WHERE DOES DUST COME FROM???

By admin | Published: January 13, 2010

It is an ancient myth that dust is actually made up from the bones of Gods and Goddesses, dried upon this earth like a crusty film of dead skin cells. They left bits of themselves down here, so that as they watch on from above, they will feel connected and implemented in a way that is better than feeling nothing at all. In the sky, their eyes fall upon us in long shafts of light, a gently combing hand with fingers slick as salt and smooth as sand.

Today, me and the other atheists have more or less come to the consensus that dust is just dust, and the earth must be exfoliated & freed from the layers of grime the ancients left behind. Rather than being somewhat magical, a sprinkling, if-you-will, of a potent blend of indescribable material that could have drifted down from any far-off body of lust— dust is just the residue of nothing. It collects in places that have no reason to exist other than to fill space between meaningful structure and activity. Under the bed, dust lives a heavy life, cluttering the air with the build-up of nothing at all. In the corners, dust collects in ghost-like webs of cast-off atoms; the particles of life that chipped away and were left like so many un-ripened fruits gone to waste.

Perhaps the philosophical implications of dust could be looked upon through a more magnified lens, and we could learn a great deal about the constructs of this earth and its tendency to spin and spin. If there’s anything that can be gleaned from the proverbs of societies past, we all should know by now that ‘a rock only gets smaller,’ and time only moves in one direction. Perhaps when the world was born, every rock was whole, and every particle existed as a finite component to a well-defined orb-like entity. Now, as the world continues to revolve around the sun, each entity has become less and less whole, and more dust has begun to drift outwards. Dust leaks into the air, turns the oceans to sludge, and corrupts the youth. The housewives of the 50s had it right in devoting their lives to the prevention of caked-in-by-dust syndrome— as the dust flies, so does the time.

Dust is merely the hourglass of the world, building up as we all die away, becoming less and less whole as time saunters on.  There is nothing that can solve this problem, until the nanobots of the future are able to generate perfectly whole units from dust itself. However, at this point humans will have done away with time in and of itself, and we will be able to fly forth into the future with all the glittering space ships of so many proverbial dreams. As soon as time means nothing, so will dust— but until then, we must be wary, and always carry a sham cloth in hand.

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Out Of Control: Life As We Kn(e)(o)w It.

By admin | Published: January 11, 2010

Okay, so no need to state the obvious… but here goes anyway: PYRAMIDROME HAS WITHERED UP LIKE SUMMER’S BASIL PLANT LEFT OUT IN THE FROST! But it’s okay. Let’s talk about it.

When I started this blog, it was more or less to convince myself that despite my severe feelings of personal worthlessness, I was still more or less capable of having ideas and gettin’ shit done. It kind of did the trick, as I was able to write about some stuff I found interesting, and have some other people read it and write stuff back. It was really cool how it worked out. I miss it, and I would like to propose a reinvigoration of this blog: FOR THE SAKE OF US ALL.

But yeah, gettin’ on with the deets. Since the last time I wrote, I’ve been swept up by a tornado of changes. I ate Chinese food on some Wednesday back in July. At the end of the meal, my fortune cookie had some good news for me, reading, “Expect a change in job or status for the future.” With a jaded smile, I tucked the small slip of paper into my pocket and wished like hell the cookie would for once get it right.

The very next day, I received a somewhat confusing e-mail. It was from a man at an Internet startup seeking interns on Craigslist, and he was replying to an application I had sent off only the day before. This baffled me, as I had begun to assume that the constant stream of e-mails I sent out every day were getting lost in translation, or at least sucked up by aliens and spewed out over another far-off corner of outer space. In hearing back from someone, my balloon strings were tugged back down to earth, and a heavy sense of gratitude overwhelmed me. PEOPLE ARE OUT THERE, I thought to myself. ALL IS NOT DEAD! I could have cried for the joy I felt in my heart, like at the end of Stephen King’s “The Langoliers,” when the final survivors escape the black hole/lapse in time and get happily dashed back into the hustle and bustle of functioning society.

Weirdly, the e-mail from the man at the Internet start-up suggested that I give him a call rather than meet him at some far off and horribly inconvenient location. So, I did, and after a questionably short conversation, it was decided that I would come into their office the following Friday to START WORKING. On top of all this, he said they would PAY ME for WORKING THERE. Upon hanging up the phone, I felt as though I had just stepped off the edge of a diving board, and was caught in that instant before gravity takes a hold—merely hovering in air, incomprehensiblly still, my brain floating easily between each wall of my lumpy skull like jelly in a donut. Had my reason for complaining and over-analyzing and pyramidroming my days away suddenly been lifted over my head like so much cold spaghetti? Only time would tell.

Over the next few hours the calm began to wear off. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I had a job! Glee set in and I finally made the plunge downward, free from my tethered state of pyramidroming-into-the-sun (as Icarus surely did, let it be known). That Friday I started working for M——-(let’s keep it nameless to prevent the Google spiders from crawling this and letting all my secrets pour wildly into my business life), where I’ve gradually become more and more at home with the idea of WORKING and MAKING MONEY and DOING BIZARRELY WEIRD TASKS THAT MAKE NO SENSE TO ME AT ALL (because, let’s be honest… this is what it means to do work for somebody else).

