First, I want to apologize for the wind noise -- it is, however, the Texas Panhandle! Sorry about that, but if you can slog through, please share your thoughts / experiences in the comments section.
Here are thoughts that the Route 66 truckstop brought to mind-- New technology leads to unexpected encounters. It's been that way from the very beginning.
Let's think about it, Route 66 was built because of emerging, evolving transportation technology. People became mobile, and they also met people and had encounters they never envisioned before.
Today, communications technology and social networking are also leading to surprising encounters -- with people, ideas, places.
Earlier technologies, such as navigation technologies in Europe, as well as what I like to think of as "financial technologies" (early stock / trading companies, limited partnerships, in and after the Renaissance).
Now we're in all kinds of new technologies -- we blink our eyes and we miss five or six iterations. Does it matter -- at least in the way we structure our "technologies of the imagination"?
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
Route 66 Rest Stop Series: #3 - Route 66, Kitsch, Memorabilia, and the Artifacts of Recollection
When we stop along the road at historical sites, what do we encounter? How can we use the experience to reflect upon what it means to explore connections, and what kinds of memories and emotions are triggered? The American love affair with the car has shaped the American imagination, from Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby to Kerouac's On the Road and all the wonderful road films.
Please post your thoughts, and lists of truck stop experiences, memorabilia, food, music that you find unforgettable (either in a good way or a bad way!) -- if you have Route 66 experiences, that would be especially nice.
Please post your thoughts, and lists of truck stop experiences, memorabilia, food, music that you find unforgettable (either in a good way or a bad way!) -- if you have Route 66 experiences, that would be especially nice.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Murder, Suicide, Self-Immolation Clusters: Observations
I often wonder about strange synchronicities and repetitions -- things that you start to see once you know the history of a person or a place long enough and well enough.
In the case of a person, it may not seem to remarkable that the same things seem to happen to them -- after all, they're making choices, and the choices are going to align with their tastes and proclivities, right?
In the case of places, it's sort of different. It makes me wonder if there are certain vibrations or resonances that create a situation where people behave in similar ways. I'm not talking about the obvious things -- people go swimming near bodies of water, or do daredevilish things near cliffs. I'm thinking of something that causes people to behave as though certain places were haunted, or that there might be the presence of spirits that compell people to behave in certain ways.
Case in point: Norman, Oklahoma
I've been in touch with Norman and Norman's history to be able to detect patterns -- even without a very extensive analysis, and without reaching back into history.
For example, there seem to be "murder - suicide clusters" in certain places in the town. For example, my parents' house adjoins two homes where people either committed suicide, committed murder, or both. The "murder suicide house" was built in the 1960s -- it was an ugly yellow two-story ranch house at the end of a long drive. Their lot was long, and the back part adjoined my parents' lot. I would never have known about the history of the house, except that my parents wanted me to purchase the house in order to secure the acreage and to have adjoining lots. I might have been interested -- the price seemed relatively reasonable -- except for the knowledge of what had happened there. There was no way that I would occupy a house where a doctor, who, receiving the news of terminal illness, decided to kill himself and his severely disabled wife.
That house was next door to a house where, 30 years or so earlier, a suicide had taken place. It was the mother of one of my classmates. I think it happened when we were in 5th grade, but I may be wrong. It could have been when we were in junior high school. At any rate, it was most definitely a tragedy. I had no way of truly comprehending it at the time, and I'm not sure I would be able to do so now. It's very disturbing.
Another violent cluster exists on the west side of Norman, near the edge of the South Canadian River. Back in the 1960s, two teen-agers were murdered in their car where they were presumably making out. It became the "Murder of Lover's Lane" and achieved a bit of notoriety for the fact that it was widely believed that a corrupt, dissolute cop had killed them. Why? Who knows. He was known to have been a kind of voyeuristic "bad cop."
