> Pleasure Principles
> By TOM WOLFE
> MARSHALL McLUHAN waited for the reporter's lips, mine, in fact, to stop
> moving, leaned back in his seat in the rear garden of that year's (1967)
> restaurant of the century, Lutčce, looked up at a brilliant blue New
> York-in-May sky, lifted a forefinger and twirled it above his head in a loop
> that took in the 30-, 40-, 50-story buildings that rose all around and said,
> apropos of nothing anybody at the table had been talking about:
>
> "Of course, a city like New York is obsolete. People will no longer
> concentrate in great urban centers for the purpose of work. New York will
> become a Disneyland, a pleasure dome ..."
>
> At that stage of his mutation from unknown Canadian English teacher to
> communications swami and international celebrity, cryptic, Delphic, baffling,
> preposterous predictions were McLuhan's trump suit. Intellectuals argued over
> whether he was a genius or a dingbat. If the case of New York is any proof,
> however, the man was a pure genius.
>
> Twenty-first century New York is fast becoming what Marshall McLuhan saw as he
> looked up in that garden out back at Lutčce almost 40 years ago: a
> one-industry town, strictly in the pleasure dome business, with a single sales
> pitch, "You're Gonna Love Gothamland."
>
> When it comes to the industries that created the metropolis 100 years ago, New
> York, like many big American cities, is a ghost town. Manufacturing, most
> notably New York's once famous garment industry, has moved to sweatier shops
> in China, Thailand, Mexico and Fiji. Mainstream retail has long since departed
> for the suburban "edge cities" Joel Garreau writes about. New York's original
> reason for being, shipping, is so far gone that the great piers on the Hudson
> River are now used for everything from an aircraft carrier welded to a dock as
> a museum to a golf driving range with a net to keep the balls from landing in
> the water.
>
> Real estate development and the construction industry have never recovered
> from the commercial real estate crash of the 1990's that left nearly 60
> million square feet of office space vacant, much of it in lonely and still
> unlovable Lower Manhattan. In terms of the location of the big investment
> firms, Wall Street today should be called Sixth Avenue and Broadway. Moreover,
> it is now obvious that there is no sound economic or geographical reason a
> financial market should consist of a great mob of men with sopping dark
> half-moons on their shirts beneath their armpits flailing about on "the floor"
> of some antiquated "stock exchange"... or in New York at all. The hemorrhaging
> of corporate headquarters from New York during the 1990's was stanched finally
> by a drug available only in Manhattan - Lunch.
>
> Many a chief executive who knew it would save his corporation a fortune if he
> moved it to Pleasantville, Cincinnati or South Orange could not conceive of
> ... life without Lunch ... that daily celebration of his royalty at the sort
> of peculiarly Manhattan restaurant where a regular ensemble of maîtres d' and
> captains hovers about the great man and his guests cooing sweet nothings in
> movie French ...where nothing so vulgar as a three-martini lunch ensues but,
> rather, a refined one-gallon-of-Côtes-du-Rhône lunch ... and his majesty the
> chief executive feeds in a supragustatory bliss upon Brazil-nut-and
> rosemary-encrusted day-boat halibut lying on a bed of millet infused with a
> double fermentation of malbec grape ... and the waiters arrive bearing the
> artistry of a chef for whom the owners of this restaurant, this month's
> restaurant of the century, all five years of it, combed the earth.
>
> Such an ambrosial experience is a product not of the food industry but of the
> pleasure dome. None of Gothamland's stocks in trade are tangible. Rather, all
> offer the sheer excitement, even euphoria, of being ... "where things are
> happening."
>
> Humanity comes to New York not to buy clothes but, rather ... Fashion ...not
> to see musicals and plays but to experience "Broadway," which resembles the
> turn-of-the-19th-century trolley town one finds himself in upon entering
> Disneyland in California. If the traffic on Broadway should ever lack
> congestion, if the people ever stop spilling over the sidewalks and out into
> the street, if they ever stop hyperventilating in a struggle to get to the
> will-call window before the curtain goes up, the producers and theater owners
> should hire hordes of the city's unemployed actors to serve as extras and
> recreate it all.
