The obsolescence of real-world experience to summarize 2022

post
1064

12/30/22 | Locorotondo, Puglia > Woke up in Pogliono del Mare + walked around then pushed on to Locorotondo. Considered stopping in Alberobello but we're tiring quick of all the tourists + even when we were in Alberobello 11 years ago we remember it being touristy + don't want to further taint our memory of it. The tourism here is a phenomena, not sure why certain towns get inundated + others don't. Monopoli is only 10 km away + seemed just as nice (minus the 1 scenic beach everyone is taking pics of) but it was super quiet when we were there a week ago. We were talking to a local who was saying it was completely insane in Pogliono del Mare in the summer, "more tourists than stones", such that they do nothing but work, no time at all to enjoy this beautiful town they live in. So many tourists you can't see the streets, or the beach, even the waters are probably full of yachts. And all most people do is walk around taking selfies... we've seen it so many times, people walk up to a scenic spot, take selfies or pics of each other then hunker over their phones looking at the picture they took. Then they post it wherever + then stand there waiting to see how many "likes" their photos got. 95% of the time looking at their phones, 5% of the time looking at whatever real-world thing they came to take their picture next to, why even leave home? And all the restaurants now have QR codes for the menu so U have to read the menu on the little phone screen, assuming U have a phone or brought it w/ U, or have Internet access, or restaurants or hotels assume U have WhatsAp. So many times sitting next people in restaurants the whole time on their phones, sad state of the world.

Got to Locorotondo + it was chaos, market day + nowhere to park. Walked around as much as we could before getting annoyed at all the tourists, strolling the "quaint" streets made not so quaint by virtue of all our presence in them. Tried walking around later but it was even worse, the little alleys packed w/ tourists taking photos w/ the Xmas lights, to the point where we walked dark unsightly streets just so we could get from point A to point B. There was 1 spot where there was a mirror + it was a phenomena how many people would stop to take a selfie in the mirror. We've wondered before (reading Lost Tetrads or Understanding Media) what Marshall McLuhan would say about smartphones... in regards to narcissism, McLuhan said "this extension of himself by mirror numbed his perceptions until he became the servomechanism of his own extended or repeated image." Sure, smartphones enhance many things (interpersonal communications, access to Internet, navigation, etc.) + by being a portable all-in-one device (a modern Swiss Army knife), they obsolesce cameras, maps, landlines, letter-writing, etc. But above all, they obsolesce humun experience. They obsolesce memory + our ability to navigate. Could 1 say the same about computers? + blogging? Does our need to need document our lives here on 5cense take the life out of living it? Shd we renounce photography in 2023?

barcode of the restaurant we ate at, if U want to see the menu

 

 

 

 

skeumorphed phone (says "antique") in our current room, which also has a round bed, which we wouldn't recommend

 

sunrise over TV antennas in Pogliono del Mare

 

Locorotondo

 

 

 

 

 

Saint Nick's dirty laundry hung up for every 1 to take selfies under

12/31> We say all this as we near the end of year, the year that we completed the archival of all our journals so our entire life is now online. We read ~60 books in 2022 + watched a lot of movies. Travelwise, we went to NYC a few times (in part to lay the groundwork for our move back), then in July took a roadtrip south to the Shenandoahs, Blue Ridge Mountains, North Carolina + back. In September took another roadtrip north to Poconos, Catskills, Berkshires, Boston, Montauk + NYC again. And this current trip all around Italy starting w/ post 1052. Posted 90 blog posts this year. Published 3 books (Summertime in the Emergency Room by David Nutt, Math Class by Kelly Krumrie + HIST by James Belflower + Matthew Klane) + 15 pieces online in Sleepingfish. We shaved our head + tested positive for COVID + can we say the pandemic officially ended in 2022? We wrote 100s of pages of weird unintelligible text + recorded a lot of music, w/ nothing public to show for it (except "U + i = 3.141592653"). The world hit 8,000,000,000. Roe vs. Wade was overturned, Russia invaded Ukraine, there was a bunch of shootings including Uvalde. A lot of people died... the Queen, Gorbachev, Sidney Poitier, Monica Viti, Betty Davis, Bill Russell, Ray Liotta, James Caan, Christine McVie, George Costanza's mom, Olivia Newton John, the dude that made Woodstock happen + in the last few days: a pope, Pele, Vivienne Westwood, Barbara Walters + Terry Hall, which was really weird b/c the night before he died "We're Having All the Fun" popped into our head so we put it on + danced around our hotel in Lecce + a few days before that walking around in Ostuni, "Ghost Town" popped into our head. The big news of 2022 is that our bedder-½ got a sweet Columbia gig so we're heading back to NYC, so come early 2023 we need to start wrapping our head around that.

The last day of 2022 we woke up ( in a circular bed, for the 1st time... weird), set out thinking we'd walk to Alberobello, but walking in Italy is just really dangerous/unpleasant, as we've undoubtedly complained about countless times before... just hope we make it out of Italy alive. Ended up walking around Locorotondo on roads with the least amount of traffic we could find, ~7 miles. Nixed the capodanno (New Year's Eve) dinner idea for a late lunch around 2 then found this place where U could get a glass of wine in these terraced vineyards where the wine came from those grapes + watched the last sunset of 2022 over the landscape of Puglia.

Locorotondo (left)

 

 

 

 

new tombs to make way for more dead

 

saying arrivederci to the last sunset, here's to 2023

 

1063 <(current)> 1065 > Nomadic ghost-town resolutions in Basilicata to purge self- documentation
[  (ɔ)om.posted 2022  ∀/non i'm us  |  Ↄalamari arɔhive   ]