Armageddon, July 2024
It's 33ºC with 61% humidity in Philadelphia. Global Warming is proving a most determined hoax, with even the Earth getting in on the gag, ratcheting up temperatures around the planet and beating her own high scores year after year. Everywhere and everyone is slowly melting. I am on a walk. I can't be indoors all day.
The early-evening breezes redistribute the city's various odors, accomplishing little else. It's hot garbage night. I detour around a giant dead rat on the sidewalk two days into bloating in the summer sun. On the next block, I'm challenged by a massive Type 2 on the Bristol Scale. Junkie droppings. Dog crap would be more welcome. Oh, there's some. It's a wet smear on the pavement. You can see trails left by human fingers that once tried their best to scoop up the canid diarrhea with a little plastic bag.
A character with a ukulele and no shirt sits on his front stoop, berating passersby for wearing AirPods rather than stopping to chat with him. According to his litany, we're sleepwalking into fascism, and DJT will be our next president because everyone is wearing headphones, retreating into their own little worlds. He's not entirely wrong, but I have some counterpoints on the matter.
I imagine many people are listening to podcasts about news and current events with a focus on various political situations unraveling the world over. People are addicted to information for information's sake. I am, too, but differently. I don't care as much about politics as I do what Camus thought of politics or why camera lenses are so complicated.1
I also don't think we're sleepwalking into anything. At least not most of us. The people I encounter generally seem concerned, if not outraged or aghast. Or else they're actively engaged in championing the idea because they think it's all fun and games to troll the libs, and imagine things will be okay for them either way. Ask Emil Nolde how that works out.2
However, I think what's most important to understand about how we got to this place where people walk their commute to and from work along city streets listening to NPR with headphones on full blast is that there's a shirtless guy on every third or fourth stoop shouting bullshit at everyone who passes. That's why they have to be noise-cancelling headphones.