Now, I don’t want to go running a mock all over the weirdness of having a job, because let’s remember that horrible span from June to July when I woke up every morning at 11am to the sound of my own brain thumping itself into a coma. I am GRATEFUL to be able to get up in the morning, put on something that isn’t pajamas, slather some PB&J on toast and head out into the morning air. It really feels good to walk down the street, in the same direction as the morning before, heading off to a place where I am expected to be and expected to perform. Momma didn’t raise no slacker, which is why I made this blog back in the day of boredom, solitude and stir-craziness.

Since July, stuff has started happening. Somehow, I have managed to become engrossed in NOT ONE, but FOUR JOBS, all of which are INCREDIBLY WEIRD and kind of AWESOME. I have often thought of myself as somebody who’s most happy when living life off the beaten trail, which is why I’ve ended up with the resume I have, and which is most likely why this odd set of people have opted to take me on, each in their own way. I continue to be baffled and impressed with the simple fact that the places I currently work for are able to exist in this day and age. A successful Internet startup seeking to help independent designers and bands team up to sell handmade merchandise to niche markets? Improbable. A group of witty, humorous and talented artists coming together to confront the notion of reality, time and space through an alternative reality game based in the heart of San Francisco? Get real. An online store &blog selling prints made by awesome up-and-coming artists? Sounds great, but show me the beans. And finally, a project run by a bunch of lawyers to help underprivileged high school students work with local artists and not-for-profits while applying for college? GET OUTTA HERE. Somehow, I have become involved in a group of projects that each seem somehow too good to be true, which must in some way reflect my distrust for America’s economy and the improbability of something really cool being able to “make it.” However, it is somehow working out, and I am too fearful to sit for more than a second and think about all the stuff that could quite easily fail and send any one of these four projects crashing down into a pile of wishful thinking and good intentions.

Now that I have all this stuff going on, thinking about life via this blog has become something that barely ever crosses my mind… except when people ask me, ‘Hey, whatever happened to that Pyramidrome thing you kept e-mailing me about?’ At the thought of this I sigh, and think about how there are really just not enough hours in the day at all, and I work on weekends now, and I am just more or less out of control in all sense of the saying. It is so, so exciting to be a part of something that I believe in, and even though I sometimes feel like my time would be better spent digging a hole to China, I am grateful for each and every hour I’ve been able to spend at each of my jobs. I hate being this busy, but I am so much happier to be busy than idle. I think it is amazing that there are people in this world who are able and eager to start their own projects, to make money off of these projects, and to grow something imagined into something real. This is what I have always loved about art: the ability to imagine something, and then bring that thing into existence. I have respect for each of my jobs because at the core of each place is that golden nugget: the spirit of somebody who believed it might someday work out, and that their idea might someday employ some random girl from Vermont and give her something to toil away her days to.

So, in the spirit of this blog, I’d like to take back a statement I made back in “the day” (“the day” of course being those few months ago when I was jobless). When I started this blog, I thought that the word “pyramidrome” could come to embody the anger and hostility I felt towards the job market as born by capitalism, as well as my own state of mind when dealing with these sentiments in my everyday life. However, now that I’ve seen the light on the other side of the door, I must admit that the word must come to embody a new meaning. Specifically, I think that to “pyramidrome” must mean to FIND ONE’S PLACE IN CAPITALISM, while living a life that is at least somewhat meaningful, fun and productive. We shall all strive for the good life, and along the way, we will pyramidrome our days away in all sorts of weird places doing all sorts of ridiculous tasks, but we must remember: to do is to be, and to be is to be able to do. Whatever the hell that means, it’s better than bumming around, and that’s all there is to know.

LONG LIVE THE PYRAMID: LONG LIVE SOCIETY: LIVE LONG AND PROSPER.

Hope all’s well with the few readers that may remain, and please, SEND ME SOMETHIN’ GOOD! Just because you got a job doesn’t mean you’re done here, goddamn it.

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FOREST GUMP WAS WRONG: LIFE IS LIKE A FUNNEL.

By admin | Published: September 1, 2009

Remember middle school? Those were good times. The teachers shuffled us around between reading, math, gym and art class, and then after school we played a sport or watched cartoons. We were forced to dabble in everything, with the hope that we would be good in at least one subject. I remember one time I god interviewed by a magazine because I had improved at something, and even though that something happened to be organizing my backpack, it was a welcome achievement. In fact, this success of mine has been immortalized via “the Google” (as our old president Bush calls it)… you can read about it HERE.
Photoshop

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that middle school is the last time I can remember being allowed to focus on a number of different possibilities for myself as a person. Back then, we were still young enough to develop a bizarre interest in some weird science project, or to suddenly bust out at a spelling contest with some amazing display of alphabetical talent. We were all undiscovered, waiting for the system to start us along with the filing process, shooing us in directions gently and with all the non-precision of bowling alley bumpers.

