May 2006 Archives

The fertility of my imagination is only moderated by the whine of a borderline insanity, threatening constantly to encroach on my reason and make a ridiculous figure out of my staid self.

To dispute on the purposes of Judas Escariot, all the while tracking an unquantifiable human propensity to lose accuracy over time, makes a two-thousand year old manuscript impossible to view with anything approaching certainty...and the concept of the bizarre intrudes, with its attendant propensity to obtrude:

Cetainly venturing into the connexions between Chinese industrialism and French communism is asking for much...what manufactures will remain in Europe if economics prevail as they are currently interpreted?

I do so enjoy the hystereia of chemically enhanced thought, but when shared with the otiose personalities that inhabit American suburbs so happily, the grind tends increase the whine of something approaching the edge of its rated capacity.

What luxury to have the ability to simply let go, to glory in the fraught antisociality that is the obvious end result of civility anyway.

It must be stated that I enjoy the privilege of cynicism from a peculiarly advantaged position. I admit to a certain proclivity for complaint. As I have stated in various rhetorical ways throughout this missive of a blog, I am a person of observational compulsion, and of unfiltered reaction.

I am currently bemoaning the human behaviour of finding particular measures of social appropriateness to be the measure of entree, yet the society of the socialised is denied to those who may find some antisocial element in that society's measures. This is a clumsy way of making an essence out of the observations of people who drive expensive cars...these are 'smarter' people, who pay seventy thousand dollars for a vehicle that accomplishes much the same as a thirty thousand dollar vehicle, and contributes to the same malaise as a vehicle at any price. And then there exists a certain snobbery based on ownership of vehicles--the presumption beginning in the perception that vehicles are the correct and proper mode of propulsion for humans, and that the attendant social ills are a result not of the mode of transport, but some failing on the part of planners to shape the world to suit the modality. And I laugh when I see 3.50 at the pump, for regular. I laugh when you are stuck in traffic, for i eschew the car culture, but you run me down in the sidewalk, you blare your horns and play loud music at my home, your exhaust fouls my air, and the society created around your mobility infringes on my mobility, but do you care? Do you feel responsible...

I am at fault for not participating in this silliness, and further, I refuse to attend to the snobbery of purchasing power.

My first actual visit to San Jose, or "San Ho" as it is affectionately known by the locals, was occasioned by the sudden realization that I had a relative in relative proximity. It was nice, as I boarded the KilTrain this past Sunday, to look out and see the endless suburbia whipping by at not less than 45 miles per hour. There's something soothing about moving quickly through human settlements that one would never for one instant want to be 'stuck' in. It occured to me (though without any pleasurable sensation) that the train actually travels 77 miles from San Francisco to Gilroy, and as far as I know, there is no break in the urban built-up areas--that is 77 miles of continuous 'city.' A frightening concept indeed, but one which is appropos to the arrival of a traveler in San Jose, since there's no indication that one has reached the center of anything, other than the end of the train's progress.

The layout of the city is distinctly Los Angeleno. Low slung housing sit side by side and share lots with ugly office blocks. Every corner is plastered with shopping strips sporting some of the most implausible abuses of SBA funding in the nation, from Vietnamese video rental shops, to Russian sausage distributors--mind you this is totally charming, except that there are horrific distance between each, perforated by parking lots, highways, onramps, and suchlike. There is a tram system, and it must have cost a fortune to put in--the trackage is utterly modern, with switches, points, signals and infrastructural gluttony to the max, plus the stations are almost opulent, with sensored platform strips, announcements, clocks, and information kiosks. The trams seem to travel in some pretty good directions, despite only being two lines, but as I waited on the platform, it became evident that they were running in thirty-minute increments...thirty minutes between trains!