embedded report

[sanpaku_backup]

"Flibbertigibbet" is one of my favorite words in the English. It comes to mind when a teacher waylays me at 8 in the morning to ask a million questions and generally talk to me before I have my coffee.

Sorry, extra grumpy this morning. It's Day Three in the Magic Kingdom. I have been posted to DisneyWorld by my employers for a conference. Five days of Magic. You can imagine the effects on my system. I feel so bad for people who have to work here. You watch a waitress at the end of her shift approach the table making the effort to put on a smile, because it's their policy to be insanely friendly to you. (This must be how French people generally look at Americans -- smiling idiots.) The hawk-like way that a dish put down at a reception is whisked away when you turn away for a half-second.

I could go on, but People have arrived in my unused conference room with the nice unused T1 line.

Anyway, I have a free afternoon here. What's a non-post-ironic fellow to do here?

Comments

[laurens10.livejournal.com]

Ooo! I went there for a conference once!

We had a waiter I'm sure was once in acting and hoping to be there once again. He came across as crazed. But friendly. He reinacted the swift movements of my tuna before the fisherpeople caught it. It was... interesting.

Disney

[peaches57.livejournal.com]

Disney. the devil-you-know. I love Disney World. LOVE it. My only excuse - people like CRACK too. It's like when you were a kid, you know, watch how people interact with Joanna. Smiles from everyone all the time. Being a grown-up is all about frowns and harshness and cold. For the hypersensitive like me? Disney World is the drug that makes you feel the cozy comfort you never really had. But you come down - QUICKLY. The fascism seeps in like the tracks on your arm, stealing the sweetness and killing your spirit. Heroin is against the law - but Disney is for kids.... Um, ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Hey heard about Thomas Frank's new book - What's the matter with Kansas? I saw him on Charlie Rose explaining how the right has hijacked the working class by creating class warfare using populism as a counterpoint to cultural, intellectual elitism. ANd the left has let them by letting the economic populism fall by the wayside in an effort to secure the soccer mom vote... Interesting stuff...

Went to the Siren Music Fest in Coney Island on Saturday. (LOVE Coney Island...excuse me, I have to tie off my arm now....) Saw The Thermals, Death Cab for Cutie and TV on the Radio. TV on the Radio was EXCEPTIONAL. Death Cab was awesome as well - but I bet their better on record than they were live...

Hey, you don't have to post this through the journal (direct e-mail is fine) but I was wondering if you remember what we talked about during that "revealing conversation" we had that time you were in town vis-a-vis the past? I remember feeling so much better about things after that, and now I can't remember why. Now I just feel really alone and discouraged and invisible and unlovable and stuff. What did you say that made me feel so much better? I need to remember that kind of thing....

Hope you are well and back from Disney-hell. The de-programmers will be along shortly and it will only hurt a little... :-)

fascism can be fun

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Well, I didn't really have much to do with the park. Just thinking of those poor "cast members" (as referred to by signs on all the doors) required to smile like idiots all the time or be fired. I do consider it a pretty fascistic place, sorry to say. Then again, fascism can be fun.

Every gol durn person I know, including my parents, has been asking me about Thomas Frank. Considering that the response of flw and I to the Baffler when it appeared was they had reached into our brains and stolen the best idea we would ever have, I can be remarkably magnanimous about it. Then again, having read the Baffler for a number of years, I have no real curiosity about the new book. He has refined but not really changed his shtick in the past 10 years. He's not unlike Michael Moore in being very good at printing up song sheets for the choir. But I know all the words by heart, know what I'm sayin'?

So... now, you're saying you forgot the substance of a conversation we had only two months ago? Hmm. I do think the content is probably best handled "off list," as they say.