When I was in middle school, I always liked art best, but I was also good at math and spelling. For some reason, this disturbed my teachers. It was as though they could foresee my future, and realized how much of a struggle it would become for me to pick between everything I liked. When I got to high school, I was dramatically forced to choose between sports and band. Gosh, what a choice! I remember beleaguering the decision until I decided to secretly do both by lying, cheating and stealing (I was an aggressive high school student). That was my first taste of the system of specialization, where we are eventually forced to funnel ourselves into one specific activity. Voila: our supposed occupation!

Photoshop
The problem I have with the idea of the “occupation” is that it implies being involved in a specific activity all of the time. This feels inherently wrong to me. I used to cherish the feeling of getting released from school, hearing the bell ringing so that I could fling shut my locker and dash outside, immediately forgetting everything I had previously been thinking about. I like to think of those days as my old form of healthy ADHD, where I paid attention during specifically delegated chunks of time, and then allowed for my brain to become interested in whatever else it felt piqued by. Being a grown up means losing that sense of mental experimentation, honing down and thinking about one thing almost all of the time, having one specific skill and getting paid to do it over and over. I guess this is what we get for developing as a species and coming up with occupational specialization, possibly the best and worst thing to happen to humans. I just hate the way that computers (e-mail in particular) have caused work and play to merge into this clumpy goo of everything-at-once. I work on a computer, I play on a computer, I pyramidrome on a computer. This brings up the problem I attempted to solve during my thesis studies at Vassar: the disparity between digital media and meaningful experience. Can you do both at the same time? I’d like to think yes, but it’s turning out to seem more and more impossible.

When I started PYRAMIDROME, I thought it was going to be a venue for facilitating discussion between the frustrated 20-somethings as we search for employment and sense of worth. As I have suddenly found myself with a stressful job and a lot to think about, it has become much more a point of meditation for me. “What would my inner pyramidroming self think of me now?” I go to work and stare at my computer for 8 hours, then come home and go on my computer more, and suddenly it’s late at night and I feel like I haven’t DONE anything all day. I can never figure out what it means to “DO” something, but what I’ve come to think is that it basically just means doing anything that is unrelated to computers. Suddenly my middle school self has stopped participating in math, science, reading, art and gym class. All I do is sit in computer class, pecking away at a keyboard all day. By middle school standards, I would be a freak! I went to liberal arts college to get a balanced education, which I feel strongly was important to my development as a well-rounded, informed and analytical person. Now I wonder how to keep fulfilling this sense of “roundness” with a job, when I get home with only an hour left of daylight, barely any time at all left for hugging trees, becoming a ballerina and changing the world. Oh, my middle school self had so much prospect!Photoshop

Basically I want to finish this post off with a shout out to my fellow p-dromers. I feel sort of like I betrayed my flock by finding a job, but I want to verbalize my opinions on the matter: ALL IS NOT SOLVED BY EMPLOYMENT! Before I had a job, I felt aimless and anxious. Now that I have a job, I feel exhausted and anxious. I remember fondly the times I spent pondering on the meaning of life, taking walks to pass the days by, talking on the phone commiserating with friends and writing in my sketchbook. I haven’t done any of those things in the past couple of weeks since I’ve been working, and I worry that once I am actually employed I won’t even remember that I used to like doing those things. It scares me that the prospect of a mid-life crisis feels probable, after contributing to the American workforce for less than a month. I don’t understand how most people are capable of getting up at 7am, working all day, coming home at 6pm and then feeling like they have any energy left for “hobby time!” (not that anybody calls it hobby time self-admittedly). In college, I was lucky if I spent a good 4 hours doing anything productive in one day–now all of a sudden I’m expected to be up and at ‘em all day! What the hell! Chu crazy.
I apologize for this rambling post, and I especially apologize for bringing up middle school (who do I think I am?). I want to finish this piece of shit by declaring war on the American system! I don’t believe in the idea of occupation. PhotoshopEmployment is a fake word. Like I said earlier, we get two things from the American capitalistic system: a way to toil most of our lives away, and a way to get money to enhance the remaining portio (the part of our lives that isn’t spent toiling). Neither of these benefits excite me very much, so I’m left wondering: how can I navigate the system in a way that is fulfilling? I like what Liz’s dad said: “Don’t get depressed!” It reminds me a lot about what my dad said, and what my mom says, and what everyone is always saying. “Yeah, it sucks, but don’t let it get to ya’!” Okay, okay, I’m really trying to not let it get to me, but it’s tough! I feel like I want to gather all of my friends in a big group hug and tell everyone personally how I think they’re great, and that they shouldn’t get demoralized, and that we should all be happy just to wake up every morning and smell the roses and eat cereal and take the long way home! But c’mon now, we did that shit in middle school (ahem), and now we must prioritize. If I only get an hour to myself a day, how am I going to spend it? I don’t know, but I’m guessing it has something to do with liquor.

