Today, the postal truck drove up to my house and I was very excited to receive a huge hardcover edition of Neil Gaimen’s Sandman. I dashed right out, only to find a flat cardboard package. I knew without looking what it was. I walked slowly and quietly back to the house.
A long time ago I dedicated a picture I drew to Al Purdy, the Canadian poet who had played such an important role in my youth. I handed it over to him, and signed it at his insistence. That strange old man who carried chairs over the crowd, like he was a young buck before reading. I was grateful just to hear his voice. And then he accepted my gift.
I miss those glorious days of youth. During those days, I mixed with many prominent figures of Canadian literature. I arrogantly thought myself in the same boat. Don't you ever miss that youthful sense that you are on your way up. I felt so strongly about the matter that it was not until I had an invitation from Mr. Purdy to visit him at his farm that I paused to question.
And yet I still miss those days. So, today, the brown package that came for me was a sad sad symbol.
I was impressed though. Ms. Baird packed it flat for Ms. Purdy, in sturdy cardboard. My picture came home safe and sound, as pristine as when I handed it over to the great man himself.
I confess, I got all weepy opening it up. I felt wounded, knowing it had come home. No longer did my sweaty attempts at expression live with this hero. And it also seemed like a signpost of an era gone.
Then I looked underneath the charcoaled paper.
I do not know whether it was Eurithe’s idea or Ms. Bairds, but there was a carbon. Yes, a carbon from a typewriter, do you remember those? I do, all my old poems came out that way. There was an old carbon of a three page poem by Mr. Purdy.
I do not like suspense so I will dispense that I have not read it. I glanced through it, glanced through it a second time, glanced through it a third time. I tucked it back in with the picture. It is still sitting on my desk. I don’t even know if it was published or not. I don’t think it was, or at least I do not recognize it. I saw his own scribbling on the page, correcting his writing. I cannot bring myself to read it yet. I need to hold it for a while yet before I can do such a thing. What is important to me, and what Ms. Baird knew, is that these pieces of paper sat in his typer, he looked at them as he thought out his thoughts. He likely cursed them out. But they sat there in his typer.
What I wish to say about this mail, is a profound thank you to the sender.
I touched that paper. I smelled that paper. I rolled around delighting in it. I had been so sad to see this picture come home and then there were these carbons of a poem. A very specific poem.
My youthful dreams of creating art are long gone, and I may never be a colleague of the people I admire, but I have this reminder of the times I have had, and I have this precious paper. It probably doesn't seem like much, but then you haven’t read the poem.
None of this would have happened, except I happened to reminisce in my obscure blog. The whole thing is so unlikely and improbable, that the fact that it did is magical in itself.
So, here's to magic, to the poetry of Al Purdy, and to memories.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
PWNED, Or Nature In The Internet: ;)
One of the things that bothers me about the internet is how fast it spreads things. Culture doesn't get to evolve naturally over time and space. In fact time and space are erased altogether. Things don’t get marinated, nor do they get weighed for value. They don’t sink into the skin or try themselves against generations.
What we get is the cheapest, shallowest memes. We get whatever is shortest, hits the brain fastest, and makes a mark on another instantly. It’s a normal Darwinian universe, allowing whatever spreads the fastest and easiest. Whatever fits the medium best. The cocaine of life.
In other words, instead of true organisms, we get viruses. Instead of flowers we get weeds. Again, nothing unnatural or improper as things go, just hideous and uninspiring. Lots of drek, very little to be admired.
I do enjoy the play of language and phrase that goes on, on the internet, but it is sometimes hard to find underneath the deluge of the instantly transmitted language virus. I wish William Burroughs could have lived to see his nightmares come true on the world wide web.
It’s odd too, because so many people that devote time to web chatter are highly literate, and computer literate(I'm talking all you college educated IT types). I'm neither, and I still fall prey to trying to fit in on my MSN chats, using the same phrases, words, and--we don't have a word for it--short forms--alphanumeric-typographic combinations--that transmit saccharine facsimiles of meaning. In fact, I feel proud and up to the minute when I properly absorb some strange meme and can transmit it to someone, thereby verifying that I am in fact normal and intelligible.
