May 2008

Summer Scene by Bazille, 1869

In May 1968, students boycotted classes at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. They aimed to protest the divisive, hierarchical social systems that capitalism has formed into its own incarnation of humanity. Behind slogans such as "Never Work," "The More You Consume The Less You Live," and "Run, Comrade, the Old World is Behind You," there were soon one thousand protesters, then ten thousand, and ten million, and by the end of the month, forty percent of the nation was on strike. The students had grown to include a formidable group of professors, communists, and prominent intellectuals. The group intended to bring their revolution to other European countries, stating
"Just as we have made Paris dance, the international proletariat will again take up its assault on the capitals of all nations, on the citadels of alienation.... A deeply-rooted movement is leading almost every sector of the population to seek a real change in life. It is now a revolutionary movement which lacks only the consciousness of what it has already done in order to triumph."
Forty years later, the revolution of 1968 is left out of history books, remaining a cult phenomenon among historians and anarchists. Today, most college students choose to graduate with the means to furnish their urban apartments with expensive electronics. Under a certain sky, the urgency of fear and boredom of consumption are replaced by a determination to escape the existence capitalism has etched into the modern world for each of us.

When the sun heated up the cold air, and we wrote letters to people we'd been changed by, and painted. We ourselves were Late May. The end of spring. We had the world; we had to pay for what we had learned. We were naked and fearless, we wanted the love of one another, in this moment, forever. We gave almost everything we had to each other (I would have stayed with any of them here, I left all of them for somewhere very far away). We were like we will probably never be again: we were racing in the night, almost identical, hiding nothing from the world but seeking refuge in our parallels.
The sun-- you really should have seen this sun-- it crept across the yard all afternoon until only this huge lopsided tree was illuminated-- an electric lime green across this blue sky that can only be described as silken or satiny; so rich is this blue that it almost seems unnatural. The sun falls across the sky as paint drips down wood. So when the sun left the yard for this big tree you were left cold with only memories of what had happened in the sun, and these two colors together which were so brilliant, so otherworldly, supernatural, cosmic, hyperreal, that there's no point in trying to explain them except to say that when you see these two colors together, and especially if you're watching them while in the company of very beautiful, very young people with folded limbs, intentionally dressed, with long hair and red cheeks, long low laughs and good ideas who are creating things and saying kind things to one another so that they can continue, you will believe that there is a world that is very large, endless actually, and very important, and very real, outside of your own mind and this at once becomes a whole new reason for Never Working.