Terror | Terroir

 I've recently watched the Jordan Peele produced The Twilight Zone, and thoroughly enjoyed Get Out when it came out a few year's ago.  I've long made the case that horror is as (or more) necessary as terror, in our daily lives, and I think Peele's horror ouvre, as it continues to unfold in front of us, will provide an object lesson for my argument.

The other night, I watched Us, and was profoundly moved by it (and close to bowel-moved as well it was so freaking scary).  It is the story of a fear of an under-class rising up.  But this under-class is not comfortably something other.  Rather, they are us.

The notion is terrifying (as opposed to horrifying).  I do not love the quickly accessible distinctions between the two (including the one in my post linked to above); a more fulsome account, if desired.  The fear of the revolutionary uprising is something that the progressive / liberal-defining bourgeoisie want to mask.  We support (in principle at least) the overthrow of power, and watching these upper middle class families get their come-uppance is, I would argue, a terror movie rather than a horror movie.

But then, Peele does what he has done so marvelously in much of his recent genre work, he extends.  If you relish the terror of bourgeois families at their vacation houses getting terrorized and chased around by unknown baddies, then by extension you will cheer to yourself similar harassed and displaced.  Of course this (generally) does not hold true, and becomes where we enter the horror genre.  The apocalypse for everyone else and adventure / free to wander tale for ourselves is at the heart of the good old 'merican terror story (The Stand, The Road, Revolution, The Postman, et cetera et cetera).  We love these tales of terror as long as we are in the less than 0.6% who get to survive Captain Trips.

In Us, when we begin to see the masses of underworlders holding hands in lines across streets, in and out of buildings and over mountain roads, forming an echo (but what's the word for an echo that's louder - more heard!?) of Hands Across America, the implications begin to be horrifying.  They are coming for all of us: children and adults, black and white, rich and poor.  

For me personally, Hands Across America was already a horror-laden event.  In 1986, my two brothers and I piled in to the family station wagon with my dad, leaving my mom at home, and drove south toward central Illinois to join in the not-so-nationwide chain of humanity.  On the drive down, the three other boys in the car (7, 14 & 40 years my senior) were discussing apocalypse as some kooky preacher on the radio (and billboards I seem to recall) was predicting Armageddon in the coming days or weeks (evidently it wasn't high-profile enough to make this list, unless perhaps my memories are conflated).  My brothers and dad were discussing the concept academically (or at least the childish version of academically; my family, and in particular my dad, are textualist bible-y people, and while they didn't go in for specific predictions of any moment, I do have the sense that they all kind of generally believed in it 'eventually'), and my 8-year-old mind was swallowing it whole, and I was terrified that the end of my existence was mere days away (hours of it to be wasted in the way back of this damned car!). 

I don't believe that Jordan Peele tailored his horror story specifically to me, but I am curious (and it's probably too late to note, spoiler-alert) as to what the implications of the film might have been had it not been for the twistNotSoTwist ending.  Would Adelaide's (Lupita Nyong'o) doppelganger (Red), who in fact was Adelaide, have seemingly led the uprising had she not come originally from the top side. Revolutionary artists (or perhaps it's more often horror makers) often wind up creating works that actually make arguments quite the contrary to what they themselves believe or would espouse in the real world.  

• Thus, is the argument of Us that in order to make revolution, the underside need a spark (inspiration or perhaps permission) from a member of the ruling class?
• Just as the hippie horror-makers (Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter) wound up making conservative arguments warning about the dangers of teenage promiscuity...
• And a work of horror fiction as seemingly revolutionary as Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves winds up making a very very conservative argument (albeit circuitously).

It's not to say that it's the fault of these brilliant creators that their works wind up making conservative arguments that they'd rather not be making.  Rather it's the tricksy nature of working in the media of terror and horror and trying to bridge the gap.  It's why a filmmaker like George Romero was less susceptible to falling into the same trap, because he started with the horror and embraced it for its own sake, and the meaning came afterward.  When you try to wield the ephemeral (which is what you're doing when you're creating a work of art), it gets slippery, and doesn't always go where it wants.

It's why when the artistic mockery of religion that is televangelist doomsayers like Jack Van Impe and publishing powerhouses like Joel Osteen and religiosity-based "university" educators like Jerry Falwell Jr... 

• Ply their craft, they wind up arguing against their personal ownership or understanding of church doctrine, and their political and moral arguments (not to mention their continuing calls for their own personal enrichment) wind up making the case for exactly the opposite of their intent.

