skirblog

the pageant

I've been thinking some (emphasis on the some) about the power we willing cede to movie stars, movie stars being at the top of a hierarchy of false idols that runs something like:

movie stars,
rock stars,
NFL players,
NBA players,
TV personalities,
politicians,
baseball players,
and the rest (known writers/artists/bloggers/chefs/tech or web tycoons, etc.), leaving some room for hybrids and anomalies like Miley Cyrus or JK Rowling. A hierarchy that probably also corresponds to income. But which came first, the perceived value of these people, or the income they command?  Do we idolize them because of how rich they are, or are they so rich because we idolize them?  Hard to say with your Brittney Spears' and your various rappers, but for my current musings I wonder why movie stars are so far up the list?

Yes we value movies as our preferred storytelling vehicles, and yes, bla bla escapism, but are they really so important that we elevate the people who act in films to the top of our food chain? So starstruck are we that we are rendered awestruck and speechless in the presence of one of these people, and we feel its ok and normal to pay them the most money that can possibly be paid a person who didn't create a software program or inherit some oilfields etc from their old man.

I mean, I go to movies, and I have the typical varied reactions to them, some are pleasant, entertaining, or just eye candy; some fail, or are boring; and some I love as sublime works of art, but how far am I willing to bow down to those who acted in them?  My friend Robert says that when a movie is working right, he's left his body for two hours -- no small feat that, isn't that kind of transcendence worth any price?

But as I age (like-a nice cheese, no?) I don't feel as driven to see movies as I used to, (maybe its the driving? Maybe somebody else should drive?) When I finally get to one, as entertained or touched as I might have been, I don't see why that means so-and-so can afford chateaus in four or five countries, or why actor X flies to exclusive, hidden resorts in a  private jet; or why AB or C can't even think of ways to spend the outrageous amounts of money they are paid. Like Tracy Jordan on 30 Rock recently with his solid gold shoes.  This is not coming (entirely) from fits of jealousy either.  I don't begrudge the movie star any of what they have or do, because we, I, created them.  So it is we, I, I want to understand but cannot.

Funny how warped our popular culture. We elevate the film actor in so many ways, yet now deride them when, for instance, they actually spend some of their wealth and power on something other than excess. it has now become unseemly, for instance, to adopt a kid from a poor country and shower her with movie star wealth; untoward to support a political candidate. Aint it quaint ho we have created a class of super elite who we idolize, yet also vilify any chance we get. Physical beauty is desired regardless of how contrived, yet god forbid an actor leaves the house un-showered or shaved. This is seen as disrespectful to US and will not be tolerated. Not to mention having ill mental health, scrapes with the law, troubles at home, etc. We are the opposite of the Greeks who created gods who then played games with humans. We created Gods yet we want to play the games.

A recent trip to LA certainly fueled this particular train; LA where the value placed on movie stars is palatable in the air, like the tinge of salt from the Pacific. Or like the pervasive smog herself, its the FACT of the movie star that permeates everything, and is nowhere more evident in the vast third, fourth, fifth tiers of wannabes, associated hangers on, name droppers, dreamers and outright liars you will encounter on your daily sojourns.  They all refer to that fact that the movie star exists and is exalted --  the goal.  Not that I'm down on LA either, just the opposite. I seem to love the place even though all my friends who live there advise me otherwise. Yes traffic is bad in LA, but its not mean. Here in the Bay Area traffic is an asshole. Its not so much what they have there that I'm drawn to, you can get or do practically the same things in the SF area, its more the vibe, and the vibe is harder to articulate. I can tell you its not as uptight and aggressive as it is up North these days. Contrary to the conventional wisdom which says otherwise, SF has the stick up its ass now.

Glorified artificiality has no greater home than the Superbowl, a pageant I certainly participate in and enjoy, but that doesn't mean its mechanisms should not be questioned.  As much as I love the Pittsburgh Steelers and love watching them play, I can't shake the nagging feeling in the contrary cobwebs of me brain that something needs addressing there, something shallow and false, something so hollow and devoid of meaning that to examine it even for a second will strip all enjoyment from the spectacle. So I go forward reluctantly.  That the Steelers won the AFC this year, was to me more of a tangible and hard-won goal than winning the Superbowl may or may not be. The conference is more about the teams, the rivalries, the strategies; where the Superbowl is about the NFL, the corporations,  owners, Cities. I lived in the 'burgh for 4 of the Steelers Superbowl wins and of course the city went apeshit about it. Then five and now possibly six. Bragging rights I guess, which amount to what exactly?  Then I moved to SF and was there for their 4th and 5th wins and believe it or not, that city went even more apeshit than Pittsburgh. I'm talking rioting in the streets, looting, pillaging, all the stuff that football is about right?  But what were we rioting about? (I did take to the streets myself on motorcycle to experience the mayhem en pointe, and damn if I wasn't prone to a little pillaging myself.)

