Rogue Specimens

"All Hail the Queen?: What do perceptions of Beyonce's feminism say about us?", by Tamara Winfrey Harris

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:33:41 -0400

"All Hail the Queen?: What do perceptions of Beyonce's feminism say about us?", by Tamara Winfrey Harris:

I’m excerpting a lot from this, because this piece is just that good—but do follow the link to read it in its entirety:

“A popular star willing to talk about gender inequity, as Beyoncé has, is depressingly rare. But Freeman insists flashes of underboob and feminist critique don’t mix. Petersen concurs, calling the thigh-baring, lace-meets-leather outfit Beyoncé wore during her Super Bowl XLVII halftime show an “outfit that basically taught my lesson on the way that the male gaze objectifies and fetishizes the otherwise powerful female body.” A commenter on Jezebel summed up the charge: “That’s pretty much the Beyoncé contradiction right there. Lip service for female fans, fan service for the guys.”

These appraisals are perplexing amid a wave of feminist ideology rooted in the idea that women own their bodies. It is the feminism of SlutWalk, the anti-rape movement that proclaims a skimpy skirt does not equal a desire for male attention or sexual availability. Why, then, are cultural critics like Freeman and Petersen convinced that when Beyoncé pops a leather-clad pelvis on stage, it is solely for the benefit of men? Why do others think her acknowledgment of how patriarchy influences our understanding of what’s sexy is mere “lip service”?

…Black women (and girls) have also historically battled the stereotype of innate and uncontrolled lasciviousness, which may explain why Beyoncé’s sexuality is viewed differently from that of white artists like Madonna, who is lauded for performing in very similar ways. [Lady Gaga’s image as a trailblazing female icon is an example of this, too.]

A Seattle Times review of a recent Madonna tour stop praises the artist for “rocking us as a feminist icon” and applauds the singer for her brazen sexuality: “stripping down to a bra, then pulling her pants down below a thong and baring her cheeks to the Key [Arena].”… Through a career that has included crotch-grabbing, nudity, BDSM, Marilyn Monroe fetishizing, and a 1992 book devoted to sex, Madonna has been viewed as a feminist provocateur, pushing the boundaries of acceptable femininity. But Beyoncé’s use of her body is criticized as thoughtless and without value beyond male titillation, providing a modern example of the age-old racist juxtaposition of animalistic black sexuality vs. controlled, intentional, and civilized white sexuality.”

"Race + Higher Ed: Fear Not, Suzy. You're still #1!", by Kendra James

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:21:00 -0400

"Race + Higher Ed: Fear Not, Suzy. You're still #1!", by Kendra James

Survey

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:49:00 -0400

I have a question. I’m Tumblr-ing it in part because 1) this is the only social media platform I use and 2) to the best of my knowledge, every person who follows this blog in the way in which I can see them following me was born an American citizen. (My apologies for assuming incorrectly if this isn’t the case for you.)

So, my question to born citizens is this. What is your experience like when someone asks you to validate your identity? When I say “validate” and “identity” I’m actually not talking personal politics for once—I mean, when you got your driver’s license, or registered for standardized testing, or started at a new job, or needed to get your name and identity cleared by an incredibly shitty bank because they apparently suspect you of fraud for undisclosed reasons and have been holding your money hostage since December 2012—how long do these processes take for you? Is it as much a pain in the ass as it is for me? To be more specific; my driver’s license was withheld from me for a couple of weeks because the bureau wouldn’t license me until they got a lot of documentation regarding our alien status, including letters from my mother’s employer assuring the bureau that she was employed there; I paid for the GRE twice because they insisted that I needed to show my alien registration materials before I could sit for the test even though the confirmation email had said that ‘residents of Ohio need to bring their drivers license’ only (the problem was that I assumed I was an Ohio resident but I was apparently a foreign resident); I filled out four or five I-9 forms for Northstar and documenting work eligibility actually became MORE difficult after I was naturalized; et cetera. I was coerced into passing a spoken English test two years into my teaching career at Ohio State even though I was a citizen at the time and English is my first language. Et cetera. I literally cannot imagine what it’s like to go through these things without some hassle and so I can’t tell if it’s just that I’m so truly bad at my life’s logistics (I’m pretty bad) that I’m bound to run into problems by virtue of being my own damn self or when/if enough is enough.

