We are all in a time loop. (Updated)
In the last two days, everything has been upended.
The traditional news media, now called the “legacy media”, has lost its influence.
The pollsters, statisticians, pundits, experts in many fields, were wrong.
Everything I’ve been taught to value no longer seems to matter. Oh, stuff like truth, intelligence (esp. books), respect, equality.
The years 1972-86 didn’t happen so I’m 14 years younger.
And tomorrow I’m off to New York.
How do we deal? I recommend a mental health maintenance break. Disconnect. Cheer yourself up. Give yourself time alone. The world is very loud, we can all use some solitude. Take stock of what you still have and think of what you can live without. Look to your friends. I mean your real friends, the ones you have a shared history with, who know exactly what’s wrong with you and remain your friends. You will need them more than you ever have.
Hard times are forecast. When you return, prepare. Do not be afraid and do not give in to despair. (It’s time to watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy again.)
Ever heard the term “the consolations of literature”? Join me.
As for me, I have resolved to be psychotically cheerful. Irony has always served me well.
If you’re in New York, drop me a line. I shall infect you with psychotic cheerfulness.
P.S. Need to talk? The therapist is in. (Never mind that Freud is now quaint.)
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Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
November 9th, 2016 at 19:18
Ms. Jessica! Anong nangyayari sa mundo?! This year’s elections (both ours and theirs and Brexit!) are truly mind boggling and unbelievable! (Well, maybe in our case slightly believable that most of us would vote for Duterte but them?!)
Yes, let’s enrich our daily lives with literature. I just finished Mildred Pierce (gusto kong sakalin pareho si Veda at Mildred!) and about to start The Bone Clocks. Haaaaaayyyy is all I can say at this point.
November 9th, 2016 at 19:19
Forgot to add: enjoy and be safe in your travels!
November 9th, 2016 at 19:57
Have a safe flight and see you soon!
November 9th, 2016 at 19:59
Thanks, howcomebubblegum. I suspect it’s all connected to the fact that the old gatekeepers (the liberal news media) have been replaced by the new (social media). As I’ve always said, events in the Philippines are precursors to global shifts. Look at Edsa 86 and the former Soviet states, for instance.
The HBO Mildred Pierce by Todd Haynes with Kate Winslet and Evan Rachel Wood is riveting. Gusto ko silang sabunutan. Guy Pearce is the cause of trouble. Enjoy!
Bone Clocks is a trip. How Mitchell has avoided the SF/fantasy label is worthy of study.
November 9th, 2016 at 20:01
Thanks, Chus! I will think of you while watching Nathan Lane in The Front Page. Kailangan ng lahat ng katatawanan.
November 9th, 2016 at 23:33
Dear JZ therapist. How can I be less angry at the mobs of stupid people that voted these demagogues? I feel like my occasional rants in the office is alienating people who believe in Duterte and Trump (for whatever stupid reason). How else does one vent? (I work in an open office setup so I’m audible to a big part of the room unless I consciously lower my voice).
Also is it just me or are the duterte supporters bemoaning a trump presidency total idiotic hypocrites?! They’re basically carbon copies of each other.
November 10th, 2016 at 00:00
When the UN Security Council is basically led by Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, François Hollande, and Theresa May…
… and Marcos’ wax figurine is about to make its way to LnmB…
… you know it’s time to sign up for that Mars one-way-trip program.
Have a safe trip! I myself am off to Bangkok tomorrow. 2016 requires a major destress.
November 10th, 2016 at 00:15
Dear greeneggsnham,
The world is undergoing major convulsions and we must adapt. It is natural to react with rage but this takes a toll on our health and might be a waste of energy. We have no control over events but we have control over ourselves. Channel your anger into a personal project. Bite your tongue. At this point fighting will not be useful.
Take comfort in the fact that you have been trained to adapt.
Have you read The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney? Might take your mind off your mind. We overthinkers need to shut off periodically.
