I just finished doing a 40 minute podcast conducted by a humanities graduate student in Sri Lanka. Before too long it will, I believe, be posted in a format that should be accessible to you but I just want to pause for a moment to observe how authentically weird that is. Sri Lanka is halfway around the world in a time zone 9 1/2 hours earlier than the one in which I am located. The history, culture, and political situation of Sri Lanka are, quite obviously, utterly different from those of the United States. And yet there she and I sat, each with a headphone on, chatting as though we were in the same room. I imagine young people think nothing of this but I am old enough to find it very strange indeed.
I concluded my remarks by telling a story I have told many times before and when I finished, she commented that I had used that story in one of my lectures on ideological critique and had followed it with a recording of Pete Seeger singing "which side are you on?"
Sigh. It is hard to be original when everyone in the world has heard your jokes.
I for one am glad you've lasted long enough for everyone to have heard your jokes.
ReplyDeleteMy 9 year old thinks nothing of video chatting with friends, when in fact, it is amazing. Nothing has taught me more about the potentials and pitfalls of tech than the Internet. It's all a bit much sometimes.
It is later in Sri Lanka (Wednesday morning) than here, not earlier.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's all in English.
ReplyDeleteThey had to learn our language, but we didn't have to learn theirs.
Sigh. Of course, Carl. My bad. Yes, S. Wallerstein, I made that point n the podcast.
ReplyDeleteGreat!
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to listening to your podcast..
It was a privilege to have you! I will forward the link soon.
ReplyDeleteThe virtue of her having heard your joke is that now you have an updated and brand new one!
ReplyDeleteBlogger Jerry Fresia said...
ReplyDeleteBy the way, while the Dems offer us friendly fascism (withBiden's whitened smile and a woman of color by his side) in the face of the more brutal variety, Frances Fox Piven and Deepak Bhargava address the question, "What If Trump Won't Leave?"
In their response they paint a very grim picture. Short ans: Because Trump has the power to steal the election, massive, militant, coordinated, and unprecedented street action needs to begin now.
https://theintercept.com/2020/08/11/trump-november-2020-election/
Even shorter answer: we may be toast.
Jerry,
ReplyDeleteDepends on which side the military takes.