Small World

I haven't watched "Jersey Shore," but a few coworkers have, and have talked about it more than a bit. That show seems to have captured a bit of a pop cultural moment. I'm amused, in that my hometown of long ago (Youngstown) was sometimes known as "Little Hoboken" (!!!) and, in some ways, there is a bit of cultural affinity one can find between dwellers of Youngstown and folks in New Jersey -- what plays in New Jersey is likely to play in Youngstown, in some way. You can almost count on it. Anyway, Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi is apparently emerging as the "star" of that show, surely swilling down her 15 minutes of fame. I was amazed to read that she's only 4'9" -- wow. THAT is tiny. That's only about three inches taller than B1, for god's sake (I mean, he's a tall boy, but still, wow). Tiny, tiny chick.

Mission Statement

Damn. Mission of Burma are coming back to Chicago, for the Wicker Park Music Festival. I saw them the last time they were in town, at Double Door, and they were fantastic. Truly, one of the best small-venue shows I've ever seen. I'm tempted to see them again, EXCEPT that it would mean cooling my heels in Wicker Park, where you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a hipster. Never mind that Wicker Park's been gentrifying for the past decade, or that its best years were another decade before then (and even then, not so swell) -- the WP is still a hipster haven, and the prospect of being there with all the too-cool-for-school motionless minions would be tough to take. I will give Mission of Burma credit at Double Door -- they brought it, and that show actually had an incredible dynamic where they actually broke through the wall of Too Self-Conscious To Dance-ishness that plagues so many shows -- they just did it through sheer chops and performance skill. That show was organic and impressive, a living thing, and by the end, everybody was jumping around and howling, completely transported. But that was in a small indoor venue -- at a festival, it's trickier. I dunno. I likely won't go, although I'm sorely tempted. Mission of Burma are such a good band, I'm glad they've been touring steadily since their reunion. Some bands just ride reunion tours and phone it in, but Misison of Burma bring it. It's better than Wicker Park deserves! Hah!

Kalamazoo River Oil Spill

Nice going, Michigan. Michiganders. Pffff. Just what we need, an oil slick on Lake Michigan. Were they envious at all the attention the Gulf was getting or something? Lordy. This article doesn't cover it, but the Kalamazoo River flows swiftly, and feeds into Lake Michigan, which is about 80 miles away from the site of the disaster.

It reminds me of a pizzeria job I worked around 1992, where this total clod was working in the back, and he was just worthless, a total drag on our crew -- he'd sing "Rumpshaker" all day and would dance around and was gloating about how he was joining the Air Force. And another coworker and I were commenting on it to each other, and I said "Someday, we're going to read about planes falling out of the sky, and it's because HE'S gonna be the one doing the rivets on the jets." Then we mimed hip-hop dancing to "Rumpshaker" and working a riveting gun haphazardly. "Shake baby shake baby one, two, three..."

Power Games

Saw this curious article in the Chicago READER today.

While who knows if or whether this guy's invention would work, the real roadblock to alternative energy revolves around centralization of energy resources. That's the irony of it all -- Democrat or Republican, control of power is the main sticking point, where moving forward is concerned. Because many of the alternative energy resources (particularly wind and solar) allow at least the potential for decentralization of the power grid. The "virtue" of existing fuels is control of supply -- whether oil or natural gas or coal (or even "alternatives" like oil shales and ethanol) -- you have a company controlling the supply of the energy source. That plays handily into the cartel model of energy production that keeps everybody else dependent on the supplier (think of DeBeers and their diamonds, how zealously and jealously they control production there -- it's actually quite striking the measures they take to ensure control). And even nuclear, the most-likely to be implemented "alternative" energy source is one that is tightly-controlled and centralized (which, in my view, is why it's the likeliest to be fully realized).

The "problem" with wind and solar is that if the right approach is used, it would allow individuals to become their own energy producers. It's no accident that the existing model for even these alternatives is having solar and wind farms -- trying to centralize these alternative energy sources, and keeping them "behind the wall," brokered by energy companies.

The biggest nightmare of the power brokers is a decentralized energy grid, because suddenly people would no longer be dependent on a company for their power needs (sure, the wind and solar suppliers would still have a market, but the centralized power company, whether oil, coal, natural gas, or nuclear -- would be extinct).

Fundamentally, it's about control, as is so much in our society. People generate their own power, grow their own food, what need is there for a State? You'll see -- while they won't frame it that way (because of what it implies), centralization of power will continue to be the shadow hanging over the energy debate, and the goal will be keeping everybody dependent on power companies and utilities for their energy needs, regardless of the actual energy delivered.

