“can he be heard over the gunfire, the whizz of passing missiles, the crash of buildings, the cries of children, the crack of bones, the shriek of sirens? or is that his mighty voice? your angry god craving the sacrifice of a virgin generation’s son degeneration” (you crucifix your christ before she can speak the holy word)
a thought has been reoccuring in my mind for sometime now, and it’s an unsettling thought. is history an unstoppable force? is hegel and marx prophetic in their vision of dialectics and material dialectics, respectively? if so, if history is inevitable, what am i to do? what capacity should i fulfill? as a self-identified marxist, i believe that capitalism must be in full bloom so that the proletariat/oppressed revolt against the bourgeoisie to position society in a rightful and just state. this does not separate me from the liberatarian or free marketeer, who in essence, wishes to see capitalism flourish despite the blatant exploitation and suffering of the laborer. both, the marxist and capitalist, wish to see the government wither away. so here i stand. i am voltaire and i am rousseau. i am a cynic because history is inevitable yet optimistic because i am alive. i am a contradiction. so the question remains: who should i become while the universe unfolds?
i check the weather of cities i visited in the past on my travels and visits. cities are like childhood friends and one cannot help to wonder what they are up to. currently it’s 75 degrees in barcelona with sunny skies and 80 degrees on the warm beaches of huntington beach, california. it seems like the world is perfect at these moments.
“Man has transformed himself into a commodity, and experiences his life as capital to be invested profitably. If he succeeds in this, he is ‘successful’ and his life has meaning; if not, he is a ‘failure.’ His ‘value’ lies in his saleability, not in his human qualities of love and reason or in his artistic capacities. Hence, his sense of his own value depends on extraneous factors: his success, the judgment of others. Hence, he is dependent on these others, and his security lies in conformity, in never being more than two feet away from the herd.” – Erich Fromm
these summer afternoons in central texas get the best of me. i brewed myself a fresh cup of coffee made from my dad’s imported coffee blend. he bought it from the triumph cafe off of west anderson and the coffee is from Ban Me Thuat, Vietnam. The coffee, like the description states, is characterized by high acidity, excellent fragance, and a full body. i added some milk to neutralize the acidity and released the concotion into a slender crystal glass of ice.
i placed the coffee on a coaster on my mom’s prized stained darkwood table in our family’s formal living room. i am sitting on a upholstered couch with a perisan rug underneath my feet. there’s a piano across the room, reminding me of the times i would slave over its keys by in grade school. outside the arched windows are a bunch of construction workers attempting to replace my neighbor’s roof in a quiet and timely manner so they can return to their families as soon as possible.
on the table is an art book that features a collection of monet’s paintings that’s juxtaposed with commentary from vanessa potts and dr. claire o’mahony. (from what the google machine tells me, dr. claire o’mahony is a professor at the university of bristol in the united kingdom. how unfortunate that the university at which she works shares a name with a member of the palin clan.) i flipped through the pages, glimpsing at the paintings while skimming through the commentary. apparently mr. claude oscar monet participated in the french state-sponsored art exhibition, the salon. i then thought about what it would be like to attend such a prestigious and formal celebration of art, perhaps even le salon d’automne in belgium. i imagined a large room with servings of hor d’oeurves floating throughout the room while the bourgeoise flaunt their wealth and power around the room. then i would see the artists, the mad(wo)men of the universe attempting to segregate themselves from the world, more specifically the bourgeoise attempting to indulge in the artists’ unconventionality (pain) in an attempt to fulfill their evening’s entertainment requirements in a pseudo attempt to understand “art”.
and i thought to myself, am i just another member of the bourgeoise attempting to drain the unconventionals? or am i truly a madman trying to gravitate to similar people in order to relate? such questions cannot be answered while sitting alone in le salon.
barrio gotica
i remember the night where the sights and sounds were gritty and synthetic, but our love was organic. it was within that nightclub, with sound waves driving through our skin, where we held our cocktails up to the autumn lights. the world stood still except for the particles of our souls and flesh. it was within this nightclub, in the barrio gotico, that i knew that i fell in love with you. it was the night my tongue became forever lisp-laced searching for words that can possibly convey my love for you, the city of barcelona.
august 9th, or an hour and five minutes ago, was my brother’s birthday. he turned 16 which means he is now entitled to receive his driver’s license from the texas department of public safety. he’s kind of like me, he doesn’t like the attention that birthday celebrations garner. we were supposed to eat out to celebrate but he decided against it. my mom cooked seafood for all of us, which none of us younger folk wanted to touch. birthday celebrations in the luu family tend to very apathetic. well, happy birthday jesse.
last night, the evening of august 8th, i went to see 500 days of summer at the 10:05pm showing at the arbor theater. the movie went like this: white boy meets white girl and fall in love in the city. boy thinks girl is “the one”, girl is just casual about the relationship. somehow the greeting card designer (who is the boy) can afford a massive apartment in the city with gorgeous windows, everyone has nice designer clothes, everyone is somewhat humorous. no new lessons about love were presented, the film was like stale sourdough bread… not fresh but can still be enjoyed. i did enjoy some of the shots taken in the film; there was a sequence where the couple explored the city of los angeles and it reminded me of my personal explorations through that particular city. that sequence made my night.
i also saw some trailers that made me excited about the upcoming film season. i am excited about the story about a socially inept genius engaging in a loving relationship with a beautiful woman (adam), the story about a sixteen year old black girl disenfranchised by life’s unjust hardships (precious), and a frenchman with a fatal heart condition left exploring the relationships around him with his limited lifespan(paris). i have an intuitive feeling that my interest in cinema will be invigorated again.
Inside this clay jug
there are canyons and
pine mountains,
and the maker of canyons
and pine mountains!
All seven oceans are inside,
and hundreds of millions of stars.
The acid that tests gold is here,
and the one who judges jewels.
And the music
that comes from the strings
that no one touches,
and the source of all water.
If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth:
Friend, listen: the God whom I love is inside.
- Kabir, version by Robert Bly
the time is now 2:55am and it’s dark outside. usually i find myself up at this hour because i have thoughts overriding the brain’s beta waves. at this moment in time, i could be thinking of my fall semester schedule (see attached), the time i must wake up tomorrow to attend another yellow dog’s democrats meeting (not helping me sleep), president obama’s healthcare plan (and the teabaggers that provoke my feelings of disgust), possible conversations between the sociological devotees in san francisco in the upcoming days, how many north korean prisoners are in a hard labor camp at this moment, how melody gardot’s voice will shortly put me to sleep, and my student loans (distress).
2009 FALL SEMESTER SCHEDULE*
AFST 201 502 INTRO COURSE AFRICANA TR 3:55 pm – 5:10 pm Donkor
ENGL 320 570 TECH EDITING & WRITING TR 2:20 pm – 3:35 pm Palmer
KINE 199 190 REQUIRED PHYSICAL ACTI MW 11:30 am – 12:20 pm Dean
PHIL 111 200 CONTEMP MORAL ISSUES MWF3:00 pm – 3:50 pm George
SOCI 230 502 CLASSICAL SOCI THEORY TR 8:00 am – 9:15 am Burk
SOCI 412 200 POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY TR 9:35 am – 10:50 am Mackin
STAT 201 502 ELEM STAT INFERENCE MW 4:10 pm – 5:25 pm TBA
*subject to change 35234234 times before the start of the semester
Good Luck, and Good Night.