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Middle Gray Or: The Usual

By admin | Published: September 1, 2009

by Liz Galvao

I have nightmares from time to time that I’m sent back to high school. I had one yesterday morning. I was sitting in a classroom next to a friend of mine. “I can’t believe I’m back in high school,” I said to her. “I’d rather go back to college before I went back to high school.”

I woke up, shook off my sleepiness, and looked at the quote-a-day calendar on my nightstand. “Never economize on luxuries.” –Angela Thirkell. August 31st, 2009. At this time a year ago I was frantically trying to move into my apartment at school, hugging and how-was-your-summering twenty times a day. I went downstairs for some coffee and a bagel. My mom greeted me, “How’s the job search?” I grunted, “The usual.” She then told me that I should try substitute teaching at the high school where she works. “I know it’s an early start, and it’s not exactly what you want to do, but it would be some money coming in.” I told her I’d think about it. I’m not in the habit of making decisions before coffee.

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Lately I’ve been Googling myself more than I’d care to admit, wondering what prospective employers might see. Not much comes up that’s not already on my resume, except for a couple thousand unrelated hits generated by my Portuguese last name. Apparently there’s another Elizabeth Galvao in Brazil. I found her LinkedIn profile. She hasn’t been putting off setting one up forever because she’s too lazy to fill out forms. She attended the Universidade de São Paulo and probably majored in something marketable and relevant. She probably looks like Gisele and zips around in a fabulous little European car and knows how to wear a scarf more than two ways. And she has a job in the capital markets industry, which sounds very Important and Successful. She would probably never end up with a four-year-old laptop whose keys are sticky and clack as loudly as an old typewriter because she spilled overpriced juice on them. Clearly, she is winning.

Willa originally considered naming this blog “What Do You Do?” because of the power of that question over our identities and feelings of self-worth. I was very proud to identify myself as a student at Vassar College. It was something I’d worked very hard to be, and I was pretty good at it. Now I’m just unemployed. I feel like the middle gray card we used to calibrate our light meters when I took photography in high school. Undefined.

I started taking photos in high school for the same reason I started writing crappy poetry and playing the guitar and making my own clothes: because this town bored me to death and I had to find ways to occupy myself while plotting my escape. Now that I’m back here to live indefinitely, it is quite a bit like I’m back in high school. Yet it’s not exactly the nightmare I once envisioned. I’m still plotting my escape to the big city, but I’m finding ways to occupy myself. For four years, I traded hobbies for classes that interested me and friends who were never short on conversation. It was a good trade, one I’d gladly make twice, but I’m happy to be writing and making use of Photoshop again. I’m happy to be able to go see movies in the theater and exhibits in New York, even if I can’t really afford it. At Vassar I rarely found the time to do any of those things.

So, yes, it’s now September, my scary deadline, and I’m still unemployed. But that’s not all there is to me. I’m slowly coloring in the middle gray. Part of that is accepting that I might be here for a while. I’m going to apply to work as a substitute teacher tomorrow. I’d probably get some good anecdotes out of it, and I need a new laptop if I’m going to keep writing at this pace. I read somewhere that one should never economize on luxuries.

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At the Corner of Unpaid & Avenue Q

By admin | Published: August 25, 2009

by Liz Galvao

Last night I was standing in a hot room on the sixteenth floor of a high-rise in midtown Manhattan, surrounded by a dozen or so ridiculously cute little girls and their mothers, who varied from your typical high-strung stage mom to the patient good sport. One of the former stood two feet away from me, talking into her cell phone. “I don’t know, they don’t seem to be very organized,” she said, sounding irritated. I clutched my clipboard and smiled at her.

I’d gotten the gig, helping out with auditions for a short indie film, through a friend of mine (an ‘09 graduate from another college) who’s been working on the project as a casting assistant. There was some franticness due to crawling Lincoln Tunnel traffic and a shortage of scripts, but overall it was a fun couple of hours that we capped off with diner food and True Blood once back in New Jersey. The fact that it happened on the same day that I’d gotten called about a different unpaid gig made me start thinking about unpaid work in general, and why so many of us have ended up doing it.


moneyjoney
In my freshman econ class, my professor told us not to worry about the upwards of $160,000 that our education would cost, for we would earn substantially more because of it. Yet here I am. In a week from Saturday I’ll be attending my class’s 100 Nights After Graduation party in a city I hoped I’d be living in by now with nothing but unpaid work to my name.

In the car, my friend sang songs from Avenue Q, remarking that lately she can’t stop thinking about how true the lyrics have become for her.

What do you do with a B.A. in English,

What is my life going to be?

Four years of college and plenty of knowledge,

Have earned me this useless degree.

I can’t pay the bills yet,

‘Cause I have no skills yet,

The world is a big scary place.