And I’m asking now because I can’t tell whether it’s worth it to raise hell over my current bank situation. Long story short—I opened an account with an online bank; they accepted a deposit; sent me a debit card; and in December I was completely locked out of my account without notice. When I called I was told that I would have to send a copy of my drivers license and proof of address to unlock it. FIVE MONTHS LATER, I finally got someone to call me back about my account, and she asked for my social security card (not my license). I sent it to her, and then she asked for my green card, because my social says “Not Valid for Employment” on it. I told her that, as a citizen, I no longer have a green card. So she asked for photo proof of my citizenship. I’m extremely adverse to scanning the most personal document of my entire life and emailing it to some stranger in an online fraud department, but I don’t know if it’s technically 100% legal for her to ask for it and not-of-legal-substance at all for me to complain about it.

As a born citizen, what kind of service would you expect in that situation? How do you prove that you are a citizen? Have you ever been asked? Is it legal to ask someone for this kind of information? (No, this is not a scam bank. Just a terrible one.) I can’t tell if, as a naturalized citizen, I should legally just expect to always be asked for my alien registration documents and scramble to give people what they ask for so that they can finally give me the basic services that I signed up for in the first place. What kind of service should I act like I’m entitled to?

itscolossal: Smeared skies made from hundreds of stacked photos...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:34:29 -0400

itscolossal:

Smeared skies made from hundreds of stacked photos by Matt Molloy.

taoistdrunk: I cannot forget those predatory eyes, and the...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:03:08 -0400

taoistdrunk:

I cannot forget those predatory eyes, and the way they attended to something of immense importance that was, as I say, not exactly outside of me, and that was perhaps more real than me, but that was not precisely me either. Nor can I ever forget the essential mysteriousness of her face, so much more alive than most people, so blazing with uncompromising passion, so intent upon things that were not exactly in the room. (I remember thinking a sad thought: that this was going to be the hoped-for friendship with a brilliant woman, but it is after all an encounter with just another predatory man. Erotic control and artistic control: where did one leave off and the other begin?)

If the gaze of art is in this way both intent on the person and at the same time intent on the creative work that appropriates and goes beyond the person, the question is whether this gaze can ever be, in the fullest sense, a humanly loving gaze, exemplary of the virtue that Murdoch’s philosophy describes. Why not? It sees more truly than most loving people see. I had no doubt, for example, that Murdoch could have described me, after an hour, far more precisely than any lover of mine after some years

…

And yet I think there is something more to loving vision than just seeing. There is, for example, a willingness to permit oneself to be seen. And there is a willingness to stop seeing, to close one’s eyes before the loved one’s imperfections. There is also a willingness to be, for a time, an animal or even a plant, relinquishing the sharpness of creative alertness before the presence of a beloved body.

Martha Nussbaum’s introduction to Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince is the most beautiful essay on love, and the artist’s vision of the beloved, that I’ve ever read. I have long believed – and this, obviously, is not my invention, but it is the philosophy to which I subscribe – that the greatest sin is to reduce people to something less than who they are; and we do this all the time. To respect and to love and to honor is to acknowledge that people are people, that their minds work the same way as all other minds, that they feel in the same awful and complicated and confusing ways we do. That we may each be unique, but not at the core (#namaste, bitches). And we violate one another all the time: we define others by their relationship to ourselves, we keep secrets we would not wish kept from ourselves, we fail to understand that others’ struggles are just like our own. That often – usually, even, for the lucky ones – those struggles are worse. A line from the text:

When we try, especially in times of pain and crisis, to penetrate the mystery of another mind, we are inclined to picture it as being, not a shadowy mass of contradictions like our own, but a casket containing entities which are clear-cut and definite but hidden.

I do not know what I feel about this person, or what they feel, but they do: they know how they feel about me; they’re just not telling. This is almost never true, but it is the easiest thing to believe – and the most masochistic.

On this reduction: some of the greatest heartbreak I have ever felt is the sense of being a cherished plaything, the sense of being on a shelf to be enjoyed at a convenient time for my friend, or for my beloved, or for whomever. When discussing this with a friend, she said “that always happens to tiny girls.” Which I believe is true! I believe there is something about small women that encourages this: the resemblance to an actual doll. But I have treated others this way, too; I imagine others have experienced the same heartbreak. The sense of being disallowed from being authentically one’s own self in order to sustain the relationship. It causes despair. Which is to say not only does a loving vision require “a willingness to permit oneself to be seen,” it requires a desire. Love happens in the space where both parties wish to see and to be seen, and it entails forgoing the recording of any one love itself. This does not mean love must be secret, or even private, but that any one love relationship cannot – should not – be articulated. What a tragedy for the artist, then, to have to sacrifice love in order to get it down on the page! And this is the heart of Murdoch’s book and truly this may be the best novel I have ever read, too, but believe me: it’s worth it for the intro alone.

