Doomocracy: Table for One Apr05

Doomocracy: Table for One...

I used to think about becoming a religioso, but I don’t have churchly predilections, or the other kind. The life of the ascetic appealed to me. Failing that, I wanted to be a hermit, but my tastes run to blissfuly functionless shoes and Zegna dress shirts. The problem is that I have never wanted the opposite, to be a member of society or its adjuncts. I notice that my dogs are exactly the same. They have no desire to participate in most activities, but God forbid those activities take place outside of their witness. There is a place for people like me, the table for one. I don’t get invited to parties. Nothing about my affect suggests that I am a party person, which is not to say I am a wall flower. I enjoy parties, but it is clear to most people that I am enjoying them on a completely different level than small talk come-ons and the freedoms of music and libation. I need people to animate my world, but “people” in most contexts could not be more tedious, I imagine that being deeply connected to them is like being at the end of a very long rope on which you will eventually hang. I have often wondered what I have in common with sociopaths. Latin suggests to me that both their problem and the solution lies in people. I imagine that my neighbors would describe me in the same terms, “He was so quiet, very polite. We knew him well enough to wave, but I can’t remember ever speaking more than a few words with him.” I need these people, which is to say, I would not live where I do without them. Indeed, I would not be as happy if...

Possible to be Weary: NORA Apr04

Possible to be Weary: NORA...

Nora, Hi, how are you? I just got off the phone with Simon. Poor dude, Someone-In-Charge has informed him that he has to have a psychological evaluation in order to take time off. (I think he wants to go to Argentina. Did he knock someone up? Do you know anything about this?) That is, he has to demonstrate that he needs a break or else he’ll do something nutty. (I guess he didn’t get the grant?) Can you imagine your own Cuckoo’s Nest audition? There’s no accounting for weariness, I suppose, if that’s what it is. So I helped him rehearse, like any proper older sister would (we are two minutes apart, and that counts, you know). I thought maybe he could talk about his fifteen-inch freckle…in detail. Sort of like the time he convinced the Dean to let him drop Philosophy 8 with ol’ man Wollheim once he covered Plato (we got into a big argument over this one). I liked that guy! Sure, he cringed at taking on my honors thesis on Walter Benjamin (‘Yes, he’s something of a poignant figure, isn’t he?’ back then, that statement totally confused me, but I thought W was cute anyway). Simon claims he persuaded the Dean to acquiesce to the pointlessness of anything after Master P. At the time, I’m not sure I believed him exactly, but he did get out of the class without a blemish on his record. I’m sure the poor old guy just wanted to run off to some terribly collegiate sporting event or to catch Tina Brown at Zellerbach, anything, Anything! Just shut this guy the hell up! How about the time when we were in England and we saw an old woman on a talk show who had a...

Possible to be Weary: NORA Mar28

Possible to be Weary: NORA...

Hi Nora! No more blind dates for me, man. I’m going on strike. Rooftops in NYC on Spring Break are mighty dangerous for this type. I felt like a kite trapped in the dendrites of a tree. I think his brain was thoroughly adled by the heat. We went and saw a Frida/Diego exhibit at the Museo Del Barrio, and he said (he likes to hold forth), “I don’t know, Max. I have some reservations about a few of these portraits. They still look like they appear airbrushed on the side of a van.” The date was over at that point, I only blame myself, I blame myself that he sounds so much like Simon. That was my Spring Break for ya, oh yeah, I also overboiled some potatoes, you know how I get, drinking loads of flat champagne, reading in bed, day dreaming about the leftovers from a party the previous night. I was the left overs from the previous night’s party. But left overs are kind of funny, don’t you think? Fuck, where were you? I’m supposed to go to Disneyland (Spring Break never ends!) next week with S and his new Cuban babe, what’s-her-face, since it’s been her lifelong dream (an ironic one, I hope) to visit all that milk and honey. He says I’m not to make any raft/Elian jokes in her presence. Also, I’m not to remind him that you’re Cuban too and that the two of you (probably) rest on opposite sides of the bar according to the order “Cuba Libre” (well, I made that up, but I’ve got my gut feelings). I’m at The Albatross. Sorry, I couldn’t wait for you to get back into town. I completely forgot that I went to the movies today, that...

On the Spectacle of Disaster, Part II: Disaster of a Different Sort Mar23

On the Spectacle of Disaster, Part II: Disaster of a Different Sort...