I enjoyed learning the weird language people use for those odd messages that accompany photographs of cats. Mostly I enjoyed it because until I did, I felt left behind, like a relic, or something doomed to extinction.
It really is the Twilight Zone. You clear your throat and pronounce something, and it is heard the world over. But unfortunately, what you say is maybe ‘pwned’. I'm actually still not sure what that means, but it does not matter as that life form has had its day. It has come and gone, just like the tens of millions of years of the dinosaur. I never have to say pwned to anyone, it is a dead word. Whatever it elucidated is now gone.
It’s not something we can escape from, it is as natural as foraging for berries in the woods or scratching to cover your pee. Doesn't mean we have to like it.
What we get is the cheapest, shallowest memes. We get whatever is shortest, hits the brain fastest, and makes a mark on another instantly. It’s a normal Darwinian universe, allowing whatever spreads the fastest and easiest. Whatever fits the medium best. The cocaine of life.
In other words, instead of true organisms, we get viruses. Instead of flowers we get weeds. Again, nothing unnatural or improper as things go, just hideous and uninspiring. Lots of drek, very little to be admired.
I do enjoy the play of language and phrase that goes on, on the internet, but it is sometimes hard to find underneath the deluge of the instantly transmitted language virus. I wish William Burroughs could have lived to see his nightmares come true on the world wide web.
It’s odd too, because so many people that devote time to web chatter are highly literate, and computer literate(I'm talking all you college educated IT types). I'm neither, and I still fall prey to trying to fit in on my MSN chats, using the same phrases, words, and--we don't have a word for it--short forms--alphanumeric-typographic combinations--that transmit saccharine facsimiles of meaning. In fact, I feel proud and up to the minute when I properly absorb some strange meme and can transmit it to someone, thereby verifying that I am in fact normal and intelligible.
I enjoyed learning the weird language people use for those odd messages that accompany photographs of cats. Mostly I enjoyed it because until I did, I felt left behind, like a relic, or something doomed to extinction.
It really is the Twilight Zone. You clear your throat and pronounce something, and it is heard the world over. But unfortunately, what you say is maybe ‘pwned’. I'm actually still not sure what that means, but it does not matter as that life form has had its day. It has come and gone, just like the tens of millions of years of the dinosaur. I never have to say pwned to anyone, it is a dead word. Whatever it elucidated is now gone.
It’s not something we can escape from, it is as natural as foraging for berries in the woods or scratching to cover your pee. Doesn't mean we have to like it.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Reality Leaks
“The oil will come ashore for weeks yet”. That is a quote from the Economist. 'Weeks' should be in italics. The Economist is a news weekly with a circulation of millions, most of the millions are middle class and up. What do weeks more oil spills entail? I don’t know they only advised me about my earnings if I push the euro against the dollar.
I had an even better quote, but The Economist seems to have taken it down off of their site. It was a technology quote. I paraphrase, quite easily inviting a libel suite, “ this shows our mastery over nature”. That quote had to do with creating artificial life. They didn’t say how it would profit me.
The Economist: if only it could be trusted to relate to reality in some way, is always informing me that as a western white person, I can shuffle my earnings around to avoid the pitfalls of varying headlines about regular people or the environment.
Unfortunately, I routinely scour small sources that have little to no effect over world affairs or bank accounts. Sometimes these sources are inflammatory, but sometimes they have deadly accurate reporting that I can’t read in my national newsies. Some of these sources are very well sourced, others not. So, I have to weigh what I read, the same way we do with our national newspapers(we do weigh what we read, don’t we?). Fine enough, I don’t expect the gospel source of information to be shovelled on high into my mouth.
In fact, I normally lean on the left side of expectorating issues, or at least am curious about the full impact of issues that are under reported or not reported at all in corporate owned newspapers. I expect huge coverage of a sports event to bury a banking scandal that effects millions. I expect some small detail of an ecological disaster to be reported in lieu of the real cause, real damage or the real culprits. The real culprits are often “everybody”, and who wants to read a story like that? I don’t want my reporting too accurate, that would be depressing.
