NoStuff

World in Crisis, and you really don’t know?

I’ve been talking with a lot of new people lately, and have started to venture away from the usual NYC conversation fare which, since I work in the Arts, usually has something to do with the new production of whatever’s at the Met, the fact that no one is buying touring attractions, and the fact that all my coworkers are, well, overworked. ARE WE ALL BLIND!??

I just assume that everyone, underneath the veneer of vapidity, is also thinking about the coming peak oil crisis, the pending extinction of cod, and how to invest in wind turbine manufacturers. Dream on, child. Apparently these concerns aren’t as widespread as I wish.

By way of further explanation, here’s a note I wrote to a fellow musician the other day (and tellingly - didn’t hit send…)

Dear X,

I remember when I used to feel obligated to go to things. I think that ended about the same time I stopped performing and/or pretending to like things I don’t. I’m not saying that I always want to exist so far away from my art, but learning to say “no” was definitely a needed and long-time-coming lifestyle switch. That said, I’m actually dying to know *more* about why you do what you do (ie take part in the madness of contemporary art & music a la that film “*(untitled)” - and no I haven’t seen it in its entirety) - and if you really do espouse the strange form of hedonism I observe in all head-in-the-sand artistes these days. I mean, you seem more intelligent than that!

Also, have you read the book “Hot, Flat and Crowded”?
You can see blogstuff (and I don’t promise profundity) at htp://findinggood.tumblr.com.

Yeah. So there you have it. Sffice to say, although this person and his girlfriend are lovely people, they remind me of me before I WOKE UP and realized that our responsibility is not to the arts, or to an ephemeral sense of “hope,” but to taking concrete steps to save our planet from ourselves.