[herringb@prairienet.org: [Newspoetry] submitted from F concourse, minneapolis airport]

[Joe Futrelle]

----- Forwarded message from Paul Kotheimer <herringb at prairienet.org> -----
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Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 09:28:24 -0600 (CST)
From: Paul Kotheimer <herringb at prairienet.org>
To: news poetry <newspoetry at ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu>
Subject: [Newspoetry] submitted from F concourse, minneapolis airport
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Air travel is what capitalism wants life to be like in the twenty-first
century.

You arrive before sunrise at an enormous blacktop.  Traffic is always
horrendously snarled.  You hustle to be an hour early, but the corporation
is at leasure to make you wait as long as necessary.  Poor people are
either clearly uniformed or else ejected, invisibly, from the premises.

Every square inch is painted, carpeted, wallpapered in grey.  Corporations
own everything.  No plants or animals anywhere, except perhaps a single
tree, incongruously indoors, and only in the very most prosperous shopping
zone.  No fresh food.  Every item triple-price, quadruple-price.

As you walk through the security checkpoint, you have no right to free
speech.  Even the stickers on your notebook may be under scrutiny.

No single face you see around you is familiar.  You will never see any of
these people again.  No eye contact.  No touching.  No controversial
conversation.  Small talk is permitted, but conversation with the opposite
sex may be construed as sexual overture.

You are accustomed to sitting in a confined space.  Your belongings could
disappear at any moment and may be searched at any time.  Food, water, and
air are rationed--apportioned out as to laboratory animals.

Your identity can be co-ordinated with your whereabouts at any point in
time.  You entrust your physical well-being to a latticework of
technological and beurocratic systems far outside the control of any one
individual.

Your happiness, it goes without saying, is irrelevant.  What matters is
your compliance with safety regulations and your ability to contain your
rage, your fear, and your anguish so as not to disturb those around you or
make a spectacle of yourself.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
THE HAND-MADE RECORD LABEL
www.handmaderecords.com

c/o the School for Designing a Society
409 North Race Street
Urbana, IL 61801
217 384 0299 phone (no fax)


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----- End forwarded message -----
--
Joe Futrelle
editor-qua-chief
Newspoetry dot calm