just walk off of the tracks, and the train will do you no harm. You're perfectly capable of going to bed whenever.

Here's where it starts to get depressing: You make yourself stay up. You know you'll be no use the next day, but you need to do something for someone you don't really know. You don't want to do it, you don't think it's worthwhile, it certainly doesn't help anyone, and it's keeping you up, but you're going to do it. You're wasting your life, because someone told you to.

You're wasting your life.

Potentially Harm Someone You Care About (1/2 cr.) - 1 Semester
Mandatory for graduation

Be placed in situations where you could potentially harm someone you've come to share a profound bond with! In a world of increasing speed and access to greater potential to do harm, this class offers a controlled environment in which to, potentially, harm fellow human beings, with the added chance of one of them being your boy/girlfriend.

Meets four out of six days/cycle

"If only you were someone else," she'll say, "then I could fall in love with you."
You nod.
"As things are, I know too much about you. We've known each other too long, we've tried being different things to each other, and I just don't think you care." She pauses, "I'm just not getting the feeling that you care. I've tried to care about you anyway, but it's really not working. It's lopsided, and it's not making me happy. Do I make you happy?"
"Sure," you say. She hasn't made you particularly unhappy, there have just been one or two times when she's been annoying; usually when she lapses into having a crush on you."
"It's like I have this romantic idea in my head, that somehow, if I hold on, suddenly you'll understand... something, and then you'll fall in love with me... After that, I imagine us travelling the world."
You hadn't really thought much about girls until she forced it on you. You had a few as friends, and you had a few boys as friends, it was no big deal. You probably had thought that she just wanted to be your friend, you certainly weren't accustomed to girls wanting any more than that.
"I remember having dreams. I used to have them pretty often. I guess it was kind of creepy, but I really liked them, you loved me in them." She stops for a second and starts pulling a leaf apart. "Actually, in some of them I was chasing you around just like I used to when I wasn't asleep: Shouting 'Hi' in the hallways, and keeping careful track of the things we talked about, things you liked, things you didn't like. When you only have a couple of forty-second bursts in a hallway to start a relationship with someone, you need to hoard your material," she says, grinning at her own ingenuity, and her despair.
In fifth grade there was one girl who made you cookies around the holidays. You can't really remember what it looked like, it didn't really matter, you were busy getting ready for confirmation. It was like joining a big club, and you got to pick a code name too, which made it like a secret club. A club with you and other people who were like you, who thought like you, who believed the same things as you. People who knew that other people were wrong, and they were right. You knew you were right, you're not as sure now. Sometimes you wish you hadn't put too much though into it, because then you wouldn't feel so lonely now. Now you just don't like other people, they're still wrong, you're still right, you just don't know how. Or why.
"You had these really weird suspenders on the first time I met you," she says, remembering suddenly. She turns to you for approval.
You can't remember them and squeeze your face up like you're trying to remember. Then you shake your head 'no.'
She frowns a little and turns back to looking at the gound in front of her.
"Do you remember the first time we danced together? It was at Jakes party, in the beginning of middle school."
Another 'no.'
"Did you like that book I got you for your birthday?"
"It was alright."
"Do you care about me?"

You sit there and look straight ahead. After a minute, she stops looking at you for an answet. She gets up, and brushes off her jeans, and turns towards you for a second. Then she thinks better of it and starts to walk away. She almost turns again, but stops herself and turns around again.

Stop it.

Stop always doing things without telling me why you're doing them. I know there's an ulterior motive, I've gotten to know at least that much about you in the past ten years. Most of these things don't really matter, it's just that I don't know why you won't tell me why you're actually doing it.

It's like you've decided you can't trust anyone. Nobody gets to see you. You have a carefully prepared costume that you wear every day, so that people see only what you want them to see, or at least you try and make it that way. We can guess some things. You can tell us all you want, but we still guess.

I take it as an insult that you don't seem to trust me. It makes me not want to trust you.

What is it that makes you so vehement about things? It makes people afraid to talk to you. You can't expect to have a civilized discussion if you're always going to start attacking the person you're 'discussing' things with.

Once you've decided you don't like someone, you decide that people you don't like can't possibly understand the things that you like. Even if they say they like it, they're just doing that to smooth conversation, or to make other people like them.

You also don't talk about much that isn't someone else's idea. This movie, that book. They're awesome, really, I think so, but what about you? What's up in your life? Do you think about anything other than these various opera that you tell me about? I know you do, I just don't know who you're telling about it.

I would appreciated knowing you.