Ten Little Missions for the End of the World
Benedict XVI addressed the German parliament this week and took the occasion to explain natural law to a room full of people who had already survived reunification, which was either the bravest or most oblivious speech of the year depending on your theology. Troy Davis was executed in Georgia—contested to the end, the state unmoved—on roughly the same night Mark Zuckerberg held a press conference to unveil Facebook’s Timeline feature, a coincidence of scheduling that I prefer not to think about too carefully. Meanwhile, in Berlin, a horde of social media consultants descended on the neighborhood like a particularly well-branded weather system, all laptops and good intentions and nowhere to be at 11 a.m.
Anyway. Ten small missions for the weekend, in case you need somewhere to point yourself. One: when your internet dies, don’t treat it as catastrophe—do the dishes, call someone, clean the corner of the room you’ve been pretending you don’t see. Two: attend a fashion week event on LSD. Apparently the color palette improves considerably. Three: send someone the best GIF you’ve found this week. The Bieber and Selena dry-humping one qualifies as a cultural document at this point. Four: read up on neurofibromatosis, the condition that makes it look like bulging flesh-sacs are erupting across every inch of the body. It will recalibrate your sense of proportion. Could be any of us. Five: hand the Pope your little brother, tell him the kid is the Antichrist, and then run.
Six: if you haven’t switched to Facebook Timeline yet, do it now and spend the weekend acting like you did it casually. Seven: stop doing cocaine. Your grandmother knows, and she’s not fine with it. Eight: go to a house party, let everyone in the room touch your bare chest, keep a running list in a notebook until you eat the notebook sometime around 3 a.m. due to irresponsible drinking. Nine: seduce a fashion blogger. You know you’ve been thinking about it. Ten: go to the supermarket and ask a stranger in the queue if you can bring them anything. It will feel completely insane. It might be the most human exchange either of you has all weekend.