Culture Graduate School Vignette

Certified_Heterosexual

The Falklands are Serbian, you cowards.
Over the winter break I returned to visit a friend of mine from grad school, a PhD student still living in the college town. The following is a short vignette I recall from that short trip—

A mournfully obese young man, sitting alone for lunch at an Indian restaurant in a chair too small for him. A saddening sight. But minutes later his companion arrives, a rail-thin fellow fully suited in the academic bugman attire typical of this university town that I'm visiting. The two begin to converse, and the fat one giggles loudly and sonorously... that's the only way I can describe it. He kept giggling and giggling, he couldn't control his excitement. That they were both staunch aficionados of the penis was immediately clear, but questions sprang to mind. Are they lovers? How does that work? Why am I asking myself this? I tried to focus on the pile of goat-curry-over-rice I ordered, and the dull conversation at my own table, but I couldn't help but listen in. What were they talking about? The theater of course! They both studied or worked in the university's Theater Department in some capacity, and I set to wondering once again. What role would the large one play? He could be an actual roll, in some middle school production, I suppose. But other than that I wasn't sure what he could play.

Anyways they were concerned about something, and that something was human resources. Apparently someone from the HR department had recently been invited to lecture them on its relevance to the theater, and they were in wholehearted agreement. "Theater in 2020 needs HR," one of them quipped. They mentioned some scandal, and that people often felt uncomfortable. I wondered how the fat one felt, hanging off that chair. Surely uncomfortable! He must always feel that way, I think— a constant misery at a world literally not built for him. Obesity depresses me. But I can relate to the feelings of discomfort in an academic setting, though of a different sort.

The entire college town— college city, really— made me feel uncomfortable, in fact. Aggressive and desperate homeless people living side by side with pseudointellectual yuppies who in their own ways are no less aggressive and certainly no less desperate. The frazzled man subjecting the shop lady in front of me to an anti-Trump tirade ("can you believe his lies?"...I wish I could make this up, it really is caricature) was desperate. And I really couldn't tell— was he one of the homeless, on an insane rant, or one of the yuppies, on an insane rant? One and the same! Maybe they deserve each other.

But that's unfair to the homeless I think. The worst you can say about them is that they yell at passerby on occasion. They don't open up pencil shops. Fucking pencil shops! I don't know exactly why this made me so angry, but I'm going to try and explain:

This place sells pencils, pens, paper, and stationary. Fancy pencils. Hand-crafted pencils. Vintage pencils. What better way to compliment my $60 dollar leather bound A4 notebook than with a $35 "special grade" modern writing pencil? Now everyone will know I am a studious-yet-stylish academic type.

It reminded me of a Potemkin village. All for show. Nobody actually uses this stuff, surely? I mean, they just use their computer. Their tablet. Their phone. You know, that thing they pull out when the homeless guy with no legs asks for change ("it's so authentic"— an actual quote I heard from someone describing what it was like living in this town). These accessories from a past that they hate, and that they obsess over... that they are appropriating! That's it. This is historical appropriation.

By the way, I forgot to mention that the most amusing part of my visit was the all-expenses-paid dinner at this nice clean hipsterish restaurant where I got to spend two hours listening to Important People debate cultural appropriation in private. Liberals vs. Left-Liberals vs. Leftists— arresting stuff. Deep stuff. Is it artistic license, or power relations? You decide. Well no, not you, dear reader, but the Important People.

Five years ago I went into this godforsaken place, got what I needed for my career, and got out. I'll put it behind me. Out of sight and out of mind. Surely these places don't exist, right? They can't exist. What I've described is just a bad dream, a fevered caricature, not the place where our betters go to become our betters, and lead us to a better world, for our own betterment...
 
D

Deleted member 88

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God help me. I'm hopefully heading to grad school soon myself.
 

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
This is a good example of what postindustrial society really is, debt driven pretend play for quasi intelectuals.
 

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