628660 old dogs new tricks old tricks new dogs
there's a little kid named 4 PoundZ who does rap who appears to operate out of his kid sister's bedroom somewhere in Chicago, whom th Youtube commentators love to crucify. "Those aren't my Barbies. They're my sister's," he rebuts, and even in 2009 -- 18 years after I signed up for my first e-mail address, innocently -- it is a moment of profound Internet weirdness. Yesterday I heard Big Star's "Jesus Christ" on repeat and thought Old Man Thoughts such as, "Music used to be much better, didn't it?"
We have to credit non-Christians, too, for Christianity's success. Unbelievers have had 2000 years to concoct a narrative to trump Christ's life/crucifixion/resurrection in th collective imagination, and th best they've come up w/ is th story of untrammeled upward social mobility driven by insatiable consumerism. Get wealth. Get stuff. Get envied. Get loved. Die wanting more. Even rappers who play w/ Barbies know this story by heart. It's simple, and it's got legs -- which you need if you plan on outrunning Jesus -- but I have to put my foot down like Peggy Lee. Is that all there is?
A few days before Obama became king, I had th misfortune of seeing Notorious (Tillman, 2009, 3.0 stars), in which Notorious B.I.G. is exposed as being just as boring and empty as any soccer mom. My love for his music, which makes me laugh and feel warm feelings, remains undamaged (as does my love for all soccer moms in my life), but damn it! Take away his beats and his flow and whatever images they trigger inside my brain, and what have you got left? Sitcoms, soap opera, and SUVs -- all of which we (you, me, Biggie, yr moms) pursue because it certainly beats loving our enemies or contemplating our alienation from our own culture. Does it? Den why does Jesus keep coming back from th dead every year -- same way, same channel -- bringing a promise of Something Bigger?
My search for new stories, including my own, continues undaunted. When people ask me how my novel is coming along, I say, "What do you mean? This IS my novel." This. When I am walking toward my car in my high school's parking lot, and my car subtly retreats from me as I approach it, and behind me my high school is Home Depot, and Home Depot is growing to th size of a Dubai skyscraper, and I wake up thinking, "That's th last time I make out w/ you inside my high school!" -- that is my novel.
When I watch a movie I really like, and one of its themes connects to a theme of a comix book I just read, and I have to tell my BFFs about it immediately, but den I don't because it's 4:00 in th a.m. -- that's my novel. When I give up shyness for Lent but don't really get to test it out because I never leave th house for a whole month, that is my novel. When I test out my new, artificial lack of shyness by making small talk (which I hate) w/ th proprietor of a dog-grooming shop, and that conversation leads to my acquiring a new client -- a golden retriever w/ a surgically-repaired hind leg who has to be walked w/ his ass in a sling for th next 4 weeks -- that's my novel, too. When I'm a mindless consumer. When I'm a mindful consumer. When feelings feelings feelings feelings. When I write about it on Neflix:
Nothing happens in this novel except for small things. No funerals, weddings, or brand new babies occur. No Enrons get caught red-handed. Neither of my brothers goes to war. It ends 33 entries in th future w/ me typing painfully slowly and den clicking submit, causing th whole Internet to eat a fiery atomic Armageddon.
Last night's movie features a Gentile and a Jew bullshitting back and forth in French, which is generally all that happens in Godard's later movies.
"Tell me," says th Gentile. "Do writers know what they're talking about? Do they really know?"
"Of course not," says th Jew. "Homer knew nothing of battlefields, massacres, triumphs, or glory. He's blind and bored. He has to settle for recounting what others did."
"Possibly. There's a contradiction."
"Those who act never have the ability to say or think adequately about what they do. Conversely, those who tell stories don't know what they're talking about."
