It's happened so many times, but I never seem to learn....
I get motivated, somehow - say, a stimulating conversation, reading an inspiring essay or interview, or perhaps just a thought that had never occurred to me before - and I am ready to go. Ready to create, ready to act, ready to do whatever the case may require.
But before acting, I usually get hungry. I don't know what it is about hunger and the creative drive, but for me, they seem inextricably linked. It's not necessarily a bad thing - to have my passion for food (when it's plentiful, delectable, or even merely accessible - which isn't always) leashed like a Pavlov's dog to the things I want to accomplish in life - but it's terribly unfortunate that I've linked it to the third element in the chain....
Assuming that I'm eating by myself, I figure I might as well have some other type of stimulation to accompany me. (But why? Therein lies the problem!) For some reason, if it's daytime, I can pick up the paper or a magazine, and read something relatively useful while I devour my turkey and provolone sandwich or leftover Chinese; but at night, as I warm up the pasta-spinach concoction, I have an unholy desire to be entertained by the TV. A typical justification: "Well, I already read the paper today, so I'll just relax a bit in front of the tube while I eat, before I tackle this project that I'm so excited about."
The beginning of the end.
For me, it's so easy to get caught up in diabolical cable TV, whether I like it or not. (There are shows that I like, and then there are shows that I know are trash, dumbing me down minute by minute, but sometimes it matters little which type I watch; they draw me in and beat me into submission.) Streaming Netflix is the worst. I mean, it's great... but it makes dependency so easy. I watched the entire second season of Parks and Recreation last week in three nights. It's like a goddamn soap opera to me. And you can guess where that motivation I spoke of earlier went: down the tubes... via the tube itself.
I'm not gonna dwell on this right now. In fact, I'm getting a tad frustrated just by describing the process. But perhaps it's a step... towards the exorcism of the flickering demons of the small screen.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Propaganda
"To the average man (sic) who tries to keep informed, a world emerges that is astonishingly incoherent, absurd, and irrational, which changes rapidly and constantly for reasons that he cannot understand. And as the most frequent news story is about an accident or calamity, our reader takes a catastrophic view of the world around him. What he learns from the paper is inevitably the event that disturbs the order of things. He is not told about the ordinary — and uninteresting — course of events, but only of unusual disasters and crime, etc., that disturb that course. He does not read about the thousands of trains that every day arrive normally at their destination, but he learns all the details of a train accident[...]
"The man who keeps himself informed needs a framework in which all this information can be put in order; he needs explanations and comprehensive answers to general problems; he needs coherence. And he needs an affirmation of his own worth. All this is the immediate effect of information[...]
"Though a mass instrument, propaganda addresses itself to each individual. It appeals to me. It appeals to my common sense, desires, and provokes my wrath and my indignation. It evokes my feelings of justice and my desire for freedom. It gives me violent feelings, and lift me out of the daily grind."
These are a few selections from excerpts of Jacques Ellul's Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (I put a "sic" up there because Monsieur Ellul is from the old school, and exclusively addresses only one gender), which I will post a link to down below. I'm posting this here because, in a roundabout way, it's connected to some of the stuff I've written here in the past: the last entry, about the T (hence the first excerpt up top about trains running on time), for one; and also some older ones about connections between news stories.
But it's much more than that. I've read the excerpts twice and both times have shaken me, in a somewhat profound way. They've made me cringe at times. When I think of propaganda, I think of fascism, eugenics, justification for imperial wars... things like that. All bad things, mostly perpetrated by the right and far right. But, you see... Ellul's take on the subject could equally - as I see it - apply to the left, the far left, and other conceptions of society that I subscribe to, even now. In other words, it hits close to home.
That's not to say that I fully support Ellul's arguments - and that's at least partly dependent upon one's definition of propaganda, I think - but this is one comprehensive critique of a major portion of our daily lives, and the bigger picture at the same time. It doesn't strike me as very optimistic, but it opens up a very important discussion. It strikes me.
I've only read these excerpts, but if you have the chance, I highly recommend giving them a look. The commentary on them is very interesting too.
"The man who keeps himself informed needs a framework in which all this information can be put in order; he needs explanations and comprehensive answers to general problems; he needs coherence. And he needs an affirmation of his own worth. All this is the immediate effect of information[...]
"Though a mass instrument, propaganda addresses itself to each individual. It appeals to me. It appeals to my common sense, desires, and provokes my wrath and my indignation. It evokes my feelings of justice and my desire for freedom. It gives me violent feelings, and lift me out of the daily grind."
