Wednesday, July 7, 2010

103 in the shade... cool for chefs, line cooks, dishwashers, roofers, field workers...

102, 103 F today in Philly. Think of the thousands of kitchens, grills blazing, ovens baking, kettles boiling away... no air conditioning cause no air conditioning yet devised can deal with such heat... serving you your cool lobster bisque, sipping your chilled chardonnay in the cool restaurant air. For a brief moment you can pretend you are one the ELITE... and forget that those laboring in the kitchens... are YOU.

Not out of Simone-Weil-in-the-Factory reasons, but because I can't deal with the going in and coming out. I do better if I can acclimate myself to the heat over time: drinking water, taking showers, sponging off in front of a fan. Still... it's HOT in this apartment. Notice it more after sunset, when it feels like walking into an oven after being outside.

But in thinking about restaurant kitchens. Roofers. Field workers. I don't feel "for" them... I don't have to. I experience the heat.

Makes me wonder. How much of the comforts we seek are really about that... and not even more about distancing ourselves from THEM.

THEY sweat. WE don't. THEY smell. WE don't. THEY'RE dirty. WE wash.

GrammarMarms do the same thing. THEY mistake objective for subjective case, WE don't.

Not like there's any possibility of misunderstanding. Like wearing jeans to a formal wedding. Fashion become the standard of VIRTUE... for those who have no virtue but that dictated by fashion.

Not such a bad idea, to forgo some of our privileged comforts. Of course... if you have a choice... it doesn't work. Like thinking that sleeping out on the street for a night will give you an idea of what it's like to be homeless, when being on the street is incidental to what it means to be homeless compared to the real difference... that the homeless have no place to go back to.

Still...the indulgences of the privileged reinforce distorted perceptions of difference.

Turn off your goddamned A.C. ... until you can power it solar. Meanwhile... keep in mind, those oiled pelicans in the gulf are what's keeping you cool.

No comments:

Post a Comment