tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post1136452851294328494..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Just a perfect day for global epic reflectionUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-81144670513254619372015-02-03T05:10:16.999-08:002015-02-03T05:10:16.999-08:00I've done quite a lot of that sort of gadfly w...I've done quite a lot of that sort of gadfly writing over the years, myself, but it's all lost now, and I'm thankful for that.<br /><br />Being facile and witty and then evincing credible sentiment on appropriate occasions, nothing against that, and it's done him well, so more power to him, I guess.<br /><br />To be honest the first wrinkle of response I felt with him came when I read a piece he'd written about having a small stroke. Anybody who's had a small stroke knows there is no such thing as a small stroke really. So it got his attention. And of course here was something to write about that was almost worthy of an adult. So I laboured through the long piece he had written. An awful lot of words finally. I sensed there was the phantom of a word count lurking behind the arras.<br /><br />But everybody who's ever had a stroke is always still waiting to read the piece of writing that.... what's the word? helps?<br /><br />Maybe strokes are like Arabic tile design, but how can that be.<br /><br />It grows late, that is, early....TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-7183710594727941052015-02-03T04:58:46.056-08:002015-02-03T04:58:46.056-08:00Maybe you're right, Tom. If you're not a s...Maybe you're right, Tom. If you're not a specialist then I suppose you'll always be making connections in that particular (loose) way.<br /><br />Hmm. I'm afraid to go back to his Somme book now!<br /><br />:-)<br /><br />billoohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10716970909272480118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-47280299764889047682015-02-03T04:06:22.046-08:002015-02-03T04:06:22.046-08:00Yes, that's Dyer at his smart best. But to dra...Yes, that's Dyer at his smart best. But to drag in a postmodern metafiction icon, why the need? Is it that the De Lillo somehow authorizes the perception about Arabic design?<br /><br />The refigerator magnet collection of bits and pieces of culture that makes up his book of essays (all commissioned pieces, with the proper rhetorical conduct pertinent to such occasions) is like that, throughout.<br /><br />The marvelous allusiveness and breadth of reference that always stays very close to the surface, showing off but not showing anything you hadn't seen already, if you'd been paying attention.<br /><br />Not till I'd begun to grasp that no matter the effort I'd never actually be able to get my mind around the geometrical tile design systems -- those famous "Penrose patterns" -- did I understand that the mind/s that created them was beyond the kind of mind we now have, and closed off from it.<br /><br />Nothing against De Lillo and all, but just saying.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-67555114259018466372015-02-03T01:42:50.103-08:002015-02-03T01:42:50.103-08:00:-)
of course you can say what you want..it's...:-)<br /><br />of course you can say what you want..it's your blog! and 'je suis..'<br /><br />:-))<br /><br />And no need to acknowledge my views.."he's no uncle of mine" (as they say in these parts).<br /><br />And yes, Berger..of course! Maybe Dyer will never have that concentration and integrity, but I like his second-hand style nevertheless.<br /><br />Just re-reading his piece on Idris Khan and am still struck by these lines on the Qur'an:<br /><br />'The result is incomprehensible. And lovely. The patterns bordering each page are turned into a solid black frame so that the book becomes - as is often said of photography - a window on to the world. Inside this frame - rigid, unalterable, definitive - all is in flux. Fixed meaning dissolves in a blazing grey drizzle. Words, as one of Don DeLillo's narrators says when confronted by a swirl of Arabic script, are "design, not meant to be read, as though part of some unbearable revelation".'<br /><br />billoohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10716970909272480118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-29339333068688988982015-02-03T01:10:32.269-08:002015-02-03T01:10:32.269-08:00I think the common thread of interest running thro...I think the common thread of interest running through the seemingly disconnected projects is the thread of self-interest, and that not only in the vulgar sense of being coy about being pushy, disingenuous about wanting simply to get ahead, oblique on the theme of the desire to be taken up -- with the same thread being also the fragile connection between them. The promoted self in question being finally not all that... well, interesting, to be honest.