"Hey Jenny told me to tell you something."

"What then?" I said tartly as I was bent over the hose pipe, trying to wind it back up.

"YOur one of the family, now."

"Ok, nice."

"Yeah" he said as he shoved some ice down my bum crack.

I turned and ran after him with what I hadn't wound up of the hose pipe. he scooted out of sight back into the cafe. Zac is his name and his mum Geo and Letty her partner own the cafe I am now working for literally a stones throw from where I live. Zac is an Italian New Yorkers boy, aged sixteen trying to pull off 18 with the older ladies, which are me and Jenny at the moment. "You see we have fun, don't we!?" he said enthusiastically. Jenny, the girl who I thought would bite my head off, unzipped his flies cheekily and said. "Yeah" I can't help but crumple up inside when things have to be discussed and dissected in this way, like the very American response to something which isn't that funny but should be "Thats so funny uha." The uha is a poor attempt at a laugh that never really happens. 'If its funny stop saying so and just laugh' I want to throw back in their face with a resounding clanger in the conversation. I'm feeling a lot of disconnect in communications right now. I want to be here but I don't click with any of the people here, frame of mind. This smack in the face from the boys has shaken me up a bit and a lot of good came from today aside from the outburst from Tyler "Look at that bit of salad you left on the table and the stuff you left all over the side table..i'm sorry but I just had to move it in to the corner, I don't want to parent you." "Look I'm sorry I'm no minimalist and clutter does seem to accumulate where ever I go but I have tried! I mean what are surfaces for if not for putting things on, they are certainly not for looking at, I mean people don't put them on their walls do they. Well, i wouldn't be surprised considering the kind of concrete slabs that pass for modern art these days. Infact what a great idea for an art installation. It could be a reflection of the modern day obsession with cleaning things off surfaces to the point that we have forgotten what they are for in the first place." So I was pissed off about particulars but had to learn that is the way of the world and people are exasperating at times, me in particular, so just deal with it. I did the very mature thing and said sorry, hugged him, told myself I had to get tidier, that they were right to give me kick up the arse and sorry again. 

New project is to collect convo's that are a-typical of the world we live in, values, stereotypes, real cliche movie moments to show these things don't just exist in the media but are played out in reality through us to the point where soon the people who come up with all these genius new ways of marketing things or in any act of creation won't be able to come up with anything original at all. Now originality lies in the awkward cliche-phobic story lines that can only be unparalleled the more fucked up and twisted they get. So we have ended up with a bunch of inscrutable offshoots from the popular absurdist genre that is O so desperate to prove themselves to have something different to say. And modern day society will only turn them into another one of its cliches sooner or later, as the rate of recycling and usury is only escalating. There is still alot of new to be explored in the cross-cultural context. Thats where the real stuff is at. Predictability, repetition and regurgation will reign even amongst the new intellectuals as the world around which we look for inspiration will resemble just that, so even the most rebellious response in art will not escape the refined confines of the uniform code form stage of universality unfolding. 

EXAMINED LIFE..."The unexamined life is not worth living." ( Apology 38a) Socrates

Søren Kierkegaard/Neitsche

I am in good spirits even though I cannot shake of the pretensious tone of this writing voice that conjures to mind I have lapsed into using which makes me feel as if I lived through the Victorian times and attended church everyday. I have been in a mighty sophical mood to day. I always get a burst of "Ha- up yours!" and a load more action in my day when people upset me - no ones ever happy unless they have something to complain about. It keeps us off our ass in complacence. So amongst many of my own musings today which reviled in a new understanding while on the toilet before the film I am about to describe to you, is that there is no way I can figure out what I want to do unless I have nothing. The problem, the catch, the paradox and the irony as life lets live is that when I figure out where I want to channel all this zest for everything that surrounds me I'm going to need all this money I've saved to start out on whatever it is that I want to pursue. Does it sound like melodrama?-yesiam! Two clinches in my way that money can afford me are Distractions and Links and when I'm Down and Out like George Orwell In 1949 I won't be able to afford to sit in a cafe and eat croissants whilst staring out the window wondering why some answer won't come to me or surf on the web and find another film/exhibit/music show to go to which I feel I have to go to or I'll miss out on some other revelation I must have. When will I learn they are not mine but someone else's to be admired? And that I need to have my own, then see all this amazing work of others to bounce off their ideas with mine.I need to spend more time in my head, in a quiet room, a library, yes thats it and just pull it out of me, bit by bit. (Image of me pulling out a bit of string from my right nostril and it is very slow and feels very painful, sometimes I sneeze and loads spills out of me other times a Knot that has occurred in the once perfectly rolled up ball of string in my head blocks up the process and I have to tug at it edging it out) A TESTIMONY TO THE TIMES when we can all be potential geniuses if we put our minds to it. We can all self-educate on the web now but can we be disciplined. This is much harder for our generation with the constant distractions and habitual instant gratification of social media which makes our concentration lack any prolonged depth and development. This is what Lu Hang from Texas thought when he decided he had to be the best at something in the world so took up tree climbing. 

