//listen to us//

2005-08-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

While Listen to Us continues on a leisurely summer vaction, sipping expensive martinis in an undisclosed hotel bar, we'd like to remind you, dear audience, that some day (some day!) we might return.

In the meantime, go here. Read my article.

Easy Listening for the Hip-Hop Generation

2005-05-27T23:11:00.000-07:00

There's something odd going on here.

I'm sure the reader is aware of the Gorillaz and their much-hyped new album, Demon Days. If this declaration is met with a shake of the head, think of the new (and appropriately ubiquituously referenced) iPod commercial. Those outlines, prancing around on roller skates are moving to the Gorillaz's new single.

Appropriate, in a way, that people turned into cartoon images should be dancing to other people turned into cartoon images.

This, however, is besides the point. The first Gorillaz album, inexplicably, sold six million albums. I suspect that the second will do similarily - although, as is often the case, slightly worse - to the former. This from a band that consists of a comic book artist, Blur's frontman, and a random cast of producers and accessory rap artists. I'll happily concede that the comic work is good. I'm not familiar with Jamie Hewlett's work on Tank Girl, but given the illustration here, I trust it to be solid as well.

What has happened, it seems, is that two individuals from completely different backgrounds, neither of which attained this sort of success promoting themselves, have managed to strike a vein in the collective unconcious by promulgating a set of instrument playing apes upon us. Credit is due to them for finding something of such mass appeal. What I don't understand is why the Gorillaz are so appealing.

It's important to note that I'm not taking the position that the Gorillaz are unappealing, but sold well. Or the similar position, if one finds them appealing, one's aesthetic sense is corrupted. I bought the first album, and I'm listening to the second as we speak. I myself find them appealing. And I am slightly disturbed by this fact.

A typical Gorillaz song consists of an odd bit of introduction, an appealing opening beat, lyrics that don't make all that much sense once actually listened to, a change in tempo halfway through, an appealing hook repeated at random intervals, and maybe, for a period of time, somebody rapping. Sometime, this works. Basically, it evidently need work at least once per album. "Clint Eastwood" was a solid song, and so is "Feel Good Inc." More often than not, though, it doesn't succeed, and both albums, as far as I can tell, are filled with diaphonous cacaphonies, in which hip-hop beats are combined with generalized electronic movements and the occasional bit of singing, or spoken word. It leaves the listener with the vague feeling, that well, there should have been something more.

But I keep listening, nodding my head, catching that hook, smiling a little. I assume the reader understands, and has probably experienced the same thing. It's hard to dislike the Gorillaz. But I think that's the problem. They are, either by intent or accident, purely inoffensive. They combine the electronic beat - that throb - that the generation of today seems to find so appealing with that mainstay of modern rock: that catchy riff that makes everything else in song sound irrelevant. Even if it is. Add to this lyrics that are patently pointed at no purpose and rapping of completely unintelligible content, and you have the album equivilent to Tom Cruise. Absolutely inoffensive and appealing, but blank, a mask for whatever desires the listener will place on it.

The Gorillaz haven't even combined a set of disparate genres. They've added together media-sensitivized versions of genres to make something that we pretend sounds new. There's the safe, Outkast (Love Below era) version of Hip-Hop, the little bit of acceptable alternative rock guitars, the odd bit of rap from the mouth of a gorilla, and repetetive dance hall hooks, the sort you'll hear at CroBar, three years after being a hit in Maastricht. It's just so easy to listen to. All the pieces are so familiar, soothing, similar to something else. This is what's going to be playing in elevators fifty years from now.

In the end, we're all just suckers. Damon Albarn and Hewitt are making fun me of me, and six million other listeners, for buying their mask of a musical genre, ostensibly played by the masks of anthropomorphic gorillas. Add a little of behavioralism, and there's a joke of a grand scale: in the end, we are the Gorillaz, grasping at the bananas of music we like because of simple positive reinforcement. At least I hope so. If they're not having a laugh at my expense, well, they're taking themselves a little too seriously. I might have one at theirs.

2005-05-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of blatant self-promotion, I'd like to make a recommendation:

Go here. Read my article. That is all.

Unless you agree / disagree / have strong opinions on the matter. Then let me know. A lively little debate on the virtues of just war theory would be a thing of joy.

Little Thoughts Should be Seen and not Heard

2005-04-25T23:32:00.000-07:00

Quarters are shiny. And someone asked me today, as I was walking home, if I had change (four quarters, I would guess) for a dollar. I wonder if anyone actually uses payphones anymore.

The preceding three sentences are particularly inane. And they're connected to absolutely nothing. They are, in fact, the most pernicious type of information: the dreaded anecdote.

Unfortunately, anecdotes make up quite a significant portion of social discourse. A normal conversation between two nominal acquaintances who call each other friends often goes as follows:

"Friend" One: What's up?
"Friend" Two: Not much, you?
"Friend" One: Not much.

There's a brief pause here, where both "friends" realize that they don't, strictly speaking, have anything to say. This is where things get ugly.

"Friend" One: I saw a Knicks game on Friday.
"Friend" Two: Oh? Really - sounds great. You know, I ran into your ex-girlfriend last week.
"Friend" One: Really? How was she?
"Friend" Two: Great, I think. Bitchy, though. I never really liked her. Did I tell you I got a raise?

This is all very distasteful, so I'll end the discourse before it gets out of hand. But the reader can imagine these two everymen continuing on with their discourse, imparting small pieces of unconnected activities, thoughts, and extended expositions until one of them gets bored and makes up an excuse to walk in a direction he hopes the other isn't.

Four distinct threads are at work here. There's a basketball game, a pay raise, a brief meeting with a former paramour-once-removed, and a random opinion about her. I'll concede that the latter bears some relation to the meeting. But if I were "Friend" One, I would not care what "Friend" Two thought on the matter. Nor would his salary particularly concern me. Nor would I expect him to think my attending a Knicks games was all that exciting. After all, I attended the game - he didn't.

It's worse than this, unfortunately. The anecdote has squirmed its way into the novel. There is, it seems, no bastion strong enough, no stronghold impenetrable. One would think that the possibility of actual narrative would dissuade authors from the frivolity of paragraph (or even sentence!) long thoughts that develop no individual plot line, advance no story, nor actually develop a character. But no: why write that much when it's so easy to dither away making up thoughts for a character, connect them with a pigeon or two on the street and then move on to another minor episode? The author can easily enough pretend that a large enough collection of such episodic material constitutes some sort of psychological picture - whatever that might be - of the character and move on.

I'm not talking about the airy fluff sold in supermarkets, either. Glen Duncan's I, Lucifer, a novel of much promise, fails in part because the author finds it so necessary to explain minor and masturbatory activities, and the devil's repetitive thoughts such diversions. Television, a novel whose author was hailed by the Times Literary Supplement as an "original and significant writer, whose fiction can be as engaging as it is surprising," wastes an entire paragraph describing the buying of Kleenex. This, I am certain, has no bearing on the book as a whole.

