Thursday, March 20, 2014

Sousveillance strikes again



Sousveillance is surveillance from underneath; when we serfs and peasants hear what our lords and masters really think. For instance:
          To the tune of Dixie: “In Wall Street land we’ll take our stand, said Morgan and Goldman. But first we better get some loans, so quick, get to the Fed, man.”
I forgive his failed attempt at humor; for humor is subjective. What sounds like gentle mockery of failure to one's friends might sound like arrogant callousness to the victims of those failures. He had enough self-awareness to attempt this jest in private; but then sousveillance struck.
I also forgive his untuned singing voice. Not everybody has the gift; and those who don't must spend 10,000 hours practicing to attain expertise.
          But I do not forgive his rhymes, nor do I forgive his scansion. If he can count megabucks, then he can count syllables. He should not give up his day job.
          Or maybe he should. Maybe he should quit banking, move to a cheap small room, and there spend 10,000 hours learning how to write a poem. At 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 2 days vacation per month, that's only about 5.3 years. He could afford that, easy.
          It would be like a short prison term, even though bad poetry is not, technically, a crime. For him to voluntarily confine himself at hard labor for bad poetry would be poetic justice; but also a fantasy, for he and his friends have avoided being ‘guests of the State’ for far worse misdeeds.
Literary critique aside... I see in his song a reconciliation of Northern and Southern power systems. At last Wall Street and the Plantation are one. It's not about wage labor, nor about chattel slavery; they met in the middle at debt serfdom.

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