Vomit
john adams
Vomit
Out of sheer boredom, Kafka notes in his diary, he washed his hands five times in a row. He lived in the age
before MTV. Now the bored, the depressed, the tired, the blank, and the slightly ill can stare at an unending
series of rapidly flashing, strange and arresting images, with people who are far more attractive than those
who show up in one's dreams. (Why bother to sleep?) Yesterday's transgression is today's decor: MTV is Un
Chien Andalou at the speed of light, at a corporate budget: a cabinet of curiosities the size of Xanadu.
Out of sheer boredom, and with clean hands, I turned on MTV twice in recent months, and both times was
disappointed to find that the staccato dreamtime of the videos had been replaced by linear and conventional
programs. The first was a comedy show, featuring an unremarkably pretty young woman as a lawyer. She walks
into a conference room of suited yuppies, male and female, sitting at a long polished table, and immediately
vomits at such length and so copiously that it covers the entire table. Unfazed, her colleagues proceed to
pluck out pieces with their fingers which they identify as the remains of certain dishes from various elegant
restaurants. (We watched no more that afternoon.)
A few nights later, I stared again, this time at their annual selfcelebration, "The MTV Awards." Sex, dancing,
or having a good time-once as intrinsic to rock & roll as amplification and the double entendre-seemed to have
dropped out entirely. The main topic was mutability: lachrymose tributes to rap stars who had been murdered in
the last year and unhappy humorous references to the fact that almost none of the stars present had been known
a year ago, and would undoubtedly be forgotten by next year. The secondary topic was excreta: a popular group
of slinky women singers was introduced sitting on toilets, and the vomit jokes, all unmemorable, were
relentless. I soon began to notice vomit everywhere, far more vomit on television, in movies or the latest
novels, than one normally sees on the sidewalk.
The simpler explanation is that MTV, like all popular culture, is oppressed on two sides. Images are quickly
depleted and must be ceaselessly replenished for a listless and sated, largely adolescent audience that
demands more outrage. Extravagance, however, is severely constricted by the ecosystem of morality that governs
American television: the small packs of the divinely-directed who prey on the legislators (who must camouflage
themselves with forceful positions on uncontroversial issues in order to be reelected) and the corporations
(whose advertisements feed television and therefore must attract as many possible potential customers,
repelling none). Sex, on MTV, in this tension of attraction and repulsion, has essentially reached its limit
of innuendo. To maintain its allure of the forbidden, of taboos being broken, and to keep the kids from
changing the channel, the station must rely on equally fascinating, if less appealing, bodily function aspects
of the body to which the moralists are oddly indifferent.
[A digression: In the U.S., moral issues, particularly concerning the "corruption" of youth, are inextricably
entwined with physical health. The 19th century was the era of apostles of strenuous exercise as a means for
keeping youth from bad thoughts and deeds. (Today, of course, the muscled body is presumed to have more
frequent contact with other, equally muscled, bodies.) In the 1950s, the main corrupter of children was
believed-thanks to a bestselling book called Seduction of the Innocent by Dr. Frederick Wertham-to be comic
books. This intersected with the polio epidemic to create a myth that the disease was being spread by comics;
there were mass burnings around the country. More recently, the morally enlightened have ascribed the spread
of a virus to the "pornography" of television and popular music. Conversely, whenever youth is involved,
health issues are treated as moral questions, most notably in the cases of AIDS and drugs.]
The more complicated explanation for this manifestation of the half- digested is that ever since youth
detached itself from adult society, shortly after the Second World War, and became a separate but parallel
culture, it has been a reliable indicator of the society at large. Its exaggerated responses and actions are
not only canaries in our coal mines, but often extreme versions of what are or will soon be norms. Vomit has
become an adolescent preoccupation, not only as entertainment, but as obsession: a prevailing psychological
disorder among teenage girls in the technological countries. Bulimia is a response that is both violent and
reasonable: In this society, what else can one do but throw up?
For the last twenty-five years, those who are not poor in the First World have been under siege by armies of
production. In the arts alone, the record stores carry hundreds of thousands of CDs; the video store on my
corner has ten thousand films; my local television has seventy channels; the Directory of American Poets lists
some seven thousand poets, all reputedly alive and publishing; there's a web site that sells a million new
books and another with four million out-of-print ones; the number of art galleries, theater and dance and
music companies in any large city inspires one to stay home and contemplate the void. The other day I wanted
some information on a writer who died ten years ago: the library had two hundred full-length critical studies
and thousands of articles; an Internet search listed 7,000 web sites where the writer's name appeared. I
decided to direct my curiosity elsewhere, and tried to remember someone who had been completely forgotten.
One result of this excess of all things is that if you are a fanatic of any given subject-let us say, poetry
or movies-it is more than likely that your fellow enthusiast has not read the same books or seen the same
films. You have nothing to talk about together. This lack of a shared knowledge or a common ground-not of a
"tradition," but of a sense of the contemporary, of what is being produced right now, to advocate, modify or
oppose-is unprecedented. It is perhaps the one thing, beyond the gadgets, that is genuinely new.
This means, in the arts, that it is nearly impossible to have any impact. The first edition of The Waste Land
was only five hundred copies, but it transformed poetry in various languages, and was known, whether adulated
or rejected, by all readers of modern poetry. This has become unimaginable: the last book to have an immediate
international effect on literature at large, One Hundred Years of Solitude, occurred thirty years ago, just
before this Age of Proliferation.
It also means, for the maker of art, that to produce implies a conscious decision not to consume, if only
momentarily-to arrogantly proclaim one's right or need to ceremoniously place one's tiny little leaf in this
rain forest. In the general population, the feeling of helplessness amidst the multiplication of humanity and
its products has, among other things, led to the creation of group identities, which are not only assertions
of community and self in the collapsing of traditional societal units, but also a way, however inadvertent, to
keep one's consumerism on a human scale. Religious affiliation, in its stricter forms, neatly parcels much of
the world into acceptable and taboo. Monolithic advocates of ethnic or sexual identities can happily concern
themselves with the work of confederates and remain unashamedly oblivious of others. Intended-in their
constructive aspects-to erase the worst forms of provincialism, group identities seek the refuge of a new
provincialism in a cosmopolitanized world: a dream of an orderly and focused life, where one knows what one
wants to discover and know.
The rest of us can only stuff ourselves and vomit and stuff ourselves again. This is not the banquet vomiting
of the Romans, which was a kind of potlatch: a demonstration of one's wealth or power through the greatest
possible display of waste. This is a guilty vomiting, the vomiting of a bulimic, who may well be the emblem of
the age.
In the psychological studies, the bulimia of teenage girls is generally seen as a self-destructive response to
perceptions of inadequacy (I am stupid, ugly, fat); shame (my family is poor; I've been sexually abused); and
failure (I am bad at school, making friends, meeting boys ... ), as well as a strategy of avoidance
(...therefore I won't try). With a slight translation, these are the feelings of nearly everyone in the
hyper-production of the West: I have consumed too many things; I can't possibly keep up with all the things to
consume; I'm always consuming the wrong thing; I'm too stupid or uninformed to know which thing to consume;
I've consumed too many of the wrong things, there are too many things so I won't consume any.. The Western
consumer lives in the guilt of excess, the dizziness of choices, the identification of self through one's
selections (in current spoken American, one way to say "I like spaghetti" is "I am a spaghetti person"), the
doubts about one's self as seen through one's selections, the continual belief that one has made the wrong
choice (brand of VCR, color of wall paint, sofa, lover or spouse) when there are so many others.
The allure of the mass media has always been the presentation of what we are not and would like to be: leading
lives of wealth, adventure, and passion. The images of vomiting that appear as one nervously clicks the remote
control are not only there as bizarre novelties to make us pause at a certain channel and its commercials.
They are there because we wish we could clear a space, make some room, expunge all the half-digested matter in
our brains, stop for a moment the interminable consumption and its attendant anxieties, know again the feeling
of hunger and the feeling of satisfaction. We look at people throwing up because we wish we could throw it all
up-including these images of people throwing up.
http://www.webdelsol.com/Sulfur/Weinberger_text.htm
kryten
"john adams" <johnqa...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ZHwO8.36915$nZ3.8146@rwcrnsc53...
john adams
-john
"kryten" <a...@aa.mj> wrote in message news:0PyO8.48991$6m5....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
kryten
trying to view your situation differently and making an effort to change it
Say when you are bored do not turn on the Tv , therby giving it power. DO
something else.
and I do not live steeped in vomit but in the endless sense of possibilites
and probilitiesnews:xQyO8.36448$R61....@rwcrnsc52.ops.asp.att.net...
kryten
somethingnews:xQyO8.36448$R61....@rwcrnsc52.ops.asp.att.net...
kryten
Change/action/ reject passivity( except perhaps in the poetic voice)
"kryten" <a...@aa.mj> wrote in message
john adams
"kryten" <a...@aa.mj> wrote in message news:c9zO8.49139$6m5....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> I don;t have a beef . Was just making a suggestion on how to perhaps on
> trying to view your situation differently and making an effort to change it
> Say when you are bored do not turn on the Tv , therby giving it power.
I was mainly joking around; what i said also had a double meaning.
>DO
> something else.
Do something else besides share essays - of an apparently differing
perspective than yours - with others?
> and I do not live steeped in vomit but in the endless sense of possibilites
> and probilities
Don't we all?
john adams
"kryten" <a...@aa.mj> wrote in message news:ZbzO8.37832$nZ3.9035@rwcrnsc53...
> Take a walk. listen to water, watch the sky. Anything but complain.
You mean like you are doing now?
Dale Houstman
>
> "kryten" <a...@aa.mj> wrote in message
news:c9zO8.49139$6m5....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> > I don;t have a beef . Was just making a suggestion on how to perhaps on
> > trying to view your situation differently and making an effort to change
it
> > Say when you are bored do not turn on the Tv , therby giving it power.
>
> I was mainly joking around; what i said also had a double meaning.
Ah! There's the rub: that's two too many for "kryten." Reduce the entire
essay to "TV hurt head, me go outside" and maybe he'd come onboard?
dmh
kryten
express any dissatisfaction with your post. I actually enjoyed it. The
metephor of Vomit was strong and, while not exactly new, was well done. I
tried to keep my response brief ( but "Dale Houstman" may be correct in
assuming I am a bit dim as I responded three times because I kept thinking
of something new) as for the main point , Consuption in excess I cannot
help buit think of section 153 of Guy Debord's "The Society of the
Spectacle" or when Baudrillard speaks of the video phase ( of which I am now
activly participating) where consuption ( and overconsuption of things such
as TV) seem to move aside giving way to the endless feedback loop.
