No Privacy

While watching "Nosedive," I couldn't help but have this song spinning in my brain. The lines "I always feel like somebody's watching me / And I have no privacy" and "I don't know anymore / are the neighbors watching me?" just fit perfectly with this world where no one can escape the perpetual cycle of increasing or decreasing online and offline status. Everyone, from your coworkers to a stranger passing you by on the highway, has the power to watch you and decide how lush or poor your life may be. Laci slowly devolves into manic obsessiveness over her stars not only for 'social fame' but housing and reputation and general security. Considering that a person can merely look at you and see your rating, the threat of being watched is enough to incite paranoia and a constant state of 'acting,' which is what Rockwell's song portrays and/or frets over.

Of course, other stalker/paranoia heavy songs that also popped into my head were "Private Eyes" and "Every Step You Take," but I stuck with "Somebody's Watching Me" because its almost helpless, manic-yet-calm assertion of prying, judging eyes seems to parallel and reflect the 'Utopia' in "Nosedive."


Here's the lyric video if the official music video isn't to our tastes:

Among the Stars

https://youtu.be/3Kf-FlECN7M

Suns and Stars, a beautiful piece by orchestral composition group Really Slow Motion, is a tune that played in my head throughout this section of the reading. Watching Lauren's group grow, slowly at first, then rising to a crescendo of hope as the group approaches Bankole's land, then the abrupt de-escalation at the devastation they find, before a new hope blooms again.

Dogs

pill friends - wearing my dead dog's skin

i want to kill or to be killed
i pet my dog as i slit his throat
i skin him whole and i wear his furs
to school for looks now i feel good

i want to kill or to be killed
my dog licks me as he sinks into my meat
good boy he wears my tattered skin
to church for looks now they all know
i trust in hell

The parasitic relationship that humans have with dogs in this dystopian world has me thinking about the overwhelming lack of companionship and warmth is present within dystopian dogs. When we are unable to care for the things in life that give us comfort, such as cleanliness, dogs, and even a stable source of water, they become terrifying or their potential use is completely transformative. Dogs become something to fear, something to kill, and something to wear.

Bonus points for this song mentioning church, and school, for that matter, which both seem to be incredibly valuable to the neighborhood. Looking dirty and wearing filthy dead dog skins is a safe bet in not getting beat up. "I trust in hell" speaks to both the complicated relationship this book has with God and the state of affairs, playing on the term "In God We Trust," the motto of a state that seems to now have no concern for the livelihood of most people within in. 

credits

We Don't Even Live Here!

Anarchist rapper POS has a song that would go over well with the Diggers, I think. He professes in the song that "this world's got a whole lot of locked doors. We decided not to live here anymore." The common land that the Diggers had settled they considered to be above the private property of the local landowners. They don't care for the boundaries of private property because of how property is monopolized by the rich. In their manifesto, the Diggers write that the "Earth that is... made a Common Store-house for all, is bought and sold, and kept in the hands of the few..." Similarly, POS responds in his song to the rich's property rights to "trust no rich folks empty out the tummy on your math," which, according to Rapgenius, shows how rich people will use mathy macroeconomics to justify their wealth and by extension poverty and homelessness through the monopolization of private property (which makes people want to puke).