The Oscars have come and gone, the gay Super Bowl. The annual event for us to admire and admonish our genetic/commercial/artistic superiors. Occasionally measure ourselves as their equal, before we slip back like Gollum or Thersites into our hard lives of beatings by aristocrats and/or slurping cold fish while singing songs to ourselves about how this makes us happy.
Defending Taylor Swift. Okay, not really.
Jokes about Taylor Swift dating a lot feels like unsavory slut-shaming. I don’t dig that.
Taylor Swift sings hyper-produced songs with gimmicky hooks. Good. Inane. Fine. She also has a penchant for dating male celebrities. It’s an old showbiz move: two celebrities date, both are kept relevant in gossip circles, careers extended. Lovely. Go, kids, go.
What’s the frequency of her dating? Whom she’s dating is in the news a lot, but the pace of her dating doesn’t seem that unusual. Not that she needs anyone’s approval, but is it that much different from high school or college dating?
What rankles most is her using her dating history to sell records, over and over, then the objection to comments on her relationships/marketing strategy. She’s profiting from the national hobby of assigning each of her songs to a particular boy/man she’s dated. Nifty. It works. Adds some needed flavor to her Applebee’s blandness.
Okay, strike what was said earlier, what bothers me the most about her songs that blame bad behavior on, and screeching her independence from, these purported villains is that I’m sympathizing with her targets, who typically don’t respond in kind to her histrionics. Things are so warped that I feel empathy for her targets, including soporific talk-singer John fucking Mayer!
One of Swift’s ex-boyfriends, Harry Styles, who is in English boy band One Direction gave an interview where mumbling about Swift came across as dignified. She mocked him in her Grammys performance, a truly weird dyspeptic fantasia disturbing and tedious simultaneously, using a British accent. Styles’ response? “She’s always good on the stage. She’s been doing it a long time. She knows what she’s doing on stage. It was just another good Taylor Swift performance. It was good.” Boring yet classy.
Taylor Swift or her advisors have set on the strategy to keep milking the dating song dedication angle over and over until it doesn’t yield anything anymore, but she may be authentically motivated by a lot of rage. Choose one or the other, but don’t muddle them up and wonder why people are laughing. It would show some character if she realized “Hey, I’m just an angry beast, and I’m going to re-launch the riot grrl concept for Millenials and be the new Kathleen Hanna or a less scabby and bewildered Courtney Love.”
In defense of Love, her dating Kurt Cobain and Billy Corgan got them to help her out with songwriting and production, making her art better.
On Timberlake, on Timbaland
Even in a boy band, Justin Timberlake awkwardly showed signs of wit. “Pop” by N’Sync had some funny, self-aware parts in the video. No, I never bought any N’Sync songs. I confess, under duress, to buying “I Want it That Way” by Backstreet Boys: a pinnacle of the Max Martin formula! The enigma about “that way”! During “Pop” there were already rumors about N’Sync members splintering off, commencing the inevitable “Now I’m a solo teen idol with a boner” phase. Oh, the heap of bodies lining that path. Don’t look. Walk on.
I eyerolled when Timberlake’s Justified album was released. Ugh. Does it come with a packet of Axe Body Spray, the external douche for douchebags? Whatever. Ignored the first few singles. Then I started liking “Rock Your Body” (video warning: Timberlake’s facial hair tries too much in the “Imma man” department. Cf: DiCaprio, Leonardo). A well-produced tribute to Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall album, with Janet Jackson in the backing vocal. Okay, at that I nodded a little cred Timberlake’s way. Also heard Howard Stern confessing to liking the album. Hurm.
Then “Señorita” came out and seemed to prove all the over-the-top Axe Body Spray milieu I feared. Especially the call & response at the end.