Would you follow a magazine or newspaper that reported things like “Record Suicides in Chinese Factories Due To Your Shopping At Best Buy(yes the people building our toys are killing themselves because conditions are so bad). Or “Polar Bears Starving Because You Drove To The Supermarket”. Gah, I don’t want to read that. What about “Great swathes of the ocean and all its denizens dead after you plead for cheaper gas and home air conditioning” No way, I certainly don’t want to read that. What about “African Drought Will Kill More People Than The Entire North American Population Due To Your Obsession With Material Consumption”, holy fuck I really don’t want to hear that, especially after just enjoying, “the market is up in gold, diamonds, and fertilizers.”. Why should I give a shit about fucking brown people on another continent, I have enough of them here trying to sell meth to my children for gods sakes.
I could play this game all day and into the night. As long as the presses are still running, they will feed you. They will feed you whatever you need to hear to not worry that your way of life is ending, or that your way of life is not destroying peoples and cultures around the world.
Imagine that: you, not thinking hard, just doing your normal daily routines: brushing your teeth with 18 gallons of water, throwing out 3 kilos of packaging over a breakfast of 2500 calories(half more than most people get to eat all day, and just a tad less than the recommended amount for a whole day of survival). During your toast, and orange juice and bacon you glance through the paper and contemplate your allegiance to one party or the other, confident that either one will keep vitamins pouring into you from warm poor countries, and will keep fuel pouring in from very hot, super poor countries. There is very little time to read about how much high tech warfare keeps these backward sheep herding countries supplying the oil and fruit.
You scold your children for playing Wii over the table, and the eldest scolds you for driving a SUV, and you all live happily ever after in your theme-land life. Asians are dying trying to bring you the consoles for your games, and being killed to proffer you fertilizers for your orange juice and fuel for your vehicle. But who has time to think of the Chinese when you have to hire a new cleaner and you are worried about minor theft?
Your politics are offering you the chance to crunch down on factory vitamin enriched toast while tisk tisking right wing factions invading middle eastern countries, and you indulge yourself in a deep scowl over the mess in the Mexican gulf while never wondering if you will never again taste lobster in your favourite restaurant. You certainly don’t spoil your appetite wondering if there will be gas at the pump, or whether the grocery store will be abundantly overflowing with sales, as usual. It never occurs to you to wonder whether your children will inherit this bounty.
If you live an upright, moral life, don’t you have a right to drive your children to violin lessons and then stop at a fancy palace where they will give you a single use polyester bib so you don’t spoil yourself with food shipped in from half way around the globe?
On the way home, shouldn’t you be able to drive through a Timmy’s and drink a coffee brewed from starving people and then swoop in for a very cheap DVD of the newest sci-fi flic at a best-buy without wondering how much soil died to bring it to you? Shouldn’t you be able to watch it and feel camaraderie with the hero who fights for the rights of the people and their ecology.
For that matter, shouldn’t you be able to feel angry when you fumble to uncrease a morning newspaper that landed on your pesticided lawn instead of being inserted in your mailbox very carefully at no extra charge. Couldn’t the whole affair be more efficient because you are a busy person who has no time for the logistics of unfolding your 2 lb paper, only to find that after your efforts someone is trying to depress you with predictions of oil prices and single digit death news regarding North American soldiers in the middle east wars.
Can you imagine starting your day fresh and new only to learn that a single soldier was killed in your efforts to keep cheap fuel flowing at any cost of life to the “axis of evil”. You just took a shower and already fretted with a choice of hair conditioners, and then you step down to your breakfast only to be faced with depressing news. What fucking nerve.
My god, what kind of heathen would subject you to that? You are only at page four when you read about some new information that suggests climate change is progressing magnitudes faster than all the harsh warnings you were forced to read about over the last ten years. Its preposterous, they are only quoting four international peer reviewed institutions.
Fortunately though you remember a blog you read four months ago saying climate change is a financial boondoggle posed by bought scientists whose credentials wouldn’t hold up to your discerning gaze. You sigh relief at not having to consider the matter further. Can’t trust the papers anyway, right?
