The Current State of Jes Grew

Since we established at the end of class today that Jes Grew isn't exactly equatable with Jazz, it would probably be a good idea to identify what Jes Grew is. The epilogue adds to our understanding: "Jes Grew was the manic in the artist who would rather do glossolalia than be 'neat clear or lucid.' Jew Grew, the despised enemy of the Atonist Path, those Left-Handed practitioners of the Petro Loa, those too taut to spring from sharp edges, wiggle jiggle go all the way down and come up shaking (211). It sounds to me like Jew Grew describes a mindset more than a specific form of art, music, etc. It describes the seemingly-innate ability of humans to question the world around them. Of course, just because everyone has the ability to think for themselves doesn't mean that they will embrace that ability. As in the narrative about Osiris and Set that Papa LaBas recounts, there will always be people who will be resistant to the idea of change, lack of order, and spontaneity. So anyway, for my purposes, I'll refer to Jew Grew as the phenomenon in which people embrace their ability to make decisions for themselves and the idea of change.

So what about Jes Grew today? I would agree with LaBas when he says "Jes Grew has no end and no beginning...we will miss it for a while but it will come back, and when it returns we will see that it never left. You see, life will never end; there is really no end to life, if anything it will be death. Jes Grew is life. They comfortably share a single horse like 2 knights. They will try to depress Jes Grew but it will only spring back and prosper" (204). This makes the whole idea of Jes Grew more clear to me in that as long as someone is willing to keep it alive, Jes Grew will not die. Thus, I think Jes Grew is certainly still alive today.

One of the first examples that comes to my mind of Jes Grew being present today involves the food industry. When fast food first became big, it was celebrated for its convenience, affordability, and general yumminess. As the years have gone by, the food industry--and fast food chains in particular--have become increasingly vague and distant. By that I mean to say that it has become very easy and convenient for us to forget about how and where we obtain our food because the industry has made it so. Out of sight, out of mind, right? With the increasing level of detachment comes a general lack of awareness. In more recent years, though, people have begun to realize that there's a real problem when we don't even know what we're eating anymore. To tie this back to Jes Grew, people have begun to question what's going on; they want more transparency and more options. They are going against the order and power the big names in the food industry have created, and as long as there are people who are willing to challenge the status quo, Jes grew will live on.