1madhatta: maxistentialist: Tweenbots by Kacie Kinzer: Given...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:13:11 -0400

1madhatta:

maxistentialist:

Tweenbots by Kacie Kinzer:

Given their extreme vulnerability, the vastness of city space, the dangers posed by traffic, suspicion of terrorism, and the possibility that no one would be interested in helping a lost little robot, I initially conceived the Tweenbots as disposable creatures which were more likely to struggle and die in the city than to reach their destination. Because I built them with minimal technology, I had no way of tracking the Tweenbot’s progress, and so I set out on the first test with a video camera hidden in my purse. I placed the Tweenbot down on the sidewalk, and walked far enough away that I would not be observed as the Tweenbot––a smiling 10-inch tall cardboard missionary––bumped along towards his inevitable fate.

The results were unexpected. Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers. Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, “You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”

The Tweenbot’s unexpected presence in the city created an unfolding narrative that spoke not simply to the vastness of city space and to the journey of a human-assisted robot, but also to the power of a simple technological object to create a complex network powered by human intelligence and asynchronous interactions. But of more interest to me, was the fact that this ad-hoc crowdsourcing was driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object. The journey the Tweenbots take each time they are released in the city becomes a story of people’s willingness to engage with a creature that mirrors human characteristics of vulnerability, of being lost, and of having intention without the means of achieving its goal alone. As each encounter with a helpful pedestrian takes the robot one step closer to attaining it’s destination, the significance of our random discoveries and individual actions accumulates into a story about a vast space made small by an even smaller robot.

I love that guy, “you can’t go that way! It’s toward the road!”

No Good Deed

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:29:36 -0400

This is a response to Ilana Teitelbaum’s Los Angeles Review of Books piece, “Decapitating the Chivalric Hero: On Game of Thrones”. I can’t for the life of me figure out how to make the hyperlink button work today, but if I don’t fix it later and you want to read it, you’ll find it via the Google. Skip the rest of this post or not, but I recommend following through on the Teitelbaum.

I like her piece a lot; her argument about how to look at Grossman’s Tolkein/Martin moral complexity binary is all about paying attention to characters’ fears (and not just looking at who’s wearing which color-coded hat, as David Foster Wallace said about the film Dune) in order to identify whether there are (as there are in GoT) good guy/bad guy binaries at work in the story. Sweet.

I’m interested, though, in how we tend to talk about the fate of characters—chivalric or not—as revealing of an author’s worldview, on chivalry or otherwise. This isn’t a notable observation about how we consume stories; I do often want to know “what happened at the end,” duh. What happens to the characters we’ve become invested in is usually a powerful part of our relationship with the story.

But it’s not everything. The praise given to “morally complex” television series gives us a new way to look at this—Breaking Bad is not “morally complex” because of what’s going to happen to Walter White in the last episode, but because of what happens from individual episode to episode. The same goes for The Wire. These are both shows where the fate of various characters does matter very much to how we perceive the story, but I would argue that it’s the way they live before their stories end that carries each show and not the other way around. Talking about what happens to Ned Stark (like, supposedly one of the LEAST complex guys in the whole joint, right) as a more shocking death than the many horrific deaths in that storyline and about how Frodo is “saved from himself… but only at irrevocable cost” casts a great light on what we, as readers and consumers, have come to expect in terms of The Reward.

Lev Grossman (himself a pretty clever administrator of the Reward-as-Poetic-Narrative-Device in his book The Magicians) is pretty into the idea of G.R.R. Martin as supplanting J.R.R. Tolkien (WHOA those initials totally do work out, too) not just because the GoT characters tend to be more ambiguously good/bad but because in GoT, “good” doesn’t necessarily “win.” Which, you know, it doesn’t, in real life, so I can see why “realism” enters the conversation at some point. But for us to be impressed by a work predominantly because good doesn’t get rewarded with good in the story still leaves us dependent on the dichotomies of good/bad and reward/punishment (which I think is what Teitelbaum was pointing about about the tensions about what approaches from behind The Wall). No good deed goes unpunished is just as much a dichotomous worldview as is the belief that “good” will or should be rewarded.

One thing that strikes me about this narrative technique is how it reminds me of the doctrine of Heaven/Hell. That’s just one pretty basic example of a philosophy driven by the idea of the moral reward—one way or another, one will be rewarded accordingly for how you lived your life on this earth, with either something unsurpassingly wonderful or something unsurpassingly horrible.

