78uuu lumière des étoiles

Dusty:Starlight:Culture



fatigue and wasted opportunities
2006-04-30   9:07 p.m.

I'm extremely fatigued - trying to finish up the semester, sort through graduate courses, and remember people's birthdays and whatnot.

And then there's Tunisia, which we finally booked tickets to last week (er, Steve booked last week). I always told myself I would need to stop traveling whenever I felt the details and planning became more stressful than enjoyable, so Steve and I are putting off all of that until we have time to enjoy it rather than add it to a long list of things we "have to do" before a certain date. We have a rough itinerary sketched out that includes treks through the desert and plenty of time on the coast - and some hazy idea about traversing the Libyan border (eep!). It's just so damn easy now, it's almost worth considering just to be wacky. And we can be a bit wacky.

We wound up not using miles for this trip, deciding instead that we'll be able to bank everything next year and get two seats to Cape Town, South Africa. Our friend David just got a teaching position at Univ. of Cape Town, so we'll visit him and then head north to Namibia. I think. As long as they don't hate us so much that they won't let us in.

You see, that's where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are having their awesomely cool baby. Or is that their awesomely alien baby? Or is that the second coming of Rosemary's Baby? Oh wait, that's Tom Cruise's kid. It's just the thought of the vapid pretty people from Entertainment Tonight, with all their talk of thousand dollar handbags and obsession over multi-million dollar estates in Hollywood, pouring over Namibia proper that is kind of...ironic for me. Cause I'm sure they've followed the couple (and their pair of third world orphans) to Namibia, and are hovering around, no doubt taping the show "on location", and talking not about Namibia's issues with poverty, infant mortality, epidemics, or political corruption, but...thousand dollar handbags, multi-million dollar estates in Hollywood, and what kind of baby stroller Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt paid five hundred dollars for.

Oh, I know, I know - I'm being too hard on poor Angelina Jolie. She's been so good to the Haitians, and all that. It's really the whole circus side-show feel of "Africa???" in our press that I have a problem with, not the poor, wealthy pretty couple. I felt irritated the same way when, after legal troubles with his network and sponsors,
comedian Dave Chapelle went to South Africa to seek psychological help and everyone mocked it as if it were the most absurd thing to do, all the while taking none of the many opportunities to actually de-mystify and de-demonize Africa for the West or alert people who don't know better to some of the many issues plaguing people living there.

But really, why would we do that when there are so many other important things to talk about, like how many girlfriends Hugh Heffner has and who Mr. Jessica Simpson is moving on with?

I have more faith in our collective intelligence and integrity than the networks seem to - don't you think if the shows were just a little conscious of some more, um, substantive issues, people would be open to paying attention? I think it's too late for me to weigh such a philosophical question, actually (whether we're drawn to such insipid programming because of some cultural void, or because insipid programming creates a cultural void we can't get out of). To be continued.

I need sleep - and a little more protein, I think. I've been overtired, not getting enough rest and maybe pushing myself a bit too hard physically. Steve and I have been going to a climbing gym, which I love love love for the challenge, strategizing and the strength/muscle training it forces you into. But it's one of the most exhausting things I've ever done - two hours scaling walls and trying to pull myself over boulders with only teeny, narrow rocks to balance on, and I could skip treadmill for the next three days. Wouldn't be a bad idea, probably.

xoxox