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IN_A_BLUE_HAZE

                                            March 21, 2006

One summer day in 
'73 or '74,            Which is to 
one of my older        say that I 
brothers had a         was 13 or 14.
troupe of friends            
staying the night,           
in preparation of            
an experiment            Their approach was very 
in making electronic     basic: electronic feedback 
music the next day.      circuits using consumer 
                         stereo equipment, a few 
                         guitar effects peddles,
So they moved me         and a hell of a lot of 
up to the couch          cables. 
in the living room,                            
where I spent the                                
night.                       
                                          

The next day, while I was
very curious about what they
were doing down in the
basement, I kept putting off
going down to see, because I     Not only was I a     
really wanted to finish          compulsive reader    
reading the "Deep Blue           in those days,       
Good-By"... which I did,         I felt no compunction
while occasional blips and       about being polite   
howls of sound emerged           about it.  
from the depths.                            
                                    I remember being  
                                    taken out to a     
   The funny part about             diner, and just   
   this experience                  taking out a book 
   though is the                    and reading in       
   comments from this               lulls in the         
   one twentyish woman              conversation.    
   that was hanging                                  
   around with them...                                  
                                                     
                                                     
   She was really disgusted    
   by my behavior: reading    
   some silly adventure    
   novel when I could be              On a different occasion
   admiring the cable work            I remember opining:
   of the big-boys                               
   downstairs.                       "People put too much    
                                      faith in their personal
   On the few occasions               experience."                
   that I remember her                                       
   being around, I would              And she responded,     
   get nothing but bitter,            contemptuously: "What  
   jeering remarks from               *else* is there?!"        
   this woman.  If she was                                  
   capable of anything else           To which I mumbled   
   I certainly never saw it.          something weak like 
                                      "impersonal experience"
   In retrospect, I think             and let it drop.
   she was a classic example                        
   of a kind of pseudo-                             
   intellectual that the                  It's entirely possibly
   "sixties counter-culture"              that my 13-year old   
   helped to produce:                     self was too shy       
                                          to argue with this                  
   A herd-following                       hipster babe, but                
   non-conformist, nearly                 as I remember it      
   brainless, but trying                  I was just embarrassed
   hard to bluff and pass                 that she didn't       
   for heavy.                             see the point,        
                                                                              
                                          And I suspected       
                                          that she wasn't       
                                          capable of getting    
                                          the point:
                                              
                                             Crime-statistics are
                                             more significant than
                                             whether you happen to
                                             know someone who has
                                             been robbed.
                                                                

                                                    
                                                    
                                                    
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