Category: Words

Personal Essay: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Television

Yes, this is the real cartoon textRight around election-time, pundits always begin to lament the frivolity of the average voter. “Why can’t we pay attention to what really matters?” they wail. Why must we focus on Britney Spears and her pubic hairstyles? Why must we devote more column space to whether Posh has breast implants, and whether David Beckham’s crotch is enlarged with props and Photoshop in that Armani underwear ad?

I admit that it’s certainly possible that the average voter is a fucking idiot, but isn’t it also possible that politics and “serious” matters don’t focus enough on what matters to the average voter, and that what matters to the average voter is a little diversion before the comfort of the grave?

It’s been nearly four hundred years since Thomas Hobbes coined the phrase “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” and while life has improved on all five points, society hasn’t exactly perfected itself, either:

  • Life is still solitary: I’ve got lots of Facebook friends and plenty of face-to-face friends as well. It doesn’t make me any less alone, though. Pundits like Lee Siegel decry the effect of the Internet on society and say that online relationships are a poor substitute for face-to-face relationships. But direct human interaction is greatly overrated and frequently soulless. Is any real connection to another person possible?
  • Life is still poor: On the one hand, we wallow in material possessions. On the other hand, David Beckham is far wealthier and is better endowed. And even he doesn’t seem satisfied, or why else would he be appearing in those Armani ads?
  • Life is, if anything, nastier: Perez Hilton. Enough said.
  • Life is still brutish: An organ-trafficking ring was recently uncovered in India. Marijuana farms in the UK are employing slave labor. The American government admits to using methods of torture perfected by the Inquisition. We’ve refined our brutality, but that’s like putting a pig in a suit: It’s still going to roll in its own shit.
  • Life is still short: As another notable economist noted, “in the long run, we are all dead.”

 

Care to discuss tax policy now? The politically high-minded (myself included) love to talk about rational decision-making. The flaw in that approach is that rational decision making requires assuming that there’s some kind of goal or point to what you’re doing, and if you think too hard, you’ll remember that there isn’t one. Given that life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, is it really worth the effort to think about substantive proposals for farm subsidy reform?

No wonder people just vote for whoever makes them feel good, and then go back to distracting themselves with Britney Spears (her problems make my problems look totally surmountable, even though both of us are, in the long run, dead). Frivolity makes us feel a little better, and between mewling infancy and helpless senility, feeling a little better is all we’ve got.

And that’s why I love television: Because it’s the opiate of the masses (I’m a mass on the couch right now, trust me. Probably a cancerous mass, but I guess you’d have to ask Dr. House.) and anything which eases suffering is a blessing indeed.

Lived Experience Fights Dirty

Cat And Girl is good today. I am pretty good today too, despite a headache I will blame on dry air rather than admit that I have a hangover. I wrote the following clever banter which I am proud of:

The problem with tall, skinny celebrities like Eva Longoria Parker is that you end up with tall, skinny pictures of them. And then you have to write text to go next to those tall, skinny pictures.

In this case, I need 426 vertical pixels of filler. So, here it is:

Eva Longoria Parker is in London. She is wearing a sparkly gold and black dress that seems designed to make her look like some sort of tropical fish. Perhaps it is a commentary on the ‘fishbowl’ that stars live in, thanks to paparazzi and media scrutiny.

On the other hand, maybe she’s just been hanging out with Victoria Beckham too much, and has begun to think that “expensive” plus “gold” equals “classy.”

Less likely theories include “she’s become a magician’s assistant” and “cocaine’s a hell of a drug.” Anyone else got a guess?

Speculation And Insight And One-Liners

my-workspaceElsewhere writing: I’m relatively pleased with this bit of speculation about the commensal relationship between Will Smith and Tom Cruise.

And I’m very proud of my driveby insult titled “Rachael Ray Devours A Small Child.” Yeah, sure, she’s an easy target, but it’s still kind of funny.

And Co-Worker Joel says that my post linking “Kid Nation” to the decline of the US Dollar and the increase in global sea piracy is funny. So that’s an accomplishment today.

Nonetheless, I find myself identifying with robot comics an awful lot. Maybe it’s time for my daily dose of staring at kittens.

Book Review: The Polemic Tradition In Nonfiction: Roberto Saviano’s “Gomorrah”

Roberto Saviano has a book out called “Gomorrah,” about the Camorra, the Neapolitan mob. I got an advance copy from Bookdwarf awhile ago. She knew when she saw it that it was exactly the sort of thing I love. It’s got crime, scandal, ecological disaster, and a heartfelt, personal touch. There’s an excerpt in the latest Granta, although it’s not online, just in print. You can also read about the author – now in hiding – in the Times from earlier this month.

