Cynicism

Listened to a Mars Hill interview about corrosive effects of cynicism, on self and society. Pretty boilerplate stuff--cynicism is bad, but then so is sentimentality...it's all about the need to maintain control, and we can counter it with Love. Okay.

Just before I heard the interview, Ron had been recounting to me the plot of a Sarah Silverman show, in which our heroine starts an AIDS foundation, under the misapprehension that she herself has AIDS. At the climax, she faces down an angry mob, screaming "If this is how people with AIDS act, I hope I don't even HAVE AIDS!"

Yeh. the stakes on what constitutes "outrageous humor" are continually raised.

But it DID sound pretty funny, in Ron's telling. And, at the same time, irredeemably cynical. Which makes me think about: what is the purpose that cynicism serves in our society? It seems that we need it, and we need it at greater and greater levels of concentration. "Seinfeld" is succeeded by "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "South Park", is succeeded by Sarah Silverman.

Of course, we don't laugh at Sarah Silverman's AIDS foundation because we think AIDS is funny. Nor do we laugh as some sort of defense mechanism because we find it scary and threatening. We laugh because we recognize the inherent fakery, the quality of striking a pose, of performance, in all public advocacy.

The more of a mass-media society we become, the more of a culture of marketing we become, the more we accept that the way to effect change is through the manipulation of images and attitudes, the more we need cynicism in order to remind ourselves that we are, after all, human beings with minds of our own, rather than actors in a great big public service announcement.

It works as follows: We are told that terrible things are happening in Darfur. We're sorry to hear it. We know that Darfur is a region of Sudan, but we're not sure exactly where Sudan is (I had vaguely confused it with Libya. Turns out it's below Egypt, on the Upper Nile). We think of ourselves as people who are for "Good" and against "Evil," and pretty clearly there's eveil stuff going down in Darfur so we're against it. But what can we as individuals do about it? Sure, we can give some money to this or that organization, and maybe we do. But we have little insight into what concrete goals, if any, our money is bringing about.

We conclude that it's really the government's job to effect peace in Darfur. My job as an individual, then, is to raise awareness. This means publically expressing dismay. Furrowing my brow and shaking my head whenever Darfur is mentioned. Or I could go further by signing a petition, marching in a demonstration, maybe writing a letter to the editor. If I'm a public figure, I make pronouncements in the media. Whatever my gesture, it is precisely that--a gesture. It partakes of the characteristic of the characteristic of a performance. Of theatre.

I understand, on some level, that my public attitudes are more important than my private attitudes. Fundamentally, it isn't important that I understand what's going on in Darfur, the historical or moral intricacies of the situation...or even where Darfur is. the important thing is to strike the right attitude.

In fact, it's probably best that I DON'T think about it too hard. It's harder to strike a strong pose when you're caught up in the intricacies of a problem. And anyway, who has time to educate himself about all the world's problems?

But the more I publically profess my commitment to Darfur, the more I'm aware of this commitment as a performance. So the tension grows between my public commitment and my private apathy. Finally, someone starts making Darfur jokes, and the dam bursts. The tenson is released. The Emporer has no clothes. I laugh--not at the Darfurians, who are still being raped an slaughtered by the score, but at the theatricality--the quality of make-believe--of everybody walking around pretending to care.

strange interview

Another lovely day...though I'm told this summer-preview will soon be over, and we'll be back to rain-as-usual.

Across from me, here at Roma, a 40-something guy sits talking to a boy of around seven or eight. An odd conversation...the kid is interrogating the guy about his work experience. The guy leans slightly forward, hands clasped, in job-interview attitude. The kid, clearly controlling the conversation, lolls back in his chair and fiddles with the straw. Is the kid looking to hire the guy? Two possibilities:

--The guy is an absentee, workaholic father who is making a concerted effort to improve communications with his kid.

--The guy is courting the kid's mother, and bonding with the kid is an essential step in his programme.

My money is on #2. In either case, the guy is clearly unsure how to relate to the kid, and has made the decision to relate to him no differently than he would to an adult. I give him points for this: better than the alternative fake-hearty putting-on-a-show and talking down to the kid option.

"To be honest with you, I have a difficult time relating to coworkers except as employees." What does a seven-year-old make of such a statement?

Me and Osama

Reading Lawrence Wright's "The Looming Tower", nicely novelistic account of the history of Al Qaeda. Suddenly I discover a disturbing fact: Osama bin Laden's favorite TV show when he was a boy was the same as mine: "Fury", starring Peter Graves, a cute kid and a horse.

The show was filmed, I think, around the time I was born. I was watching reruns, in syndication, broadcast from a Lansing MI TV station--it came in only fuzzily on our West Michigan screen. And it played at 6 AM--I'd get up before anyone else in the family to watch it.

I think I had a schoolboy crush on the young protagonist. And I liked the "boys' adventure" romance of it all. Wonder what Osama was responding to...

Monday revised

About 20 to 9 on a bright Feb. morning. Spring is in the air--I finally got the story for Monday III into a shape I can respect! This damn comic has been on my bbackburner for two years now. I have outlined, plotted, written, ripped, rewritten...filled notebooks with notes. But, as with the Grand Unified theory of physics, there were always holes, and the holes would bring down the edifice. And the more I rewrote, the harder it became, because each version had a scene or two that I didn't want to lose. But I needed a plot that flowed naturally, that DEVELOPED, not a choppy sequence of scenes.

See, the thing has to work dramatically, each character (Adam, Eve and God--the snake isn't in this one) has to develop. Plus there's a certain philosophical argument I'm trying to develop. It's got to build to a good climax, a dramatic reversal. And it's got to develop visually, too: tho this one's talky, I don't want static "talking heads" scenes.

So, last week and this, I finally forced myself to sit down and concentrate. Inevitably when I try to do this I'm at my most distractable. I become suddenly interested in reading the tag on my jacket. I become restless and have to take many walks around the block. But there's a reason for this, I think. When it comes to solving plot problems, the subconcious needs to do some of the work. If the plotting is left entirely to the rational mind, the result might be something that technically works, but doesn't flow. The words but not the melody. I've got to continually trick the conscious mind, distract it with baubles, so the subconscious can work on the melody.

Or maybe I'm just a lazy, undisciplined bastard.

First post

Finally, I enter the blogosphere and take a breath of the thick, dirty air. Feb. 12, ought-seven--my forty-first birthday. Hello boys, hello world, here's Rose.

Of course, I don't expect any living soul to READ these postings. Not for a long while. Not til, at least, my forty-second birthday.

Hm. I'd like to put that "-second" in italics. Does google give me this capability?

If so, this will be in italics.