Tyler Ledger Joker Fi

I went and saw Joker last night - dutifully.  It was violent, very well made, well acted (and heavily acted), wonderfully shot, all like you've heard.

I would also like to submit that it may just be the most thought-provoking piece of cinematic commentary on our current socio-economic condition in decades.

It is a radical film full of radical ideas and radical violence.  Although it saddens me that it is radical to say that the current economic status quo is wildly immoral and that an existential cognitive dissonance is necessary to participate in the system honestly.

The central question of Joker is whether any of the events of the movie actually happened or not within the confines of the fictional Batman universe.  This question is revealed in the final moments of the movie when Arthur is locked up for treatment of his mental illness.  It becomes clear that this moment is chronologically prior to all of the violence that has previously occurred in the film.  Arthur describes all (or possibly just some) of that violence as a "joke" that as occurred to him as we was speaking with his case worker.  When she asks him what it was, he says that she "wouldn't get it".

Source: tvOvermind.com

This 'final reveal' parallels the 20-year-old final reveal of what I consider the last really radical movie focused on these same themes, Fight Club.  In that movie we learn that our previously reliable narrator was actually Tyler Durden the whole time.  (Also, in a partial re-viewing the scene where Lou drops in on a fight club evening, Tyler's hysterical laughter after having his ass kicked by Lou is preminiscent of Arthur's own manifestations of his mental illness).

Earlier in the film, it is revealed that Arthur's mother was diagnosed with delusional psychosis and narcissistic personality disorder (a diagnosis that may be pretty close to part of Arthur's own plus a dash of schizophrenia - which is reified in the moment when Arthur is actually standing in the room as an adult when his mother is being booked into Arkham after abusing him as a child).  While many reviewers have made much of the portrayal of mental illness in the film, I think the underlying argument of both of these movies is that some forms of thought and action (including some violence) that we casually refer to as mental illness are in fact radical responses to the immoral status quo.

To be clear, I am not condoning any real world violence here, but I do think that artistic depiction of radical political violence can pose important questions that perhaps can't be voiced within the current socio-political climate.  Questions like - what might happen if we take the modern-era royalty (i.e. the super-rich) out of power.  In Joker the one piece of violence that we know "really happens" (although perhaps not exactly as we see it occur in the movie) is the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne.  This event is formative to the future Batman, so it has to occur within the larger mythology of the film.

We also tend to forget in our modern and enlightened era how rare it is to have massive social change without violence.  Although the "clowns" in Joker are easily read as violent criminal thugs engaged in looting and riots, they are also the lumpenproletariat activated by their clown prince.  They are engaged in a modern iteration of the French Revolution and their King Louis XVI (i.e. Thomas Wayne) needs to topple.  One wonders what, exactly, this makes Batman in this historical parallel?

Mike Judge - Prophet

Two of the more brilliant films of all time in my life have been Office Space and Idiocracy. 

The two films anticipated life on earth as i have come to know it... in many ways.
We all suffer the times that we are born into.  Gandalf, perhaps, said it best, when he explained to Frodo:

Frodo: "I wish the Ring had never come to me. ... Gandalf: "So do all who live to se

Source: https://ktismatics.wordpress.com

e such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

Judge's films imagine eras that seem so familiar, but were both (in their way) revelatory of a future state that we all knew was coming but didn't want to believe. 

I am a man of odd emotional effusions.  Shiva's death on TWD in many ways was in many was sadder than those of the rest of the Kingdom earlier in the episode.  I can't watch or hear any part of Emma Gonzalez' speech last week without crying.  Deep Impact, ID4, Jurassic Park - action movies often work to elicit lame emotional responses (or pile ons), and i am afraid i'm often susceptible to them.  Real or simulated, pop song or news broadcast or Hallmark movie...

Humor, like melodrama / sob stories, are emotional manipulators.  A comedy film allows itself to make extreme arguments without being scrutinized.  In Con Air, Steve Buscemi's serial killer character says that even though he is seen as the crazy one, his definition of insanity is reporting to the same job for 40 years only to be told one Friday that you're redundant, being let go, and left to flounder.  Office Space makes much the same argument.

Idiocracy is a movie that makes the argument that US Americans are de-evolving.  Becoming stupider due to a decades-long anti-eugenics program.  It's essentially Republicanism run amok.  The Trump presidency looks a lot like 2 or 3 administrations prior to President Camacho.  Idiocracy was a funny movie when it came out - and prescient.  It felt right, but now it feels like it's actually unfolding in front of our eyes.

