\n"}In high school, one of my good friends shared almost none of my tastes. It wasn\u2019t an interpersonal drama, or an obstacle; we just didn\u2019t 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.\u00a0
\nThere 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\u2019 \u201cLucky,\u201d 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\u2019Sync; she had a favorite N\u2019Sync member. (Not the one you\u2019re thinking.) There was nothing wrong with any of this. It was just disconcerting to slam from \u201cCrucify\u201d into \u201cBarbie Girl\u201d 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.\u00a0
\nI was the one who\u2019d bought her the Amos CD, so I\u2019d 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.\u00a0
\nOne and a half tracks into To Bring You My Love: \u201cCan we, like\u2026 stop this? Sorry. Can we stop it? Forever?\u201d\u00a0
\n“Why? It\u2019s not that different from Garbage."\u00a0
\n\u201cShirley Manson is cute, though! This woman sounds\u2026 I mean, no offense. But she sounds like a man.\u201d
\nOh, she\u2019s so lucky, she\u2019s a star, but she cries, cries, cries\u2026
\nI liked this woman. I cared about her. So I didn\u2019t give her shit, because she didn\u2019t deserve to be shit on, and because it wasn\u2019t my car. It\u2019s 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.
\nBut I won\u2019t 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.\u00a0Or it\u2019s the feeling that everyone is stuck in someone else\u2019s car, at this point in history. That no-one gets to drive; that no-one is driving. And that I\u2019m the only sucker who took this long to figure it out.\u00a0
\n*\u00a0
\nPublication \u2013 is the Auction
\nOf the Mind of Man \u2013
\nPoverty \u2013 be justifying
\nFor so foul a thing
\n\n*
\nI 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\u2019s not a terribly original thought. Then again, one of the problems with this state of affairs is that it\u2019s neither easy nor terribly important to do original thinking.\u00a0
\nIt\u2019s 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\u2019t have to ask what\u2019s \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cimportant\u201d 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 \u201cfriction\u201d (the difficulty people find in adopting or understanding something) and \u201cfluency\u201d (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\u2019t cause friction. That just slides right in.
\n\n