Messiah Remix

An Open Letter

Dear Senators McCain & Obama,

You're both celebrities. You're both filthy rich. You're both ego-maniacs. You're both creations of the media.

You're both unable to live up to the expectations your followers place upon you. You're both unwilling to be the radical reformers you describe yourself as.

You're both crippled by your party. Obama, by Clinton. McCain, by Bush. You're both incapable of fully escaping their dead weight.

Both of your presidencies will in all likelihood be faced with challenges that will either merely ruin or fully devastate your hopes for a legacy worth remembering.

Both of you should know better. Neither of you do.

Your country deserves no better.

Sincerely.

Pervy Olympic Lounge Lizards

This post may be from way back in 2003, presumably due to its link to this picture, has brought hundreds of people to Silentio over the course of the past day. I've no clue what search terms people are using in Google Images, but I can only imagine they, like most of you, are sorely disappointed by what they find here. Nevertheless, welcome anyway.

Some Weekend Reading

Get your printer ready, or if you prefer, just take the laptop to the toilet with you, because I have here for you some great weekend reading. If you're at all interested (or involved) in, or simply curious about the marijuana industry, you simply have to read David Samuels' essay in The New Yorker "Dr. Kush: How medical marijuana is transforming the pot industry."

Note to self ... begin seeing a therapist immediately about anxiety, and a doctor about stabbing pains in my eyes.

I Love Mad Men

Another week nearly expired. All we need is the weekend to officially snuff it out, like a pillow over a face. It's been a few weeks now since I returned from Belgium, and it's pretty remarkable how one eases back into the rhythms of a nearly forgotten life. Namely, that of the constant reminders of one's unemployment. I sometimes rather wish K. would berate me for my inability to get a job ... to hold some obvious grudge. At least then, I could direct my self-defensive anger at her. But, alas, no. Much worse when the constant reminders come from within. When they impose one layer of guilt for not having tried hard enough to remedy the situation; and then more layers still when the previous layers of guilt were not enough to shame you into finding a job. Around and around it goes.

Fortunately, I've discovered people more sad than I am: the main characters of AMC's magnificent show, Mad Men. We finished watching the first season last night, and I think I can say that on the merits of that season alone it has entered top tier of 'must see shows'. I'm really taken by the show's painstaking attention to detail -- with respect both to its sets and its characters. It's nice when a show doesn't even pretend to show you somebody as 'good', 'bad', or 'in-between'. The categories, as for most people in our lives, are neither necessary nor possible. (Even the loathsome Pete!) Most captivating for me is the depiction of heartbreak, especially in the marriage of Don & Betty Draper.

In this clip, from the season one finale, Betty confesses what we've known from the first episode. And I won't lie, I get a little dusty watching it.



The woman who plays Betty here plays this perfectly, and really exposes a level of raw emotion not seen since Carmela Soprano. Betty impacts me more, though, because of the level of pity I feel for her, which I never really achieved for anybody in the Sopranos.

In the next clip, superstar ad man Don Draper buys into his own sales pitch for Kodak's new slide projector, and it is mesmerizing to watch unfold.



The timing here is rich. And like Don says at the beginning, it walks a tight rope between being potent and being too sentimental. But something about the use of silence, punctuated with the clack of the projector. It just says it all ... about both the hope for something better with his wife and kids, and the regret that its not what it once was.

Not saying I relate to this or anything, at least not on the dramatic level on display here. Just saying, there's a ring of truth to it. And insofar as this is the case, maybe the healthy relationships, whatever that means, are the ones least true to life as we know it.

The Return

Is there anything better than returning from a long trip and being greeted by an excited dog? Some might say children, I suppose. But not having one of my own, and not entirely excited about the idea of having one anytime soon, a dog will do. I wish I'd taken a picture of her face when I showed up at the neighbor's house.

Anyway, we're back, and I already miss Belgium. Or maybe I just miss the cheap beer. Or, maybe still, the fact that K.'s parents paid for all of my beer. One really must love enablers! I've posted several of these already, but the remaining photos of my adventure in beer (and at least one other intoxicant) while in Belgium can be found here.

Postcard van West Vlaanderen

Cheers, from the Sint-Sixtusabdij van Westvleteren. Now considered by many alcoholic authorities as the best beer on the planet, the monks recently got with the program a little and realized they could make a bit more money from their most famous product -- though, after eating what seemed like two pounds of it, I can testify that their paté is just as much reason to visit.

