9/11/04 Frank Turns 30

Welcome to After School Snack, Elise’s intro really does capture the absurd pomo (although I’d argue late-mo or hi-mo) nature of our friendship, our work and this blog. We are new at this, so please read like a parent would view their child at a recital. Smile and pray like hell that we figure this stuff out before the next recital.

So, it’s the three year anniversary of 9/11. I will not dare to try and add any socio-political comments about this event. Rather, I’d like to focus on the fact that a good friend of mine turns thirty today. To say the least his 27th birthday was a real sh%t sandwich. So I’m happy that we will be able to celebrate the oatmeal desires and monkey-dancing joy of one of Minneapolis’ most metro of metrosexuals, my friend Frank.

I look forward to the contributions that Elise, Christopher and I might make via After School Snack. If only so we can say that we’ve diluted the porn to non-porn content ratio on the web by .00000000000001 percent. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in freedom of speech and expression and sometimes I too need to venture onto www.troubled-and-hidden-desires-for-the-engored-lemur-lover.com

Before I conclude today (and because I feel too much like Doogie Howser to stop typing) I will share a strange, but mildly amusing anecdote. I was once on a bus in Minneapolis reading a collection of essays by Michel Foucault. I tell you this not to try and impress you, as Foucault is so five minutes ago and serves as a simple cue for many to say “I like critical theory. Do you like critical theory?” I’m telling you because it comes up at the end of this anecdote. So, as I find Minnesotans apt to do, they avoid eye contact, yet are generally interested in those around them (this assumes acceptable hygiene levels and those around them do not bark or hold conversations with invisible people). I feel this woman peering over my shoulder, desperately waiting to engaging me about Foucault. I have enough over-educated and under-employed friends; I don’t need to strike up a conversation with her. So, I counter with my own passive-aggressive kung-fu and keep reading. The bus arrives at this woman’s stop. She gets up and as she leaves says “Foucault was a fascist!” I looked up from my book and said “thanks for ruining the ending.”

Take care.
Matt