Unless New York is robbing you of your raison d'etre, it is in your best interest to not fight its force. The city has a plan for you and it wants you to follow it. In this I feel New York is a lot like God. The difference of course being that there is no actual scripture stating this and (unlike God) New York actually exists.
Since I am a woman sans raison d'etre, it has never occurred to me to fight against anything the city throws my way. Bending like the grass under the warm summer breeze, I have spent most of my time roaming around art galleries, love-hating the Japanese and writing brilliant works of fiction. I have also learned many things about the Albanians (myself included).
New York is infested with Albanians of all kinds; pseudo-intellectuals, hard working (often successful) immigrants, eurotrash men with too much to prove, gangsta wannabes and hipsters. After years of hardly any Albanian contact, I have found myself surrounded by my people and libraries containing reading materials in Albanian(!).
I take this to mean that New York's plan is for me to continue my focus in the ever-exciting and hip field of Balkan history. Therefore, since I will be spending the next couple of months writing academic papers and taking tests, postings here will be random. Basically, nothing will change.
In unrelated news, one of my favorite women has been hard at work producing some fabulous things to improve the quality of your life.
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19 comments:
Would you mind me being morbidly curious and reluctantly asking you to expand somehow and more meaningufully on "pseudo-intellectuals", "eurotrash men with too much to prove", "gangsta wannabes" and the "hipsters" demografic entities - I didn't forget the successful spicemens, I am simply non interested in them -, and some more elaborations as how tha fact of not having a reason ti exist makes iligetimate to you counteracting "the things thrown in your way"? Does not that in its turn transforms into being - however meaningless and by far unfulfilling- your exchangeable "reason d'etre"?
exchangeable here, means the ability to trade your objectives for the lack of them.
Oh D,
I know exactly what Lolers means with her categories from the hard-time I spent in the mean streets of New York.
"Pseudo-intellectuals", selon moi, are the group who used to be part of intelligentsia in the old country, and have forgotten to adapt to the new one. These people are book-smart, but lack the common sense to make the transformation. They will quote Nietzsche, Freud, or Kafka completely out of context, to just about anybody they encounter on the street, for the sheer pleasure to impress them. Also see: idiot savant.
Euro-trash man, is way too easy. Euro-trash culture was picked up by Albanians who roamed Europe before coming to the US. Typical trade-marks are tight jeans, a Heineken, love of German cars, and an obsession with soccer. They will fight you if you bad-mouth their favorite Italian team. Usually this specimen is found dwelling in Italian restaurant kitchens, performing the highly regarded duties of dish washer or pizza man (not that there is anything wrong with that). They usually live with their mothers till their late 30s.
Gangsta wannabes is pretty self-explanatory. Influenced by the hip-hop culture, yet never having busted a cap in anyone's ass, or their own ass for that matter. Usually these types rock their jeans really low, and will sport a do-rag, regardless of the weather outlook.
Hipsters are harder to spot, as they have blended quite well with other hipsters (American or foreign), starved and tortured artists, which are seldom found in the Williamsburg, or Lower East Side of NYC. Usually these types will not associate with other Albanians, and will constantly complain that nobody understands their struggle. Usually, nobody does understand their struggle...
Anyways, these are my two cents on the matter, and you can have the queen herself concur or diverge as she pleases...
This is just vastly great - oh, first I thank you, it was quite a meticolus and yet, terse description - I conclude to be a rather unpoetic, cumbersome and grotesque blend of the four pathetic types, except may be for being a fan of soccer, which I am not. As much as I might hypocritically try to convince myself, I don't believe I can succeed to reveal myself unto myself as orginal and different only because of the untangable mix, and not being simply a member of only one of the categories. I am confused, dejected, and hopeless. I withdraw, cutting and pasting myselves to pasteurised oblivion!
MM,
I would love to see you in a do-rag!
Whether stereotypes are bad, without them life would be boring and the greatest portion of humor would cease to exist.
I gots nothing but luuuuuv for my 'banian peeps more than any other nationality on the book, regardless of their association or current struggles.
its, unfortunate enthusiastic yuppie, that was me, unfortunate pesimistic wellversed proletarian...I mean the girl is my pseudo-alter ego. I salute your rhetoric. Its awsome.
ITS,
haha, you really nailed the pseudo-intellectual category!
D,
Lighten up a little!
Although you are completely missing the point here, I will allow myself to get dragged into this, because it's ridiculously delicious.
