$ketche$

I was walking down one of those M.C. Escher stairs, in a museum, when I reached the end. From where I stood I could hear a young boy below, sobbing. The sound wasn’t echoing, as it should have been in such a large space. Fortunately, some of the railing was missing, so I jumped down to the ground floor. His face was square, his hair blond, and not an all together ugly kid, except for the puffy eyes and signs of a fight with a parent. His mother sat on a bench, alone, unsure of how to raise the child. Again, the kid looked upset and there had clearly been a fight between the two. So I approached.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

He replied, “We don’t have any money.”

 

Figured maybe that’s what the fight was about. So I said what seemed like the right thing to say. “You have to work hard!” It didn’t feel convincing, even to myself, so I patted my thighs, and raised my voice. “Life isn’t easy, you have to work hard, really hard!” The child sniffed his last wet sniffles. And nodded his head. The mother motionless. I walked away.

 

. . .

 

Jamal is in college, living with three other boys in a dorm. On the first week of school, however, it turns out he invited his friend named, “INEED$” to sleep on the couch, be a fifth roommate. I think they will get along.

 

. . .

 

“Have you ever been so broke the bank actually charges you money?” Comedy is a cold can of beer in the midst of a financial heatwave. I remember showing my brother my bank account with 2 dollars once, like Louie talks about in the follow clip. We both laughed.  Btw I think this clip was the very first one I ever saw of him.

 

 

. . .

 

I love how, because of Yelp and such, when I see a rating of $, I think, ok kebabs. When I see $$, I think ok, date on a weeknight. When I see $$$, I think jeez maybe I’ll only order the appetizer. But when I see $$$$ I think ok, great place to invite (get invited to by) relatives. Are there five-$ places?

 

. . .

 

My uncle had been listening to my cousins and I argue about the subtleties between Bolshevism and Marxism, when he interrupted us. We were 14, 15. This was Buenos Aires. You see that homeless, he asked. Give him a peso. My uncle was talking to me, who had argued the most. Give him a peso, come on, if you believe in communism. I didn’t give anyone any money. And that was that.

 

. . .

 

A professor of literature told the class, “Your novels should give an account of the value of money, to create a sense of the world. It needn’t list the price of objects, although an America where a can of soda costs 25 cents is different from the one where it costs a $1.25. But what about foreign or invented currencies? What did horse racing cost Vronsky? We know that it nearly broke his bank at one point. Or the golden ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: couldn’t we price Charlie’s luck as extraordinary compared to the girl who merely purchased as many bars as possible? Remember, money means nothing, except in its making us believe its has value. Keep this in mind when telling your fiction.”

 

(With this in mind) My current and only laptop, a HS graduation gift, was purchased for the same price as all my text books the first semester of college. This laptop has outlasted those books, and generated knowledge for ten years. Text books cost too much.  I’m thinking how one literary criticism book I bought last week for Kindle cost the same as the last two new paperbacks I purchased at B&N. The next literary criticism ebook I want to buy is cheaper, yet will still cost more than the average freshly printed paperback, or five digital new releases. It shouldn’t be a surprise I prefer paper, especially that I must spend so much digital money ($20+ online) for such limited digital content (one ebook, 400-ish pages). It only baffles me. Academia.

. . .

 

In New York you can buy time or value for your metro card (quite a metaphor unto itself). But, time is more valuable.

 

For a 7-days unlimited card, you paid about the same as ten rides. So if you ride two times Monday through Friday, you break even. Ride on the weekend, and you might as well go unlimited. Keep in mind, paying for a 30-day card as opposed to three 7-day cards saves you only 8 dollars (or about three rides). With the risk of losing the card, you might as well pay for weeklies. Go weekly, buy time!

 

 . . .

 

Diamonds are not rare.

Gold is fun.

Debt.

Money.

 

. . .

That’s what this post is about. Money. I decided to sketch out some ideas about it that I share with others. If I think of any more, I will make sure to include them in later writings. For now, I’m off.