Culture Jam

Commodity Fetishism, is not only a wonderful phrase to sneer as a person goes about his day to day, but it is also one of the corners in the far flung movement of idea which years ago might have been called "anti-authoritarian Marxism."  Essentially an acceptance that Kapital isn't quite what Marx thought it was. Indeed it was very much more insidious, so much so in fact that it might be the case that the only possible opposition to its ubiquity in the everyday of life was a sort of dissemination of idea that included loose leaf collections of like minded individuals and moments of detournement. Detournement is classically a French word that means, turning something back on itself. And turning something back on itself is one of the curves in thinking that causes something that might not have been funny to become funny. And it's this same curve that so many seek in their search for innovation.

Evidence from my own experience of others and experience of myself, suggests that the great majority who think changing society is a good, tend to come from that group in our midst who themselves wish to become the Wolves. Suggest otherwise and a person is accused of "not caring enough to want to be a Wolf"  And you can trust me when I say that if ever you hear someone blame our ills upon "education," it's only because they wish to change a syllabus.  And here I think that it's likely that something like 'occupy wall street' had it better understood that detournement  is more like an act of comedy than it is an act of politics, then they might better have understood what "anti-authoritarian Marxists" tried to write about in their attempts to grapple with what they called social alienation. Then of course these Dada-ists become famous, start getting fabulous wages and the next thing you know they're being driven around in limousines. All so much simpler to put it into the perspective of devils, angels and the commoditization of souls.  And here I guess I'm kind of on the side of the devils.

I Can Understand That.

A huge day for us. Just enormous. A giant leap. One of those days that will enter the imagination, and stand as blow for freedom and liberty. Egalite, fraternite, and perhaps a little bricolage. It's a stand against the creep of a dependency. The sloth of meritocracy. Lord, consider they humble servant. And I would go on to paraphrase Philippians 2, but why further irritate the Almighty. Why aggravate him on so proud a day with a verse or two  about vainglory from the King James Version.

Nor was it an easy thing to achieve. If you include the mental preparation, the planning, the strategery, I'd estimate thirty years followed by two hours with an 800 number listening to the rote. One part of which included the phrase, "I can understand that," followed by a "But." And fair warning for those who might boldly travel in our footsteps, the solution might not be, "I am old, I am poor, I am close to death."  "I can understand that. But for five dollars a month you can freeze your dish cable account for nine months."

Squeaky Dolphin

 Had to sit up a little bit when I was told that state agencies have a computer program called "Squeaky Dolphin."  What it does is collect and then analyze information from what's called "social media."  Which is I guess distinct from that sort of media where a person gets paid to pontificate and we all have to sit through advertizing if we wish to hear what they have to say. I would have to think that  "analyze"  means the Squeaky Dolphin puts information into "categories."  Much more interesting would be the titles of those categories, but that information is unavailable, unless I have a strong desire to go live in Russia.  Interesting too is an analysis of web browser users that knows enough to apply personality traits to particular web browsers.  For example if you use "Internet Explorer" you are less "open to experience" than you are if you use "Chrome."  And if you use "Internet Explorer" you're more "agreeable" than if you use "Safari."

So it all seems rather pathetic and sad, and probably totally unnecessary and useless, unless it's possible to think of some reason not to have an ex member of a secret service running a country. That's the world which assumes "If you have them by the balls you don't need their hearts or minds." So if you're a megalomaniac or determined to succeed or think you know everything, better to use clubs and sticks, than mess around in the ludicrous business of sharing idea with words. But if I think of Squeaky Dolphin as contributing to the construction of a great big brain that might one day determine our fate through an analysis of our wants and needs and from this analysis predict our actions, I can then foresee  a world dominated by the "Interpretive Dance" of the twenty first century. Or lolcats as others might call it. Lolcats are basically pictures of cats accompanied by extraordinarily irritating and completely unnecessary assumptions.  Fortunately I'll soon be extinct, because I'm a proud Firefox user, which means I smoke heavily, I'm introverted, snail like, hate being told what time it is, less conscientious and more neurotic than users of other browsers. 

Se Rediculiser

The aggrandizement, and better to put a 'the' before the word rather than an 'an,' otherwise it begins to sound like a technical description rather than the subjective and derogatory expression that I prefer. And a funny thing too, for those of us who might call ourselves "primitive grammarians," is the distinction between "The Pompous Arse" and "A Pompous Arse." And if you're trying to polish whatever  French you might be in possession of, by reading headlines from the  AFP, you soon find that "se rediculiser" pretty much covers everything in any language.

'Se' means oneself, and I believe it can also mean 'themselves.'   'Se rediculiser' probably means to make a fool of oneself. And here there are some who would prefer the word 'translates' to the vague and wishy-washy  'probably means.' But I am one of those people who turns purple when confronted by the semi-colon, so stuff like  'past participle' and  'intransitive reflexive verb' absolutely informs me why it is I believe there could be something wrong with our species.

Trickle Down

Trickle Down Theory is when snow on the roof melts, get's dammed by the freeze in the gutters and proceeds to advance into the soffit where it dribbles down the wall, causing termite haven, followed fairly quickly by structural collapse.

But who really cares about so obvious a thing, when Snowdrops are showing, rivers are flowing, the lane is more like a swamp than a throughway which makes leaving home just about impossible unless  you need cigarettes, and I can begin to believe I'll be digging the Potato beds soonish.

Stone Calendars

This particular Titan succumbed to a tromp through snow.  Not for one minute did he think of it as an attempt to impress Pindar. Rather it was because Titans are supposed to plant Potato in the middle of March, and that's something a Titan might not be able to do if he has atrophied.