That endless self-participation "being hooked up to oneself" To see our
thoughts up there on the screen , as if this action gives them validation.
To Vomit for the whole world to see.
<dm...@news.citilink.com> wrote in message
news:uglm0a2...@corp.supernews.com...
kryten
"kryten" <a...@aa.mj> wrote in message news:SgGO8.40578$nZ3.10524@rwcrnsc53...
Dale Houstman
"kryten" <a...@aa.mj> wrote in message news:SgGO8.40578$nZ3.10524@rwcrnsc53...
> I do not see how I was complaining. I made no formal accusation nor did I
> express any dissatisfaction with your post. I actually enjoyed it. The
> metephor of Vomit was strong and, while not exactly new, was well done. I
> tried to keep my response brief ( but "Dale Houstman" may be correct in
> assuming I am a bit dim as I responded three times because I kept
thinking
> of something new)
You don't have to put my name in quotes: it's my real name. As far as I
know.
dmh
kryten
that only people who actually read the posts I write see my name ( and I am
not refering to newsgroup readers but those who just pull names out of news
groups and use them in mass mailings)
I have no issue with telling you my name
Derek
"Dale Houstman" <dm...@news.citilink.com> wrote in message
news:ugmcdlc...@corp.supernews.com...
Dale Houstman
"kryten" <a...@aa.mj> wrote in message news:SgGO8.40578$nZ3.10524@rwcrnsc53...
> I do not see how I was complaining. I made no formal accusation nor did I
> express any dissatisfaction with your post. I actually enjoyed it. The
> metephor of Vomit was strong and, while not exactly new, was well done. I
> tried to keep my response brief ( but "Dale Houstman" may be correct in
> assuming I am a bit dim as I responded three times because I kept
thinking
> of something new) as for the main point , Consuption in excess I cannot
> help buit think of section 153 of Guy Debord's "The Society of the
> Spectacle" or when Baudrillard speaks of the video phase ( of which I am
now
> activly participating) where consuption ( and overconsuption of things
such
> as TV) seem to move aside giving way to the endless feedback loop.
> That endless self-participation "being hooked up to oneself" To see our
> thoughts up there on the screen , as if this action gives them validation.
> To Vomit for the whole world to see.
>
This is all fine, but the basic fact is that you misread john's post. He
obviously was not speaking of his own "paradigm" (he says at the top he only
watched MTV twice in "recent months"), but of a paradigm that grips many
others. I imagine I'm more gripped by TV than john is, and I probably
wouldn't write such an essay, as I am quite happy with it as a drug all
around, expect it to be empty, find staring at it no more harmful than bored
pioneers staring into the fire, etc. and do not particularly engage in the
common (but not totally unearned) TV-bashing. But his point isn't bizarre or
indicative of a mental-failing on his part, and I think your response (while
maybe not rising to the heights of complaint) seems a bit wicked in relation
to the actual content of the piece. And maybe our thoughts don't need
validation in the first place? I certainly don't think they do. Thoughts are
validated by being thought, I would think. Like most intellectuals
Baudrillard tends to think too much precisely where being silent might do
the most good. Still, I enjoy him also.
dmh
kryten
As we both seem to be early birds, Godd morning. I wrot ea private response
to JOhn. I was not adressing him at all but was , and I should have made
this a bit clearer,( but we live and learn) condenising "or dumbing down"
his post, a parady of it of sorts, for those ( and I doubt that those who
should read it will , or even visit a newsgroup such as this) for this I
appoligize. Those who should read it need the sort of "bumper sticker" style
"Dale Houstman" <dm...@news.citilink.com> wrote in message
news:ugmd4r...@corp.supernews.com...
Dale Houstman
"kryten" <a...@aa.mj> wrote in message news:IIGO8.40703$nZ3.10558@rwcrnsc53...
> Hey Dale ,
> As we both seem to be early birds, Godd morning.
I stay up late and get up early. I'm sort of an omni-chronic-bird.
>I wrot ea private response
> to JOhn. I was not adressing him at all but was , and I should have made
> this a bit clearer,( but we live and learn) condenising "or dumbing down"
> his post, a parady of it of sorts, for those ( and I doubt that those who
> should read it will , or even visit a newsgroup such as this) for this I
> appoligize. Those who should read it need the sort of "bumper sticker"
style
I'm not one to put undue emphasis on mere grammar and such, but you appear
to be very challenged in this area. Or are all these bizarre spelling and
"sense" errors purposeful? They proliferate to the point where your meaning
is entirely lost in a constellation of proto-Urdu. Sorry if you're just
caffeine-deficient at the moment...
dmh
kryten
>
>>
> I'm not one to put undue emphasis on mere grammar and such, but you appear
> to be very challenged in this area. Or are all these bizarre spelling and
> "sense" errors purposeful? They proliferate to the point where your
meaning
> is entirely lost in a constellation of proto-Urdu. Sorry if you're just
> caffeine-deficient at the moment...
>
allot with language ( and am a chronic misspeller) but I enjoy my
misspellings as they lead to interesting words such as Cedaric ( in refering
to cedars) and memeoryou. Plus it was a bit early.
derek
> dmh
>
>
>
Parry
Are krysten/Derek and "Dale Houstman" suggesting that John Q. Adams
(hardly a plausible name) is the author of the article attributed to
Eliot Weinberger, whoever the heck Eliot Weinberger is?
Weinberger likens MTV to "Un Chien Andalou at the speed of light." But
the makers of the Dog called it "a passionate, a desperate appeal to
murder," while MTV is only a loud appeal to consume. So maybe
Weinberger isn't up on movies or surrealism. One wonders if he's aware
of the Situationist territory his essay skirts. His bit about the
alienating effects of the media deluge recalls the Spectacle but lacks
the familiar jargon. Then he proceeds to fritter away the article on a
strained metaphor about the neurosis of our culture.
I didn't buy into his logic that "youth... has been a reliable
indicator of the society at large" and "we look at people throwing up
because we wish we could throw it all up -- including these images of
people throwing up." All I see in the examples he cited are tawdry
show biz and a scatological humour that's deliberately infantile so
MTV can distinguish itself as the poor man's renegade against normally
juvenile entertainment (say, the news-based entertainment of CNN).
Maybe it's a part of the so-called "dumbing of America" trend. Next
week Fox will probably air a Celebrities Playing With Their Poop
Special, and Ari Fleischer will deliver his press briefing with the
aid of puppets.
As for tv in general, I've no particular axe to grind either. There
are maybe three shows currently on which I actually like, which for me
makes this something of a Golden Age for television. When I was a kid,
certain television shows along with rock music provided a window out
of my own pocket of provincialism. I wonder if today's television has
any subversive influence on kids, or if it's just so much distraction
-- Parry, but you can call me Kronstadt Fuddleduddle
Liechtensteinowitz
john adams
"Parry" <pa...@perfectmail.com> wrote in message news:36a623f.02061...@posting.google.com...
Maybe Krysten has a personal bone to pick?
>And maybe our thoughts don't need
> > validation in the first place? I certainly don't think they do. Thoughts are
> > validated by being thought, I would think. Like most intellectuals
> > Baudrillard tends to think too much precisely where being silent might do
> > the most good. Still, I enjoy him also.
>
> Are krysten/Derek and "Dale Houstman" suggesting
>that John Q. Adams (hardly a plausible name)
People frequently ask, "did my parents have a sense of humor?" To which I
always say no, they didn't. They were simply implausible beings. Believe me,
the name is much more plausible.
>is the author of the article attributed to
> Eliot Weinberger, whoever the heck Eliot Weinberger is?
My favorite snack - weenies and burgers. But everyone should know by
now I am not capable of writing something so obvious and tawdry.
I am not a "TV-hater". Long live MTV...
john
john adams
"kryten" <a...@aa.mj> wrote in message news:ZbzO8.37832$nZ3.9035@rwcrnsc53...
> Take a walk. listen to water, watch the sky.
What the fuck do you know about sky?
And that's not a rhetorical question.
-john
john adams
"kryten" <a...@aa.mj> wrote in message news:IIGO8.40703$nZ3.10558@rwcrnsc53...
> Hey Dale ,
> As we both seem to be early birds, Godd morning. I wrot ea private response
> to JOhn. I was not adressing him at all but was , and I should have made
> this a bit clearer,( but we live and learn) condenising "or dumbing down"
> his post, a parady of it of sorts, for those ( and I doubt that those who
> should read it will , or even visit a newsgroup such as this) for this I
> appoligize. Those who should read it need the sort of "bumper sticker" style
I may actually condense this down into a "bumper sticker" style of several small lines
and paste them around onto local cars. Then again maybe the DART Rail would be more
reasonable to the reader.
-john
john adams
"kryten" <a...@aa.mj> wrote in message news:wjGO8.52841$6m5....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> ahh something else I thought of M's
And that is?
( M by the way, means love in Vietnamese).
elag
>
> "kryten" <a...@aa.mj> wrote in message news:wjGO8.52841$6m5....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> > ahh something else I thought of M's
>
> And that is?
>
> ( M by the way, means love in Vietnamese).
En Francais aussi: "aime" (ehm).
elag
"Everyone, wherever you are: Watch the skies. Keep watching the skies."
-The Thing (1952)
Dale Houstman
"kryten" <a...@aa.mj> wrote in message news:iNMO8.85426$pw3.4533@sccrnsc03...
Cedric and Alison were wont to stay up late at the Hawksup Castle.
Cedric's head was shaped like a spoon used by a hawk to teach a lesson.
The cedars behind the hawk's ass were where liasons warped.
"Oi! My sedum's all diseased," warbled Won Ton at the White Castle.
Oil of Cheddar! Good for hawk muzzle and ailing wantons.
dmh
elag
Still, he's not totally off base. There is a superficial stylistic
relationship, in the use of a non-linear and anti-narrative stance
toweards the imagery. Undoubtedly they are at odds philosophically.
This is in no small part due to the different historical and
technological contexts in which each existed.
One wonders if he's aware
> of the Situationist territory his essay skirts. His bit about the
> alienating effects of the media deluge recalls the Spectacle but lacks
> the familiar jargon. Then he proceeds to fritter away the article on a
> strained metaphor about the neurosis of our culture.
He probably runs too far and in doing so spills too much from his
teaspoon... sounds like he's reinventing semiotics... for some reason
his essay reminded me of "psychohistory" from Asimov's Foundation books.
> I didn't buy into his logic that "youth... has been a reliable
> indicator of the society at large" and "we look at people throwing up
> because we wish we could throw it all up -- including these images of
> people throwing up."
I do find the idea plausible in a way... that the throw away society is
approaching its end as the throwing up society... there's really nothing left.