Then, although it had already been released, I gave a closer look/listen to “Cry Me a River”. Like the rest of the world, I initially saw the video and thought “Ah! Justin’s mad at Britney. He’s got an angry edge. That’s a lot of venom given they both told us over and over they were virgins. Whatevs.” But then I realized it was THE Timbaland in the video, and that he must have produced the song. I like Timbaland’s work with Missy Elliott: he has a good ear, daring, and the confidence to be funny in a field of dour faces.
Timberlake was an utter chickenshit during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, acting as if it were an accident and leaving blame on Janet Jackson. The cue for tearing at Jackson’s dress was “I’ll have you naked by the end of this song.” The moment was deliberate. Shame on him also for causing the phrase “wardrobe malfunction” to be added to our pop culture lexicon. But, worse, was the media and government fines imposed because of the shock, SHOCK that we mammals have mammary glands. The rest of the world laughed at our puritanism and prurience. Again.
Years pass. His album FutureSex/LoveSounds is released. It’s a full-on Timbaland production. They have great rapport. I bought the whole album. Interesting, solid stuff. No wisdom within it, but catchy and melodic and fun.
When punchy one night with friends, “Sexyback” came onscreen and I changed the refrain from “Go ahead be gone with it” to “Go hippie gone wigga.” It summarizes the life path of many of us males grown in hippie-strong Eugene, Oregon. That’s still what I think of when it plays.
I have considered taking a sample of the “Ya!” that ends each lyric to play in my real life to punctuate every sentence.
“Do you have any more wheat hot dog buns?” (Ya!)
“No, I’m not interested in giving money to the University Alumni Association.” (Ya!)
“Will you PLEASE pick up your juice bag straw wrapper?” (Ya!)
Seven(ish) years later a new Timberlake/Timbaland album is en route. I’ll buy it on faith.
A few whiffs of Axe Body Spray emit from the computamer/phone-amajig in the new official lyric video for “Suit and Tie” the lead single for the upcoming album. “Lyric” videos are a new-ish thing where the artist doesn’t promise to have much in the way of visual production effort, but does provide a relatively accurate transcript of the lyrics onscreen. I appreciate the anti-art of emphasizing vapid lyrics by making them visually prominent.
And am I now, in 2013, rehearsed to karaoke “Señorita” at some point, including the call & response? Yup. Le douchebag? C’est moi!
Hippie gone wigga,
D.
Brilliant
“Brilliant” has long been the British equivalent of our saying “awesome” or “tubular” in the 80s. So used for inanities, used to mock such inanities, then used in defiance of such mockery it has become a space filler in British pop culture.
When it’s used in the U.S. as a weird cultural sophisticate affectation, as I’ve heard it twice at lunch during a business conversation between strangers today, it buries the usefulness of the word for maybe half a generation. Gag me with a spoon.
Double put-on, or not!
So, yes, posting about Anne Sexton again. Saw this on Facebook and was amused by Anne Sexton’s reverie on camera about music:
Where are the t.v. shows capturing artist rapt in enthusiasmos instead of stars stumbling in and out of buildings and cars?
While typing up purple prose from my hand-written manuscript (Dirty parts, yay! Also: yikes and ugh!) I came across this quote from Anne Sexton I jotted down from a podcast in June 2012 (where I was in my manuscript). The quote is over-the-top. Most anyone can think of good poetry that isn’t extruded from the writer’s marrow. But then I saw this photo and laughed and decided to put it all together. Don’t know what the deal is with the dress, but fair guess it was funny. Check the cigarette cherry!
Good faith marketing
In ‘The Book of Mormon’ musical program, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS = Mormons) had a series of full-page ads somewhat rolling with the humor of the show to invite people to delve deeper into their religion. Warm, welcoming, with a QR code! LOADS better than ads taken out by Scientologists, which tend to be prickly and defensive.
