Gareth Edel Presents

Fuck Simplification, It just isn't Human

Every time a friend wants me learn to download music to let me hear a song, instead of playing it for me, I lose a hair. I will be bald soon from their good intentions. I love to look at things no one else really wants in thrift stores, but am unwilling to lose an hour to figuring out how to use pay pal and E-bay. I'll stick to the old fashioned way, where I waste three hours searching the store, and touching things. I prefer to go to my favorite bookstore and search infinite racks of junk, I know Barnes and Nobles can find it in moments, but will that allow me to stumble across flip books of strippers from the seventies?

I feel the future has come too soon, I do not think that there is a place in a world where bombs need laser guided GPS satellite tracking for me. I need a world where New York City, my home, supports more than one store devoted solely to Men's Hats. I went with a friend into the last Men's hat shop recently, and was lectured, to my great pleasure, on how to replace a hatband. I walk by the farmers market in union square and wonder why it is smaller each year, and then see that in Manhattan you can have groceries delivered over the Internet. The poster in the subway advertises that they are fresh and direct. But I would rather starve than give up the satisfaction of deciding while at the grocery store to buy an unneeded tube of sun dried tomato paste. I will not imagine a world where I can't take the time to stand in line reading The Weekly World News, while watching the old woman ahead of me pay for her groceries while asking if they ever stock smoked Herring. I need the Chaos and humanity of listening at the same time to the woman in the next isle talk about how her child did the most amazing thing.

I know the person who works at twenty shops in my neighborhood, I know that if I was short or had forgotten my wallet they would let me pay the next day. When I get the computerized service at burger king, there is no space for me to find out about humanity. Not to hear that the short order cook has been away because of stomach troubles, all in broken Spanglish as I did at the little deli near where I worked. If I only used computer chatting, which I love to use, I would never see eyes glossed with tears or a runny nose while a friend was sad or sick.

There are robot pets sold. I would sorely miss my cat that throws up because that is part of what makes him mine. Simply that I had to clean up after him binds us, and I know that it isn't hair balls, it is that he simply throws up if given more than a third of a can of wet food. I am allowed to believe that his stomach has problems because cats are intuitive and empathic, I have stomach problems, and I will believe that his are a reflection of his sympathy for me.

So the next time I am supposed to be excited because there is a new advance and it will make everyone's life simpler, please forgive my being nonplused. I simply can't stand the idea of more simplicity. Humanity and the world need eccentricity and complexity. So I believe.