Dear Diary:
DOS
It wasn’t the lack of access to Twitter that made me cross today — and I was very cross. Kathleen tried to talk me out of being cross at dinner, but I replied that she could make all the excuses that she liked, that I’d considered them all, and that I had rejected them. She, at least, recognized the fearful aspect of the denial-of-service attack (inadvertent though it may have been).
Boy, was I ever in the mood to see the Bacon show! I was cross enough to carve up a few carcasses myself. At least I wasn’t mumbling to myself. If I’d been mumbling to myself — given how cross I was — I’d have been given a police escort somewhere. At one point, I did wonder how I came to be at the Bacon show. I’d only gone out for a walk. To talk pictures for next week’s entries. Yes. I’d dipped into Central Park; and then, in need of a lav, right out again. Out of the Park and into the Museum.
The crowds at the Museum were not exactly mood-enhancing. And then to find that the escalator was out of service! I ought to have turned on my heels and gone home. Instead, I climbed the great staircase. Once at the top, I couldn’t think of anything better than to duck into the Bacon show, which I’ve already seen a few times. I looked carefully at a couple of the canvases, but mostly I just harmonized with them. Inside my head, there raged a sanguinary blizzard of intemperate thoughts about heedlessness, inattentiveness, and smugness. And wrongheadedness, while I was at it. I never imagined that I’d think of Malcolm Gladwell as wrongheaded. But in fact I did, this afternoon, and quite intemperately. He’s wrongheaded, that is; I’m the intemperate one.
But in cases where the status quo involves systematic injustice this is no more than a temporary strategy. Eventually, such injustice requires more than a change of heart.
And if the response is also systematic, then you can easily end up with a room full of Bacons — and no paint necessary! The only alternative to a change of heart is (literally) excoriation.