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Awkward...
Monday, 25 October 2010 09:47 pmWell. That felt kind of uncomfortable.
I don't know that many people in that room really got it, and I don't think there were many who were straight edge at all. One woman, as soon as a question was asked about the pervasive nature of alcohol in social settings, started saying people were judging her for drinking. She hadn't spoken at all before that point, and I had no idea whether she drunk at all. It seems so ironic that, after years of being called weird and pressured and told supposed friends would spike your drink for the fun of breaking your pledge to yourself, people who drink of their own free will would claim persecution when they come to a talk about the minority group.
At the end, Gabriel invited people to come up and speak to him directly, and I stopped by just to say thanks and note that it was ultimately Andy, and Jay who had been in bands with him years before, people who - in the latter case - I consider very dear friends, who had influenced me and supported me in my becoming and staying edge. He responded by saying he didn't really know Andy, having only spoken to him on the phone, that he seemed like a nice guy and then... that he'd had more objections to Andy's section and more reviews saying, "Yeah, great book, but you shouldn't have included him."
Firstly, I don't know that I - as a master of tactlessness - would have said that to someone who had essentially just said, "The guy in your book is someone I know and who has been a significant influence for me."
It felt almost dismissive - not of me, so much, but of Andy, really. He commented that he'd "be lying if [he] said [he] hadn't" been interested in having someone of that level of fame in the book and that the publishers had wanted it.
I sort of felt like I had to defend the passion and legitimacy of Andy's beliefs, even if I didn't follow the anarcho-primitivism ethos myself.
It was uncomfortable and I don't really know if it was because Gabriel is Austrian and doesn't articulate himself as well in English as maybe he could if it was his first language, but he asked me how I met Andy and when I left he asked my name and shook my hand, so maybe it was just how he came across.
Somehow, though, I felt like I was being judged on the basis of how I discovered edge and the factions of the people who introduced me to it... which was exactly what he seemed to want to negate in his talk.
I don't know that many people in that room really got it, and I don't think there were many who were straight edge at all. One woman, as soon as a question was asked about the pervasive nature of alcohol in social settings, started saying people were judging her for drinking. She hadn't spoken at all before that point, and I had no idea whether she drunk at all. It seems so ironic that, after years of being called weird and pressured and told supposed friends would spike your drink for the fun of breaking your pledge to yourself, people who drink of their own free will would claim persecution when they come to a talk about the minority group.
At the end, Gabriel invited people to come up and speak to him directly, and I stopped by just to say thanks and note that it was ultimately Andy, and Jay who had been in bands with him years before, people who - in the latter case - I consider very dear friends, who had influenced me and supported me in my becoming and staying edge. He responded by saying he didn't really know Andy, having only spoken to him on the phone, that he seemed like a nice guy and then... that he'd had more objections to Andy's section and more reviews saying, "Yeah, great book, but you shouldn't have included him."
Firstly, I don't know that I - as a master of tactlessness - would have said that to someone who had essentially just said, "The guy in your book is someone I know and who has been a significant influence for me."
It felt almost dismissive - not of me, so much, but of Andy, really. He commented that he'd "be lying if [he] said [he] hadn't" been interested in having someone of that level of fame in the book and that the publishers had wanted it.
I sort of felt like I had to defend the passion and legitimacy of Andy's beliefs, even if I didn't follow the anarcho-primitivism ethos myself.
It was uncomfortable and I don't really know if it was because Gabriel is Austrian and doesn't articulate himself as well in English as maybe he could if it was his first language, but he asked me how I met Andy and when I left he asked my name and shook my hand, so maybe it was just how he came across.
Somehow, though, I felt like I was being judged on the basis of how I discovered edge and the factions of the people who introduced me to it... which was exactly what he seemed to want to negate in his talk.
