Books, rain and people
Jun. 15th, 2005 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bending_sickleThe weekend went alright: we went to Buffalo Saturday afternoon, finally bought stuff after hours and days of leaving thousands of stores empty-handed. Then we came back to this side of the border and hung out at the hotel’s pool. Me in the sun, parents in the shade. Pool was full of a family holding a reunion. There was a cute half-person sized chess set there. We walked around the lake that evening and the next day, stopping on our way home in a vineyard which was milking their youngest son’s death by leukemia as a way to sell yet more wine. For some, “honouring the memory”, for me, a cheap and disrespectful move on the dead.
Yesterday hung in park, took pictures of the gooselings which are growing up damn fast. Got caught in thunderstorm and got totally drenched, hiding in women's bathroom with two portugues women as lightning tried to strike every tree in the park.
I also started Leon Berger’s Globo Sapiens: A Fiction for a Business Class Lounge (ECW Press, 1999). The book cover begins describing this with:
”My name is Isaac Enriquez, but I can explain that.” So begins this debut by Leon Berger, and immediately we’re involved with the most “globalized” man on earth. He’s of mixed parentage, mixed religion, and mixed everything else. He’s lived on several continents, and now, to top it all off, he has a career that involves him in a frentic life of jet-lag and email.
and continues with:
But the major theme of Globo sapiens goes much deeper, to nothing less than the evolution of the human species and the globablized gate of mankind itself. As his British friend says: “By the third or fourth millenium, we’ll all be like you, Isaac, all the merry lot of us. Scary thought that, don’t you think?”
Here’s an excerpt:
But then, this raises a far more interesting question. In those odd, offbeat moments when I do in fact manage to dream, where do I go? Who or what do I relate to? Anything? Nothing? I’ve considered it carefully, but I don’t yet have an answer....I’ve got a base, for example, but no home; several languages but no identity; several cultures but no heritage. I know many people, but there’s no special relationship...or at least, not right now. [...]
And that’s the crux of the matter, whether I care to admit it or not. That’s the real reason I need to set this down now, to commit my thoughts to the digitized encryption of this flat-screen display. Most of the time, I simply feel adrift. I’m like a galactic traveler on my own planet, a ghostly mutant species cut loose from the main anthropological stem. I don’t seem to fit in anywhere, and I don’t know why. Sure, many people these days are conceived by interfaith or interracial unions, and many too are brought up in varied locations. Many others have international careers. The only difference with me is that I’ve been endowed with this entire range of intermingled circumstances and it makes me feel like I’m not a part of anything at all.
[...] He claims that while I make out how content I am with my self-imposed futurescape, what I really crave is the solidarity of hearth and home, kith and kin, friends and neighbors. Globalization, he insists, has removed these things from my life. It’s deprived me of one of the most basic necessities of existence, human contact, and that’s why I expend so much effort seeking it out.
Enough of this sounds so familiar that it could have been written by myself in my own diary. This goes a little way in explaining what life is like for us unwilling nomads and citizens of the world, as I like to think it. Though Globo sapiens has a nice ring to it.
The book provides an addenum with the various subspecies of G. sapiens:
The Rootless: 1: Globals – no fixed home, no fixed affiliations, just a spectrum of human connectins.
The Uprooted:
2: Caravans – take their home from place to place, but attempt to maintain certain affilitations (e.g. nationality, heritage, religion, etc.)
3: Migrants – living abroad for adventure, income, or duty; plan to eventually return home (often young, single)
4: Hyphens – home in one place, roots in another, usually with dual affilitations (e.g. Italian-Americans).
The Rooted:
5: Returnees – back from abroad, either through relocation or retirement (e.g.: executives, contract professionals, govt. service, etc.)
6: Voyagers – based at home but travek frequently, either domestic or internationally, for both business and pleasure.
Homesters – based at home,journeying infrequentlt (and usually domestically), either for vacation or to visit friends and relatives.
8: Locals – the most settled and stable, often lifelong residents of villages, neighborhoods, and other localized communities.
I’m a Caravan, edging into Global. Parents are a different story.
Yesterday went to bookstore where saw Sandman 1 (Preludes and Nocturnes). Didn’t buy, mainly because knew mother would consider it a total waste of money and I’d have nowhere to store it in 3 months, 1 year, 5 years, whatever. Might just research to see which is the best of all 11 volumes and get that one.
Also watched Mr and Mrs Smith. It’s very funny, although there are some bits where you cringe, whimper “but that’s a horrible thing to do to somebody”, but you can’t help laughing because it’s all so flippant.
Brother went on weekend trip with girlfriend. Thing is, he’s never told me there is such a person (although he told mom, hence that knowledge). I’d like to see how long it takes him (apart from the x-months it’s taken him to tell mom). Here’s an excerpt of our Friday phone conversation:
Me: So, are you going alone?
Brother: No.
Me: ...?...
Brother: ...
How this should have panned out:
Brother: No. I’m going with my girlfriend of [insert period of time] called [insert name]. Gee-willikers, how could I have forgotten to tell you?
His response to mom’s questioning as to why he won’t tell me? “Sigh.”
Seriously, wtf is wrong with this picture? I understand he’s stressed and also that there’s somethings he doesn’t want to tell me, but to shut me out that much? Forget about the phone conversations that go:
Me: Hi, how are you?
Brother: Vague disinterested response, followed by silence.
