Contrary to how I sometimes feel, my job consists of numerous tasks and duties for which I could compose a relatively lengthy list. I perform several specialized functions and when I’m not occupied by one of those I still manage to keep busy by scanning or making ultimately worthless charts in Microsoft Excel. Occasionally I even find myself busy as “postprandial chocolate errand boy,” or “google-this-topic man”.
It’s come to my attention in India that there are many jobs whose entire function, the summation of the criteria of the entire job, can be summed up as one, often quite simple, task. For instance when I walk into the local electronics shop: there’s a door opener, a man who follows my eyes and tries to grab everything off the shelf as I glance at it, a man who enters my purchase into the computer, a man who takes my money, a man who gives me my change, a man who places my purchase in a bag, and, then, the door opener again.
A common job consisting of a single task is the “stamper.” The stamper stamps. He’ll stamp your food order, he’ll stamp your airplane ticket, he’ll stamp your letter, I guess he would even stamp your hand if you asked. I like to imagine the stamper going home after work and soaking his hand, or continuing to pound things compulsively; I imagine both the fatigued and the chronic must exist.
What’s interesting though is when these unitaskers fail in their unitask. You would think if not out of pride for a job well done they would at least want to complete the task out of a desire to avoid criticism, considering it comes so easily: “x only had to do one simple thing, how could x mess that up!” x only had to add up my bill of two items, x only had to not lose my package, x only had to bring us the same number of menus as people, x only had to…
One quick example: at the Taj Mahal there was a man who took people's shoes as they approached the mausoleum and in return gave them a paper indicating the cubby number in which the shoes could be found. Then, upon departure, he took your paper and returned your shoes. I guess this could be argued as two tasks, but let’s leave it for the sake of example. Upon my return I gave him my paper, reading something like 58, and he ensued to search seemingly aimlessly for my cubby. Even though this man was only in charge of cubbies 50-59, and even though I could see the cubby and my shoes just 10 feet in front of me, there he was searching up and down and all around.
Eventually he happened upon my shoes and the task was complete. I tipped him; not for the service but for the experience.
26.2.08
22.2.08
Why?
is what I'm listening to right now. It reminds me of those jejune days, those salad days, those delicious fruit salad days, when I aspired to be a freestyle rapper who played his own drums, made his own sic [sic] beats. I would wear a blue hoodie and khakis and blow the world kisses of sly, biting, wry poetic prose. That was of course before I heard my own voice or listened to myself try and hit things in tempo.
I will compose below some sort of ode to this lost feeling, this dreamlike whimper from which I once, and again, so richly woolgathered. If you'd like to hear something legitimately good, go hear!, because Why? not.
I crank out style like I’m the flowing Nile looking downstream with one eye on the Egyptian rank’n’file. I crank out crap like I’m in the Guinness, or it’s the morning after car bombs and minions. I crank up up and away like anyone who’s got too much to know what’s wrong but really wants to sing-song along anyway.
I come home late at night but it’s only six o’clock. I catch the bus uptown but I wouldn’t mind if it stopped. I crank out theories like they were never meant to apply. I only apply myself to theories floating up so high in the sky.
I’m making history like I need a pass to go to the bathroom. I’m dipping metaphors like double-dare goo all over the wrong answer. I lack coherence like I forgot the sticky substance when I posted my placard.
I crank out style like I’m flowing down the Ganges and I’m about to climb the holy stairs. I crank out of style.
Alternates:
- They call me Keith Olberman because I once dated a nineteen-year-old, now I’m stampeding out of buses somewhere in the old world.
- I try to make out the delta but nothing’s coming together.
- I make music with my fingers, like a typewriter that’s got syphilis.
- I see rank all around me but I’m still so damn hungry.
I will compose below some sort of ode to this lost feeling, this dreamlike whimper from which I once, and again, so richly woolgathered. If you'd like to hear something legitimately good, go hear!, because Why? not.
I crank out style like I’m the flowing Nile looking downstream with one eye on the Egyptian rank’n’file. I crank out crap like I’m in the Guinness, or it’s the morning after car bombs and minions. I crank up up and away like anyone who’s got too much to know what’s wrong but really wants to sing-song along anyway.
I come home late at night but it’s only six o’clock. I catch the bus uptown but I wouldn’t mind if it stopped. I crank out theories like they were never meant to apply. I only apply myself to theories floating up so high in the sky.
I’m making history like I need a pass to go to the bathroom. I’m dipping metaphors like double-dare goo all over the wrong answer. I lack coherence like I forgot the sticky substance when I posted my placard.
I crank out style like I’m flowing down the Ganges and I’m about to climb the holy stairs. I crank out of style.
Alternates:
- They call me Keith Olberman because I once dated a nineteen-year-old, now I’m stampeding out of buses somewhere in the old world.
