Sunday Dispatch .405

Contrary to common belief, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.

Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distraction."

In 1984, Huxley added, people are controled by inflicting pain. in Brave New World, they are controled by inflicting pleasure.

In short, Orwell feared what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.



~from Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

everyday i sit and daydream about you. alas our lives are nothing like my dreams. i'm here, rotting away in my despair. you're across the globe, oblivious to me. if only you could see that i'm everything you want, need.
so far away, yet so close.

You and me
Are the world
She said
Nothing else is real
The two of us
Is all there is
The rest
Is just a dream

Always meant to be
I can't feel it
Like the destiny
And fate
Written in the stars
Inescapable fate
It's out of my hands
Falling into your arms

And I don't want
To get in a ?
But I would love you
To take your time
We're on the edge
Of a beautiful thing
She said
So come on
Stay here for awhile

Oooooh, girl
He is the one for sure
Oooooh, girl
He is the perfect boy

Yeah
Me and you
Are the world
I said
But not the only one
I need
The two of us
Is never all there is
That doesn't happen
For real
If it was
Meant to be us
It was meant to be now
Don't see
The sense in wasting
(Wasted?) time
If you're so sure
About this ??
Well then tonight
You're mine

And I don't want
To get obvious
But I have to be
Gone by three
We're on the edge
Of a beautiful thing
He said
So come on
Jump with me

Oooooh, girl
He's not the one
For sure
Oooooh, girl
He's not
So wonderful
Oooooh, girl
He's not the one
For sure
Oooooh, girl
He's not
The perfect boy
At all

You and me
Are the world
She said
Nothing else is real
The two of us
Is all there is
The rest
Is just a dream

And her heart
May be broken
A hundred times
But her hope?
We'll never destroy
Her heart?
The happy ever
After girl
Will never find
The perfect boy

well another cousin got married. and another one will be getting married in may. i'm still single of course, what a surprise, and i'm older than all of them.
lonely old age here i come.

Don't worry about the banks, the crash, or the bailout. Sure, they're awful. And yes, things will get worse. A lot worse. Worse than you ever imagined, probably. But you've been in tough spots before. Remember when you lost your job and went on unemployment for a while? This will be like that, only it will last for years. But you're a New Yorker. You're tough. Or at least you like to act that way when you've been drinking and listening to Nas. You'll pull through, if you economize. And the new Depression will help by forcibly trimming some of the flab from your personal operating budget. Here are nine ways that will happen:

1. No more gym memberships. A small cadre of Alphas will do all the brain-work. We cubicle monkeys will be carrying hods and mixing cement in the new Public Works Administration, and what a workout that'll be. Good thing you've still got a closet full of loose-and-comfy jeans and a drawer full of comfortable Gap t-shirts for those long days in the sun. Remember to keep your knees bent. And breathe! (But if you're doing demolition, keep your particle mask on.)

2. No more illegal drugs. $120 an ounce for weed*? $50 a gram for coke? It's true that some poor people already take these drugs and others, but we are still in days of affluence, if only our last ones; a poor tweaker can currently do some manual labor, or hook, to get meth. Soon you will be doing these things to buy food and shelter. When all else fails you could, like the tweaker, turn to crime, but when people have less money, you will have to mug more of them to buy drugs, increasing your opportunities for arrest. Console yourself with the return of generic beer, which you will gloomily down in your cold-water flat while the rich trust-fund hipsters tipple PBR.

3. No more Jenny Craig. There'll be no need to pay someone to tell you not to eat.

4. No more $19 cocktails. Dive bars are in! Real ones, we mean. And the days when you had to dress fly and spend big to pick someone up are also gone; like as not, you'll just have to offer them a sandwich.

5. No more pro sports tickets. Admit it: When you heard the new Yankee Stadium and the Mets' new Citi Field would be more expensive to attend than the old ballparks, you wondered if you'd have the courage to resist giving the bastards your money, didn't you? Well, wonder no more. When it costs $19 to watch the Mets blow the 2009 season from the upper deck, you will discover the alternate pleasure of watching gang initiations from your fire escape.

6. No more tech upgrades. Those of you who have grown accustomed to grabbing the latest iThing as soon as it hits the blond-wood shelves will learn to live with whatever you're currently holding until it dies, and then scrounging for rich people's cast-offs at the newly popular Salvation Army Thrift Stores. But what you lose in computing power, you'll gain in stimulating creative challenges. Remember the Atari music retro scene? Cash-strapped knowledge workers will find themselves doing similarly amazing things with Kaypros, Wordstar, and MacPaint.

7. No more expensive grooming products. Soap and hot water will be your new skin care regime. You will be able, and called upon, to shampoo less. Get a hat; there's more than one reason why everyone wore them in the last Depression.