How is this a cluster? I had not thought of in that way until a few weeks ago, police dug up a woman who had been murdered, ostensibly by her lover (and not a bad cop), and then buried in the back yard of a house for sale that had been unoccupied for more than eight months.
What linked the two? Crimes of passion. Crimes of perversity.
In the case of murder/suicide, I'd say they were crimes of despair.
I recently watched the TV footage of all the immolations sweeping north Africa, and I was reminded of images from Vietnam, when Buddhist monks immolated themselves in order to shock / horrify the populace to realize how civil war was, in essence, self-immolation -- exceedingly painful and ultimately self-destructive. Needless to say, the gesture fell on deaf ears.
However, immolation sort of gained a foothold in the U.S. during the 1960s -- not because the self-immolators wanted to show how they were a sublime metaphor for what was going on. No, the American self-immolation gesture was almost always something else -- an expression of despair and self-hatred; a cry for help gone horribly awry; the ultimate narcissistic gesture not to say self-loving, but to say that my pain is bigger than anyone else's, and I have to express it in this over-the-top, grandiose way -- and -- oops, well, it hurts, and, oops -- it's fatal.
I deeply respect the Buddhist monks' view. I only wish they had not felt the need to kill themselves to get their point across (a point which was never gotten across anyway). Yes. Civil war does the same thing as setting yourself on fire. You burn. You suffer extreme pain. You ravage your body. And then -- either slowly or less slowly - you die, and people don't care that you suffered and died. So -- the end question is, why even bother with civil war? Why start it? Why not resist violent confrontation? If you wonder what it will do for you as a culture, just witness the monk's immolation. That's the dominant metaphor. Don't forget it.
People who see patterns are rarely rewarded unless it's a pony at Saratoga.
People who see the big picture metaphor in a person's work of art or self-sacrificial gesture of resistance are few and far between. They tend to be fellow artists or writers -- they don't have much political clout.
I don't know what to say except to express the opinion that to sacrifice oneself in order to create an enormous, all-encompassing metaphor usually ends badly. So, I say, just don't do it. Say what you need to say, but don't hurt yourself. Focus on the sweetness of life. Of course, that's hard to do when you're feeling so much existential pain that all you can do is resonate with the great, global weltzschmertz / world pain that, in your own living, breathing experience, is overwhelmingly painful.
Don't give up, my friend.
We've all been there. For a guy, it might be a gun. For a women, it might be pills and an eating disorder. The weltzschmertz takes no prisoners.
But, somehow, patterns do. So, my thought is this - if you find yourself in a very destructive pattern, consider moving. There have to be "lucky" places as well as haunted and cursed, right? Go to a happy place and heal. Then, take stock of your life an think about what you might do in the future.
In the case of a person, it may not seem to remarkable that the same things seem to happen to them -- after all, they're making choices, and the choices are going to align with their tastes and proclivities, right?
In the case of places, it's sort of different. It makes me wonder if there are certain vibrations or resonances that create a situation where people behave in similar ways. I'm not talking about the obvious things -- people go swimming near bodies of water, or do daredevilish things near cliffs. I'm thinking of something that causes people to behave as though certain places were haunted, or that there might be the presence of spirits that compell people to behave in certain ways.
Case in point: Norman, Oklahoma
I've been in touch with Norman and Norman's history to be able to detect patterns -- even without a very extensive analysis, and without reaching back into history.
For example, there seem to be "murder - suicide clusters" in certain places in the town. For example, my parents' house adjoins two homes where people either committed suicide, committed murder, or both. The "murder suicide house" was built in the 1960s -- it was an ugly yellow two-story ranch house at the end of a long drive. Their lot was long, and the back part adjoined my parents' lot. I would never have known about the history of the house, except that my parents wanted me to purchase the house in order to secure the acreage and to have adjoining lots. I might have been interested -- the price seemed relatively reasonable -- except for the knowledge of what had happened there. There was no way that I would occupy a house where a doctor, who, receiving the news of terminal illness, decided to kill himself and his severely disabled wife.