The pick-up site looks like a drive-thru, but it is far less convenient than one might think. To get a crate of 24, and you're only ever allowed one crate p/month, you have to call months in advance to make a reservation. Actually, you make a reservation for a reservation, because you have to wait several days or weeks for a return call, indicating when you should come by and what will be available. Even then, when your appointed day arrives they may not even have the exact variety you were dead set on drinking -- choices being, the 'blond', the '8' and the '12', all of which, I can attest, are exquisite and worth all manner of hardship to acquire. Upon receiving your share of that which can only be called happiness, use it wisely, the monks then make you promise not to re-sell it, which of course you do with haste. Or, so it seems anyway. In Brussels, I saw a crate of 24 being sold near the Grand Market, for nearly seven euro a bottle.

Or, you can do like me, visit the abbey around lunch, enjoy a meal with two '12's and one '8', two pounds of paté and fresh bread, one heaping helping of ice cream made with their beer, and then stumble around the 7 km walking-path whilst belchy and bloated. Soon thereafter, I found the skies darkened by clouds and night, my sense of consciousness fading, stinking of beer, cheese, and the marijuana one inevitably happens upon during such events, listening to the Saxophone Summit and Wayne Shorter Quartet at the Gent Jazz Festival.

It was, I suppose, like any other day in Belgium. But a special one all the same. I will miss my second home.

Still Good To Be In Belgium

It's Good To Be Back in Belgium

"A Necessary Political Decision"?

It's a very intriguing question as to whether Clinton is at all tempted to tweak Obama's nose and come out guns a'blazin' against the pretty atrocious FISA Compromise he supports. I doubt most people give a crap about FISA, but hardcore Democrats do, and it is certainly a chance to throw out to them a token "I told you so." If she could be instrumental in shooting it down, as doubtful as that is, she would not only be able to illustrate the hollowness of Obama's control over the party, but do so in such a way that he couldn't really cry foul without alienating his supporters (most of whom now are rationalizing the decision as "a necessary political decision," "the smart political move," etc.). Of course, this is a moot point if Clinton supports the compromise. But I honestly don't see any reason she'd feel inclined to do so, unless she is particularly convinced of its necessity.

A Theology Post!?!

Lately I've been revising an essay of mine that addresses the differences between “righteousness” and “justice.” For most readers of Paul, the difference would appear mostly cosmetic. I've latched onto a contemporary analogy, though, that I think might be helpful in showing a distinction at issue that makes a significant difference.

Consider one of the most important economic issues facing the globalized economy today, debt. In the event of a crisis, whereby there is a person or a country whose credit is overextended, the normal response is to tweak the existing structure that imposes and enforces repayment, normally through some kind of legal reform or economic refinancing. The upshot is a realignment of one’s position with respect to the existing economic and legal structure, but not a complete reassessment of its legitimacy. This is generally comparable to how most traditional conceptions of righteousness is understood to work in, say, The Epistle to the Romans. If we were to extend the analogy, justice would then correspond to wholesale, worldwide debt forgiveness. The results of debt forgiveness are, in terms of the existing structures of political economy, unthinkable (and, inasmuch as the results are thought at all, with the probable collapse of present markets, economies and currencies, even horrific). Which is to say, because debt forgiveness and justice cannot in any way be made to square with the existing legal and economic order, neither can the results of their occurrence be fully anticipated or evaluated. This seems really striking to me, and ultimately very significant for a conception of theology that actually informs one's political disposition.

Depression Lurks! Pop Links!

In a bid to ward off depression, I've spent the last part of my afternoon listening to jingle-jangly pop by the New Pornographers. I just thought I'd share.

In Love Again

Over the past couple of months I've strayed from my original love, cinema. The whore that is TV has become more attractive lately. In the past few months, K. and I watched the final seasons of The Wire and Curb Your Enthusiasm, watched all of Deadwood, Freaks & Geeks and Tom Goes to the Mayor, and then got caught up on Weeds and Dexter. We decided to wait for season three of Weeds to come out on DVD, rather than downloading it. That gave us a few weeks to kill, since it's not due out until June 3.