Bear in mind that for a hundred+ years the Mormons did not allow blacks to fully join the priesthood (in Mormonism, all males may become priests able to minister to their families and gain full entrance to the temple). Why was there supernatural racism in a book purportedly full of wisdom and love? Blacks took the wrong side in the war in Heaven, silly! There was a group of people who were less valiant in the God versus Satan war, and that group got their skin turned black as punishment
10th LDS President Joseph Fielding Smith (in the 1960s): “There were no neutrals in the war in Heaven. All took sides either with Christ or with Satan. Every man had his agency there, and men receive rewards here based upon their actions there, just as they will receive rewards hereafter for deeds done in the body. The Negro, evidently, is receiving the reward he merits” (Doctrines of Salvation, 1:61, 65-66; emphasis added).
With Look magazine in October 1963, President Joseph Fielding Smith had more ripe quotes, including:
“I would not want you to believe that we bear any animosity toward the Negro. ‘Darkies’ are wonderful people, and they have their place in our church.”
More from Smith, including the Old Testament “mark of Cain” meaning an entire person’s skin was pigmented dark as a curse:
“Not only was Cain called upon to suffer, but because of his wickedness he became the father of an inferior race. A curse was place upon him and that curse has been continued through his lineage and must do so while time endures. Millions of souls have come into this world cursed with black skin and have been denied the privilege of Priesthood and the fullness of the blessings of the Gospel. These are the descendants of Cain. Moreover, they have been made to feel their inferiority and have been separated from the rest of mankind from the beginning… we will also hope that blessings may eventually be given to our Negro brethren, for they are our brethren–children of God—notwithstanding their black covering emblematical of eternal darkness” (The Way to Perfection, 101-02).
Contemporary racist rhetoric for the 60s? Sure. But based in allegedly holy writ. This stuff doesn’t have the excuse of being culled together by flawed, dumb human beings thousands of years ago, or 1,500 years ago. The Book of Mormon was written in the 19th century under hilariously shoddy & scammy circumstances by a twice-convicted con man (Joseph Smith). Actually, it was not written by Smith. It was dictated. Speculation is that Joseph Smith could not write, but could ape the verbal rhetoric of the King James Bible. He read aloud, translating from golden plates from behind a curtain (Smith never let anyone else see these golden plates).
Lo, and behold! Haters, attend! Deliverance is nigh! Among growing social pressure, in 1978 the Mormon President Spencer Kimball received a call directly from God that black people are a-okay and can become full members of the Mormon Church. And there was much rejoicing. A PBS account of how this revelation (blacks are nice, and definitely not eternally cursed for decisions their ancestors made in a fantasy some dude made up!) swept through in a wave of relief is amusing. Thank god?
Okay, I passed out and suddenly find another few hundred words I’ve typed up about the flaws of believing in magic books written by fellow primates and blind faith in magic institutions run by fellow primates. How does this keep happening? Is it Satan? Odin? An instrument of Shiva? Shake it off. Concentrate.
Mormons, on a personal level, can be really nice people. But so can everyone else.
The Mormon Church contributed millions to the Prop 8 campaign in California, banning same-sex marriage. It learned nothing from their “black” experience on wanting to ban civil rights. Their millions of dollars poured into California hurt thousands of families, inheritance rights, ability to see spouses/partners in the hospital. If “traditional” marriage is meant to create children, should we ban marriages that don’t produce children? Of course not. History will judge Mormons and anti-gays harshly. Good.
Scientology remains the most annoying western religion. Is anything more annoying than dim-witted people thinking they are super-smart because they repeat it to themselves, and pay thousands to have it said to them, over and over again? Tom Cruise thinks he’s smarter than all psychiatrists, for Christ’s sake!
For the record, my gut instinct remains that Tom Cruise is a genuinely nice guy, but worried about holding on to talent and success and wanting routines and rituals to maintain and build on that success and praise.
Writing in a hospital (by choice)
On a whim in late summer, I hung out in a hospital cafeteria to try writing there. It was very productive. I’ve gone back two more times and had similarly good spells.
Snacks and drinks abound, but a sense of mortality suffuses the environment. Science as our only true bulwark against amoral nature. And it feels good to be in a hospital out of whim instead of necessity or vigil.