Pasted

Here is one of the wheatpasted collage bits I saw (alluded to in the earlier post). There are a number of them peppered around the city...

I'm pleased with the colors of this picture, actually. It came out nicer than I thought it would.

Busin' etc.

The bus ride home was packed with amusements; lots of material I soaked up like a sponge. Totally got a short story out of the raw material. Just jotted notes to create it. A literary story, nothing genre.

I had a kind of epiphany today -- namely, that nobody sets out to write a Literary story -- that the whole "Literary" idea is bullshit. There are simply stories that stand the test of time, and those that don't. And the ones that survive become "Literature" -- regardless of their origins. Yesterday's "Genre" fiction become today's "Literature" and tomorrow's "Classics." Not all, naturally. Most vanish, but I think that's really how it happens.

Which is why the so-called "Literary" shit so many acolytes of the NYC Litfic industry churn out are just so bankrupt artistically -- exercises in pointlessness. Things that Litfic types sneer at -- you know, ephemera like "plot" -- are what make stories stories. And these colorless waifs, these paragons of Litfic, they work strenuously to write evocatively about ultimately nothing.

I mean, Stephen King wrote horror fiction, yes? And he was hugely popular in his day, of course, while the Litfic types generally shunned him. By his own admission, he wrote "salami" -- he admired writers like Joyce Carol Oates, among others. However, isn't it likely that some (certainly not all) of his books will stand the test of time? Already he's become a kind of literary elder statesman, earning some grudging plaudits from the avatars of good literary taste. Perhaps belatedly, or perhaps it's a bowing to the inevitable, I'm not sure. I mean, I read King as a teen, and stopped reading him after high school, but what's the separate King from, say, Robert Louis Stevenson or Jules Verne, except the span of time? It will be impossible to discuss fiction in the 20th Century without referring to Stephen King.

Then again, maybe people will have all but stopped reading in a century, and we won't be discussing literature at all.

I saw a "Manga Explains Physics" book at the bookstore -- basically a comic book explaining physics. The initial amusement factor if it hit me straightaway, like "Funny!" but then I thought "Wow. Maybe this is how ALL books will look in another 20 years. Maybe it'll all be a comic book."

Yikes.

Bedbuggery

Way to go, New York City: Bedbug capital of the world! Apparently some other cities are experiencing this bedbug renaissance, too. Nice to know that NYC is leading the charge on bedbugs. Maybe too many unwashed hipsters there? Just a thought.

We (Culture) Jammin'

I forgot to mention something amusing from the other day. While going through my 'hood, I passed these three whey-faced younglings who looked like they were Up To Something Serious(tm), striding purposefully past me -- army jackets? Check. Chuck Taylors? Check. Black stovepipe jeans? Check. Art Institute of Chicago bags? Check. I noted them in passing, couldn't help it. Serious, serious business. Anyway, I noted them, without paying too much attention, as I was en route to someplace else. Then later that day, I saw that somebody had wheatpasted these collage-poems (I snapped a photo of one; I should post it this evening) throughout the 'hood. All over the place, a bunch of them.

But the funny thing, the punchline, is that I think I found one of their IDs -- I saw it on the street while going to get some groceries, and I saw this ID sitting there in the street, was like "What's THIS?" and I picked it up and saw that it was (I am nearly sure) one of the Pop Cultural Commandos I had seen! I'm sure she's shitting biscuits between bong hits, like "Dooood, where's my ID?? Fawwwwk!"

I pocketed the ID, and thought at first that I'd just mail it back to them (if I can find them -- their name was pretty distinctive, so it should be fairly easy to sleuth'em out). But then I thought about making a little bit of conceptual art to contain their ID and THEN mail it back to them. Then they'd be  like "Dooood! My fawking ID that I thought was lost came back to me in THIS!" and then they see the little thing I created to house their ID. I'm still mulling it, but it amuses me just enough that I might do it. I was thinking of a box-within-a-box-within-a-box-within-a box or something like that. Different boxes. And the final one contains the ID, without sourcing or explanation. Bahah!

Note to would-be Cultural Commandos: don't carry your IDs on you when you go a'wheatpasting!

Lost Highway, found again

I'm tickled to see "Lost Highway" in the Onion's AV Club. It's one of my favorite David Lynch movies. People usually gush about "Eraserhead" and "Blue Velvet," and "Mulholland Drive," but "Lost Highway" is a keeper in so many ways -- a tasty, horrific lil' film noir with so much going for it, in terms of atmosphere. Some of the shots of it are so unsettling (one of my favorites is this slow pan of Pullman's character's bedroom, where the camera moves very slowly across it and you don't even realize you've gone into absolute darkness until you're already there -- wonderful shot).

