Overheard on the B train

Yesterday I was actually on the train and not listening to Hector Lavoe, The Cure or Estrella Morente on my iPod. Which allowed me to listen in on one of those fantastic conversations that make riding the NYC Subway a wonderful experience. Girl A: "Do you watch that reality show on E! with that girl...." Girl B: "Kim Kardashian?" Girl A: "Yes, I don't know WHY they make such a big deal about her big booty... if she was Dominican, black or Puerto Rican"

This reminds me of that silly column in the NYTimes METROPOLITAN DIARY, which is always about some rich people writing in with stories like "My son Madison and I were riding up to the Upper West Side after his violin lessons and he took out his Stradivarious...." And it always strikes me that the conversation above is more like what I overhear. My all time favorite was on the B38 bus one evening Girl A: "You know [name] she got a grill, and I told her, girl you've been living in Brooklyn too long!"

Walter Mercado

I grew up spending many Dec. 31 evenings watching the annual Walter Mercado TV Special -what would Walter predict for the new year? My entire family wanted to know. Walter a Spaniard born in Puerto Rico, is ageless, which is to say, he has had so much work done that he is irrecognizable. A cross between my Puerto Rican grandmother, Liberace and L. Ron Hubbard, Walter has been spiritual advisor to generations of Puerto Ricans, Latin Americanas and Latinos. His classic sign-off wishing us peace and "mucho mucho mucho AMORRRRRR" is the least flamboyant element in a camp repertoire that includes caramel colored shellacked hair (used to be worn in a french braid, now he's a bit more butch), elaborately-brocaded and sequined capes, Baroque jewelry, and discreet make-up.

Back in the day, Walter kept it lo-fi, issuing LPs with his predictions, later hosting his own show, but now he is on the internet, on PRIMER IMPACTO, sindicated in newspapers like El Nuevo Dia (San Juan) and he issues a magazine. WALTER 2008 just hit the newstands. The magazine is a fabulous reminder of early 1980s lo-tech magazine self-publishing design and illustration elements. Everything about it, the fonts, the generic illustrations and the lay-out remind me of a bad high school year book from the 1980s. The content itself is of course priceless. I found mine on the NYC subway, it's a great way to prepare for the coming year by reading about tantric love, flowers and your sign, love predictions for the new year, your rising sign and you, etc.

Facebook

I have been inducted into the virtual world of Facebook. As if obsessing on my (personal and work) mail wasn't enough, there is this blog, and my telephones. I remember when there was neither email nor cellphones. We coped just fine. I wrote letters. Receiving them was lovely-one friend in particular with the initials JJF - wrote the most amazing letters, so detailed, beautifully-written, and to this day he sends postcards! Then I held off on getting a cell phone, until 9/11 when my mom said that my sister and I needed one "in case of emergencies" -but of course, now an "emergency" is my sister and I getting separated at Bloomingdale's "Nena, donde estas, con~o!" "En los better shoes, sube pa'ca."

So this Facebook thing, I see how it's faster than email because it's like chatting, and how it saves you time spent attaching photos or sending them through the mail, now everyone I like can see what I did on my travels. But there is quite a bit of narcissism involved. And why are we so willing to be complicit in our own self-surveillance? There is a benign aspect to sharing where we are and what we are doing at every moment, post photos, disclose what our tastes in books, films etc. are. But there is a positively Big Brotherish aspect as well, or at least a potential. I guess I go there because as a child, I did brielfly live under a fascist dicatorship where books, films and other cultural products were censored and one's moves were under surveillance. Although too young to perceive this myself, I grew up knowing that one half of my family was persecuted for their politics.

On that note, my theory is that "Big Brother" was launched as part of a strategy to de-sensitize us to surveillance. It became titillating, sexy, voyeuristic and sadistic. Watch people make idiots of themselves, learn strategies designed to further brute competitiveness, survival of the fittest, rather than empathy or collaboration. In any event, now there are virtually no private areas left. So it is interesting how willing I am to disclose what I am doing ("trying to wake up"). And how Facebook uses the language of news broadcasts - "feeds." So is this part of a new kind of consciousness? A form of spectatorship based on a 24-hour broadcast news cycle where there is more and more "breaking news" inflation. This is made manifest in the crawl, the "disaster theme music," and the changes to the nomenclature: the "breaking news" became "developing story" then "happening now" etc. etc. etc. This gets us to where there is this alleged idea that you are witnessing something in real time and that you MUST NOT walk away, lest you miss something. One extemely smart friend (who found a way for me to see "Superstar, the Karen Carpenter Story, see below) speculated that this breaking news inflation started with 9/11. So now our lives are a bit like that, aren't they?

But it's fun and I love keeping in touch with my friends. And the whole etiquette of this remains to be discovered - what do I do when the guy I have a crush on asks to be my "friend," for example? Hours of madcap entertainment will surely ensue!!!