- I try to make out the delta but nothing’s coming together.
- I make music with my fingers, like a typewriter that’s got syphilis.
- I see rank all around me but I’m still so damn hungry.
19.2.08
LESSON IN LOCAL CULTURE (X+1)
I know I pontificate a lot about buses and trains and transportation in general on this self-indulgent blog all about me, but no ones forcing you to read it, right? And maybe you're not, maybe I'm just talking to myself. In which case, shut up already.
But I feel obligated to record for the record (that could be a good band name...) my cultural "educations" of this past weekend regarding intercity government buses. In India, or Tamil Nadu at least, if you are a male and you are sitting on a bus for longer than say, 15 minutes, then it is OK, I repeat, perfectly OK, to doze off on your neighbors shoulder. In fact if there are several of you in a row you can all lean on each other until the white guy next to the window is bearing the entire weight of your collapsed, drooling, sneezing/snoring bodies, no matter that it makes him even more uncomfortable than he was in the first place in dealing with the distance between the seats being several inches less than the length of his femurs.
Also, if the white guy decides to elbow you in the side, giving you the Indian equivalent of a subtle hint that maybe this isn't his idea of an ideal bus ride up the coast, just simply rock the other way for a few seconds and then return to your prior position. There's really not much he can do. And, if for some reason, you find sleep difficult in the long run, which is unlikely considering you can probably sleep through the next World War, it's OK to just linger somewhere between sleep and waking life as you rhythmically shift your weight around and perform a unique ritual of coughing, sneezing, grumbling and wiping your nose, often in the direction of your white neighbor.
And make sure to push and shove as your stop approaches. Otherwise people might get confused as to what you're doing, and why.
But I feel obligated to record for the record (that could be a good band name...) my cultural "educations" of this past weekend regarding intercity government buses. In India, or Tamil Nadu at least, if you are a male and you are sitting on a bus for longer than say, 15 minutes, then it is OK, I repeat, perfectly OK, to doze off on your neighbors shoulder. In fact if there are several of you in a row you can all lean on each other until the white guy next to the window is bearing the entire weight of your collapsed, drooling, sneezing/snoring bodies, no matter that it makes him even more uncomfortable than he was in the first place in dealing with the distance between the seats being several inches less than the length of his femurs.
Also, if the white guy decides to elbow you in the side, giving you the Indian equivalent of a subtle hint that maybe this isn't his idea of an ideal bus ride up the coast, just simply rock the other way for a few seconds and then return to your prior position. There's really not much he can do. And, if for some reason, you find sleep difficult in the long run, which is unlikely considering you can probably sleep through the next World War, it's OK to just linger somewhere between sleep and waking life as you rhythmically shift your weight around and perform a unique ritual of coughing, sneezing, grumbling and wiping your nose, often in the direction of your white neighbor.
And make sure to push and shove as your stop approaches. Otherwise people might get confused as to what you're doing, and why.
14.2.08
Where is my mind?
Six years ago today my good friend Eli Farmer died in a tragic sledding accident. As each year passes I try to mark the date with something meaningful (besides Valentine's Day...). I thought this year paying tribute to a Pixies song we covered in our high school band seemed appropriate, considering how often I've found myself in search of my mind lately.
Where is my mind? for download
for streaming from youtube
Optional reader participation: comment on something you feel passionate about, maybe something you could imagine doing regularly and happily for the rest of your life.
Where is my mind? for download
for streaming from youtube
Optional reader participation: comment on something you feel passionate about, maybe something you could imagine doing regularly and happily for the rest of your life.
13.2.08
Below taken from government project management assessment of building construction methods fall 2007, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India-
Objective: transport bricks from ground to level 1 of building under construction.
Success rate: nearly 50%.
Problem areas: man in charge of catching bricks thrown from ground (man B) often fails in primary task of catching brick (see "crucial moment"). However, if brick is caught, success rate is nearly 100%.
Solution: buy twice as many bricks as necessary, or maybe plastic bricks.
Objective: transport bricks from ground to level 1 of building under construction.
Success rate: nearly 50%.
Problem areas: man in charge of catching bricks thrown from ground (man B) often fails in primary task of catching brick (see "crucial moment"). However, if brick is caught, success rate is nearly 100%.
Solution: buy twice as many bricks as necessary, or maybe plastic bricks.
11.2.08
38th annual South Asian World Carom Championships
Carom is a game, I decided as I walked imprecisely back to the train station, one eye scanning the shop fronts for those ketchup-flavored chips so popular in India, that I would describe as a mix between billiards, air hockey, that game that all the cool kids had in 3rd grade called “Crossfire”, and maybe Tiddlywinks, and Pogs too. Tiddlywinks, what a fucked up word.
