Earthworm of Bluster

You know that thing called a "Kafkaesque nightmare" that people talk about? I actually had one last night. I was somewhere that resembled Boston, attending a con. I had just arrived and was trying to register. The con hadn't told anyone about programming ahead of time. To save money and be ecologically aware, they weren't giving out schedules. You had to go to one of the function rooms and find one of the few program books available there, and look yourself up.

I finally located a book and was trying to find myself in it, but another participant said she'd been using it first and she wasn't done with it, so I was polite and let her have it. I hadn't seen any names beginning with Z yet. I wasn't sure if that meant that I hadn't been assigned any programming, or that there was another section of the book that I hadn't found yet. For this con, all the programming was taking place off-site, in local restaurants and bars and university buildings. So you couldn't go around and check the room schedules. And you'd have to use public transportation to get there. And the trains and buses had a new policy of requiring users to reserve a seat and buy tickets ahead of time. So you couldn't just show up and get aboard--even if you knew the way to the station, which I didn't. I felt that even if I could find out where I was supposed to be, there was a good chance I wouldn't be able to get there. Convention attendance as a multi-player puzzle of indirection! KafkaCon? ConKafka? Either way, it seems the appropriate greeting would have to be "Gesundheit!"

Tonight, we were watching "Wings of Desire." I love that movie. The circus in the movie reminded me that it's Holy Thursday--a day when all good Catholics are supposed to attend Mass in memory of the Last Supper. It could be that my downfall from being one of those good Catholics began when I went to the circus on Holy Thursday. It happened like this . . . .

( Read more... )