APPIAH - cosmopolitanism, we accept difference but on our own terms, we are

JUDITH BUTLER- create a society where we are voluntarily willing to assist each other

MICHAEL HARDT - revolution of the consciousness

PETER SINGER - cost of shoes v's life of child

meaning in life is fulfilled by making the world better through our actions for the world we share and others.

CORNEL WEST - versus Beckett's fail better next time but rather desire v's death, v's dogma, democracy v's domination

We are never going to get the whole picture, only t's not TRUTH and time is a gift, failure non-existent - essential part of progress ,creative drive out of darkness, beautiful torment

ZIZEK - stop investing so much meaning in the nature of things

there is no reason why some suffer and some do not everything that happens is one big random catastrophe. the present ecological dilemma is part of the very nature of human evolution which denies what indications of brewing disaster exists beyond sight and to this self-denial we can only submit to the inevitable and embrace poetry in code and spirituality - beauty in the debris and junk we create and leave to waste..we must embrace this side of our life the ugly, the bad and accept it as part of us, like one would of a true love!

'Chin-up'

I was worried that I might have to come in today and work a bit harder, do something more demanding than sit and upload content, as Keith the editor and then Alex asked me to come in especially to help with some event. Events, functions, schmoozy do's and if you won't you will after a few glasses sort of thing and I imagined they were about to put me in charge of organising the whole bloody thing. Well, thank god they did not, but on the other hand, I put on a skirt for the first time today believing to be put in charge of something a little more important than cleaning out vases!! So there I have been sat by the coffee machine with my windolene cleaning vases to go on the tables tomorrow, 85 of the blooming things., and where's my invite!-What treachery! I sat their fuming next to a stack of paper towel fumes, trying to look on the bright side of it. Atleast I have nothing better to do for once than think about stuff, like where the hell am i going to live in a week in a half, how Brent should have definitely had more entertaining skits on interns in the office and how the lessons we learn in life are not ones that are necessary to our moral growth in virtues but merely lessons about how the world and everyone in it is capable of being a little shisters sometimes, and we all deal with it not because we know better but because we have to, as where else is there to go.

I also thought about why, when a close friend told me lastnight, while I was complaining about this and that, "Well Sophs you are very emotional..." That it really bugged me. Everyone is emotional, its just some people talk about it and some people don't right? I fear some people care more and some people don't. Again this comes back to nature nurture... is it a fixed capacity born within us depending on genes or do we have share a common potential which is either realised or supressed through nurture..

Last night I went to a Poety Slam with Lotte...thats all I can say about that right now other than - people who can write poetry that good, so young, have been through some heavy shit. It's all about a fitful passionate response to an experience, which has to be extreme to invoke the passions of the audience ... until you are 50 plus and you have had time to let life marinade and have all the self-righteous wisdom to write your own personal response to the shocking experience of the single act of life. Then there's the technique and the allusions, the intricate weaving of words that provides more insight than relatable understanding..all these things demand part gift, part practise but none can lead anywhere with out the intense passion... passion leads to practise (a gift is like a head start, a lucky break) but like anything determination, diligence and DEVOTION is the key.