And that media darling of the moment, Jonathan Safran Foer, who inexplicably decided to narrate his new book through the eyes of a supposed child (I say 'supposed' because no eight or nine year child is even remotely capable of expressing the opinions thrown about by Oskar Schell - but this isn't really a complaint), has opened his book with at least thirteen pages filled with anecdotes. An example:

It's pretty amazing that I can play "The Flight of the Bumblebee," because you have to hit incredibly fast in parts, and that's extremely hard for me, because I don't really have wrists yet. Ron offered to buy me a five-piece drum set. Money can't buy me love, obviously, but I asked if it would have Zildjian cymbals. He said, "Whatever you want," and then he took my yo-yo off my desk and started to walk the dog with it.

The point of the paragraph, as the reader learns shortly thereafter, is that Oskar doesn't like Ron, who I presume to be a father replacement figure of one sort or another (Full disclosure: I only just started Foer's book. And really, I don't mean to disparage him, only to demonstrate the anecdotal invasion. Because in the end, I'm just very jealous of the man). But more than this, so much information is bandied about: Oskar likes the Beatles. He likes drums, and tambourines. He's impressed with his tambourine ability. He owns a yo-yo.

And what do I learn about Oskar, overall? Very bloody little.

I have a problem, though. No matter how hard I try, I cannot avoid the anecdote. I try not to ask people questions too much, because their answers are far too often anecdotal. Yet to refuse to report unconnected information, or unsolicited opinions, would be to end the vast majority of conversation. It's a difficulty.

But not all is lost. Discourse matters, and the vitality of language can be reclaimed. So my admonishment to you, impressionable youths: don't talk about what you ate for breakfast, and what it tasted like, and how you felt at two in the morning (are you reading this, livejournal users?). Launch into grand rants at the drop of a hat, explain why you think what you think. Don't let that hipster's grimace scare you off - if you let him, he'll run all over you, and you'll be stuck learning about that time, last year, that he might have seen Kirsten Dunst on the street.

Collections

2005-04-20T18:41:00.000-07:00

Since our little forum has been starving for several months now, I thought I'd offer up a little observation. But before we can come to it, we must raise a larger question, which this observation tries to answer.

How do we define ourselves today? In a world that is becoming more interconnected and more mobile, our identities become less stable. For most of us, the self is something of the utmost importance: there is nothing more important than the "I." But what allows us to utter "I"? What distinguishes one "I" from the innumerable other "I"s in the world? In earlier times when our positions in society were more fixed, we could establish our identities quite simply: for example, by economic class or by profession. But today we are given the gift of being able to change these factors, at least in theory. These things arise externally and are nothing but accidents of our being. Where then does our essence lie? In our talent? Our knowledge perhaps? Knowledge comes cheaply today; everybody has access to the vast store that we have accrued over the centuries. And our talent only places us within a larger group of the individuals of similar talent. So what stable source of self is left?

One possibility is the body. This, however, is problematic for several reasons. First, we like to believe that we are immortal, that there is some essence to us that exists beyond photographs and a corpse in a coffin. Furthermore, some of us are ugly and fat, and we can hardly think of ourselves as merely ugly and fat. There are some, of course, who comfortably associate ourselves with our bodies, but even in these cases, we are something greater, which is evidenced in our refusal to conceive of the prototypical "dumb blonde" as wholly human. The old Cartesian duality has still not left us, and we believe there is a soul independent of the body. Where?

We come at last to the observation: it seems to me that we define ourselves by our collections. Any profile that we come across on the internet is nothing but a list of lists. We list our favorite movies, our favorite music, our interests, our political affiliations, our favorite books and our favorite quotations. We seem to conceive of ourselves as nothing but haphazard collections of preferences and habits. Now, should we be concerned? After all, our combinations of preferences are unique, and these are truthfully the objects occupying the centers of our lives. Where is the problem?

The problem is that this is nothing but a generalization of the condemned concept of consumer identity, captured in the phrase "You are what you buy." Today, we are what we like. We make ourselves as critics, and think that every time we express a preference we are actively creating or asserting ourselves. Where is the original aspect of this? Preferences are transitive: we must prefer something, a something which is always external. We, then, are nothing but parasites off the leviathan of culture. We are virtually nothing. We are not parts of some greater culture; we do not contribute to it in any unique way. We are extraneous, created from without, and, existing outside ourselves.

Perhaps this is not really a problem. Perhaps this the way it's always been, and only now we are aware of it; I at least see no feasible alternative to it (at any rate, without adopting an aristocratic world-view... aristocracy... one can always hope). Nevertheless, it is somewhat dehumanizing -- after all, can we be nothing better than intellectual hedonists?

Today's Ontological Conundrum

2005-02-10T22:15:00.000-08:00

I made the mistake this evening, being without much else to do, of watching the O.C.. Now, I do feel that given LowCulture's continued evisceration of the show, there is little need for Listen to Us to add anything (agree with them as we may).

But I find myself confused. Bear with me for a moment, I'll walk you through it. At the end of tonight's episode -- titled, of all things, "The Lonely Hearts Club" - Marissa wanders off to find Alex, who, of course, she finds. Now, I can't say that I've made any effort whatsoever to follow this show, so I'll give the show the benefit of the doubt and assume, that at some point in the past, these two characters did/said/&tc something to explain Marissa's "wanting to be around" Alex.

There's then some nonsense about waves and important events, and the two make out on the beach. Now, from what the O.C addicts around me have gibbered in their brief moments of lucidity, there's something about Alex and bisexuality. Fine. But best I can tell, Marissa's character was, for all intents and purposes, straight.

I suppose that part of me ought to be happy that society's mores have changed enough so that even FOX would be showing such encounters in prime time. Funny thing, though. I cannot imagine that the point was to make any statement about the fluidity of sexuality (which, of course, would be the implication when an otherwise straight character ups and hits on, and makes out with, another character of the same sex). I fear that the thinking was more along the lines of, "Damn. We have two very attractive actresses to work with here. Why don't we have them make out? That 18-24 male demographic might show a little more interest then."

Really. Sitting on the beach, waves lapping the sand, their short (oh, how short) skirts riding up ...that meaningless banter about tides ... giggle, giggle. Making out - are the boys watching? Giggle, giggle.

I’m sure they are.

Am I the only one that finds this a little offensive? Perhaps this all lies in the fact that I seem to be the only straight male in the country who doesn't find the prospect of two women kissing to be sexually toe-curling. But I have grown certain that for anyone willing to look, the media's examples of straight female characters acting just a wee bit gay (but, not, of course, to imply that the characters are gay, just well, for eye candy*) will be quite endemic. Take a look. It could be elucidating.

*For those who prefer to take unnecessary offense: my complaint is not with homosexual characters. Anything but. It's when female homosexuality (or perhaps, acts of female homosexuality) is openly used for the purposes of male aphrodisia. This doesn't strike me as positive. And as I said: I'm confused.

Notes from the Underground

2005-01-22T14:35:00.000-08:00

Or: what I think about at 2am, while drinking Jack & Coke in some inane East Village "lounge."

Note 1. The drunk bourgeoisie are more easily convinced of their own worth than when sober. Thereby, Listen to Us resolves to explain the values of an enlightened aristocracy to more drunk people. Alcohol evidently undermines those silly notions of guilt and egalitarianism.