Luckily, your boss wants a better quarterly report on your pen cap sales, so you are only half reading. You are really thinking of how to lay off 4 towns worth of people who used to farm until they were subsidized out of the business of providing food, and pushed into manufacturing petroleum products. They never understood that they would get sidelined from that too. You don’t worry about who is responsible for the food now, nor how those towns people will fare since you learned that you wouldn’t have to cope with Mexican unions (what a headache) and the whole affair could move to a north-western province of China for a fraction of the cost and you would never again smell the casting machines molding pen lids. Not only that, but you won’t have to visit any plants, you could practically do your job from home with your shitty spreadsheet program. Now that’s an idea, a good income, a low interest mortgage, and a job that doesn’t require a tie. God bless America.
That makes it a really good day regardless of the price of gas.
You get really angry for 3 minutes about homeless people washing your windows then expecting money. Mostly you feel afraid for your life and therefore angry that your wealth might not protect you, but then you move on to the next hurdle and feel upset that someone standing dirtily on the street wants your toll booth stash, and that you will have to hit a drive thru a bank machine again before bringing your kids to Iron Man 2 this weekend.
Welcome to the present, please enjoy it while it lasts, I cannot predict the future except to say it will arrive whether you are paying attention or not. It certainly won’t be so funny.
I had an even better quote, but The Economist seems to have taken it down off of their site. It was a technology quote. I paraphrase, quite easily inviting a libel suite, “ this shows our mastery over nature”. That quote had to do with creating artificial life. They didn’t say how it would profit me.
The Economist: if only it could be trusted to relate to reality in some way, is always informing me that as a western white person, I can shuffle my earnings around to avoid the pitfalls of varying headlines about regular people or the environment.
Unfortunately, I routinely scour small sources that have little to no effect over world affairs or bank accounts. Sometimes these sources are inflammatory, but sometimes they have deadly accurate reporting that I can’t read in my national newsies. Some of these sources are very well sourced, others not. So, I have to weigh what I read, the same way we do with our national newspapers(we do weigh what we read, don’t we?). Fine enough, I don’t expect the gospel source of information to be shovelled on high into my mouth.
In fact, I normally lean on the left side of expectorating issues, or at least am curious about the full impact of issues that are under reported or not reported at all in corporate owned newspapers. I expect huge coverage of a sports event to bury a banking scandal that effects millions. I expect some small detail of an ecological disaster to be reported in lieu of the real cause, real damage or the real culprits. The real culprits are often “everybody”, and who wants to read a story like that? I don’t want my reporting too accurate, that would be depressing.
Would you follow a magazine or newspaper that reported things like “Record Suicides in Chinese Factories Due To Your Shopping At Best Buy(yes the people building our toys are killing themselves because conditions are so bad). Or “Polar Bears Starving Because You Drove To The Supermarket”. Gah, I don’t want to read that. What about “Great swathes of the ocean and all its denizens dead after you plead for cheaper gas and home air conditioning” No way, I certainly don’t want to read that. What about “African Drought Will Kill More People Than The Entire North American Population Due To Your Obsession With Material Consumption”, holy fuck I really don’t want to hear that, especially after just enjoying, “the market is up in gold, diamonds, and fertilizers.”. Why should I give a shit about fucking brown people on another continent, I have enough of them here trying to sell meth to my children for gods sakes.
I could play this game all day and into the night. As long as the presses are still running, they will feed you. They will feed you whatever you need to hear to not worry that your way of life is ending, or that your way of life is not destroying peoples and cultures around the world.
Imagine that: you, not thinking hard, just doing your normal daily routines: brushing your teeth with 18 gallons of water, throwing out 3 kilos of packaging over a breakfast of 2500 calories(half more than most people get to eat all day, and just a tad less than the recommended amount for a whole day of survival). During your toast, and orange juice and bacon you glance through the paper and contemplate your allegiance to one party or the other, confident that either one will keep vitamins pouring into you from warm poor countries, and will keep fuel pouring in from very hot, super poor countries. There is very little time to read about how much high tech warfare keeps these backward sheep herding countries supplying the oil and fruit.
You scold your children for playing Wii over the table, and the eldest scolds you for driving a SUV, and you all live happily ever after in your theme-land life. Asians are dying trying to bring you the consoles for your games, and being killed to proffer you fertilizers for your orange juice and fuel for your vehicle. But who has time to think of the Chinese when you have to hire a new cleaner and you are worried about minor theft?
