Good grief, is it ever gloomy here in New York. Dark and cold and soon to be rainy. I am dying to see Hyde Park on Hudson, despite reviews that are tepid at best, but I am not leaving the neighborhood in weather like this — not to see a movie, anyway.

As I was leaving the neighborhood last night — a friend from out of town treated us to dinner in the Village (we had a very jolly time, and were out quite late) — I heard a long toot, and thanked my lucky stars that I’d crossed Second Avenue before the intersection was closed to traffic, as it always is, briefly, when there is a blast. The two toots weren’t sounded for a long time, it seemed, but when they were, an explosion quickly followed. It sounded like a great burst of thunder, only somewhat more three-dimensional, if that makes any sense; unlike thunder — or a “regular” explosion, not that I have much acquaintance with such things outside of a movie theatre — the racket stops on a dime. It does not die out, it simply and completely stops. Then the three toots are sounded. As they were last night, I was passing a trio of young women, one of whom was doubting the wisdom of continuing in the direction from which I’d come. She hadn’t liked the sound of the blast — natural enough! She obviously didn’t know that the MTA is excavating a new subway station at the corner of Eighty-Sixth and Second, and I silently applauded her caution. I thought about saying something to allay her fears, but I decided to leave the sorting-out to some other good soul, someone less likely to strike her as a dithering old grandpa.

On the subway, I looked over the shoulder of a young man, not academically accoutered, and saw that he was reading a book about Kant. It was very distressing. Of all the things to read in the world, this young man, like so many smart young man, was wasting his time — I am now convinced that the reading of Kant is a dangerous waste of time — on the confections of a crabbed old bachelor who spent his entire life in a city even darker and colder than New York in December. I do not think it trivial that Kant had no normal social life. It suggests to me that his speculations amount to little more than a very slowly-paced, pre-industrial video game. I consoled myself with the hope that, after a brief illness, the young man would put the virus of metaphysics behind him.

Plato and Kant make appealing reading because they claim to know what they’re talking about. In fact, there is nothing more to their work than that claim. They fill the space of ignorance not with genuine learning but with rigorously-phrased daydreams that both sparkle before the young and appease the disappointed. In the end, even they both declare that we don’t really know anything, but they’ve decked out the darkness with theories about reincarnation and ontology that are complicated enough to distract otherwise intelligent minds. And they are both formidably antisocial. Women, I find, return the compliment — with silence. Had I looked over the shoulder of a young woman and seen a book about Kant in her lap, I should have been very surprised.

Meanwhile, directly across the car, an elderly lady was reading a Chinese newspaper. I felt a surge of regret, never to have learned Chinese well enough to make out a headline. (Or to have learned just enough, briefly, only to have forgotten it.) Among the things that I now see that I will never do in this life, a mastery of foreign languages is one of the most regretted lacks. I suppose I owe the failure to a certain unsociability of my own: I certainly could have gotten out more. How are you going to speak Chinese, or any other language, if you never leave the neighborhood?

***

If anyone knows how to sever relations with Spotify, I’d be grateful to learn. Suddenly, my inbox is full of notices that such-and-such a Facebook friend has updated a playlist. As I never, ever use Spotify myself — like Skype and Twitter, it quickly turned out to be Not For Me (I have yet to cancel Twitter, but I’m getting there) — these updates are useless individually and annoying en masse. But! We interrupt this rant to announce that emails have been received, the answers to which will probably close the account. When I filled out and submitted a “contact form” yesterday, I got an immediate boilerplate reply that referred me to “community support” and FAQ lists. Thanks for nothing, I thought. But just now, real people, in Cambridge somewhere, have asked for some vitals, having supplied which I can expect to see the account closed with 72 hours. That’s soon enough.

Why did I get so worked up about Spotify? Pushback, I think — displaced pushback. Between the subway-station construction and the balcony-replacement project, I’ve been left feeling invaded and powerless. A little harmless self-assertion was in order. I’m marching through my Outlook inbox, unsubscribing to update notifications right and left.

Bon weekend à tous!

 

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2012 at 12:05 pm.