Air Conditioned Nightmares, Eco-Green Daydreams…

I hate A/C and all that it stands for: the machines whirring and the air stirring, and the cool breeze blowing up my crack. Actually that part I like—sometimes. But what I hate most is the artificiality, the lie, the ultimate conceit, that we can defeat Nature, that we can override any and all obstacles, that we can ultimately prevail in our quest to enforce our will upon this planet, for the price of a barrel of oil…

This is the Age of Machines and their Masters, living in cities of multiple erections, massive investments, and runaway daydreams. This is Ego multiplied exponentially, human DNA the mortar between every brick, the semen slabs that form the foundation of every brick-veneer sh*t-house in every sh*t-stained city in this country of dreamers and carpenters and artists, now gone to venture capitalists, scammers and BS artists. This is America, dyed in the wool, and washed in Woolite(TM), hung out on the line, and left there to dry…

The problem is that houses aren’t built to live in anymore without the motors whirring and the air stirring and the breeze blowing up my crack, whether I like it or not… and the cities are not built for living in, and existing without the automobiles and the gasoline they guzzle, and the capitalists they nuzzle, and the funds they embezzle… History is not written for the mere survivors, but the lead actors on the stage…

We try to live hermetically sealed lives, separated from Nature by lathe and plaster, cork and caulk. We are cello-wrapped and vacuum-sealed and snap-locked and pill-popped until Nature is a force foreign to us, unsympathetic and demanding, when nothing could be further from the truth. Nature is not perfect, and far from fawning with false flattery, but steady in its gentle embrace of our mortal souls, mortality our common denominator, thank God for sweet Death and a good night’s sleep…

Thus air conditioners are the symbol of everything that is wrong with modern Western societies: the vanity, the arrogance, the false promise, and ultimate hopelessness. The thumbnail judgment for what makes a good house is its ‘tightness’ (carpenter talk). But why? Do we really need to be hermetically sealed off from nature? Okay, I get it for cleanliness and beauty, but it’s been proven over and over that sterile environments are not necessarily best, and that a body pumped with antibiotics loses its ability to fend off infections for itself.

The only advantage of ‘tightness’ in a house is for control of heat and cold, but even that is probably overrated, and can lead to harmful build-up of fumes, not to mention smells. A little ventilation goes a long ways. To say the least: ‘liveability’ and ‘tightness’ are not synonymous. And all those machines that were supposed to make our lives better have pretty much served their purpose by now. It’s time to move on. You can keep the Internet device, okay?

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