Who Stole the Tarts?
Late at night, hot as hell. Our air conditioned bedroom is our fortress, our rock, in that we believe. The rest of the world is kind of a haze in this heat. Reading Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory, and it’s disarming me. And giving life this extra tinge of…sadness? Concern, as he mentions in one of his essays? I’m not sure why-maybe it’s because we’re too far gone/embedded in the culture industry Adorno delineated, that we can’t find our way back (I know, my analytic skills aren’t sophisticated at all, and I can’t profess to be anything but somewhat naive on these matters). In the suburb outside the one I live in, the local papers have their “Best of” for the community businesses (OK, it’s Woodbury, if you want to know). Best bakery? Panera. And this just made me feel like a ghost, driving around to these different locations. And I don’t put myself above this at all-I have a car that I use to drive around to a lot of places, to do errands I don’t really need to do, to buy crap that I don’t need. But seeing that “Best Bakery” thing shocked me out of my complacency. In the “Community Newspaper”, people were exercising their democracy in naming their favorite bakery! But there are no choices, really. Developers don’t develop choices. So, right, back to Adorno-we’re so far down the rabbit hole that there’s no way we’re going to be able to get back up. We’re going to have the slog through wonderland, and go on trial in a kangaroo court.
The white rabbit, who set this mess in motion, will be in attendance.
All of this is to say that I still have a lot-a lot-of work to do. I want to keep pushing connections forward between my work and my life. Because, pushing aesthetic boundaries is one thing, but I’m beginning to see (the last couple of years) that it’s only with the former that I’m really going to get anywhere, where I need to be. I know, all of this is vague, but I wanted to throw it out there on a sweltering 1am, Sunday morning.
Hey, Alan, I really liked this. It sounds like the start of one of the conversations I have with my wife. I don’t really think I totally understand all of what you are trying to say, but I like the start, anyway.
I guess I might be reading myself into it. It seems like something I have been thinking about for a while, the notion of living authentically. Is this going in the right direction or further away?
I’m feeling philosophical again for some reason and I wondered if there’s more you had to say. I even got some Nietzchie, but it’s hard to even get through the intro.
Fred