November 10th, 2016 at 00:19
allancarreon: Fuck 2016. Surround yourself with friends. Say hi to Pat in Bkk.
November 10th, 2016 at 08:07
Thank you JZ! I’ll look for that book. I remember reading your book review of “The Marching Morons” manymany years ago. Looks like that time has come! (Except that the morons are leading fellow morons).
Enjoy NYC!
November 10th, 2016 at 08:41
greeneggsnham: Yes, this was predicted by C.M Kornbluth. These are science-fiction times.
November 10th, 2016 at 17:30
Yeah, I think there was a line about literature being consolation in the History Boys. I am going all Posner now and might end up memorizing “Drummer Hodge”.
I hope you’ll get to watch Hamilton if you’re going to New York! In any case, have a safe trip and give racists hell in our behalf.
November 10th, 2016 at 17:52
scrippsy: Good luck to me getting Hamilton tickets. As for racists, I intend to stay as far away from them as possible. Subtle insults at most, we are outnumbered.
November 11th, 2016 at 01:20
One British tabloid’s front page shows the Statue of Liberty covering her face in horror and the headline “What have they done?” As though the Brits didn’t inflict Brexit on themselves.
Aaron Sorkin’s letter to his daughter after Trump win
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/11/aaron-sorkin-donald-trump-president-letter-daughter
November 11th, 2016 at 02:50
Watched the latest episode of Jane The Virgin while the count went on in the evening. That was a good and fun escape and allowed me to fall asleep. Woke up at 2:30am and found out. My only consolation was that my flight in 6 hours to one of the Trump lands would mean there would be no riots.
I was filled with dread then sadness. Like you, everything I’ve learned to value has been upended – hard work, honesty, respect. So you become a winner even if you’re a huge liar, even if you don’t know much about the job and issues, even if you’re a bully. You just have to be the loudest and the angriest and that makes you truthful. I get that HRC is not the cleanest candidate but qualifications are no longer enough. Makes me think about my work situation too. I should start caring less about the company and the clients but it’s not my normal operating mode so it’s hard.
November 11th, 2016 at 11:50
sunflowii: The vote is also a repudiation of Obama. A black man and a white woman–nothing unites racist misogynists faster.
November 11th, 2016 at 11:53
And be extra careful in Trumpland. My sister’s friend in the California burbs was physically and verbally threatened by a large white man. They now have permission to be what they are.
On the radio in the car from JFK, people were crying.
November 12th, 2016 at 07:53
avignon: I feel like going to the New York Times and yelling, “You promised this would not happen!”
2016: The death of liberal media.
And 2016 has not finished sucking. Goodbye, Leonard Cohen.
November 12th, 2016 at 08:08
Jessica, would love to take you to the Morgan library. I think martini goes well with psychotic cheerfulness.
From their cafe:
Three-Martini Lunch
Three 2-Ounce Martinis
Olive, Twist & Onion
Brooklyn Small Batch Gin
or Tito’s Vodka
Circa 2009
In a Hemingway unpublished ten-page draft,
an expatriate’s distractions are alleviated
only by a three-martini lunch.
November 12th, 2016 at 11:11
nybisdak: Will see the Bronte exhibit there next week. What day are you going?
November 12th, 2016 at 22:49
Thanks, Jessica. That was my next thought – no riot but maybe I’d get harassed. Thankfully, no such thing happened maybe because I was still in the greater metropolitan area. If they had told me to go back to where I came from, I was ready with “yes, I’m going back to Canada in a few days”.
Enjoy your time in NY! I’m looking forward to your trip to Turkey too.
November 13th, 2016 at 14:26
I volunteered for Hillary and had knocked on hundreds of doors for her since a year ago. She did win my state (as did the just-as-important down-ballot Democrats in congress and senate) but lost in the less-educated states in the middle. She won the popular vote (by 1.8 million as of today, and counting, with 7 million more ballots to count) but she lost in the crucial battleground states in the Midwest, by only slim 1-2% margins, which means that around 100K people decided the election in which she actually may have won by 2-3 million or more nationally.