The alternative to tromping around is to assume that today is something like February the sixth.  But Titans have never been enamored of athleticism, least of all the political kind.  We prefer our calendars to be set in stone. 

Paleolithic Bookshop Man

There are two months of the year that begin with the letter M.  On the fifth day of each of these two months I make a vague attempt to put less of  perspective on myself, and venture out into the great wide world where I have been told over the generations probably around one hundred and eight billion people have had there being. And sometimes I have to remind myself that a 'billion' is a 'thousand million.'  Which is so big a number it achieves the status of a 'trust fund baby number.' And not to labor the point, those of us who are currently alive comprise around six or seven percent of the total population of "what about me's" that have ever existed upon our planet. And about twenty million of us still live in slavery, the majority of the rest of us indentured to people who call themselves corporations.

It's also true that I can look into the past, as that past has been presented to me, and try to think of a period of past time which might have best suited an overly sensitive, generous minded, decent upstanding person with elegant wrists that wears the same skin as I do.  And here I have often been tempted by the hunter gatherer clans, who wandered through the warmer places, gathering berries and sometimes managing to persuade the agile to chase after something with hoofs so that everyone can sit around a camp fire,  feeling very bloated, momentarily content and plump about themselves. Sadly we still do something like that, and I have never really enjoyed it, which means that hunter gathering might not be right for me. But lets not get all depressed about this, there is still a chance that some future iteration of our species might develop a culture devoted to lazing around in second hand book shops. 

Titans and Olympians

I think it safe to say that of the ancient poets, Pindar was less likely to use curse words. Not for him the big rant. And he preferred his poems be accompanied by music and dance, which to my mind at least introduces what I'd call a 'madrigal' or 'pun' quality to his words that puts me firmly on the side of the Titans.  So for a long time my own attempt to read the translations of Pindar's  poems where often interrupted by a nagging sneer accompanied by a "who gives a damn about the boys long foot race," and "you have to think that Hippolces of Thessaly must have lied about his age in order to participate in the boys long foot race,"  and "Big deal if Perseus could cut the heads of monstrous creatures," and "Maybe I do have a grudging respect for the Hyperborean's, because anyone who can live much further north than southern Kentucky can't be all bad."

Of course now that I am old, I fully realize how easily words and sentences can be misunderstood by anyone persuaded to read them,  and this is especially the case when those words and sentences are no more than  little snippets within a wider context of meaning.  Nor does Russell's' concern with the precision of language being the future of philosophy really help me to concentrate my own thoughts. And all of this is a rather long way of saying Titans are old farts, set in their ways, obsessing on their bowel movement.  Olympians are lithe wonderful creatures that see promise in just about everything.  And the point about the Titan's dismembering and then eating Dionysius, it was to my mind, the Titan's attempt to become more like the Olympians.  Something which I can you assure never did and never will happen, no matter the meal.  And if you want to know why, it's better for us Titans that we be authentic than it is to pretend we like snow, otherwise we find ourselves tromping around in the arctic wishing we'd had the foresight to dig the grave when it was still possible to.

The Olympian

Have to wonder what the Olympians would be doing on a morning such as this one.  Would they be up early, wrapped up in dashing outdoor wear, shoveling snow, chiseling ice and announcing that "this is what makes winter worthwhile!"  Or would they be wrapped up, cowering in the lurking places of a heat source, and contemplating the possibilities of self administering some kind lobotomy.

And here, I think it sufficient to say that The Artist has what might be best to call "the Olympian spirit."  For my part I will not be blowing bubbles, building snowmen, huffing  hot breath on the latches of frozen doors, or for that matter going outside until maybe June. And if you want to know why, it's because I have decided to think of myself as a Titan.

Hanging Out

We have water, potable and less potable.  We have extension cords in place. There is Saint Teresa. And we are in the initial phases of acceptance, which would be much easier to progress further into had the Weather Channel not named their forecast "Winter Storm Titan."

The Titans were the old gods, who lost their war with the Olympians.  At some point in that long gone age, Titans might have dismembered and eaten  Dionysus, a boy god who was all about the grape, ecstasy and madness. "Hanging out" I guess.

Endocrine Disruptors

Endocrine Disruptors are chemicals that disrupt the orderly progression of god's plan for hormones as they wander through a body.  Quite how they do this I really do not know. That they do this, may or may not be demonstrable, due to the sorts of maneuvering exemplified by whether or not the climate is changing as a result of the various activities from us people.  For some, I guess, it's better not to know in case it means you can't spend your two weeks in Cancun or drive around in your vehicle just because it is snowing. For others it becomes yet one more nail in the coffin, that requires the construction of placards, going to the effort of acquiring the status of a charitable organization, followed by strong letters to complete strangers asking for money.  So in many respects it's perfectly understandable why Walking Stewart begged those who read Apocalypse of Nature to translate the work into some  language other than English and then bury the translation under a tree, in the hope that some future generation might better receive it.

Oddly enough the Apocalypse of Nature is not so much about the end of the world, rather it is a materialist dialectic in support of reason. The enemy, that beast in the forest which is blind and cannot see, up against the turning of moral motion, which has a mathematics to it, and we must "bow down to the microscope,"  not because we necessarily wish to but because we can and we have to. And yes indeed it is perfectly reasonable to argue that if you can't afford the hospital bill, you should not be permitted to enter a hospital. And if you want cheap natural gas you need to cause more earthquakes so long as you don't cause them anywhere near the domicile of an Exxon executive. And if you want to eat, you have to allow the eradication of pests through the application of chemicals, some of which might be Endocrine Disruptors.  And here there is one Endocrine Disruptor that might have the effect of turning boys into girls. Currently this disruption is considered a birth defect, but who ever really knows what god's narrative might be.