8. No more upscale entertainments. Broadway? Nokia Theatre? A bottle club? Maybe on your birthday if your uncle dies and leaves you money. When you're not throwing craps or whittling, you'll head to the cineplex to watch Seth Rogen, the Wallace Beery of the new Depression, and hope they're giving away dishes. But everybody else will, too, and over time the price of underattended plays, concerts, and much other nightlife may drop into your league. The swells will go to the opera and swank nightclubs; you will catch glimpses of their highlife back at the movies, when Seth Rogan bumbles into the Copa to belabor the oily villain, Will Ferrell.

9. No more big plans. This is the biggest $avings of all! Have you expected to rise in your profession, occupying ever larger offices, gaining ever more exalted titles and salaries? Have you planned to move from your little apartment to a bigger condo, and thence to a nice house, maybe with a spouse and some well-cared-for children? You had a perfect right, and a pretty good chance; but both are now diminished. Where once you merely had to be a less than total screw-up to advance, in our new hard times you will have to be both endlessly ambitious and utterly ruthless -- Horatio Alger cross-bred with Scarface. If you're not, accustom yourself to a new dream: three squares and a warm place to sleep.

But take this comfort: to whom little is given, little may be expected. You won't make much but you probably won't have to take work home with you, and no one with be calling you at night from the job when the power grid goes down. When you lose your pre-Depression advantages, you will also lose the need to strive, to keep up, to run yourself ragged. You may find yourself cultivating pleasant, inexpensive hobbies, like writing, painting, or maintaining a pigeon coop. Your kids, deprived of constant day-care and supervision, may play in sandlots or in the streets, using bats made out of broom handles to hit spaldeens. You may even find yourself adjusting quite happily to a life with lower expectations.

That is, if you don't contract tuberculosis or scurvy.

& Law of Mechanical Repair
After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you'll have to pee.

& Law of Gravity
Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

& Law of Probability
The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

& Law of Random Numbers
If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal and someone always answers.

& Law of the Alibi
If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the very next morning you will have a flat tire.

& Variation Law
If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now (works every time). < U>

& Law of the Bath
When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings.

& Law of Close Encounters
The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don't want to be seen with.

& Law of the Result
When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't work, it will.

& Law of Biomechanics
The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

& Law of the Theater
At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive last.

& The Starbucks Law
As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

& Murphy's Law of Lockers
If there are only two people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

& Law of Physical Surfaces
The chances of an open-faced jelly sandwich landing face down on a floor covering are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet/rug.

& Law of Logical Argument
Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.

& Brown's Law of Physical Appearance
If the shoe fits, it's ugly.

& Oliver's Law of Public Speaking
A closed mouth gathers no feet.

& Wilson's Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy
As s oon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.

& Doctors' Law
If you don't feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor; by the time you get there you'll feel better. Don't make an appointment and you'll stay sick.

As the global economic crisis continues, uncertainty has now hit Japan
hard.

In the last 7 days Origami Bank has folded, Sumo Bank has gone belly up and Bonsai Bank announced plans to cut some of its branches.

Yesterday, it was announced that Karaoke Bank is up for sale and will likely go for a song, while today shares in Kamikaze Bank were suspended after they nose-dived.

While Samurai Bank is soldiering on following sharp cutbacks, Ninja Bank is reported to have taken a hit, but they remain in the black.

Furthermore, 500 staff at Karate Bank got the chop and analysts report that there is something fishy going on at Sushi Bank where it is feared that staff may get a raw deal.

It isn’t faith, this intuition that guides your hand. It’s something deeper, something more primal, something instinctive. It draws you beyond yourself, pulling you into the larger universe, letting you see the cosmic motions at play. It requires no belief, no decision on your part. It simply is.

No, it isn’t simple faith.

It isn’t hope, this force that tugs at your feet. It’s something stronger, something more pragmatic, something truer. It draws you beyond yourself, pulling you to greater heights, catching you when you make your inevitable falls. It requires no dreams, no goals on your part. It simply is.

No, it isn’t simple hope.

It isn’t love, this bond that wraps itself around you. It’s something sharper, something more forceful, something tidal. It draws you beyond yourself, pulling you together with other people, making you see them as you see yourself. It requires no affection, no emotion on your part. It simply is.

No, it isn’t simple love.

And the greatest of these…

She cast a glance,

angelic blue eyes calling.

An appeal so meltingly sweet,

with lovely locks of blond softly falling.

Yet sweetness slips into seductive,

with the most subtle of shifts.

rivers of passion overflow,

for the touch of her body

and taste of her lips.

She cast a glance,

angelic blue eyes calling.

An appeal so meltingly sweet,

with lovely locks of blond softly falling.

Yet sweetness slips into seductive,

with the most subtle of shifts.

rivers of passion overflow,

for the touch of her body

and taste of her lips.