Note 2."Lounges" should not play music at a level that drowns out conversation. Also, why must every thrice-damned location in this city play repetitive hip-hop? If I want meaningless throbbing noise, I'll listen to trance.

Note 3. Evidently, what passes for dancing in most parts is little more than sexualized posing. This isn't to attack the practice. But if one can realize that there is no formal structure, and the entire point is to draw sexual attention to oneself, or respond to such attractions, then there remains no inherent reason why I should find it enjoyable. Dance all you want. Don't harrass me about my lack of desire to do so. Listen to Us notes that yes, this doesn't apply to swing, or salsa, or other formally defined dance styles. Fine. I'm building up enough desire to actually take swing lessons.

Note 4. Outright rejection of experiential content may not be conducive to social drinking. Further reflection necessary.

Bad Coffee: Scenario & Analysis

2005-01-15T13:12:00.000-08:00

One day, unsuspecting chump slumps into a small cafe, bedraggled and world-weary. Customer orders a dry cappuccino, and pays the cashier, waits for that to-go cup of salvation. Upon rushing to counter at the barista's mispronunciation of said chump's name, the cup seems oddly heavy for a dry cap. One glance inside reveals the horrifying truth--there is no foam. Seeing as this person so badly needed coffee, the transgression is left dangling, torturing the poor sap for a good ten minutes. While downing the terrible sludge, chump asks self: "Why? Why? I said dry, didn't I? And shouldn't there a bit of foam anyway, even if I hadn't specified dry? And why are there bits of ground espresso bean at the bottom of this worthless cup of coffee?" Unfortunately, these are questions that will go unanswered. The fact of the matter is that despite the popularity of cafes, very few of these joints actually know how to make a decent cup of anything. Was it always like this?

Who knows...but one thing is certain: this is indicative of a much larger phenomenon in modern society. The tendency to slack in all the finer points of life has become an accepted phenomenon. We have replaced Stoli with Popov, microbrew with Hamms, and good espresso with the dirt we find at Starbucks. And people have begun the desensitization process, forgetting what its like to actually enjoy a tasty beverage. Despite widespread protests that frappucinos are quality drinks, the ideal cup is getting harder and harder to find, not to mention much more expensive. Those who seek it have become those pain-in-the-ass bourgeois snobs, and those who offer it have become equally unlikable. While it is all well and good to pinch pennies on things such as school textbooks (which are apparently worth their weight in gold) is it really necessary to deprive ourselves of the one thing worth having (i.e. good coffee)? I think not. Unfortunately though, the inexorable drive to create more and more mediocre things has taken hold, and until we can again appreciate such things again, society is doomed.

The Extended Existential Crisis of 2004

2005-01-04T23:39:00.000-08:00

In a move likely never to be repeated, Listen to Us brings to you the first annual installment of the "Low Moments" awards. Yes, there will be a few high moments, as per popular demand. And remember: if you disagree, we don't care. So don't email us demanding that we include your band's LP as the greatest album of the year.

Movies

Worth Watching:

I ♥ Huckabees
Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind
House of Flying Daggers
Bad Education
Motorcycle Diaries

Yes, we know. But Mr. Bernal is just too pretty to resist.

Run Screaming:

What the [Bleep] do We Know?
Troy
Monster
Saved (note: the editors disagree, but based on force of opinion, run away. Do so slowly if you wish.)
Secret Window

Revivals

Reviving the 1980s, as it seems some are starting to do, is largely redundant. Please. Our whole culture revolves around money anyway. Why the deuce must we bother reviving a decade that has no overriding theme other than the joy of wallowing in ill-gotten gains?

What ought to be revived, we think, is the spirit of the 1920s. Camel has the right idea. There's just something so delicious about moral ambiguity, the mob, moonshine and swing. Plus, then more people would start smoking. Think you could resist those cigarette-holders? I don't think so.

States (of the USA)

Ohio, what has become of thee? I'm still not sure if you've finished counting your ballots. Come on, now: learn from your southern brother. Dead people can't vote, and neither can labradors. Also, once cast, votes remain constant. Jeez.

Florida, you did okay. Not spectularly, but well enough to pass. A gentleman's C+ for you. California, please, for the love of god, don't vote under the influence again. Just sober up a bit first. I know you voted for the man last year, but perhaps by now the hangover has worn off enough to notice, well, the lack of just about freaking anything having happened. Then again, maybe that's a good thing.

Overall, ye misguided United States, we give you a B-. Just try a little harder next year, okay?

Fashion

Pleated skirts: never, ever. Ever. Ever. And if you must wear your little ruffly headband (on your ass) don't add to the mess by clomping around in platform sandals. Or sandals with heels. We understand that you just painted your toenails. And I'm sure there are some troglodytes out there enjoying the view. But as Ian likes to point out, you'd be better off emulating Ms. Hepburn.

Trucker hats: We know they're gone, but felt the need to add a sigh of relief to this fact. Sigh...

"New Vintage": Not only is this school of fashion inherently contradictory, it encourages the bastardization of everything noble about past eras. True story: man wearing "new vintage" AC/DC shirt cannot name top five favorite AC/DC songs. True story! Cock rock had its day, and in that day it was great. Now, thirteen-year-olds going to New Found Glory concerts are donning these t-shirts like the tight black jeans of yore.

Vans slip-ons: I remember when I was eight, and would wear water shoes. Because I was swimming in some lake, and it seemed best to protect my feet. I recognize that vans slip-ons are not water shoes, but they sure as hell look like it. Point: you're not a child anymore. You're not about to go swimming. If you want me to assume your mental age at somewhere below ten, then go ahead, wear slippers. If not, consider yourself forewarned.

Soundbytes:

Best: "[C]ity dwellers have become pointless self-loathers who eat takeout Thai and watch Lars von Trier films." -- Jennifer Senior, Should New York Secede, NYMetro.com. (I have intentionally taken the quote out of context. It's just so beautiful.)

Worst: "Hope is on the Way." -- Kerry / Edwards / Some unknown speechwriter.

By the by, the only drink worth a damn this year was a Listen to Us original - the 'stellar.' Place two to three candied lemons in a lowball, add a dash or two of simple syrup and three ounces of Stoli Vodka. Stir.

Overall, Listen to Us feels like this year was no worse than many, and perhaps better than a few. Thereby, our message to the collective unconcsious is simple: this year provided us with cough-suppressant popsicles. Next year, there better be something equally exciting, say, a designated smoking area in the O'Hare airport.

(This post jointly brought to you by Isaac and Miranda --Eds.)

2004-12-08T20:27:00.000-08:00

Robert Kaplan has written a brilliant essay, which really ought to be required reading for anyone attempting to decipher the political mess in which we find ourselves. This is no hyperbole. The essay is far and above the normal bickering over 'media bias' or the so called 'Fox-News effect.'

The contention that today's media has taken over the role held by the dark age theologians is by and large the simplest (and yet most elucidating) understanding I have yet to see. And it may - always a good thing - make you, dear reader, question your unwavering support for that greatest of goods, transparent democracy.