It is actually natural to be suspicious of the NFL, since the entire game of football is set up within a completely make-believe system.  Unlike baseball, our "national pastime," where basically two talented individuals, a pitcher and a hitter, go head to head, mano-y-mano, like boxers in the ring, supported by a group of specialists; or the sports of soccer,  hockey or basketball, where everyone tries at all times to score, constantly pitting fast moving offense against defense, (much like our favorite sport: war); football, conversely, has specialized itself into a whole different ballgame, with the  greatest difference being now we will take turns trying to kill each other.  It gets positively philosophical:  there are two squads on each team that only exist because their opposite exists on the other team. Get me?  Doesn't matter what kind of  "offense" you have, how talented your individual players are, its no good, and is in fact meaningless, unless you are playing an equally matched "defense" from another team, a defense that has been created for that exact purpose.  If I understood my semiotics, which I do not, I'd probably find more of an answer in its objects and referents and signs and symbols, but I only got my MFA peeps, no PhD in postmodernism, so I'll have to muddle through skirb style.

Football, because of its contrivance, being not really based on any model from history or society, is more of a pure game than other sports, and because it is another step removed from "reality" works nicely as a metaphor for our aggression and clannish behavior.  It is a narrative each season, and its climax is always known: the goal, the Superbowl. There is no mystery or serendipity, the ending is known at the preseason: one team will win. So the 'ending" is not really important to the narrative is it?  Of course we think its all about who will win, and that's certainly there, but again, never a big surprise.  Its the telling. The  commentary. The pageant.  There will be a grand public spectacle, meant to "fire our imaginations," to be bigger, louder, glitzier, and more extravagant than any other show.  its not even the game, the game decides what?  The best team of the year? The world? The Universe, Eternity?  Of course not. The minute its over we go back to our normal lives;  football season starts over from scratch, and we are left getting no... satisfaction.  Or maybe we did. Like those of us from Pittsburgh will get when our always shunned city forces itself to be recognized on the national stage. 

"On any given Sunday" is the phase the NFL drummed in since its inception; meaning we have built our system so well that no matter who plays it will be a good game. And I hear a pipe organ suddenly hammering out Bach's Tocatta and Fugue (in D minor) sounding from the great film, "Rollerball" which tried to get at this whole business of sports and manipulation and nationalism, and did a pretty good job of it.  James Caan's Jonathan, was an anomaly, an individual star in a tightly controlled system where there was supposed to be no individuals only the State.  What played out was a Nietzschean power struggle, individual against the machine. This should not be confused with a will to live, as power is what's all important.  Usually sci-fi movies illustrate what we fear at any given time, so back in the '70s we were clearly worried about losing our identity to the corporation.  Interesting that a remake of Rollerball failed so miserably a few years ago, as we don't really look to individuals in sports to buck their own system, and buck the system for us, in fact we'd rather they didn't.  Anyway we always have movie stars, the repository of all our hopes and dreams.

wait a sec

Wait a sec

this year an extra second was added into the Earth time continuum to compensate for the erratic and slowing rotation of the planet. I happened to catch a bit of a science board where this was being discussed. Some people wondered if we keep adding seconds into time, will our lives get longer?

At first a bit of a laughable question, and the asker was derided on the board, but by none so intelligently as this writer, known only by his or her board sign-on "paxd." I liked it so much I've included it excerpted below, since it echoes exactly what I believe about "time" but don't put as well:

 Implicit in the article, that the Earth's rotation and orbit are unreliable instruments for measuring time, is that what we call 'time', is strictly a human invention. Time, or our notion of it, does not exist independent from our minds... time is a very convenient tool which we have created and refined over thousands of years. In essence we have divided the motion of the rotation of the Earth into 24 equal intervals we call hours... Why twenty-four and not 158, 7 or 10? It is a convention we inherited from the Egyptians who divided day-light and night hours into 12 hours... rather than just counting fingers (which would have given them units of ten... they counted finger knuckles, not including those of the thumb. So ... Time in a very real sense is something that does not exist, other than as a convention we share between us and in our minds. If we ceased to acknowledge it or decided collectively to ignore or change it, which we theoretically could, it would not change the fact that we are mortal and will eventually die of old age or some other malady. Thus, our notion and counting of time, as is implicit in the article, is independent from the motion of the Earth--that is why we have to keep adding seconds every couple of years.

Yet its hard not to mark time in some way, esp. around the first of the year, the calendar also being a strictly human invention. I don't want to get cliche about how "time" and "calendar" seem to work against us more than not, esp moving from childhood to adult. I think you all know what I'm talking about. Although time isn't so innocent for children, as kids always seem to be anticipating everything: birthday, holidays, getting older. Adults the reverse.