He says his distaste for the criminal class in Naples is personal. That’s definitely true. In the US, getting worked up about a political issue is considered poor form these days. Critics who have point out that our president is a corrupt, criminal nincompoop are derided not for being incorrect but for being “shrill.”

Not so in Italy. In Italy, when you get furious, when you write poetry about the crimes of your fellow-citizens, they kill you. Saviano’s rage is intense. He’s got a polemic here, and I can only hope that US audiences don’t ignore it because of that. His choking rage at the destruction that criminal enterprise wreaks on his hometown should draw you in. It says: This man is serious. He’s got something important to say. Listen carefully.

You should read this book. You should buy it from the Harvard Book Store.

On Mediocrity And Being Good Enough

This one’s for Aaron Flynn, who’s trying to stay pure, and for Joel Brown over at Hub Arts, who seems to have a pretty good handle on balancing filthy lucre and creative drive.

One of the last times I talked to Aaron Flynn in person, before he moved off to the alternate universe where housing is not overpriced (i.e. Texas) he told me he didn’t ever want to be one of those people who got through life saying “it’s good enough.”

I said, that’s funny, because that sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Do something good enough every day until you die. Acceptable life. Aaron looked at me not just with pity, but with irritation in his eyes, as though I’d told a particularly offensive joke at his expense. Well, I have to admit it was hard to tell. We were in a car and it was dark, so I couldn’t see him clearly, and also I had just farted, so he could have been annoyed about that. But I think that it did not make him happy that I had so casually dismissed his life’s goal of constant, uncompromising artistic excellence.

But really – can anyone really hope to live a life free of artistic compromise? Isn’t artistic compromise often a great lesson?

This comes back to me defending mediocrity, which sounds scandalous but isn’t. What I mean is that Good Enough is, by definition, good enough. If I cut my finger chopping vegetables, I’d be thrilled to have absolutely perfect stitching that leaves no scar. But to be honest, as long as my finger doesn’t develop gangrene and fall off, I’m happy. When I say good enough, I mean it meets or exceeds my standards of acceptability. My corner pizza shop is not the best pizza in town, but it’s good enough that I eat there when I want a quick slice and I don’t complain about it. It’s tasty, it’s hot, it’s a buck fifty a slice. Good enough!

I don’t just mean that you have to pick your battles for excellence. I may accept merely adequate pizza for dinner, but should I be satisfied producing merely adequate writing? I think I should, because the alternative to going through saying “it’s good enough” is going through life saying “it’s not good enough.” Constantly striving to do better may lead to excellence, but it also means being dissatisfied at every turn.

I feel guilty and shameful saying that.

I’ve been raised to believe that being satisfied, leaving well enough alone, and doing just OK is a cop-out. I’m surrounded by perfectionists and strivers. But isn’t there something other than greatness to strive for? Happiness and satisfaction? Is that even possible?

A Conversation On World Events In The Roman Style

bolivia-riotiing.jpg Let’s have a dialogue about world news, but between… oh, let’s say Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo. That makes it kind of fun.

Vorenus: Today, troops seized control of a major port, after a dispute over docking fees in which managers demanded that foreign shipping lines pay all fees in cash directly to them, rather than depositing the money with the central government. People are rioting in the streets around the port in protest and counter-protest. It boils down to the province wanting more autonomy than the central government will allow. The citizens are probably right that the central government can’t be trusted with the money, but I don’t think the local port managers are any better. And that’s just in one city. To make things more complicated, in the poorer sections of the capital, people have begun sacking bars and brothels to protest drunkenness and whoring, and are blocking the streets with the flaming wreckage.

Pullo: That’s completely insane.

Vorenus: Seems more like a return to normalcy to me. October is a big month for violent protests here.

Pullo: If it’s any consolation, the people in charge here are also completely nuts. They’ve just refused to provide medicine to poor, sick children, and they also renewed “Big Bang Theory.”

Vorenus: I read the reports from your country. I know it’s going down the tubes. What surprises me is that nobody’s rioting in the streets or taking over the ports. At least here, people know how to express their righteous indignation.

Pullo: It’s true. Here, people are just hoping the new consul will fix everything in two years. But the problems we face aren’t entirely the current consul’s fault. Many of them are systemic, and he just exposed them and twisted them to his advantage. I fear what will happen when people begin to see that a new consul can’t immediately undo all the damage of the past eight years.