Apparently, it’s an insult thumped on the heads of southern europeans by northern europeans, and refers to a cultural stereotype of procrastination. I’ve been walking the planet for some time and thought I had heard all the insults, except this big giant one that gets launched continentally. I am so out of it. And somewhat angry at Tom Lehrer for not mentioning it in the primer.
The worst part about manana is that it has to be pronounced with an english accent, and countered with impatience in a spanish accent. In a world like that, manana will never be applied to me, with a merkin accent.
Good.
Because here is my manana list:
- Six post-it notes on the wall that have been there for two years. Two! All I can say is: don’t bother reading them, just think about how effective the repositionable adhesive on post-it notes has become. Now let’s have a beer and think about it some more.
- OK, the first post-it is typewriter, which refers to a website I wanted to design showing the results of putting a manual typewriter out in the black rock desert for five days in August 1998. More about that later.
- The second post-it reads “3dmosim”. I have to think, but it may refer to 3d motion simulation rides found throughout Las Vegas. I put Briggs on a death march from 4pm to 4am to see how many we could ride while consuming one gin and tonic in every interval. That was halloween… 98? 99? I’ll check on it soon.
- The third post-it is missing, which fills me full of personal triumph. Obviously, I accomplished something and I removed the note: voila. What it was… I dunno.
- The fourth post-it reads “sell things”. I doubt I’ll ever bring that down. I should sell things. Every thing, actually, because I’m busted, and the impulse to insulate oneself with material goods is no way of filling the god hole I keep hearing about. I should chuck it all (after receiving a fraction of its value from strangers and sympathetic friends) and become a buddhist nun. It’s in my future. I know I’ll be there. In the meantime, what to do about the bills? My instruments would fetch one or two monthly payments, surely. But after my loud resignation from the world of sonic collage, I agreed to play three more gigs. The zen collagist just brings a dr. boss sampler and a line out.
- The fifth and sixth post-its are missing! Unsure I really accomplished anything, I’m going to check the baseboards to see if they fell off. I mean, crickey. Post-its are not that sticky.
- “Clean peace coin and obtain appraisal.” My sister plundered the jewelry boxes after my mother’s death, creating a pile to sell as we sat around the living room gaping at her. My sister-in-law did not punch her, as I would have gotten around to doing had I been there, but discreetly took her aside and privately mentioned that the family found her gold digging offensive. Would she please do it quietly and stop yelling “ka-ching!” like that? I have no idea where the peace coin is, and whether anyone thought it was of value. I hope it didn’t end up in a costume jewelry donation (although, my sister mentioned, costume jewelry can be very highly valued). Ai yi yi.
- Post-its eight through ten: gone! They must have related to other web projects. We were able to publish our top ten of 1999 in the first month of 2000. In prior years, we published six months after the fact. I think this built a small reputation for using the very latest in technology for the most juraissic of thought processes. Top ten what, you ask? Live shows. As I look at it, it’s the kind of list the snotty record store clerks come up with: filled with artists you don’t know and feel uncool in so not doing. I apologize. It’s just that my metier has taken me away from the top end of the radio dial, with its best of the eighties nineties and today, and sluiced me down to the end of the dial, with microwatt broadcasts of pure noise. My guilty pleasures: surf music (which seems to have street cred with the pure noise people) and mtv’s trl, fwiw, imho, lol, http, www, zoka, .com
- Post-it Eleven is next to post-it four, and creates a jungian response to “sell things”: “create gift strategy”. This must have been december 98 and I faced the holidays (called Chronikkah in our mixed household) with no moola. I think it’s up there because it looks like a good candidate for a bumper sticker, except for its proximity to “gift economy”, which is artspeak for “work for free again”. Now that I look at it, those two post-it notes are pidgin english for “therapy.” I just have to show up with one on each finger, sit down on the couch, and have a big cry. I’ll pay for it with a credit card.
- Twelve and Thirteen are nowhere to be seen, but I remember this combination because it was the street address of my childhood residence and it was the track programming for the zappa cd I put in last night. Wow, everybody! Seatbelts *on*! The zappa cuts (you are what you is, and mudd club) are sentimental faves. I’ve hit upon a triumverate pretty early in the day, which is a big message to quit and cash in the chips. One more hand. Soon. I’m right behind you. I’ll catch up.
- Post-it Fourteen. But hey. If the 11th thing on the list is the 14th thing, what has happened? Space. Time. Continuum. All that, freaked on the wall of a warehouse in East Oakland. Sure, it says “tune up zappy”, but I got my zappy in 97. Now they are in every dot com commercial and I can’t begin to tell you how ill I feel. At least they didn’t abscond with my home, which they normally do, just coopted my favorite mode of transportation. I feel… unscathed in large measure, stylistically irritated.
A little too irritated to tune up the zappy, though.
Manana.