Your politics are offering you the chance to crunch down on factory vitamin enriched toast while tisk tisking right wing factions invading middle eastern countries, and you indulge yourself in a deep scowl over the mess in the Mexican gulf while never wondering if you will never again taste lobster in your favourite restaurant. You certainly don’t spoil your appetite wondering if there will be gas at the pump, or whether the grocery store will be abundantly overflowing with sales, as usual. It never occurs to you to wonder whether your children will inherit this bounty.
If you live an upright, moral life, don’t you have a right to drive your children to violin lessons and then stop at a fancy palace where they will give you a single use polyester bib so you don’t spoil yourself with food shipped in from half way around the globe?
On the way home, shouldn’t you be able to drive through a Timmy’s and drink a coffee brewed from starving people and then swoop in for a very cheap DVD of the newest sci-fi flic at a best-buy without wondering how much soil died to bring it to you? Shouldn’t you be able to watch it and feel camaraderie with the hero who fights for the rights of the people and their ecology.
For that matter, shouldn’t you be able to feel angry when you fumble to uncrease a morning newspaper that landed on your pesticided lawn instead of being inserted in your mailbox very carefully at no extra charge. Couldn’t the whole affair be more efficient because you are a busy person who has no time for the logistics of unfolding your 2 lb paper, only to find that after your efforts someone is trying to depress you with predictions of oil prices and single digit death news regarding North American soldiers in the middle east wars.
Can you imagine starting your day fresh and new only to learn that a single soldier was killed in your efforts to keep cheap fuel flowing at any cost of life to the “axis of evil”. You just took a shower and already fretted with a choice of hair conditioners, and then you step down to your breakfast only to be faced with depressing news. What fucking nerve.
My god, what kind of heathen would subject you to that? You are only at page four when you read about some new information that suggests climate change is progressing magnitudes faster than all the harsh warnings you were forced to read about over the last ten years. Its preposterous, they are only quoting four international peer reviewed institutions.
Fortunately though you remember a blog you read four months ago saying climate change is a financial boondoggle posed by bought scientists whose credentials wouldn’t hold up to your discerning gaze. You sigh relief at not having to consider the matter further. Can’t trust the papers anyway, right?
Luckily, your boss wants a better quarterly report on your pen cap sales, so you are only half reading. You are really thinking of how to lay off 4 towns worth of people who used to farm until they were subsidized out of the business of providing food, and pushed into manufacturing petroleum products. They never understood that they would get sidelined from that too. You don’t worry about who is responsible for the food now, nor how those towns people will fare since you learned that you wouldn’t have to cope with Mexican unions (what a headache) and the whole affair could move to a north-western province of China for a fraction of the cost and you would never again smell the casting machines molding pen lids. Not only that, but you won’t have to visit any plants, you could practically do your job from home with your shitty spreadsheet program. Now that’s an idea, a good income, a low interest mortgage, and a job that doesn’t require a tie. God bless America.
That makes it a really good day regardless of the price of gas.
You get really angry for 3 minutes about homeless people washing your windows then expecting money. Mostly you feel afraid for your life and therefore angry that your wealth might not protect you, but then you move on to the next hurdle and feel upset that someone standing dirtily on the street wants your toll booth stash, and that you will have to hit a drive thru a bank machine again before bringing your kids to Iron Man 2 this weekend.
Welcome to the present, please enjoy it while it lasts, I cannot predict the future except to say it will arrive whether you are paying attention or not. It certainly won’t be so funny.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Apocalypse Please, Hold the Propaganda.
Now, I like me some horror films. I like the silly creature features that prophesize giant insects to address human hubris. Sometimes they even scare me. I like the prurient slasher films, meeting our worst empty nest fears. I especially love supernatural and theological horror films, that fill you with true unease and dread about unseen forces that resonate within your cultural psyche, regardless of religious denomination. Give me catholic fear of The Exorcist and The Omen and I will quake.