Since finishing Season 5 of Th Wire, I've given a lot of thought to th topic of how to keep audiences on th edges of their seats, and my new foolproof solution is to make th seats extra small, via hypnotic suggestion. How do you feel now? That seat is so small. Yr ass is so big. If that didn't work, my even newer foolproof solution is to talk about nothing except Obama's Portuguese water dog, our economic Armageddon, Obama's Portuguese water dog, Obama's Portuguese water dog, and girls. Blame David Simon, Ed Burns, et al., who kept me on th edge of my seat for 10 consecutive hours, using nothing but th American dream -- get wealth, get stuff, etc. -- but doing it in a way that made everyday clichés jump! Life is hard; and if you aren't hard, too, you're being disrespectful to life. Marlo Stanfield had a catchier way of putting it, but I forgot it.[1]
Now Th Wire's over, and we can grieve for a godforsaken TV show if we want; but th American city -- from th politicians @ th top to th heroin addicts @ th bottom -- stays th same. Same bullshit on repeat. My Dominican student made fun of my face (which I am secretly hoping will scar) and once mimicked me in White Person Voice, which went something like this:
"Cut it out, Angel."
"Cut it out, Angel."
"Did you just give me White Person Voice? Why did you do that?"
"I don't know."
He's a 16-year-old who reads like a third-grader, and all I care about is how many white people love Th Wire. This is what's wrong w/ America's education system. This is what's wrong w/ art, even great art. What good is a work of art that doesn't magickally remake th world in its image?
I turn off th TV and pick up th comix. Between ornate drawings of magickal forests and biological cityscapes, Theo Ellsworth tucks th following no-nonsense caption:
Stories always get more complex the closer I look at them. Even the tiniest character could have whole worlds inside of them, and those worlds could be filled with characters that have stories of their own. I become terrified of losing myself.
I think of Natalie and how her whole thing seems to be figuring people out through persistent inquiry, deeper and deeper, and why I find that enterprise risky and admirable.
And th opposite of that, people who live like Meiko Kaji @ th end of Scorpion: Beast Stable (Shunya Ito, 1973, 8.0 stars), walking away from th scene of th crime (a pile of abused corpses), pushing continually onward into th sequel.
Meanwhile, here's Jesus Christ on repeat, dying and coming back, and every time, he ends up saying, "Yup, you nailed me. Nope, my enemies still don't love me back." Mebbe next year, Christ. Nothing's sad as long as somebody's watching.
[2]
________
1. Just remembered! "You want it to be one way. You want it to be one way. But it's th other way."
2. Song 33 of a 33-song countdown starting NOW: AISLERS SET "Mary's Song". I'll send th file to anyone who wants it.
We have to credit non-Christians, too, for Christianity's success. Unbelievers have had 2000 years to concoct a narrative to trump Christ's life/crucifixion/resurrection in th collective imagination, and th best they've come up w/ is th story of untrammeled upward social mobility driven by insatiable consumerism. Get wealth. Get stuff. Get envied. Get loved. Die wanting more. Even rappers who play w/ Barbies know this story by heart. It's simple, and it's got legs -- which you need if you plan on outrunning Jesus -- but I have to put my foot down like Peggy Lee. Is that all there is?
A few days before Obama became king, I had th misfortune of seeing Notorious (Tillman, 2009, 3.0 stars), in which Notorious B.I.G. is exposed as being just as boring and empty as any soccer mom. My love for his music, which makes me laugh and feel warm feelings, remains undamaged (as does my love for all soccer moms in my life), but damn it! Take away his beats and his flow and whatever images they trigger inside my brain, and what have you got left? Sitcoms, soap opera, and SUVs -- all of which we (you, me, Biggie, yr moms) pursue because it certainly beats loving our enemies or contemplating our alienation from our own culture. Does it? Den why does Jesus keep coming back from th dead every year -- same way, same channel -- bringing a promise of Something Bigger?
My search for new stories, including my own, continues undaunted. When people ask me how my novel is coming along, I say, "What do you mean? This IS my novel." This. When I am walking toward my car in my high school's parking lot, and my car subtly retreats from me as I approach it, and behind me my high school is Home Depot, and Home Depot is growing to th size of a Dubai skyscraper, and I wake up thinking, "That's th last time I make out w/ you inside my high school!" -- that is my novel.
