It is surprising how much Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan's The Trip parallels The Canterbury Tales. A pilgrimage to the north of England, with an ostensible purpose to which its pilgrims become increasingly indifferent as the trip. Their thoughts are occupied with a competitive relationship between each other's identity, which at times is explicitly adversarial but as the trip drags on, becomes a cooperative endeavor through which the pilgrims confront their identities as Englishmen and as humans. Cultural artifacts which by now small stretch could be said to define the English nation, tongue, and artistic oeuvre, are observed reacting in sociological situ. The ultimate effect is somewhere between the demonstration of how cultural dialogue is enacted to make functional (or indeed, dysfunctional) human beings, and a thorough exploration of the means by which that cultural dialogue is constructed.
The truly amazing comparison is, however, how raucously funny the English have found both of these works. While both of them certainly have their moments of deliberate and out of control hilarity, the tear shedding, side splitting humor to which English critics (of both these works) have claimed to find is not readily apparent to me as an American audience. I think it speaks volumes about the English character that these stories, tales of lonely, blanched people lost in a sprawling granite sea of a nation, desperately defending themselves from an alienation from their own identity as artists and a broader social fabric which removes more and more context for self-knowledge with each passing year, are considered humor of the frankest kind. It speaks to some deeper melancholy than American satirists could have ever dreamed, that sad, grey little men lost in a sad, grey little nation, forgetting more and more with each step where they came from and where they are going, causes the English to slap their knees and tap with unselfconscious ease into that cruel and poignant reserve of humor which powers such a tale.
21 November 2011
24 May 2011
Farewell to Arms
This lab was my home for a year. It taught me things I'll never forget, and asked me questions I'll be thinking about for a long time. I hope whoever lives here next knows, somehow, what happened here.
Location:Lincoln Ave,Purchase,United States
25 August 2010
9/11 Mosque
I don't understand why people are being so permissive about opposition to the WTC mosque. It is not a view that should be treated with even the slightest air of legitimacy. It is every bit as idiotic as the people that say gay marriage leads to bestiality or that Obama wasn't born in America.
Opposition to the mosque (as opposed to another holy building) is predicated on several different assumptions, all of which are false. Most of the protest rhetoric falls into one of these modes. The more intelligent opponents will attempt to conceal the blatant falsehood of these assumptions by using disingenuous or counterintuitive logic. However, examining these points intelligently will reveal just how skewed they are.
Anti-mosque rhetoric falls into two categories, each with attendant fallacious assumptions. The first is:
Building the mosque is inappropriate because the site of the WTC attacks is sacred in a way that precludes Islam.
This is the mild version of this rhetoric, and is only rarely phrased so delicately. This is the rhetorical branch which includes slogans like "You can build a mosque at Ground Zero when we can build a synagogue in Mecca." The most exaggerated
one I've heard is "it's like building a neo-nazi cultural center in Auschwitz." Though that's a bit more second branch.
There are two assumptions that could lie behind this branch. The FIRST, and the lest likely, is the idea that a denominational faith based center is an affront to the wide variety of faiths and creeds which lost something in the disaster. Alternatively, that the loss was a political one, and memorial to the fallen should reflect that, as religiously non-denominational war memorials do. However, since a cross made out of girders has been left up at the site for a while, and I sincerely doubt a church would meet with similar opposition, this is not the case.
What I suspect the true assumption is, is that The 9/11 attacks constituted attacks on America, and America is a Christian nation, hence national memorials must by necessity be Christian. I have no desire to argue this right now, but America is not an inherent;y Christian nation. Evidence abounds. Anyone arguing otherwise is a fool, and I will say no more. When this assumption crops up elsewhere, it is recognized for the bullshit it is, but for some reason we're willing to accommodate it here. I suspect, sadly, that this is a product of the second branch of rhetoric, which America has internalized:
The perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and those responsible for the building of the mosque are the same group of people. This is the much, much more vile way that mosque opponents go about arguing. This is a vile rhetoric because it makes the dark, racist assumption that evil is monolithic. Much as it pains me to play the anti-semitism card, this is the same logic people use to claim that Jews control the media, Martin Luther King Jr. was a communist, and that Sputnik was a spy satellite. A variation of a statement above which compares the mosque at Ground Zero to "a memorial to Hitler in Auschwitz" (from this sign here at a slant) sums up this despicable assumption nicely. A mosque is a house of worship wherein the teachings of Mohammed, one of the prophets worshiped by Islam (alongside Jesus, Abraham, and John the Baptist, which as a side note shows the sheer depth of ignorance of the "synagogue" wisecrack above) and a servant of God (again, the same god worshiped by Judaism, Christianity, and all their 31 flavors) are studied, practiced, and his rituals observed. To compare him to Hitler reveals a twisted universe wherein Mohammed and ALL his "deluded followers" were directly responsible for and participatory in the 9/11 attacks. Anyone believing this, or any variation of this, has no right to have their opinion respected. At all. Period. This has been shown to be a false worldview, like the stars being set in a firmament or all objects being made out of earth, air, fire, or water.