<br /><br />The devotional allegiance to Berger well and good, the gadfly taste-and-sip cultural level elevated enough, the wish to have the fine leather luggage and then the transparent dismay over losing it and finally and conclusively the necessary taking of profit, the turning of the occasion of embarrassment and distress into yet another opportunity for clever, shallow compositional "amusement".<br /><br />When I see pictures of authors looking appropriately stylish and behaving suitably in finely appointed university halls and clean well lit commissioned postmodern secular spaces, I know I would never again wish to read a word they may have writ.<br /><br />The myopic and cranky Adorno comment on what happens to Bach when Bach is played in a supermarket is never far from my mind when I think about the culture industry, grinding on inexorably, going on its tours and making its appearances, repeating itself as long as there is a market, chewing over the remnants with noncommittal, self-pleasuring irony as the planet withers and dies.<br /><br />All that said, I will acknowledge and do respect your views as expressed, Billoo, with the additional disclaimer to authority based on the necessary recognition I'm merely a contrary old coot, and for that reason am allowed to say what I want.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-60438928011681248822015-02-02T23:13:02.275-08:002015-02-02T23:13:02.275-08:00Dunno, Tom. Maybe you're right. I like Dyer be...Dunno, Tom. Maybe you're right. I like Dyer because he introduced me to Denis Johnson (Jesus's son), the work of Idris Khan (which I saw in London), James Salter's Light Years and Cheever's Journals. And in terms of his writing, I particularly like his essay on 'Mir's syndrome' (which reminded me of a short story by DeLillo) and his essay on Gedney.<br /><br />I hear what you're saying: his style can seem (and probably is) lightweight, self-indulgent, and sometimes gimmicky or fashionable. I think that that is in part a result of being interested in too many things (and without the genius of a Leonardo maybe it will always come across as superficial?).<br /><br />As with the 'genius' bit I guess that's what sells! But, yes, think he's a bit of a mixed bag. <br />billoohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10716970909272480118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-25785692281256533502015-02-02T22:53:46.445-08:002015-02-02T22:53:46.445-08:00Billoo,
No one hires me to write any more, and th...Billoo,<br /><br />No one hires me to write any more, and the last time that nearly happened, I was assigned to do a piece on Dyer's Stalker book.<br /><br />Awful tripe. Soft as a wet sponge. Passages of uxorious admiration of his own wife. Unbelievable comparisons of his wife's appearance with the appearance of a woman glimpsed from afar, in a theatre audience -- the very beautiful actress Natasha McElhone. Dyer seemed unaware of the small fact that not very long before the occasion of his comparative ogling, McElhone had tragically lost her husband and the father of her kids, in a car wreck if I remember correctly. <br /><br />In any case, it wasn't that particular glaring bit of insensitivity that was the problem -- it was Dyer's increasing inability to talk about anything but himself. This in a way perhaps considered amusing by some... Americans.<br /><br />Oh right, and Canadians.<br /><br />The tentative commission came from a magazine (Canadian!) which had, as I would learn, officially proclaimed Dyer to be a genius.<br /><br />I spent a couple of weeks working on a piece in which I compared Dyer's baroque digressive manner with that of Laurence Sterne, an actual genius.<br /> <br />Dyer came out second best.<br /><br />The piece was rejected.<br /><br />I've probably written and published between four and five hundred reviews in publications on several continents. This was the first time I'd ever been made to know so very clearly that, to use language proper to the sort of tilted-field or bought-situation structure that now prevails in the literary world, the fix was in.