The break has been a good thing. It forced me to reevaluate my relationship with the whore. She's a firecracker in bed, sure, but like Chris Rock said, "new pussy can't read!" She is, in short, not my true love. This is where the metaphor ends, of course. In the real world, if I returned to my wife, carrying the stink of cigarettes, whisky & whore, I'd be thrown out without so much as a counseling session or a goodbye. Fortunately, the world of metaphor is more forgiving, and cinema took me back with open arms.

On Monday, K. & I celebrated the death of US veterans (wait... that doesn't sound right) by watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall. A good friend of mine sums up Judd Apatow quite well: "Making misogyny hip again." He's not far off. The women of Apatow's world are really unfortunate. They are, for the most part, pretty, so they have that going for them. But they are also ultimately subject to the judgment and whims of the men, in whose world they just happen to inhabit. For a while, I thought FSM would be a bit different in this regard. Early on the lead character is exposed as unenviable and pathetic, and completely oblivious to his ex-girlfriend's attempts to improve their relationship. Granted, she leaves him for a vacuous rock star ... but, in the scheme of things, pairing up with the rock-star/sex-god at least makes sense. Pretty, professional women don't normally stick with doughy losers who do nothing but sit at home in their sleep clothes and watch TV (note to self, keep a divorce lawyer on retainer). And yet, by the end of it, she has become the villain, mostly for reasons that elude me. After realizing she does in fact still love (or at least miss) her old boyfriend, Sarah Marshall is referred to as "Hitler," and "the Devil" by the ex. Worse still, she never gets in a word otherwise, and is ultimately lampooned in the credits. What began as the most hopeful of the Apatow projects, in terms of its view of women, is finally its most harsh. Other than that, the movie is pretty hilarious. Seriously. I did enjoy it.

After that, I had to make amends for a glaring oversight. Somehow, I'd never seen The Hustler. I didn't even have a full grasp of its plot, and thus had no expectation of how pitch-black dark it is. Yikes. This is not, it turns out, the Rocky of pool. Can anybody play the super-talented but desperately flawed character better than Paul Newman? He thrives in these roles. The message is simple and plain: win or lose, your reward for participating in the rat-race is destruction. Have fun, though!

Last night was the best of all. K. didn't get much out Blast of Silence, but my God it blew me away. It was like watching a fully Americanized version of Godard's Breathless -- and, indeed, better than Breathless. In fact, by all rights, it should have heralded a New Wave contemporary to that in France. Now, that could've been interesting. Anyway, short assessment, it's really hard to go wrong with assassins during Christmas. Throw in the existential anxiety of wanting a silence one can never have, from one's first to final breath, and you have a great movie. Plus, a guy gets killed with an ax.

Tonight ... it's Kiss of Death. I've nearly forgotten the whore entirely.

The Remix

You've surely seen the video of Bill O'Reilly's meltdown on his old show Inside Edition. Me, I prefer the Remix.

Wow

For those who've missed the "Play off the Playoffs" so far:

Over the Mountain

Happy Mother's Day!

Being a Fan

It's been a long time since I've been a true fan of any one team, no matter the sport. The closest woudl be when I grew up in Lexington, Kentucky and cheered for UK basketball. Even then, though, I always had a sense that we'd really lost a sense of perspective. The zeal of the UK fan was that of a fundamentalist, which one can only truly appreciate after you leave the blue-blooded confines of Lexington and witness it from a distance. In fact, during in college, I ended up developing a special kind of hatred for the UK basketball fan, watching them be too obnoxious in victory (as though THEY had earned the glory) and too vindictive in defeat. I think this experience really warped my sense of sports enjoyment, to the point that I became a lover of sports without any real allegiance.

Sure, while living in Cincinnati I became partial to the Bengals, but this was always more sympathy for the hometown team than real fandom. Their playoff run in 2005 was more of a shock than a thrill. And yeah, I have a definite soft-spot for the Reds, having gone to their games since I was a boy, and will still even go to their games when they visit the West Coast, but I've never been completely sold-out on them either. I couldn't put name to face for 85% of their present roster.

Just prior to my move last April, I told a co-worker that I was going to start cheering for the Golden State Warriors. I'd long wanted a NBA team to rally around, they were lovable underdogs, and since they played in a terrific Western conference I'd get a chance to see a lot of quality teams play in my new backyard. To my surprise, upon my declaration, they went on a winning streak to end the 2007 regular season and squeaked into the playoffs. (I was still in Ohio at this time and thus didn't actually get to see this surge, but instead followed it with growing interest via box scores. I later learned this sixteen-game stretch is where the Warrior mystique truly came alive in popular NBA legend. Plenty of good YouTube videos to be seen chronicling their rise.)