These are a few selections from excerpts of Jacques Ellul's Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (I put a "sic" up there because Monsieur Ellul is from the old school, and exclusively addresses only one gender), which I will post a link to down below. I'm posting this here because, in a roundabout way, it's connected to some of the stuff I've written here in the past: the last entry, about the T (hence the first excerpt up top about trains running on time), for one; and also some older ones about connections between news stories.
But it's much more than that. I've read the excerpts twice and both times have shaken me, in a somewhat profound way. They've made me cringe at times. When I think of propaganda, I think of fascism, eugenics, justification for imperial wars... things like that. All bad things, mostly perpetrated by the right and far right. But, you see... Ellul's take on the subject could equally - as I see it - apply to the left, the far left, and other conceptions of society that I subscribe to, even now. In other words, it hits close to home.
That's not to say that I fully support Ellul's arguments - and that's at least partly dependent upon one's definition of propaganda, I think - but this is one comprehensive critique of a major portion of our daily lives, and the bigger picture at the same time. It doesn't strike me as very optimistic, but it opens up a very important discussion. It strikes me.
I've only read these excerpts, but if you have the chance, I highly recommend giving them a look. The commentary on them is very interesting too.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
T Party
Two brief accounts of recent experiences with the T*:
Friday night
Jeremy and I planned to go to Mobius for the first ever U.S. performance/reading by Ivan "Magor" Jirous, a Czech underground poet and philosopher who's been around the block a few times. We got a late start because of a good meal, but managed to catch the right Red Line train at North Quincy. (I almost always plan out my trips ahead of time on Google Maps now - it has all the bus and train schedules and gives pretty accurate routes.) So we were good to go....
Until we got to JFK, where there was a delay. (This song gets stuck in my head often.) It lasted 30 minutes, before we rolled on... then stopped at Andrew. We got out to check the bus schedule, but had missed the last CT3 bus. So back on the train, which, after 20 minutes, made its way to Broadway, before stopping again. After getting off there, we found that we had just missed the #47 bus as well. But also, had we taken the #18 (or one of those buses at Andrew), we could still have made it to Mobius, arriving a half hour late, and thus making it worthwhile. But we didn't, and now it was too late. So, giving up, we headed back down the Broadway stairs to go back to Quincy - only to get stuck behind these two knuckleheads descending painfully slowly with the bow-legged gaits of drunkards - just as a Braintree train pulled in and out of the station. So then it was another half hour until the next one. The two slow crabs in front of us also had to wait for the next Braintree train, but they soon got all jazzed up on coke (the illicit kind), which, had they done so earlier, may have caused them to actually catch the original train. At least I learned a lot about Broadway station, thanks to Jeremy's history as a Red Line driver.
We later found out the long delay was due to not one, but two disabled trains, the second being brought out solely to rescue the first, before crapping out as well. But if there's a moral to the story... I think about all the times I barely catch a bus, or manage to get somewhere just in time, or otherwise get lucky in my daily travels; and then there are days like this, where everything goes wrong. It's bound to happen some times, even all at once. I really can't complain, you know?
Saturday night
Wasn't planning on doing much, other than making it through the Die Hard series and watching the Bruins, but we decided - and this is again due to Jeremy's connections with the Red Line - to head to the Red Line holiday party, at a VFW hall in Randolph. About an hour and several phone calls and texts later, we finally figured it out that the party was at a Knights of Columbus hall in Canton (or an Elks Lodge in Stoughton? We tried so many permutations that I can't remember exactly what it was), but delays and wrong directions are not the point of this story.
This is the second Red Line holiday party I've been to, and I don't ever want to miss one again. Consistently - both in the two I've been to, and among the attendants in each - I've noticed a unique and sustained joy that I can't immediately ascribe to any other social function, than that of a Red Line party. First of all, there was food there - cold cuts, deviled eggs, cookies - and that's enough for me anywhere. But there was more... so many smiling faces, so much dancing, unrestrained and unconstrained. Let me compare this dancing attitude to two other types that one might encounter in our society: 1) when I'm at a club, like a techno or hip hop club (which is not often, but just to set the scene), I see serious faces, contortions and postures that seem to belong to heads removed from bodies, removed from all of their surroundings, physical and emotional; and 2) the dances of the silly and ridiculous - to old hip hop songs, classic rock, etc. - faces and bodies that clearly don't take it seriously, but seem to have fun that way.