>
> Millions roam New York's art museums each year, not to enjoy the artwork but
> to experience the ineffable presence of ...Culture. People throng Yankee
> Stadium game after game, season after season, not to see the Yankees play, not
> this year's Yankees, as the fellow might say, but to inhale ...The Myth ...
>
> Which brings us to the fate of the West Side stadium proposal. In the short
> run, it may look like a foolish expenditure of billions desperately - it's
> inevitably desperate, government's "need" for money - desperately needed
> elsewhere. In the McLuhan-length run, however, a few billion might prove to be
> a bargain, especially if it led straight to holding an event the magnitude of
> the Olympics in New York. After all, what does our city now live on? Why,
> something about as solid as a sharp intake of breath: the world's impression
> that Gothamland and only Gothamland ...is where things are happening.
Good for Mr. Wolfe. He always knew when to archetypalize McLuhanąs cliches.
However, Tom could have used my stuff to better update his replays. For
example:
łFashion... ŚBroadwayą... Culture... Myth... Gothamland˛ = Memes, but
particularly today = after-images of memes.
łLunch˛, however, is a figure for the real ground of the łNineties˛ - the
rise of the AP (Anthropomorphical Physical).
Tom conveniently leaves out an aphorism that he actually first evoked from
McLuhan (a TVOntario interview in 1972): łIąve always been very careful
never to predict anything that had not already happened.˛
This quote is found on p.172 of UNDERSTANDING ME (2003). Stephanie and David
claim itąs from 1970 but not true. The łArthur Bremer˛ reference on p.170
refers to the shooting of George Wallace in 1972.
Meanwhile, we are way past the era of the Android Meme and one useful
insight that I got from this article is the reason why France voted against
the EU: Paris is now assured of the 2012 Olympics since thatąs all the
ancient łglobalizers˛ can and would offer as the terms for łmaking up˛ after
the recent spat. I think the French knew this. They think they need memes,
too.
Oh, and another insight: More proof of the death of the Android Meme New
York rejected the West Side Stadium, thereby losing the Olympics. The Meme
ainąt what it used to be!!
However, thereąs lots of room and time for the AP to do a little
arm-twisting 7 years, to be exact. It isnąt over Śtil the Chinese
implement the new cold fusion technology.
The GREAT Bob Dobbs
> From Today's New York Times:
>
>> Pleasure Principles
>
>> By TOM WOLFE
>
>> MARSHALL McLUHAN waited for the reporter's lips, mine, in fact, to stop
>> moving, leaned back in his seat in the rear garden of that year's (1967)
>> restaurant of the century, Lutčce, looked up at a brilliant blue New
>> York-in-May sky, lifted a forefinger and twirled it above his head in a loop
>> that took in the 30-, 40-, 50-story buildings that rose all around and said,
>> apropos of nothing anybody at the table had been talking about:
>>
>> "Of course, a city like New York is obsolete. People will no longer
>> concentrate in great urban centers for the purpose of work. New York will
>> become a Disneyland, a pleasure dome ..."
Of course, McLuhan was referring to Kenneth Angerąs popular underground
film at the time:
http://www.sfsu.edu/~avitv/avcatalog/7129.htm
http://people.wcsu.edu/mccarneyh/fva/A/InaugurationDome.html
The GREAT Bob Dobbs
The Seven Elders Legislature determine the will of Olympus through
discussion with the Gaia computer.
The movie story revolves around the city-state Olympus
(I lived in Olympia Washington once, near where CAC is)
The school I am going to is CCAC in Pittsburgh and Pitts are like seeds
aren't they?
And they call New York the big apple don't they?
The lead character is Deunan (is a she)
Is that the seed of the AP?
Now the new cliche technique in commercials is the slo-mo
fastforwarding to the next slo-mo. Anyone know of artistic precursors
to this one?
Next will be the 'faux-brainwashing' aesthetic, like the McDonald's
poster showing the bigmacfriesdrink on pastel background and the words
"resistance is futile"....... riding in deep on that little nub of
assumption that the advertiser is "joking", "parodying
themselves"..............
No, the AP is the seed of human-created Second Nature.