JG Ballard liked to write about our time marking tendencies and 'whatif' the idea to various extremes. Whatif there were no clocks, or clocks were outlawed, or we never slept, or we always slept, etc. In Ballard, even without conventions of clocks or sleep, time is still marked, it seems to have to be, and how its marked changes how we carry out our lives. Another Heisenberg moment: the act of marking an event, changes an event.  Ballard in this way also speaks to the same question that the naive writer above asked. Then you wonder, maybe that questioner wasn't so naive...

 There was a melancholy end to the year 2008, and there is a melancholy start to 2009. The mood, the uneasiness of the world isn't aware of the date. We're hoping for change in this country anyway, and we finally saw to it that we elected a non-buffoon/non-crony to be president, but that elation seemed to wear off rather quickly come December. We'll see what February brings.

"Clocks are big... machines are heavy" as Atheletico Spizz 80 might have said.

Or just as nonsensically, as Lewis Carroll might have said, don't let the mome raths get you down.  Right? This transition time, (and I hope that's what it is, a time between times, un-markable...) has its highlights. It brought us the iphone did it not? One of the few devices in high tech history that does what it says its going to do. Its brilliant and should be celebrated. (I can now have the text of "Jabberwocky" and "Walrus and the carpenter" with me at all times. And Ulysses and Moby Dick if I wanted for x's sake, and about half my 30G music collection (15Gs approx) including my fave of the new year, Holly Golightly and on and on.

But '08 was a year I pulled back from pop culture more than not. I didn't really buy too much new music, still just pirating the old.  Did get the new Portishead, new Brightblack Morning Light and both of those while good, didn't kill. What did kill of course were the Kills, and '08 was my time to be big into them. Then there was the enormous Cramps resurgence which lead to Link Wray and probably engendered the current Holly Golightly jag.

I cut way back on the TeeVee last year, and the few shows I did like disappointed mightily: Entourage sucked big time this season, although seemed to pull out of it by the last few eps. The biggest disappointment by far was Californication, which went way, way down the shitter into probably unrecoverable territory this season. The Office had a nasty spin to it, 30 Rock was okay. And I was kinda interested in "Fringe" but it teetered too often to the ridiculous to make it stick. That left really the only bright spot as "Tru Blood" and I only saw four eps before they took it off payperview for some reason.

I didn't get to many movies. I know there were some excellent ones out there, but, and I can't say exactly why, the act of going to see a movie seems awfully boring and tedious to me. I had fun seeing the ones I saw with the kid: Wall-E, Speed Racer, whatever; but stayed away from the films of substance like the plague. Probably a dumb move. But coincidentally just today I saw Vicky Christina Barcelona and had a rip roaring good time. Total eye candy: both lovely lead actresses, whats her name and the other, plus Penolope Cruz plus Spain. Sexy, pretty Spain! I'm in love.

I did amp up the reading quite a bit, and enjoyed very much: "And Then We Came to the End" by what's his name? I dunno I wrote about him a few posts ago; two of the three in Robert Sawyer's kinda trashy, but also solidly "sci" and "fi"  sci fi trilogy Hominid and Humans; Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao had many charms, though in retrospect also had some large failings;  I keep trying to read poetry, and have rec'd some very nice books of it. But like films, I have this odd, aversion to it, even though admittedly there is beautiful stuff out there. F gave me Frank O'Hara's Meditations in an Emergency, (see "Mad Men") whose title I'm loving more than the actual poems right now. There seems to be a line here or there that strikes me, but the works as a whole elude me. Sorry poets out there who I know and love. I'll read your stuff and like it I swear!

We're all aware that someday, not too long from now, the printed newspapers that we know and hate so much will cease to be, or will be put together and sold very differently than they are today.  Most of the backroom functions of our UNbeloved local rag are outsourced at this point to far flung places like Buffalo NY and the Philippines and (the editorial) we wonders when our axe will fall. No doubt I've been there through this org's many blunders and ineptitudes, some so large and wrong as to be comical. I like to say that that place is run like a "one ring circus..." its a circus, but a three ring circus would be too complicated for them. So in thinking ahead to my next career ('specially after they read this god help me!)  I wonder what it is I can actually do?  I mean, what, skirb are you good at?  Of course my dream job would be to get paid to sit around to be my own self for 7 1/2, maybe 8 hours a day.  Shit, I'll even be my own self on overtime!  But I haven't found any openings for that. yet. I'm always looking.  So that leaves the only other marketable talent I might possess: no, its not stealing honey from beehives, its editing. Not that you'd know it by reading this of course, but your faithful blogger, is really quite a fierce and relentless editor when he wants to be. Although my editing has been limited to the work of my friends, I'd like someday to parlay it into paying work. So those of you writing novels and whatnot out there. Keep me in mind.

But that's down the road and we're staying in the moment right? No looking forward or back. If you've read any of these posts for the last five years or so (gulp) then you'll know I like to come full circle by the end of them. But since they inserted that extra second into the "clock" this year I feel off; out of balance, askew. So circle I will not, but will take a moment to sit back and enjoy my extra second, philosophical construct or life prolonging fiction that it may be. And there! its gone.