︎ zazen bozo ︎


︎︎︎ May 12th, 2023 ︎︎︎



I was listening to someone be described over dinner this evening, a rich man who wears only orange shoes. He was so rich that I could barely understand the words describing the garment he was wearing. A moth-eaten sweater, but cool, with knit pan holders for a kangaroo pocket, that and it had some sort of intricate gem-laden beadwork at the cuff.

Now, I wear clothes with conspicuous repairs. I’m quite fond of that sort of thing and this evening I was wearing the most conspicuous garments I own of that sort: an old French chore coat with more sashiko than not, jeans that’re about the same, and old sneakers with duct tape on both soles and one toe.


I do that stuff myself. Mostly I do it because I like doing it, second because I like how it looks, and third because I’m not rich enough to be buying new clothes all the damned time.

I didn’t get the sense that this guy repairs clothes himself. He buys clothes that come pre-repaired, the damage what needs fixing done by a machine in all likelihood. Sandpaper’s how they do it, I’m told. 

I can’t tell if it’s bourgeois jealousy or proletariat righteous anger that makes me hate that kind of thing. To be that rich, in some house off on a private estate, wearing orange shoes and clothes with pan holders stitched to them. To me, that puts you on the Bolshevik list of folks what oughta be scared the night of the revolution.

Do you think they know it?

I think I’d know it, I think I’d look down at myself and think, yeah, there’re some edgy teenagers who probably fantasize about putting me up against the wall.

I think if I thought that I’d give some of my money away. I think that’d be the litmus test, or one of them. If teenagers who fancy themselves anarchists picture your stupid clothes covered in blood, sell them. 

 

Bozo