Against my better impulses, I watched a small snippet of the Michael Jackson memorial. It reminded me of the Ronald Reagan memorial, but, like, a drag queen version.
Now I hear Latoya Jackson is insisting MJ was murdered.
Personally, I feel entirely divorced, both intellectually and viscerally, from the whole affair. Growing up when I did, sure Michael Jackson was big, but he had already been big for a long time. As I was coming into cultural awareness of the world around me, MJ was just an established fact of life, like the weather. Soon, he began his decline into absurdity. Then, he died.
That's pretty much the arc of any life lived in the spotlight, so it's hard to get too worked up about it. The endless news media/blogosphere commentary - both about his death and also the incessant coverage of his death, on and meta- on ... - is also entirely predictable. YAWN.
That's the modern age for ya.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Club Gitmo
A Yemeni man has committed suicide after 7 years of imprisonment without trial at Guantanamo.
He is apparently the 5th prisoner to do so since the prison opened up shop.
The issue of Gitmo gets clouded by political posturing, but it's really easy to understand if you extrapolate a hypothetical from the basic facts.
This man was a Yemeni citizen, a citizen of a country other than the United States, arrested in Afghanistan, after the US invaded that country, and imprisoned in Cuba without being charged, without being tried, without legal counsel. Now he is dead.
OK, so, imagine this: An American citizen is arrested in Yemen and transported to Afghanistan, where they are imprisoned for 7 years. They hang themself.
Can you imagine the moral outrage US politicians would be expressing at this travesty of justice? Do you remember what happened when that jackass got caught littering in Singapore and had to be caned? People were apoplectic that a foreign country would dare violate the pasty white American ass of someone who had broken local laws.
Meanwhile, two US journalists are on trial in North Korea. It might be a show trial, but hey, at least they're even getting a trial.
He is apparently the 5th prisoner to do so since the prison opened up shop.
The issue of Gitmo gets clouded by political posturing, but it's really easy to understand if you extrapolate a hypothetical from the basic facts.
This man was a Yemeni citizen, a citizen of a country other than the United States, arrested in Afghanistan, after the US invaded that country, and imprisoned in Cuba without being charged, without being tried, without legal counsel. Now he is dead.
OK, so, imagine this: An American citizen is arrested in Yemen and transported to Afghanistan, where they are imprisoned for 7 years. They hang themself.
Can you imagine the moral outrage US politicians would be expressing at this travesty of justice? Do you remember what happened when that jackass got caught littering in Singapore and had to be caned? People were apoplectic that a foreign country would dare violate the pasty white American ass of someone who had broken local laws.
Meanwhile, two US journalists are on trial in North Korea. It might be a show trial, but hey, at least they're even getting a trial.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Deep Throat
It's hard to approach Deep Throat with anything resembling objectivity. The movie is so well known as a cultural benchmark, with all the requisite, ready-made interpretations - porno chic, nostalgic kitsch, misogynist sleaze - that come with such status. Of course, for a piece of pornography to elicit so many viewpoints is something of a triumph in itself. In any case, there seems to be something about the movie (to call it a film would just be too much) that begs attention. So, naturally, I watched it.
First of all Deep Throat makes it very clear how accurately Boogie Nights depicted the shabby production values of 1970s porn flicks. It was practically like watching Boogie Nights but with actual penetration. Also, you've never seen so many proud mustaches. Looking for the origin of the term "porno 'stache?" Look no further.
As pornography, I guess the movie succeeds, but only in the sense that it's playing the easiest stimulus-response game in the world. To quote the decidedly less than excellent television program The Mentalist, "men are like toasters." Images of people having sex are arousing, to a point. But no one's going to call Deep Throat the hottest movie ever made any time soon.
If anything, its slightly repulsive. There's a funny dynamic at work here, and I think it illustrates an important element in the popularity of pornography and human attitudes towards sex.
I'm no porn expert, but today's salacious videos go out of their way to portray the smoothest, most hairless semi-humans performing feats of gargantuan stamina in the most unnatural positions. By contrast, the "stars" of Deep Throat are decidedly ordinary. They're hairy, not very attractive, not particularly well-hung or flexible. There was clearly a massive shift in the aesthetics (if you can call them that) of pornography over the last 30 years, a shift that demanded increasingly buffed, polished and fetishized performers, even as the consumer base of porn grew more and more democratized. Pornography of the modern era is purely functional. The participants are mere ciphers, reduced to pricks and holes, the basest elements required to stimulate a response. The people of Deep Throat are almost charmingly human. To watch the movie now, oddly, is to be reminded that sex is a very intimate affair. So intimate, in fact, that watching it is kind of gross. The purveyors of porn must have figured this out somewhere along the line as well, and adjusted accordingly.
Cinematically, Deep Throat is inane, and it knows it and plays it up. Which is rather nice, actually. No one is pulling off a masterpiece here, and no one is trying. It's the kind of good humor that's missing from a lot of movie-making, not just in pornography.