I picked up a copy of George Orwell's first book he ever wrote called 'Down and Out in Paris and London', fancying myself as a modern day version of him setting out down the more dimly lit city side streets, exploring the rough underbelly of a huge grating urban society, experiencing first hand poverty as an aspiring artist. But I am not even close, as the words of his first couple of chapters reverberated in my head making stark judgements only I could make and take from my own pot of doubts and weeds. He lived in a shitty rundown hostel in the suburbs of Paris with all the freaks he writes about and I live with good friends in a nice apartment on the right side of the building, so that the sun shines in through out the whole day. I eat all organic foods, even organic icecream, where as from what I gather he lived off a diet of fags, wine and bread. Staple foods for the local parisian at the turn of the 20th century. I ponder on the role of the victim and its benefits, as Orwell writes about the new plain of perspective he reaches in the much longed for pits of poverty. It is reassuring to read that he had often longed to experience genuine poverty, to be the victim and understand the world from the other way up. I often feel like this, almost desperate to know what it is like not to have anything to fall back on, to know absolute self-reliance. He claims the major novely of his being down and out is that he has less worries as he simply has less in his pocket to worry about losing. I understand this as far as the more time I have on my hands the more worry I have about being on schedule, when it rarely occurs. I have realised I am more likely to be late when I get up earlier than when I get up and instantly rush frantic and panicked, only then am I out the door. Maybe I should take Will Smiths advice and "Always be ready, so you don't have to get ready." Should I go to bed fully dressed!

I was just about to sit down and enjoy writing this new post when AJ landed me with a gutting blow to the stomach, demanding rent money off me, 400 smacker, and warning me I would need to find somewhere else pronto since Phil, also a mate of mine, has decided to rock up and there won't be enough room for the both of us. This is fine and all, as I've been feeling a little itchy on the feet, still living out of a suitcase, sleeping in their living room and I definitely wouldn't be sticking around to share the couch with Phil, but what about mates rates! 400 dollar is a lot of money and they made it out like I wouldn't have to pay any but I guess I politely suggested I would. This is an example of the calamitous effect when the warped logic of English propriety meets the Californian masked ways of saying yeah yeah yeah chill out yeah NO. Basically we both say what we don't mean, yet I am English and therefore find the English version of how things SHOULD proceed far more acceptable, than the exasperatingly phoney American vibe. In fact I am glad for this turn of events, perhaps all too hastily out of hurt pride, but seriously I was losing my sense of humour, choked in my inability to communicate along their standards of conversation. They are my mates of course but not the kind I can be rude to their face and still have a laugh with afterwards. But quickly back to the rent issue; so its not that I can't pay it and perhaps thats why they thought they could get away asking for it, believing me still to be hooked on to my parents drip feed. However I honestly offered to pay some money but at the same time genuinely felt they wouldn't ask for it, as you might assume of good friends, having told me their friends hadn't charged them rent when they first came to New York so they would only do the same for me. Do they genuinely think its fair to charge me that much or are they taking advantage of the fact I have a bit of money saved up. I can't get my head round it since I know if I was them I wouldn't have charged my mates anything at least for the first month and if I was really hard up I would have given them some warning like within the first week that they might have to contribute in some way. This is another classic example of a clash in communication between cultures which I am beginning to have lived and re-lived too many times. I said something to be polite, which I despise, these well-intended but meaningless iconic verses of high custom, that are ingrained far too and then the Californians take it literally "Oh so she said she would pay some money, so what is the most we can charge her then?" The stink behind this whole episode  is a choking, nauseating waft of personal gain valued over friendship. To paint the picture more clearly, as I see it, Aj would save his ass and run with the money, leaving me with the gun in my hand and a handcuff round my wrist. I'm sure many would agree its fair for them to charge me something and I believe so, but they could have told me they would start charging me the day I arrived and perhaps avoided telling me their respective friends hadn't charged them at all. Now I feel like shit, shit stepped in and mushed in to the pavement. What goes around comes around is all I can say to that!

The sad thing is that I feel this is a lesson I have to learn and bear the bruises of, in a world where money dictates the minds of most, from which I cannot even claim exemption, seeing as I just spent about 20 minutes writing about it. I knew this, being forever warned, but now I feel it like a chill in my bones and it scares me out here.