RandomCha

Yesterday afternoon I walked to the Music Box. It was a perfect autumn afternoon. It was quite warm and all the restaurants and cafes had their tables out on the sidewalks. People were sitting outside, alone or in groups. And once again, as so often happens, it made me think about how things converge. I am walking down Southport. Right now, on my iPod, Peggy Lee is singing "Lullaby of Broadway." A man is sitting at a table on the sidewalk. He’s intently reading a book. In front of him on the table there’s a half a sandwich. Although he’s deep into his book he looks completely relaxed, completely at ease. I look past him into the cafe and see other people milling about, sitting at their own tables or saying goodbye to friends as they leave. I’m still walking and so I continue past–it’s only a glimpse. There are other people doing other things further on.

At that moment the weather was gorgeous. I walked past a certain cafe which had tables on the sidewalk. A particular man had decided earlier in the day, whether hours or days in advance or perhaps just a few moments earlier, to go to this very cafe, order a sandwich, and sit outside and read. The shuffle on my iPod had, for some reason, selected that Peggy Lee track to play. Those people inside the cafe who were saying goodbye to their friends–their meal had lasted exactly long enough for them to be leaving just as I was walking past.

Everything fits together; and even when it doesn’t fit together, it still fits together. It’s just how things are.

So, umm, yeah … I’ve been watching a lot of movies this week. In preparation for CIFF, which opens next week. I’ve seen 5 this week (plus the Arthur Russell documentary that I wanted to write up separately). During the festival I hope to see another 10.

When you watch so many movies each day, one right after the other, you reach a state where the movies unspooling in front of you become the true reality and the outside world is just a make-shift mode of living. It’s fun while it lasts. It’s disorienting when it ends.

The financial world seems plenty unreal right now. I don’t own a home. I don’t pay a mortgage. True, I do have a 403(b), but I won’t need to touch it for at least 30 years; all my day-to-day money is safely put away in my ING DIRECT account, earning a steady 3% just sitting there. I’d say that short of a total collapse my job is secure. And even then, I have a fair amount of savings. I have no credit card debt and the last of my student loans will be repaid in January. Also, I don’t own a car, so gas prices don’t immediately affect me.

I’m not saying any of this to brag–just to try and communicate how odd it all feels. It feels like senseless panic, and also completely unsurprising. Who knows how it’ll end up. Money is anything but abstract when you’re very poor or very rich. Yet it’s perplexing to see the rich and the super-rich panic like this when millions of people on this planet live hand-to-mouth every single day. It’s also perplexing to see people totally blown away by the realization that, yes, the stock market is risky; always has been, always will be. Why did you forget? Nothing’s a sure thing.

I need a nap. I need to smoke up. My brain is moving too fast. 

Must Read After My Death [2007]

1. Allis gives the baby a sip of her cocktail and then takes a drink herself.
2. "Dr. Lynn says that when a man gets married he wants a Woman with a capital W … I am not a woman with a capital W."
3. Allis spoke four languages but decided that she couldn’t finish college because it would aggravate her husband Charlie’s inferiority complex. 

Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell [2008]

1. Ernie Brooks: "His gifts were increasing as his strengths were leaving."
2. Allan Ginsberg describes how Arthur wanted to make bubblegum music, but Buddhist bubblegum.
3. Lo-fi images of waves changing colors, blurring, reversing themselves, churning.

Here’s my longer take.

Yes: this is what hope looks like. Registering voters in the ‘hood. Indianapolis.