The politics of detachment: My office in the Ivory Tower with the rose-colored window.
I have recently become a fan of the Caribou Coffee. Never been much of a drinker of coffee before (too bitter), but I find that with 4 packets of Equal and about 1/4 cup of skim it's actually quite good. And potent. This stuff has all the kick of a frightened ostrich (it could, metaphorically speaking, put your kidneys on the barn wall). In any case, they also have a leather couch with the texture of butter and a bevy of cute beverage assistants? clerks? espressoliers? coffee stewards? coffeetenders? In any case, it has become my home-away-from-apartment-away-from-home for the past week or so.
Today, while working, a little sprite of a girl peered over the back of a leather armchair opposite me.
"Whatcha’ doin’?"
"Writing a paper"
"On what?"
- My brain races... What is it about? It is something like Coverdale's folklorization [made up word] of characters in The Blithedale Romance as a way to obfuscate their historical situation using a degraded genre of "magical explanation" such that he can evade questions of class and gender by nonpresence while authoring a text that (through its participation in the normative genre of folklore) allows him to assert his presence-as-author in the language of the general people (thus authoring a folktale that evades the non-authorial genre of folktales).... shit... "It's about fairies."
"Oh" *big grin* "I like fairies."
"Me too."
I sit there with a funny grin on my face - It has just been clearly pointed out to me that what I am doing is really really pointless.
I sit back in my chair - I am the only person who cares about this, and I am really actually excited about it.
I look at the ceiling - So what kind of good is this doing for the world?
I study a particularly interesting knothole - Am I willing to be this detached? This utterly insulated from everyday life?
I look over to the newsstand.
I glance at the headline.
Wow.
Yes. Maybe it's better to live in this world of fairies, witches, devils, ghosts and metaphor. I think I've had enough of real people and what they do to one another.
Today, while working, a little sprite of a girl peered over the back of a leather armchair opposite me.
"Whatcha’ doin’?"
"Writing a paper"
"On what?"
- My brain races... What is it about? It is something like Coverdale's folklorization [made up word] of characters in The Blithedale Romance as a way to obfuscate their historical situation using a degraded genre of "magical explanation" such that he can evade questions of class and gender by nonpresence while authoring a text that (through its participation in the normative genre of folklore) allows him to assert his presence-as-author in the language of the general people (thus authoring a folktale that evades the non-authorial genre of folktales).... shit... "It's about fairies."
"Oh" *big grin* "I like fairies."
"Me too."
I sit there with a funny grin on my face - It has just been clearly pointed out to me that what I am doing is really really pointless.
I sit back in my chair - I am the only person who cares about this, and I am really actually excited about it.
I look at the ceiling - So what kind of good is this doing for the world?
I study a particularly interesting knothole - Am I willing to be this detached? This utterly insulated from everyday life?
I look over to the newsstand.
I glance at the headline.
Wow.
Yes. Maybe it's better to live in this world of fairies, witches, devils, ghosts and metaphor. I think I've had enough of real people and what they do to one another.
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