class, carrie, clear channel
I talked to my friend Alex last night for about 1 hour on the phone. Very nice guy from Minneapolis. He worked on Ellison's campaign (first muslim in congress, I think?), and he had some interesting things to say about the whole process. He agreed with what I was saying in my blog yesterday and summed it up very succinctly. "Some people are entirely too attached to the word 'democrat.'"
Class has been building steam lately. It's strange to see the (circadian?) ups and downs of energy in a large group dynamic. Because there are weeks where everyone is down, and then there are weeks like these last two weeks where people are just amped. I wonder if it has something to do with city water additives or some type of waste gas from the secretive white sands missile range. But then am I affected too? At any rate class was very fun today. Students were off the wall and laughing and talking smack to eachother--but most importantly actually working on their projects in a somewhat convincingly involved way.
I'm at a good stage with them where I give lots of slack and space for them to do what they want, but at the same time I have a shadow of authority. In other words, they are starting to understand that I can and will fail them for the semester or send them to the office if they piss me off--either of which would result in lengthy and painful parent/teacher/student conferences. Nobody wants that.
A few of my more jovial students have taken to calling me April. I told them that my parents thought at one point that I was going to be born a girl, and if so, I would be called 'April.' Is this story true? I think so, but maybe that's just something I had a dream about when I was very young and it perhaps became a memory. Mom, was I going to be April? Or was I just supposed to be born in April? Anyways, some of my students think it is hilarious that I was (am) supposed to be a GIRL! And to top the sweet cherry pie of humiliation, I have LONG HAIR! None of this really bothered me too much, but they would not let it go. Everyday, "Hey April!" "What's Up April!" On and on to the point of well defined disrespect. So yesterday I point at the 3 of them in turn and christened them female names. "You're Monica, you're Lisa, and you're Stephanie." They stopped calling me April today.
Last night I read Stephen Kings, _Carrie_. Molly had brought it from Onate because it is one of the possible book club books for her kids, and she can get hours for reading it. It is a short book so it's no major feat to read it in one night, but by about 20 pages in I knew that I would have to finish it in one sitting. What a great story. Typical King in its awkward phrasing and sometimes ham-fisted plot development. But always with King there is a spark of something really special. The brunt of his quality comes in the sheer spectacle of most of his stories. He has an audacity or flair in the substance of his stories--an alien clown terrorizing children from the sewers, a werewolf priest killing the town's teens, or a high school girl who develops incredible telekinesis. Nobody is (or was) writing about this stuff. The other thing I always appreciate about King is his attention to little details that really flesh out a character. Usually these details build to a character that is 1 or 2 dimensional--but the dimensions are clear and effective for what he needs them for. There are too many to start to list and my memory isn't that good, but when you do read one of his stories it might strike you--'oh, that's wicked, only a truly evil weirdo would put rubber gloves on in this part--or something like that.
One other thing that struck me about Carrie is the parallels between it and Lars Von Trier's film, _Dogville_. Both stories feature a persecuted female lead who realizes a position of power in the end of the film. What sets both stories apart from most other stories of this kind is the utter lack of sympathy or forgiveness that the persecuted leads have for their assailants. Both of these stories end in complete destruction for the people that brought harm to the leads. I think this would strike most of us as amoral; we are supposed to turn the other cheek, and forgiveness is the highest form of love and all that. These two stories really challenge all that because we the viewers share in the delight of the main character as they kill off everyone that fucked with them. We get to the breaking point and we know what's coming and we want it to happen--we want complete destruction. Is this a skillful manipulation on the authors' part, or is it simply an exposition of something deeper within us, something that goes directly against forgiveness?
