superworse:

In high school, one of my good friends shared almost none of my tastes. It wasn’t an interpersonal drama, or an obstacle; we just didn’t talk much about it. We talked about our lives, like friends do. There was only one circumstance where it became a problem: I never learned to drive. So if we had to go somewhere, we had to take her car. 

There were sometimes things on that car stereo that we both liked. Tori Amos, yes; Bjork, yes. Shirley Manson was neutral territory. Outside of that, though, I was doomed to progress ever further on my journey to knowing every single one of the words to Britney Spears’ “Lucky,” and to explore the deep cuts of Spice Girl solo albums once that was over. She had a distinct preference on the matter of the Backstreet Boys v. N’Sync; she had a favorite N’Sync member. (Not the one you’re thinking.) There was nothing wrong with any of this. It was just disconcerting to slam from “Crucify” into “Barbie Girl” on the mixtape. We were two countries connected by a river; the water belonged to both of us, but if you got out on the wrong shore, no-one spoke your language. 

I was the one who’d bought her the Amos CD, so I’d sometimes try to get new things into the rotation. Nothing huge or harsh or loud, but something that could fit into the general girly-and-glamorous mold while adding a little roughness around the edges. To Bring You My Love was an album for which I nurtured fond hopes. 

One and a half tracks into To Bring You My Love: “Can we, like… stop this? Sorry. Can we stop it? Forever?” 

“Why? It’s not that different from Garbage." 

“Shirley Manson is cute, though! This woman sounds… I mean, no offense. But she sounds like a man.”

Oh, she’s so lucky, she’s a star, but she cries, cries, cries…

I liked this woman. I cared about her. So I didn’t give her shit, because she didn’t deserve to be shit on, and because it wasn’t my car. It’s basic road etiquette: She who paid for the vehicle picks the tunes. The ride would be over soon enough, and she was doing me a favor.

But I won’t lie: My entire experience of the 2010s has felt, very frequently, like being stuck in that car for five straight years. On my worst days, I start to think I can never get out of the car; that the ride never ends. Or it’s the feeling that everyone is stuck in someone else’s car, at this point in history. That no-one gets to drive; that no-one is driving. And that I’m the only sucker who took this long to figure it out. 

* 

Publication – is the Auction

Of the Mind of Man –

Poverty – be justifying

For so foul a thing

*

I worry that the world is getting worse as it gets easier. That we are entering a culture of the quick hit, the gut feeling, the easy response. And that important things, like truth or autonomy or self-definition, are being lost. It’s not a terribly original thought. Then again, one of the problems with this state of affairs is that it’s neither easy nor terribly important to do original thinking. 

It’s a technology problem, in some ways; every part of culture can be translated into data, in ways that are more immediate and accurate than ever before. We don’t have to ask what’s “good” or “important” in any of the squishy, subjective, quasi-mystical ways people used to define and argue those terms; we know, factually and with good, hard math to back it up, what people want. We know the meaning of words like “friction” (the difficulty people find in adopting or understanding something) and “fluency” (the ease with which something can be understood and adopted, often because it is similar to what the consumer already knows). We begin to make the smart decision, the safe decision: The one that doesn’t cause friction. That just slides right in.

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