The world isn't bleak, it's thrilling.

There was a conference at school tonight. It was a screening of excerpts of Rwandan genocide survivors called "Voices of Rwanda" and then a question and answer session with the executive producer.

I joked to a friend that this was one of the two topics about which the New School teaches. This and Walter Benjamin.

The testimonies were somber and quiet, usually. The video was only of the faces of three survivors with subtitles and an explanatory caption between the stark, grave images. It was graphic and sucked the air out of the room.
It was similar to the Fortunoff Archive at Yale, more so than the Shoah Foundation at USC, both archives of recorded Holocaust testimonies.

Fortunoff doesn't have clips online. It only gives out full interviews. Shoah has clips as if to simplify the experience of each survivor into a buzzword, but that isn't in Rwanda.

After studying genocide for a year now, I have made it so that I can picture atrocity and breathe at the same time. It's a feat. Withstanding the truth of the testimony is a juggling act of rationalizing and unfocusing, disassociating.

The footage ended and I asked a question about courts. He gave an answer. Other people asked questions and he answered. The shocked witnesses of witnesses stewed in their chairs. The inquisition was ending and a woman stood from the back.
"I just want to say Thank you, Taylor. Thank you for your work. As a survivor it was hard to watch, but thank you."

It's easy to pretend that the world is split up into different universes and traveling to the African world is as crazy as traveling to the Moon.
But she was in the room with me.

I couldn't pretend anymore and cried for the first time in a while.

I wanted to tell her that I was glad she was alive, but I thought that didn't make a difference.

I talked to her afterward, anyway. There was a reception with food and drink.. A woman in the elevator spoke truly: "There needs to be lubrication after something like that."

I may have a career in this.

There's a character

in Slaughterhouse Five, and probably some other crap written by a one-off Hack like Vonnegut or Salinger,
that writes fiction.
He writes unsuccessful, bitter science fiction, but at least he's writing.
I want to be him.

That's a dream for the weak, or the broken idealists.

"Here's another one," he said aloud, his hands raised, lifting his tie out of his cup of coffee.

"Here's another what, Dan?" his wife asked, smoking a cigarette at the breakfast table.

"A guy I knew in high school died. He was third string Debate team or something. He had a mustache his sophomore year. Another guy in the Metro, he was arrested. Meth, probably. He looked haggard on the news yesterday." He folded the paper in half and looked at his wife, looked her square in the eye. "It's hell to have all of your friends in prison or dead."

She pushed her cigarette in the tray and smeared the glass. "Well, that's why I don't have friends, Dan."

"It's only a matter of time," he said, unfolding his paper and dipping his tie in coffee.

Well now we're respected in society

(We don't worry about the things we used to be)

I read to the end of my Macroeconomics textbook expecting heaven to open
and BOY was I surprised to find that the main author (Colander, 7th edition) had thrown his hands in the air and said he didn't know.
"Global development is a complicated issue..."
I appreciate your honesty, I really do, but we had a deal, Colander.
You were going to give me the information I needed and I would blindly memorize said information.
You have cheated me. You printed a book, nine hundred pages of graphs and models that don't accurately illustrate reality.
You are an honest man, but you are a deal breaker.

I wanted to study economics because it is an undiscerning art.
It isn't one of those "pseudo-sciences" like politics or chemistry.
Economics was grounded in reality.
And you have spat on my dug grave.

On a different note entirely,

I have been highly amused to find that it's true. I can be the mayor of one town and the mare of the next.

We don't worry about the things we used to be.

Back home, I'm a ruthless, benevolent braggart that craves attention and can't make up his mind.

And that's me.

At this school, The New School, I'm an off-beat Northwest cynical, displeased smirker that revels in his intelligence as much as his indie music tastes.

Somewhere else, I'm probably a despot, a heathen, a priest or a vagrant.
And those are me, too.
It's more than presentation, it's stepping into a role.
And they were right when they said you could be anything you want to be,
But they forgot to mention that

You're also a whole lot that you don't want.

Something that won't be witty in a couple days

I made a trip to an advising office with some modest entrance that could have hidden some dank speakeasy or a some jumping point lookout,
but instead hid tired, cramped academics.

My academic adviser is an unapologetic cynic. She worked for World Bank instead of the Peace Corps after getting either her Master's or her Doctorate, or maybe something else. She has degrees like vices, many. I took one of her classes last term and didn't know anything about most things and by the end of the class, I had it all figured out.
At least how to tell my temporal history from my opinions.

She made it clear that my undergraduate degree didn't matter.
"As long as you have a high academic rank, just do what you want, Joel."
Okay.
I need high marks to get into grad school.
I needed high marks to get into college (I couldn't do it on looks alone).

"75% of jobs don't ask to see your transcript."

Good news.
Good news to share!

She's publishing an academic book about cybernetics and memory while writing a second one.
I told her I was writing a book of fiction and she said,
"Great, hopefully someone will read it," sardonically.

I laughed and grew nervous as the day went on.
"I hope, too," I laughed.

I don't want to be forgotten while I'm alive,
mostly by myself.

You're wrong, you're all wrong.

I have been very tempted to make this blog a political jumping point as I'm accepting that for a while I won't be dreaming of one-off roles and comedy writing.
And that's okay. I still want to do that, but I want to be smart, and the only way to be smart is to have a degree that says so.

So I get my degree.
But I love writing, so I'll write about other things. I'll Muse. I'll throw copper in a fountain and hope someone retrieves it, makes something cool out of it. Pennies aren't worth anything.

Insults are odd. They depend so much upon the person. For instance, jokes about mothers are cruel to orphans. Jokes about Blondes offend the Polish, and vice versa.
One of my roommates I make fun of in my head.
(I know I shouldn't, but I'm documenting truth here; roll with it)

I call him a big, smelly oaf.
That's not particularly insulting. That's childish. I've insulted him calling him a child, too. That's not so bad, unless you're acting like a child, unless regularly you throw temper tantrums and don't clean up after your feasts, you oaf.
See? That's not right. I shouldn't do that.

And Smelly? That's hardly insulting
...
Unless you smell.
Unless partners will not make you their husband because of your POWERFUL scent.
I have another roommate (I have a lot of roommates. I'm not making this up.)
The other smells like a hockey match.

I don't even know how you do that.


I started my book, too. I'm writing a book. I plan to write a bunch of books, but so far, I have only started writing one. It's okay. I've written about a page.
It's about sanity and homelessness.
Not like I know anything about homelessness. Not like I care.
It's not like I'm going to research this.
It's only characters. Lifeless characters.

In truth, it'll be some sort of parable, some launching pad for humanization.
I won't say too much.
(There'll be a surprise twist!)
There probably won't.

After an Easter egg hunt on Sunday, I shopped with my coworker Matt for his wife. Not for his wife. Gifts for his wife. He's an Australian actor and [not because of that] I have wanted to hang out with him. He's sort of what I aspire to be. He has a blog. He's real.

We talked tax codjavascript:void(0)e wandering through Times Square and I'm sure now the country/continent of Australia is a better version of America.
If it was a LITTLE greener, I'd move there right now.
Then it would be San Francisco. 100%.

I recommend hanging out with Australians. And actors.
It's just fun not knowing if they're lying or not.
They can be in character in any moment.