Hat tip: Sully.

Won't Take My Eyes Off of You

2004-12-04T03:20:00.000-08:00

I walked out of Closer around midnight this evening. I was grinning, notwithstanding my distate of ten minutes before. Why? Because I enjoy being surprised, and whatever else it may be, Mike Nichols' new film is surprising, if bitterly so.

While being engulfed with the media barrage that preceded the film, I was amused with what I thought was an unintentional double entendre in the title (think of 'closer' as a noun, such as a deal-closer, and you'll get it). With this in mind, I expected a subtle and complicated story of crossed love affairs. I realized tonight that I was wrong. The subtlety, unfortunately was all in the packaging.

There are four characters in Closer; they can be evenly divided into two categories. Alice (Natalie Portman) and Larry (Clive Owen) cause others pain. Dan (Jude Law) and Anna (Julia Roberts) are caused pain by themselves and others. All four characters use 'love' to justify their actions. I admit that it's slightly more complicated than that, but only. Alice uses love and the lack thereof to justify her need for safety and control. Larry uses love to justify his sadism. Anna her masochism. And Dan his search for meaning outside of his failed writing. But the original labels fit. In Nichols' twisted and Foucauldian world, there are those who oppress, and those who are oppressed.

There's little point in summarizing the plot, beyond the following: the characters become acquainted with one another. They sleep with one another, and another. Coupling and recoupling ensue. Sex with the one other than the significant other becomes an issue, leading to pain, and a justification to cause pain. It's pretty simple, really.

You would think that Dan would be the most sympathetic character, given his motivations. But he's not - his character is too weak, too flippant, too confused to elicit anything more than pity. Anna's character is never fleshed out enough to feel much of anything about (this is no swipe at Roberts; her acting was probably perfect for the role), and Alice is passive-aggressively so secure in her shell of knowledge that even we, as the viewer, aren't let inside until its too late to make much of an impact. Which leaves Larry, who while perhaps the most compelling - courtesy of Owen's performance - is, I feel, truly evil.

This has nothing to do with the acting (all acceptable) or the writing. The script is witty, the banter superb. And yet, although the script retains the same feel throughout the film, the audience is only laughing through the first half. Once we get to know the characters, the humour dissipates. Honesty, the main bludgeon used by the characters on one another, is now turned upon us, as we start to see the 'honest' message that is being put across (presuming any message is at the core of Closer). Patrick Marber, who adapted his own play, seems to be saying, "Love is a lie we tell ourselves to justify our actions." Or perhaps "You, silly watcher of movies, will never be close to that pretty date sitting next to you." Or maybe he's just paraphrasing the Eurythmics.

Maybe I wasn't the best of target audiences. Although on my better days I sometimes feel that love is nothing more than a universal joke, on my worst I admit to being a true believer of love-at-first-sight (this isn't as backwards as it first seems). Perhaps I should be more cynical, more accepting of the bourgeois-safe anti-bourgeois claims such cynicism breeds. But although I vaguely enjoyed having my head toyed with by Nichols and Marber, I just can't see anything of value in Closer. Because at the end, all I could see them saying was, "Look at us! Aren't we so brilliant at demonstrating how useless it all is? Aren't you glad that you're as hiply unhappy as we?"

Closer is simple film of emotional brutality. I'm sure somebody's going to win an Oscar for something.

"Idle hands are the devil's playthings"

2004-11-29T19:47:00.000-08:00

      If Nietzsche were alive today, no doubt he would throw up his arms in despair. Society has craftily circumvented his admonitions against slave moralities. Ambition and egoism have been swiftly assimilated into culture, and are now regarded as desirable traits. We thereby hide the fact that slave moralities, though perhaps not the exact ones that Netizsche denounced, continue to spread their pernicious poison over society. It would be impossible to alight upon all of them in one meager post, so this discussion will focus on one particular of our modern virtues: hard work.
      As much as we complain against the relentless demands of a busy life, we are, at heart, a culture that loves to work. Our great entrepreneurs, possessed of a preternatural productivity, become apotheosized and inscribed into our pantheon of heroes, and indolents, who fritter their time away on the pleasures of life, irremediably sunk into some solipsistic joie de vivre, are relegated among the ranks of sinners. Indeed, the highest virtue of our modern society is productivity.
      It cannot be denied that hard work is rewarded, and there is nothing wrong with that. The problem is that all too often it is rewarded not for its products, but merely for itself; we give everybody an "A for effort." Consider our standardized testing system. In order to gain entry into even our most prestigious bastions of academia, one needs only to memorize long lists of words, and needs not, in fact, to posses even a modicum of intelligence or trace of originality. The workers who serve their bosses the most assiduously are hauled above the ranks of their coevals and rewarded with higher salaries and other symbols of recognition ("employee of the month," anybody?). But what is it that they do, and has it really any significance? The peppy waiter of Office Space may have served his restaurant diligently, but who gives a fuck?
      The obverse of this virtue is its corresponding vice: leisure. Leisure is selfish, a waste of time. Why, if everybody allotted more time for leisure, we would merely have millions of people, for many more hours a day, staring at the idiot box. Such indulgence is purely selfish, we say, and contributes nothing to society. What is often overlooked, however, is that leisure has furnished nearly all the icons of our glorious culture. The Renaissance artists could paint only because they were supported by patrons. Shakespeare could write only because he had the royal court's favor. Newton could formulate his laws only because he had enough leisure time to sit under an apple tree all day. Contrary to popular belief, it rather seems that leisure alone is where man's more sublime aspirations can survive and thrive.
      Why is our enlightened society so biased against what most would consider culture? Part of the reason might be the idea's humble origins. Hard work is a proletarian virtue, engendered through the discontent of those who had not leisure time, and so naturally shuns the ostensible affectation of the bourgeois. But its single-minded glorification of societal productivity goes a little too far. In colleges across the world, students feel guilty when they pursue interests not officially mandated by their universities. To read Pushkin on one's own time when a problem set still remains for that arid linguistics course is an uncondonable indulgence in the minds of many, and far too many times in the mind of the transgressor himself. To read Shakespeare for leisure is affectation, while to read it for a course, when it can be labelled "work," is commendable. Perhaps the bourgeois could have been repugnantly indulgent at times, but at least they knew how to live life, to enjoy it, and did not feel compelled to slave under some self-imposed doctrine of hard work.
      Of course, our dogmatic subscription to productivity as well has its conveniences. It keeps our minds occupied. It does an admirable job of distracting us from life, which can sometimes be a little too poignant for comfort. By pulling out a problem set, or a spreadsheet, or a checkbook, we can temporarily shelve away the nebulous suffering of daily existence. It is uncomfortable to be alone and idle, so by working hard, we bide our time until the next social event, where we can further distract ourselves from our troubles. When our personal relationships begin to strain, we can open our organic chemistry textbooks and exorcise from our minds all thoughts of others. So armed with our daily to-do lists, we divert our attentions from potentially unpleasant topics onto more benign ones, deluding ourselves that we are being noble and brave, and thus through the relentless pursuit of something, n'importe de quoi, we craftily sidestep the sticky snares of life.