That house was next door to a house where, 30 years or so earlier, a suicide had taken place. It was the mother of one of my classmates. I think it happened when we were in 5th grade, but I may be wrong. It could have been when we were in junior high school. At any rate, it was most definitely a tragedy. I had no way of truly comprehending it at the time, and I'm not sure I would be able to do so now. It's very disturbing.
Another violent cluster exists on the west side of Norman, near the edge of the South Canadian River. Back in the 1960s, two teen-agers were murdered in their car where they were presumably making out. It became the "Murder of Lover's Lane" and achieved a bit of notoriety for the fact that it was widely believed that a corrupt, dissolute cop had killed them. Why? Who knows. He was known to have been a kind of voyeuristic "bad cop."
How is this a cluster? I had not thought of in that way until a few weeks ago, police dug up a woman who had been murdered, ostensibly by her lover (and not a bad cop), and then buried in the back yard of a house for sale that had been unoccupied for more than eight months.
What linked the two? Crimes of passion. Crimes of perversity.
In the case of murder/suicide, I'd say they were crimes of despair.
I recently watched the TV footage of all the immolations sweeping north Africa, and I was reminded of images from Vietnam, when Buddhist monks immolated themselves in order to shock / horrify the populace to realize how civil war was, in essence, self-immolation -- exceedingly painful and ultimately self-destructive. Needless to say, the gesture fell on deaf ears.
However, immolation sort of gained a foothold in the U.S. during the 1960s -- not because the self-immolators wanted to show how they were a sublime metaphor for what was going on. No, the American self-immolation gesture was almost always something else -- an expression of despair and self-hatred; a cry for help gone horribly awry; the ultimate narcissistic gesture not to say self-loving, but to say that my pain is bigger than anyone else's, and I have to express it in this over-the-top, grandiose way -- and -- oops, well, it hurts, and, oops -- it's fatal.
I deeply respect the Buddhist monks' view. I only wish they had not felt the need to kill themselves to get their point across (a point which was never gotten across anyway). Yes. Civil war does the same thing as setting yourself on fire. You burn. You suffer extreme pain. You ravage your body. And then -- either slowly or less slowly - you die, and people don't care that you suffered and died. So -- the end question is, why even bother with civil war? Why start it? Why not resist violent confrontation? If you wonder what it will do for you as a culture, just witness the monk's immolation. That's the dominant metaphor. Don't forget it.
People who see patterns are rarely rewarded unless it's a pony at Saratoga.
People who see the big picture metaphor in a person's work of art or self-sacrificial gesture of resistance are few and far between. They tend to be fellow artists or writers -- they don't have much political clout.
I don't know what to say except to express the opinion that to sacrifice oneself in order to create an enormous, all-encompassing metaphor usually ends badly. So, I say, just don't do it. Say what you need to say, but don't hurt yourself. Focus on the sweetness of life. Of course, that's hard to do when you're feeling so much existential pain that all you can do is resonate with the great, global weltzschmertz / world pain that, in your own living, breathing experience, is overwhelmingly painful.
Don't give up, my friend.
We've all been there. For a guy, it might be a gun. For a women, it might be pills and an eating disorder. The weltzschmertz takes no prisoners.
But, somehow, patterns do. So, my thought is this - if you find yourself in a very destructive pattern, consider moving. There have to be "lucky" places as well as haunted and cursed, right? Go to a happy place and heal. Then, take stock of your life an think about what you might do in the future.
I'm at that point, and it's surprisingly pleasant.
A video shot at a rest stop on old Route 66 in the Texas Panhandle.
A video shot at a rest stop on old Route 66 in the Texas Panhandle.
Friday, February 11, 2011
SkyBook - Yesterday's Facebook: A Page from Tinguely's Journal
How did they all happen upon that particular architecture? Every child who has ever experimented with blocks has found that the most stable edifice is a pyramid, so perhaps it's not so earth-shattering as it may seem that so many people decided to try their hand at a pyramid.