The reality is that the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks were political and ideological opponents of America as a nation, who made a political attack on us in response to a foreign policy which is no less destructive for the grief that 9/11 caused us. Religion enters into it on only one front: the fact that it's perpetrators used religion as a mechanism to comfort themselves and to justify their actions, which is no more unexpected than American soldiers turning to god to provide them with the same comforts.
The fact that the religion the perpetrators chose to turn to was Islam means that the only religion which is involved by necessity in this incident IS Islam. No one killed in 9/11 claimed to, themselves, represent the will of god, nor of Ahura Mazda, nor any of the things people build faiths around. Only the perpetrators did. What this means is that the religious dimension of 9/11 was an act of war done in the name of a religion which preaches peace. The only faith which was attacked during 9/11 was Islam itself.
Admitting this, the 9/11 mosque is more than the "one more mosque" that the media seems to be characterizing it as (even the liberal pundits who seem to support the mosque all phrase their support along the lines of "well where else are they going to put it?" and Sarah Palin proposed putting it "down the road.") It is an active attempt at conciliation: a move towards healing the wounds dealt to the faith and human brotherhood by the attacks. The fact that we react so bitterly and with such open contempt for an invitation to peace from our fellow man reveals us for the low, brutal savages we are. If this is really the way we want to act, then maybe the assumption, which I have deigned not to touch, that we did not deserve the attacks is misplaced. Maybe we deserved them, and far, far worse.
Opposition to the mosque (as opposed to another holy building) is predicated on several different assumptions, all of which are false. Most of the protest rhetoric falls into one of these modes. The more intelligent opponents will attempt to conceal the blatant falsehood of these assumptions by using disingenuous or counterintuitive logic. However, examining these points intelligently will reveal just how skewed they are.
Anti-mosque rhetoric falls into two categories, each with attendant fallacious assumptions. The first is:
Building the mosque is inappropriate because the site of the WTC attacks is sacred in a way that precludes Islam.
This is the mild version of this rhetoric, and is only rarely phrased so delicately. This is the rhetorical branch which includes slogans like "You can build a mosque at Ground Zero when we can build a synagogue in Mecca." The most exaggerated
one I've heard is "it's like building a neo-nazi cultural center in Auschwitz." Though that's a bit more second branch.
There are two assumptions that could lie behind this branch. The FIRST, and the lest likely, is the idea that a denominational faith based center is an affront to the wide variety of faiths and creeds which lost something in the disaster. Alternatively, that the loss was a political one, and memorial to the fallen should reflect that, as religiously non-denominational war memorials do. However, since a cross made out of girders has been left up at the site for a while, and I sincerely doubt a church would meet with similar opposition, this is not the case.
What I suspect the true assumption is, is that The 9/11 attacks constituted attacks on America, and America is a Christian nation, hence national memorials must by necessity be Christian. I have no desire to argue this right now, but America is not an inherent;y Christian nation. Evidence abounds. Anyone arguing otherwise is a fool, and I will say no more. When this assumption crops up elsewhere, it is recognized for the bullshit it is, but for some reason we're willing to accommodate it here. I suspect, sadly, that this is a product of the second branch of rhetoric, which America has internalized:
The perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and those responsible for the building of the mosque are the same group of people. This is the much, much more vile way that mosque opponents go about arguing. This is a vile rhetoric because it makes the dark, racist assumption that evil is monolithic. Much as it pains me to play the anti-semitism card, this is the same logic people use to claim that Jews control the media, Martin Luther King Jr. was a communist, and that Sputnik was a spy satellite. A variation of a statement above which compares the mosque at Ground Zero to "a memorial to Hitler in Auschwitz" (from this sign here at a slant) sums up this despicable assumption nicely. A mosque is a house of worship wherein the teachings of Mohammed, one of the prophets worshiped by Islam (alongside Jesus, Abraham, and John the Baptist, which as a side note shows the sheer depth of ignorance of the "synagogue" wisecrack above) and a servant of God (again, the same god worshiped by Judaism, Christianity, and all their 31 flavors) are studied, practiced, and his rituals observed. To compare him to Hitler reveals a twisted universe wherein Mohammed and ALL his "deluded followers" were directly responsible for and participatory in the 9/11 attacks. Anyone believing this, or any variation of this, has no right to have their opinion respected. At all. Period. This has been shown to be a false worldview, like the stars being set in a firmament or all objects being made out of earth, air, fire, or water.