Confrontation and Almodovar

2004-11-24T03:59:00.000-08:00

Two smaller points, whose total, one can hope, is greater that the sum of its parts.

First of all, it seems as though many an individual has forgotten the value of confrontation. Assuming for a moment that one has a complaint against another individual, would it not make sense to bring this complaint to light, in order to redress any wrong that has been done? Certainly, there's another option - one can write off the entire episode, and pretend to forgive and forget. But given that I uphold neither of those latter activities, let's stick to the former option.

Sure. Limiting conflict is a wonderful thing. Bonhomie, back slapping, going on with our (pitiful and movie watching, but more on that later) lives in order not to upset anyone is well and good. Yet what does this gain? Beyond the fact that it is ultimately nothing more than lying to yourself and those around you, it only serves to make matters worse. There's that minor strain when seeing the person with whom you have an unvoiced complaint. The anger that boils up due to a lack of catharsis. One may even be led to post anonymous comments of hatred.

It seems fairly obvious that confronting the person whom it is believed has caused some harm would be the most positive course of action. That is, assuming the confronting person is looking for redress. If the situation cannot be rectified, well, the emotional benefit may be worth the action itself. In either case, this far outweighs the costs of creating a socially awkward or potentially unpleasant situation. So I say this now, and I say it openly: as far as I'm concerned, if I am cause for anyone to complain, if I impugn anyone's honor, please find me on the street and slap me across the face. Inform me that your second will call upon me shortly. Define your terms. We'll duel.

Second note. Since my life is as useless as any, I had the opportunity to spend this afternoon watching Bad Education, Pedro Almodovar's new film. Which, I must say, began, and remained throughout, a particularly intriguing affair. The credits sequence itself is beautiful. And Gael Garcia Bernal is perhaps the only actor I can imagine who pulls off being attractive both in and out of drag. At any rate, the story line was impeccable - stories within a story within a story, except that the stories are both parallel and meta at the same time, and as the the movie continues, the viewer's perception of what is foreground shifts constantly. Highly recommended.

Ennui

2004-11-16T02:24:00.000-08:00

The curse of modern society, any good Marxist will tell you, is man's alienation from the product of his labors.

Funny thing, though. He'd be wrong, just as his intellectual progenitor was. Perhaps its just me, but I never felt that alienation was such a horrible thing. So the nails that I make, over and over, because I've specialized in making nails (probably because I'm either poor, or live in a third world country, or an idiot) get taken away from me and used in the complicated process of building a house. I no longer have physical contact with my labours. Instead I receive impersonal wages, which I am then expected to purchase, amongst other things, nails, in order to fix my leaking roof.

Damn spiffy. Why the devil should I want to be attached to the product of my labor? Yet I do believe the alienation argument points at the real curse of modern society. Alienation occurs because of specialization. If a worker does not specialize - notwithstanding the fact that he could not support himself in society - he would produce all that was necessary for his, and perhaps his family's life. No alienation would occur, as such use would deplete the entirety of the production.

Specialization, however, has more pernicious consequences than alienation. Simply put: through the cult of specialization, one will spend his or her life repeating the same tasks. Life becomes a tiresome process of doing the same today that you did yesterday, with only the hope that tomorrow, there might be less of it to do. There is no hope that one might actually do something different. You'd have to switch careers for that. And the longer you make nails, the more specialized you become, and the less capable you are of, say, hammering those nails into boards.

I don't mean to imply, though, that this repetition extends only to the more physical of labors. One might think of becoming a lawyer, a writer, a professor, of working in business or government. And while the repetition of life is perhaps less obnoxious in the more patrician of lifestyles, it remains. Decide to become a lawyer? At least five years of your life will be spent filling out forms, correcting semicolons and like. For twelve hours a day. Become a writer or professor? Look forward to teaching the same classes, writing the same words (in different combinations). Whether or not the individual task changes, the activity behind the task, taken as a higher order property, remains the same. Specialization dictates that we all pigeonhole ourselves into acting in the same manner for the rest of our lives.

And what does one gain from this repetition? Boredom. The one unforgivable sin. Don't tell me you haven't seen that look in some businessman's eyes, as he leans against the door of the subway. You know that all he wants is to hop a cab to Laguardia, fly to Thaliand and sip cocktails on the beach before sleeping with some underage prostitute. You know he wouldn't exactly enjoy it - one hopes his ethical principles would bother him about it - but you know he would cherish every moment, if only because it would be different. Because every vacation he has taken in the last ten years was in Vail, and he doesn't particularly like skiing.

Maybe it's just me, but how little possibility remains to use Sir Richard Burton as an example? Could one get away with being a writer, an explorer, a con-man, a scion of the court? No. Burton never specialized. He never lay, cramped in the shoebox of repetition. I admit, he smoked a little more opium than was healthy. But damn, did the old boy ever live.

Election Response: Take One

2004-11-06T11:16:00.000-08:00

I am overwhelmed by the recent electoral result. This should not be surprising; I would be surprised if much of you did not feel strongly in one direction or another. And while there is little value at this point in grand declarations about the forthcoming years, certain things were made abundantly clear by President Bush’s reelection.

First of all, the so called ‘median voter’ theory has been disproved. It used to be that to win the presidency, a candidate was expected to tack towards the center, in order that he pull the swing or undecided voters, who, it was assumed, were moderate or centrist. If a candidate could win over that mythological median voter with 50 % of the electorate on his either side, then he’d wrap up the election.

No longer. The very basis of the Bush - Cheney reelection strategy was based on a rejection of this conception. Instead, their purpose was (very transparently) to work up the conservative base while disregarding the offended or distanced liberal or moderate voters. This strategy seems to based upon a dual recognition: that there are less moderate or centrist voters today than in past elections, and that a great number of solidly conservative voters did not turn out in 2000. Kerry took the traditional pathway, moving towards the center as any candidate - it was thought - should. He lost. Bush’s strategy may seem frustrating or even obnoxious to those on the political left, but you have to hand it to him. He won.

Secondly, the President was reelected after failing to take responsibility for any of the negative consequences of his actions. Whether or not you agree with his choices over the past four years, it would seem blind to claim that everything has gone smoothly. Yet Bush has managed to seperate himself from these consequences, or if you will, mistakes. And he has done so by acting as any good gambler should, by doubling down on every subsequent hand. He chose not to recognize the accusations against him, and instead continued to raise the stakes, basing everything on the outcome of this election.

Because that final bet was successful, the President recouped to an extremely solid political position. By doubling the bet, he is now able to disregard the negative consequences of his first term. This election provided him with a solid mandate - as American elections go, a 3.5 million difference in the popular vote is more than solid - with which to continue pursuing the policies that have brought us to where we are today. Doubling down (and winning) erases the mistakes of the past, politically speaking.

These two elements of Bush’s victory are likely to have immense and far reaching effects upon electoral politics in this country. If the median no longer exists, or is no longer relevant, than politicians will no longer have any reason to appeal to the center. It then becomes efficacious to create positions tailor made to one extreme or another, only hoping to “get out the vote” to a greater degree than your opponent. Political positions may lose all semblance of compromise, which means that candidates who enter office will be under no compulsion to take the other party’s interest into consideration.

