my milkshake brings all the baudrillard

We’re the public. Let’s show our interest.

it’s being shared on the news as a heartwarming story of a football team stepping up for their local area, but it’s also absolutely a sign of how truly and deeply fucked the federal response to this has been.

some background: massachusetts has received somewhere in the neighborhood of 17% of the ppe requested from the federal stockpile, and not one single ventilator. we requested 1000 of those and have now had to up our request to 1400. we have repeatedly been outbid by the federal government and now, most recently, had shipments of ppe that we ordered straight up seized by the feds in new york.

so, in desperation, our governor set up A SECRET DIPLOMATIC BACKCHANNEL to essentially beg china to send us badly needed equipment and make sure the federal government couldn’t seize it this time

florida has received multiple shipments of supplies in this same time frame, on time and unmolested by federal authorities. the difference? governor ron desantis is buddy buddy with trump and florida is a big swing state for the election. states that get on trump’s shit list are having to beg, borrow, and steal so that more people don’t die.

“The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity.”  - Viola Davis

Lupita Nyong’o in Us (2019) dir. Jordan Peele

Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers (2019) dir. Lorene Scafaria

Awkwafina in The Farewell (2019) dir. Lulu Wang

(This is written entirely within the dominant white/western culture - about traditions that have neglectful stewardship rather than those actively suppressed)

The anxiety makes sense. You’re seeing, too late to do anything about it, that there’s no foundation - no space - for the traditions you expected to pass on. Your kids _can’t_ take your mom’s fine china. So now instead of enjoying what you have you worry about its future.

I see a pattern in these op-eds though - a pattern in what’s left unsaid. There were responsibilities tied to these traditions. You collectively assumed they _would_ be passed along. So collectively, what did you do to ensure those traditions _could_ be passed along?

Op-eds never speak for everyone, but it’s worth acknowledging the pattern in what speech is deemed worth sharing widely.  And in this particular pattern, there’s an answer: that answer looks like “nothing.”

You want the china passed down but your kids have no room in their rentals. You want grandkids but your kids don’t have the financial stability. You want that cross-country RV neverending road trip but you’ve had decades of wanting lower taxes more than you wanted infrastructure.

The bleak outlook for traditions is a direct result of the unmaintained foundations for them. The second best time is always now - if it’s important enough to op-ed about, what are you willing to change to get it back? What will you give up or re-prioritize?

The bleak outlook for traditions is a direct result of the unmaintained foundations for them. The second best time is always now - if it’s important enough to op-ed about, what are you willing to change to get it back? What will you give up or re-prioritize?

I follow a Facebook group of “Memories of …” for my hometown - a rustbelt community that has gone from a thriving hub of industry to a much-less-thriving place.

The group is a collective lament.   Decades-old pictures of well-kept churches.  Aerial shots of the main intersection downtown, lined with big cars.    Scanned advertisemetns from local stores featuring pictures of their interiors.   These alternate with the drumbeat of news:  the Catholic diocese is closing churches.  Selling them.   Tearing them down.   STores downtown are closing.   The traffic light has been replaced with a four-way-stop.

“That’s the church my parents were married in!” “How could they tear down that beautiful building.  Such memories!” “All the businesses are closing.  It must be the taxes.” ”They’ve sold the old lodge downtown.” “They’re not opening the skating rink this year.  We always used to go.”

And sometimes I chime in. 

“Do you attend that church?  Do you give? Or do you just want the building to look pretty for you? “ “Do you volunteer at that park?  Why not?” “Did you vote for that recreation bond issue?” “Are you a member of that Lodge? Why not?” “Do you shop downtown?   Or did you start shopping at Walmart and Amazon to save a few bucks?”

If you feel something is worth preserving, why do you not participate in its preservation?  

Take, for example, Yayoi Kusama. Kusama created daring and innovative artworks, making them very personal and speaking freely about her mental illnesses and the domestic abuse she endured as a child, painting from the most honest depths of her heart. She was copied by many male artists, who are now revered as being geniuses. Even, at one stage, the wife of a male artist approached her and said, ‘I’m sorry, Yayoi’, because she knew her husband had unashamedly ripped off Kusama’s vision and hard work.

Andy Warhol copied Yayoi Kusama, and didn’t even make an effort to hide it. His Cow Wallpaper piece is a blatant ripoff of Kusama’s Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show. Kusama put her heart and soul into her art, working with repeating images and polka dots as a method of calming the hallucinations she suffered on a daily basis.

With reference to the art theft of Claes Oldenberg, this article describes the following:

[Oldenberg’s] actions caused Kusama to become deeply depressed. So discouraged by the lack of recognition she received for innovating a new kind of sculpture, Kusama would often lock herself in her studio without coming out for days.