Those films that tap into our deepest cultural and religious mythology really scare the hell out of me. And going deeper, they touch my perennial fears of the beyond. . . touch my ghost fears like Stir of Echoes or White Noise. They touch my existential dread of nightmares beyond our world. I eat them up as nice safe fears. Cathartic. Just as they were intended. Whether it is atomic ants in Them, or Norman Bates channeling his mother in Psycho, ghostly sailors in The Fog, a fear demon in the Boogey Man, or vengeful spirits in Mirrors, I like getting scared stupid, sitting in the dark in front of the magic shadows. And I usually thank the filmmakers afterwards for making me sweat.
Unfortunately, there are films that scare me far more. We have war movies that glorify the extension of empire, dramas that romanticize exploitive capitalism. Romantic comedies that project magic elixirs for relationships There really are no shortage of scary movies that aren’t the fun kind. The worst kind, are the ones that disguise themselves as nice genre escapes, the ones that pretend to alleviate our fears by indulging them.
Take the apocalypse film. It is usually so delectably fun. Mad Max, or Waterworld. Even A Boy And His Dog which had interesting gender commentary was still mostly an adolescent festival.
But I just watched one tonight, The Book of Eli. It turned my delicious dinner into a bad bout of sphincter clenching dashes to the bathroom.
These films look the same from the outside, but it’s what particular dreamy realities are being sold to us quietly that differentiates healthy pleasures from poisons. It’s all about the mythology. And it is all about the psychological hooks for the audience. Slasher films give us some sophomore morality plays about average behaviour—drugs, booze, sex—in the mythology its all capital punishment bad news, leading to an unstoppable killer coming to get you in unique cinematic ways. It reminds teens of the fears they have, as they begin the decision making part of their lives, and gives release to parental fears. Their crimes are not real, and neither are their punishments. It’s all about the fear.
And in so many theologic films, we’re given a blood freezing tale, that finally in the end gives us a rerun to order and justice in a world of powers beyond our reach. We are given to understand that there are force we cannot understand(whether political or supernatural), but we are also given to understand there are safeguards in place(in the case of theologic horror films they are usually hermetic priests and innocents, with the odd jaded sinner, and in reality, they are teams of scientists,journalists and activists).
All of these genre tropes were born in a wealthy culture riding the greatest tide of wealth and power that there ever was in history. The greatest wealth and power there ever will be. The greatest wealth and power that is now slipping away, inexorably, with nothing in human imagination to stop it or slow it down.
In the fifties, there was an atomic fear, which gave us all our glorious mutated bug movies. The thing is, it was an anxiety over a possibility, an outside chance that the technological optimism of the era might prove wrong, that the military guard dogs of empirical wealth might gamble poorly. It still may play out, but so far it has mostly been a fear. It is the parable of technology out of control.
The thing is now, people make glib comparisons of those anxieties to today’s, and there is an error. Atomic spiders were a symbol of unknown fears. Ghosts stealing children expressed anxiety of childhood disease—a possibility, but unlikely conclusion.
There is a huge difference between allegorical, or metaphorical expressions of emotional fear, and fantastic dreams about real issues.
A few years ago we were given The Day After Tomorrow, expressing our fears about global warming. But it projected a single defining event, and offered the panacea that an oppressed overpopulated country, weak on resources would welcome hundreds of millions of refugees and somehow be able to sustain them. Personally, I have an easier time believing in the giant Ants.
More recently we had 2012. A mystic prophecy foretells a random event, something in technobabble having to do with solar neutrinos, up there with Lucas’ midichlorians, that makes earth unfit for humans—but luckily “arcs” are built, saving the best and brightest, and the most tenacious. Well that's a yummy gene pool for a happy ending. All the worst of humanity weeded out, and a new earth for all our captains of industry and science, nicely wrapped up in a biblical bow. It’s not cathartic release. It’s opiates for real fears.