The 2007 playoffs kicked off while K. & I began our epic seven-day trip across the country. While on the road, we watched the Warriors split the first two games in Dallas against the Mavs. I was impressed, but I wasn't hopeful. A number-eight seed simply doesn't win in a seven-game series, I explained to K. Something happned in Game Three, though. I remember watching it from our hotel room in Monterey, balancing an over-priced room-service hamburger on a napkin, and witnessing the strange synthesis of crowd and team at the Oracle Arena. I wasn't there, but I knew there was a "moment" happening -- one of those things that all sports fans watch sports for. This is where the regular script is thrown out and replaced with something infinitely more significant, even when it means your team doesn't win. Maverick fans loathe the Warriors, but I think they have to admit something special happened during that series. Golden State went on to win the series in six games, and though they lost the next round to the Utah Jazz, my absolutely arbitrary decision to become a fan had been solidified.

In many ways, I realize this may qualify me as a world-class bandwagon jumper ... but, I can deal with this aspersion of my character. Bandwagon or not, this has been the first full season of my being a true fan. I've not only watched a good 95% of their games, I've brooded mercilessly when they lost and cheered triumphantly when they've won. K. & I have hours-long discussions about playoff possibilities. She has consoled me mid-game when all hope looked lost; and I've counseled her from the brink when our team has let another eighteen-point lead dip to two. And even now, instead of looking for a job I'm reflecting on who they should draft.

With the joys of being a fan, of course, are the remarkable lows when things do not work out as hoped. To the NBA's loss, the Warriors were eliminated from playoff contention this week when they got beat by the Suns. It was hard to watch, especially after they were up eleven in the fourth quarter. I was without consolation Monday evening following the game. But as I reflected on this yesterday, I realized that I was entering uncharted emotional territory. I'd simply never felt that invested in a team's win-loss record. I don't know that I'd recommend it as a way of life -- knowing at least one Buffalo Bills fan, I can attest that it likely isn't healthy in the long run -- but there is something to devoting oneself even to a losing effort. There is, I now understand, a communal aspect to being a fan -- of the celebratory cheers and mournful moans held in unison amongst strangers.

Perhaps, in the end, what I disliked about my previous experiences in Lexington was that the fan experience was too individualistic. Maybe things have changed, but at the time UK fans were not feared because they could collectively will a team to win, or because their teams resembled their fans to the point that they were an organic whole, but because of the combined weight of their general animosity toward losing. This just seemed to breed a sense that they were owed success, and resulted in unearned bitterness when it didn't happen. (Just ask Tubby Smith.)

Out here in Oakland, though, it's safe to say that I've enjoyed my experience as a fan so far. I don't think I'm likely to extend it beyond the NBA right now. I have issues with the salary and talent distribution of baseball, so I can't take it too seriously; NFL has really begun to annoy me increasingly; and I've long ago turned my back on college basketball & football. In the ranks of professional sports, nothing comes closer to the NBA right now. I've said this before, but I highly recommend that you latch onto a team during this upcoming post-season -- maybe a young & fun 76er team, or a Hornets team everybody overlooked before the season. It's going to be a helluva ride. Who knows, maybe you'll fall ass-backward into becoming a fan, too.

Job Idea

After a solid month of full-time (albeit temporary) employment, I am returned to the warm embrace of unemployment. Yesterday, I was able to knock out the final disc of Beckett on Film, read a bit more in Lewis Mumford's The City in History, and cry & moan when the final episode of The Wire didn't appear on On-Demand. In other words, we're back to normal.

Part of this normalcy is for me to fancifully imagine of possible employment scenarios in which I have either the vaguest of interest or most general of skills. Sometimes, it is something as mundane as becoming a librarian; other times, it is as dramatic as returning to the ministry. Each, however, carry within them a sizable educational (and, thus, financial) burden. In order to become a librarian, I would need to complete a two-year Master of Library Science program. To do that on the relative cheap I would need to attend a state university. At present, that means California, a state that already daily manages to kick in the testicular fortitude of our mightest budget.

