"Remember, me?" A User-Friendly Users Guide to Being (slightly) Use-less

“ [. . .] [M]echanization has such a power over man's leisure and happiness, and so profoundly determines the manufacture of amusement goods, that his experiences are inevitably after-images of the work process itself”

(Adorno & Horkheimer)

Man, I didn't know I was such a freakin' user.

Really. I thought I was all sorts of aware and attune to the ways in which our cave projections have evolved, but seriously, User, I had no clue about you, or us. Or me. Luckily, I’ve remembered to check the box and be remembered. Being remembered is what it’s all about, for shizz. Because then, well, we can customize things and the things we use can be customized to maximize our pleasure. . .er. . . “satisfaction” in our using of the things we use. Because our things can be customized to our tastes and User Preferences. So, hell yes! I check that box, because I often forget myself, I mean, my User ID and Password (I have so many. . .or I pretend to, anyway). Yeah, we’re totally being remembered, you and me. The only thing about this latest Wonkavision ride, my dear . . . . um, you/thing/reader/user/audience/client/customer/student/colleague/peepsta

is that I’m not sure I like how all our little floating parts are being put back together over here. Yeah, not too sure. But, whatever. I checked the box.

. . .

“But, uh, wait; I thought they were our "customers"?” I didn’t miss a beat. Ok, yeah. I missed several. This how I wished I had immediately responded to my colleague’s revelation about my Use Value. But instead I was just attempting to hold my breath while I walked into our now sorta toxic office. . . .

“I thought of you at the meeting,” she said, putting her books and neat manila folders into her beat up but trustly ol’ LL Bean bag.

Oh, yeah. The meeting. I always forget those durn things. . . .

“It was one of your ‘words’, you know? Truly, a ‘Roseanne Not/Word Moment,’ and I thought, ‘Oh, Roseanne would just love this one!’ He went on and on about the changes in legislature, the pension, the contract, and something along the lines about how this is all for the ‘Users’ and how our Representatives believe we need to make sure the ‘Users’ are happy, and then—oh, this had you all over it—he made sure we understood who he meant: ‘Users, by the way, are how they [the NJ Legislature] refer to our ‘students’. I wish you were there; you would have loved it.”
She smiled and revealed her perfect and perfectly snarky rim of pearly whites, then stepped over the waste baskets now transformed and serving as water basins. Our office, I did sorta mention, is having a bit of a weepy-leaky issue. And well, we can’t really use it right now. So, we both laughed, kinda coughed, and got the hell out before the slightly toxic dust-stuff produced by the engorged, dripping and still-remaining ceiling tiles started giving us those wicked headaches.

“Catch you later, ya effing user!” I shouted in my goof-ball manner, and trudged off to teach my Worldly peeps (big ups to my ENGL 236 Crew) to question their productivity percentages and efficiency potentiality (essential Socratic pedagogy for a course on the literary Global, dontchaknow?).

As I walked, however, I wandered into a typical half-wit moment; I began to wonder: if our students were now Users and/or Customers (depending on which Un-Speaker you happened to ask), then . . . then. . . well, what in the world did that make me? The Barista analogy already being fully ground in a former rant-blog, I stopped mid-stride and saw exactly what my Gal Pal was trying to tell me: if they are the Users, then they are using. . . well, us.

Man, I didn’t realize I was such a freakin’ tool.

“Don’t forget to call me!” or “Pass the Penates”: Thinging Things and Things Slightly Thingie-er

You, see, well, apparently, I am a bit obsessed with names. Oh, call me crazy, but somehow words matter to me, and somehow I think that getting hit with a Capulet “Hello” Name Tag at a Montague Family Reunion would be, well, rather trippy, but I don’t want to end up a gold statue (nor do I want "earn" one for something called "Excellence in Service," thanks). A bit ago, I rambled on and on about how the new Professional and Pedagogical Development Paradigm Shift was being led by Richard Dawson’s ghost. Well, it still is, but we have other screens to contend with. These, dear User, are the very ones reflecting back our own graven avatars. And this contest is found not just in those Virtual Hallowed Halls and Towers of Excellent Ivory, but here too. Here and there and everywhere. We are all of us (well, all of us privileged enough to reside on either side of the wire more or less) transformed into the User.