All I see in the examples he cited are tawdry
> show biz and a scatological humour that's deliberately infantile so
> MTV can distinguish itself as the poor man's renegade against normally
> juvenile entertainment (say, the news-based entertainment of CNN).
> Maybe it's a part of the so-called "dumbing of America" trend. Next
> week Fox will probably air a Celebrities Playing With Their Poop
> Special, and Ari Fleischer will deliver his press briefing with the
> aid of puppets.
You mean he's not a muppet?
>
> As for tv in general, I've no particular axe to grind either. There
> are maybe three shows currently on which I actually like,
If I may... which three?
which for me
> makes this something of a Golden Age for television. When I was a kid,
> certain television shows along with rock music provided a window out
> of my own pocket of provincialism. I wonder if today's television has
> any subversive influence on kids, or if it's just so much distraction
I vote for distraction... they'll have to wander a lot further afield to
be subverted.
Dale Houstman
"elag" <el...@cloud9.net> wrote in message
news:3D0D5B5A...@cloud9.net...
> Parry wrote:
> >
> >
> > Weinberger likens MTV to "Un Chien Andalou at the speed of light." But
> > the makers of the Dog called it "a passionate, a desperate appeal to
> > murder," while MTV is only a loud appeal to consume. So maybe
> > Weinberger isn't up on movies or surrealism.
>
>
> Still, he's not totally off base. There is a superficial stylistic
> relationship, in the use of a non-linear and anti-narrative stance
> toweards the imagery. Undoubtedly they are at odds philosophically.
> This is in no small part due to the different historical and
> technological contexts in which each existed.
And the very speed Weinberger speaks of may be central to the difference in
philosophy. Patience - after all - and the slower pace consideration brings
to any work may be the most essential ingredient lacking in not only MTV,
but in culture at large nowadays. The anti-narrative stance of videos used
to be of interest to me, and I still occasionally see a good example, but it
does seem viedo has entered a dark age quicker than film ever did, but that
makes weird sense anyway. Still, I do get a strange thrill out of watching
the look on Pink's face after she recovers from her skateboard mishap in the
video for "I'm Coming Up." It's rather "dumb boyish" charm was (oddly enough
I guess) the best thrill I got from the depleted medium this year. After
that, it mainly seemed to be really large jewelry and shiny curtains. But at
least they seem to have gotten beyond the burning trash can images. The main
problem always - to my mind - is that the damn things are only seen as
promotional vehicles (which - of course- they are), so we have to watch the
damn band doing one stupid thing after another. I prefer "conceptual" or
abstract pieces (i.e. The Replacements marvelous focus on a speaker video
which only introduces a human at the very end when a foot kicks the speaker
in). Trance band and ambient videos are abstract enough usually, but almost
uniformly dull. The imagery seems - at any level - to be either boring or
ripped off from easily-identifiable sources.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > I didn't buy into his logic that "youth... has been a reliable
> > indicator of the society at large" and "we look at people throwing up
> > because we wish we could throw it all up -- including these images of
> > people throwing up."
>
>
>
> I do find the idea plausible in a way... that the throw away society is
> approaching its end as the throwing up society... there's really nothing
left.
I believe most people are vaguely sick of something, they just aren't given
the intelligence to ascertain what it is exactly.
>
>
>
>
> All I see in the examples he cited are tawdry
> > show biz and a scatological humour that's deliberately infantile so
> > MTV can distinguish itself as the poor man's renegade against normally
> > juvenile entertainment (say, the news-based entertainment of CNN).
> > Maybe it's a part of the so-called "dumbing of America" trend. Next
> > week Fox will probably air a Celebrities Playing With Their Poop
> > Special, and Ari Fleischer will deliver his press briefing with the
> > aid of puppets.
>
>
>
> You mean he's not a muppet?
Muppets have more imagination.
Strange he mentioned "poop" though: I had an idea for a celebrity gameshow
called "Poop Or Pudding?" It's sort of a guessing game with terrible
consequences for those who fail.
dmh
>
john adams
> > (hardly a plausible name) is the author of the article attributed to
> > Eliot Weinberger, whoever the heck Eliot Weinberger is?
> >
> > Weinberger likens MTV to "Un Chien Andalou at the speed of light." But
> > the makers of the Dog called it "a passionate, a desperate appeal to
> > murder," while MTV is only a loud appeal to consume. So maybe
> > Weinberger isn't up on movies or surrealism.
>
>
> Still, he's not totally off base. There is a superficial stylistic
> relationship, in the use of a non-linear and anti-narrative stance
> toweards the imagery. Undoubtedly they are at odds philosophically.
> This is in no small part due to the different historical and
> technological contexts in which each existed.
What I gleened from Weinburger's text was that he meant MTV had become a
mantle piece of excess whereas yesterday's Un Chien was a "transgression",
a seemingly "fluke" perhaps of stray imaginative exertion, by comparison, with
no utilitarian value. I don't believe he was comparing the two equally, rather he was
describing how the one engulfed the other in feeding the machine of consumerism.
His precise words were: "MTV is Un Chien Andalou at the speed of light, at a corporate
budget: a cabinet of curiosities the size of Xanadu."
I really wasn't sure if your comment on this was comedical or serious. Nonetheless,
I will say that Xanadu was light years ahead of Andalou in terms of sheer technical
brilliance.
>
> One wonders if he's aware
> > of the Situationist territory his essay skirts. His bit about the
> > alienating effects of the media deluge recalls the Spectacle but lacks
> > the familiar jargon. Then he proceeds to fritter away the article on a
> > strained metaphor about the neurosis of our culture.
Vomit can be a very straining ordeal.
> He probably runs too far and in doing so spills too much from his
> teaspoon... sounds like he's reinventing semiotics... for some reason
> his essay reminded me of "psychohistory" from Asimov's Foundation books.
>
>
>
>
>
> > I didn't buy into his logic that "youth... has been a reliable
> > indicator of the society at large" and
Here I believe youth as "reliable indicator" has more to say about
MTV and its advertisers, where they aim their selling sights. Their market is
pretty heavily youth oriented, really, one must admit.
>"we look at people throwing up
> > because we wish we could throw it all up -- including these images of
> > people throwing up."
>
>
>
> I do find the idea plausible in a way... that the throw away society is
> approaching its end as the throwing up society... there's really nothing left.
Yes, as our pop culture is reaching point overload, I think we are seeing throw away
society become throw up society increasingly more everyday. Nothing dishonest
about wanting to puke or puke at those wanting to puke on top of the pre-existing layers
of puke.
> All I see in the examples he cited are tawdry
> > show biz and a scatological humour that's deliberately infantile so
> > MTV can distinguish itself as the poor man's renegade against normally
> > juvenile entertainment (say, the news-based entertainment of CNN).
> > Maybe it's a part of the so-called "dumbing of America" trend. Next
> > week Fox will probably air a Celebrities Playing With Their Poop
> > Special, and Ari Fleischer will deliver his press briefing with the
> > aid of puppets.
>
>
>
> You mean he's not a muppet?
He's that hairless blue guy, what's his name?
> > As for tv in general, I've no particular axe to grind either. There
> > are maybe three shows currently on which I actually like,
>
>
> If I may... which three?
johnny quest
johnny quest
johnny quest
Parry
> > Weinberger likens MTV to "Un Chien Andalou at the speed of light." But
> > the makers of the Dog called it "a passionate, a desperate appeal to
> > murder," while MTV is only a loud appeal to consume. So maybe
> > Weinberger isn't up on movies or surrealism.
>
> Still, he's not totally off base. There is a superficial stylistic
> relationship, in the use of a non-linear and anti-narrative stance
> toweards the imagery. Undoubtedly they are at odds philosophically.
> This is in no small part due to the different historical and
> technological contexts in which each existed.
The philosophical divide is the significant thing. I think surrealism
demands that one try to understand the intentions of the artist.
Nowadays advertising (such as music videos or tv commercials) commonly
uses many of the visual ideas that were once concentrated in
surrealism & dreams -- visual puns, metamorphoses, time distortions,
startling juxtapositions, strange jokes, and so on. I suppose the idea
is to capitalize on potential customers' desires, and so their
mechanics appropriate from the desire specialists. So this creates a
stylistic similarity, except that the surrealists aren't interested in
cultivating styles but rather in the liberation of desire, while
advertisers want to manipulate people into being buyers.
That's my long-winded way of saying that I agree Weisberger isn't
totally off-base, just a bit muddled. His comment is on a par with one
saying "videos are done in the surrealist style," which makes sense up
to the point one realizes there is no surrealist style. This problem
goes back at least as far as the Andalusian Dog, which found some
acceptance among artsy types (causing Buñuel to retaliate with L'Age
d'Or). Incidentally, there was a Milla Jovovich music video which
copped its images from Andalusian Dog. No slit eyeballs of course, but
ants on hands and that sort of thing. Very stylish and pointless.
> > One wonders if he's aware
> > of the Situationist territory his essay skirts. His bit about the
> > alienating effects of the media deluge recalls the Spectacle but lacks
> > the familiar jargon. Then he proceeds to fritter away the article on a
> > strained metaphor about the neurosis of our culture.
>
> He probably runs too far and in doing so spills too much from his
> teaspoon... sounds like he's reinventing semiotics... for some reason
> his essay reminded me of "psychohistory" from Asimov's Foundation books.
I think you hit the nail with the spoon image.
> > I didn't buy into his logic that "youth... has been a reliable
> > indicator of the society at large" and "we look at people throwing up
> > because we wish we could throw it all up -- including these images of
> > people throwing up."
>
> I do find the idea plausible in a way... that the throw away society is
> approaching its end as the throwing up society... there's really nothing left.
Frankly I distrust a writer who throws "we" around a lot. Speak for
yourself, Weinberger! I don't know if "throw away society" is coming
to an end, but it doesn't have to. Surely society can be both
disposable and vomitable at the same time.
> > All I see in the examples he cited are tawdry
> > show biz and a scatological humour that's deliberately infantile so
> > MTV can distinguish itself as the poor man's renegade against normally
> > juvenile entertainment (say, the news-based entertainment of CNN).
> > Maybe it's a part of the so-called "dumbing of America" trend. Next
> > week Fox will probably air a Celebrities Playing With Their Poop
> > Special, and Ari Fleischer will deliver his press briefing with the
> > aid of puppets.
>
> You mean he's not a muppet?
No. Muppets' audiences ask hard questions.
> > As for tv in general, I've no particular axe to grind either. There
> > are maybe three shows currently on which I actually like,
>
> If I may... which three?