And once such a one sided mandate has been won, I see little reason why any candidate would not take Bush as an example and refuse responsibility for anything that goes wrong. If responsibility, as it seems, has become a sign of weakness, and if it is possible to merely raise the stakes going into an election (as Bush did both in 2002 and now) then politicians will find themselves in a cycle of extreme positions that cannot be changed, as change openly acknowledges a mistake having been made.

I can unfortunately make no claims to being nonpartisan in all of this, but I stress that this is not an attack on either party. Kerry ran what was, generally speaking, a traditional campaign, which failed. Bush ran a radical one, and its success will have ramifications beyond the next four years. If you supported the President, then I suppose his gambling nature will not bother you. But just remember: it’s your money on the table.

Corrolary: Overheard an Indian gentlmen, speaking at Columbia, say something to the extent that, "The reason the Republicans won this election was because they found something - let's call it 'X' - that they could appeal to a large number of voters with, and the Democrats could not. If the Democrats want to win, they need to define 'X,' and learn how to appeal to it."

Yet 'X,' as far as I'm concerned, is both simple and disheartening. Americans, by and large, do not truly believe in democracy. They do want to have an active hand in their governance. They want the government to act on its own, and solve the problems that arise, without having to bother with deciding between individual policy positions. That's why 'morals' will always trump 'better management' in an American election. I'll elaborate more later.

Inquiry on the Origin of Humility

2004-10-30T17:10:00.000-07:00

Actually, no. I'm not entirely concerned with the beginnings of humility. I'm even willing to say that humility is a simple emotional facet of human nature, such as angst, hatred, love, guilt, shame, [insert your favorite emotion here]. What's at stake here is the promotion of humility, and the attached negative consequence: the undermining of pride. Pride, were told, is a vice. One should be humble and thankful for the good things in life.

To demonstrate. Watching the World Series finale this year, one may have seen a certain third baseman asked about his stellar performance over the course of the series. Now, did this player take pride in his accomplishments? Did he seem proud of his abilities and those of the team he plays on? No. He thanked God for his talent, and for allowing him to reach the World Series. He didn't act in that horrible, prideful manner, claiming to be somehow better than the players that didn't play equally well. Instead, he humbled himself on national television, and I'm sure many people were touched by his piety

Pardon me, but fuck that.

Notwithstanding the fact that God doesn't give a damn (or at least let's hope so) about baseball, take some responsibility for your actions. If you're a good baseball player, admit it. If this slightly elitist, placing you in a position above the rest of humanity, so be it. To exalt humility is to take away your responsibility for your actions.

Generally speaking, we hold others responsible for negative consequences stemming from their actions. In fact, those who don't take responsibility are held to be socially unacceptable. To do harm and not feel guilty is, at the very least, a little gauche. But to benefit and take pride - how acceptable is this? Evidently not to high degree. I mean, you wouldn't want to feel all that proud about your midterm grade, or your new job, or your ability to craft something of wonder. Because well, then you might be seen as arrogant. Or cocky. Your shame leads you back to guilt and humility.

But this is a false system. Pride is not arrogance. The two are linked, certainly, but arrogance is false pride. It is to be proud without reason to be. Yes, both pride and arrogance involve elitism. They place those feeling the emotion above others. And this does contradict the warm and fuzzy feeling one gets when contemplating the beautiful equality and similarity of all mankind. Again: so be it. Humility is not a virtue. It is nothing more than seperating oneself from one's action, for fear that the consequences may be negative (guilt) or that feeling proud may be taken as a sign of arrogance (shame). Humility is the shield of fear held up against a set of inner emotional daimons.

So remember: pride is no vice. When you succeed, take that into yourself and be proud. Do not fall prey to that divine delusion of misinterpreting weakness as a virtue.

---

Sidenote 1: In reference to Miranda's earlier post, there's an article in the current issue of N+1 entitled 'Black Iron Prison' that's worth reading. It might not be online; if so, I reccomend struggling through and buying an actual hard copy.

Sidenote 2 - A question about wine: now, let's say I'm at a restaurant and order a bottle of wine. Upon receiving the bottle, I sniff/taste/whatever the sample poured by my server. Now, what if I decide I no longer want this bottle, or that it isn't up to my exacting standards. Can I send it back? (I'm assuming that the tasting isn't just for show, and that at least it was once meant to determine the customer's satisfaction) And if I can do so, is there a way in which it can be done politely?

The Redcoats Are Coming

2004-10-28T21:16:00.000-07:00

Where will YOU be when the revolution arrives? Yes, yes, I know-you'll be out fighting the bourgeoisie, with the rest of the Che-hopefuls. Now, really, where will you be? Probably at home, huddled in a corner, desperately trying to call your significant other/bookie to make sure everything is kosher on their side of the fence. You see, the problem with this modern oblivion is that no one actually takes rebellion, much less a full-blown revolution, seriously. The majority of people out there have at one time or another toyed with the idea of taking over the world, or robbing a bank, or bombing their loathsome highschool into nothingness, but no one takes the time to seriously consider the afore-mentioned revolution.

Activism died at the very latest in the seventies, which marked the beginning of the apathetic and coke-laden eighties. After this brain-damaging era, America again fell in love with the idea of progressive social change. So we decided to re-invent many things: make-up, the music scene, old people's sex lives, ad infinitum. And where has this gotten us? Besides the fact that we now have almost every tangible and intangible item for sale just a couple of clicks away, nowhere. While some may think that this is a rather gross oversight, I beg to differ. The mere fact that I can buy a lake house in Texas, rare collectible porcelain dolls and a 1990 Jetta engine all in one fell swoop fails to get me all warm and fuzzy for the "technological revolution." This is not the Age of Information, this is the Age of Let's Buy Until We Pass Out And Then Resell It On Ebay For Eight Times The Price. This is not progress.

The point of all this detail is to illustrate the fact that while people are convinced that they are revolutionaries in some respect, they are instead, for all intents and purposes, just junk-pushers. In the sixties we had the Weathermen and the Black Panthers. Now, we have internet addiction support groups and magazines dedicated to the methodology of shopping. I'm not denying that past eras had their fair share of shallowness. I'm merely bemoaning the fact that we are not revolutionary in any sense, yet claim to have made leaps and bounds in every aspect of life since yesteryear. This false sense of social progress attached to the technological advances of the past fifty years is erroneous, nay, detrimental to our view of ourselves and society in general.

Hence, this is why it's so important to realize that should this highly unlikely revolution take place, you will not be out fighting the man side by side with your comrades. You will be on ebay, buying up all the rare edition Hello Kitties (with Velcro-bow and mini-dish set!!!!) while no one else is there to bid on it. It is with this in mind that I declare the end of a truly revolutionary epoch.

(Cue Janis Joplin's Mercedes Benz now).