The second way is definitely the one I most usually participate in. It is fun. But it's also self-conscious in a way; it's not really letting go. Then when I see folks at this K of C in Canton, they are dancing naturally, smiling, moving with ease, and clearly they care genuinely about the union of mind and body, nature and soul. I felt it for the short period I took to the dance floor. There certainly is no moral to this story, but I appreciate the whole scene: smiling, talking, joking, dancing... all toward a contented and relaxed ecstasy, even if that's a bit of a paradox. It didn't last too long (how could it?), but I want to recognize it as a special convergence toward a natural and ideal environment. When it does occur, I'm glad to experience it.
*Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, for those of you outside the region
Friday night
Jeremy and I planned to go to Mobius for the first ever U.S. performance/reading by Ivan "Magor" Jirous, a Czech underground poet and philosopher who's been around the block a few times. We got a late start because of a good meal, but managed to catch the right Red Line train at North Quincy. (I almost always plan out my trips ahead of time on Google Maps now - it has all the bus and train schedules and gives pretty accurate routes.) So we were good to go....
Until we got to JFK, where there was a delay. (This song gets stuck in my head often.) It lasted 30 minutes, before we rolled on... then stopped at Andrew. We got out to check the bus schedule, but had missed the last CT3 bus. So back on the train, which, after 20 minutes, made its way to Broadway, before stopping again. After getting off there, we found that we had just missed the #47 bus as well. But also, had we taken the #18 (or one of those buses at Andrew), we could still have made it to Mobius, arriving a half hour late, and thus making it worthwhile. But we didn't, and now it was too late. So, giving up, we headed back down the Broadway stairs to go back to Quincy - only to get stuck behind these two knuckleheads descending painfully slowly with the bow-legged gaits of drunkards - just as a Braintree train pulled in and out of the station. So then it was another half hour until the next one. The two slow crabs in front of us also had to wait for the next Braintree train, but they soon got all jazzed up on coke (the illicit kind), which, had they done so earlier, may have caused them to actually catch the original train. At least I learned a lot about Broadway station, thanks to Jeremy's history as a Red Line driver.
We later found out the long delay was due to not one, but two disabled trains, the second being brought out solely to rescue the first, before crapping out as well. But if there's a moral to the story... I think about all the times I barely catch a bus, or manage to get somewhere just in time, or otherwise get lucky in my daily travels; and then there are days like this, where everything goes wrong. It's bound to happen some times, even all at once. I really can't complain, you know?
Saturday night
Wasn't planning on doing much, other than making it through the Die Hard series and watching the Bruins, but we decided - and this is again due to Jeremy's connections with the Red Line - to head to the Red Line holiday party, at a VFW hall in Randolph. About an hour and several phone calls and texts later, we finally figured it out that the party was at a Knights of Columbus hall in Canton (or an Elks Lodge in Stoughton? We tried so many permutations that I can't remember exactly what it was), but delays and wrong directions are not the point of this story.
This is the second Red Line holiday party I've been to, and I don't ever want to miss one again. Consistently - both in the two I've been to, and among the attendants in each - I've noticed a unique and sustained joy that I can't immediately ascribe to any other social function, than that of a Red Line party. First of all, there was food there - cold cuts, deviled eggs, cookies - and that's enough for me anywhere. But there was more... so many smiling faces, so much dancing, unrestrained and unconstrained. Let me compare this dancing attitude to two other types that one might encounter in our society: 1) when I'm at a club, like a techno or hip hop club (which is not often, but just to set the scene), I see serious faces, contortions and postures that seem to belong to heads removed from bodies, removed from all of their surroundings, physical and emotional; and 2) the dances of the silly and ridiculous - to old hip hop songs, classic rock, etc. - faces and bodies that clearly don't take it seriously, but seem to have fun that way.
The second way is definitely the one I most usually participate in. It is fun. But it's also self-conscious in a way; it's not really letting go. Then when I see folks at this K of C in Canton, they are dancing naturally, smiling, moving with ease, and clearly they care genuinely about the union of mind and body, nature and soul. I felt it for the short period I took to the dance floor. There certainly is no moral to this story, but I appreciate the whole scene: smiling, talking, joking, dancing... all toward a contented and relaxed ecstasy, even if that's a bit of a paradox. It didn't last too long (how could it?), but I want to recognize it as a special convergence toward a natural and ideal environment. When it does occur, I'm glad to experience it.
*Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, for those of you outside the region
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