It’s also worth looking at how we, as readers, reward characters for their relationship to chivalry. Check out how in Teitelbaum’s LARB piece Ned Stark is “motivated by such obsolete notions as honor or nobility” while his daughter Sansa is “cartoonishly idiotic in [her] blindness” for buying into the same moral delusion as her father. One of the systemic traits of chivalry that seems to have stuck around (and is problematic where the isolated values of courage/justice might not be—just stay on Tumblr for an afternoon for a chance to consume plenty of pro-courage and pro-justice material) is the philosophy that chivalry is a story about male action and female passivity. Hence our being able to very quickly understand that Ned’s fate is to be unfairly punished for his buying into these values and acting upon them whereas Sansa’s fate is to be severely unlikable until she finally gets a clue. It might not seem like it from the LARB piece’s talk of Sansa as the foolish consumer of romantic ideals, but Sansa does act on these values beyond just eating them up—inaction is an action, after all, as is declaring allegiance, and in some ways the consequences of Sansa’s actions tell the more horrific story than do the consequences of her father’s. You can see something similar going on in Lev Grossman’s TIME review where his instinctive description of Brienne—AN ACTUAL KNIGHT—is as “unmarriageable” and “monstrously ugly.” Like, I haven’t followed the storyline through, but I’m pretty sure much worse things are in wait for her character out in the world. Sigh.

Back to the No good deed goes unpunished thing: I had a conversation about chivalry somewhat recently in which I shared that the most dangerous thing about the concept, for me, is the expectation of The Reward—the expectation that if one treats another person (this conversation was about heterosexual relations but the larger conversation to be had isn’t) with a certain measure of dignity/courtesy/respect/whatever that it would be unfair for their behavior to go unrecognized, or unrewarded, or punished. You can see this in the Modern Gentleman Slate advice letter that was sent in recently where a guy gave up his seat for a woman on the bus who did not want to take his seat and said so brusquely; he spent time wondering about and writing a letter about whether chivalry had no place in the world, since he was so rudely rewarded. You can see this in sexual interactions and coercions. You can see this in “ungrateful immigrant—look at all this country has given you” rhetoric. I don’t know if certain chivalric values (like I said, justice and courage—I’m definitely a propagandist for justice and courage) are problematic enough to let die and call dead, but I do believe that chivalry-as-deserving-a-reward is an ideal worth killing off. If you treat others well for the fuckssake of treating others well, then I don’t know if that makes you a knight, but it does make you a person who at least wants to treats others well. If you only treat others well if you know you will be rewarded in some capacity for doing so, then I can’t say what that makes you, but that kind of behavior seems like the antithesis of courageous or just.

Isn’t this whole thing just the beauty and hot mess of our relationship with genre, though? We love how medieval GoT is but we love how in some ways it seems to not be. We love how The Magicians actually has actual shit from Narnia and Harry Potter blaring out from the pages but we love how the hero is born-and-raised Brooklyn prep school (and how there is fucking in The Magicians where there definitely wasn’t in Narnia.). Those subversions are wicked engaging, but honestly, there are other subversions, and they can be discussed above and beyond the terms of a work’s darkness or, inversely, lightness. (The fairy tale The Goose Girl is one of the darker stories I know, and I’m not sure that makes it morally complex.) I’ve never heard anyone talk about the moral complexity of Infinite Jest in terms of what happens to its characters “in the end”, as opposed to in terms of its formal and contextual ambitions, and I believe that’s because it’s a science fiction novel that will never be shelved in the Science Fiction section. Sometimes (but not always) I think that one thing that we as lovers of science fiction and fantasy can do for the future of the genre(s?)—and for ourselves—is to hold it/them to standards as complex and evolving and experimental as those to which we hold any other storytelling form.

And also to treat each other as best we can for the fuckssake of it. I mean, Jesus.

exhibition-ism: 3D graffiti artist Manuel Di Rita aka Peeta

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:31:59 -0400

exhibition-ism:

3D graffiti artist Manuel Di Rita aka Peeta

odditiesoflife: Star Trails in Australia Many photographers...

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:30:27 -0400

odditiesoflife:

Star Trails in Australia

Many photographers like to experiment with long exposure photography techniques, but an Australian Lincoln Harrison gives a new definition to the word “long”. The 37-year-old Victorian showcases a portfolio of mesmerizing long exposure star trail photography, with some of his photo shoots taking up to 15 hours. The photos are made at his personal favorite spot over Lake Eppalock, in the Australian outback.

The star swirls are the result of the rotation of the Earth, and makes you think you’re witnessing the stars traveling across the sky. “With no buildings for miles, the sky is so clear and it’s amazing to be able to capture the beauty of the night’s sky on camera,” says Lincoln.

wtfevolution: “Uuuurrrnnnggghhhhhh.” “You feeling okay,...

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 14:56:34 -0500

wtfevolution:

“Uuuurrrnnnggghhhhhh.”