I hesitate, but here goes... The Daily Show -- a parody of news-based
entertainment which is very funny. Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- because
I'm a veteran gorehound but also because of its sharp wordplay, neat
paralleling of real life and fantastic plotlines, and humour. The
Ripping Friends -- Kricfalusi cartoon about testosterone-bloated
superheroes. That last show might be made for kids, but it's also very
funny. Might add The Simpsons as a fourth, though the show may have
had its day already. I guess the common ground is funny -- tv's strong
suit. I recall you mentioned a British show, but it never showed up on
the Canadian stations. Anyway, you should reciprocate and list the
shows everyone thinks you're nuts for watching.
> which for me
> > makes this something of a Golden Age for television. When I was a kid,
> > certain television shows along with rock music provided a window out
> > of my own pocket of provincialism. I wonder if today's television has
> > any subversive influence on kids, or if it's just so much distraction
>
> I vote for distraction... they'll have to wander a lot further afield to
> be subverted.
I need my Multiple Trajectory Vomiting.
-- Parry
Parry
> "elag" <el...@cloud9.net> wrote in message news:3D0D5B5A...@cloud9.net...
> > > Are krysten/Derek and "Dale Houstman" suggesting that John Q. Adams
> > > (hardly a plausible name) is the author of the article attributed to
> > > Eliot Weinberger, whoever the heck Eliot Weinberger is?
> > >
> > > Weinberger likens MTV to "Un Chien Andalou at the speed of light." But
> > > the makers of the Dog called it "a passionate, a desperate appeal to
> > > murder," while MTV is only a loud appeal to consume. So maybe
> > > Weinberger isn't up on movies or surrealism.
> >
> > Still, he's not totally off base. There is a superficial stylistic
> > relationship, in the use of a non-linear and anti-narrative stance
> > toweards the imagery. Undoubtedly they are at odds philosophically.
> > This is in no small part due to the different historical and
> > technological contexts in which each existed.
>
> What I gleened from Weinburger's text was that he meant MTV had become a
> mantle piece of excess whereas yesterday's Un Chien was a "transgression",
> a seemingly "fluke" perhaps of stray imaginative exertion, by comparison, with
> no utilitarian value. I don't believe he was comparing the two equally, rather he was
> describing how the one engulfed the other in feeding the machine of consumerism.
>
> His precise words were: "MTV is Un Chien Andalou at the speed of light, at a corporate
> budget: a cabinet of curiosities the size of Xanadu."
>
> I really wasn't sure if your comment on this was comedical or serious. Nonetheless,
> I will say that Xanadu was light years ahead of Andalou in terms of sheer technical
> brilliance.
I'm not sure if you mean mine or Elag's comment. I was half-serious.
It's funny to imagine MTV broadcasting passionate, desperate appeals
to murder 24 hours a day. But also I thought it showed, in a small
way, Weinberg's clumsy handling of certain ideas familiar in
Surrealist or Situationist writings. Then again, I'm not sure how
comedical or serious Weinberger intended to be. His article touches on
a few familiar themes, including in his allusions to youth, but
perhaps does so unwittingly.
> > One wonders if he's aware
> > > of the Situationist territory his essay skirts. His bit about the
> > > alienating effects of the media deluge recalls the Spectacle but lacks
> > > the familiar jargon. Then he proceeds to fritter away the article on a
> > > strained metaphor about the neurosis of our culture.
>
> Vomit can be a very straining ordeal.
Especially if you're puking up a television set.
> > He probably runs too far and in doing so spills too much from his
> > teaspoon... sounds like he's reinventing semiotics... for some reason
> > his essay reminded me of "psychohistory" from Asimov's Foundation books.
> >
> > > I didn't buy into his logic that "youth... has been a reliable
> > > indicator of the society at large" and
>
> Here I believe youth as "reliable indicator" has more to say about
> MTV and its advertisers, where they aim their selling sights. Their market is
> pretty heavily youth oriented, really, one must admit.
Well, Weisberg was clearly making a more general statement about youth
culture serving as a barometer for society at large. "[Youth
culture's] exaggerated responses and actions are not only canaries in
our coal mines, but often extreme versions of what are or will soon be
norms." As the kids vomit, so shall society. I just don't see that
bromides about youth culture support any such conclusion. Maybe he was
taking the long way ‘round to satire.
> >"we look at people throwing up
> > > because we wish we could throw it all up -- including these images of
> > > people throwing up."
> >
> > I do find the idea plausible in a way... that the throw away society is
> > approaching its end as the throwing up society... there's really nothing left.
>
> Yes, as our pop culture is reaching point overload, I think we are seeing throw away
> society become throw up society increasingly more everyday. Nothing dishonest
> about wanting to puke or puke at those wanting to puke on top of the pre-existing layers
> of puke.
In any case the puke will be burned away by the massive fires or
washed out by the floods.
> > > All I see in the examples he cited are tawdry
> > > show biz and a scatological humour that's deliberately infantile so
> > > MTV can distinguish itself as the poor man's renegade against normally
> > > juvenile entertainment (say, the news-based entertainment of CNN).
> > > Maybe it's a part of the so-called "dumbing of America" trend. Next
> > > week Fox will probably air a Celebrities Playing With Their Poop
> > > Special, and Ari Fleischer will deliver his press briefing with the
> > > aid of puppets.
> >
> > You mean he's not a muppet?
>
> He's that hairless blue guy, what's his name?
Porpoise John Paul II?
-- Parry
elag
>
> "elag" <el...@cloud9.net> wrote in message
> news:3D0D5B5A...@cloud9.net...
> > Parry wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Weinberger likens MTV to "Un Chien Andalou at the speed of light." But
> > > the makers of the Dog called it "a passionate, a desperate appeal to
> > > murder," while MTV is only a loud appeal to consume. So maybe
> > > Weinberger isn't up on movies or surrealism.
> >
> >
> > Still, he's not totally off base. There is a superficial stylistic
> > relationship, in the use of a non-linear and anti-narrative stance
> > toweards the imagery. Undoubtedly they are at odds philosophically.
> > This is in no small part due to the different historical and
> > technological contexts in which each existed.
>
> And the very speed Weinberger speaks of may be central to the difference in
> philosophy. Patience - after all - and the slower pace consideration brings
> to any work may be the most essential ingredient lacking in not only MTV,
> but in culture at large nowadays. The anti-narrative stance of videos used
> to be of interest to me, and I still occasionally see a good example, but it
> does seem viedo has entered a dark age quicker than film ever did, but that
> makes weird sense anyway.
I agree. Before I went to film school I felt excited about the format
but now I find them by and large as repulsive as adverts... which they
ultimately are, of course.
I actually almost directed a few Videos but It was largely an aestetic
execiseon my part... and the rent WAS due
.
Still, I do get a strange thrill out of watching
> the look on Pink's face after she recovers from her skateboard mishap in the
> video for "I'm Coming Up." It's rather "dumb boyish" charm was (oddly enough
> I guess) the best thrill I got from the depleted medium this year.
I can be mildly amused by this stuff but I fairly boil w/ resentment at
having PINK constantly shoved down my throat...
so to speak.
After
> that, it mainly seemed to be really large jewelry and shiny curtains. But at
> least they seem to have gotten beyond the burning trash can images. The main
> problem always - to my mind - is that the damn things are only seen as
> promotional vehicles (which - of course- they are), so we have to watch the
> damn band doing one stupid thing after another. I prefer "conceptual" or
> abstract pieces (i.e. The Replacements marvelous focus on a speaker video
> which only introduces a human at the very end when a foot kicks the speaker
> in). Trance band and ambient videos are abstract enough usually, but almost
> uniformly dull. The imagery seems - at any level - to be either boring or
> ripped off from easily-identifiable sources.
I've decided that I don't wanna do no mo' videos unless the muzak is far
underground... and I actually like it... even if I get paid in coffee cake.
> > > I didn't buy into his logic that "youth... has been a reliable
> > > indicator of the society at large" and "we look at people throwing up
> > > because we wish we could throw it all up -- including these images of
> > > people throwing up."
> >
> >
> >
> > I do find the idea plausible in a way... that the throw away society is
> > approaching its end as the throwing up society... there's really nothing
> left.
>
> I believe most people are vaguely sick of something, they just aren't given
> the intelligence to ascertain what it is exactly.
Fortunately/unfortunately I have intimate knowledge of the media-plague
which are currently irritating my stomach lining.
things
=beep=
more things
=beep=
even more things
> > All I see in the examples he cited are tawdry
> > > show biz and a scatological humour that's deliberately infantile so
> > > MTV can distinguish itself as the poor man's renegade against normally
> > > juvenile entertainment (say, the news-based entertainment of CNN).
> > > Maybe it's a part of the so-called "dumbing of America" trend. Next
> > > week Fox will probably air a Celebrities Playing With Their Poop
> > > Special, and Ari Fleischer will deliver his press briefing with the
> > > aid of puppets.
> >
> >
> >
> > You mean he's not a muppet?
>
> Muppets have more imagination.
>
> Strange he mentioned "poop" though: I had an idea for a celebrity gameshow
> called "Poop Or Pudding?" It's sort of a guessing game with terrible
> consequences for those who fail.
Tom Green has explored this area, and I'm sorry that I know that.
elag
>
> "elag" <el...@cloud9.net> wrote in message news:3D0D5B5A...@cloud9.net...
> > > Are krysten/Derek and "Dale Houstman" suggesting that John Q. Adams
> > > (hardly a plausible name) is the author of the article attributed to
> > > Eliot Weinberger, whoever the heck Eliot Weinberger is?
> > >
> > > Weinberger likens MTV to "Un Chien Andalou at the speed of light." But
> > > the makers of the Dog called it "a passionate, a desperate appeal to
> > > murder," while MTV is only a loud appeal to consume. So maybe
> > > Weinberger isn't up on movies or surrealism.
> >
> >
> > Still, he's not totally off base. There is a superficial stylistic
> > relationship, in the use of a non-linear and anti-narrative stance
> > toweards the imagery. Undoubtedly they are at odds philosophically.
> > This is in no small part due to the different historical and
> > technological contexts in which each existed.
>
> What I gleened from Weinburger's text was that he meant MTV had become a
> mantle piece of excess whereas yesterday's Un Chien was a "transgression",
> a seemingly "fluke" perhaps of stray imaginative exertion, by comparison, with
> no utilitarian value. I don't believe he was comparing the two equally, rather he was
> describing how the one engulfed the other in feeding the machine of consumerism.
>
> His precise words were: "MTV is Un Chien Andalou at the speed of light, at a corporate
> budget: a cabinet of curiosities the size of Xanadu."
>
> I really wasn't sure if your comment on this was comedical or serious.
