Puzzling mental space...

[pasithea]

So.. Stacey and I went to see the Appleseed movie today. Not sure why I wanted to see it. When I was in college I read the comic and I scowered the face of the Earth looking for the video when it came to the US in like 1992. Back then anime and manga were really hard to come by. Also, not having seen comics with that level of detail prior to those. So it was a strangely nostalgic thing.

Anyhow, the movie was at the Saratoga AMC (which is kinda east side of San Jose, almost to Los Gatos)

Pulling into the plaza I remarked, "Geez. This has gotta be the whitest part of town." I dunno. Something about the pinkish stucco strip-mall with a Baskin Robbins next to the theatre and so many other generic mainstream america type stores.

I liked the movie though I think probably more for nostalgia reasons than content. Also, it was nice to just spend some time cuddling with Stacey. We worked in the garden in the morning then went to the movie 'n'. I dunno. Was just nice. Maybe I'm just kinda mushy sometimes.

After the movie, we went to Midori (cheap sushi) and had what would have been a romantic dinner had it not been for this guy. He just blathered incessantly the whole time at his captives friends. How heterosexual women can stay awake through that kind of dulldrom is beyond me. I'd have rammed a chopstick up his nose and swished it around until I found the pea that made his lips move. Blah.

After dinner we went to Han Kooks (Korean Grocery Market) and that's when it really hit me... I dunno when it happened, or maybe it was always there but.. I'm really more comfortable and at home around first generation immigrants than I am around white america. Safeway, K-Mart, WalMart, etc seem foriegn and alien to me. They really always have. Fat white people gruntingly shoving their carts past one another. It's a totally different atomosphere at the places we shop now. There's certain scents in korean groceries and indian groceries that at one timed seemed alien to me but now they seem familiar and comfortable and more inviting than 'mainstream' america. Music, scents, sounds, strange dried fish and vegetables, brightly coloured packages with labels it takes me a long time to read, at some point, something about the total alieness of these things become completely familiar and normal to me and I bonded to it in a way I never did with 'mainstream' society.

It also makes me hungry to study more and learn more languages and read more on cultural histories.

Actually, I secretely dream that I'm but a child of the future. I look forward to the reality of worlds like the one described in Bladerunner where all races are mixed into one big mess with people needing to know a multitude of languages and cultural references to communicate with most people they meet on the street. I'm woefully unprepared for this world, but I still look forward to it. I grew up in a world where, while segregation had legally ended, it was still very much enforced, and I starved for different ways of life, where not everyone was the same cookie-cutter carbon-copy, and I've never looked back on this world for a moment with anything other than disdain. Give me kimchee and curry any day of the week over meatloaf and green bean casserole.

Comments

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

Actually, I secretely dream that I'm but a child of the future. I look forward to the reality of worlds like the one described in Bladerunner where all races are mixed into one big mess

I feel the same way, and it's probably why I liked New York City so much when I visited -- it has the feel of a melting pot where things and ideas, if not dissolving completely into one another, at least lose their sharp boundaries. Let's let everything swirl together and assemble a fusion culture out of the best parts of all of 'em. (Ludicrously optimistic, I know.) We'll all find it scary for awhile, me included, but I think we'd be the better for it in the long run.
Also, as long as we're dreaming, let's have Syd Mead design our future's cities. *sigh*

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

Actually, I secretely dream that I'm but a child of the future. I look forward to the reality of worlds like the one described in Bladerunner where all races are mixed into one big mess with people needing to know a multitude of languages and cultural references to communicate with most people they meet on the street. I'm woefully unprepared for this world, but I still look forward to it. I grew up in a world where, while segregation had legally ended, it was still very much enforced, and I starved for different ways of life, where not everyone was the same cookie-cutter carbon-copy, and I've never looked back on this world for a moment with anything other than disdain. Give me kimchee and curry any day of the week over meatloaf and green bean casserole.

A mixture of languages is unstable in one area; they rapidly become a pidgen. This has happened in many, many areas. But, yeah. I adore that kind of world. Just ask Eli.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Maybe I am weird. I have grown up asorbing other cultures... and while I don't feel completely comfortable in the Korean Markets around here (And let us face it, I think it's mainly cause 1) I am taller then everyone, and 2) They sell a lot of fish), I definatly have problems going to places like... oh, Hometown Buffet.

I think with me, it's the fact that I keep finding these places that are... for lack of a better term, sanctuaries of culture. Some places are places people go to feel themselves, and they are not really ment to be intruded upon by people outside that culture. I mean, vistors are still welcome, but it's not really ment for some people...

Which is why I often feel so confused, cause I don't think I have any real central culture anymore... so I have no friggin clue where to go...

I am so glad furry is becoming more tribelike.

[zeeth_kyrah]

We've passed critical mass, and reached a point where furries relate to each other primarily as people instead of through shared obsession. Being furry isn't the whole of the subculture anymore, merely the binding feature; and that lets us be more like tribes and families than like cabals.

[holohedron.livejournal.com]

Appleseed: I felt the same way about the recent "Sky Blue". For all of its bad dubbing and plot hiccups, it awakened something in me that I hadn't felt in years. Like being young and watching big-screen sci-fi for the first time. Pure nostalgia.

Ethnic markets: there's definitely a sense of "belonging" in these foreign spaces. I don't fit in, but I do feel more at home somehow. Maybe it's just being in a place with a defined identity; Amorphous Blobmart is designed to appeal to as many people as possible, hence the blandness.