I remember seeing it in the theaters when it came out, dragging a high school buddy to see it (Exene came along, too), sometime in 1997, when it came out. Hard to believe -- 27-year-old Dave! Long ago! Anyway, it was a stunning, horrifying movie. I remember walking out in a daze, everybody silent for about 20 minutes, and then my friend said "What the HELL was that movie all about?" I had my theories, and I expounded on them, what I thought had happened.

I think the "key" to "Lost Highway" is entirely there, and the ONION guy appears to mostly get it in his review. The key is Bill Pullman's talk of how he likes to remember things in his own way, not how they necessarily actually happened. That's it. And the two halves of the movie, in my view, reflect this dichotomy -- the impossible seems to happen midway through the movie, and we see what seems to be a second plot emerge out of the blue, but really, it's all interwoven -- it's all Pullman's nightmare, his fantasy -- he projects himself into that second plot, as somebody else. The second plot is really a shadow image of the original plot, what Pullman's character did to try to come to terms with what he actually did. The clues and keys are all there (especially in the VIDEO -- the videotaping is the key to it, because Pullman's character has this aversion to objective reality when it comes up against his ego, and so the videotape motif of it is vital to getting what was actually going on, versus what was appearing to go on. The video doesn't lie, and that's vital).

The trick of "Lost Highway" is that you have an unreliable narrator (really not a narrator, but an unreliable protagonist). Lynch's game he plays with the audience is having us, the audience, experience Pullman's character's world through his eyes, with reality periodically intruding and disturbing him (as reality surely must disturb the delusional). It's a brilliant movie (and is definitely a teste flight for what he did with "Mulholland Drive" -- which more people like, and which revisits those ideas he established in "Lost Highway.")

Pullman's character is so out of touch that he creates these extensions of self to shield his "real" (?) self from the consequences of his actions. It's kind of like "Fight Club" without the big revelation in the mix (and, again, video plays a role in that revelation, too, if you'll remember). The revelation in "Lost Highway" (which makes the movie make much more sense) is gradual, and isn't so nakedly apparent as in Fincher's movie.

Therein lies the brilliance of it -- people get distracted by Lynch's tendency to quirk the fuck out of his movies, but in this one, he trusted his audience to be sharp enough to get what was going on, without spoon-feeding them. The trouble is, most of his audience were Americans, not Europeans, so the indirect approach in his movie likely left people not sure what the hell was happening.

Seeing the ONION blurb above makes me want to get "Lost Highway" on DVD again. I loved that movie, and it's still one of my favorites of Lynch's. One of the best scenes in it, and scariest...

Mystery Man

Now, if you view the above as objective reality, then there's this bogeyman giving Bill Pullman shit at this party, and this entity is doing what seems to be impossible. But really, the Mystery Man is an extension of Pullman himself, and doesn't actually exist. He's a projection of his murderous guilt, essentially. The Mystery Man IS Pullman, and Pullman is the demonic Mystery Man. But Pullman sees himself as a good guy, not a demon, and so he recoils from this part of himself, and what horrible things that part of himself actually did.

Whensday

I woke up this morning momentarily disoriented, unsure what day it was. For a moment, I thought it was the weekend. Then I walked my mind through the days and realized where I was: Wednesday.

Today is a good day, I think. I signed the lease for the apartment -- just my name on it. My place! MINE! The new lease kicks in on October 1. Yippee! And it's about $40 less than my rent has been on the place, so how great is that? It rocks. Happy Dave!

It's humid as hell. I think it'll storm today.

While waiting for the bus this morning, I was amused at the automotive calvalcade -- life in the LP: a dozen BMWs cruising by, a handful of Audis, some Mercedes, a Porsche, some Lexuses (or is that "Lexi?" Hah). All the wealthies going their merry way, while I waited for my bus.

I'm looking forward to finding work in the Loop again. Then I can take the bus, the train, can bicycle, or even walk, if I wanted to. I love those kind of transportation options. I love living in the LP. It's a pricey neighborhood, but it's a great neighborhood, too.

School's Out

Stop the presses! Better-paid teachers and smaller class sizes yield better outcomes for the students?! You don't say!

The Case for the $320,000 Kindergarten Teacher

Our country's ambivalence toward education (and particularly, it's blowing off of primary education) is frustrating. Mortgaging the future for the sake of ideology. It's just stoooooopid.