Comedy is an opportunity to say out loud - to scream!!! - everything that you see that is wrong with the world.  When i saw Ricky Gervais a while back, he talked about growing up in a funny family (i, too, was raised in a funny family).  He said there was one rule when he was growing up... that was, "if you think of something funny to say, you must say it."

Trumpt

I'd say the unthinkable has happened - except as D-Force reminded me, I had actually thought a Trump win had been likely since the summer.  I wanted to take a few days to let the election results sink in and be able to reflect with some distance.

Now that we find ourselves here, I think it's useful to look forward, rather than back (you know, like back to when I and many others were rationally trying to explain why Bernie had a much better chance of beating Donald Trump in a general election because it was such an overwhelmingly Change Election...).  Looking forward, I see the three most likely paths that a Trump presidency holds in store for us, and I rank these in the order that I think them likeliest to less likely (note not least likely - I won't even present that here...):

1.
Trump assumes power in January, and by the time we get to Inauguration Day, we find that he has oddly stopped talking about "The Wall" and "Muslim Bans" and he is instead focused on "Border Security" and "Safe Zones for Refugees" (safely located in their own countries or regions, naturally).  Trump works closely with the Republicans to gut our national safety net and build a non-progressive tax system that waits for financial relief to "trickle down" to unprotected workers who have lost the right to unionize or earn a fair, living wage.  In other words, he behaves as any normal Republican would have in office - he's Mitt Romney, only richer and more orange.

The Result: The Establishment (K-Street, Republican & Democratic Parties, most Major Media outlets, Wall Street, Middle Management, Delaware and Connecticut) thinks they've won, and scary 2016 is behind us; Righteous Anger Comedy (John Oliver, Samantha Bee, The Daily Show, etc.) have a field day - it's like the heady days of mocking the George W Bush years on steroids on PCP; Flyover Country Working Class Rage (this has been mis-diagnosed pre- and post-election as "the last stand of the old white guy" or racism, misogyny, xenophobia - all of that was certainly a part of the Trump Coalition, but there are two major groups who overwhelmingly elected Trump: Working Class Labor and White Middle Management. 

This is not a natural partnership and can't stand.  If Trump proceeds on the most likely course (#1), as I see it, The Tea Party and Working Class Crossover vote (progressives bemoaning the outcome of the election as depressed voter turnout and voter suppression - both valid, but not the whole story - have to get comfortable with the fact that the Democratic Party also lost voters this cycle) will remain furious.  Trump's more extreme policies (both the racist and xenophobic ones and the more tenable radical positions on trade and mass military interventionism) would be tempered and mostly forgotten in this scenario.  In 2020, the Outrage for Radical Change electorate will still be out there.  It's key to remember this voting bloc is neither inherently conservative or liberal - if they calcify around a specific candidate, it need not be a Republican or Democrat (or left or right Third Party). 

2.
The other likely (tho slightly less so, methinks) outcome of Trump's assumption of power in January is that he actually tries to do what he has said he would do.  The uncertain part here would be the order of things.  If Trump starts, as he seems to have hinted, with a Public Works program (Massive Infrastructure Investment), he would likely get cooperation from the Democrats.  That would be wise, as I'm not sure whether Democrats would go along with any proposed measures of Trump's after he starts down any racist or xenophobic policy paths.  Mass protests would follow.  It's difficult to say how long these first several evenings of protests will progress.  They are important, and need to be a part of the conversation, but if Trump actually starts enacting is catastrophic policies, the Foolhardy Wall, the Unconstitutional Muslim Ban, Alarmist Foreign Policy (possibly including either Russia-loving or going to proxy war with Russia in Syria), Protectionist Economics, and Extreme Blue Collar Job Creation (this is accomplished either through the Massive Infrastructure Investment mentioned above or via Soviet-Style Factory Takeover by the State {or better by local Municipalities}). 

The Result: What's strange is that the complete package of Trump's proposals are all over the map.  The question is whether we can parse the policy from the president.  Can the protests turn toward specific policies (Don't take away our Obama-Care! Enact Progressive Tax Reform!), and not just be against the figurehead.  I've already heard anecdotal stories of people helping strangers out against bigoted, misogynistic, xenophobic attacks on an individual basis.  The question is whether protest can be used surgically to disagree with the deplorable policies, while welcoming the Public Works and creating trade policies that don't solely support the Financial Class.