I talked to a conspiracy theorist a while back in Minneapolis (not Jesse), and he was rapping to me for a long time about how christianity is a slave religion dreamed up by pharaohs and dictators to control and subjugate the masses. The meek shall inherit the earth, turn the other cheek, basically don't fight back no matter what because life sucks now but you'll get something good when you die. Keep the slaves in line. It's an interesting idea that this major religion is a purposely constructed social device, and I think there might be something to that. However this goes completely against the idea that Jesus actually did walk the earth and that he did preach neighborly love and forgiveness. Not sure where I stand on that one. Obviously the issue is more complicated that this summary, but I do like the idea of neighborly love and forgiveness... but what if something got omitted from Jesus' message (by "the dictators")? What if he said 'yes, but up until a certain point. Then you kill the bastards because they're pure evil anyways.'
It's an interesting opposition anyways--to leave the killing and judging up to 'god' or to take matters into your own hands (and at what point). Check out Carrie and also I highly recommend Dogville, even though it is challenging and disrupting and hard to watch and 3.5 hours long. This all ties into my business idea that addresses the need for a destructive outlet within (or without) our thoroughly utilitarian culture (I can't say anything more, and please tentative board of directors and shareholders out there--stay quiet).
In recent news, clear channel was bought out by some type of consortium that includes some company called the Bain Group. So now Bain owns clear channel. We live in Gotham City. Estimated value of the deal is 25 BILLION DOLL HAIRS. Things have not gone through all the way yet--we are still at the "we've accepted the bid" stage. There will most likely be congressional hearings and other investigations. What does this mean? I'm trying to imagine a worse state of mass media... I guess it's possible. I used to work for clear channel.
Class has been building steam lately. It's strange to see the (circadian?) ups and downs of energy in a large group dynamic. Because there are weeks where everyone is down, and then there are weeks like these last two weeks where people are just amped. I wonder if it has something to do with city water additives or some type of waste gas from the secretive white sands missile range. But then am I affected too? At any rate class was very fun today. Students were off the wall and laughing and talking smack to eachother--but most importantly actually working on their projects in a somewhat convincingly involved way.
I'm at a good stage with them where I give lots of slack and space for them to do what they want, but at the same time I have a shadow of authority. In other words, they are starting to understand that I can and will fail them for the semester or send them to the office if they piss me off--either of which would result in lengthy and painful parent/teacher/student conferences. Nobody wants that.
A few of my more jovial students have taken to calling me April. I told them that my parents thought at one point that I was going to be born a girl, and if so, I would be called 'April.' Is this story true? I think so, but maybe that's just something I had a dream about when I was very young and it perhaps became a memory. Mom, was I going to be April? Or was I just supposed to be born in April? Anyways, some of my students think it is hilarious that I was (am) supposed to be a GIRL! And to top the sweet cherry pie of humiliation, I have LONG HAIR! None of this really bothered me too much, but they would not let it go. Everyday, "Hey April!" "What's Up April!" On and on to the point of well defined disrespect. So yesterday I point at the 3 of them in turn and christened them female names. "You're Monica, you're Lisa, and you're Stephanie." They stopped calling me April today.
Last night I read Stephen Kings, _Carrie_. Molly had brought it from Onate because it is one of the possible book club books for her kids, and she can get hours for reading it. It is a short book so it's no major feat to read it in one night, but by about 20 pages in I knew that I would have to finish it in one sitting. What a great story. Typical King in its awkward phrasing and sometimes ham-fisted plot development. But always with King there is a spark of something really special. The brunt of his quality comes in the sheer spectacle of most of his stories. He has an audacity or flair in the substance of his stories--an alien clown terrorizing children from the sewers, a werewolf priest killing the town's teens, or a high school girl who develops incredible telekinesis. Nobody is (or was) writing about this stuff. The other thing I always appreciate about King is his attention to little details that really flesh out a character. Usually these details build to a character that is 1 or 2 dimensional--but the dimensions are clear and effective for what he needs them for. There are too many to start to list and my memory isn't that good, but when you do read one of his stories it might strike you--'oh, that's wicked, only a truly evil weirdo would put rubber gloves on in this part--or something like that.