<br /><br />So much for all that, and Sayonara. <br /><br />By the by, talking of insipid, the title of this post was inspired by the top photo, its caption, and the associative link with perhaps the smarmiest pop song ever to be produced by a onetime composer of extremely tough, edgy pop songs.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYEC4TZsy-Y" rel="nofollow">Lou Reed: Perfect Day</a><br /><br />That was of course extremely popular. Wim Wenders put it in a film. It's still on the radio constantly. And 33 million youtubers can't be wrong, can they?<br /><br />But if it's sheer numbers we're to be respecting -- I'd probably prefer Gangnam Style by whatever the guy's name is. Psy?<br /><br />Also a sort of "day in the park" kind of theme.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0" rel="nofollow">Gangnam Style</a><br /><br />Not that the Lou Reed schmaltz tune didn't speak to the throbbing inner schmaltz nodes of other notable pop geniuses.<br /><br />This version brings out that element, I think:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2JXy1Z9ovs" rel="nofollow">Lou Reed: Perfect Day, with Bono, Bowie, Elton John, Duran Duran, adorable bunnies and a general saccharine coating of cuteness thick enough to slice with a butter knife</a><br /><br />If it were Katy Perry, of course, a walk in the park would have to include exploding land mines, bangalore torpedoes and UXO galore, merely for the atmospherics.<br /><br />Could Psy be the male avatar of Katy??TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-18150297291537663762015-02-02T22:26:19.433-08:002015-02-02T22:26:19.433-08:00Gotta say: I like Dyer! though his latest-which I ...Gotta say: I like Dyer! though his latest-which I have not and will not read-makes me think you're right about the fawning bit. As long as he remained an amateur he was interesting.billoohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10716970909272480118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-2218346452447592712015-02-02T22:04:15.166-08:002015-02-02T22:04:15.166-08:00PS. erin, about those "sturdily constructed p...PS. erin, about those "sturdily constructed pop tunes" -- i.e. Katy Perry's enormously grating exploding shriekathons disguised as pop songs -- I thought perhaps the reviewer's comment was a not very subtle sideswipe at her, er, sturdy construction in a physical sense. If so, a low shot perhaps, but then the woman's hugely successful career is one long low shot -- you know, aim low, aim true. Getting teenage girls to scream while you scream and everybody screams while fireworks go off is as easy as we all scream for ice cream, all the time. <br /><br />That poor lion or tiger, having to bear up under it. <br /><br /><br />Billoo,<br /><br />Yes, it's because GY has been based in this country for the better part of the last two decades, writes regularly for the Nation and now lives with his family in Chicago, that I'd forgot his background. <br /><br />Caribbean roots, family from Barbados, born in Hitchin, raised in Stevenage, sent off by the Guardian to the Washington Post on a Laurence Stern fellowship in '96, writing largely about US race issues ever since.<br /><br />Brando and Lawrence could get away with saying such stuff about the US way back when.<br /><br />Brando owed nothing to anybody. Now of course there could be no such career.<br /><br />Lawrence could never get away with that particular indulgence in phobia right now. The Brit author fast lane leads straight through the USA. Take the career in fawning of the stylishly insipid Geoff Dyer, for example.<br /><br />Dickens abhorred the USA when he visited, and didn't feel the need to apologise later. <br /><br />That was then.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-88491483350156550802015-02-02T20:01:46.010-08:002015-02-02T20:01:46.010-08:00I always thought Gary Younge was British?
Anyway,...I always thought Gary Younge was British?<br /><br />Anyway, here's some Lawrence for you, Tom:<br /><br />'The land of the free! This is the land of the free! Why, if I say anything that displeases them, the free mob will lynch me, and that's my freedom. Free? Why, I've never been in any country where the individual has such an abject fear of his country-men....'<br /><br />Or, as Brando said more succinctly: "Have you considered any real freedoms?" billoohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10716970909272480118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-21669603460098414232015-02-02T19:15:34.055-08:002015-02-02T19:15:34.055-08:00__
Meanwhile...
