The Hubbub

I'm going to make an amazing prediction. I predict that all the Millennium Fever is hysteria and you are now seeing this column in its usual way sometime in January 2000 or so. Since you are reading this and I am writing it in December 1999 before the big rollover, my prediction must have come true. I guess that means I can cop an "I-told-you-so" attitude about the Y2K Bug and all that Apocalyptic hogwash in the Book of Revelation. Aren't self fulfilling prophecies fun?

Maybe now those frenzied televangelists will tone it down a little. Not! Rest assured they'll find something new to shout about, but enough on that already.

So, did you get all that? Are still you receiving me?

There are so many things clamoring for attention today it's hard to tell. I guess that's what I really want to talk about: Modern Life in 2000AD. One thing's for sure, 6 billion people sure generate a lot of noise. Fame is probably approaching fifteen seconds instead of Warhol's fifteen minutes. Nothing sticks out anymore, there's too many channels hitting us with too much information. More and more of it is advertising too. Much of it is useless, but that is entirely decided by the receiver. What's useless to me? If I hear one more ad about Any Business Dot Com, it's going to use up my last active neuron and my brain will imitate Krakatoa! These companies act as if just publishing an Internet address is a magical success formula, but there are just too many of them now. My neurons were used up months ago and I could not care less.

Meanwhile, the cacophony continues, unheeding of my little rant.

I'm not even certain if it's a good idea to participate in all the shouting; what's needed these days is a little more quiet. Maybe you've decided that this column is useless already because I haven't gotten to the point in the first three seconds like a good Madison Avenue message. Okay then, read the next sentence in an oiley-smiley DJ type voice.

Yes, it's Philosopher of the Month time again here in the Closet! This month it's an American Classic, Henry David Thoreau! (Wild Applause.)

About 150 years ago Thoreau quit the hustle and bustle of city life and lived in a solitary hut by Walden Pond to get in touch with himself. That's right, almost pre-Industrial Revolution and he thought he was suffering from societal overload! I'm sure he would run screaming for his hut today.

In any case, his Walden is still an amazingly modern book. Written almost like a journal, it's clear minded and humanistic. He talks about life in terms of building his house and furniture for himself and then living simply for about a year and a half, writing and trying to escape a life of "quiet desperation" that he saw others stuck in.

I feel a connection with him. Maybe that' s what the Closet really is -- my version of his hut. I live on the coast of a bigger pond -- the Pacific Ocean -- near the harbor area of Los Angeles. How's that for hustle & bustle? But strangely enough, I've counted as many as 50 pelicans flying by here in formation. I've seen sea lions sunning themselves on the rocky shore; sometimes I hear them barking at night. I also hear the raucous squawking of a flock of escaped green parrots that comes by occasionally. The city still impinges, I can't see the stars all that well and clouds at night take on that orange sodium lamp glow all cities give them, but at least I can hold the hustle and bustle at arm's length here.

I'll never get to Thoreau's level of serenity, I'm sure. Besides, I secretly like the hustle and bustle. I call it The Hubbub.

The Hubbub is the background noise of our age. I've got a radio or CD on while I work on the computer, I answer phones, have buddy chats and office conversation. I draw thew line at having a cell phone and a pager. At home right now I subscribe to at least nine different magazines, but I only have time to read one or two of them deeply. I approach them like a tree full of apples--plucking the ripest fruits and letting many others go to waste. The Sunday LA Times? I glance at the front page, skim a Sports column or two, the comics, and on a good day I read maybe a third of Opinion. I often listen to NPR news on KCRW and Up For Air on KPFK but in the morning I'm there with the all-news station that has the best traffic reports. That way I get The News the way a large portion of LA does. TV news I avoid.

So many competing channels. And because they are ad-driven, the only sort of story that several them are Princess Di-ing to bring you doesn't have a lot to do with what's important. Really now, who needs to know the latest revelation about Linda Tripp's plastic surgery?

What's needed these days is a little more quiet.

You don't need a solitary shack to do it. Just turn off all The Hubbub you can. Sit quietly and let what let little Hubbub remains squawk like a little green parrot and fly off when it sees you aren't paying attention. Stay like that about twenty minutes and see what thoughts bubble up. I bet they'll sound like Thoreau's.

Sounds like a good idea, I'm going to go back in the Closet now and see what H.D. and I can come up with for next month. Until then thanks for reading and the Closet is closed.


(C) 2000 Rusty Pipes

---

OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER: The opinions of Rusty Pipes are not necessarily the opinions of the editors and publisher of Cosmik Debris Magazine. Indeed, some of us aren't even remotely capable of H.D. Thoreau-like thoughts no matter how isolated we get. Some of us, in fact, barely approach... say... Gilligan. Thank you and goodnight.