3.
Less likely (though not least likely - I won't even present my unlikely scenarios - some of which are quite hopeful and absurdly optimistic), but still a distinct possibility (maybe for example as likely as a Donald Trump presidency!) is that Something Happens.  Of course unforeseen things will occur in the course of the next four years.  Most of the way that I select a presidential candidate is based on how I think they will deal with the unforeseen.  That said, what I mean with #3 is that instead of Trump getting into a room with professional advisors, he acts out.  If North Korea launches an attack or China stretches further into the South China Sea - perhaps the Russia/Syria/Iran/ISIS hotbed becomes hotter - a question of a very sudden militaristic response that isn't thought out and can't be taken back. 

The Result: Goddess knows, but if anything outrageous were to occur, it may well spark mass protest, from people across the political spectrum.  If we have a person with control of the most powerful military in the history of the world who decides to wield it, and in particular who wields it toward un-humanistic outcomes, it will be scary - and a frightening opportunity to unify a seemingly un-unifiable populace.

This Post is Very Meta...

A couple of years ago I was taking a real look at my social media self.  Bringing back this tag to Roman Numeral J reminds me of my recent Facebook post about same date nostalgia. 

When I was a kid I had a page-a-day sports calendar.  For that reason I know that Jay Hilgenberg shares my birthday, March 21st.  The date on which things happen is important to us (anniversaries, birthdays, deathdays) and being able to mark just how long ago a specific thing occurred helps comprehend the passage of time.  This understanding, I think, can help calibrate our intentions - that is, understanding that you are now, say, 37, and that you were 28 - or maybe 19 - and had many of the same ideas, aspirations, or hopesdreams, and that there may be specific actions that need to be taken.

The link between memorial and memory is something I've written about (sorry, no link at present - not sure where that is).  Facebook's new On This Day feature is symptomatic of our desire to memorialize our lives.  However, Facebook's new version is imperfect.  Today, we post instantly from our iPhones, and properly memorialize, but many of the earlier year Facebook memories I see in my feed are on the wrong day... I didn't post my vacation photos until I actually got back from vacation (because I used to use a camera to take pictures).

I don't mean to sound like an old coot.  But I think the medium of social media is not built for memorialization, but they try...

I'll think this through, and remember it fondly.  I think I'll tweet out a link to the post to try to keep the conversation going...

When in, of course, the human events...

, being "necessarily" dissolved by some people (if, indeed, corporations are people), we assume it among the powers of the earth.  That is to say, natural - "that's life" - sort of stuff.

I was reading Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" this morning and it occurred to me that it occurred to him how arbitrary our form of government is (or forms of government are).  In his tracing of the formation of governments out of the state of nature*, Paine sets out a natural progression from absolute, direct democracy to a representative form of government once the number of people makes everyone attending the meetings untenable.

This got me thinking, though, how a truer form of democratic republicanism might be found in the form of a selected government, rather than an elected form.  If all representatives were randomly selected during each (s)election cycle I wonder if we would do no worse (and possibly a great deal better) than where we find ourselves right now.  Rather than a nation of the people (if corporations are people), by the people (if corporations are people), and for the people (if corporations are people) we would guide ourselves with a random sampling of our peers making decisions for a predetermined length of time (six, four or two year terms).  We would be guided by polling data in a much more real and meaningful way - that is, the "deciders" would themselves be that polling data, a random, statistically significant set of data, each with their own individual motivations (but without the motivation of fundraising, pandering or party loyalty.)

7/31/11 - Jefferson Memorial

If memory serves, this idea has been posited before (I'm thinking perhaps of Plato's Republic or Sir Thomas More's Utopia - anyone remember?) and I'm quite sure of it myself, but in the spirit of Jeffersonian renewal of government, I put it out for discussion.  I was reminded this summer of just how selective our collective memory has become when I saw again for the first time the Jefferson Memorial in DC.  I was there with JP and George Etwire who we met on the bus into the city.  George is from Ghana and was travelling to Utah on business.  Like us, he had several hours to kill in DC before his next flight so we saw some sites.

Jefferson (and I would argue the rest of them, too) never intended for this to be The Constitution, in perpetuity.  It must be a living document, both in how we read it and amend it, but also in the sense that it might (must?) grow, give birth to new ideas and eventually even die.  The real Tea Party (the one before it was co-opted by corporate interests) might have known this, but the idea was lost in the ideological fervor of originalism.  The Occupy Movement may also know it, but not admit to knowing it because of its efforts to appeal to the "middle of the roaders."  (Calling the Occupy Movement extremist makes about as much sense as calling Barack Obama a Left Winger - while, as with anything, there is some fringe there, the majority line is fairly tame.)

What surprises me, though, is that it's been right in front of us since at least 1943 - 8th Graders have been carted past it for years - this is not a historical "argument", it's history.