A sensible, civilised and quite...__<br /><br />Meanwhile... <br /><br />A sensible, civilised and quite intelligent young journalist named Rania Khalek discovered what happens in America now when you call a mass media glorification of racist murder by its real name. <br /><br />Khalek and another journalist, Max Blumenthal, dared to speak out in separate articles on this disgusting piece of pseudo-"Christian" Hollywood trash -- released, naturally on Christmas day.<br /><br />The flag-wrapped troll pack went nuts, the foam still palpable around the lips of brave American patriots even as they courageously dashed to close down the most virulent of their threat-source accounts, and start new ones.<br /><br />In the days following their reviews, both Khalek and Blumenthal were buried under a blizzard of vicious tweets -- those directed at Khalek, notable for the sexual aggression incorporated into the garden variety racism, particularly appalling.<br /><br />Khalek has shared some of these.<br /><br />A few samples she presented at The Electronic Intifada:<br /><br />JSC @TheGr8Wife Follow<br /><br />Chris Kyle killed men that wouldn't even think twice before raping, torturing and slaughtering you. Fuck you, @RaniaKhalek, ungrateful POS.<br /><br /><br />DonnaAlphaBitchateer @izzyjsmom<br /><br />.@RaniaKhalek Move your America hating ass to Iraq, let ISIS rape you then cut your cunt head off,fucking media whore muslim #AmericanSniper<br /><br /><br />David Ferguson @TRexstasy Jan 3<br /><br />@izzyjsmom @RaniaKhalek Do kiss your mom with that filthy mouth, ugly lady with Pentecostal hair?<br /><br />__<br /><br />In a longer piece at Alternet, Khalek rendered further evidence, compressing some of the most charming responses to her work:<br /><br /> Dear #ISIS please kidnap .@RaniaKhalek and cut her head off, after all of you and your camels fuck her. #AmericanSniper #ChrisKyle<br /><br /> — DonnaAlphaBitchATeer (@izzyjsmom) December 30, 2014<br /><br /> And Khalek wrote:<br /><br /> According to Karl E McF, "capitalists, cops & soldiers" make my existence possible:<br /><br /> Benjamin Williams, a US Army pilot and proud co-host of Sports Sense Not Required on Blog Talk Radio, expressed his desire to use torture techniques on me and Max:<br /><br /> Self-described "pro-life" "patriot" David Prescott is threatening to release my personal information:<br /><br /> More fun:<br /><br /> @MaxBlumenthal and @RaniaKhalek are disgraces to this entire country. Get their their candy asses out of this proud nation. #Embarrassments<br /> — YOUNG DIESEL (@BigHomieScar) December 30, 2014<br /><br /> "Sweetheart"<br /><br /> "Scumqueen"<br /><br /> I'm "an anti-Semitic"<br /><br /> "Attention whore"<br /><br /> At least "twatwaffle" is creative<br /><br /> @RaniaKhalek hahaha what an unAmerican twatwaffle<br /> — Maritata Reitler (@MaritataReitler) December 30, 2014<br /><br /> "Snot-nosed bitch with a laptop"<br /><br /> "Arab camal"<br /><br /> <a href="http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/cut-her-head-shocking-death-threats-you-can-receive-mocking-eastwoods-american" rel="nofollow">'Cut Her Head Off': The Shocking Death Threats You Can Receive for Mocking Eastwood's 'American Sniper' Movie</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-20908888820632268272015-02-02T19:11:52.220-08:002015-02-02T19:11:52.220-08:00Gary Younge continues:
'The west does not see...Gary Younge continues:<br /><br />'The west does not see itself the way others see it; indeed it often does not see others at all. Solipsistic in its suffering and narcissistic in its impulses, it promotes itself as the upholder of principles it does not keep, and a morality it does not practise. This alone would barely distinguish it from most cultures. What makes the west different is the physical and philosophical force with which it simultaneously makes its case for superiority and contradicts it. Therein lies the dysfunction whereby it keeps doing hateful things while expressing bewilderment at why some people hate it. It’s as though we are continually caught by surprise that others have not chosen to ignore their humiliation, pain, anger and sorrow just because we have.<br /><br />'“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side,” wrote George Orwell in Notes on Nationalism. “But he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them … Whether such deeds were reprehensible, or even whether they happened, was always decided according to political predilection.” When these contradictions are rooted in history this sophistry can be neatly buried under time. If Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were once our allies and have become enemies, then so be it. Needs must. What’s done is done. History that is inconvenient conveniently loses its legacy; an unpalatable past loses its connection to an unfortunate present. Reference to genocides and colonialism are dismissed as the fetid grievances of yore. Why keep bringing up old stuff?'<br /><br />-- Gary Younge, The Guardian 26 January 2015TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-22923058994943506162015-02-02T19:10:14.275-08:002015-02-02T19:10:14.275-08:00Grateful to the still-aware for their still-awaren...Grateful to the still-aware for their still-awareness. Dizzying, surrealistic, weird indeed. Fearsome, also. One grows fearful. One seeks a hiding place. There is none. They are out there, everywhere, with their high-powered munitions and their ersatz American values, invisibly knitted and knotted and neutered together by the great invisible electronic bonding fluid of dumbass jingoism. The formula requires little nuance. Sell more shit. Kill more badguys. Declare state holidays in honour of ruthless, brutal bullies and killers.