Five months ago, over our last spring break, I bet her fifty dollars that she would have a job by graduation, as she’s one of the most ambitious and driven people I know. I’m relieved she hasn’t remembered our bet. She told me that when she entered college, graduates of her major had a record of 100% job placement in the entertainment industry. Of the graduates of the same major in 2009, not one has an industry job. My smart, highly qualified friend is currently doing mind-numbing temp work at an insurance agency.

I want it to be clear that I’m not whining. I understand it’s a difficult time for many people, regardless of age or college degree. My father, the Baby Boomer, is out of work, too. The other day he told me, “I’m worried that with the unemployment you might get depressed. I know myself it can be frustrating. I just wanted to say,” and here he began to yell, “Don’t get depressed! We have enough to deal with!”

And that is basically my message. Unemployed of America, I share in your frustration and disappointment. I share in your dwindling bank accounts and rapidly receding periods of health care coverage. I share in your hours spent on Craigslist and dozens of resumes and cover letters sent out that receive only silence in return. I share in your terror when receiving mail from your student loan lenders, and I share in your unbridled joy when receiving a ten-spot from your Grandmas. I share all of these things with you, Unemployed of America, but still I say to you, DON’T GET DEPRESSED! WE HAVE ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH! Find a way to be productive, even if it doesn’t pay, and even if it’s just writing for your friend’s blog. And believe me when I say that it helps.

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CODY PEACE ADAMS and the REAL MEANING of STAR TREK

By admin | Published: August 22, 2009

Cody Peace Adams lives in NYC and is just beginning his masters at NYU for creative writing (WHUT WHUT!). I read Cody’s blog on a regular basis, and you can too: THERMOS H. CHRIST. If anyone who reads this thought pyramidroming was just for silly girly girls, well, they wuz WRONG. Life is a brutal fuck, but at least we’re not in outer space among the Klingons, Arcturians, Zaranites and Aaamazzarites… cuz those breeds are fierce.

For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky

by Cody Peace Adams

cody
Another summer in New York has rolled around. Again, I am unemployed. Last summer had a certain derelict romance to it, smoking cigarettes out of my bathroom window in my underwear while drinking a beer before 3. It was like rolling down a steep hill littered with malt liquor bottles. But this summer has hit the bottom of the hill and slid out onto a frozen lake littered with malt liquor bottles, scrambling about in circles on its hands and knees.

Not helping matters was the soul-molesting year of employment between my periods of living on the dole. My eyes are ruined from staring at a computer screen for eight or nine hours a day. And what do I have to show for it? Several styleless articles on sustainable architecture published in a small-circulation trade magazine at a company that’s probably going under. And though I was basically staring at the wall of a cubicle the entire time, another previously unknown perversion of the office environment has become known to me: I became used to being around people every day, even in the sickening and superficial fashion of the modern workplace. Plunged back into the scintillating garbage fire of my detached life, all of the many people I don’t or used to know loom large in my sickly vacuity.

Basically, my mental well-being was thrown down in the sawdust and shit-kicked by a bar full of mean cowboys. The first few weeks after the job ended were glorious. Gloriously drunk. I quickly ran through the money I was supposed to be living on until school starts in the fall. Several setbacks and vanishing income sources greatly exacerbated this problem. I was broke last summer, but this time around it’s approached Angela’s Ashes territory. Unlike the hand-to-mouth unemployment check poverty of last year, utter destitution is not at all romantic or exciting. I’ve skipped food for days at a time (mostly to make room for liquor and cigarette money), stopped taking the subway, and started spending time at the public library again. I was saved for a period of four days by the discovery of a $20 Starbucks giftcard, with which I purchased miserable little sandwiches that I ate out back. I could not afford to do laundry, and my hygiene has undeniably suffered, though you can’t rape the willing in that regard.

At around the same time, my new roommate discovered an even newer roommate: bedbugs! I have lived with an irrational fear of this brand of vermin since moving to New York, even while gradually ratifying a mental peace treaty with the cockroaches. He found one crawling on his bed. I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t actually a bed bug, but perhaps instead some benign form of tick, flea, or lice. The next night dashed this naive hope when I awoke at 4 AM to find a bed bug crawling next to me and a telltale line of welts on my arm. This touched off a four day period in which I did not sleep, shivering in the heat and twitching at the scarcest movement or shadow in my peripheral vision. I went inch by inch through my entire room. A single bed bug was discovered on my box spring. I gutted it like a fish and left it slumped against a tree. I taped plastic sheeting over my electrical outlet, tore everything of my walls, covered my mattress in an extremely uncomfortable and costly protective covering (it feels like sleeping on the outside of a diaper), and plastic bagged all of my clothing. I sprinkled a wicka protection circle of boric acid around my bed. My room now looks like an insane asylum for a patient with a contagious skin disease. This soothed me, and I began to be able to sleep again. A week later I was watching The Wrath of Kahn and shortly after the part with the monster earwigs I glanced over and saw a bedbug skittering around on the couch next to me. Although this was the most action I had gotten in months, I nonetheless had to destroy it. More sleepless nights ensued, but I eventually relaxed again. Then my roommate found three or four more in his box spring. Earlier steps were repeated. Defenses were lowered. Several days ago my roommate found another one on his bed, crawling around as free as you please. I have given up. Everything in the apartment will be burnt in a holy fire when I leave.

