What the hell does that even mean and why does this guy I’ve never talked to feel so comfortable using this racist speech with me? Are black people naturally more disruptive than white people or something? I was a bit shocked, flabbergasted even. A moment later he was mentioning how he’s an honor student.

I can only imagine that he had no idea how racist he sounded or realized it immediately after and didn’t even want to bring it up again even just to correct himself. In any case, it’s stored for posterity on my recorder now, probably as one of those moments when someone simply does not listen to themselves.

I recently got a text that asked if I was still recording and my initial thought was, “Music? Other people’s music? My own?” Hours later I realized the question was likely about the recorder that’s in my pocket 24 hours a day.

I’m not the only one who forgets, though. I have conversations all the time that probably wouldn’t happen if the person thought about it. This is good for the project, good for my potential career as a blackmailer of poor people, maybe not so good for people who confide in me. Don’t worry, I won’t put anything about that growth on your foot in my songs.

This was the conversation I picked up today between two guys outside of City College. Interpret it however you like but what they were talking about starting college late. There were numerous other contradictions spoken (ie. “Yeah, no more partying for me; I’ve been taking school seriously. I’ll talk to you later though, I’m already late for class.”) but this is the one that caught my attention because it has the potential to do the most damage.

When people start sentences off with this type of disclaimer, it almost always seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy. This guy may have thought that he pre-emptively cleared himself of accusations of sexism but he still said something sexist. It makes me wonder how often this is used by people who are too naive to realize what they’re saying and how often it’s used to preface something that can honestly be taken multiple ways without context. I guess I’ll find out.

Yesterday I recorded my co-worker being unnecessarily berated by a customer. This person was buying a set of headphones and discovered that the price was wrong at the register. My co-worker immediately checked, found that the tag was expired, and explained how she was still going to give the customer the discounted price. He then proceeded to verbally attack her as if she was trying to trick him. She repeatedly explained how crazy he was being but he insisted on complaining, even telling my manager that we had a “dummy” working for us.

Obviously, this guy had an extreme case of paranoia and/or an inferiority complex. It made me wonder what he would think if I played the recording back for him. How often is someone recorded while being a dick? I don’t think I’ve ever listened to myself being an asshole; would being continued by such a thing be enough to force a change in bad behavior? It’s not like anyone is rationalizing being an asshole–it’s more of a knee-jerk thing. I’m curious to see if I’ll become a better person once I started sifting through a year of my own personal communications.

I don’t have much to say about it since it sort of speaks for itself, even though there’s no dialogue. I also don’t want to ruin the effect of watching it. To me, it does an impressive job at summing up where one is going/has to go as well as where one has been. Somehow, having something so visual that represents this idea makes it much more affecting than just saying it.

The music, by Kenji Kondo, is worth commenting on. It sounds, to me, highly influenced by Erik Satie, especially his Gymnopedies. In fact, the French title may be a nod to French art in general. After all, the animation could be considered impressionistic. Satie was a composer writing around the beginning of the 20th century. He wrote mostly solo piano pieces which are notable for their, for the time, unusual chord progressions and harmonies. They were progressive works at the time that, now, sound like a demonstration of how much can be expressed with a few simple sounds. If you enjoy the music in this film, I would definitely recommend checking out Satie’s music.

UPDATE: The video seems to be getting pulled from video hosting sites very quickly. You can problem still find it but I have no way to post it here without getting the dreaded “This content has been removed” message. So, if you’re interested, search Google Video for La Maison en Petits Cubes.

Regardless of the rampant contradictions in such a stance, the whole conversation made me really wonder how someone can believe something and yet do the opposite. For instance, in the example of the Muslim in front of my short-sighted online debating partner, does that Muslim, who we’ll assume does believe he’s being commanded to kill the guy in front of him, not follow through with his God’s command out of sheer willpower to go against his beliefs or is it that at the time he believes that it’s not a good idea to kill this person. Basically, if you believe something and then act in a way that goes against that belief, did you really just have a couple beliefs overlap each other?

Upon trying to think of some examples where someone is acting against their beliefs, I came up with a couple that were questionable. Lets take priests who molest children. These people most likely don’t interpret the Bible to be saying that it’s honky dory to ruin children’s lives in this way yet they still do it. When those particular priests are in that situation where they decide to go through with these actions, is it just some blind moment like blacking out after drinking too much or do they justify the action in the moment? If they do justify the action, does that justification enact a new belief? For example, the priest normally believes that it’s not okay to touch small children but at the time that they are doing so they also believe that it is okay to do so for such and such a reason. You can do the same thing for recovering alcoholics. They believe that they should stop drinking but they still end up drinking because they believe at the time when they fail in their endeavor that it’s okay for them to drink.

So yeah, is it safe to say that no one ever acts against their beliefs, or no?