I have to say both. I understand his point but I wanted to specifically
fork the formal and philosophical threads of his idea due to Parry's comment
Nonetheless,
> I will say that Xanadu was light years ahead of Andalou in terms of sheer technical
> brilliance.
Well, sure... I'm generally attracted to image manipulation of a raw
nature... especially if that rawness is directly a function of the
marginality (read authenticity) of the imagemasters.
>
> >
> > One wonders if he's aware
> > > of the Situationist territory his essay skirts. His bit about the
> > > alienating effects of the media deluge recalls the Spectacle but lacks
> > > the familiar jargon. Then he proceeds to fritter away the article on a
> > > strained metaphor about the neurosis of our culture.
>
> Vomit can be a very straining ordeal.
but colorful
>
> > He probably runs too far and in doing so spills too much from his
> > teaspoon... sounds like he's reinventing semiotics... for some reason
> > his essay reminded me of "psychohistory" from Asimov's Foundation books.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > I didn't buy into his logic that "youth... has been a reliable
> > > indicator of the society at large" and
>
> Here I believe youth as "reliable indicator" has more to say about
> MTV and its advertisers, where they aim their selling sights. Their market is
> pretty heavily youth oriented, really, one must admit.
They target their demographic like a laser guided missile...
I should recite that to a hip-hop beat.
>
> >"we look at people throwing up
> > > because we wish we could throw it all up -- including these images of
> > > people throwing up."
> >
> >
> >
> > I do find the idea plausible in a way... that the throw away society is
> > approaching its end as the throwing up society... there's really nothing left.
>
> Yes, as our pop culture is reaching point overload, I think we are seeing throw away
> society become throw up society increasingly more everyday. Nothing dishonest
> about wanting to puke or puke at those wanting to puke on top of the pre-existing layers
> of puke.
That's the way I feel about it every time advertising jingle lyrics
invade my brain while I'm listening to a classical or rock tune which
those Madison Avenue Monstrosities have sodomized.
(e.g. breakfast, McD0n@ld's breakfast) <-- sorry if this increases the pain.
>
> > All I see in the examples he cited are tawdry
> > > show biz and a scatological humour that's deliberately infantile so
> > > MTV can distinguish itself as the poor man's renegade against normally
> > > juvenile entertainment (say, the news-based entertainment of CNN).
> > > Maybe it's a part of the so-called "dumbing of America" trend. Next
> > > week Fox will probably air a Celebrities Playing With Their Poop
> > > Special, and Ari Fleischer will deliver his press briefing with the
> > > aid of puppets.
> >
> >
> >
> > You mean he's not a muppet?
>
> He's that hairless blue guy, what's his name?
Slimy Smurf?
>
> > > As for tv in general, I've no particular axe to grind either. There
> > > are maybe three shows currently on which I actually like,
> >
> >
> > If I may... which three?
>
> johnny quest
> johnny quest
> johnny quest
...of course... but which is best: The Original, the "New", the "Golden"
or the "Real" Adventures
elag
>
> elag <el...@cloud9.net> wrote in message news:<3D0D5B5A...@cloud9.net>...
> > Parry wrote:
> > > Weinberger likens MTV to "Un Chien Andalou at the speed of light." But
> > > the makers of the Dog called it "a passionate, a desperate appeal to
> > > murder," while MTV is only a loud appeal to consume. So maybe
> > > Weinberger isn't up on movies or surrealism.
> >
> > Still, he's not totally off base. There is a superficial stylistic
> > relationship, in the use of a non-linear and anti-narrative stance
> > toweards the imagery. Undoubtedly they are at odds philosophically.
> > This is in no small part due to the different historical and
> > technological contexts in which each existed.
>
> The philosophical divide is the significant thing. I think surrealism
> demands that one try to understand the intentions of the artist.
> Nowadays advertising (such as music videos or tv commercials) commonly
> uses many of the visual ideas that were once concentrated in
> surrealism & dreams -- visual puns, metamorphoses, time distortions,
> startling juxtapositions, strange jokes, and so on. I suppose the idea
> is to capitalize on potential customers' desires, and so their
> mechanics appropriate from the desire specialists. So this creates a
> stylistic similarity, except that the surrealists aren't interested in
> cultivating styles but rather in the liberation of desire, while
> advertisers want to manipulate people into being buyers.
Yes. A hammer can be used to build, to destroy, or to kill...
hell, you can even juggle them.
...in the right hands a good tool is always useful.
>
> That's my long-winded way of saying that I agree Weisberger isn't
> totally off-base, just a bit muddled. His comment is on a par with one
> saying "videos are done in the surrealist style," which makes sense up
> to the point one realizes there is no surrealist style. This problem
> goes back at least as far as the Andalusian Dog, which found some
> acceptance among artsy types (causing Buñuel to retaliate with L'Age
> d'Or). Incidentally, there was a Milla Jovovich music video which
> copped its images from Andalusian Dog. No slit eyeballs of course, but
> ants on hands and that sort of thing. Very stylish and pointless.
good for sellin' widgets.
>
> > > One wonders if he's aware
> > > of the Situationist territory his essay skirts. His bit about the
> > > alienating effects of the media deluge recalls the Spectacle but lacks
> > > the familiar jargon. Then he proceeds to fritter away the article on a
> > > strained metaphor about the neurosis of our culture.
> >
> > He probably runs too far and in doing so spills too much from his
> > teaspoon... sounds like he's reinventing semiotics... for some reason
> > his essay reminded me of "psychohistory" from Asimov's Foundation books.
>
> I think you hit the nail with the spoon image.
Next I'm gonna eat pea soup w/ my hammer metaphor.
> > > As for tv in general, I've no particular axe to grind either. There
> > > are maybe three shows currently on which I actually like,
> >
> > If I may... which three?
>
> I hesitate, but here goes... The Daily Show -- a parody of news-based
> entertainment which is very funny.
I find it funny except when guests are on promoting stuff...
Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- because
> I'm a veteran gorehound but also because of its sharp wordplay, neat
> paralleling of real life and fantastic plotlines, and humour.
Not my cup of tea but I can see the attraction
> The Ripping Friends -- Kricfalusi cartoon about testosterone-bloated
> superheroes. That last show might be made for kids, but it's also very
> funny.
Nevva hoid of it...
Might add The Simpsons as a fourth, though the show may have
> had its day already.
Definitely over the hill years ago... it can still be funny but it is
senile and toothless. I like Futurama a lot even though it doesn't have
the satirical edge of early Simpsons... you ever catch it?
I guess the common ground is funny -- tv's strong
> suit. I recall you mentioned a British show, but it never showed up on
> the Canadian stations. Anyway, you should reciprocate and list the
> shows everyone thinks you're nuts for watching.
I'm mainly a scifi addict. My current fave is Farscape. I always watch
the latest Trek even when the scripts are execrable because I like the
"atmosphere" of that universe. I already mentioned Futurama. Most
everything else I like is defunct.
elag
I think he was writing in a comedic vein but as with most rants he boils
over when he should have simmered.
His article touches on
> a few familiar themes, including in his allusions to youth, but
> perhaps does so unwittingly.
I had to reread the article to be sure but he seems intelligent enough
to be aware of such things...
Oy! he's a holder of the Order of the Aztec Eagle!
Dale Houstman
Actually, most of them are - now - less interesting than regular
advertisements, which have the immense advantage of not having to pretend
they're art.
>
> I actually almost directed a few Videos but It was largely an aestetic
> execiseon my part... and the rent WAS due
Absolution is on the way in the form of a winged toaster beetle.
> .
>
>
>
> Still, I do get a strange thrill out of watching
> > the look on Pink's face after she recovers from her skateboard mishap in
the
> > video for "I'm Coming Up." It's rather "dumb boyish" charm was (oddly
enough
> > I guess) the best thrill I got from the depleted medium this year.
>
>
>
> I can be mildly amused by this stuff but I fairly boil w/ resentment at
> having PINK constantly shoved down my throat...
> so to speak.
How about shoving yourself down Pink's throat?
>
>
>
>
> After
> > that, it mainly seemed to be really large jewelry and shiny curtains.
But at
> > least they seem to have gotten beyond the burning trash can images. The
main
> > problem always - to my mind - is that the damn things are only seen as
> > promotional vehicles (which - of course- they are), so we have to watch
the
> > damn band doing one stupid thing after another. I prefer "conceptual" or
> > abstract pieces (i.e. The Replacements marvelous focus on a speaker
video
> > which only introduces a human at the very end when a foot kicks the
speaker
> > in). Trance band and ambient videos are abstract enough usually, but
almost
> > uniformly dull. The imagery seems - at any level - to be either boring
or
> > ripped off from easily-identifiable sources.
>
>
>
>
>
> I've decided that I don't wanna do no mo' videos unless the muzak is far
> underground... and I actually like it... even if I get paid in coffee
cake.
If you actually have to like what you're doing, the world of capital has no
nedd of your talents. Have you thought of floor management?
> >
> > I believe most people are vaguely sick of something, they just aren't
given
> > the intelligence to ascertain what it is exactly.
>
>
>
> Fortunately/unfortunately I have intimate knowledge of the media-plague
> which are currently irritating my stomach lining.
Pepcid AC, Bromo, Aciphex, Milk of Magnesia, and sea chalk.
>
> things
> =beep=
> more things
> =beep=
> even more things
"People (poo-pall): entities which buy things."
> > >
> > > You mean he's not a muppet?
> >
> > Muppets have more imagination.
> >
> > Strange he mentioned "poop" though: I had an idea for a celebrity
gameshow
> > called "Poop Or Pudding?" It's sort of a guessing game with terrible
> > consequences for those who fail.
>
>
> Tom Green has explored this area, and I'm sorry that I know that.
You know too much! Ashcroft and Tom Ridge are starting a dossier.
dmh
john adams
"Parry" <pa...@perfectmail.com> wrote in message news:36a623f.02061...@posting.google.com...
> I'm not sure if you mean mine or Elag's comment. I was half-serious.
> It's funny to imagine MTV broadcasting passionate, desperate appeals
> to murder 24 hours a day. But also I thought it showed, in a small
> way, Weinberg's clumsy handling of certain ideas familiar in
> Surrealist or Situationist writings. Then again, I'm not sure how
> comedical or serious Weinberger intended to be. His article touches on
> a few familiar themes, including in his allusions to youth, but
> perhaps does so unwittingly.
Yes, it was aimed at your comments. I didn't get the impression Weinberg
was clumsy in his handling with and unaware of surrealist, and situationist ideas.