It’s not often I find myself in such a descriptive disposition, but having just stumbled upon day 2 of the 38th annual South Asian World Carom Championships—a 7 day affair—I needed to crystallize my semiotic grasp over this odd phenomenon.
Carom: two guys sit across from each other looking like they’d rather have a pizza between them than a board covered in chalky powder and checker pieces, and in protest, and possibly hope, they begin to hit the checker pieces back and forth with mild vigor. Once the mild vigor has translated its energy into all the pieces reaching pockets (still no pizza) the scorekeeper makes a mark on his piece of paper, sweeps some of the chalky residue onto the floor, and it all begins again.
At the championships each team had a (slightly) different colored polo shirt with their home turf (eg. Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Nagaland, Gujarat) printed on the back. Another example of how things such as individual style and other obsessions with choice often get tossed to the birds when confronted with 1 billion mostly third-world people.
Someday I hope to learn the actual rules of Carom so I can adjust them accordingly and invent the best drinking game ever. Maybe something like “every time you hit a piece into a pocket you have to chug a pitcher of beer.” Zach, if you’re reading, please begin conducting preliminary tests at UCSB. You will be duly compensated with beer.
It’s not often I find myself in such a descriptive disposition, but having just stumbled upon day 2 of the 38th annual South Asian World Carom Championships—a 7 day affair—I needed to crystallize my semiotic grasp over this odd phenomenon.
Carom: two guys sit across from each other looking like they’d rather have a pizza between them than a board covered in chalky powder and checker pieces, and in protest, and possibly hope, they begin to hit the checker pieces back and forth with mild vigor. Once the mild vigor has translated its energy into all the pieces reaching pockets (still no pizza) the scorekeeper makes a mark on his piece of paper, sweeps some of the chalky residue onto the floor, and it all begins again.
At the championships each team had a (slightly) different colored polo shirt with their home turf (eg. Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Nagaland, Gujarat) printed on the back. Another example of how things such as individual style and other obsessions with choice often get tossed to the birds when confronted with 1 billion mostly third-world people.
Someday I hope to learn the actual rules of Carom so I can adjust them accordingly and invent the best drinking game ever. Maybe something like “every time you hit a piece into a pocket you have to chug a pitcher of beer.” Zach, if you’re reading, please begin conducting preliminary tests at UCSB. You will be duly compensated with beer.
The ants are after my pasta juice
The ants are after my pasta juice. They are crawling out of the cracks near the sink, red, tiny, and antsy. I tried to clean up so well, with such attention to eatables, but no there’s always something and there’s always bugs. You always miss something and now I’m reflecting on that and writing this down and it’s all because the ants are after my pasta juice. The juice that fell through the colander as I transported the pasta from the sink back to the pot, milky and creamy and and…
And all of the sudden I want something to flow from me and hit something else fast and hard. I want India to believe in me but not that much, and vice versa. So I reflect on that and other confusing things and it feels really boring to reflect right now. Instead I want to release a current of swear words. I want to say the word ‘bored’ over and over again in bad accents. I once dated a girl who insisted that boredom was all in ones head and I never argued with her but eventually I got bored of her, or maybe she dumped me. I rode the train again today, back and forth. It’s better to face backwards otherwise the oncoming pollution hits you right in the face, and you can’t hit back.
I’m two thirds of the way through the Godfather trilogy and seven weeks away from leaving India. I’m waking up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to go to an Indian wedding. They film everything and you sit in plastic chairs watching it on a screen because the guys with the video cameras are in the way. Just like everything else, it’s crazy.
Sacred cows. Cows make people feel useful, they make them appear determined and efficient, relatively, compared to cows at least. But they are also calming and their presence peaceful, serene, if you can handle the swarming flies. Africa, Asia, America, we all love our cows; some love their meat, some their dairy, some the cows themselves, some people just like to love things. But when you’re in the middle of a trash-strewn, people-crammed, dirty, dank, manky feeling place and your mind is beginning to mix hot and cold and spin like a tornado, and then a few cows mosey past, gnawing on junk and casually swishing their tails, then maybe you can feel something like I’d like to express, something transcendental.
The Godfather says, “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” I think my adage for the day will be, “there’s always something, and there’s always bugs.”
And all of the sudden I want something to flow from me and hit something else fast and hard. I want India to believe in me but not that much, and vice versa. So I reflect on that and other confusing things and it feels really boring to reflect right now. Instead I want to release a current of swear words. I want to say the word ‘bored’ over and over again in bad accents. I once dated a girl who insisted that boredom was all in ones head and I never argued with her but eventually I got bored of her, or maybe she dumped me. I rode the train again today, back and forth. It’s better to face backwards otherwise the oncoming pollution hits you right in the face, and you can’t hit back.