One other thing that struck me about Carrie is the parallels between it and Lars Von Trier's film, _Dogville_. Both stories feature a persecuted female lead who realizes a position of power in the end of the film. What sets both stories apart from most other stories of this kind is the utter lack of sympathy or forgiveness that the persecuted leads have for their assailants. Both of these stories end in complete destruction for the people that brought harm to the leads. I think this would strike most of us as amoral; we are supposed to turn the other cheek, and forgiveness is the highest form of love and all that. These two stories really challenge all that because we the viewers share in the delight of the main character as they kill off everyone that fucked with them. We get to the breaking point and we know what's coming and we want it to happen--we want complete destruction. Is this a skillful manipulation on the authors' part, or is it simply an exposition of something deeper within us, something that goes directly against forgiveness?
I talked to a conspiracy theorist a while back in Minneapolis (not Jesse), and he was rapping to me for a long time about how christianity is a slave religion dreamed up by pharaohs and dictators to control and subjugate the masses. The meek shall inherit the earth, turn the other cheek, basically don't fight back no matter what because life sucks now but you'll get something good when you die. Keep the slaves in line. It's an interesting idea that this major religion is a purposely constructed social device, and I think there might be something to that. However this goes completely against the idea that Jesus actually did walk the earth and that he did preach neighborly love and forgiveness. Not sure where I stand on that one. Obviously the issue is more complicated that this summary, but I do like the idea of neighborly love and forgiveness... but what if something got omitted from Jesus' message (by "the dictators")? What if he said 'yes, but up until a certain point. Then you kill the bastards because they're pure evil anyways.'
It's an interesting opposition anyways--to leave the killing and judging up to 'god' or to take matters into your own hands (and at what point). Check out Carrie and also I highly recommend Dogville, even though it is challenging and disrupting and hard to watch and 3.5 hours long. This all ties into my business idea that addresses the need for a destructive outlet within (or without) our thoroughly utilitarian culture (I can't say anything more, and please tentative board of directors and shareholders out there--stay quiet).
In recent news, clear channel was bought out by some type of consortium that includes some company called the Bain Group. So now Bain owns clear channel. We live in Gotham City. Estimated value of the deal is 25 BILLION DOLL HAIRS. Things have not gone through all the way yet--we are still at the "we've accepted the bid" stage. There will most likely be congressional hearings and other investigations. What does this mean? I'm trying to imagine a worse state of mass media... I guess it's possible. I used to work for clear channel.
posted by j0eb0t-xj9 at 10:56 AM
4 Comments:
you cant both partake and also consider yourself outside of it.
ex. clear channel, ritual gifting.
As a future member of your board of directors, I'm very interested in hearing about your idea. Jesse had a great one I think he should pursue. I am more than ready to invest in a brilliant idea and boss my kids around.
Are you sure Jesse wasn't the conspiracy theorist? Jesus did say "an eye for an eye" so perhaps he did preach an end to madness at some point.
You were due to be born on April 18, 1983. You were almost exactly 2 weeks late, putting in an appearance on May 2. We had a huge snowstorm on April 18 that year so it was a good thing you were late. No April sprung from these loins. You were to be Katie Joy. I always wanted a Katie and now we have one! I hope that they don't start calling you Katie - we had enough of that with the two Mollys!
Stream of consciousness religious musings? One-off quotes are as fun as they are useless. Jesus also said "Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I came not to bring peace, but a sword." The pharaohs forgot to delete that one? Funny stuff these conspiracy theorists come up with. Christians never oppose governments they consider unjust? Some people need to lay off the acid:) Just picking fun, or course. See you soon.
yes ben, I should not be quoting the bible. I could've perhaps traced the origins of popular morality in narrative fiction to the US justice system (legal trials, punishment fits the crime). The source wouldn't have mattered.
My main point is that these two stories smack of something different in morality. Maybe it's 'you hit me and I'll hit you back 4 times harder.' it's more primal and viscerally satisfying. To me it seems anti-christian, but I'm no authority.
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