Me: Blabs on to fill the gaps.
Brother: Don’t have time to talk now / have a headache / too busy / not really interested.
Me: Gah.
Yesterday hung in park, took pictures of the gooselings which are growing up damn fast. Got caught in thunderstorm and got totally drenched, hiding in women's bathroom with two portugues women as lightning tried to strike every tree in the park.
I also started Leon Berger’s Globo Sapiens: A Fiction for a Business Class Lounge (ECW Press, 1999). The book cover begins describing this with:
”My name is Isaac Enriquez, but I can explain that.” So begins this debut by Leon Berger, and immediately we’re involved with the most “globalized” man on earth. He’s of mixed parentage, mixed religion, and mixed everything else. He’s lived on several continents, and now, to top it all off, he has a career that involves him in a frentic life of jet-lag and email.
and continues with:
But the major theme of Globo sapiens goes much deeper, to nothing less than the evolution of the human species and the globablized gate of mankind itself. As his British friend says: “By the third or fourth millenium, we’ll all be like you, Isaac, all the merry lot of us. Scary thought that, don’t you think?”
Here’s an excerpt:
But then, this raises a far more interesting question. In those odd, offbeat moments when I do in fact manage to dream, where do I go? Who or what do I relate to? Anything? Nothing? I’ve considered it carefully, but I don’t yet have an answer....I’ve got a base, for example, but no home; several languages but no identity; several cultures but no heritage. I know many people, but there’s no special relationship...or at least, not right now. [...]
And that’s the crux of the matter, whether I care to admit it or not. That’s the real reason I need to set this down now, to commit my thoughts to the digitized encryption of this flat-screen display. Most of the time, I simply feel adrift. I’m like a galactic traveler on my own planet, a ghostly mutant species cut loose from the main anthropological stem. I don’t seem to fit in anywhere, and I don’t know why. Sure, many people these days are conceived by interfaith or interracial unions, and many too are brought up in varied locations. Many others have international careers. The only difference with me is that I’ve been endowed with this entire range of intermingled circumstances and it makes me feel like I’m not a part of anything at all.
[...] He claims that while I make out how content I am with my self-imposed futurescape, what I really crave is the solidarity of hearth and home, kith and kin, friends and neighbors. Globalization, he insists, has removed these things from my life. It’s deprived me of one of the most basic necessities of existence, human contact, and that’s why I expend so much effort seeking it out.
Enough of this sounds so familiar that it could have been written by myself in my own diary. This goes a little way in explaining what life is like for us unwilling nomads and citizens of the world, as I like to think it. Though Globo sapiens has a nice ring to it.
The book provides an addenum with the various subspecies of G. sapiens:
The Rootless: 1: Globals – no fixed home, no fixed affiliations, just a spectrum of human connectins.
The Uprooted:
2: Caravans – take their home from place to place, but attempt to maintain certain affilitations (e.g. nationality, heritage, religion, etc.)
3: Migrants – living abroad for adventure, income, or duty; plan to eventually return home (often young, single)
4: Hyphens – home in one place, roots in another, usually with dual affilitations (e.g. Italian-Americans).
The Rooted:
5: Returnees – back from abroad, either through relocation or retirement (e.g.: executives, contract professionals, govt. service, etc.)
6: Voyagers – based at home but travek frequently, either domestic or internationally, for both business and pleasure.
Homesters – based at home,journeying infrequentlt (and usually domestically), either for vacation or to visit friends and relatives.
8: Locals – the most settled and stable, often lifelong residents of villages, neighborhoods, and other localized communities.
I’m a Caravan, edging into Global. Parents are a different story.
Yesterday went to bookstore where saw Sandman 1 (Preludes and Nocturnes). Didn’t buy, mainly because knew mother would consider it a total waste of money and I’d have nowhere to store it in 3 months, 1 year, 5 years, whatever. Might just research to see which is the best of all 11 volumes and get that one.
Also watched Mr and Mrs Smith. It’s very funny, although there are some bits where you cringe, whimper “but that’s a horrible thing to do to somebody”, but you can’t help laughing because it’s all so flippant.
Brother went on weekend trip with girlfriend. Thing is, he’s never told me there is such a person (although he told mom, hence that knowledge). I’d like to see how long it takes him (apart from the x-months it’s taken him to tell mom). Here’s an excerpt of our Friday phone conversation:
Me: So, are you going alone?
Brother: No.
Me: ...?...
Brother: ...
How this should have panned out:
Brother: No. I’m going with my girlfriend of [insert period of time] called [insert name]. Gee-willikers, how could I have forgotten to tell you?
His response to mom’s questioning as to why he won’t tell me? “Sigh.”
Seriously, wtf is wrong with this picture? I understand he’s stressed and also that there’s somethings he doesn’t want to tell me, but to shut me out that much? Forget about the phone conversations that go:
Me: Hi, how are you?
Brother: Vague disinterested response, followed by silence.
Me: Blabs on to fill the gaps.
Brother: Don’t have time to talk now / have a headache / too busy / not really interested.
Me: Gah.
jeepers
Date: 2005-06-15 06:25 pm (UTC)*hugs poor globalized friend*
and in case you haven't been listening in the last four years (lol), our respective brothers can kind of suck. i haven't spoken to mine directly in eleven months, i believe. he was asking me what degree i was getting and why i hadn't already graduated. :\
love,
kat