I’m two thirds of the way through the Godfather trilogy and seven weeks away from leaving India. I’m waking up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to go to an Indian wedding. They film everything and you sit in plastic chairs watching it on a screen because the guys with the video cameras are in the way. Just like everything else, it’s crazy.
Sacred cows. Cows make people feel useful, they make them appear determined and efficient, relatively, compared to cows at least. But they are also calming and their presence peaceful, serene, if you can handle the swarming flies. Africa, Asia, America, we all love our cows; some love their meat, some their dairy, some the cows themselves, some people just like to love things. But when you’re in the middle of a trash-strewn, people-crammed, dirty, dank, manky feeling place and your mind is beginning to mix hot and cold and spin like a tornado, and then a few cows mosey past, gnawing on junk and casually swishing their tails, then maybe you can feel something like I’d like to express, something transcendental.
The Godfather says, “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” I think my adage for the day will be, “there’s always something, and there’s always bugs.”
6.2.08
keyless
My computer is in the shop. The problem: overprotection. The culprit: a hard case I purchased on eBay before coming to India. This case, a slightly transparent brown, snaps one piece onto the top and one onto the bottom of the computer. Oh yeah, and the small print failed to mention this; it also warps the actual computer causing rows of pixels to turn red and green. Eventually I realized this, and now use the case as a sort of dust bin/ash tray, for which it is much better designed.
Moral: overprotection can backfire, even in India. I can't say for sure, but I doubt this applies to sexual mores as well.
I'm amazed at the difficulty I have in writing anything physically "down". Without a keyboard to pound on I can't seem to string together more than a few scattered notes. I imagine this is partially attributable to the dismal state of my handwriting, which I prefer not to remind myself of, but it's also something more, something greater than me or my handwriting, something to do with changing times and lifestyles and the future of the human race. But anyways, back to myself. I find writing slow and lugubrious, unable to keep up with my thoughts. To write an entire blog entry by hand, let alone a novel, seems at this point incomprehensible (especially the blog entry, when you think about it).
Sad how readily we shed the past sometimes, I think as I type, maybe I should just leave my computer in the shop...forever. Maybe a quill pen and a bottle of ink would grant me a level of profundity unattainable in this day and age. Maybe I should join the gang of neighborhood monkeys, itching and scratching. Maybe staring at screens isn't really all it's cracked up to be. I know for certain that staring at cracked screens isn't.
Moral: overprotection can backfire, even in India. I can't say for sure, but I doubt this applies to sexual mores as well.
I'm amazed at the difficulty I have in writing anything physically "down". Without a keyboard to pound on I can't seem to string together more than a few scattered notes. I imagine this is partially attributable to the dismal state of my handwriting, which I prefer not to remind myself of, but it's also something more, something greater than me or my handwriting, something to do with changing times and lifestyles and the future of the human race. But anyways, back to myself. I find writing slow and lugubrious, unable to keep up with my thoughts. To write an entire blog entry by hand, let alone a novel, seems at this point incomprehensible (especially the blog entry, when you think about it).
Sad how readily we shed the past sometimes, I think as I type, maybe I should just leave my computer in the shop...forever. Maybe a quill pen and a bottle of ink would grant me a level of profundity unattainable in this day and age. Maybe I should join the gang of neighborhood monkeys, itching and scratching. Maybe staring at screens isn't really all it's cracked up to be. I know for certain that staring at cracked screens isn't.
4.2.08
Lately
Lately Ari has been busy, exhausted and uncreative. Yes, this is very uncharacteristic of Ari. Yes, he will bounce back like one of those small balls bouncing on top of one of those large balls. He will blast into space. He will wow.
In the meantime here's two videos. Don't be misguided- these by far represent one of the cleanest places I've seen in India. It was a Mughal capitol. I paid a $12 entrance fee to help support the upkeep. Indian citizens pay about $0.25. I think a relevant cultural comparison could be construed from this. But I'm not quite sure what. Like I said I'm feeling uncreative.
One plaque explained that an emperor had built 800 apartments to house his 800 concubines. A nearby British lady gasped in disbelief and her husband suggested this Mughal emperor was a better man than he, unless he was on some sort of Viagra, in which case he wanted some of that! I slipped away when they started talking about the logistics of such an undertaking.
In the meantime here's two videos. Don't be misguided- these by far represent one of the cleanest places I've seen in India. It was a Mughal capitol. I paid a $12 entrance fee to help support the upkeep. Indian citizens pay about $0.25. I think a relevant cultural comparison could be construed from this. But I'm not quite sure what. Like I said I'm feeling uncreative.
One plaque explained that an emperor had built 800 apartments to house his 800 concubines. A nearby British lady gasped in disbelief and her husband suggested this Mughal emperor was a better man than he, unless he was on some sort of Viagra, in which case he wanted some of that! I slipped away when they started talking about the logistics of such an undertaking.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