The Whole Enchilada

I made chicken enchiladas yesterday. They were yummy! See?

Phairness Doctrine

I'm thrilled to see the backlash against Liz Phair of late -- that's been due for, what, 17 years? I've long, long been one of the Liz Phair dislikers -- I thought she was a cynical opportunist, an artistic fraud right out of the box. I liked "Stratford-On-Guy" (somewhat), but thought her masterpiece, "Exile in Guyville" -- her seminal, iconic, fuck-me feminist play-by-play that owed its very existence to the Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street" the way that "Ulysses" owed its existence to "The Odyssey" and "Ahab's Wife" (and "Lo's Diary") owe their existences to "Moby-Dick" and "Lolita" -- I thought it was decidedly mediocre. It was only because Liz Phair was who she was that it gained any legs at all.

Meta. Meta. Meta to the bone. That alone bugs the bejeezus out of me. The novelty of a young woman singing dirty songs and swearing and ginning up her posh Winnetka life with tales of the mean streets of Wicker Park (haha -- I think she spent a few months dicking around in Wicker Park in its heady early 90s days when there was a scene of sorts there, but she came from the rarefied air of Winnetka, not the whitebread gritty fauxhemia of Wicker Park) -- it was intoxicating to a generation of hipsters and scenesters and indie rock dickheads and [prefix of choice]-feminists.

And the thing is, as a con goes, Phair triumphed -- by and large, these folks swallowed the swindle (a few notable standouts were Steve Albini, who was onto it from the start, and wrote about it, famously referring to Phair and Urge Overkill and Smashing Pumpkins as "the three pandering sluts"). It was the Great Train Robbery, and Phair was Ronnie Biggs.

Liz Phair, Pheminist.

Anyway, I think Phair was conning people at the outset, which was why her subsequent efforts were so artistically bankrupt even as she did things like marrying her producer and tapping Pop music svengalis to try to spin off some more hits for her. But each effort brought ever-diminishing returns -- without the meta-album conceit to fall back on and frame her work for her, Phair's already-meager talents were worn threadbare, until the half-clad Indie Empress was finding herself without a stitch -- which wasn't something she was particular averse to, since it was part of her shtick, anyway. Like Sheryl Crow's sluttier younger sister, basically (and no doubt Crow offered Phair a kind of roadmap for that bland commercial empty success Phair was surely striving for).

Still, St. Liz was unassailable for such a long time (what I'd call the "Phairness Doctrine" -- basically, anything Phair did was apologized for and explained away), by the same acolytes and music journalists that had swilled the pop cultural Kool-Aid to begin with -- having already checked their aesthetics at the door in 1993, they had already invested their egos in her, and were reluctant to cop to the fraud without admitting that they were as full of shit as Phair was, or that they had been fooled.

Until now, apparently. In her latest musical debacle, "Funstyle," her acolytes are scratching their heads and wondering what the hell Phair is up to. Rapping on one of the tunes, lamenting the crass commercialism of the music industry (only lamenting it because her efforts to cash in had ultimately failed) and so on. Even Indie Rock Dickheads without peer like Pitchfork are what-the-fucking this latest release (as you can see here).


The challenge her fans and apologists face is accepting that they were duped at the outset (and Phair certainly deserves credit for tapping a perfect zeitgeist moment with "Exile in Guyville" -- she certainly was in the right place at the right time with that effort, pulling a Jedi Mind Trick on so many people). So, I'm enjoying watching and hearing people come to terms with this new album in various ways -- mostly centered around either denial (like "What was she thinking?") or a kind of qualified acceptance (like "Well, it's not SO terrible.") to angry rejection (like "She's insane. This is SHIT!") Charlatans, one and all, facing (or about-facing) an epiphany.

My beefs with Phair were manifold -- false Indie Rock/Alternative; the meta-album template leading to her singular triumph; the lack of much to sing about or musical talent on her part; the shameless, calculated chasing after commercialism (while at the same time carrying her Indier Than Thou creds in her back pocket, like a hairbrush); the notion of Phair as some kind of ur-feminist icon "voice of a generation" (without actually carving out much in the way of new ground, beyond "fuck-me feminism" -- which isn't much of a feminism at all) -- all of these bugged me (and worse, how critiques of Phair were often derided for being anti-feminist, when really it was anti-bullshit -- I mean, The Strokes were as annoying to me as Phair was, when they had their day in the sun).


Anyway, it's cool to see this latest effort flame out so mightily, as it might finally bury Phair once and for all! Life's not Phair! Woo hoo! It's over. She's over. It took 17 years, but stick a fork in her: she's done.