But still, why is it that they seem to have so much in common?
What if the solutions are in the stars?
Let's think about this.
Back in 1,000 BC, the stars were absolutely brilliant. They were bright. The constellations were in your face. Imagine the night of a new moon. The moon could be so bright there could be moon shadows. It's hard to imagine from the vantage point of today's cities.
Brilliant stars, maps in the skies. The night sky was so fascinating I'm sure that during the new moon people dragged around exhausted during the day after staying up all night watching the skies.
What were they watching?
What if they were looking at star-based blueprints? What if there were blueprints for buildings, structures, etc? Okay -- and let's get more extreme -- what if the sky was yesterday's Internet -- a shared repository of image-based knowledge. Images blended with oral traditions. It was a scary time. Very little was written, scratched in stone, or carved into cuneiform.
Forget mp3 files. Forget avi. Forget everything that could be made dead, like paper.
With digital spontaneity, are we more like the star-gazers than the Francis Baconian "New Atlantis" Royal Society types? A printed page is static.
Oral tradition and knowledge gleaned from the ever-moving skies are fluid, and aggressively mediated by society and human desire.
Knowledge gained through social networking is fluid, ever-evolving, mediated by human desire (and tools -- technology).
Tools of transmission: technology.
Ancient technologies? Tools of transmission? What were they?
The stars themselves, but oral tradition -- frozen (and ultimately misrepresented) by glyphs, cuneiform, diagrams, art.
At any rate, it's food for thought.
Friday, January 21, 2011
The Perry Mason Time Travel Diaries: Into the Film Noir of Our Lives
The cat-and-mouse game seems, at first blush, to be with Lt Tragg and DA Hamilton Burger (Los Angeles -- pronounced often with a hard "g") and with law and order, but each episode reveals that the true cat-and-mouse is with Occam's Razor, and the facile assumptions that flow from appearances. If any two-word slogan could epitomize Perry, it would be "appearances deceive."
Over the last year, there have been a few times when, after weeks and weeks of pushing myself to work 18-hour days (okay -- I'm including tennis in that calculation -- take out tennis, and you've got 15 - 16-hour days), I've taken to my warm, comfortable, and rather small upstairs bedroom. With a laptop on my lap, and my portable DVD player at my side, I sit, propped up with pillows and in soft flannel pajamas (and fluffy slippers) -- working on various projects from work, while watching episode after episode of Perry Mason. I love the theme -- the 1965 version of the theme song totally grooves; there is a baritone sax melodic line that is absolutely unforgettable; it gets into your veins, nerves, organs, even -- and you just groove with that dark, smoky, intimate sound until tears come to your eyes.
I'm not sure which episodes I prefer. Most Perry Mason aficionados seem to think that the first and second seasons are the best. I will say that Perry is much more rogue-ish, and some of the lines seem to be double-entendres of the most shameless stripe (in "The Sulky Girl" Perry says he's holding out for a "sulky boy" -- which, if you're a viewer who has not been watching closely and do not realize he's referring to the impending birth of a child of his client, a hard-to-handle "sulky" heiress -- strikes you as amazingly outre.
It's one of those golden closeted moments -- Perry Mason -- represented by Raymond Burr, a gay actor who had invented an entire mythology of heterosexuality, including three wives (who died tragically), a son (who tragically perished from leukemia), a heroic sojourn in the Marines (Iwo Jima?), education at Ivy League schools, and a childhood in China -- when you just can't believe he's outing himself in such a bold way, with no "wink-wink / nod-nod" but a explicit, sexually honest statement about his animating urges...
Well, upon re-watching the episode, the actual context made the line, "I'm holding out for a sulky boy" quite pedestrian, even patriarchal -- the girl heiress had been such a handful, that it was perceived as quite natural to root for the birth of a boy -- not only would he preserve the line, he would also serve as a sane, stabilizing male force.
