Inappropriate Content: Free-Association

I am writing this entry from the Library of Congress, as usual. To get from a small bakery in Dupont Circle to the Library of Congress on the subway here, I transfer from the Red Line to the Orange or Blue line at Metro Center. Today, there was a large crowd in the lower level. A train was stopped at the station, and a non-threatening female voice was explaining that the train would not be moving on or opening its doors. No one seemed to know why. Fortunately, the stopped train was going the other way, and my own train arrived in short order.

Before it did, I asked a woman if she knew what was happening. She said he had no clue, and I told her I hoped we wouldn't die of anthrax. She laughed, but she was nervous, and so I apologized.

“I'm sorry,” I told her. “I'm new to the city. I still freak out when I see the planes headed for a landing at Reagan.”

That is a slight exaggeration.

I had to write a paper on the history of Metrorail for the transportation portion of the program I'm in. Metrorail is run by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which was created by President Johnson; most of the bills to create Metrorail were signed by President Nixon. Part of my paper was this:

In 1973, WMATA purchased Washington D.C.'s four privately-owned bus companies, an action that would have outraged Ayn Rand, had she not died the previous year.

I also discussed this map:

I wrote:

This map is both well-designed and ubiquitous. Virtually every resident of Washington and the neighboring counties in Maryland and Virginia is familiar with it. The everyday commuters and Metrorail riders can picture it with their eyes closed. It fills their waking lives and haunts their dreams. This map is just that good.

That is a slight exaggeration.

No one will read my paper closely, if anyone reads it at all. Still, I decided to take out this part:

...and when you exit a Metrorail station, you swipe your farecard again, and the correct amount is automatically deducted and placed in a WMATA account, where it is used to operate, maintain, and expand the Metrorail system, or possibly embezzled and used for strippers and coke.

I don't think the teacher in my transportation class knows who Ayn Rand is, or why Ms. Rand would be offended by nationalization of transportation companies. But strippers and coke is pushing it.

I don't use a farecard anymore. I have a SmarTrip® card, which looks a lot like a library card or a credit card. You don't swipe it through anything. You simply hold it near a lit-up plastic circle, and it reads the correct fare without physical contact of any kind. It's like magic. Or better yet, Star Trek.

Today I got a cup of coffee at a small bakery in Dupont Circle before I came to the Library of Congress. That is why I was riding the train. A small bakery is as close as you can get to a real coffeeshop in D.C., where there are no real coffeeshops, except for Starbucks™, which is a real coffeeshop, but is not somewhere I like spending my money. While I was sitting at the bakery, I struck up a conversation with a man sitting next to me. He was reading a book about Chinese influence in Heidegger's philosophy.

This man was Michael Steinberg. He talked about Heidegger, eastern philosophy, and fascism. I learned that there were quite a few Zen philosophers who were enthusiastic supporters of statism (or did he say totalitarianism?) in 1930's Japan. I don't know if any of them were influential in the Nipponese government. I do know a good summation of Zen philosophy that is also a light bulb joke.

How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Two. One to screw in the light bulb and one not to screw in the light bulb.

Michael Steinberg also talked about eliminating dualism in our understanding of human behaviour. There are now two schools: psychology, which studies individuals, and sociology, which studies large groups. He thinks they are one in the same. At the very least, I think, it's like the beach. The ocean laps onto the shore, and the shore erodes into the ocean.

Here, someone who knows more about sociology or psychology than me could make a very good analogy involving sea shells or jellyfish or something.

He used the phrase “the culture of capitalism” several times in casual conversation. He liked the phrase so much he used it as the subtitle of his book: The Fiction of a Thinkable World: Body, Meaning, and the Culture of Capitalism, by Michael Steinberg, New York University Press, April 2005. You can buy the book at NYU Press' website. You can also buy it through Amazon, but you shouldn't. If you look for “other books by this author” on Amazon, #3 is Professional WebObjects with Java by Thomas Termini, Peer Information, October 2001. #10 is Protecting the American Homeland: A Preliminary Analysis, by Peter Orzag, Brookings Institution Press, November 2001.

The Brookings Institution is a very old think tank here in Washington, D.C. For some reason, I usually think of it as conservative, even though they take a lot of money from Bill and Melinda Gates and from U.C. Berkeley. I learned of that by reading Wikipedia, which I have just discovered is a wonderful way to see who is giving who money. For example, I have just learned that in 1981, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation gave money to Merce Cunningham, who is a famous choreographer. Like most famous choreographers, Merce Cunningham's name is familiar to me because I have heard Sam talk about him. Apparently he was in Martha Graham's company for some time. Merce Cunningham, I mean; not Sam. Martha Graham died before Sam was born, just like Ayn Rand.

As I said, Wikipedia is a wonderful way to see who is giving who money. And it's important to know who is giving who money. That is the culture of capitalism, and the culture of the capitol, Washington, D.C., where you never know who you'll meet in a small bakery or at the Library of Congress.