Movie/social critic “poisoning nation’s soul”
Caught a link to this pernicious, hand-wringing article by Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Violent media poisoning nation’s soul”
Photo linked to the awful article, read at your moral peril!It’s ignorant, muddled, terrible, and awful.
I understand some people feel there is a correlation between violent media and violent actions, and believe in the free choice people have to not see violent entertainment. Hundreds of millions of people in the U.S. take in these entertainments and do not behave violently.
Watching violence is cathartic, whether in theater, song, movies, video games. They are scapegoats for our fantasies, and for opportunistic politicians not wanting to look at true root causes. We’re not far from the days of blaming Catcher in the Rye or Ozzy Osbourne or Marilyn Manson for the acts of people who have severe mental breakdowns or illnesses. In our Western history we had public executions, hangings, and gladiatorial combat as everyday occurrences. Shall we talk about human-written magic books promising eternal bliss to suicide bombers? No? Video games are easier political points? Uhm, yeah, okay.
The author compares marketers targeting the young male demographic to what the Taliban does. He pretends to be pro-free expression, but this section speculating on how a movie reviewer may soft-pedal a scene with a movie theater massacre smacks of Carry Nation hysterics:
And so the critic would end up writing something like this: “The movie contains a disturbing yet highly effective scene of violence transpiring at a movie theater.” Forget any mention of the insidiousness of inserting such poison into the national mind, of the morality or decency of feeding audiences crack.
Barf. Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds had a movie theater massacre as its climax. It was a fantasy piece about mowing down Nazis and the power of cinema. Jewish soldiers got to kill Hitler and other Nazi leaders years ahead of time. A hail of gunfire and a blazing inferno and it felt shocking and great. To my knowledge, no one tried to replicate that in real life. It was not treated as poison in the national mind. Art should not be required to have a moral or social obligation. When it does, people become tightly wound and societies get even more twisted and weird. Catharsis is necessary, imagination is necessary, otherwise we get sick inside.
I recently rewatched the Michael Moore documentary Bowling for Columbine, which tries to get at why the U.S. seems to have so many more violent gun deaths compared to other nations. The film doesn’t get into per capita statistics, but other things I’ve read still show the U.S. as significantly higher per capita, even though gun ownership rates are comparable in Canada. The movie throws a bunch of ideas into the air for consideration, fair enough as there aren’t any tidy solutions, but compellingly speculates that heightened social anxiety drummed up by the news media may be a factor. Overrepresentation in the news of crimes by minorities, especially compared to white collar/corporate crimes and environmental crimes, makes us fear incipient personal criminal attack from the mysterious Other.
My feeling (the truth may be different) is that there’s something to the movie’s point about the news media. I make a distinction between social violence in the news portrayed as “real life” resonating differently with people and how those same people engage with art/entertainment, something they know is fake and not an imminent threat.
Growing up I remember adult media debate over whether television should air violent cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Road Runner on Saturday mornings. I don’t recall anyone I knew ever dropping anvils in real life, or playing with dynamite, or running off a cliff to see whether flapping their arms could hold them up in the air. However the news media has recently flapped its arms over the “fiscal cliff crisis” as a real thing we all need to be concerned about and panic over. And we did.
On the anniversary of Hitchens’ death
One year ago today (December 15) Christopher Hitchens died from esophageal cancer. In May 2011 he gave a reflective interview with Anderson Cooper talking about life, death, prayer (no effect), and the bogusness of “closure”. Cooper, a Vanderbilt, does well here on these topics. His father died when he was 10, he brother Carter committed suicide in 1988.
Apologies for the stretched video. I’m sensitive to 4:3 images stretched to widescreen, and am stupefied when people don’t notice/care. Tried to correct it, but this is the way the CNN video is.
Cooper: “You burned the candle at both ends.”
Hitchens: “And it gave a lovely light.”
With Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
As I came off the street, the dusky woman of Nile pedigree looked to try to place me. This was my third visit here. Third time seeing her.
