Exciting new video games from Sony, January 2010
Was feeling all depressed until I saw this picture and it reminded me that I live in the United States of fuckin’ America and it’s Two-Thousand and fuckin’ Ten and We Beat Communism.
It’s always interesting to watch traces of internetty derision work their way into august print institutions, and this running commentary on a Bill Kristol piece, from the Economist online, is no exception: there really is no better response to Kristol’s position than eye-rolling, head-shaking, disdain, and snarky use of strikethrough tags. And this is partly because what Kristol’s arguing for — the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy — is not really much of a principle to defend. It’s a compromise, and it’s one that was built to self-destruct. How righteously can a person argue for the grand tradition of an odd, abstracted compromise, struck when he was already middle-aged? There just isn’t much there to stand on.
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But I’m more interested in the idea of policies that erode and critique and dismantle themselves — compromises that seem built to topple in a specific direction — and I spent part of last night trying to think of a good analog. Most of you reading this will probably know better than me: what are some other instances of policies, rulings, and compromises custom-designed to evaporate?
The current Senate health-care bill is a great example of this, if you look at it from a somewhat narrow point of view: By maintaining insurance companies as private entities (and not establishing public competition), but requiring them to do things specifically against their free-market interests (insuring people with pre-existing conditions) while at the same time ensuring their continued existence nonetheless (via the “individual mandate”), the Senate has essentially placed the current health-care insurance system on track to become, more or less, a public utility, like heating, or water.
That’s not to say that such a change will certainly come about—but it seems very likely. And this maybe isn’t the exact same kind of thing that you’re talking about, Nitsuh, in terms of there being a sort of… ontological reason why the policy will disappear. But structurally, this doesn’t really create a sustainable system.
I would think this is a not uncommon kind of Senate legislation—when the inherently more-conservative upper house is forced by the rather more radical lower house to act, but doesn’t want to make the same kind of drastic changes, I expect they would come up with these vaguely-satisfying compromises that will get everyone through the next election cycle until there is more readable public opinion.
… who is apparently set to release a triple LP. Her music is distinctly polarizing, right? It’s pretty obviously Not For Everyone. People who have bad reactions to it will point to various turn-offs. There’s the way she uses her voice, of course, which is singular and highly affected: it creaks like an old door and can remind people of anything from little girls to old crones and Lisa Simpson. (Have you ever read that Truman Capote story “A Christmas Memory?” Newsom’s voice reminds me of the childlike old lady in that.) And of course That Voice is delivering Those Lyrics, which are similarly affected and incredibly wrought: big on allegories and metaphors and animal symbolism, big on arcana, in love with words and the ways they rub against one another, the consonance and assonance and alliteration. Also she plays the harp. And she’s ambitious about imagination. Triple-LP ambitious, apparently.
The only things I have to add to N’s great take on Newsom are these: first, that her voice reminds me of a different Christmas story—Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” and the part where the boys, singing carols, are joined by a “cracked eggshell” voice behind the door they’re in front of. Newsom’s voice is maybe too pretty for an ugly phrase like that, but it can feel so fragile—so, maybe, already broken—that I think the image is kind of appropriate.
Second, I think it’s worth noting that a lot of her songs are, according to her I’m pretty sure, actually quite personal, despite their imaginative, “poetic” preciousness. “Emily” is about her sister (whose name is, guess what, Emily); “Monkey and Bear” is ostensibly about her relationship with Bill Callahan. So to treat her imagination and affectation as a weakness… it doesn’t just do a disservice to Newsom and her music, it also does a disservice to (and I don’t mean to sound hyperbolic here, so bear with me) poetry, and, more specifically, the use of poetic language—even of metaphorical or allegorical language—to address “personal” or (sorry) “real” concerns.
Someone—Joe, I think—was writing on ILX the other week about how he does as much reading as he used to, but now that much of it is done on the internet, his choices skew toward news and essays rather than fiction or poetry. This is definitely true of me: I probably read more words than I ever have in my life, but a huge portion of those words are presented in a “factual,” “non-fiction” context (to all my post-modern friends: just bear with me on the factual/metaphorical fiction/non-fiction thing for now, thanks). And I think this basically sucks, because of the way it affects my ability to engage with poetic language—even with fictional language. I could bring in Heidegger here, as I am wont, to talk about technology and Gestellen, but that’s just window dressing on a basic anxiety I have about myself, and the internet, and people in general—that we have trouble engaging with the world in a, for lack of a better word, “poetic” way. One reason I like Joanna Newsom is that she insists on engaging with her world in exactly that way.
YES YES YES!
Can’t believe I live in New York City when Val Kilmer is tearing shit up in New Mexico with a jade necklace.
It’s time the film, movie journalism and festival communities took a hard look at a practice that is practically rampant in the cinema world and needs to stop now. I’m taking about the cute homonymic use of the words “real” and “reel.” As a guy who’s written his thousands of movie-related headlines, cover lines and photo captions, I know how easy it is to reach for, but it is so, so played. (Just google reel film festival for a taste). It is no longer clever, funny, or attention-grabbing.
It’s especially prevalent in the world of documentary cinema, where the whole “documenting real events” thing makes it especially tempting. But there it’s even less appropriate, as how many docs are even shot on film—which as you recall, is stored on reels—anymore, anyway?
Now, I’m not opposed to puns, or wordplay, or even really bad and stupid examples of either (just ask anyone who knows me). But it’s time for programmers, writers, editors and producers to come up with some new bad puns.
Some reel talk from Mark Slutsky.
Hugh Masekela, y’all.