As I compose these remarks, the latest news from Japan is that over 6,000 people are now officially confirmed dead with over 10,000 others still missing – most of them presumed dead, as well. More ominous still is the specter of nuclear holocaust, with a full-scale meltdown happening, or about to happen, or having happened already, depending on whom you ask and who answers, at the Daiichi nuclear plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo. Radiation released by damaged reactors at the Daiichi plant has been detected in the United States, but it has not reached and, we have been assured, will not reach, dangerous levels. But how, in that case, to explain the uncannily incandescent madness that seems to have taken hold of some among us in the wake of the tragedy? Consider the case of rapper 50 Cent as one example. On the morning of the earthquake and tsunami, he took to Twitter to quip: “Look this is very serious people I had to evacuate all my hoe’s from LA, Hawaii and Japan. I had to do it. Lol.” Shortly thereafter, as though realizing the genuine gravity of the situation, he backtracked from those glib comments, tweeting: “Nah, this is nuts but what can anyone do about it. Let’s pray for anyone who has lost someone.” But moments later, as though seized by an almost pathological indecisiveness, the rapper retracted his retraction, writing: “Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value. Hate it or love it. I’m cool either way.” Not long after, and also by way of Twitter, came a series of half-baked one-liners from comedian Gilbert Gottfried, including the somewhat illiterate “I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, ‘They’ll [sic] be another...

Possible to be Weary: NORA Mar21

Possible to be Weary: NORA...

Nora, How funny to learn that autumn is an Edward Gorrey illustration, the trees on my street are the bad switches that bad children get for Christmas. Only one day, trained on self-abuse, I came outside and discovered these two men carrying huge leafy green evergreens and placing them in front of the naked dendrites. The sound of one laughing, they’re filming a movie in the wrong season. Did I ever tell you about the time I pissed on the singing tree as an inebriated freshman at UCSD? It was truly satisfying. Sure, it doesn’t quite hold up under the staggering weight of some of your stories. Like the time you wrote that one Sylvia Plath paper two weeks in advance of the due date. I know! Please tell me again about the time you dropped acid with that one guy, what’s his name, Phil (or, as you prefer, “Philly” — in the dotty parlance of your chosen profession); tried dancing it off at a rave at Cloyne, but then decided your energy better directed toward writing those four papers “just” waiting in your inbox, back at that beautiful loft high up in the trees on Virginia Street on the north side of campus — Once inside you’re fooled into believing that you’re staring out to the street from inside the hull of a boat. Anyway, you said something about tractors that left a few questions and this bastard of morningside heights a bit restless. PS: Would this be the appropriate time to tell you about the time I lingered overlong under that man hole window, after leaving one of those notorious poetry tutorials? I caught your profile, thought of Disneyland, thought of wishing to be the mail man and then you sneezed/appeared momentarily...

Possible to be Weary: NORA Mar15

Possible to be Weary: NORA...

Hello there, The weekend was really strange, but I haven’t yet hermetically sealed it in tupperware containers for easy transport. The Radiohead review was pretty much right on, except that I would have made a bigger deal about the saxophone. I wish you had been here earlier. Tried to mend a dispirited tire to within an inch of losing everything I’ve got on file. Exhibition of boring male-type destructiveness. Upset some birds. I feel dispossessed. I’m a terrible mechanic. I’m a very angry god. I don’t care how appealing you find me. Chary beauties with nerdy aviator glasses just are, perhaps. It makes sense that no one will ever know about us. I would say let’s meet up for a drink but you know. Only that I need to hear from you, ice plant, and it always makes me happy. Why the interest in The Immoralist? The sparrows tell me your secrets, the jacaranda is your bold kimono. Til then,...

Possible to be Weary: NORA Mar08

Possible to be Weary: NORA...

Heya Nora, thanks for thinking of me. I’m old enough to be your dirty uncle. I just purchased my ticket home on the 19th of Dec. until Jan 2. Listen, short-stack, we should hang out soon. I’m not teaching this semester (enforced sabbatical) which means I’m ready for you to show me the seedier side of things sometime. And I don’t mean late night photos of some other guy sucking on your foot. What passes for painting these days. Though it’s no small consolation to note your unease over referring to it as a self-portrait (which one, christ), keeping me up late at night while I’m trying to grade papers is unkind. As I write this, I have a very serious face. Last night I watched Twilight Part Deux and read the Duino Elegies at the same time. Is it possible that both could make me feel the same thing? I must be irreparably broken, but then angels and vampires do have some things in common. Exile, right?...