Maybe you misinterpretted his subtle allusions to dream and un chien in the
wrong manner. And well I'm not sure what was wrong with touching on youth,
unwittingly or not - this is nothing exclusive to situtationist writing.
> > > One wonders if he's aware
> > > > of the Situationist territory his essay skirts. His bit about the
> > > > alienating effects of the media deluge recalls the Spectacle but lacks
> > > > the familiar jargon.
Jargon - who needs the jargon anyway?
>Then he proceeds to fritter away the article on a
> > > > strained metaphor about the neurosis of our culture.
> >
> > Vomit can be a very straining ordeal.
>
> Especially if you're puking up a television set.
Arg! These pieces of static are hard to digest.
> > > He probably runs too far and in doing so spills too much from his
> > > teaspoon... sounds like he's reinventing semiotics... for some reason
> > > his essay reminded me of "psychohistory" from Asimov's Foundation books.
> > >
> > > > I didn't buy into his logic that "youth... has been a reliable
> > > > indicator of the society at large" and
> >
> > Here I believe youth as "reliable indicator" has more to say about
> > MTV and its advertisers, where they aim their selling sights. Their market is
> > pretty heavily youth oriented, really, one must admit.
>
> Well, Weisberg was clearly making a more general statement about youth
> culture serving as a barometer for society at large. "[Youth
> culture's] exaggerated responses and actions are not only canaries in
> our coal mines, but often extreme versions of what are or will soon be
> norms." As the kids vomit, so shall society. I just don't see that
> bromides about youth culture support any such conclusion. Maybe he was
> taking the long way 'round to satire.
Youth is of course some indicator of the future to come. Beyond that I am not exactly
clear either on his motive with this particular line of thought.
> > >"we look at people throwing up
> > > > because we wish we could throw it all up -- including these images of
> > > > people throwing up."
> > >
> > > I do find the idea plausible in a way... that the throw away society is
> > > approaching its end as the throwing up society... there's really nothing left.
> >
> > Yes, as our pop culture is reaching point overload, I think we are seeing throw away
> > society become throw up society increasingly more everyday. Nothing dishonest
> > about wanting to puke or puke at those wanting to puke on top of the pre-existing layers
> > of puke.
>
> In any case the puke will be burned away by the massive fires or
> washed out by the floods.
This is our dream: the metamorphosis of puke into diarrhea and then gold.
The alchemist's trade.
> > > > All I see in the examples he cited are tawdry
> > > > show biz and a scatological humour that's deliberately infantile so
> > > > MTV can distinguish itself as the poor man's renegade against normally
> > > > juvenile entertainment (say, the news-based entertainment of CNN).
> > > > Maybe it's a part of the so-called "dumbing of America" trend. Next
> > > > week Fox will probably air a Celebrities Playing With Their Poop
> > > > Special, and Ari Fleischer will deliver his press briefing with the
> > > > aid of puppets.
> > >
> > > You mean he's not a muppet?
> >
> > He's that hairless blue guy, what's his name?
>
> Porpoise John Paul II?
Yes, but that actually sounds too cute for him.
john
john adams
"elag" <el...@cloud9.net> wrote in message news:3D0EB3D4...@cloud9.net...
Yeah, a sort of redemption so to speak, you mean? There are a lot
of directions one could go with glitter, skates, and wings.
> > > One wonders if he's aware
> > > > of the Situationist territory his essay skirts. His bit about the
> > > > alienating effects of the media deluge recalls the Spectacle but lacks
> > > > the familiar jargon. Then he proceeds to fritter away the article on a
> > > > strained metaphor about the neurosis of our culture.
> >
> > Vomit can be a very straining ordeal.
>
>
>
> but colorful
>
>
>
[...]
>
> They target their demographic like a laser guided missile...
> I should recite that to a hip-hop beat.
You should go one more and make a gangster video of it, Elag.
> >
> > >"we look at people throwing up
> > > > because we wish we could throw it all up -- including these images of
> > > > people throwing up."
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I do find the idea plausible in a way... that the throw away society is
> > > approaching its end as the throwing up society... there's really nothing left.
> >
> > Yes, as our pop culture is reaching point overload, I think we are seeing throw away
> > society become throw up society increasingly more everyday. Nothing dishonest
> > about wanting to puke or puke at those wanting to puke on top of the pre-existing layers
> > of puke.
>
>
>
> That's the way I feel about it every time advertising jingle lyrics
> invade my brain while I'm listening to a classical or rock tune which
> those Madison Avenue Monstrosities have sodomized.
>
> (e.g. breakfast, McD0n@ld's breakfast) <-- sorry if this increases the pain.
The pain is proportional to the reciprocal of pleasure and subsequent indigestion.
> > > All I see in the examples he cited are tawdry
> > > > show biz and a scatological humour that's deliberately infantile so
> > > > MTV can distinguish itself as the poor man's renegade against normally
> > > > juvenile entertainment (say, the news-based entertainment of CNN).
> > > > Maybe it's a part of the so-called "dumbing of America" trend. Next
> > > > week Fox will probably air a Celebrities Playing With Their Poop
> > > > Special, and Ari Fleischer will deliver his press briefing with the
> > > > aid of puppets.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > You mean he's not a muppet?
> >
> > He's that hairless blue guy, what's his name?
>
>
>
> Slimy Smurf?
Ass smurf burp-and-chirp, i think, is his nickname.
> > > > As for tv in general, I've no particular axe to grind either. There
> > > > are maybe three shows currently on which I actually like,
> > >
> > >
> > > If I may... which three?
> >
> > johnny quest
> > johnny quest
> > johnny quest
>
>
>
>
> ...of course... but which is best: The Original, the "New", the "Golden"
> or the "Real" Adventures
So many choices, and I've only seen the original. So I'll say the original!
john
john adams
"Dale Houstman" <dm...@news.citilink.com> wrote in message news:uguh8j6...@corp.supernews.com...
Mmmf, mmmf, splurt...
Sorry, I was just thinking it would be cool if Pink did a live album with TLC and
Toni Braxton.
-j
Parry
[snips]
>
> > I'm not sure if you mean mine or Elag's comment. I was half-serious.
> > It's funny to imagine MTV broadcasting passionate, desperate appeals
> > to murder 24 hours a day. But also I thought it showed, in a small
> > way, Weinberg's clumsy handling of certain ideas familiar in
> > Surrealist or Situationist writings. Then again, I'm not sure how
> > comedical or serious Weinberger intended to be. His article touches on
> > a few familiar themes, including in his allusions to youth, but
> > perhaps does so unwittingly.
>
> Yes, it was aimed at your comments. I didn't get the impression Weinberg
> was clumsy in his handling with and unaware of surrealist, and situationist ideas.
> Maybe you misinterpretted his subtle allusions to dream and un chien in the
> wrong manner. And well I'm not sure what was wrong with touching on youth,
> unwittingly or not - this is nothing exclusive to situtationist writing.
Nothing wrong about touching on the youth theme. It's just that he
enumerates all these things -- youth culture, recuperation, the "Age
of Proliferation," the besieging "armies of [media] production," the
atomising of "the multiplication of humanity" into single-issue groups
and individual consumers, the idea that identity is constructed from
the things one buys, the neuroses of society -- then finishes with the
glib "We look at people throwing up because we wish we could throw it
all up" (as if to toss up his hands and say: "it's all too much!")
rather than add them up to a coherent critique. So I used the word
"unwittingly" because there seems to be something missing from the
article -- maybe a Situationist compass pointing towards subversive
action, maybe the economic dimension which he barely scratches or the
political dimension he neglects entirely -- which suggests to me the
author hasn't researched the Situationists, though they would seem the
natural source of the themes he aspirates.
-- Parry
Parry
> Parry wrote:
[snips]
> > > > As for tv in general, I've no particular axe to grind either. There
> > > > are maybe three shows currently on which I actually like,
> > >
> > > If I may... which three?
> >
> > I hesitate, but here goes... The Daily Show -- a parody of news-based
> > entertainment which is very funny.
>
> I find it funny except when guests are on promoting stuff...
The guests are usually awful -- particularly repulsive are the tv
anchors and other imaginary "current events specialists." But I always
watch shows on tape so I can fast forward the ads and guests. It's a
ten-minute show for me.
> Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- because
> > I'm a veteran gorehound but also because of its sharp wordplay, neat
> > paralleling of real life and fantastic plotlines, and humour.
>
> Not my cup of tea but I can see the attraction
I never saw the show until about a year ago, then got hooked by an
episode called "Hush." It featured a gang of creepy skeletal guys in
suits who evidently emerged from fairy tales to magically steal the
voice of everyone in town. Then at night, accompanied by
straight-jacketed lunatics, they would find a victim and quietly tear
out his heart.
> > The Ripping Friends -- Kricfalusi cartoon about testosterone-bloated
> > superheroes. That last show might be made for kids, but it's also very
> > funny.
>
> Nevva hoid of it...
It's run on Tele-Toon, which is Canada's version of the Cartoon
Network. Kricfalusi's production company has/had a nice website
(www.spumco.com) but I haven't been able to get the link to work
lately. Here's a link that decsribes the show:
http://www.canoe.ca/TelevisionShowsR/therippingfriends.html
Here's another link that just peddles videos but at least it has a
graphic: http://www.lionsgatefilms.com/CorpSite/partners/partners_rf.html
> Might add The Simpsons as a fourth, though the show may have
> > had its day already.
>
> Definitely over the hill years ago... it can still be funny but it is
> senile and toothless. I like Futurama a lot even though it doesn't have
> the satirical edge of early Simpsons... you ever catch it?
I have but never warmed to it.
> I guess the common ground is funny -- tv's strong
> > suit. I recall you mentioned a British show, but it never showed up on
> > the Canadian stations. Anyway, you should reciprocate and list the
> > shows everyone thinks you're nuts for watching.
>
> I'm mainly a scifi addict. My current fave is Farscape. I always watch
> the latest Trek even when the scripts are execrable because I like the
> "atmosphere" of that universe. I already mentioned Futurama. Most
> everything else I like is defunct.
I would have added another show, Lexx, to my list but it just finished
its run so technically isn't "currently" on. It began as a sort of
sci-fi fable about a future Dark Ages story, but as the machinations
of the original plot played out the crew of the bug just started going
in circles until their craft died. It had a sardonic view of humanity
and was also quite funny. I believe the American sci-fi channel runs
censored versions of it. The fourth season had a hideous caricature of
the President -- a sweating gibbering moron who has his wife executed
in a Dealy Plaza recreation so he can marry his bimbo, and who anyway
is just a puppet of Death who runs the ATF -- that probably alienated
whatever small audience found it down there. I'll have to look for
Farscape. An interesting program would at least partially compensate
for this city's lack of movies (even Woody Allen's recent release was
apparently too esoteric for the last remaining megaplexes to run).
