I haven’t yet succumbed to fear and loathing, and I’m not going to talk much about, you know, the events of earlier this month. Other people are more informed on the topic and have more actionable messages than I do. And I don’t intend to turn this blog/newsletter into a running commentary on all the bullshit that’s about to come out of Washington. But this week’s song is You Were Right, by Built to Spill.
I like the way it more or less lists out a series of rock cliches — you were right when you said all we are is dust in the wind, you were right when you said we’re running against the wind, you were right when you said it’s a hard rain gonna fall… and then really runs it down with the chorus of you were wrong when you said everything’s gonna be all right.
Will things eventually be all right? Well, giving up now certainly isn’t going to help, that’s for sure. And folks like me will probably be fine, which means we’ve got the opportunity to use that power and privilege to help folks who need it more than us.
So let’s not give up. Not yet.
On Travel
I had the incredible opportunity to spend all of October in Europe, and in addition to enjoying it and relaxing and having some incredible food, I had some complicated emotions about it. About the level of conspicuous consumption involved in a lengthy vacation, about Instagramming my travels, about telling people I met what I was up to, about choosing museums and exhibits and neighborhoods and afternoons window-shopping. I’ve written and deleted six different versions of this post, but really, if you have a minute or three, go read the post Taste Games, from Dynomight.
Something about how people talk about travel has long made me uneasy. After all, travel is expensive. No one in my circles would dream of going to a party and showing off their new Rolex. But somehow, travel is this unusual form of conspicuous consumption that isn’t subject to conspicuous consumption taboos. Why?
Basically, travel, and shopping, and the display of cultural and economic capital involved in a luxurious vacation, makes me hyper-aware of things that I don’t normally have to think about. And it feels like work.
Obviously this says more about me than about the nature of society or of taste.
Can’t you just relax on vacation, Aaron? No, of course not, because it feels like I’ve lit a rocket fueled by enormous amounts of compressed time and money, and it is disorienting to watch that fuel burn, and I feel a neurotic need to understand why I react like that.
Recommended Reading
Today’s job market: “I applied to 2,483 roles using AI.”
China cracks down on metaphors, puns, and homophones.
City on Fire: a history of NYC arson attacks during the civil war.
Totally what I’ve been saying all along, definitely agree with this, obviously.
Bad news about the climate, again.
Having navigated traffic recently in both Berlin and Rome, I feel keenly that anarchic flexibility is both a benefit and a curse. A visitor to India has a similar conclusion: “Life in India is a series of bilateral negotiations.”
Secretly Ironic 