When I watch a movie I really like, and one of its themes connects to a theme of a comix book I just read, and I have to tell my BFFs about it immediately, but den I don't because it's 4:00 in th a.m. -- that's my novel. When I give up shyness for Lent but don't really get to test it out because I never leave th house for a whole month, that is my novel. When I test out my new, artificial lack of shyness by making small talk (which I hate) w/ th proprietor of a dog-grooming shop, and that conversation leads to my acquiring a new client -- a golden retriever w/ a surgically-repaired hind leg who has to be walked w/ his ass in a sling for th next 4 weeks -- that's my novel, too. When I'm a mindless consumer. When I'm a mindful consumer. When feelings feelings feelings feelings. When I write about it on Neflix:
Nothing happens in this novel except for small things. No funerals, weddings, or brand new babies occur. No Enrons get caught red-handed. Neither of my brothers goes to war. It ends 33 entries in th future w/ me typing painfully slowly and den clicking submit, causing th whole Internet to eat a fiery atomic Armageddon.
Last night's movie features a Gentile and a Jew bullshitting back and forth in French, which is generally all that happens in Godard's later movies.
"Tell me," says th Gentile. "Do writers know what they're talking about? Do they really know?"
"Of course not," says th Jew. "Homer knew nothing of battlefields, massacres, triumphs, or glory. He's blind and bored. He has to settle for recounting what others did."
"Possibly. There's a contradiction."
"Those who act never have the ability to say or think adequately about what they do. Conversely, those who tell stories don't know what they're talking about."
Since finishing Season 5 of Th Wire, I've given a lot of thought to th topic of how to keep audiences on th edges of their seats, and my new foolproof solution is to make th seats extra small, via hypnotic suggestion. How do you feel now? That seat is so small. Yr ass is so big. If that didn't work, my even newer foolproof solution is to talk about nothing except Obama's Portuguese water dog, our economic Armageddon, Obama's Portuguese water dog, Obama's Portuguese water dog, and girls. Blame David Simon, Ed Burns, et al., who kept me on th edge of my seat for 10 consecutive hours, using nothing but th American dream -- get wealth, get stuff, etc. -- but doing it in a way that made everyday clichés jump! Life is hard; and if you aren't hard, too, you're being disrespectful to life. Marlo Stanfield had a catchier way of putting it, but I forgot it.[1]
Now Th Wire's over, and we can grieve for a godforsaken TV show if we want; but th American city -- from th politicians @ th top to th heroin addicts @ th bottom -- stays th same. Same bullshit on repeat. My Dominican student made fun of my face (which I am secretly hoping will scar) and once mimicked me in White Person Voice, which went something like this:
"Cut it out, Angel."
"Cut it out, Angel."
"Did you just give me White Person Voice? Why did you do that?"
"I don't know."
He's a 16-year-old who reads like a third-grader, and all I care about is how many white people love Th Wire. This is what's wrong w/ America's education system. This is what's wrong w/ art, even great art. What good is a work of art that doesn't magickally remake th world in its image?
I turn off th TV and pick up th comix. Between ornate drawings of magickal forests and biological cityscapes, Theo Ellsworth tucks th following no-nonsense caption:
Stories always get more complex the closer I look at them. Even the tiniest character could have whole worlds inside of them, and those worlds could be filled with characters that have stories of their own. I become terrified of losing myself.
I think of Natalie and how her whole thing seems to be figuring people out through persistent inquiry, deeper and deeper, and why I find that enterprise risky and admirable.
And th opposite of that, people who live like Meiko Kaji @ th end of Scorpion: Beast Stable (Shunya Ito, 1973, 8.0 stars), walking away from th scene of th crime (a pile of abused corpses), pushing continually onward into th sequel.
Meanwhile, here's Jesus Christ on repeat, dying and coming back, and every time, he ends up saying, "Yup, you nailed me. Nope, my enemies still don't love me back." Mebbe next year, Christ. Nothing's sad as long as somebody's watching.
[2]
________
1. Just remembered! "You want it to be one way. You want it to be one way. But it's th other way."
2. Song 33 of a 33-song countdown starting NOW: AISLERS SET "Mary's Song". I'll send th file to anyone who wants it.