This is a trend. Most recently we are delivered The Book of Eli. The earth is devastated by who knows what. Nuclear war, shredded ozone, a blistered drought brought on by carbonized atmosphere. Who cares, the apocalypse has come and it is dusty and desperate, except that one man is on a mission carrying a bible. Yes, a bible, not a book of Eli, just a bible like you would find in any motel on the way to the apocalypse. God knows it didn’t help us over the last couple thousand years. It’s been prone to causing wars, secrecy, lynchings, witch hangings, empirical justification; damn, the whole thing is based on an extended torture followed by lynching for that matter. But somehow, instead of cathartic release from our fears, we are given saccharine succour that our tawdry religious remnants have it all in hand. It’s all part of the plan. That’s what is disgusting about these films. They don't make ridiculous, our fears. Nor do they validate them. The seek to neutralize them with pathetic justifications based on nihilism and fantasy.
The internet is full of journalists pleading for people to listen to the fact that some of our most powerful people believe the earth is worthless, and this life is transitory, and that all our warring efforts, poisons and industry are simply a step on the path to some heavenly purpose. And now, instead of even being given some catharsis for our fears, we are supposed to swallow some last ditch dust ridden god mission proving this so?
I had to stop the film, despite being a hardened fan of apocalypse films. I would rather have rooted for the sycophantic opportunistic mafia type leader of the burgeoning post-world communities who wants some consolidation of his leadership so things can be reorganized than a god driven shepherd bringing the holy bible wherever it needed to go.
I couldn’t finish watching the Hollywood maniac machinery deliver its tired version of a desired ending for apocalyptic christians. I didn’t give up too prematurely. But I realized we had Denzel as Adam, and his needy bride (from That Seventies Show), blazing the way, bleeding and stoic, to carry the word of god, and I just couldn’t take it. Or maybe they are both Moses. It doesn't matter. that frightening audience will take a mash up as long as they get the right signifiers. But, I just wasn't buying the ugliest ending of our world(too close to real possibility) being made relevant by the continuance of an ugly religion that paved the way for the destruction.
I had an easier time swallowing pagan gods assisting the salvation of Christian Word in The Secret of Kells. At least that was told in a beautiful myth that combined mythology and adventure with a digestible version of cultural succession in an ongoing world that we did not rule or pretend to rule.
A long fan of all forms of narrative, I am becoming wary of any use for it. I fear narrative no longer informs, but simply deludes. apocalypse with popcorn.
Those films that tap into our deepest cultural and religious mythology really scare the hell out of me. And going deeper, they touch my perennial fears of the beyond. . . touch my ghost fears like Stir of Echoes or White Noise. They touch my existential dread of nightmares beyond our world. I eat them up as nice safe fears. Cathartic. Just as they were intended. Whether it is atomic ants in Them, or Norman Bates channeling his mother in Psycho, ghostly sailors in The Fog, a fear demon in the Boogey Man, or vengeful spirits in Mirrors, I like getting scared stupid, sitting in the dark in front of the magic shadows. And I usually thank the filmmakers afterwards for making me sweat.
Unfortunately, there are films that scare me far more. We have war movies that glorify the extension of empire, dramas that romanticize exploitive capitalism. Romantic comedies that project magic elixirs for relationships There really are no shortage of scary movies that aren’t the fun kind. The worst kind, are the ones that disguise themselves as nice genre escapes, the ones that pretend to alleviate our fears by indulging them.
Take the apocalypse film. It is usually so delectably fun. Mad Max, or Waterworld. Even A Boy And His Dog which had interesting gender commentary was still mostly an adolescent festival.
But I just watched one tonight, The Book of Eli. It turned my delicious dinner into a bad bout of sphincter clenching dashes to the bathroom.
These films look the same from the outside, but it’s what particular dreamy realities are being sold to us quietly that differentiates healthy pleasures from poisons. It’s all about the mythology. And it is all about the psychological hooks for the audience. Slasher films give us some sophomore morality plays about average behaviour—drugs, booze, sex—in the mythology its all capital punishment bad news, leading to an unstoppable killer coming to get you in unique cinematic ways. It reminds teens of the fears they have, as they begin the decision making part of their lives, and gives release to parental fears. Their crimes are not real, and neither are their punishments. It’s all about the fear.
And in so many theologic films, we’re given a blood freezing tale, that finally in the end gives us a rerun to order and justice in a world of powers beyond our reach. We are given to understand that there are force we cannot understand(whether political or supernatural), but we are also given to understand there are safeguards in place(in the case of theologic horror films they are usually hermetic priests and innocents, with the odd jaded sinner, and in reality, they are teams of scientists,journalists and activists).