-- Parry
elag
>
> "elag" <el...@cloud9.net> wrote in message
> news:3D0EAE75...@cloud9.net...
> > Dale Houstman wrote:
> > >
> > > "elag" <el...@cloud9.net> wrote in message
> > > news:3D0D5B5A...@cloud9.net...
> > > > Parry wrote:
> > Still, I do get a strange thrill out of watching
> > > the look on Pink's face after she recovers from her skateboard mishap in
> the
> > > video for "I'm Coming Up." It's rather "dumb boyish" charm was (oddly
> enough
> > > I guess) the best thrill I got from the depleted medium this year.
> >
> >
> >
> > I can be mildly amused by this stuff but I fairly boil w/ resentment at
> > having PINK constantly shoved down my throat...
> > so to speak.
>
> How about shoving yourself down Pink's throat?
It might make a good "blue" movie.
> > After
> > > that, it mainly seemed to be really large jewelry and shiny curtains.
> But at
> > > least they seem to have gotten beyond the burning trash can images. The
> main
> > > problem always - to my mind - is that the damn things are only seen as
> > > promotional vehicles (which - of course- they are), so we have to watch
> the
> > > damn band doing one stupid thing after another. I prefer "conceptual" or
> > > abstract pieces (i.e. The Replacements marvelous focus on a speaker
> video
> > > which only introduces a human at the very end when a foot kicks the
> speaker
> > > in). Trance band and ambient videos are abstract enough usually, but
> almost
> > > uniformly dull. The imagery seems - at any level - to be either boring
> or
> > > ripped off from easily-identifiable sources.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > I've decided that I don't wanna do no mo' videos unless the muzak is far
> > underground... and I actually like it... even if I get paid in coffee
> cake.
>
> If you actually have to like what you're doing, the world of capital has no
> nedd of your talents.
No doubt... but I don't have much need for them either so it all evens out.
Have you thought of floor management?
...as in Mop-and-Glow?
>
> > >
> > > I believe most people are vaguely sick of something, they just aren't
> given
> > > the intelligence to ascertain what it is exactly.
> >
> >
> >
> > Fortunately/unfortunately I have intimate knowledge of the media-plague
> > which are currently irritating my stomach lining.
>
> Pepcid AC, Bromo, Aciphex, Milk of Magnesia, and sea chalk.
Join the Pepcid generation!
> >
> > things
> > =beep=
> > more things
> > =beep=
> > even more things
>
> "People (poo-pall): entities which buy things."
Born to Shop
Shoot to Kill
Cop a Feel
Take a Pill
>
> > > >
> > > > You mean he's not a muppet?
> > >
> > > Muppets have more imagination.
> > >
> > > Strange he mentioned "poop" though: I had an idea for a celebrity
> gameshow
> > > called "Poop Or Pudding?" It's sort of a guessing game with terrible
> > > consequences for those who fail.
> >
> >
> > Tom Green has explored this area, and I'm sorry that I know that.
>
> You know too much! Ashcroft and Tom Ridge are starting a dossier.
And you're under arrest for failing to achieve your Flag Waving Quota!
elag
>
> "Parry" <pa...@perfectmail.com> wrote in message news:36a623f.02061...@posting.google.com...
>
> > > > > juvenile entertainment (say, the news-based entertainment of CNN).
> > > > > Maybe it's a part of the so-called "dumbing of America" trend. Next
> > > > > week Fox will probably air a Celebrities Playing With Their Poop
> > > > > Special, and Ari Fleischer will deliver his press briefing with the
> > > > > aid of puppets.
> > > >
> > > > You mean he's not a muppet?
> > >
> > > He's that hairless blue guy, what's his name?
> >
> > Porpoise John Paul II?
>
> Yes, but that actually sounds too cute for him.
Mebbe he's a Blue Meanie (Yellow Submarine).
elag
>
> "elag" <el...@cloud9.net> wrote in message news:3D0EB3D4...@cloud9.net...
> > john adams wrote:
> > >
> > > "elag" <el...@cloud9.net> wrote in message news:3D0D5B5A...@cloud9.net...
> >
> > Nonetheless,
> > > I will say that Xanadu was light years ahead of Andalou in terms of sheer technical
> > > brilliance.
> >
> >
> >
> > Well, sure... I'm generally attracted to image manipulation of a raw
> > nature... especially if that rawness is directly a function of the
> > marginality (read authenticity) of the imagemasters.
>
> Yeah, a sort of redemption so to speak, you mean? There are a lot
> of directions one could go with glitter, skates, and wings.
I just mean: The fewer producers the better. Creative control is
inversely proportional to the size of the budget.
I like wings though...
>
> > > > One wonders if he's aware
> > > > > of the Situationist territory his essay skirts. His bit about the
> > > > > alienating effects of the media deluge recalls the Spectacle but lacks
> > > > > the familiar jargon. Then he proceeds to fritter away the article on a
> > > > > strained metaphor about the neurosis of our culture.
> > >
> > > Vomit can be a very straining ordeal.
> >
> >
> >
> > but colorful
> >
> >
> >
>
> [...]
{INSERT COMMENT HERE}
>
> >
> > They target their demographic like a laser guided missile...
> > I should recite that to a hip-hop beat.
>
> You should go one more and make a gangster video of it, Elag.
Yeah, boy-ee!
>
> > >
> > > >"we look at people throwing up
> > > > > because we wish we could throw it all up -- including these images of
> > > > > people throwing up."
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > I do find the idea plausible in a way... that the throw away society is
> > > > approaching its end as the throwing up society... there's really nothing left.
> > >
> > > Yes, as our pop culture is reaching point overload, I think we are seeing throw away
> > > society become throw up society increasingly more everyday. Nothing dishonest
> > > about wanting to puke or puke at those wanting to puke on top of the pre-existing layers
> > > of puke.
> >
> >
> >
> > That's the way I feel about it every time advertising jingle lyrics
> > invade my brain while I'm listening to a classical or rock tune which
> > those Madison Avenue Monstrosities have sodomized.
> >
> > (e.g. breakfast, McD0n@ld's breakfast) <-- sorry if this increases the pain.
>
> The pain is proportional to the reciprocal of pleasure and subsequent indigestion.
"Pleasure is 10 percent indigestion 90 percent burger grease."
= Thomas Alva Edition
> > > > > As for tv in general, I've no particular axe to grind either. There
> > > > > are maybe three shows currently on which I actually like,
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > If I may... which three?
> > >
> > > johnny quest
> > > johnny quest
> > > johnny quest
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ...of course... but which is best: The Original, the "New", the "Golden"
> > or the "Real" Adventures
>
> So many choices, and I've only seen the original. So I'll say the original!
The original is fine but you really should try:
New Improved Minty Fresh Jonny
now with 13% percent more animotion!
elag
>
> elag <el...@cloud9.net> wrote in message news:<3D0EB84A...@cloud9.net>...
> > Parry wrote:
> [snips]
> > > > > As for tv in general, I've no particular axe to grind either. There
> > > > > are maybe three shows currently on which I actually like,
> > > >
> > > > If I may... which three?
> > >
> > > I hesitate, but here goes... The Daily Show -- a parody of news-based
> > > entertainment which is very funny.
> >
> > I find it funny except when guests are on promoting stuff...
>
> The guests are usually awful -- particularly repulsive are the tv
> anchors and other imaginary "current events specialists." But I always
> watch shows on tape so I can fast forward the ads and guests. It's a
> ten-minute show for me.
A good strategy...
the remote is-s-s your-r-r frien-nd...
<stroke, stroke>
>
> > Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- because
> > > I'm a veteran gorehound but also because of its sharp wordplay, neat
> > > paralleling of real life and fantastic plotlines, and humour.
> >
> > Not my cup of tea but I can see the attraction
>
> I never saw the show until about a year ago, then got hooked by an
> episode called "Hush." It featured a gang of creepy skeletal guys in
> suits who evidently emerged from fairy tales to magically steal the
> voice of everyone in town. Then at night, accompanied by
> straight-jacketed lunatics, they would find a victim and quietly tear
> out his heart.
Those guys must have read a lot of Neil Gaiman when they were tots.
>
> > > The Ripping Friends -- Kricfalusi cartoon about testosterone-bloated
> > > superheroes. That last show might be made for kids, but it's also very
> > > funny.
> >
> > Nevva hoid of it...
>
> It's run on Tele-Toon, which is Canada's version of the Cartoon
> Network. Kricfalusi's production company has/had a nice website
> (www.spumco.com) but I haven't been able to get the link to work
> lately. Here's a link that decsribes the show:
> http://www.canoe.ca/TelevisionShowsR/therippingfriends.html
> Here's another link that just peddles videos but at least it has a
> graphic: http://www.lionsgatefilms.com/CorpSite/partners/partners_rf.html
It doesn't seem to be on the air here right now... but I can always pull
out my old Ren & Stimpy tapes.
>
> > Might add The Simpsons as a fourth, though the show may have
> > > had its day already.
> >
> > Definitely over the hill years ago... it can still be funny but it is
> > senile and toothless. I like Futurama a lot even though it doesn't have
> > the satirical edge of early Simpsons... you ever catch it?
>
> I have but never warmed to it.
=snif=
>
> > I guess the common ground is funny -- tv's strong
> > > suit. I recall you mentioned a British show, but it never showed up on
> > > the Canadian stations. Anyway, you should reciprocate and list the
> > > shows everyone thinks you're nuts for watching.
> >
> > I'm mainly a scifi addict. My current fave is Farscape. I always watch
> > the latest Trek even when the scripts are execrable because I like the
> > "atmosphere" of that universe. I already mentioned Futurama. Most
> > everything else I like is defunct.
>
> I would have added another show, Lexx, to my list but it just finished
> its run so technically isn't "currently" on. It began as a sort of
> sci-fi fable about a future Dark Ages story, but as the machinations
> of the original plot played out the crew of the bug just started going
> in circles until their craft died. It had a sardonic view of humanity
> and was also quite funny. I believe the American sci-fi channel runs
> censored versions of it.
Yes, I've seen most of the run. I did enjoy it though I feel that the
plots often get flabby. It might have been stronger if they stuck to
6-8 eps per season like their obvious ancestor the British show Red Dwarf.
The fourth season had a hideous caricature of
> the President -- a sweating gibbering moron who has his wife executed
> in a Dealy Plaza recreation so he can marry his bimbo,
They were funny and as a strange European satire of America definitely
creeped me out a bit... a good thing, I think.
and who anyway
> is just a puppet of Death who runs the ATF -- that probably alienated
> whatever small audience found it down there.