<br /><br />Today the Weinstein company, reacting with the predictable alacrity of a real shark (as opposed to the plastic blow-up kind) to the exploding box office take of the "patriotic" movie (coming up on $320 million worldwide, as of the Morning After), and never slow to lurk a lurid scene of hatred and violence suitable for re-heating the tepid cockles of a TCOT heart, announced it's doing a sort of spinoff of American Sniper -- five-part series, who knows where it might go from there.<br /><br />You've already seen the psychokiller film or maybe read the book or at least heard something about it, unless you are fortunate enough to be dwelling off-planet.<br /><br />One reviewer -- Gary Younge, American, black -- wrote: <br /><br />'Say what you like about the film American Sniper, and people have, you have to admire its clarity. It’s about killing. There is no moral arc; no anguish about whether the killing is necessary or whether those who are killed are guilty of anything. “I’m prepared to meet my maker and answer for every shot I took,” says Bradley Cooper, who plays the late Chris Kyle, a navy Seal who was reputedly the deadliest sniper in American history. There is certainly no discursive quandary about whether the Iraq war, in which the killing takes place, is either legal or justified. “I couldn’t give a flying fuck about the Iraqis,” wrote Kyle in his memoir, where he refers to the local people as “savages”.<br /><br />'The film celebrates a man who has a talent for shooting people dead when they are not looking and who, apparently, likes his job. “After the first kill, the others come easy,” writes Kyle. “I don’t have to psych myself up, or do anything special mentally. I look through the scope, get my target in the crosshairs, and kill my enemy before he kills one of my people.”<br /><br />'Americans are celebrating the film. It has been nominated for six Oscars and enjoyed the highest January debut ever. When Kyle kills his rival, a Syrian sniper named Mustafa, with a mile-long shot, audiences cheer. It has done particularly well with men and in southern and midwestern markets where the film industry does not expect to win big. And while its appeal is strong in the heartland it has travelled well too, providing career-best opening weekends for Clint Eastwood in the UK, Taiwan, New Zealand, Peru and Italy.<br /><br />'And so it is that within a few weeks of the developed world uniting to defend western culture and Enlightenment values, it produces a popular celluloid hero who is tasked not with satirising Islam, but killing Muslims. Threats to Arab and Muslim Americans have tripled since the film came out, according to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. It’s not difficult to see why. “If you see anyone from about 16 to 65 and they’re male, shoot ’em,” wrote Kyle, describing his understanding of the rules of engagement in Iraq. “Kill every male you see. That wasn’t the official language, but that was the idea.”TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-1879782450514945722015-02-02T12:34:50.907-08:002015-02-02T12:34:50.907-08:00If I were still living in ‘Murica, I’d be tempted ...If I were still living in ‘Murica, I’d be tempted to say “Awesome!” to describe this overpowering mélange of images dedicated to showing the rest of the world how “surreal” the folks back home have become but since both terms have become meaningless from too much overuse, I’ll just have to say “Fucking far-out, Tom!” (And I do mean it.)<br /> <br />BTW, pretty smart of those London tube workers to take along their iPhones to immortalize such an awesome event; wish we could see the look of awe on their faces rather than just their arses.vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)https://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-58541013992212015842015-02-02T11:16:15.990-08:002015-02-02T11:16:15.990-08:00errr...
um...
wt...
thoroughly frightened.
bu...errr...<br /><br />um...<br /><br />wt...<br /><br />thoroughly frightened. <br /><br />but slightly amused by this, "Perry’s sturdily-constructed pop tunes" - only nervous laughter steadily followed. very nervous.erinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16636371927224076866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-59224783270141533922015-02-02T09:44:17.403-08:002015-02-02T09:44:17.403-08:00Tom,
This ensemble of images is perhaps the most s...Tom,<br />This ensemble of images is perhaps the most striking you've ever put together. But I've got to tell you, there ain't nothing more masculine than a little American sniping - unless a Brit does it as a Russian (Jude Law). <br /><br />I'm always surprised at the ability of the country to take itself so seriously. It is magnetic at times, and probably makes the rest of us feel a little American as well. How can we not. How can anyone not. The American way, all the way.manik sharmahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18055072451804840121noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-49108932289626217022015-02-02T07:57:25.133-08:002015-02-02T07:57:25.133-08:00Dizzying images--a weird world we live in. Dizzying images--a weird world we live in. Nin Andrewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12643167108589844026noreply@blogger.com