As for the ministry . . . I am already ordained, but I cannot imagine a scenario in which I could, in good or bad faith, serve in the Christian Church / Churches of Christ. More likely, I would need to change teams, as it were, and pursue an ordination in the United Church of Christ or Episcopal Church. This would mean more seminary education, and, in all likelihood, more student loan burden.

Ideally, I will find something that requires no more additional education. Even more ideal, though, would be something that requires very little effort on my part at all. With this objective in mind, I think I've come up with the perfect solution: providing my services to people who have no friends willing or able to hang out with them.

In a culture of increasing isolation, people often stay at home not because they want to, but because they have nobody to go out with. Be it for lunch, or drinks, etc. I could be that person, for a price. I am a generalist by nature, and can carry my own in almost any friendly conversation. I am opinionated, but also genuinely interested in the perspective of others. I will not quickly agree to what is said, because wholesale agreement is a first-rate conversational killer. I am self-deprecating enough, though, that you could easily dismiss my opinions as those of a crackpot with too much time on his hands. I don't mind sharing my dessert. I become increasingly affable when drinking, and will always recommend very good alcohol. I never win at pool, and I cannot bowl, but love playing anyway. I am, in short, the perfect friend-whore.

I Know Where I Stand

Today I got my official rejection from Stanford University for a postdoctoral fellowship. I say 'offical' because I've been expecting it for a while. I think at this point it can be safely said that Stanford has completely and utterly rejected me. As of today, I've been turned down by them for three postdoctoral posts, an administrative position that facilitated their Humanities postdoctoral program, two library postions, and a Sports Media job that I once accidentally applied for through their website.

Palo Alto may or may not be the city of the future, but definitely not mine.

On Catastrophe

I recently finished Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day, and for some reason I found it resonating in weird ways with Cormac McCarthy's most recent novel, The Road. They are, of course, very different novels; and, indeed, were written by very different authors. But I was struck by how each, in their own ways, own up to a world facing catastrophe.

For Thomas Pynchon, the catastrophe (most notably, WWI) has yet to happen, but it looms throughout his novel. Indeed, the full weight of what is to come manages even to pierce the time-continuum and forcibly project emissaries of a futuristic world upended by humanity's self-made destruction. His is a meditation on technological and economic aspirations that instrumentalize individuals, their labor, and most fundamentally, the very core of existence, time.

For Cormac McCarthy, the catastrophe has already taken place. A piercing white light in the distance, a self-made disaster once again, is all that is disclosed about it. The effect, however, is clear—the body itself has become instrumentalized as food for the cannibalistic gangs of survivors.

While both Pynchon and McCarthy offer insightful critiques of the self-destructive tendencies of contemporary culture, they do so most powerfully in their evaluation of human sociality & love. What I found most interesting, though, and given my disposition this is hardly surprising, is that neither are concerned to demonstrate some semblance of hope. Like the great theoretician of catastrophe before them, Theodor Adorno, they do not suggest that relationships, be they familial or otherwise, might save us, either from what comes or what has already come. In many respects, they treat sociality & love like Adorno might aesthetics (music, in particular): as an immanent power trangressive to existing regimes of instrumentalization. This, we should note, despite its fragility, contingency, and transience -- they are, to my reading, both very careful not to idealize love. By all accounts, such love is useless (e.g., in The Road, the father's walking to the coast with his son only extends their being together, not the the hope for their ultimate survival) and/or capricious (e.g., in Against the Day, most noteworthy relationships are at first glance nothing but gratuitous, random sex; not to mention either short-lived or misdirected), but ultimately highlights a level of intimacy that goes against traditional expectations and norms. It is, in effect, out-of-place and/or inconvenient; when it is not doomed to failure, it survives only in misery.

For all of this, and perhaps cause of all this, Pynchon & McCarthy present love as not fully appropriated for profit and instrumentalized debasement. On the contrary, its vagabond, moribund, untenable status are marks of its survival, and of its status as a remnant of what is possible before and after the catastrophe. In this it manages to transcend those all-encompassing powers whose authority extends even to their own self-willed destruction -- that of a world so intent on surviving a certain way that it is willing to kill itself trying, through the ultimately suicidal violence of it means of production (& consumption) and the waging of its wars. In short, Pynchon and McCarthy can be said to intimate a kind of alternative ontology of survival, resistance, and existence: one that cuts across classical individualism and humanism, and brings us closer to the sense of a subjectivity that is a sociality, of a being-with others.

[Cross-posted elsewhere.]