the society of the spectacle

Holy shit.

Read this book in its entirety. It's fairly short, so it shouldn't take you long.

This is exactly what I believe in. It details everything I've known was wrong about modern life, all the delusions and falsehoods those in power have tried to get us all to believe. I understand so much more why I've had the problems I've had in my life, in my personal relationships, and in my professional/career development.

I used to wake up and look at everything and just sort of try to figure out how I was going to deal with whatever bullshit I was inevitably going to face during the day. I had no real goals or dreams, I just wanted to have fun- and even this usually seemed impossible in the face of all the cultural programming we're all indoctrinated with. Sure, I could have fun by myself. I've always had to do that. But it's so much MORE fun to involve other people in things, and, aside from our little conglomerate of artists, free-wheeling drug prophets, renegade programmers, and vagabonds, it's really hard to get people fucking interested in ANYTHING beyond stuffing their faces and/or Collecting It All (TM).

But now? Now I wake up and I look at everything differently. Everything I see and think, I consider as a means to overturn everything, to smash through the web of lies and illusion we've had spun around our heads our whole lives. Words, music, art, and even simple objects can become weapons against the soullessness and emptiness of our everyday lives.

I've got a whole metric crapload (this is an official unit of measurement, you understand) of projects I'm working on right now. All projects listed below, other than the Shrub Book, are on hold, until I get everything for the latter in order.

• First off, the Shrub Book. I just gave Part One of a history of the Smear Summer (you'll understand why it's named that once you read it) to Jan for review. I've been working non-stop on Part II. I'm also working on an "afterword" sort of piece that ties Situationism in with what I've learned and experienced through my time in The Shrub, as well as where it all could potentially go. There's another piece about Acid Night I'd really like to finish, time permitting, but we'll see. That one's currently 9 pages, single-spaced, and it's maybe half-done. The Smear Summer history is potentially going to be about 30.
• I'm also still working on a novel. It's tentatively titled "Repent, Resent, Reset" and is about a captain of a spaceship who wakes up entirely alone one day. His spaceship is equipped with nanotechnology that keeps him alive without his doing anything, so he spends the next 300 years or so progressively going insane. Telling you more would spoil the story, but I will say that it's intentionally Lovecraftian, in a sense, not because I'm trying to rip him off, but because I see this story as kind of a counterpoint to the Situationism I've been getting so into lately. It's basically taking the delusional narcissism our society is so enraptured with to its logical extreme. I'm only 20 pages or so into it, and it's already horrifying.
• In a few words: I Only Speak In Pictures. This is the album I've been working on for the past three years. Completely unintentionally, since I didn't even know what Situationism was three years ago, and I've only recently gotten into it seriously, it's entirely Situationist in theme. It's a concept album detailing the journey of one person from a horrific, consumer-culture-imposed nihilism into a realization of the beauty, freedom, and general awesomeness of life. Before I started working hardcore on the Shrub Book, I was well on my way to mixing and mastering it.
• Now that I'm working again, I can gather together some musical equipment and hopefully start doing live music. I've tried a few times, even when I had more equipment, but my setup has always been so terrible that people just look at it and don't take it seriously.
• This is kind of a minor thing, but Emily's party is going to be pretty wild. I know, I know, it's just a party, but it has a breaking laws/transgression theme. I've got some pretty bizarre ideas for it that I can't wait to bring into reality.

There's a whole bunch more stuff I'm into right now, but this is way too long already. So... fuck yeah. I can has goals.

Long-term goals, of course, involve either getting a better job 6 to 12 months down the road, or going to grad school, both of which I'm only doing for the money. And yes, the desire for money seems entirely counter to everything I was talking about above. But it isn't. I'm one of the least materialistic people you'll ever meet. I only want more money because it gives me more power to do things with more scope and grandeur. It's sort of a "use their own weapons to destroy them" kind of thing.

Fuck yeah. Life is looking pretty good right now.