The reality is that the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks were political and ideological opponents of America as a nation, who made a political attack on us in response to a foreign policy which is no less destructive for the grief that 9/11 caused us. Religion enters into it on only one front: the fact that it's perpetrators used religion as a mechanism to comfort themselves and to justify their actions, which is no more unexpected than American soldiers turning to god to provide them with the same comforts.
The fact that the religion the perpetrators chose to turn to was Islam means that the only religion which is involved by necessity in this incident IS Islam. No one killed in 9/11 claimed to, themselves, represent the will of god, nor of Ahura Mazda, nor any of the things people build faiths around. Only the perpetrators did. What this means is that the religious dimension of 9/11 was an act of war done in the name of a religion which preaches peace. The only faith which was attacked during 9/11 was Islam itself.
Admitting this, the 9/11 mosque is more than the "one more mosque" that the media seems to be characterizing it as (even the liberal pundits who seem to support the mosque all phrase their support along the lines of "well where else are they going to put it?" and Sarah Palin proposed putting it "down the road.") It is an active attempt at conciliation: a move towards healing the wounds dealt to the faith and human brotherhood by the attacks. The fact that we react so bitterly and with such open contempt for an invitation to peace from our fellow man reveals us for the low, brutal savages we are. If this is really the way we want to act, then maybe the assumption, which I have deigned not to touch, that we did not deserve the attacks is misplaced. Maybe we deserved them, and far, far worse.
04 May 2010
Finishing
I find it strange that the first piece of counter-criticism given by the defenders of a work of literature or an author, is that unless the work or author must sampled in their entirety before any criticism may be brought against it (notice a similar argument is not brought against praise). This would be a valid piece of criticism were artistic sins somehow remediable by artistic virtues, bound in a relationship wholly unlike that of crime and charity.
The argument for finishing a work holds somewhat more water. I could see how, having an entirely theoretical experience of literature (or any art that may be experienced only partially), one might genuinely entertain this idea. The conceptualization could be in one of two modes: either the remainder of the work contains material of such startling magnificence that any previous deficiencies will be burned out of the reader's mind, or that seeds, only just planted in the former part, have yet to bloom into the full and glorious potential of the work in the latter.
However, in practice these two things rarely, if ever, happen. In answer to the first characterization, if an objection is to a writer's style, characterization, or setting these things are often fixed throughout the work. Writers do not become different writers in the space of one writing. Yes, they do and can change, but rarely materially enough to banish all the misgivings their initial distaste inspires.
The second conceptualization is popular because it shows implicit praise. It shows this because to actually DO that in a work, to change it so drastically that it goes from good to bad by simply tearing away a facade is an act of literary genius so difficult as to be impossible. I have never been thusly surprised by a book, nor do I ever expect to be.
The more extreme version of this: that to know an author you must have read all, or at least a sizable portion, of their entire oeuvre is the more extreme version of this, and the more untenable. It is untenable for the simple fact that a sin against art is a sin, and cannot be abluted. True, one cannot make statements regarding the circumference of a career regarding one book, but knowing that The Bluest Eye is a terrible book means I can say Toni Morrison is a terrible writer. Maybe her other books are better, I don't know. I do know she writes (and claims) a bad piece of fiction. Maybe she gets a few years off of her sentence in literary jail for good behavior later down the line, but that's still only good for parole.
The argument for finishing a work holds somewhat more water. I could see how, having an entirely theoretical experience of literature (or any art that may be experienced only partially), one might genuinely entertain this idea. The conceptualization could be in one of two modes: either the remainder of the work contains material of such startling magnificence that any previous deficiencies will be burned out of the reader's mind, or that seeds, only just planted in the former part, have yet to bloom into the full and glorious potential of the work in the latter.
