GlitchSlapTko

Dear Marilyn,

Thank you for reminding me about FEAR AND CONSUMPTION in America. While I was barely hanging on in LA (the most bizarre city in America hands down), I got enough of it to last a lifetime. I often wonder how things would have turned out if I'd moved to San Fran instead...there was that nice offer from Mills, but the aesthetic masochist in me picked the City of Angles. Well, I lived to tell the tale in any case.

Now? Well, I've almost completely forgotten about it - the fear - since I've been living in Japan [for too long?]. In Japan there is no fear, but there is lots and lots of consumption. Perhaps a cynic might say that there is a fear of NOT consuming enough here, and that's what makes them [the Japanese] out-consume most of the rest of the world...but that is kind of bullshit. The Japanese have plenty of real reasons to actually BE afraid, but none of them really register fully with them in their minds: how much they are really hated by their Asian neighbors, the inferiority complex they suffer from when it comes to foreign countries, 'shimakuni konjou', still stuck in the social Dark Ages, etc.

Confession? Ok...I came THIS CLOSE, JUST THIS CLOSE to using Japanese consumption as some kind of positive example for my own life. The beginning of this dangerous game started about one year ago - I was convinced I could 'ride' the wave of consumption here (according to Marxy, the tide is too low to hang five anyway, so...) - and ended just recently after reflecting on some of the alignments of some of my recent acquaintances and then just giving up. This essay by Nick has haunted me since I first read it. I wonder who, among those that HAVE read it, it DOESN'T haunt...The Athenian in me will never die, I suspect.

By the way, I think your songs and lyrics rock.

Your biggest fan in Nakmeguro,

R.