Day: November 1, 2017

Fair Harborside (2)

whynotstayinLeave a comment

Read Part 1 here

Below Amelia and beyond the borders of her glass and marble version of the city, the eyes of the workers were cast in coal and ash. Those of the slums were fading out of being, becoming just blurs, wisps of subconscious, hollow. They were being emptied of dreams, emptied of light, emptied of value. They looked – with light-burned, cataracted eyes, weary and broken from too many hours in front of a forge – toward the city they had dreamed of, the one they believed in, the one they were now part of, the one now using them as a whetstone to hone itself upon. They looked upon a city alien and yet familiar; one that shared the same name, shared a people, but was separated by a wall of prosperity, an insurmountable barrier of capital value.

Rising above Frank was the very tangible feeling of success and dreams realized. Above him – wrapped in their own private worlds, curtained off from each other – lay the world of Traders and Merchants and Moguls. There was no lost space, everything was worked to perfection, commodified and able to be owned. People had become slaves to their Ikea nesting instinct, they simply filled the space given, even the ultimate consumers did not own their space. The streets were wide and clear, everything at a crisp ironed angle, a city of well pressed pants. Those who walked them did not know each other beyond image: a Trader by the scale lapel pin, an Artist by the garish socks, an Economist by the gloves, a Mogul by the hat. On the great rising monoliths movies and media played, any new information came from those gargantuan marble monoliths. The world beyond Harborside was found in those rising towers of media.

But in the slums – from the roofs of their squat and makeshift shanties – the workers could just glimpse the edges of media. Their world was full of cracked screens and secondhand news. People were cramped, the heartbeat of one encroached on the next. The global world had all but disappeared to them, where they had come from was being wrung from them as they became just another road stone in the city. The cultural identities they had brought with them, had created neighborhoods around, had found their first jobs with were bleeding away. They were becoming the masses of the city, overwhelmed by the need for money, the vast cost of living had ensnared them, had separated them and pinned them by the wings. 

Photo Credit: pinterest.com

But the global world existed only in the harbor with the monoliths of media, with the bustle of trade, it was rich and thriving in the harbor. Money was not lacking, it seemed as if the less work one did the more money filled their coffers.

Frank was well off for a country boy, so when he docked in the sand of the fish market – the only place his little decrepit rented dinghy could -he was sure he could do anything he could possibly hope for. As he jumped from the boat he sunk to the knee into rotting, bloated, sun-blistered fish waste. His nose crinkled, What a welcome. He trudged upward into the city, tapping his breast pocket with a light rhythm. As he reached the paving stones his tapping ceased, he could not crane his head far enough, the city just kept going. The longer he stared the more his past months at sea ebbed away with the tide; his past was being drowned out by the sounds, the smells, and the people. The city was made of individuals from the ground, Frank was just another one of them, just another in a sea of people striving to flourish as themselves, he was just dressed a little more shabbily, a little more wide eyed, a little more idealistic, he was just a little bit poorer, he was just woefully unprepared. So he set out to wander the city, to find himself, or lose himself.

Fair Harborside (1)

whynotstayinLeave a comment

It was dingy as hell, not recognizable as the city everyone saw in the postcards: moss and algae crept down the walls; the side streets were lined with open sewers; the factories ran all hours of the day, belching out waste and haze. Soot streaked down the faces of the workers whose hands were cracked and brown with exposure. What little they had they called home, whether roof or coat, they took what they could. They struggled through narrow congested streets, seemingly stuck in the past — a bygone era, that had long since been passed by the rest of the city — an open sore without medicine.

On these congested streets lived all manner of discard: tech no longer current, factory waste, dreams of fame and fortune, the relics of the country people once left, heirlooms of cultures long swallowed. But as the streets turned oceanside they widened and lightened, the haze of smog dropping away the closer one moved to the harbor, the mecca of trade, the jewel of the city, the picture perfect postcard. Harborside was a world of glass and gold that rose high enough that those with bloodshot eyes and wasted dreams believed that maybe it reached heaven.

The city of Harborside was rich, modern, urban, cultured, and only surface deep. Every man, woman, and child that lived in the skyward reaching world was a dreamer, a planner, a story. Their streets were lined with rare plants and their roads paved with exotic shell. Every home was its own, sitting pretty at the height of progress. They would want for nothing and everything.

Such severance was there in the city of Harborside that it was as if a blight, a disease, had been stretching out from the landward outskirts of the city but had abruptly hit a vaccine three quarters of the way toward the harbor. It was as if an immunization had been injected into the sea and had spread to the seafront but had been content to protect the few.

Photo Credit: steemit.com

Life was bobbing at a sea-sickening rate as Frank finally found the city. He had taken every form of transport available to him: car, bus, train, plane, his own two aching feet, bicycle, and finally boat. As the city rose over the bow of the leaky, decades-old fishing boat, the tug behind his gut seemed to loosen. The folded postcard in his breast pocket was a molten brand of hope and childlike optimism on his heart.