All of these genre tropes were born in a wealthy culture riding the greatest tide of wealth and power that there ever was in history. The greatest wealth and power there ever will be. The greatest wealth and power that is now slipping away, inexorably, with nothing in human imagination to stop it or slow it down.
In the fifties, there was an atomic fear, which gave us all our glorious mutated bug movies. The thing is, it was an anxiety over a possibility, an outside chance that the technological optimism of the era might prove wrong, that the military guard dogs of empirical wealth might gamble poorly. It still may play out, but so far it has mostly been a fear. It is the parable of technology out of control.
The thing is now, people make glib comparisons of those anxieties to today’s, and there is an error. Atomic spiders were a symbol of unknown fears. Ghosts stealing children expressed anxiety of childhood disease—a possibility, but unlikely conclusion.
There is a huge difference between allegorical, or metaphorical expressions of emotional fear, and fantastic dreams about real issues.
A few years ago we were given The Day After Tomorrow, expressing our fears about global warming. But it projected a single defining event, and offered the panacea that an oppressed overpopulated country, weak on resources would welcome hundreds of millions of refugees and somehow be able to sustain them. Personally, I have an easier time believing in the giant Ants.
More recently we had 2012. A mystic prophecy foretells a random event, something in technobabble having to do with solar neutrinos, up there with Lucas’ midichlorians, that makes earth unfit for humans—but luckily “arcs” are built, saving the best and brightest, and the most tenacious. Well that's a yummy gene pool for a happy ending. All the worst of humanity weeded out, and a new earth for all our captains of industry and science, nicely wrapped up in a biblical bow. It’s not cathartic release. It’s opiates for real fears.
This is a trend. Most recently we are delivered The Book of Eli. The earth is devastated by who knows what. Nuclear war, shredded ozone, a blistered drought brought on by carbonized atmosphere. Who cares, the apocalypse has come and it is dusty and desperate, except that one man is on a mission carrying a bible. Yes, a bible, not a book of Eli, just a bible like you would find in any motel on the way to the apocalypse. God knows it didn’t help us over the last couple thousand years. It’s been prone to causing wars, secrecy, lynchings, witch hangings, empirical justification; damn, the whole thing is based on an extended torture followed by lynching for that matter. But somehow, instead of cathartic release from our fears, we are given saccharine succour that our tawdry religious remnants have it all in hand. It’s all part of the plan. That’s what is disgusting about these films. They don't make ridiculous, our fears. Nor do they validate them. The seek to neutralize them with pathetic justifications based on nihilism and fantasy.
The internet is full of journalists pleading for people to listen to the fact that some of our most powerful people believe the earth is worthless, and this life is transitory, and that all our warring efforts, poisons and industry are simply a step on the path to some heavenly purpose. And now, instead of even being given some catharsis for our fears, we are supposed to swallow some last ditch dust ridden god mission proving this so?
I had to stop the film, despite being a hardened fan of apocalypse films. I would rather have rooted for the sycophantic opportunistic mafia type leader of the burgeoning post-world communities who wants some consolidation of his leadership so things can be reorganized than a god driven shepherd bringing the holy bible wherever it needed to go.
I couldn’t finish watching the Hollywood maniac machinery deliver its tired version of a desired ending for apocalyptic christians. I didn’t give up too prematurely. But I realized we had Denzel as Adam, and his needy bride (from That Seventies Show), blazing the way, bleeding and stoic, to carry the word of god, and I just couldn’t take it. Or maybe they are both Moses. It doesn't matter. that frightening audience will take a mash up as long as they get the right signifiers. But, I just wasn't buying the ugliest ending of our world(too close to real possibility) being made relevant by the continuance of an ugly religion that paved the way for the destruction.
I had an easier time swallowing pagan gods assisting the salvation of Christian Word in The Secret of Kells. At least that was told in a beautiful myth that combined mythology and adventure with a digestible version of cultural succession in an ongoing world that we did not rule or pretend to rule.
A long fan of all forms of narrative, I am becoming wary of any use for it. I fear narrative no longer informs, but simply deludes. apocalypse with popcorn.
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