Such is the frustrating and arcane Electoral College system, which really needs to be abolished now. This is only the 5th time in US history that it happened. The first 3 times in the 1800s and the 4th one when Gore lost to Bush in 2000. And we know what happened after. We got the totally unnecessary Iraq War that cost up to $6 trillion (plus interest because the money was borrowed) and countless lives were lost. The conservatives only win due to the accident of literal geopolitics: More of them live in rural areas, which comprise most of the country’s geography and, hence, have an inordinate amount of voting power in Congress and the Electoral College compared to liberals, who mostly are concentrated in urban and coastal areas. During the campaign, it became a cliche joke/threat to move to Canada if Trump wins. I think it’s smarter to actually move to the swing/battleground states if we want to upend the geopolitics ourselves.
November 14th, 2016 at 08:59
Dr. Feelgood: Another demonstration of how democracy without education and critical thinking leads to people lashing out and voting against their own interests.
And the electoral college system must go.
November 14th, 2016 at 09:03
sunflowii: If anyone tells you to go home, tell them to go home first. The only non-immigrants in America are the ones protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline.
November 14th, 2016 at 14:00
Which was precisely why Hillary and Bernie were fighting to make public colleges tuition free for those who meet the financial and academic criteria. Another irony of top of all the others is that the founding fathers created the Electoral College in order to prevent the election of a crazy person to POTUS, aside from the fact that the electrical telegram had not even been invented yet during the late 1700s so there really was a need for representatives to travel to the capital to transmit the message of who won in each state. The electors actually have the ability to vote against the election of a Trump (no laws prevent them from voting according to their own will); something that’s extremely unlikely to happen now after hundreds of years of tradition of following the will of the people no matter what. Given that the popular votes seem to go to the more deserving candidate and that we have instant communication now, the outdated system needs an overhaul.
November 14th, 2016 at 18:28
Dr. Feelgood: Ironically the free tuition proposal may have hurt the Democrats because it generated fears that they would be taxed some more to cover this plan. Among people who voted for someone who boasted about not paying taxes.
Aaaargh.
November 15th, 2016 at 06:09
Well, they were supposed to tax Wall Street speculation (2 birds with one stone: prevent another crash like 2008 and educate the masses) or a variation thereof, not the middle and lower classes, to fund public colleges. Increasing the minimum wage to decent levels would have grown the economy (all the cities that have done so, like Seattle, have grown economically) and not stifle it like Friedman-style trickle-down economics does. There has been no evidence that cutting taxes for the rich ever grew the economy anywhere in the world. But of course, Reaganomics is like religion; evidence is beside the point.
The only silver lining I can see, however, is that Trump may prove to be the yuuugest Trojan horse in history. He’s not a true conservative and is already backing down on a lot of his campaign promises. The irony of all ironies here is that Trump may be the only way the GOP and its calcified ideologies could finally be destroyed, which is something the Clintons, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and the Obamas could not accomplish together (at least for this election). Instead, it will be done from within by one of their own. Whether or not Trump is even aware he is doing this, it’s a brilliant strategy, albeit unwitting.
On another but related note, I have kept this article on my bookmarks list. It’s a very interesting theory about how certain US presidents set political regimes that “reign” no matter which party the succeeding presidents are from until they get dismantled by a particular president and socio-political situation. Obama may have been the one to destroy Reagan’s regime and, if Trump’s upending of many of the GOP’s main pillars like US exceptionalism/interventionism and pro-trade stance, it looks like it may be continued IN SPITE of the GOP hegemony of all the branches of government.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/why-the-gop-should-fear-a-romney-presidency/263918/
November 15th, 2016 at 09:48
I’m available most afternoons except Friday. Let me know when works for you.
November 15th, 2016 at 19:13
nybisdak: Thursday at 1?
November 16th, 2016 at 03:24
Perfect! See you then.