Life had ground to an overly warm stagnate existence for Amelia. Trapped above the cloud level – in a glass box – Amelia had the entire world at her fingertips. She was at the height of modern technology, she was as mapped out as the best planned city. There was no one like her, there never had been another like her, nor would there ever be one like her. She was a road map. She was not her own. She was caught, ensnared. Made and unmade.

My Annoyance With Ticket Scalping

maydaygaskarth1 Comment

As someone who loves to go to concerts and broadway musicals, I absolutely hate when people take advantage of people’s love for these to get extra money.

This pisses me off to an extreme. As someone who comes from a family with enough money, I shouldn’t be complaining about not having the money to go to these shows, and that’s not what I’m angry about. What I’m angry about is that originally the tickets to these shows are easily affordable, but not when greedy people buy these tickets and drastically increase the price to collect a few extra bucks from people.

Over the summer, Lana Del Rey announced a small concert in Anaheim, just twenty minutes from where I lived. I was ecstatic. I wanted to see her for the longest time, and my uncle had allowed me to attend the concert. The tickets were only fifty dollars, a reasonable price considering the majority of her fans are probably teenagers without jobs. I preordered the album, and at 9:59 I was ready to buy the tickets that went on sale at ten o’clock. Not even twenty seconds later, the tickets were sold out. It was upsetting, but when I checked every single resale site I could it only made me more furious. The tickets were being sold for ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. From fifty dollars to one thousand dollars. When I went on twitter in hopes to find someone nice enough to sell the tickets for a more reasonable price, they were all over 400 dollars.

I figured out that I wasn’t alone with my absolute annoyance over the dramatic resale of these tickets. It’s amazing how the people who were selling these tickets for unreasonable prices are probably the same people who complained about this same problem when they weren’t able to afford to go see their favorite musician.

For a more recent example, over the weekend my aunt was planning on buying tickets for Hamilton. Originally, the tickets are around $200, which is a reasonable price for the most popular show on Broadway. However, at resale pricing, tickets in the back row are sometimes at least $500.

Photo Credit: NYdailynews.com

It’s absolutely selfish, because these scalpers know how much people want to go to these shows, and how much people are willing to pay. People shouldn’t have to pay so much money to go to a show, especially when, in the end, the extra money is going to the seller and not even the show being played. It’s more bothersome that people actually end up paying these high costs for the shows, and only fuel these people’s beliefs that they can actually cheat people out of valuable money by manipulating their want to go enjoy these shows.

So, to everyone reselling these tickets at high prices to make a couple extra bucks: stop. Because as a sixteen year old girl who just wants to go rap concerts, historical musicals, or wear flower crowns at small Indie concerts, it’s upsetting when I can’t add some happiness into my life, because these tickets cost twenty times more than the amount in my checking account.

Closure.

faithfulomnivoreLeave a comment

For so long, I’d been hung up on you, I still cared.

I cared about what you would think of me, I wanted to know what you were up to. For so long, I was sad. I cried over you and over the parts of me that you came to know so well. You didn’t deserve to know me like that.

But I thought I knew you, too. It’s a strange feeling to have your perception of someone completely flipped in a matter of days, it makes your mind sort of dizzy.

And then I was sad about the friendship that was lost. We went from speaking every day for months to walking past each other without saying a word.

Then you messed up. And there was no one to blame but yourself and now I don’t see you at all.

At first I was confused about what happened, because the person I’d known would have never been so stupid. I thought that maybe you’d just changed since the time that I knew you, but now I realize that you didn’t change at all. I just didn’t know you in the first place.

So then you left again. And when you didn’t even try to reach out I thought maybe this time you’d be gone forever.

Photo Credit: WikiClipart.com

And just when I thought it was over, you showed up at my front door. You went on and on about how great your life has been and how happy you are and how much everyone will miss you. But you didn’t realize that by saying all of this it became so obvious just how embarrassed you are. You made yourself into more of a fool than you already were.

I started thinking about all of the things I wanted to say to you, all of the words I had planned out in my head for the past three months that could have put you in your place, but now I think you already know. Based on the fact that you spent so long trying to convince me that you’re better off, you only showed me that you were just trying to convince yourself. And I guess some things are better left unsaid.

Then you had to leave, so we said “goodbye” but I thought “good riddance.” You walked away and I didn’t start to cry like I had done before; I laughed.

I laughed for a long time and I smiled and I was happy because I knew that finally I was totally, completely done with you. Normally I would have told you that I hope you find happiness or good luck or some other thing you’re supposed to say when someone leaves, but I didn’t. It wouldn’t have been true. For the first time I can honestly say that I don’t care one bit about what you’re doing with your life and I don’t feel bad.

I did learn a lot from you, though. Thank you for helping me realize that I was right, that you don’t deserve to be in my life and you’re not worth all of the time I wasted. I’m not mad anymore.