Two surfaces

1. Long Island
2. Philadelphia

?

Anchor States: The name of a 3-part musical suite by Stars of the Lid, forming side B of their LP Per Aspera Ad Astra. My favorite part of this suite is Part 3, which I find shockingly profound in its minimalism. It's the closest thing I've ever experienced to synaesthesia, in the sense that this is what the inside of my head sounds like. There is a beautiful contrast in Part 3 between organic, monotone synths (nostalgia, peace, memory) and shimmering, mechanical ambience (future, forboding), which resonates deeply with my often bifurcated and ambivalent emotional life.

: The word "hevel" (may be rendered "Abel"), used frequently in the book of Ecclesiastes. Translated variously as vanity, meaninglessness, vapor, emptiness, smoke, worthlessness, etc. It is a word that broadly yet pointedly captures the sensibility of our time, that is, of consumer culture -- the illusion of choice, false self-determination and identity formation, and the spiritualization of consumption. English has few remaining words as full of meaning as this, maybe because it has been so brutalized by advertising.

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I was born in 1983, the year that The Precession of Simulacra was published. I am male, white, and happily married. I live in Philadelphia, my home since 1991 --- currently in a row house on 52nd Street. I believe in God, though this makes me a pariah in many of my spheres of interaction (academia, art, Heavy Metal).

I am rarely paid for the work I consider most valuable. I have many useful skills but few credentials. The manual and the abstract are equally important to me.

Morning again in America

"It's not that I would have felt less love of country if voters had chosen John McCain. And this reaction I'm trying to describe isn't really about Obama's policies. I'll disagree with some of his decisions, I'll consider some of his public statements mere double talk and I'll criticize his questionable appointments. My job will be to hold him accountable, just like any president, and I intend to do my job.

"For me, the emotion of this moment has less to do with Obama than with the nation. Now I know how some people must have felt when they heard Ronald Reagan say 'it's morning again in America.' The new sunshine feels warm on my face."

-Eugene Robinson, Washington Post 11/6/08


A lot of people are talking about whether Barack Obama's election heralds an ideological shift from "center-right" leftward. I think that's missing the point. I'm deeply troubled by the angry and disappointed conservatives who are claiming that America is "finished" or is going to become "socialist", or that Democrats will "overreach" and get tossed. Maybe they feel left out, like they can't join the celebration of the "winners" because they're the "losers".

But I don't think that this joyful shock we are experiencing has anything to do with partisanship. I don't think people were crying and and lifting their hands to the sky two nights ago because the Democrats got the White House back. It's not even really about sticking it to George Bush, as much as he is now reviled in most circles, and I have detected no sense of snide self-satisfaction in most of the celebrating. It's something new. Our people are beginning to realize that anything really is possible, and that America is very symbolically putting its money where its mouth has been for 232 years. The meaning of "freedom" in this nation became broader and deeper and more real on Tuesday night.

Some of my more conservative friends have the idea that Obama is loved outside the U.S. because other nations want to make us weak and compliant, and believe that an Obama presidency would serve that end. These friends feel affronted and demoralized seeing spontaneous celebrations of Obama's election in other countries. Again, I think that's misunderstanding the motive. Just as much as I believe the overflowing joy here in the U.S. has nothing to do with partisanship, I believe that the celebrations abroad reflect not a perception of Barack Obama, but a perception of us. The world is excited because they now see that we, the people of the United States, are not so "rigid" and "bigoted" as they thought -- that maybe the sullen, arrogant, bullying superpower they knew had more to do with transient leadership than with the real soul and identity of our nation. Every man, woman, and child in this country, regardless of who they voted for, can own this new position of respect and global leadership. You and I and every citizen of our nation are now looked upon in awe, because we have again, at long last, demonstrated the promise of our heritage and led the world by example rather than by might. The victory belongs not to a person, a party, or a government, but to all the people of the United States, who once again have a reason to be proud.