It didn't help, but I still think that their main problem was that they
didn't realy have enough ideas to fill out 22 eps. The high points,
like the bizarre mechanical chessgame, were quite amazing and amusing.
I'll have to look for
> Farscape. An interesting program would at least partially compensate
> for this city's lack of movies (even Woody Allen's recent release was
> apparently too esoteric for the last remaining megaplexes to run).
Sheesh - he's hardly that esoteric any more... on the other hand he
doesn't make "blockbusters", so what good is he?
john adams
I don't know, maybe you're right. Much of this critique is not exclusive to Situationist
writing. We see it elsewhere - from the pre-dating anarchist writings, worker struggles,
capitalist criticism, and their family of social-politcal-economic thought, to more modern day
ancestries, of which we could associate S.I. I should admit that I'm not an expert on "all things S.I.",
nor have I even seen the movie "The Society of the Spectacle".
Ideally he should have provided some solid solutions to the woes he illustrated. Yet I feel his
piece - a stylistic, short essay included in a literature journal - bordered more on the abrasive
comedy-satire, selfish as it was, and as I believe intended. Its persuasion (or its attempt to
persuade) was to have us realize we've about come to the edge of the cliff of digesting
consumer mania (tell us somethin' new?).
His ending sentence about why we choose to look at people throwing up, to me, remarks
about an unconscious part of us that enjoys watching [vomit] because it wishes to throw it
all up: humanity, viewing our tv's day in day out, have met ourselves up with a new morbid
urge to consume images, throw them up, and then enjoy watching more of the same [vomiting
images] as a symbol of this primal and unconscious urge to "expunge". This is more sardonics
than semiotics.
The answers to all this would have been more forthcoming in a longer political analysis
- maybe - or in a political journal. Nontheless, you may be correct to say the reader deserves
more. I don't think it was intended merely to accept "vomit" and be done, though.
For what it's worth. For what it's worth...
john
john adams
"elag" <el...@cloud9.net> wrote in message news:3D110C03...@cloud9.net...
> >
> > Yeah, a sort of redemption so to speak, you mean? There are a lot
> > of directions one could go with glitter, skates, and wings.
>
>
> I just mean: The fewer producers the better. Creative control is
> inversely proportional to the size of the budget.
Yeah, that is certainly true enough.
> I like wings though...
You liked that show? I never really got into it!
> >
> > > > > One wonders if he's aware
> > > > > > of the Situationist territory his essay skirts. His bit about the
> > > > > > alienating effects of the media deluge recalls the Spectacle but lacks
> > > > > > the familiar jargon. Then he proceeds to fritter away the article on a
> > > > > > strained metaphor about the neurosis of our culture.
> > > >
> > > > Vomit can be a very straining ordeal.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > but colorful
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > [...]
>
>
>
> {INSERT COMMENT HERE}
As an aside: You can get more milage out of your Elag while not
sacrificing the integrity of its Mo-shine by using Monad medicated
Goobie pads and Barglewater.
> > >
> > > They target their demographic like a laser guided missile...
> > > I should recite that to a hip-hop beat.
> >
> > You should go one more and make a gangster video of it, Elag.
>
>
>
> Yeah, boy-ee!
Simmer down ...CHUCK D.
[...]
>
> The original is fine but you really should try:
>
> New Improved Minty Fresh Jonny
>
> now with 13% percent more animotion!
Ah, they extracted that directly from my small toe
and tried to sell it as some kind of "Moonlighting lotion". Now I
see its being flaunted about as a cartoon to children.
When will they get enough?
john
elag
>
> "elag" <el...@cloud9.net> wrote in message news:3D110C03...@cloud9.net...
>
> > >
>
> You liked that show? I never really got into it!
Hm-mm-mm... think: "Band on the Run"...
> > >
> > > > > > One wonders if he's aware
> > > > > > > of the Situationist territory his essay skirts. His bit about the
> > > > > > > alienating effects of the media deluge recalls the Spectacle but lacks
> > > > > > > the familiar jargon. Then he proceeds to fritter away the article on a
> > > > > > > strained metaphor about the neurosis of our culture.
> > > > >
> > > > > Vomit can be a very straining ordeal.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > but colorful
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > [...]
> >
> >
> >
> > {INSERT COMMENT HERE}
>
> As an aside: You can get more milage out of your Elag while not
> sacrificing the integrity of its Mo-shine by using Monad medicated
> Goobie pads and Barglewater.
I'm a PoMo MoFo!
I wear a MuMu!
I want Mo' MoJo!
So don't moan no mo'!
> > > >
> > > > They target their demographic like a laser guided missile...
> > > > I should recite that to a hip-hop beat.
> > >
> > > You should go one more and make a gangster video of it, Elag.
> >
> >
> >
> > Yeah, boy-ee!
>
> Simmer down ...CHUCK D.
<loop>
=whistling teakettle=
<loop>
> >
> > The original is fine but you really should try:
> >
> > New Improved Minty Fresh Jonny
> >
> > now with 13% percent more animotion!
>
> Ah, they extracted that directly from my small toe
> and tried to sell it as some kind of "Moonlighting lotion". Now I
> see its being flaunted about as a cartoon to children.
> When will they get enough?
There can never be enough cartoons!
Cartoons cured my sore index finger!
Parry
I just know Gaiman's name from Sandman, though I've never read it, but
I'd say your surmise is likely enough. One of the charms of the show
is that the writers really know their stuff and seem determined to
leave no monster motif unturned.
The fourth season was quite "flabby," but still worthwhile I think.
I'd say the third season was only a few episodes overweight, and the
earlier shows were solid. While there was European involvement in the
production, the show's creators appear to be Halitonians (though the
name "Lex Gigeroff" looks suspiciously pseudonymic so appearances may
deceive). So they may have been tied to the North American business
practice of doing around 22 episode for a season, while 6 or 7
episodes in a run is the standard practice for a BBC show like Red
Dwarf.
> > I'll have to look for
> > Farscape. An interesting program would at least partially compensate
> > for this city's lack of movies (even Woody Allen's recent release was
> > apparently too esoteric for the last remaining megaplexes to run).
>
> Sheesh - he's hardly that esoteric any more... on the other hand he
> doesn't make "blockbusters", so what good is he?
All the screens here are running the same movie: "The Divine Secret
Attack of the Borin' Insomniac Scooby-Doo Identity Clones." But at
least they put Percoset in the popcorn.
-- Parry
Parry
> While there was European involvement in the
> production, the show's creators appear to be Halitonians
That should be "Haligonians." They're from Halifax, not the mystical
land of Halitosis.
-- Parry
Dale Houstman
Are they related to the Halogen Tube people? A bright culture that
eventually imploded.
dmh
elag
>
> elag <el...@cloud9.net> wrote in message news:<3D111017...@cloud9.net>...
> > Parry wrote:
> > >
> > > elag <el...@cloud9.net> wrote in message news:<3D0EB84A...@cloud9.net>...
> > > > Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- because
> > > > > I'm a veteran gorehound but also because of its sharp wordplay, neat
> > > > > paralleling of real life and fantastic plotlines, and humour.
> > > >
> > > > Not my cup of tea but I can see the attraction
> > >
> > > I never saw the show until about a year ago, then got hooked by an
> > > episode called "Hush." It featured a gang of creepy skeletal guys in
> > > suits who evidently emerged from fairy tales to magically steal the
> > > voice of everyone in town. Then at night, accompanied by
> > > straight-jacketed lunatics, they would find a victim and quietly tear
> > > out his heart.
> >
> > Those guys must have read a lot of Neil Gaiman when they were tots.
>
> I just know Gaiman's name from Sandman, though I've never read it,
You really must. It was a comment in this very group that inspired me to
seek them out. I was really glad that I finally did. Check your local
library for the "novel" sized reprints, I found them all by hopping from
branch to branch...
but
> I'd say your surmise is likely enough. One of the charms of the show
> is that the writers really know their stuff and seem determined to
> leave no monster motif unturned.
>
> > >
> > > I would have added another show, Lexx, to my list but it just finished
> > > its run so technically isn't "currently" on. It began as a sort of
> > > sci-fi fable about a future Dark Ages story, but as the machinations
> > > of the original plot played out the crew of the bug just started going
> > > in circles until their craft died. It had a sardonic view of humanity
> > > and was also quite funny. I believe the American sci-fi channel runs
> > > censored versions of it.
> >
> > Yes, I've seen most of the run. I did enjoy it though I feel that the
> > plots often get flabby. It might have been stronger if they stuck to
> > 6-8 eps per season like their obvious ancestor the British show Red Dwarf.
> >
> > The fourth season had a hideous caricature of
> > > the President -- a sweating gibbering moron who has his wife executed
> > > in a Dealy Plaza recreation so he can marry his bimbo,
> >
> > They were funny and as a strange European satire of America definitely
> > creeped me out a bit... a good thing, I think.
> >
> > and who anyway
> > > is just a puppet of Death who runs the ATF -- that probably alienated
> > > whatever small audience found it down there.
> >
> > It didn't help, but I still think that their main problem was that they
> > didn't realy have enough ideas to fill out 22 eps. The high points,
> > like the bizarre mechanical chessgame, were quite amazing and amusing.
>
> The fourth season was quite "flabby," but still worthwhile I think.
For the most part I agree... I'm hyper-critical of most everything.
> I'd say the third season was only a few episodes overweight,
That's probably true but, of course, it was only 13 eps.
and the
> earlier shows were solid. While there was European involvement in the
> production, the show's creators appear to be Halitonians (though the
> name "Lex Gigeroff" looks suspiciously pseudonymic so appearances may
> deceive). So they may have been tied to the North American business
> practice of doing around 22 episode for a season,
Definitely true... it can be an unfortunate constraint.
while 6 or 7
> episodes in a run is the standard practice for a BBC show like Red
> Dwarf.
This surely encourages concision... the Merkins should consider doing it
as well for certain series.
>
> > > I'll have to look for
> > > Farscape. An interesting program would at least partially compensate
> > > for this city's lack of movies (even Woody Allen's recent release was
> > > apparently too esoteric for the last remaining megaplexes to run).
> >
> > Sheesh - he's hardly that esoteric any more... on the other hand he
> > doesn't make "blockbusters", so what good is he?
>
> All the screens here are running the same movie: "The Divine Secret
> Attack of the Borin' Insomniac Scooby-Doo Identity Clones." But at
> least they put Percoset in the popcorn.
Horrors... do they also prop open one's eyelids with toothpicks?
elag
Who came up with that.. some bureaucratic committee?
I'm thinking: "Halifacsimiles"...
no offense intended.