One winter morning in the mid-'90s, I went with a few dozen of my fellow college students on a bus to Quebec City. We would protest against any increase in tuition, and for the opportunity I had been careful to bring a copy of Little Red Book of Mao Zedong (Chinese leader compared, according to legend, in a work session in the local university to another great Chinese leader in parallel fate surprisingly, Mao Zedong, m'enfin's another story).
I was a bit annoyed: I would have to brandish said Little Red Book by hiding some of the coverage, the end where the label was affixed to the library. You see how capitalism corrupts: I was ashamed of not owning my own copy.
Anyway, I did not have to hide the Dewey Grand helmsman in the eyes of a baton in the pay of Capitalism as we never come to Quebec. Somewhere on the 20, a storm came up and, well, you know, insurance, the discomfort of being stranded in a snowbank, the price of a tow truck strong enough to extricate a luxury coach, was worth better not take chances. Shit on the revolution, we returned home tranquilos.
* * *
is a combination of circumstances that allowed the spirit of the '60s to attack me from all sides for a week or two. Seen I'm Not There , a really extraordinary film (and accessible even if your education Dylanesque boils, like mine, to be awakened every Sunday morning from your teen by father who fucks Blonde on Blonde in the carpet on the family stereo). Stumbled upon the album Rejoicing in the Hands of Devandra Banhart (who succeeded the first recording of odor in mp3 format, in this case the smell of patchouli). Seen Common , a documentary about a, er, social experiment (naked naked naked, no stockings) in northern California which I retain a profound life lessons (eg living surrounded by goats is damn coolest live surrounded by doctoral students in history). And I'd be lying if I stated do not be jealous.
Jealous lucky that my parents' generation had to feel on the edge of a historic change enough to resolve any fundamental social problems, a revolution which would benefit particularly as they are implicated. Otherwise the chance to become heroes, at least people finally liberated from, well, just about everything he could to denigrate the society in which they grew up, authority, the burden of having to work , the old rules of sexual behavior and music by Tino Rossi (the latter two elements are also more directly related as we think - the horror, the unspeakable horror). Jealous of those who could go on Psychotropic the bamboula for a year or two and come back as if nothing had happened, courtesy of a departmental program of any kind, in time to take the elevator to the top of the pay scale .
But hey, if you really insist for a small dose of bad faith, I can always add that jealous, I should perhaps not be. The days around us have a little more savvy than the NIR. Gone are the nice straight line that separated the good from the bad guys, one side leading to a brighter future, the other side towards the reactionary whose existence alone explained why those tomorrows had not yet arrived.
Today, we of course entitled to a dirty pile of problems, but especially (and this is the perverse charm of our time) with no easy solution. The U.S. military is trying to dissuade the president to go to war. The ADQ has reinvented the right-wing nationalism in Quebec. The capitalist machine that swallows everyone in its path is a country that claims of communist teachings of Mao Zedong and Mao Zedong (but still allows the diffusion of Little Red pdf for gratos). It is a time ie, that requires thinking and allows us to express original opinions without being accused of being a damned reactionary-who-plays-of-Tino Rossi.
And let's be honest, it's also a time that allows her to spend the afternoon on the Nintendo when the storm prevented the bus to go to the event.
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