Lovely ironic double-entendres -- I think they were probably unconscious -- but perhaps not.
In other episodes, Della advocates for the "damsel in distress" potential client by pointing out her physical attributes: "she's quite lovely" etc. Perry always takes the bait, and takes on a client that, presumably, he would have spurned, if she were old, plain, or simply uninteresting.
The frumpy clients always have a certain "je ne sais quoi" quality -- that either makes them pathetic ugly ducklings (where "nature's green is gold") with potential; or aging and/or indigent clients whose personalities serve as foils to Perry & Co. -- showing the dark, noirish, yet noble qualities of Perry, Della Street, and Paul Drake. In one episode, the formula was put on its head via a disconcerting off-the-cuff exchange: Della Street: "Perry, she's quite lovely" to which Perry retorts to ask why she never describes the men --
If you don't know the true sexual orientation of the cast, it's easy to applaud Perry's statement as a proto-feminist freedom-fighting against sexism.
However, if you know the true sexual orientation, the statement is filled with irony, wonder, and a deep, dark acknowledgment of the human condition.
In fact, it's this darkness, this subtle world of the double-entendre that most attracts me to the first two seasons. On the other hand, the later seasons pull me in because of the fundamental darkness of consciousness itself, where Perry Mason distinguishes himself with anti-communist / anti-progressive pontificating, while still plunging into the heart of darkness -- into the worlds inhabited by troubled, conflicted, flawed protagonists who repeatedly self-destruct, self-immolate, and psychologically self-mutilate -- they become reminders of how fragile the human psyche is. In doing so, the later episodes of Perry Mason are amazing tributes to individualism and the notion of deliverance as something radically courageous because it allows the individual to be multi-faceted, complex, and often contradictory; and yet, in the end, a symbol (or entire narrative) of salvation.
So, when I sit in bed, sipping hot coffee laced with gingerbread-flavored coffeemate and sweetened with stevia, stretching out in my flannel and micro-fiber fluffy slippers, I'm drawn to the darkness behind the personae -- after all, aren't we all in the same boat... ? My public persona is very tailored -- I prefer dark jackets, white blouses, narrow skirts (think flight attendant garb); it's a corporate uniform. Yet, I know I have to pay a high price for all those days when I'm "on" and I'm in all-day meetings and am aggressively launching / promoting / facilitating programs and concepts. I'm aware of the darkness within -- in my case, it's all about self-doubt. In the Perry Mason "noir" world, it's all about longing, fear, despair, envy, loss, hunger, and -- above all -- helplessness. There's "Rage Against the Machine" but how about "Rage Against Existential Helplessness"?
Noir is incredibly seductive. The honesty it engenders transcends words. It's freedom through honesty -- existential honesty. It takes a lot of effort to overcome the cognitive dissonance we have to deal with when we muscle our own identities into compliance with what the world seems to be telling us what we should be (I guess you could say that we pay a price as we go into a socialization process)....
Best case - it requires energy to adjust ourselves so we can enter the stream -- reminds me of the way natural gas has to be compressed in order to be able to enter the pipeline, which only takes line pressures that are sufficiently high --
Also well, it takes a lot of effort to beat ourselves into submission.
Film noir openly acknowledges -- even celebrates -- the fears and insecurities that drive people to beat themselves into submission; and, the fears and insecurities that accompany those who tried to beat themselves into submission -- to conform to the status quo -- and who failed...
I'm not sure if I'm making my point, or if I'm expressing myself with sufficient clarity ...
But I want to explore this topic and I welcome your thoughts and responses.
Also well, it takes a lot of effort to beat ourselves into submission.
Film noir openly acknowledges -- even celebrates -- the fears and insecurities that drive people to beat themselves into submission; and, the fears and insecurities that accompany those who tried to beat themselves into submission -- to conform to the status quo -- and who failed...