Possible to be Weary Mar04

Possible to be Weary

We’ve seen this happen before. Can you imagine a time when introductions and parting gifts were a necessity. There’s a look at who’s at the door, who’s leaving when it’s time to go. Who came and who went. Something that says “Thinking of You –“ In May 2010, Itza Vilaboy twisted on the technological screw via a blog on the web-based artspace, Light & Wire Gallery. It was the perfect portal to take seriously an inclination based on the thrill of motion, a sailing through space just to get out of bed. This was something to do for fun when enthralled with disappointment. NORA, a novel, is reformatted into a series of letters or “blog posts,” channelling a trans-arts sensibility into the remote actuality of internet address. Forms are challenged to take on the shape of letter, poem, postcard, post. They are alarming and seem to recreate, as in a sudden memory, the moments when you first received each of these letters (and e-mails and post-cards), messages of such flaunting, guileless presentation, of such unapologetically encroaching intimacy that they present themselves as a demand. You cannot read them without a surprised, possibly guilty flush, as though you had accidentally stumbled upon your own, forgotten cache of letters, and the past, somehow completely, maybe by turns lost or obscured, as if surfeit was stylish, has just pounced upon you and asserted its rights. Here, a tug. There, a caress. A “here I am, what are you going to do about it”, and induce, in equal or varying portions, panic and delight. Simultaneously, while these writings attack with an odd sense of renewed immediacy, this immediacy is tempered by a structure of elision or amnesia. A notion of the contemporary along the lines of the virtual haunted...

The Authenticity of Eminem:  A Tale of Two Commercials Feb12

The Authenticity of Eminem: A Tale of Two Commercials...

I believe in Eminem. He says things with Authenticity. Amongst the slate of carefully timed, coiffed, and vetted Super Bowl XLV commercials (no one wants another Janet), Eminem’s brand of honesty – brutally truthful, affectingly honest – seems so real in its honesty. It is an honesty that is singularly Eminem’s. It is in effect, his brand. Rappers have it hard. Their scrappy, hard fought origin is the very thing that makes them successful in their music genre. It is the touting of their survival in the midst of such hardship that is at the core of their identity and their product. It is the classic position of the Other in that the authenticity of the rapper is completely based on his/her alienation and marginalization in society. Once they become successful in the music industry (the platinum records, Grammy awards) their success risks them becoming “soft” and inauthentic to their fanbase. Eminem has negotiated a means around this co-option of toughness. His characteristic refusal to enjoy his celebrity – to be seen enjoying the parties (he may attend but always with his iconic scowl), hanging out with other celebs, and other fluff that is part and parcel of being a celebrity – validates his Otherness and perpetuates his success. In short, he is a celebrity whose very success lies in his manufacture of “authenticity.” It is irrelevant whether or not Eminem actually is honest in the way he navigates through the luxurious excess that his fame brings. What is more significant here is that his brand is all about representing this honesty. In his Brisk Tea commercial, when the “suit” tells Eminem that he can’t re-name the tea to “Eminem’s Shut Up and Drink It! Iced Tea,” Eminem pushes the claymation guy off the...

Doomocracy: Darren Aronofsky and Psycho-Cinema Jan15

Doomocracy: Darren Aronofsky and Psycho-Cinema...

1. Whatever is happening is actually happening and I am interpreting it correctly. 2. Whatever is happening is actually happening and I am not interpreting it correctly. 3. Whatever is happening is not actually happening and I am interpreting it correctly. 4. Whatever is happening is not actually happening and I am not interpreting it correctly. These are the four states of the schizophrenic mind. They are not exotic. Almost everyone should find them recognizable in themselves, but it is rare to have a collective experience of fractured perception: this is why we go to the movies. The Lumiere Brothers inaugurated the era of perceptual tourism in 1895. No (healthy) person suspects that their perceptive powers are compromised, so we, as a rule, default to condition one. The early history of film is the process of the first audiences learning that the special space of the darkened film theater was a space where, unlike the space of the street or even the live performance, the conventions of perception need not apply. In the intervening period, a train of filmmakers has dared to present increasing challenges to the perceptive powers of their audiences, but it has not been until now that an auteur has developed a truly schizophrenic direction. Darren Aronofsky is the only interesting American filmmaker of his generation, our generation; in an industry that seems only able to turn out Little Fockers, bristly, challenging, deep films are wholly alien. Aronofsky is either the last or the first of his kind, a scary genius. I sat down to watch Pi expecting to see another overwrought indie that had made a stir at Sundance (in the era when Sundance still meant something) and would likely have the feel of a thesis project. I expected it to...