* Very interesting is Paine's formulation of the state of nature as a "group of emigrants" come together (presumably as a displacing force of whatever happened to live there before) in a new, untouched land.  This of course presumes a certain modern (or at least enlightened) sensibility in the people of the hypothetical age, whereas Rousseau's "state of nature" hearkens back to an earlier, more innocent humanity.  Paine's Founders are always already colonizers (and therefore need governments to reign in their baser nature).

Occupied

I think what might be most revealing in the “Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Everywhere” Movements is the extent to which we begin to understand that these young people, here there and everywhere protesting “get it”. They’ve seen through the façade that is work-a-day life and are opting out.

That is, I’m sure, making several assumptions on their behalf, but what I have earlier diagnosed as a certain flakiness amongst young people today (and I use that phrase with full knowledge of the codgi-ness that it seems to assign to me) is in fact nothing more than a state of recognition and scorn. Throughout our lives we are presented with a series of hoops through which we must jump – Do well in school; Get into College; Get a Job; Get a Wife; Get a “Life” (which might be translated “loan”); Have some Babies; Wait to Die.

These arbitrary hoops are not enough of an account for the Occupiers. For generations the fact that “this is what you do” has been enough for folks, but this lot now says, not necessarily “No”, rather “Really?”

Workers Unite!

For those in Milwaukee today, there's a rally against union


 busting @ 4pm on the Corner of Water and Wisconsin.


 Please show up in support of worker's rights.


It's a wonderful time and a terrible (in the original sense) time in Wisconsin.  We're heading to Madison this afternoon.  I think it's time to wake up in the United States.  I'm as culpable as anyone I'm talking to - I see the systematic dismantling of lower and middle class rights in favor of corporate consolidation of power, but I'm not an activist.  


I am always fully in support activism, I nod at protesters as I see them, but I'm an unskilled chanter and I never work very hard to re-arrange my schedule, nor do I ever have the audacity to walk away from my daily life, which is why what state workers (and their supporters) are doing across Wisconsin is so impressive.  


By now you should know enough about the bill Governor Scott Walker is proposing.  It's dangerous, for all of us, not just state workers.  It's radical.  It needs to be stopped (though it very well may not be).


What's more important, though, is that whatever the outcome of this particular battle the "Sleeping Giant that's been awakened" (to re-use Lane Hall's imagery from an email) not go back to sleep.  Thanks to everyone who's been fighting the good fight for days, weeks, months, and years.  I hear you, I'm awake and I will try not to go back to sleep.

Bitter Salt

I love summer tent pole movies as much as anyone.  I enjoy it when I'm blown away by one (say, Dark Knight), pleasantly surprised by them (Iron Man), or even when I just get what I expect out of it

*   *   * 

December 2017
Gosh, i do vaguely recall this summer that i spent in Miami while studying at FIU.  I saw a lot of movies.  Salt which i honestly recall not at all except that i think it was a movie that Angelina Jolie was in...

I remember telling my Haitian Creole class the following day during some Q&A exercises that i had gone to see Salt, and everyone thought it was pretty funny, because it was presumed i'd just gone to see Angelina Jolie in the movie... I think i went to see the random action flick because i'd seen pretty much all the movies that summer living alone in West Miami.

Also, i presume Salt was going to be the movie that i got what i expected out of it... If not, this was poised to be a much more complicated post than i originally thought.

I've decided to begin a new project on Roman Numeral J, in which, i try to get my site as the top google search (or at least on the top page) for various phrases/ideas/words/questions that come to my mind.

Just moments ago, i searched the terms 'is money real' (not in quotes) and was directed to a site called the street, the American Patriot Friends (or fax) Network, and the Liberty Dollar...

So, here's the deal... what if we just decide money doesn't exist? Some doof asked Michael Moore (via Larry King on Friday) why young voters aren't more moved by the fact that their generation is being sold out by the current political generation... Moore answered it in the only way he could, serving as a political activist, that of course the youth should be pissed at how their 'future money' is being spent, and how they'll have to pay for it, but that, like most youngins, they don't think it'll really matter...

But more importantly, what if we just decide we no longer recognize money as a realistic trade mechanism... Sure our nation owes $9.6 trillion to... somebody.

But, the reason a young generation & my moderately middle-aged generation shouldn't care is that we could decide to just stop keeping score... I'm not the first to suggest that modern bank accounts & finances are just new ways of keeping score...

*** Update 1/15/2011 ***

Unfortunately I have no idea what my plan was.  But some of this sounds marginally interesting, so I'll publish this in the interest of the start of some good thinking.