from FAREWELLS TO PLASMA

To be dissatisfied with dissatisfaction is the blindest of alleys, and that’s why, in one particular century and one particular cultural context, the safest option for rebellious (as well as mechanically inept) children has been either psychology, sociology, or the noble discipline of Polish philology. Such a desperate choice is as salutary as it is ruinous. The children are prevented from sliding into the abyss of marijuana abuse, and they also cease to associate with controversial artistic elements, such as painters, poets, psychiatrist-gurus, owners of poppy plantations, fashionable schizophrenics, cultural innovators with pedophilic tendencies, or punk rock musicians. Mornings in the Old Town suddenly stop seeming so cool, the guitar begins rotting in the garage, and the awful question as to whether Sid Vicious could even read and write threatens with the power of ridiculousness to shake the old world from its foundations. What takes its place isn’t so much a more perfect world, as this one’s new and sophisticated negation.
 

Natasza Goerke
Poland / Hamburg, Germany