The GREAT Bob Dobbs
> When I saw Anger's film "Lucifer Rising" I was struck by the use of
> cuts where a bright white light rose quickly to the cut and faded
> quickly after like some kind of visual dopplerush effect of the change
> passing by......... and struck by the fact that this technique had
> become very common in TV commercials, especially car commercials, by
> 2001 (when I saw LR). What's the difference, really, between Anger as
> 'artist-magickian' innovator and Mad Ave. as 'business-magickian'
> appropriator?? Who's metaprogramming who???
No difference. Remember, Warhol said he believed in Business Art.
When advertising was the lifeblood of the Android Meme, all artists and
scientists had to wait in line as the superaudience worked for itself.
> Now the new cliche technique in commercials is the slo-mo
> fastforwarding to the next slo-mo. Anyone know of artistic precursors
> to this one?
Post-Android Meme is slowdown. Precursor was Y2K. Bin Laden family has
replaced advertising as constitutive catalyst for new fastforwarding to next
slo-mo.
> Next will be the 'faux-brainwashing' aesthetic, like the McDonald's
> poster showing the bigmacfriesdrink on pastel background and the words
> "resistance is futile"....... riding in deep on that little nub of
> assumption that the advertiser is "joking", "parodying
> themselves"..............
In our present post-information society, brainwashing is superceded by the
bypassed super-audience becoming a panicked hydraulic jack (Reality TV,
American Idol, Olympics, Today Show, etc.).
Advertising ("branding") as old form of metaprogramming dies on the vine of
Menippean irony, pastiche, and parody.
We are free now to run amuck over each other.
The GREAT Bob Dobbs
There is a big Warhol museum in Pittsburgh.
No there isn't.
The GREAT Bob Dobbs
purple wrote:
> >
> >
> > There is a big Warhol museum in Pittsburgh.
> >
>
> No there isn't.
>
>
> The GREAT Bob Dobbs
So it isn't big but, it is still a museum http://www.warhol.org/
It may not even have enough Warhol paintings to be considered a Warhol
museum.
But dammit they named the Museum after him so I am going to call it a
Warhol Museum.It is big enough to be considered Warholish.
God you are anal retentive.
You damn Warhole.
The GREAT Bob Dobbs
On 6/16/05 3:03 PM, in article
1118948596.6...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com, "Den Mu"
purple wrote:
> I knew Andy Warhol and the big secret is he didn't exist.
>
>
> The GREAT Bob Dobbs
>
>
>
What do you mean he didn't exist?
It sounds more like Copernicus talkin about BACTERIA than Warhol. Those
who were on or saw the Slack Crusade tour probably get what I'm talking
about.
--With love, the Rabbs
> I wish this thread didn't exist.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride to X-Day and we'd have more
BBQ. Not from the beggar, the HORSE, ya friggin' cannibal. Eating long
pig gives your breath a smell like the results when a white woman sits
on a piece of bleu cheese so she can get preggers. What's wrong with you?
--
HellPope Huey
Its only a paper moon,
but the meteorites still pack a punch
"I made a game effort to argue,
but two things were against me:
the umpires and the rules."
- Hall of Fame Manager Leo Durocher
"Why do you have a ring in your scrotum?"
"I need a place to hang my keys during sex."
- Penn Gilette on "Politically Incorrect"
Now, wait a minute. You hated the other thread so
much that you asked me to go back in time and change
it, and *now* you don't like this thread either?
Geez, oh heck. You don't even remember, do you?
Whew. That was quite an adventure you had. And
you don't remember any of it, huh? None of it?
Well, so the trip wasn't wasted, I gave myself
the winning lottery numbers, so I suppose this
reality will collapse real soon anyway and I'll,
or the alternate me, will be filthy stinking rich.
--
Be Sure To Visit the 'SubGenius Reverend' Blog:
http://slackoff.blogspot.com/
***********
Herring communicate with each other
via a high-pitched, "raspberry"-like
sound emitted from their anuses.
These noises are not produced by
digestive gases.
-- from 'The New Scientist'
I seem to recall the bats...
Now it's all coming back to me --
there were two pink guys
snowballing masticated fetus flesh
and then there were fireworks
like a Steve Ditko cosmic splash panel
and everything faded out like
at the end of a Jim Thompson novel.
All public appearances by Warhol were done by a double, who I knew.
The GREAT Bob Dobbs