Depth isn’t what is used to be. For if the nineteenth century witnessed the long process of the destruction of appearances and their supplanting by meaning in the twentieth, subsequently, saw an equally massive process of the destruction of meaning... and its replacement by what? We find pleasure in neither appearance nor meaning.
Jean Baudrillard
Cool Memories
October 1981The moment I got outside, I saw snow on every bench. When Mr. Johnson got me a seat on a bench, the bench was so cold I thought I was going to turn into a popcicle. Mr. Johnson asked me to hear everything I can. I heard cars speeding, the leaves on a tree rustling in the wind.
Next he asked me if i can see anything. I saw trees; they looked like they might walk right up to you and whisper in your ear. I saw bushes that looked like they had huge arms that could just reach out and grab you. I saw cars that could transform, wheels that can turn into joints, doors that turn into shields, a head that comes up out of the engine.
Next he asked me if i can feel anything. I felt sticky rock salt on my shoe, a bunch of snow on my legs. I felt the bench move and wiggle. I felt the cold air and wind in my face. I felt leaves brush up against me.
Everything makes me tingle and shiver. It makes me feel like a ghost is watching me. Actually it feels like five are watching me at the same time. What is scary is that it is as if they are piercing me with knives made of spiritual power that makes me want to vomit. I'm sorry about my language.
Today it's all decadence! A bottomless pit of intelligence! He is intelligent, I grant you that, but he knows nothing at all about the power of a soul in full possesion of itself. What Goethe calls personality, what Goethe calls mobile order- those are things he doesn't have a clue about! "This noble concept of power and restraint, of choice and law, freedom and measure, mobile order...' "Suddenly he burst out:
He's a man without qualities!
"What is that?" Clarisse asked giggling.
"Nothing. That's just it, it's nothing."
But Clarisse found the phrase intriguing.
"There are millions of them nowadays," Walter declared.
"It's the human type produced by our time!"style="left:0px;top:0px;position:absolute"
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