It is, of course, impossible to ignore the seedier elements surrounding the movie, i.e. it's financing by the Mafia and the appalling claims of abuse levelled by star Linda Lovelace at her ex-husband and manager years after the film was made. It is true that their are bruises noticeable on her thigh in one scene. At other times she looks like she's on Qualuudes or something. It's another element of the movie that makes it less than arousing.
The politics surrounding the movie at the time of it's release were fierce, but as with most objects of controversy, in retrospect it's hard to see what the fuss was all about. The initial item of contention has been rendered tame by the much more explicit/obscene/degrading material that came afterwards. It's the kind of progression that's gone on forever, and to me it seems far removed from the realm of right or wrong and good or bad. All that's left is the movie itself, and taken on it's own terms its a silly, inconsequential snapshot of a bygone era.
First of all Deep Throat makes it very clear how accurately Boogie Nights depicted the shabby production values of 1970s porn flicks. It was practically like watching Boogie Nights but with actual penetration. Also, you've never seen so many proud mustaches. Looking for the origin of the term "porno 'stache?" Look no further.
As pornography, I guess the movie succeeds, but only in the sense that it's playing the easiest stimulus-response game in the world. To quote the decidedly less than excellent television program The Mentalist, "men are like toasters." Images of people having sex are arousing, to a point. But no one's going to call Deep Throat the hottest movie ever made any time soon.
If anything, its slightly repulsive. There's a funny dynamic at work here, and I think it illustrates an important element in the popularity of pornography and human attitudes towards sex.
I'm no porn expert, but today's salacious videos go out of their way to portray the smoothest, most hairless semi-humans performing feats of gargantuan stamina in the most unnatural positions. By contrast, the "stars" of Deep Throat are decidedly ordinary. They're hairy, not very attractive, not particularly well-hung or flexible. There was clearly a massive shift in the aesthetics (if you can call them that) of pornography over the last 30 years, a shift that demanded increasingly buffed, polished and fetishized performers, even as the consumer base of porn grew more and more democratized. Pornography of the modern era is purely functional. The participants are mere ciphers, reduced to pricks and holes, the basest elements required to stimulate a response. The people of Deep Throat are almost charmingly human. To watch the movie now, oddly, is to be reminded that sex is a very intimate affair. So intimate, in fact, that watching it is kind of gross. The purveyors of porn must have figured this out somewhere along the line as well, and adjusted accordingly.
Cinematically, Deep Throat is inane, and it knows it and plays it up. Which is rather nice, actually. No one is pulling off a masterpiece here, and no one is trying. It's the kind of good humor that's missing from a lot of movie-making, not just in pornography.
It is, of course, impossible to ignore the seedier elements surrounding the movie, i.e. it's financing by the Mafia and the appalling claims of abuse levelled by star Linda Lovelace at her ex-husband and manager years after the film was made. It is true that their are bruises noticeable on her thigh in one scene. At other times she looks like she's on Qualuudes or something. It's another element of the movie that makes it less than arousing.
The politics surrounding the movie at the time of it's release were fierce, but as with most objects of controversy, in retrospect it's hard to see what the fuss was all about. The initial item of contention has been rendered tame by the much more explicit/obscene/degrading material that came afterwards. It's the kind of progression that's gone on forever, and to me it seems far removed from the realm of right or wrong and good or bad. All that's left is the movie itself, and taken on it's own terms its a silly, inconsequential snapshot of a bygone era.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The Last Death Knell of Catholicism
The Irish government released a report today, detailing the decades of abuse meted out to thousands of adolescents by nuns and priests in Catholic reform institutions around the nation.
I recently saw a documentary on the same subject, and the stories were absolutely horrifying. Not that it surprises anyone anymore, the fact that Catholic priests have, en masse, engaged in the most egregious behavior.
What is still surprising, on some level, is that nations the world over continue to shy away from doing anything meaningful about it. The Irish report solidifies as documented fact what was already a very open secret, but its prescriptions for restitution are numbingly weak.
Most appalling of all is that none of the criminals (and that's what they are, though government reports and newspaper accounts still hew to the much more opaque term "abuser") are named in the Irish report, and the government has no inclination to prosecute anyone. Instead there is a compensation fund set up for victims by the state, the funds of which are provided by........ wait for it...... the taxpayers, not the Irish Catholic Church. Oh yeah, you also have to waive your right to sue both the church and the state in order to qualify for compensation. Nice deal.
I'm hard pressed to think of any other institutions, save the military and the police that has allowed heinous behavior to persist for so long. Same old, same old.
But at the same time, the truth gets out that, and with church attendance dropping precipitously, maybe people are finally getting even in the way that really matters - erasing the power by erasing the numbers.
I recently saw a documentary on the same subject, and the stories were absolutely horrifying. Not that it surprises anyone anymore, the fact that Catholic priests have, en masse, engaged in the most egregious behavior.
What is still surprising, on some level, is that nations the world over continue to shy away from doing anything meaningful about it. The Irish report solidifies as documented fact what was already a very open secret, but its prescriptions for restitution are numbingly weak.