Having no raison d'etre, means I have no reason to object to any force that might change the direction of my life. Do you seriously find faults in that statement?
If you take something "unfulfilling and meaningless" to have the potential for being one's raison d'etre, then you can argue that whatever New York throws my way may become my raison d'etre. So...?
I am totally missing the point and I am so sorry, but at the same time so grateful for your graceful, sensed and well measured indulging into a such ironically sweet curiosities and answering with your seductive rhetoric. Nether by commitment nor by pure play do I find a single fault with your self contained but clear and pointing statement.
I didn't say though -and I am again pensively sorry about it- that you should accept incidentally or with a statistical modality accept "anything New York through in your away" as your raison d'etre. It was merely an unimaginative suggestion to have as a raison d'etre the fact that you don't have any.
As for the first part, my weak, unstable, and easily refutable idea had to do not with the raidon d'etre but mostly, or better exclusively with the instinct of self preservation...about which you can argue and say that if you do not have a raison d'etre you might very well not care of how miserably your life might proceed.
and no no no, I will not lighten up, I prefer my deep, mocking, irresolvable pain, my pulsating grievance ...which occasionally i dismiss as my - by now so vulgar and uncouth- raison d'etre.
wow. people love their (modified) adjectives! I had to read most of these comments three times to understand them.
Anywhosle, that is fine D. you don't have to lighten up. you are fine just the way you are.
fully enjoying your verbal sparring...
Lolers,
You are a funny gal. Made me think of my all time favorite pick-up line:
"You must be an adverb, because you sure do modify me!"
Lolers, out of sheer and mild respect towards your writing - It was an impractical joke - you may come into a relaxed stand by (not that you weren't but I like intriguingly pretentious pronouncements). I am not fine. I am hurtfully refined...and Its, I am seriously funny, that will explain my adjectives.
Your next assignment is to find out which of my above statements was really an example of what I confessed in the second part of the parenthesized phrase. Good luck!
but here is another question: have you ever thought of the reversal of irony, either by a state where it can't be recognised anymore or by shifting from the subject who disposes it, this is to say; where it is no more in our power to exercise it but shows defiantly as an essential aspect of technology and we become the paralised receivers ot automatic responders?
Hello...anyone speak english here?
Lolers, it seems the first part of your post has been well and truly analysed to death.
So I'll just say good luck with your research, I am doing Balkan history at the moment too, Serbian nationalism in particular...but probably at a much lower level in comparison to yours. Enjoying every minute of it.
thanks lily.
I am so very very glad to hear that you study Serbian nationalism! Thanks for the confidence, but I do nothing at a high level. But, if you'd like to discuss Karadjordje sometime, I'm always available. ;)
lejla, the fault, perhaps not surprisingly, does not lie in the understanding of english language or the knowledge of it, but in the understanding as a proces and I can prove it to you if you pay me, sweet words will do too.
May I read three to four (I can read much more if you wouldn't mind) sentences of your choice from any of your works of fiction? I am sincerely very curious.
test - po mundohem, ne mes te ketyre debateve ne anglisht - te bej nje test nese marresi i mesazhit mund te pergjigjet ne shqip (komentuesit e tjere jane testuar dhe flasin te gjithe shqip). Ku e kisha, a po une po mundohem te regjistroje blogjet qe kane te bejne pak ose shume me Shqiperine dhe doja te flisja per blogun tend, qe me duket shume i kendshem. Kalova pothuajse tre ore mbi te (ne menyre fugurative sigurisht) dhe nuk mund ta formuloje vete nje prezantim. Mesova se je nje goce, 2. vjeç qe per momentin je ne NY por se di ne lidhje me atdheun sa shpesh shkon dhe lidhja jote me azine ose japonine me sakte. blogu ne fjale gjendet ne : http://blogshqip.blogspot.com/
shpresoj nje pergjigje
tetena
this is so gay man, i liked the posting but the pseudointellectuall freakin comments.. cmmon ppl get real, can we see a picture of this girl... o rrushi ku je t'keqen
my blog is at http://eardhmjashqiptare.blogspot.com
o shqiptare ca ju duhet testi inteligjences,se kta inteligjentet rrine tu u zone me veten edhe ne i kenaqim grate dhe n fund i marrim edhe parate.po shqiptarin e ka fal zoti e ka qujt ilir.kshu qe boni qejf se eshte me mire
Excellent blog, I like it. A lot of useful information. Thanks to the author. More on this topic thank you and Good day, everybody.test
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