Other deleterious events: I received a severe, severe sunburn on a bankrupt trip to Cape Cod, and still haven’t recovered. On the first night of the same trip I somehow became delirious, wandered outside, and tried to sleep in the sand at 5 AM. The failure to realize said ambition led to a furious determination to walk along the surf until I collapsed, leaving my friends to forever wonder what happened to me. (This urge gradually abated.) Upon taking a routine drug test before participating in a top-dollar medical experiment testing anti-depressants, I tested positive for methadone. I explained that I have not taken synthetic heroin or burn-victim pain medication. Their accusative stares and subsequent dismissal leads me to conclude that they did not believe me. This was depressing. (An ill-timed ‘jazz cigarette’ also showed up, but that was no big deal.) My freshly ‘ex’ girlfriend abruptly stopped talking to me. Paranoid fantasies and self-value problems ensued. I got drunk and emailed everyone I’ve ever dated. (This did not take long.) My former workplace stiffed me on paying for a freelance video I produced or them. I projectile vomited on a driveway in Staten Island. A long-planned return trip to Oregon to see my brother for the first time in three years fell through, because I did not have any money. I had to sell all of my video games. After reading a book on the subject, I diagnosed myself with adult ADD and realized that this my well be the font of most of my personal problems, including and especially the spontaneous machinations I employed to break up with my girlfriend, which I have since bitterly, bitterly regretted, in the way that a sad clown immediately regrets every monkeyshine. Like all true epiphanies, this realization has only made it, and the backbreaking load of all of my other failures, that much worse. Ironically enough, this is a symptom, referred to as ADD post traumatic stress syndrome in the literature.

But surely there must be an upshot! the reader says to himself. I did manage to watch all of Star Trek: The Original Series, which spurred to me write my finest passage yet:

Aaamazzarites
“Star Trek is a show about: The infinite convoluted projections of the human heart, and the neverending capacity for man’s loneliness and longing to match chamber for chamber the plenitudes of space. The universe is populated by a bottomless well of twisted Edens, where populations chillingly accept the tyranny of artificial intelligences, the violation of physic rape, space madness, slavery of the soul, endless childhood, and every other form of scientific/ontological self-subjugation imaginable. Often crew members of the Enterprise feel the allure, and the always sensually conscious Kirk must reel them back in, even his top officers and closest friends, time and again, though he knows they would be happier. And every ancient race of super-sentient omnipotent beings, Dionysians, phantasmahorical apparations, beings of light and energy, and silicon monsters alike, are really better off for being extinguished.”

And later and drunker a probably not-so-great one:

“It couldn’t exists without cartoons.”

Anything else? Sort of. I managed to get back on a smaller amount of unemployment. So I won’t starve to death now. I’ve become comfortable wearing cut-off jeans shorts in public. I bought an awesome new phone that has an e-ink keypad that turns into a full keyboard at will, making texting a breeze. After almost two months of silence my beloved ex-girlfriend picked up at 3 AM, and called me back the next morning so I could remember what she said. She might see me some time; right now this is a minor miracle. I’ve listened to the Department of Eagles album 30 times to date.

So what lays in store next for Thermos H. Christ? If I can make it through the next three weeks without appearing on the nightly news, a debt-fueled fiction MFA at NYU, and a whole new group of people to alienate with my withering workshop critiques. And just maybe a few new friends! I’d feel better about it if I had written anything besides this blog in the last two years.

CODY’S TWITTER: @codypeaceadams

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We Don’t Care About The Millenials!

By admin | Published: August 20, 2009

by Liz Galvao

Young people don’t know anything, but think they know everything. I believe that I know at least this much.

One thing I admit to not knowing is when exactly I will accept being lumped into a pre-labeled generation. My parents proudly identify themselves as Baby Boomers, yet I find it nothing but irritating to read descriptions of “Millennials.” The name itself scarcely makes sense, as most of us were born in the 1980s. It’s not that these descriptions don’t apply to me at all; I’m Internet-savvy, I listen to alternative music, and I spent a lot of energy getting into college. Yet these articles that break down my supposed personality and entitlement in the workforce make me feel like I’m part of a scientific experiment.

I have also generally not had a positive reaction to any sentence that begins with, “Your generation.” To be fair, most of these come from my father, who simultaneously blames my generation for the rise of reality television and is all too happy to remind me that we will have to deal with the effects of global warming, as he “will be dead by then.”

lizg

I resent being lumped into the Milennials just as I resent blanket statements about women or people from New Jersey. And in that respect I am sure I’m being truly young and truly dumb, to actually believe myself to be an individual and not a birth date with predetermined actions based on race, gender, and class. After all, what did I learn at my fancy liberal arts college if not that I’m white and privileged and should shut the fuck up about my problems?

