Citizens of tomorrow, be forewarned . . .

Today we tend to scoff at the bookburners, the backward (most likely southern) illiterates of old who banned Twain, burned Beatles anthologies and supped Southern Comfort like it was their sister's tit.

These pyros spawned Bradbury's now famous novel, Fahrenheit 451; a major influence toward our realization that censorship is a a grievous mistreatment of human intelligence (except when the moron in class is verbally silenced by the instructor, that is justified censorship).

After I finished re-reading the book I thought to myself, "Man, that society would suck to live in. I mean, their print media is virtually non-existent, they engage in war and mobilize troops all the time, all people care about is television or sports and their entire life is spent being considered a consumer, someone to market to daily and nightly."

The first step to life is to pull the plug.



-Mozart

To fish or phish?

A person can subsist in two ways. One, hand themselves over to society — mores, economics, politics, sports; all are important components of social lifestyle. Even academia is an indulgence, it adds to and peels apart the societal onion. Or, you can reject society and subvert it, the punk's lifestyle. Anarchical, a punk lives on the fringe and thrives off of societal loopholes, dumpster dives and makes do with meager funds. Considering the music connotations of punk, recall the stick and bindle lifestyle that destroyed McCandless and immortalized Poppa Neutrino, it provides a more accessible picture. This is our lifelong dilemma, animalist v. humanist and usually the decision resolves posthumously.

Post-college, the decision to embrace or spurn society manifests. For some, the answer is simple, immediate work or additional schooling has placed them right into society; square pegs accepting their complementing hole. The circular pegs take more time to decide. Do they let society file away at them, cutting chords after chord until the automaton remains? Or do they reject the board altogether, and ward off the chisel of society?

Fellow Derelicts, this is a question that will tug at our conscience: do we embrace our society? The Isociety, the sleek, chic, trendy and cynical? The do-everything society that achieves nothing? Or, can you reject it and live in what many refer to as poverty, while some nonchalantly label it "life." Money has a mysterious pull, the green light we all gesture wildly toward in the distance, that we dance this wild rumpus for.

It's a decision we all have to make, and it begins right now as the glamor fades and removes the film from our eyes. Becoming an individual means joining a community.

Is society so bad?



-Mozart

Read the Kindness of Strangers

Travel writers are saturating our libraries and attempting to pass off as wizened Marco Polos, well-read on the tragedies and splendors of our depreciating globe. I want to be one of them.

What fascinates me about travel is its transmorphic nature. It began as a necessity, when nomads followed their food sources: the delicious Wooly Mammoths. Then it became something of luxury and adventure. Exploration cost money, and due to Feudalism, money was available only to the highest echelon. Poor travelers could explore, but only through trappings of slavery and servitude, a sorry trade-off. Come steam-liners, trains and "the floating develry," airplanes, travel was possible, but still mainly possible for the affluent. Those poor who did travel didn't refer to it as "travel," more "heading West to pick oranges because the damn dust has destroyed my crops." It wasn't a luxury, but a necessity.

Now, travel has come full circle. The poor are able to travel to the same places as the rich, to traipse without any thought otherwise. Those poor have comprised the large portion of our travel writers.

Travel writers are nomadic variations, in search of perfection and the puzzle that completes their piece; they traverse our globe, shaggy as Wooly Mammoths, looking for their elixir. They regale us with tales of happiness, plight and perplexation. Overall, to be a travel writer is transcendent, nouveau transcendentalism. These lucky bastards are able to dispel their American arrogance and shapeshift themselves into any country not barred due to martial law, and under certain guises, even those countries are open to them.

There is a poignant scene in Good Will Hunting (I will fight anyone to the death who denies that this scene is the last great movie scene Hollywood produced, let alone greatest movie), where Robin Williams and Matt Damon sit on a bench near Bunker Hill campus overlooking the Swan Boats and Williams tells Damon that he was up late in the night assaulting his brain cells with Jack Daniels contemplating the supposed oppressive genius and manipulation of Damon's bravado-infested character, Will Hunting. William's character, Sean, then continues, saying:

Then something occurred to me and I fell into a
deep peaceful sleep and haven't
thought about you since. You know
what occurred to me?

WILL
No.

SEAN
You're just a boy. You don't have
the faintest idea what you're talking
about.

WILL
Why thank you.

SEAN
You've never been out of Boston.

WILL
No.

SEAN
So if I asked you about art you could
give me the skinny on every art book
ever written... Michelangelo? You
know a lot about him I bet. Life's
work, criticisms, political
aspirations. But you couldn't tell
me what it smells like in the Sistine
Chapel. You've never stood there and
looked up at that beautiful ceiling.
You've never actually stood there and
looked up at that beautiful ceiling;
seen that.

Within this dialogue is the truth about travel. Reading about it is one thing, it's like watching porn. You think, is this it? Then you leave your computer and your safehouse, establish intimacy, romance, love and heartbreak and then you look back and tell yourself: "not even close."



-Mozart