However, in practice these two things rarely, if ever, happen. In answer to the first characterization, if an objection is to a writer's style, characterization, or setting these things are often fixed throughout the work. Writers do not become different writers in the space of one writing. Yes, they do and can change, but rarely materially enough to banish all the misgivings their initial distaste inspires.
The second conceptualization is popular because it shows implicit praise. It shows this because to actually DO that in a work, to change it so drastically that it goes from good to bad by simply tearing away a facade is an act of literary genius so difficult as to be impossible. I have never been thusly surprised by a book, nor do I ever expect to be.
The more extreme version of this: that to know an author you must have read all, or at least a sizable portion, of their entire oeuvre is the more extreme version of this, and the more untenable. It is untenable for the simple fact that a sin against art is a sin, and cannot be abluted. True, one cannot make statements regarding the circumference of a career regarding one book, but knowing that The Bluest Eye is a terrible book means I can say Toni Morrison is a terrible writer. Maybe her other books are better, I don't know. I do know she writes (and claims) a bad piece of fiction. Maybe she gets a few years off of her sentence in literary jail for good behavior later down the line, but that's still only good for parole.
06 January 2010
The Crying of Lot 49
I'm reading this nasty little Pynchon book, and can't decide whether I love it or hate it yet.
I hate being jerked around by an author. That is, I hate when the author attempts, transparently, to control my interpretation of and relationship to the text in ways which transgress against the format of a novel. At a basic level I find it presumptuous: the author, it is clear, thinks he is smarter than me and is going to pull some shrewd trick on me by reversing chronologies, changing spellings, etc.
Not to sound too much like an arrogant prick, but I'm too smart for that, and the game quickly becomes tiresome for me. I don't want to keep flipping back and forth to check whether or not a name has been mentioned before, or whether or not a character has been introduced. The disorientation that is supposed to be some kind of literary narcotic euphoria more nearly approximates being forced to take a field sobriety test while sober. It's just tireless jumping through hoops, and no kind of valuable use of anyone's time.
This is the main gripe. The other being that Pynchon creates for us probably the most vapid, irritating protagonist I have had the pleasure of slogging through a story with. His aforementioned attempts to destabilize the narrative, aside from exhausting me as a reader, have the effect of creating an unstable (in many senses of the word) protagonist. As a result, the prose style which is often engaging and dynamic seems affected and shrill.
This segues pretty well into what I actually like about the book. Pynchon has some pretty damn good poetry here, and when he's not trying to weasel some symbolist or aptronymic bullcrap his comparisons all resound clarion. If I didn't get the feeling that he was trying to bewilder/impress rather than entertain I would be entirely satisfied to let the book work entirely on its verbal harmony.
The other part is once the narrative breaks out of its sordid meditation on California (to be honest, a nasty little state which is far less worthy of obsession than Pynchon and the RHCP make it out to be) it becomes quite gripping. Its got a sophisticated bit of surrealist horror and conspiracy thriller: the black-uniformed Tristero assassins become namelessly dreadful in a delicious was. If Pynchon didn't insist on regularly breaking the mood with loud, postmodern farting noises I could even call the whole thing cool.
But we'll see where he goes. I have the suspicion that he'll knock the wind out of the intriguing (speaking literally) aspects of the novel towards the end in order to punish the viscerally driven reader for daring to take pleasure in such things. We'll see, we'll see.
I hate being jerked around by an author. That is, I hate when the author attempts, transparently, to control my interpretation of and relationship to the text in ways which transgress against the format of a novel. At a basic level I find it presumptuous: the author, it is clear, thinks he is smarter than me and is going to pull some shrewd trick on me by reversing chronologies, changing spellings, etc.
Not to sound too much like an arrogant prick, but I'm too smart for that, and the game quickly becomes tiresome for me. I don't want to keep flipping back and forth to check whether or not a name has been mentioned before, or whether or not a character has been introduced. The disorientation that is supposed to be some kind of literary narcotic euphoria more nearly approximates being forced to take a field sobriety test while sober. It's just tireless jumping through hoops, and no kind of valuable use of anyone's time.
This is the main gripe. The other being that Pynchon creates for us probably the most vapid, irritating protagonist I have had the pleasure of slogging through a story with. His aforementioned attempts to destabilize the narrative, aside from exhausting me as a reader, have the effect of creating an unstable (in many senses of the word) protagonist. As a result, the prose style which is often engaging and dynamic seems affected and shrill.