You know, maybe they were right about us after all. Here I’ve been complaining about not having a job, companies expecting college graduates to intern full-time for nothing but a recommendation, how my friends with jobs are just doing work that means nothing to them to make a few bucks, etc. What is that but a sense of entitlement? Why should any of us deserve to do meaningful work or work that we enjoy right after a four-year vacation on our parents’ dime? We should be grateful for any opportunity to earn an honest living. Besides, it’s our fault that reality tv is so popular.

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GENERATION: POLYMATH. Get Used to It.

By admin | Published: August 19, 2009
By Willa

Ah, things were simpler in the ancient times. For instance, men were able to study in mathematics, science, music and GOD, all at the same time. Philosophers gained notoriety by being well-learned in many subjects. It was thought that knowing a lot about a lot of things would generally increase your knowledge exponentially, as each area of study was thought to inherently bleed over into the next.

NEVERMORE!!!

Telling somebody that I have a “Bachelor of Arts” from a “Liberal Arts College” is silly. “You got what, now?” they say. It’s true, I went to college to learn a whole lot about a whole bunch of different stuff. Most of what I learned I can’t remember specifically. Rather, I learned to think and act a certain way; to be analytical and informed and interested. In these modern times, my liberal arts degree is both completely relevant and completely unhelpful. I have this unsavory taste in my mouth that I get from feeling like I don’t know how to do everything… like acid-reflux from an unsatisfying meal. It’s weird though, because I know how to do TONS OF FUCKIN’ SHIT! When I sit down to think about it, my skill set is really terrific. Not to toot my own horn (toot toot!), but seriously. I feel competent. At computers.

UNFORTUNATELY, THAT’S NOT WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS RIGHT NOW!!!

Dreamweaver

I just watched a very intense documentary about this plane filled with Uruguayans on their way to a rugby match in Chile. When their plane crashed in the Andes, they ended up being stranded for more than two months with no food aside from the bodies of those who died in the crash. Now, imagine that: needing to eat your frozen dead friend in order to live. NOW THAT’S A SKILL!!!

The Internet has allowed our culture to progress/digress into a very weird place. Telecommuting and the ability for people to work remotely via Gchat (rather than in an office space) has made the world feel very small and very large at the same time. People can now go anywhere virtually, but they don’t need to go anywhere physically. I seriously spent about 30 minutes the other day just looking at Google Maps street view of weird mid-Western states I’ve never been to. Why? Because I have no reason to go there if I can see how fucking terrible it is, right from the comfort of San Francisco!

I started this post because I wanted to write about polymaths. Here’s a good quote from Robert Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

I totally stole that quote from Wikipedia’s amazing entry on “Competent Man.” I like the final line, because specialization IS for insects, and that’s why I kill those bastards with 409 every day! Oh my God, the “competent man” post is just such a good read! It also brings up the good point about age in the equation of the polymath:

The competent man, more often than not, is written without explaining how he achieved his wide range of skills and abilities, especially as true expertise typically suggests practical experience instead of learning through books or formalized education alone. While not implausible with older or unusually long lived characters, when such characters are young it is often not adequately explained as to how they acquired so many skills at an early age.

totesuberYes! Yes! This is exactly it. Being young and being an übermensch at the same time is nearly impossible, except of course in cartoons or in this current economy. Nietzsche believed that one day an “OVERMAN” would come and evolve over man, take man’s stuff and constantly beat him up. Um, white collar/blue collar much? I don’t even want to get into that right now, ‘cuz the gist of it all would blow this blog out of the PYRAMIDROMING realm and far, far away into another whole time and dimension. Basically I’m trying to say that my fine-art education and degree in “thinking about stuff” have caused me to evolve into a very strange non-humanoid. I have machine skills, but my survival skills are wobbly like a baby deer’s knobby legs.

As our culture pushes its educated elite further and further from the animal physicality of the real humanoids, emotions and food and pooping become taboo. Is this really a world we want to live in? I say NO! But then again, here I sit blogging the night away. Oh pyramidrome, you nasty beast you!

Posted in Willa | 2 Comments

TOM KOERNER: Even my Dad knows how to PYRAMIDROME!

By admin | Published: August 17, 2009

SO my dad read this blog, and being the dad that he is, he had some of his own input. My dad is really cool, so even though he’s not 20something and he’s definitely not unemployed, I still let him write a post. I think it’s pretty good.

august 17, 2009 (atomic calendar)

A Call to Action- on the Subject of Pyramidroming

Being the father of the Willa I am naturally interested in what she is doing–the not-so-little turd moved to San fransico and (at this point I am not going to use any more capital letters)is doing work and writing into the blogosphere. some of her friends find it fun/theraputic to write about their trials and tribulations in finding a place in the cosmos. self examination is over-rated but brings me to the point of this fog of words–metacognition.

wiki tells us that metacognition is thinking about thinking——kind of like the ant eating his own head. (at one point the willa thought that was a funny image)-i still do.