Most appalling of all is that none of the criminals (and that's what they are, though government reports and newspaper accounts still hew to the much more opaque term "abuser") are named in the Irish report, and the government has no inclination to prosecute anyone. Instead there is a compensation fund set up for victims by the state, the funds of which are provided by........ wait for it...... the taxpayers, not the Irish Catholic Church. Oh yeah, you also have to waive your right to sue both the church and the state in order to qualify for compensation. Nice deal.
I'm hard pressed to think of any other institutions, save the military and the police that has allowed heinous behavior to persist for so long. Same old, same old.
But at the same time, the truth gets out that, and with church attendance dropping precipitously, maybe people are finally getting even in the way that really matters - erasing the power by erasing the numbers.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Paris Hilton's My New BFF
Have you ever seen this show? I literally just watched it for the first time. Why? I'm not sure really, but it was amazing. Not "good" amazing, obviously, but amazing nonetheless.
It'd be real easy to trash this show, but sometimes I get in these weird states where I can tolerate mindless bits of pop culture in a kind of cultural-anthropological sort of way. It's what makes even the most dire reality shows still somewhat intriguing - it's always fascinating to watch how people behave.
Reality shows present one thing to the cameras, but what's really fascinating about them is what's implied about the behind-the-scenes goings-on. To put it more simply, what really draws me to reality shows (sometimes anyway) is that the contestants willingly submit to the torture they're subjected to, even knowing exactly what to expect. I mean, the people on Paris Hilton's My New BFF auditioned for this show because they really thought it was a good idea. Now, their reasons for doing so don't interest me. What does interest me is that a simple cost-benefit analysis of reality show fame would show that it isn't worth it, and yet people - loads of people - go for it anyway.
I'm not sure I have any deeper points to make on the matter right now. It's all more than a bit exasperating, and I could also really not give a shit, but at the same time it's morbidly fascinating.
I have used the word "fascinating" far too many times now.
Good night.
It'd be real easy to trash this show, but sometimes I get in these weird states where I can tolerate mindless bits of pop culture in a kind of cultural-anthropological sort of way. It's what makes even the most dire reality shows still somewhat intriguing - it's always fascinating to watch how people behave.
Reality shows present one thing to the cameras, but what's really fascinating about them is what's implied about the behind-the-scenes goings-on. To put it more simply, what really draws me to reality shows (sometimes anyway) is that the contestants willingly submit to the torture they're subjected to, even knowing exactly what to expect. I mean, the people on Paris Hilton's My New BFF auditioned for this show because they really thought it was a good idea. Now, their reasons for doing so don't interest me. What does interest me is that a simple cost-benefit analysis of reality show fame would show that it isn't worth it, and yet people - loads of people - go for it anyway.
I'm not sure I have any deeper points to make on the matter right now. It's all more than a bit exasperating, and I could also really not give a shit, but at the same time it's morbidly fascinating.
I have used the word "fascinating" far too many times now.
Good night.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Yeah Yeah Yeahs / Random Update
Apparently the band played SNL last night.
Brooklyn Vegan has the vids.
It all comes off very Pat Benatar to me.
And the more I listen to It's Blitz, the greater the rocking songs sound and the shittier the ballads sound.
On a different note, the more I revisit Kanye's 808s & Heartbreak, the more impressive it seems.
Gonna work on a longer post on that particular matter later.
For now, a list of things that are Awesome.
2666, by Roberto Bolano = Extremely Awesome. The more I read of it the further I feel I'm actually burrowing inside the book, like it's some labyrinth, and I'm not sure I'm going to make it out. Or that I want to.
Fishscale, by Ghostface Killah = Awesome. Just a classic, and a perfect spring album to me.
Waking up at dawn and staying up = Surprisingly Awesome. Having a son is a never-fail alarm clock and I've really begun to enjoy the earliest part of the day. It's quiet and serene, and perfect for getting some work done.
And finally, the Season Of Spring is officially Mega Awesome.
Brooklyn Vegan has the vids.
It all comes off very Pat Benatar to me.
And the more I listen to It's Blitz, the greater the rocking songs sound and the shittier the ballads sound.
On a different note, the more I revisit Kanye's 808s & Heartbreak, the more impressive it seems.
Gonna work on a longer post on that particular matter later.
For now, a list of things that are Awesome.
2666, by Roberto Bolano = Extremely Awesome. The more I read of it the further I feel I'm actually burrowing inside the book, like it's some labyrinth, and I'm not sure I'm going to make it out. Or that I want to.
Fishscale, by Ghostface Killah = Awesome. Just a classic, and a perfect spring album to me.
Waking up at dawn and staying up = Surprisingly Awesome. Having a son is a never-fail alarm clock and I've really begun to enjoy the earliest part of the day. It's quiet and serene, and perfect for getting some work done.
And finally, the Season Of Spring is officially Mega Awesome.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Conficker Update
So, April 1st is here, and the Conficker virus has begun networking its infected computers. So far nothing major has happened, but the consensus of those in the know is that the program's true intentions won't be known for a few days. Apparently it wasn't just an elaborate Rick Roll, but we'll have to wait and see.
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