Just what are we teaching young people, society at large, in and out of school? Just what is it to be an American today, awash in consumer madness? The Last One with the Most Toys Wins bumper sticker, or is it this little chant: You’ll have to peel this i-thing Apple appendage from my cold dead mind, err, hand?
Staff meeting. Topiary Techniques Auditorium. Horticultural Technicians, green-and-yellow t-shirts. Back row, Friday evening, work day done, go home. Now. Run.
Victor commandeered the small stage. Stack of papers width of several phone books dramatically dropped loud. Thud. Heads up. Tirade. Paper replacement forms processed last financial quarter, over $250,000.
“That’s $250,000 lifted from Topiary Techniques,” said Victor.
Bartleby at The Accounting Firm murdered a ficus. Stems, leaves, dirt mashed into the carpet of his office. Two jagged branches lay like antlers on his desk.
“I can’t replace this,” I said firmly. “It’s not in the contract.”
“They’re fake,” he said. “You’ve been in here fifty, sixty times, Plantman, and still you haven’t noticed.”
I sniffed a leaf.
“Not the trees, you ass. The Loved Ones,” said Bartleby. “The goddam Loved Ones.”
What is a girl’s desire in the world of men?
The Office Women, the “Datists,” convert raw numeric to “actionable” info.
Datists sit smartly at squat machines. Squarish, sleek machines. Explosion of words, images, connections; algorithms of deception; comedy of ease—click clack click—terror’s brilliant pixel-hues.
“Do not fear us, we cannot replace you, you have souls and lips and skin, mutable, we see you feel you smell you. . .” hum the machines.
1. College Degree Required
Bright April Fools noon, months ago. Drunk. Barely stand. Advertisement for horticultural technician read: “Topiary Techniques seeks. Indoor Landscaper. Work with plants. College degree required. College degree a must. Will train.”
Clean office spacious new. Expected vegetation, overgrowth, jungle loam, hedge-cutters, machetes. The secretary took my resumé told me to sit. I sat. Photographs of plant arrangements prettied walls. Shelves of pristine plant pots—metal, plastic, terra cotta.
I have to preface the very good argument below on the Humanities (scroll down-down-down) with a few things tied to higher education. First, the crisis in higher education leads to Humanities, and to other fields, like sociology, history, political science, almost anything that has nothing to do with business crime, drone warfare, learning how to administrate us into hell, High Tech/Low Ethics, anything to do with pushing the greed to the top and subjugating us, the 80 percent.
The Coolman & Associates Human Resource Manager coordinated writers, designers, client accounts. Killer for the company. In eight AM out eight PM.
Sexy in her way. Frantic.
Turned me on. Two years older than I was, then: she was twenty-six. We eased into chummy, casual, quick to jest, but cautious. Wary of terms.
“Hell,” I said. “We spend our lives here. Who are you?”
“Good point,” she said. “Work, work, work. Love?”
“Love the town all night, let’s go!”
If there was ever an anachronistic government body waiting to be placed in mothballs, it’s the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor. Established way back in 1953, the WCNYH was tasked with keeping mobsters from infiltrating the docks. That was its sole responsibility.
But that was 60 long years ago. Ike was president. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was still destroying lives. The Dodgers were still in Brooklyn. Elvis Presley hadn’t cut a record yet. Admittedly, a different era.
Hard steely club music, hate chords. Music of the Angry Young. Construction work for Father. Roofing. Music, and his burly brother, Brother. Rough. Shaved heads. End-of-day paint-splatter, roof dreck, tar.
Music, goateed, smoked cigarette, cigarette, cigarette.
Cakes don’t change. Plastic wrappers. “Real” cream filling. BEING. His television, milk and pastries. Adolescent twenty-seven. Soda, smoke, snacks. Like ten years gone had never been.
Passive, floating, shuffled by Time. Sixteen. New body shapes new clothing. Tunes. His room. Door locked. Illicit herb burned in a dirty-water bong. Loitering at the Mall, buying, driving, posing. Movies, pizza, boon companions.
“Won’t last forever,” Guidance Counselor warned.
Aptitude test discovered aptitude.
College: “Media studies.”
