31 march, 1996

31 march, 1996

howard visited
long walks on this budding campus
unwinding over technology doubts;
is this the disease located genesis by lewis mumford in the agrarian age?
whereby specialization, we begun alienated labor
and this, computers are nothing more than increased specialization and heirarchy
leading to earth depleteing envy and consumption?
and what are howard and I doing by encouraging online life?
if people are going to eat online,
it's best to give them something nutritious to chew on
for the first time in many years
howard recently felt the "considered life" bug
retreat to a teepee and write by candle light
but his wife wouldn't go for it
we lingered on the lawn
with ben and becky and yoni and drew and will and dom and carew
howard spoke most of the time
not arrogant, like kesey, Ben said
I wasn't sure that he was going to enjoy holding forth for my friends
some olders don't take to youth equal conversation
but he warmed readily to a rabbi role
ben and dom and I drove him into town
tomorrow he testifies for the aclu against the cda
we three went to thai/viet namese dinner
talked masculine
it turns out that jessica flirted hard with both ben and I last night
and we felt restraint obliged to her boyfriend
gives her nice room to move, no?
rare boy talk
stories and glories
maybe it was the chicken,
I was left lusty
weeks starved, tonight I crave touch
uh
grough
pant pant
where is that little girl I played with?

I prowled paces
put out the mojo
ran through mental lists
julia sez I am acting carnivorous
I've been a vegetarian for months
I call last night's flirtation
I feel fine having fun,
but I like your boyfriend too much
to feel I'm disrespecting between you two
she came over to discuss specifics
listened to my dad, my chandra
put me on a pedestal
we honoured her relationship
she left.

when I was young,
I used to manipulate companies
specifically Gateway 2000
I had one of their computers
hey, my hard drives broke, can you send me a new one?
two motherboards, 8 megabytes of ram,
400 megs of hard drives, three keyboards later,

they sent me notices;

ugly men with big briefcases will come to your house in thirty days and you will be in trouble if you don't pay $1200 yesterday.

but nothing ever happened

tonight, a friend has manipulated another corp
stolen scanners
colour printers
he doesn't even know what they cost
he'll give 'em to you for a few hundred.

I don't want any piece of that.

balthazar calls
after one last dorm wide electronic suicide note,
they've taken him to psychological services
he's shamed, ready to leave
it's not about victory, loser's shame
it's about respecting other people
learning to suffer quieter
reach out for appropriate help
not asking freshmen from the farmlands
to know what to do with a suicidal french marxist
seems to me there's a way you could stay
where else you gonna go?
if you need an advocate with the administration
I will gladly serve
but be aware of my agenda
swarthmore and balthazar still have an enormous amount to learn from each other.
(suddenly, I saw the beauty and assumption of the law
advocacy.)

next | march '96 | prev

daze | justin's links

justin's links | www.links.net

justin hall | <justin at bud dot com>