On The Social Circle

2004-10-25T19:44:00.000-07:00

So, the story goes: if we all hold hands, the entire human race would stretch around the planet. In a similar situation, if one lets word of a party drop more than 48 hours in advance of doors opening, the entire world shows up at our doorstep complaining about the tapped keg and trying to tell us that we shouldn't raid the hosts fridge, not bothering to figure out that the one "raiding the fridge" actually inhabits the same house as said fridge. It is often all a good host can do to keep from telling the guests to take their lukewarms Hamm's and shove off.

But enough of this selfish prattle; what about the party-goer? Perhaps the irate host is indeed just being an uptight pain in the ass. Perhaps the spirit of the party ought to just flow where it may, and the fact that your psychotic neighbors are getting out their axes can just be ignored for the time being. And you know what, Snoop Dogg really is an innovative and creative force in today's music.

No you fool, no. This is just wishful thinking. It is appalling how little of the Victorian era manners have carried over. Its been a century, and already we've forgotten to R.S.V.P. and bring the formerly obligatory bottle of wine when visiting. Why are manners and etiquette so out of fashion? In this day and age, being boorish and/or outrageous brings fame, fortune, or at least a few notches in the belt. Case in point: Johnny Knoxville is rich and famous for running around playing a glorified version of "truth or dare" with his friends. Paris Hilton is famous simply for being a bored rich girl with nothing better to do than fling her blond hair about and get videotaped in awkward situations. Pamela Anderson is famous, and rich, for getting enough plastic surgery to cause a greusome death in a less hardy person. But I digress. The point of all this is that the world at large has forgotten some of the finer things in life. And unfortunately this has resulted in the deification of afore-mentioned ridiculous individuals, among others. The point of this all is not to condemn the party, nor even reprimand the oblivious guest. Rather, the point is: if you're going to crash a party, at least bring a bottle of wine.

Constricting Ourselves

2004-10-24T22:15:00.000-07:00

Ah, for the days of yore, when the troubador would wander from small village to small village, spinning yarns of heroes and maidens - for the days of Homer and the lowly country bard, filling the ears of an inn's patrons (did ancient greece have inns? or pubs? somebody must have publicly sold alcohol) with tales of wonder from afar.

Not really. I don't buy that either; don't believe for a moment that I'm getting sentimental here. But I just might wish that the story hadn't cought leprosy somewhere in the confused whirlpool of post-modernism.

Of course, this is concept of variable conception - but by story I mean tale, or fable, or legend, or myth. The not-so-historical notion of 'story.' And this something that gets very little play on the bestseller's list. Or gets given any value by society at large. The story is dying a slow and painful death while we stand on and watch. Think about it for a moment. What are the 'great novels' of the last twenty years? The great authors? Delilo, Roth, Franzen, Euginedes, Eggers, Doctorow, even Ellis - they all write, with some exception, fictional memoirs. Sure, there are elements of the fantastic in some modern works (think 'magical realism' or whatnot) but this is limited in favor of characters that one can identify with, narratives that reflect the real world, historical tales - whether strictly true or not - masquerading as stories.

And the true stories, the tales of wonder or grandeur that are willing to sacrifice the afore mentioned criteria in favor of stepping outside of established norms, in order to actually tell a tale worth listening to and perhaps say something in the process, these stories are marginalized. They are categorized into genre fiction, into the sneered at shelves in the back of Barnes and Nobles proclaiming 'Science Fiction & Fantasy.' But I challenge you provide a good argument why reading Pride and Prejudice would be anywhere as enlightening as reading Tigana or The Left Hand of Darkness. That, I guarantee you, would have made for a far less anemic junior year literature discussion.

Don't think you can contradict me with that paragon of marketing, the Harry Potter phenomenon. One: the books are poorly written, whether you want to admit this or not. Two: they are intentionally, becuase they wouldn't sell otherwise, meant for and targeted at children and adolescents. And Three: Rowling does not write about the fantastic. What elements of true story telling exist are merely trappings for a cut and dried tale of growing up in a world that doesn't always make sense. Damn if that isn't an amazing premise.

I don't mean to present this as a new idea. I'm fairly sure it's been bandied about to some degree. But what is missing in this discussion is what would result from the death of the story. It's important at this point to understand that our dreams bound, and therefore in some ways define our reality. That is, what we know to be false allows us to define what is true; what is impossible defines what is possible. By throwing away the notion of a story for a story's sake, we are in the process of doing two things. What is possible is encroached upon by a stark line, further constricting the possibilities in life, or at least the perceieved possibilities in life. And this encroachment, in combination with the fact that the notion of impossibility is fairly fuzzy when not defined by our writtern dreams, engenders a certain rejection of the possible / impossible dichotomy as a whole. And this is a serious modal and epistomological problem.

So when your essay writing teacher tells you to write a story, please, forget your own experiences. Just make something up. Discourse matters, kids, and we'd all be a little better off if someone would just tell a few lies.

Embracing What You Cannot Understand

2004-10-19T19:50:00.000-07:00

The French seem to have a particularly apt method of perplexing us Americans.

There's something intriguing about it. Take Jacques Derrida, who died earlier this month. His baby, 'deconstruction,' has got to be the most misunderstood notion of post-modern society. And yet, it is bandied about with little concern as to whether the listener, or even the speaker, has any idea what it means. "What are you up to?" "Oh, I'm deconstructing Dostoyevsky's use of metaphor in Brother's K."

But this is all ancillary. What I'm concerned with today is Existentialism. Which has become such a tenant of our lives that it is now acceptable to focus a movie on a pair of pontificating existential detectives. Now this is all well and good, and truth be told, the movie wasn't half bad. But the word itself is taken to mean so many differing things that I doubt many of us could, if our lives depended on it, explain what 'existenial detectives' would truly do with their time.

So what does 'existentialism' mean, really? Well, it has to do with the absurd, right? This provides a secondary problem: what is the absurd? Yes, I know you have a term paper due, and your girlfriend is cheating on you with your best friend, but somehow this doesn't fully add up to 'the absurd.' See, I recommend reading The Plague. Or The Myth of Sisyphus.

And fall into a pit of despair when you realize that 'the absurd' constitutes the fact that all your desires, all your hopes and dreams, they are doomed to failure. Everything you want to believe abou the world, everything that in some ways you do believe is so horribly contradicted by the facts of the world as to leave it meaningless. This is the absurd. That belief and reality contradict. That all things, by their very nature end badly. And it gets worse. Because the nature of existentialism is to teach you that the only meaning you will find in life (notwithstanding that life is without meaining, per se - but that's the subject of another post) is in embracing the absurd.

I'm with you, dear reader. I'm here to guide you along, and I understand that at first glimpse this seems a little off kilter. Meaning through the understanding that everything you attempt is doomed to failure? But perservere, hold on a moment - this does not mean, or even condone, acceptance of this fact. To embrace the absurd is to take it into yourself and in some ways, reject what you know about the world. To know that our actions are doomed, and to act anyway. Or, as I like to say, "Life sucks. Have fun."

Then again, I can't decide if I buy existentialism all that much. I mean, I know the absurd. We're pretty tight - I've chilled with the old boy more times than I care to recall. I'm just not sure if I want to embrace it. But for now, take joy in the struggle. And once I figure Derrida out, you'll be the first to hear.