thinking about thinking actually has purpose. it can prevent one from crumbling under the thought of what awful stuff might happen——-fear is only an acronym for future events that aren’t real-(I kinda made this part up——but whats the difference?) checking into where your brain is taking you now and then is good—it usually requires a short leash given the weirdness of the world.–

so recent college grads–rejoice- Photoshop

you inherited a bankrupt, corrupt, inept, greedy, cheeto-eating, nascar loving, oops-look-what happened playbook courtesy of the baby-boomers (i am one)—stand up and be proud-you really can be part of the solution-so go forth and blog and blackberry and text and sext and do all that————-then GOYA (get off your ass)-and do something productive–it can and will payoff–no really- it will-I know —the hummingbird that is my mothers spirit told me just last saturday as it paused 4 inches from my nose-true story-

summary-don’t overthink everything all the time–look for what is beautiful and add to it—-

“In this interconnected universe, every improvement we make in our private world improves the world at large for everyone. We all float on the collective level of consciousness of mankind, so that any increment we add comes back to us. We add to our common buoyancy by our efforts to benefit life. It is a scientific fact that what is good for you is good for me.”

yep-I stole the above —so sue me!

In the immortal wordz of FZ-“the crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe”–right on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the above is not intended for any purpose—–none—–well actually it is a little cheerleading for you downtrodden vassar grads who have to face the cold cruel world—–don’t worry-be happy!!

ok— enough——————————-

compiled by tk father of the willa

Posted in Tom Koerner | 4 Comments

MEET BROOKE: Bahama Mamma

By admin | Published: August 16, 2009

Oh, lookie here! We’ve got ourselves another new pyramidromer. Seems like everyone’s getting in the mood to pour out their post-college woes. Brooke  is from the Bahamas, and she attended Vassar with Liz, Jill and I… again, majoring in the super “real world-applicable” artsy-fartsy division of film. Hey, we might not be raking in the dolla bills, y’all, but at least we all got AESTHETIC!

pyramidroming > not pyramidroming.

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Like everyone else on this blog and (presumably) the rest of our graduating class at Vassar, I worked pretty hard in high school. I was, and perhaps still am, dumb as shit, but I knew what to put in front of my teachers to get good grades. And I did this, not because I had any interest in what I was studying (I didn’t), but rather because I HAD GOALS. Clear-cut, specific, realistic goals. All I wanted was to leave the Bahamas and go to the golden arches that is aMerica and enroll in a college that I could be proud to say I attended. And not to toot my own horn, but damnit, I succeeded! But! I had only figured the plan out up to that point. So, again, like too many of our graduating class, we are stranded in our respective states/islands on the not-quite-ground floors of our respective pyramids.

I’ve been home now for a little more than a month makings plans to move to either New York City or out west. As for my goals, they are hazy and confused and not shaped anything like a block one would use to build safe pyramids. All my planning and convincing my parents for a September departure was going okay in that it wasn’t totally out of the question. But you know how like sometimes shit happens? Well, shit happened. Someone in my family got into a little car accident and no one was hurt but all my rent money that I would have gotten from my parents is currently being put towards repairing a shitty bus that our car damaged. So now my already hazy goals are becoming almost imperceptible from a fog of hopelessness… as emo as that sounds.

I majored in Film at Vassar and took the minimum required courses outside of the arts – most of them in the very useful and practical American Culture department. So my strongest skills include watching movies while reclined, google image searching, and writing (silly) papers. I put these skills to good use while I’m home by spending most of my time putting pretty things from… google image on my tumblr, laughing with or being laughed at by my brothers, and wondering WHAT THE HELL IM GOING TO DO WITH MY LIFE. Here are just some things I’ve considered devoting my life to becoming:

  • dog breeder
  • horse breeder
  • baker specializing in cupcakes
  • baker specializing in cookies
  • party clown (how fun would this be?!)
  • gymnastics instructor
  • trophy wife
  • Miss Bahamas –> Miss Universe (fingers crossed!)
  • a cat
  • career Reality TV Star
  • Pregnant-With-Each-Other-Diet* Creator

But I think I’ve realized what I really love doing right now is wondering what it is I want to do. I don’t quite know if I’m actually adding more blocks to my proverbial pyramid by doing this but maybe I’m just working overtime on perfecting the ground floor. Like an artist who paints on the same canvas over and over again or kinda like that book “Sight of Death” where T.J. Clark kept visiting these two Poussin paintings and writing about them over and over again. Maybe I’m not building my pyramid but at least, like, standing around my worthless pile of rocks and thinking about them. And that has somehow GOT to be better than doing nothing, right? RIGHT? I guess what I’m trying to say by saying ALL of this is that pyramids are going up all around you all the time whether you like it or not! Sometimes they are built slowly, giving you warning, and sometimes those fuckers just show up out of nowhere. Those bills from that car accident are a big, nasty pyramid in the middle of our house, for example. I’m talking in circles or triangles right now but I guess the point with pyramids is to just do something. ANYTHING. Pyramids are progress and they don’t build themselves.

*Curious?!??! Ask me about it!

Posted in Brooke | 1 Comment