“Don’t forget to call me!” I yelled out at my Beloved as I headed out to run some errands. I always remember to ask him if he "needs something" while I’m out, and he never can think of anything until I return (sans desired object, of course). We had just recently enjoyed our Sunday morning ritual of omelets and bottomless cups of Joe at our favorite Sunday morning breakfast spot where we once again had one of our many typical atypical extended convos over yummy llevos:

“Have you ever heard of the Penates?” He asked, while the Sunday morning breakfast rush and buzz radiated and swiveled around his question like an ever-rotating gyre of red nylon old school diner bar stool.

“Mmmm. Nope. Enlighten me!” I joked. Chew, clink, rush, hum, buzz. . .

“Funny you should say that. . .”

Our waitress danced around babies and hotcakes and dwarf tubs of ketchup and asked if all was well. "More coffee?" We both nodded and did the quick-chew "mmmnhmmn. . .(swallow) thanks!" choral reply. It was Sunday; I was gratefully chowing on my favorite egg white, spinach, tomato and goat cheese creation, with “diner” now coffee steaming in my cup and my Beloved beaming about something called a “Penates” or something. All was well in our User-verse indeed.


“The program of the Enlightenment was the disenchantment of the world; the dissolution of myths and the substitution of knowledge for fancy. From now on, matter would at last be mastered without any illusion of ruling or inherent powers, of hidden qualities” (Adorno & Horkheimer)

The idea of the online avatar is an interesting conundrum. We've come such a long way in our short journey that we now fashion our User Identities in multiple manifestations that run the gamut of Anime to Photo-Shopped Prom Picture Parody. Everything that once seemed fine without an image representin' the User behind the use is now rendered in Avatar for and of your preference. We are out there, out here, in-cartoon if not incarnate. And that's what seems so odd to me.

. . .

"Vishnu has 10," I said, savoring that last bite of breakfast beauty. "He's got 10. But the 10th, you know, he hasn't happened yet," I said, in my "doomsday" best.

"Avatars?" he asked. He's got lots left on his plate, and I'm eyeing his home fries with starch-envy; this happens every now and again ever since I decided to deprive my body of insulin-inducing simple carbs. My body didn't seem to do so well with such substances, but it's hard to get my mind to comply with the idea. He smiles in recognition of my carbo-wander and asks, "So why the connection?" He looks down at the napkin-sketch that began my particular wander of the day. "Why Kalki, specifically? Is it just because of the word?" His fries begin to fall away, and away from my mind as well. Words matter, I think to myself.

"There's a matter to them, you know, words; words matter. And yeah, I was interested in 'avatar' as a storied-word, but still. . ."

"More coffee?" asks our acrobat-waitress. We are offered a new mini pot of coffee for our table, and he pours into our waiting cups, while his face notes his waiting for me to continue. I tear open Splenda packets and stir into my idea:

"Vishnu's Avatars are partly about becoming embodied, right? 'incarnate'. We're going somewhere else; the opposite direction. Maybe not even 'opposite' per se; just somewhere else. . ." gulp scrap chew hum spin He considers this and adds,

"But we've started from somewhere else, no?" He touches my hand, and I feel what he means. This is the starting point; we are: hand in/to hand, these things we carry which carry and use.

"It was the Penates, love," I offered. "I just started thinking of it when you mentioned the Penates."

User Beware(s)

"You always forget to tell me what you need, you know?" I grumble-mumble as he unloads my bags of over-stuffed, over-priced organics and "healthy junk" onto the kitchen table. He smiles the "I didn't need anything," smile, but I'm in full-on consumer adrenaline rush mode, and I ignore the point in his grin, "You should just call me, love; that's what this 'hands free' thing's for," I point to the Blue-Fanged Demon Appendage jutting out of my right ear.

His smile widens, and mine begins.

The story of the Penates is an object lesson of sorts; once die ties watching over house hold goods, the "gods of the storeroom," the 'light' of history and time froze our famed Castor et. al and reified them into the very goods they guarded; the gods became the goods. The word "penates" means "goods," stuff, bling. But it meant gods. These particular gods, no longer useful in a world that saw differently, and well, couldn't see them nor their use any longer, became the things we used. Became things. It's something to think about, anyway, dear User.

. . .

"I thought they were our 'customers'?" I wanted to quip back to her, but I'm not that quick, and especially not when soaked ceiling tiles threaten my already foggy noggin'. Yeah, I'm really a dullard sometimes. The world seems to spin and drip around me, and sometimes, all I can think of is the next word to appear before the blinking cursor, the next word that will take me one step closer to the thing I'm trying to get at but never quite recall.