[Our magazine] is assembling a team of energetic photographers to shoot the likes of portraits, venues, and event design/décor in the Southern California region. Per-shoot compensation may be about $100 to $250, and strong images are likely to get prominent placement. Prompt turnaround essential. To apply, please send a cover letter, resume, and a few low-res digital samples to Southern California bureau chief [me] with ''PHOTOGRAPHER'' in the subject line.
*****
From: [redacted]
To: Me
Subject: $100?
Shove it up your ass.
*****
From: Me
To: [Redacted]
Subject: Re: 100?
I can't actually believe I'm dignifying your email with a response, but clearly I put the fee right in the posting because I am dealing with a very small budget myself and didn't want to waste anyone's time. Needless to say, I got about 100 qualified resumes anyway. I would gladly pay photogs $10K/day if I could magically manufacture that kind of budget. But you sound like an understanding guy, so I'm sure you know what I mean.
Respectfully,
Me
*****
From: [redacted]
To: Me
Subject: Re: Re: $100?
I apologize, for what it's worth. My IQ seems to run up and down on some kind of rollercoaster, and I sometimes forget that an actual person may read corporate emails. There's something really fine about your response, and even in the fact that you reponded.
I keep this pseudonymous address for sending nuisance emails to corporations, corporate media pooh-bahs, and corporate politicians, and 99.99% of them richly deserve whatever miniscule annoyance I can inject into their day: " Aber die Herrschenden Saßen ohne mich sicherer, das hoffte ich."
Of course it's ridiculous to quote Brecht in the context of nuisance emails, but it's even more ridiculous to do nothing because you can't do more, and I do a little more, when I can. This sounds like a collateral-damage defense: "I dropped a bomb on that email because I thought there were enemy combatants in it." Well... That's exactly what it is, but as a defense it always sounds a little better when it's packaged with some sort of compensation. Nothing perfectly appropriate occurs to me, so... the rest of this email is an English version of the great and beautiful poem To Posterity by Brecht. I hope it washes away the unfortunate impression I made on you when I was aiming at some generic corporate persona.
To Posterity
by Bertold Brecht(translated from German by H. R. Hays)
1.
Indeed I live in the dark ages!
A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart. He who laughs
Has not yet heard
The terrible tidings.
Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
And he who walks calmly across the street,
Is he not out of reach of his friends
In trouble?
It is true: I earn my living
But, believe me, it is only an accident.
Nothing that I do entitles me to eat my fill.
By chance I was spared. (If my luck leaves me
I am lost.)
They tell me: eat and drink.
Be glad you have it! But how can I eat and drink
When my food is snatched from the hungry
And my glass of water belongs to the thirsty?
And yet I eat and drink.
I would gladly be wise.
The old books tell us what wisdom is:
Avoid the strife of the world
Live out your little time
Fearing no one
Using no violence
Returning good for evil --
Not fulfillment of desire but forgetfulness
Passes for wisdom.
I can do none of this:
Indeed I live in the dark ages!
2.
I came to the cities in a time of disorder
When hunger ruled.
I came among men in a time of uprising
And I revolted with them.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.
I ate my food between massacres.
The shadow of murder lay upon my sleep.
And when I loved, I loved with indifference.
I looked upon nature with impatience.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.
In my time streets led to the quicksand.
Speech betrayed me to the slaughterer.
There was little I could do. But without me
The rulers would have been more secure. This was my hope.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.
3.
You, who shall emerge from the flood
In which we are sinking,
Think --When you speak of our weaknesses,
Also of the dark time
That brought them forth.
For we went,changing our country more often than our shoes.
In the class war, despairing
When there was only injustice and no resistance.
For we knew only too well:
Even the hatred of squalor
Makes the brow grow stern.
Even anger against injustice
Makes the voice grow harsh. Alas, we
Who wished to lay the foundations of kindness
Could not ourselves be kind.
But you, when at last it comes to pass
That man can help his fellow man,
Do not judge us
Too harshly.
5 comments:
Wow.
Um...forgive me for being dense, but WTF?! Is this guy trying to justify being mean and snarky and just a general jerk? When he actually went out of his way to do so?
some people have
1: too much anger
2: too many degrees of higher education
3: not enough creative outlets.
this is exactly that person.
he's also probably a barista at some indy cafe in silver lake because after going to grad school for philosophy, comp lit, fine arts, and maybe even law school he still does not know what to do with his life that will warrant a true significance, have the greatest impact, change the world, save the world.
these people drive me crazy. in both a good and bad way.
Is he comparing Brecht's massive body of work in resistance against Fascism and the Nazis with his own email to you (probably sent while mooching wireless from the Coffee Bean) telling you to "Shove it up your ass?"
I think he is.
Still, I love that poem.
What makes this guy an asshole is not that he quotes Brecht. What makes him an asshole is not that he's pompous enough to quote ANY poem in apologizing for being an asshole, although that certainly doesn't weigh against a finding that he's an asshole. What makes him an asshole is not his juvenile, repeated use of the word "corporate" (four times, five if you count "corporation!") as some sort of substitute for, I don't know, "Nazi," as though working for a corporation makes someone somehow worthy of contempt. That part was actually almost refreshing, taking me back to dorm arguments where "corporate" was the trump card, and one who was "corporate" was the representation of all that was wrong in the world, when no one was really sure what "corporate" even meant. (I now know what it means, but I'm not entirely sure what a "corporate politician" is). On second thought, that didn't even approach "refreshing." I take it back.
But we are getting warmer on what makes this guy an asshole. I'm not sure there's ever been this much assholeness crammed into one sentence, so it will take a minute to unpack it.
"I keep this pseudonymous address for sending nuisance emails to corporations, corporate media pooh-bahs, and corporate politicians, and 99.99% of them richly deserve whatever miniscule annoyance I can inject into their day."
First, we have a person who sends e-mails that he himself considers to be "nuisance" emails. That, in itself, indicates a consciousness of the fact that he's being an asshole, but does it anyway. That doubles his asshole score, because he forfeits any argument that he wasn't thinking.
Second he maintains a separate e-mail address for sending his nuisance emails. Why? I suspect in part, it's because he sometimes gets responses that aren't as kind as Dubin's. And he doesn't want to read them. Why? Because they're a nuisance. So "corporate" people have to read his verbal feces, but he doesn't have to read their responses. After all, they're just corporate, so they don't count.
Third, the e-mail address is "pseudonymous." At least he's courageous enough to stand by his comments.
But the real crown jewel of the sentence is that "99.99% of them richly deserve it." The "corporate" people who don't reply to his e-mails? Maybe they started a reply along the lines of "your mother" and decided it wasn't worth their time. Maybe they were literalists, printed copies of his email, and shoved those copies up their asses. Who knows.
What makes this guy an asshole is that, even after being (hopefully) humiliated by Dubin's response, he goes on thinking that he was right every time BUT this time. And if Dubin hadn't written back, he would have walked away from his computer thinking "I really showed that dastardly corporation. 'Shove it up your ass' -- that's brilliant. Too bad I won't get credit for my work. Bloody pseudonymous e-mail account!"
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