A new millenium, a new century, and what a hell of a decade to come. That is if Y2K didn’t really cause us all to hide underground in bomb shelters for the rest of our lives. Luckily, like the search for “weapons of mass destruction”, Y2K was a scam. I don’t think I even personally knew of anybody who believed in that crap. In fact, the “emo” side of me hoped it really would happen, so we could all die and go to hell. MURDERDEATHKILL! Nah, I could never be that sorry for myself although by principle of this trend, many other kids at school were aspiring to be vampires. All I saw when I looked at those “emo” kids was a bad hair-do blinding the shadow of a crack addict. Emaciated, adorned in black, and always shaking their eyes free from hair dead from dye. I guess they did eventually have a reason to pity themselves when Bush won the presidency. ..
Maybe we “misunderestimated” him, but he really tore down “the terriers and bariffs” in this country when it comes to the requirements of his position. I laughed as much as I was appalled watching his speeches on television. It was difficult to maintain a friendship with anyone who defended Bush. I remember writing in my blog about his joke of a presidency. I really thought this country was really collapsing quickly…
I heard about the attack on the World Trade Center in New York at 5:00 in the morning when I woke up to my mother crying. “Why my city? Why my city?!” She’d told me all about her time working on the 77th floor of the second tower decades earlier and now she was completely devastated. School was different that day. Of course, we had our moment of silence but it didn’t clarify anything to me. Why had our own country’s planes been flown into the side of our own buildings? I sat there in history class that day looking down at my dirty Vans, and wondered if they would get me out of the building fast enough if I had been there. The catastrophic scene was played over and over on the news on every station. But after the shock had settled which never really did, things slightly went back to normal, except before I hadn’t ever seen so many American flags in my life til then. I felt strangely united with the whole country…
And with the rest of the nation, I went back to watching The Simpsons on Thursday. then Sunday nights, attempting to “ollie” on my Zero brand skateboard, and doing “Around the World” with the yo-yo.
I began running nights at the high school track, running like Bin Laden. Gas prices were on the rise and so was the attempt to “go green”, so taking rides aimlessly was “out”, not “in”. What else was on the rise was my feelings of hatred toward technology. Girls in their polka dot and vintage tees, flipping their hair madly, and “texting” maniacally to their friend in the room over. The ringing of the cell phones breaking my chi, and headphones on every pair of ears in sight. Apparently face to face conversation had gone down the tubes along with etiquette...
Anthrax and SAR's weren't very mannered either, coming in envelopes to expose people with poison. More sweet attacks on the Americans, and I'm just thinking is there anything that could ever harm our country as a whole enough to where we'll go overboard like the terrorists. Oh wait, Bush wants to begin the "War on Terror", the biggest oxymoron I've ever heard.
Fast forward a couple self-asorbed, suicidal years ahead, and in fact, I am still alive and married at the early age of 20. Married for one month, and he already has to go to Godforsaken Iraq of all places. We'll never be lucky enough for John to be deployed to Germany, although the way I was raised, Germans weren't much better than terrorists. This decade ends and no new feeling is personally bestowed. Should I do it, my old emo friends? Let's finish it with life ain't ever going to be what you want it to be and a decade is bullshit.
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3 comments:
Can you compare this to your memory box piece? Which wrote easier, which do you prefer, which do you think is more accessible, which do you think I'll like better, which breaks new ground for AS, which is more emotional, which is better written, which is more controlled, which is most characteristic of the AS style, is there anything you particularly liked in either, is there anything you particularly hated but left in anyway?
Yeah, answer me some of those, and then I'll give you my reaction to this one.
Yes, I can compare the two pieces. The memory box was much easier to write, and yea, I preferred to write more about belongings with meanings as opposed to history with meaning. I believe the memory box piece is better written, because I actually believed in what I was writing about and memories prevail more easily when it comes to something tangible. History, I did not wear or play with. This assignment drained my mind and I was left to write this shitty piece, so I apologize. I hated the whole thing but left it anyways to get at least a partial grade on it. There you go, John Goldfine. Now, tell me your reaction, please.
I don't do partial grades; check the syllabus. Once I accept it, and I accept this, it gets full credit. All I do for grades is count the number of accepted assignments. So, relax on that count.
Even without that title, I would have suspected you weren't happy here, but, really, most of the distress is integrated into the material. That is, your annoyance at the assignment is discharged in or masked by your annoyance at Bush, texters, emo kids, etc.
When I first read this, I had just read the memory box piece which really knocked my sox off. This by contrast seemed off-putting, angry, distressed, inaccessible, and I wanted to toss it back to you so that we could collaborate on a critique we both agreed on.
But, funny thing, as I reread it this morning, I like it much more. You do your patented AS trick of linking your voice, emotion, memory, mind to the bigger things; you include yourself using a technique that is probably not particulary conscious on your part--but that's okay--and and one that gives the writing a very AS tone.
So, this is a darker piece than the memory box. It's obviously a pissed-off piece (pissed-off, let's say, equally split between Bush and Goldfine!), bristling with aggravation, but it's also a piece with eclat.
Take a professional attitude to your writing. It's unimportant whether it writes hard or easy. It's unimportant whether you were annoyed or happy. The only important thing in the end is the thing on the page and its power or lack of power. This is a lot of things, but 'shitty' is not one of them.
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