Quiet Color

by jackie nusz

As I sit at work in 82 degree temperature with a broken A.C. unit, I begin to feel a lot like that already stale slice of pizza under a heat lamp leftover from lunch hour. This is what it must feel like to live in a third world country working in a sweater shop without light, hope or ventilation. Only luckily for me I have only suffered for a week and I know that soon enough the problem will be solved and the A.C. will blow a nice and cold 68 degrees again. However, others are not so lucky; hope is absent because there is no solution- no enlightening resurrection of an endurance for a brighter future. Then I begin to wonder, how long will our certainty last? With people working two to three jobs, self-operated businesses closing, foreclosures left and right, and the evictions/bankruptcy of long-lived corporate enterprises, it’s not hard to imagine that our situation could progress to soon mirror that of the inhabitants of a third world country.

ALL THE TREES OF THE FIELD WILL CLAP THEIR HANDS BY SUFJAN STEVENS:

Yesterday (THANK GOD, a day off from the microwave at work) I passed a rather large fenced field in front of a Holiday Inn with banners that read “Bamboo Trees for Sale.” I began to consider this idea- there is no overpopulation of panda bears in the city of Miami so how many people could possibly need bamboo trees? Since most families and individuals are in a financial struggle pinching pennies and prioritizing necessities such as bills, groceries, and gas; would they really move bamboo trees up in the hierarchy? What were these investors thinking when they allotted a field to the production and sale of Bamboo trees? How much profit could they possibly make? Not long after I got home and shared the preposterous idea of such an enterprise with my mother, who is all about energy and feng-shui, I was slapped with some knowledge on a superstision of the Oriental culture. Apparently Bamboo trees are good luck and also known as trees from heaven. They absorb negative energy, bring good fortune, are tough and resilient and do not require direct sunlight to grow.

LITTLE TREES BY MIRACLE FORTRESS:

After hearing all this I started to think the idea wasn’t so crazy, I actually wanted to go out and buy a god-damn lucky bamboo tree! It’s no longer so hard to absorb the idea that these people could actually make quite an earning if the general mass was armed with the knowledge of the Orientals. I think about how many people buy lotto tickets every week fulfilling their superstision of the hope to finding a quick solution to their stressful economic struggles and think, with our country going in the direction it’s headed, maybe we should all be lining up to buy these lucky trees.