“Combien?”
“Deux.” I held two fingers, pressed in parallel. To split the fingers seemed too lewd. Not a typical gesture from me. It looked like a salute.
She opened her mouth and before she could exhale a barter I said “Six cent Euros.” This broke her routine. She was glad. With a nod she picked up the phone to whisper the order. I did not peruse the room. I knew the room. These were not the jitters of the first time. If I knew my place, was grounded, perhaps I would impress her. Perhaps she would let me in to who she was. I could be a sheik and she my dutiful wife of the night. Or she would master me and I would listen and get glimpses and sounds and tastes of serving Hatshepsut. Not Cleopatra, the hostess was not Greek. She was regal wherever she went. I was the interloper. I was the one imported to her world.
I breathed steadlity and kept my footfalls flat but solid as I followed her up the stairs. Her white diaphanous dress a promise not to come, but to allure. Entice & snare below, drag them upstairs. It worked. I admired the slit in the gown that showed her leg and its strong thigh. Not gamine, my usual type.
At the doorway was a curtain. Without a prompt from me she stood with one assertive kouros foot forward, less kore now than a fading ephebe turned into warrior as a guide to a battle or slaughter. Her broad feet were darker than the skin on her face and neck and arms and thigh. Maybe it was the cold, but her feet were more than flush, they were splotched red. Another’s red? This was not a boudoir, though surely made to look like one, nor an abattoir. I was the one paying. This was a service to me. But I knew I would be lesser than when I came in. I would leave something from within me in this room to be rinsed away to prepare for the next one.
My eyes went first to the small table with ripe grapes so large they were probably chosen for tumescence, doubtful their taste mattered. A full pear was next to the grapes. A half apple was behind the pear, only slightly browned. Maybe someone in the room ate it. Maybe the last customer, or one before, had it for a repast before exit. The crescent-shaped plate had crumbs of cheese. Probably a fully furnished plate when the day began. A paring knife was on the floor. It was now an hour before lunch.
With a rustle behind me the hostess was gone. Then I was floating above the bed as two women were partially draped in the bedsheet gazing up at me with anticipation. Not with eagerness but from waiting for what my move would be. Which variation on their well-practiced routines would we follow? I thought back on the royal Egyptian woman boy always stronger than me and how much I wanted to howl with her and become frenzied and lost and accomplish what I want in commanding these distant women soon to be pressed to me, for word to get back to her that I was triumphant in her maison d’abattage. That I behaved myself here. That I would be welcome back here a fourth time, remembered, greeted by her again and again.
My imagination over these two waiting women split and fractured between them as I noticed parts of one I liked over the other then speculation shifted to the other’s graces and potential and a split of the blue sky and white clouds soaring outside and calling out and viewing through the bay window. Perhaps we would stay and talk and pet and read and be at leisure as the light shafts shifted during the slow trek of the sun and slugabed parade of cumulus clouds.
Once I was done I would not be inclined to stay, to solicit their real names, to discuss the sublime and refuge of art and exchange witticisms over the politics of the day. I would exit and perhaps walk past a woman sitting at a spongebath and I would admire her haunches and line of her back and smoothness and splayed legs and she would see me and appraise me for how much I would bring for her. They develop a talent for judging quickly the want in your eyes and how much you would pay and how much effort they would put into drawing it from you.
Maybe I would make a quick turn when leaving this room, catch a charwoman supplementing her right to work here and live here by helping maintain the halls and rooms. She may be faded, or a grotesque, but still able to draw from a well-moneyed few with particular fancy cravings. Or the wrangler of a long-maintained clientele year over year that kept returning until they moved elsewhere or died.
I left the pear and the apple. I ate two grapes, not that good but my throat was dry and I was glad for it. The room of pink flesh and white sheets and yellow and orange light was now behind me. The open blue sky would soon be above me once I struck out on the sidewalk again. Mon bordel.