"Nabokov? What a Pretentious Dick."

2004-10-16T20:54:00.000-07:00

How common is the complaint that this or that writer is pretentious, habitually using too-long-for-comfort words when approximate shorter ones would suffice; or that fiction is frivolous, reading it idle play, that one should not spend one's time awing agape at the product of another's imagination. It seems that our oh-so-enlightened society is crusading against art -- but in the name of what? Why, individuality, of course! By perversion typical of the self-serving, whining masses, the poor doctrine has been contorted to bolster the delusion that we, as unique individuals, are inherently important, our world views inherently justified, our thoughts, by association with our numinous souls, inherently profound. This unfounded belief is indeed the provenance of many things wrong with our world, but its manifestation in literature is particularly offensive, lashing out as it does against the very pulse of life: the desire to transcend it. When we confidently pronounce an author to be pretentious, we betray an absurd expectation, based on our own sense of self-importance, to which we hold the author: that he should stoop to us, constrict himself to our own suffocatingly narrow perspectives of life, strip his work of all the pretty details, so that what remains is a generic, bare but easily-digestable idea. How we balk at the notion of consulting a dictionary! God forbid that we should attempt to shed our awkward shoes, that we should renounce our "identities," as it were. To the poor depraved reader: art is meant to be revelatory, not restrictive. It is meant not to ossify our pinhole views of the world, but rather to expand them. It is a shame that readers today are so satisfied with themselves, so fixed upon their own dull lustre that they fail to notice the fiery sun overhead, so convinced that the world is but a reflection of their own glorious souls. Is it so much to ask that, for a brief moment, we pretend to be human, a part of mankind, and ponder another's words, which might very well be more important than our own endless, senseless melodramas?

Teddy Bears

2004-10-15T18:24:00.000-07:00

It is indeed a sad state of affairs today. I suppose this societal degradation first began when it became popular to search for one's inner cave. This movement emphasizes the quest for self knowledge and personal enlightenment, and promotes profound reflection on one's life. Unfortunately, this journey may hold an unwelcome surprise at the end of it for some. Between the deep breaths and the green tea, we find our inner cave is utterly devoid of any meaning, much less any interest. Worry, angst, shortness of breath ensue. What happens when we find we have no recognizable personality? What happens when we find that we are no longer the shining and unique individual our parents taught us to revere and cherish? What happens when we discover that our supposed individuality is a mere masquerade, and it becomes too painful to actually complete the process of self-exploration? What happens is emo.

Emo is a natural defense mechanism in reaction to the above mentioned loss of meaning, manifested now on a widespread and socially acceptable level. While at first this phenomenon was relatively harmless, now there is a veritable I-tried-to-kill-myself-that-one-time-when-my-girlfriend-dumped-me-for-a-biker cult. Now, one would think that this self-effacing way of life would soon die out due to the constant verbal abuse of its members. However, this is not the case. There is much to be gained in this musically bankrupt clique. And do you know what this prize is, this prize that is worth the complete lack of intellectual credibility? Behold: it is Sex. 'Tis true, emo guys get the chicks. Scrawny guys in argyle sweaters who cry and croon vaguely off tune on stage for the whole world to see evoke pity, which more and more translates into a feeling of relation, which eventually degrades into vague attraction. This has created the now ubiquitous archetype of the "emo boy," with hair stylishly mussed, Woody Allen-esqe non-prescription glasses, tight jeans, and a thought bubble above his head imploring I have a teddy bear...fuck me now.

The emo boy has invaded the music scene, timidly brandishing his notebook as his only source of protection. He is not ashamed of his lack of originality, or his nasal screech, or his penchant for Vans slip-on shoes. No, the emo boy revels in his ability to get in touch with his emotions, and parlay that into deeply meaningful songs full of clever lyrics such as "the road is never ending and neither is my love for you." But this is not music, this is not poetry, this is not even raw unbridled emotion. This is people filling their inner cave with self-pity, replacing personality with lime green cardigans and autographed guitars, and gaining brownie points for making a mockery of the human condition. And until people stop fucking emo boys, this paradigm will reign supreme.

"Manners, not Morals."

2004-10-15T17:15:00.000-07:00

I don't understand why people are opposed to the notion of polite society.

Really. You would think that the ideas of 'socially appropriate' or 'polite' or 'there are just some things you don't talk about in public' might mean something. But they don't anymore. I mean, why do people feel it necessary to ask you about your sex life? Do they really believe that it matters to them?

Probably not. But you're still going to be asked. And asked again, even if you repeatedly refuse to even qualify the question with an answer other than "That doesn't have any relevance to your life whatsoever." In fact, the answer given there is likely to leave your interlocutor fuming. Whether or not that bothers you, well, that's up to you.

But what I want to inform the masses of the world is twofold. One: there is a proper way of acting in public. Please, for the love of god, go out and buy/steal/appropriate a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Realize, while reading this insightful (yet not particularly extensive) tome, that even if debauchery is your choice of action, you needn't proclaim this to the world. In fact, maybe you shouldn't. I'm not asking you to be perfect moral beings. I'm just asking you to act as though you were.

Second: there are things that affect you, and things that don't. The latter category, well, fuck it. Stop reading People. Stop watching E! or VH1's "Super-Fabulous-Extraordianary-Yet-Really-Not-That-Great Lives of C-List Celebrities." I know, I know. It's so nice to watch other people fuck up and think "Oh, I'm not as bad as they are. I have no purpose in life, but at least I don't throw tantrums when I don't get a specific brand of water." Or to watch the rich and famous and lust after them and their lifetstyle. Yet, please, for a single moment, sit back and realize that these voyeuristic thrills will instill nothing positive in your psyche and only leave you feeling as though you've just come down from an extended coke binge, desperately wanting more.

I hope this is sinking in.

A Short Note to the Reader

2004-10-13T21:40:00.000-07:00

For your own safety, please be advised:

It is with the utmost regret that I must report the death of criticism. It passed away sometime between the hours of four pm, June 12, 1988 and about six minutes ago. Because I'm pretty damn sure that I haven't heard anything even close to criticism since the age of three, when my mother told me not to eat dandylions.

Oh, believe me, dear reader. I wanted to think of punditry as criticism too. Up until that final dark moment when I had to be restrained in order to prevent my throttling of Tucker Carlson. And I assure you, I once thought of the NYTimes book review as criticism, at least until I realized that this self congratulatory mess was desperately seeking any excuse to actually be negative, just for the sake of variety.

Yes, yes, I know. This is a high standard to hold criticism to. I understand. I just don't care. And without regrets, and for your very edification, here's the definition of criticism: I know it when I see it. That's it, suckers.

This, then, is to warn you of what you will find in this space. Well written and occassionally concise critiques of the world around you. The world you've forgotten how to pay attention to and formulate opinions about. Because you've forgotten how to think. So listen to us. We'll tell you how.

A final note: if you believe that you have a critique within you that screams to be published, feel free to send it our way. The editors do of course reserve the right to edit your submission in any way we see fit. Please keep submissions under 750 words.