Brain Data Offload

First off, fuck life. I remember now why I spent so much time lowering both what I expect of myself and what other expect of me. I'm a day away from having finished all of three books since my post this past August soliciting reading material. That's it. At this rate, I may get around to your suggestions someday in 2014. Which is actually not that far away now but still angers me because 2014 was further away when the suggestions were made.

It's funny, I could go months in New York not getting anything done at all and not be as mad because I was looking forwards. Now I am not. I do waste less time than I did then and yet, because I invest more meaning in time now, my actions still can't seem to catch up with desire. I need to fucking relax.

It doesn't help that it gets cold up here quickly. It's been less than two months. I need to fucking relax.

I can't really be scared of death at 32, can I? Must be something else. What?

It's not that time is moving faster, only that so much of it needs to be ignored.

That's what scared me about 9-5. Being glad a day was done.

This is not about sadness.

The other thoughts.

I haven't read and am not going to reread my posts from last February where I realized I couldn't establish any definitive structural "need" for retro culture in late capitalism, but I think, at least, I have the beginnings of the hypothesis. Maybe I had it then too. Maybe I am repeating myself. Maybe somebody else had them. Just in case not.

Let's just say (and here's the relationship back to cities, gentrification):

Retro culture is the reinvestment of surplus capital. 

That sort of explains away the "need" inasmuch as the need is inherent to the system, the aggregate result of seemingly-diverse agencies underpinned by a hidden, subconscious, yet shared goal.

Both reissues and bands that sound like other bands are basically either maintaing or expanding the reach of a market or markets.

So the challenge may now be to define the terms "surplus" and "capital" in the context of "economies of culture".

More sentences:

What happened to raise the effective demand for cultural "product", the demand that requires the expansion of markets?

I don't have an answer but here's a hint: identity is the social manifestation of the "coercive laws of competition".

Per Houellebecq, the collapse of enforced monogamy means we can never recuse ourselves from the market as long as we desire pleasure/profit. The need for individuation and innovation is now constant.

Tasteful consumer choices, choices of "conscience", require fuller engagement with the marketplace compared to "lumpen", "big boxes", "brand names".

Capitalism is ontology.

None of this is new. Can it be put together in a new way, though?