My own personal bias vis-a-vis living history

On a completely different note, I want to talk about two ways of enacting history, and my bias about them. First, you got your history-killing Olde-Tymey-ness. This is when you try to reenact historical artforms just as they were, down to the clothes and styles, etc. I call this history-killing because it freezes things into a period and stifles them there. It makes the period itself the showcase, rather than the art that flowed through it. I get most annoyed with this in music, because it just so happens I am really into acoustic instruments, but this buts me up against so much Olde-Tymey-ness I could puke on your suspenders and washboards. Cuz see, my bias is towards the second way of enacting history, which is radically directed at the individual artwork and its enduring message in today's society. No need to beat around the bush here, I am talking mostly about silent film, and the way plenty of those movies are awesome and plenty of them suck, and how that distinction is being lost by their historical fetishization by Olde-Tymey-ists. Each film before and after sound is its own deal, and putting them all to shitty ass old ragtimey huzzah music just dilutes the good ones and makes the bad ones even worse. To reenact movie history, you have to take the movies seriously as though they were made today, and part of that is playing music that is relevant today. It's like the difference between baby-talking to kids or treating them as real honest-to-god people. I get pissed about this issue because to me it is a matter of respect, and my bias is that respect is important, and you disrespect history when you fetishize it and parade it the way Olde-Tymyists do.

So I guess I'm saying there are things within the arts that endure and things that don't, and making that classic argument about how styles change but substance stays the same. Wow, I never thought I'd be that guy, but I guess in my older age that is what I believe.

There is an element of tragedy to historical style-peddlers, because it takes incredible talent to recreate a style, but that talent seems wasted to me when it parades the dead for the living, instead of trying to create something that will have life long after the maker is dead.

Miscellany

• What are blogs even for anymore?
  
  
• The delicious curry I made yesterday, which I think is vegan even:
  
  • Have some yellow curry paste, a can of coconut milk, some garlic, a humungous yam, and some spinach and mustard greens in your back yard you better eat quick cuz they are going to seed.
    
  • As per the instructions on the container, stir fry a giant spoonful of the curry paste in some of the coconut milk for a while. Nice and hot.
    
  • I usually would put onions in there but all I had was garlic so I put a bunch of cut up garlic in there, like six cloves worth, just at the very end of the stir-frying part, so you don't burn it.
    
  • Then add the rest of the can of coconut milk, and about a can's worth of water, and the yam, which you cut up into lil' cubes
    
  • Let it come to a boil, then turn it to simmer, with a lid on there.
    
  • Oh, did I mention you should be also making a pot of rice? Be making a pot of rice.
    
  • Go to your backyard and grab a bunch of spinach and a bunch of mustard greens. Oh also some fresh basil if you got it.
    
  • Rinse off the greens and basil. Then just shove it all in the pot, even if you have to squish it in, they will shrink so much, it'll be fine.
    
  • Wait til the potatoes are tender. You want that to time out with the sauce getting to a nice thickness. If it is too thin, take the lid off and turn up the heat. If it's too thick, add a little more water and put the lid on tight.
    
  • I like to add something sweet, usually pineapples and pineapple juice, but if yes you have no pineapples then just use sugar, it's what I did and it was fine.
    
  • Pour that shit over rice, it's delicious.
    
  • Don't be alarmed when you piss and it smells weird.
  
  
  
• I recently heard about how it is too late for anything to save the planet except massive changes in personal behavior, which obviously will never ever happen because humans are designed for shit and even if 99 people somehow change how they live, that one person out of a hundred can still fuck it all up (some brilliant engineer who used to be into wind kites did some calculations or something, I forget). In other words, the situation may be hopeless. This depressed me for a few days, because I didn't know what the use was of trying to live in a more responsible way. Then I got the idea of the "Last Sip of Milk" theory. My mom used to get pissed when someone would just leave like one swig of milk and put the carton back in the fridge (yes, the cardboard carton, remember those, anyone?) I mean, the milk is doomed, it's gonna get killed by someone eventually, but you can at least do your part by taking a small enough amount that it is the next person who kills it. Not because it is morally good, just to not be an asshole. I don't know, I'm still working on this one, cuz it also occurs to me another way to not be an asshole about the milk is just to put it out of its misery so you at least don't get the next guy's hopes up...
  
  
• Like every two-bit asshole in the world, I have my two cents on the big oil spill. It is this: boycotting BP does no good-- every oil company does the same sort of shit, and you'll only make the other ones stronger, thus creating an even smaller group of multimillionaires, who will squabble less with each other, and form an even mightier and more focused pile of money to influence politics. The only real retaliation is to boycott oil at all, or at least use less, about which see the above item about how nobody will ever change their personal habits ever and we are all fucked, or at least our children are.
  
  
• Speaking of changing personal habits, I think the main people who need to change first are the poor people. It seems like poor people buy the stupidest shit, live the stupidest unhealthy lives, and care the least about the health of the planet. This is so ass backwards it infuriates me. As a poor person, I have found that living healthier, being a more responsible consumer, and caring about the planet more are all mutually beneficial to a low-income way of life. You walk or bike more, you buy less gas, you save the planet. You grow more food or at least cook your own food, you spend less money, you save the planet. You recycle, you get some money, you maybe walk or drive to the recycling place, you get healthier. You grow food, you don't drive to the grocery store, you save the planet. It all works together, health, ecology, and economy-- which gives you three reasons to do it. No moral posturing necessary, because saving money and being physically healthy are their own rewards. But instead you so often see poor people driving their fat asses in gas guzzlers through McDonalds drive-thrus. I have heard it argued that fast food is so cheap it makes poor people eat it. Bullshit. A one-dollar bag of raw beans and a two-dollar sack of rice can hook you up for a week for less than a Big Mac. That is fucked up, friends, and though I believe people on the whole are fucking idiots, I still hold us responsible for the idiotic choices we make on a daily basis, i.e., I can't comfortably lay the blame on advertising or education or cultural values or whatnot.
  
  
• It's not like I sit around worrying about this shit, I just wanted to actually write something in my blog, and this is for some reason where it went. Jeez, come on, I'm not one of those people. I mean, shit, I eat fast food like once a week and when I'm in a bad mood I will drive my van ten blocks to my girlfriend's place. I got no moral high ground to stand on, so the arguments I'm making are not morally based.
  
  
• I have another big idea I've been working on, I guess I'd call it something like "Halfway." It is a way to address the difficulty of changing personal habits. The idea is that you are always gonna fail if you try to do it all at once. So if you want to change your economic, ecological, and health habits, every little bit helps. Instead of not driving, you can park further away-- that way you use a little less oil, you pollute the environment a little less, and you get more exercise. You can take your bike in your car and park pretty damn far away, then bike the rest, which may also save you money if you have to pay to park. You can order a shitty pizza, but then put garden spinach on it. You can only ever buy shit that has coupons. You can only turn on your AC when you get home, or turn it off in the middle of the night. Every time you go shopping you can gather all your shit, then at the last second pick three items to sacrifice.
  
  
• God I sound like an asshole. Sorry.