I'm not sure if I'm making my point, or if I'm expressing myself with sufficient clarity ...
But I want to explore this topic and I welcome your thoughts and responses.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Ashley Jay: Response to Valerie Fox's The Glass Book
Writing Assignment / Journal Based on Valerie Fox’s The Glass Book. Free pdf of the "lite" version; gorgeous printed version here.
Thought Block 1: "They Know About Fish"
Scenes of a small cold ocean side town, with lots of family owned storefronts. No big department stores, just the mom and pop stores. The town shuts down on Sunday. Everyone is trusting and believes there town is very safe. The way the towns’ people just flock to these men does bring to mind reality TV. It is liked the show “Punked”; these to men go in acting like they are something that they are not. Then in the end the truth comes out, however, they did not want it to. The viewer believes the men are telling the truth so they promote the fact that these men are really what they say. The “fishermen” go on telling stories about the sea and the fish they have caught. Telling stories is a great way to bring people in to the lies you are telling, the better the story the more people believe. Authenticity in this situation is explaining about fishing and being a fisherman. To be authentic in my opinion is to be true and honest. Just being you, whether that is being mean, nice, or in-between.
Thought Block 2: “The cornmeal ceiling, The furry couch”
This poem makes me feel like I am watching someone’s dream unfold. Its like I am watching from afar someone’s daydream, his or her subconscious is jumping all over the place. It is making for a very interesting story. The person starts out by worrying about another man and a child. Almost like he is self-conscious. Then it grabs my attention by the person being a rider on a greyhound bus. So that kind of explains why the person would be saying the comment about the other person and the child. Then it jumps to a nun, then a scarecrow in front of a seminary. It really jumps from subject to subject but the writer does a good job of in a subtle way to tie it all together. Toward the end I kind of was wondering of the cornmeal ceiling and the furry couch come into the mix. I envision the writer is speaking of himself or herself at the end of a long hard day. The cornmeal is the popcorn ceiling; the furry couch is where they have been perched at all day working hard. This poem goes with stories that are very image driven, that do not come out and say what they are saying, however the writer paints a picture as they go. Almost like Alfred Hitchcock shows. Alain Robbe-Grillet used imagery and repetition to drive his readers to the point he was trying to make. When reading his stories you really had to pay attention and study the subtle description of the story line. I find this kind of reading to be very interesting and enjoyable.
Though Block 3: Collision Course
In the first poem the fishermen are on a collision course with themselves. The truth of what they truly are, just plain outdoorsmen not fishermen at all. In the second poem the person is on a course with himself and the reality of the person they have become. In all the poems it seems that people are trying to find him or her or something. What will happen in the end, I think will be a mixture of good and bad. Some people will be happy and some will be sad. I think they are all in the location of searching for who and what they really are and want to be. Some of the encounters are positive and some are very threatening and scary. I think that the stronger people are sometimes the ones you have to watch out for. They may seem like the ones that have it all together, however, they are the ones that fall the hardest once left to do things alone. I sense an increasing fragility among people. With the finance strain that many Americans are facing it is easy to get depressed. It seems like every day you hear of someone losing their job, house, or something devastating happening to them and it is easy to just give up hope. If I were writing about and odd place in my life it would be about the constant change of a career and major in college choice. One day it is nursing, then teacher, then and hospital administration. The list goes on and I am at the point were I have to make a choice and I am scared to jump.
Step 3: a response
There is this girl she is 27
This girl needs to find her way
There our lots of paths this girl can take
This girl is at the point where she has to choose and take one
There is a lot of fear in this girl
This girl’s biggest fear is failure
There is only one way this girl will fail
That is by just sitting back and doing nothing
This girl will make a choice
There is no truning back for this girl
She has made her choice and will succeed with all she does.
Note: Ashley Jay's response to Valerie Fox's poetry / poetics was written in conjunction with an English Composition course at Florida State College Jacksonville / Fall 2010.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)