This segues pretty well into what I actually like about the book. Pynchon has some pretty damn good poetry here, and when he's not trying to weasel some symbolist or aptronymic bullcrap his comparisons all resound clarion. If I didn't get the feeling that he was trying to bewilder/impress rather than entertain I would be entirely satisfied to let the book work entirely on its verbal harmony.
The other part is once the narrative breaks out of its sordid meditation on California (to be honest, a nasty little state which is far less worthy of obsession than Pynchon and the RHCP make it out to be) it becomes quite gripping. Its got a sophisticated bit of surrealist horror and conspiracy thriller: the black-uniformed Tristero assassins become namelessly dreadful in a delicious was. If Pynchon didn't insist on regularly breaking the mood with loud, postmodern farting noises I could even call the whole thing cool.
But we'll see where he goes. I have the suspicion that he'll knock the wind out of the intriguing (speaking literally) aspects of the novel towards the end in order to punish the viscerally driven reader for daring to take pleasure in such things. We'll see, we'll see.
01 January 2010
The pornography of art
Every kind of love is pornographic. It's all dirty. Even beautiful people are ugly, because a beautiful body, one that engenders love, is a pornographic body. This abstracts itself to art. There is no such thing as high art. Art is love, and love is dirty, and low.
This is why "erotica" pisses me off, and why the postmodern refutation of "high art" pisses me off. Erotica is supposed to be pornography elevated. Usually this equates to subtlety of presentation, but that's just an affectation. The most demure, arty, "erotica" is exactly equivalent to the dirtiest, comespattered fuckfest Hollywood can offer.
The refutation of high art comes from the other end. Postmodernists abstract and bowlderize the pornography of art as postmodern "uncertainty." They claim that art considered "high" and "low" is characterized thus based on illusory criteria. And what they WANT to be saying is that all "low" art is "high," because the criteria for "high" art is supposedly exclusive. In fact, it's entirely the opposite.
Good art gets you to come hardest, because all art is porn. The more love a work of art can engender, the more a masterful piece of pornography it is. There is no such THING as high art. All art is low, because no matter how "high" or artistic a work of art is, the mechanism is the same. A metacultural tribute to action movies still causes adrenaline to pump. The same penis that is made erect by a black and white spread of supermodels having sex under white sheets as is made erect by some coked up college student from Kansas getting ejaculated on by Italians.
All art speak to our basest desires, because base desires all we have. Some art makes us feel more in control of those desires, but even that sensation of control is a psychological mechanism to allow us to indulge them further. All desires are base. All art is low. All art is love, and all love is pornography
Pereat Ars, Pereat Mundis
This is why "erotica" pisses me off, and why the postmodern refutation of "high art" pisses me off. Erotica is supposed to be pornography elevated. Usually this equates to subtlety of presentation, but that's just an affectation. The most demure, arty, "erotica" is exactly equivalent to the dirtiest, comespattered fuckfest Hollywood can offer.
The refutation of high art comes from the other end. Postmodernists abstract and bowlderize the pornography of art as postmodern "uncertainty." They claim that art considered "high" and "low" is characterized thus based on illusory criteria. And what they WANT to be saying is that all "low" art is "high," because the criteria for "high" art is supposedly exclusive. In fact, it's entirely the opposite.
Good art gets you to come hardest, because all art is porn. The more love a work of art can engender, the more a masterful piece of pornography it is. There is no such THING as high art. All art is low, because no matter how "high" or artistic a work of art is, the mechanism is the same. A metacultural tribute to action movies still causes adrenaline to pump. The same penis that is made erect by a black and white spread of supermodels having sex under white sheets as is made erect by some coked up college student from Kansas getting ejaculated on by Italians.
All art speak to our basest desires, because base desires all we have. Some art makes us feel more in control of those desires, but even that sensation of control is a psychological mechanism to allow us to indulge them further. All desires are base. All art is low. All art is love, and all love is pornography
Pereat Ars, Pereat Mundis
29 December 2009
Maintenance
I suppose that fooling around on the observation deck is a lot more bearable than toiling in the engine room. I do not post here, enough. I post the fuck out of tumblr. I will live here, the place of work, from now on. And that is a firm promise to myself and...whoever else is listening.
"The access code is 'Alone'"
"The access code is 'Alone'"
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