“You feeling okay, evolution?”

“I feel awful. I think I partied a little too hard last night. I have got to stop doing that.”

“Well, yeah, you’re not exactly 21 million years old anymore. Here, have an aspirin.”

“Thanks. I just wish I remembered what I — oh. Oh no.”

“What?”

“I think I may have made some animals last night.”

“Oh, I’m sure you didn’t.”

“Then why do I have ‘variable neon slug’ written on my hand? Oh god, what does that even mean?”

“Just get some rest, okay? I’m sure you can sort it out later.”

“This is so embarrassing.”

exhibition-ism: Japanese miniature artist Takahiro Iwasaki

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:00:31 -0500

exhibition-ism:

Japanese miniature artist Takahiro Iwasaki

Poetry stuff, work stuff— So, I received my first solicitations ever this year, an experience...

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 13:25:00 -0500

Poetry stuff, work stuff—

So, I received my first solicitations ever this year, an experience for which I am still very grateful. The Ninth Letter issue with two poems in it will come out later in spring, and apparently the Phoebe print issue just came out. What’s personally awesome about the latter is that the poetry editor contacted me to say that he was working on a poetry feature that was apocalypse-themed, and thought my work might fit the idea. I was basically like DID SOMEBODY JUST SAY REVELATIONS/REVOLUTIONS/OLD ORDER COLLAPSE/NEW ORDER REBIRTH YES I LOVE IT YES and then I managed to hit ‘reply’ in a somewhat sane manner and died happy. Here’s the post in which the ideas behind an apocalypse feature are much more gracefully articulated.

There’s also a poem coming out in Black Warrior Review sometime in the moderate future. I’m excited and thankful. They took “How to Make Love to the Costume You Found Me In”, which is one of the weirder problem-set type projects I’ve been wading through lately, so that’s also part of the gratitude. Obviously I didn’t *need* encouragement to dive my bizarro deeps as deeply as possible, but I’ll take it.

Mostly I wish I could figure out how to write a not-soporific post about the rhyme structure I just finished drafting. It’s loosely based off the sestina (but with 36 lines not 39) and the villanelle (but in couplets not tercets) and is inspired by (though mainly in the sense of a golden retriever chasing full-speed after an F250) the hyper-formal aesthetic that Anne Marie Rooney masters in Spitshine. I’ve done this rhyme scheme before but this structure front-loads as well as back-ends so that all the endwords show up all. The. Gorram. Time. I’m obviously annoyingly relieved that I finished the stupid thing at all, but if I’m totally honest the most challenging thing about writing this form to completion might be the risk of becoming chronically bored by the midpoint as opposed to being technically stumped.

I’m working in a warehouse in Columbus that’s been and being renovated to provide artist studios as well as community event space. So far the best hours I’ve had were spent cleaning a studio that had been vacated by a ceramicist—I spent time over two days with Kimbra blasting on the floor out of my laptop, wiping different colors of clay off the walls and, at one point, a gigantic boot print from like ten feet off the ground. I’ve been mopping floors for restaurant work since I was sixteen, so a lot of this is physically meditative, which I think is the only way I get meditative. My best friend manages parts of this warehouse, and she helped me get these hours, which means I have a lunch buddy most days. Little things are good things to have. The construction guys were jackhammering indoors for days last week (something’s buckling up the concrete and they’re wanting to release it) and one of them offered me “a turn” with the jackhammer. Some little things are good to turn down.

Happy New Year, people.

schonheitsschock: Midas & Medusa: A Very Brief Affair from...

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 16:24:50 -0500

schonheitsschock:

Midas & Medusa: A Very Brief Affair

from The Argyle Sweater

suicideblonde: KISS HIM!!!

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 02:39:33 -0500

suicideblonde:

KISS HIM!!!

exhibition-ism: We absolutely love the illustrations of Alex R....

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 16:35:00 -0500

exhibition-ism:

We absolutely love the illustrations of Alex R. Kirzhner

On the drive home from a moderately mind-numbing brunch shift I was fantasizing about cyborgs with no exo-anything from the neck down (there’s no way this is an original thought); like a full flesh head that xylemed/phloemed all its electrical impulses up from and down to a completely synthetic “skeleton” frame. The first painting here sort of conjures the reverse magic for me—I’ve seen lots of gorgeous illustrations where the beauty of a conventionally lovely female body is supposed to be subverted by the illustration also happening to show the body juxtaposed with decaying foliage or the literal exposure of certain of her bones (often the rib cage, that’s the most predictable, because beautiful women whose ribs you can see is supposed to be affecting in a certain way, and the intention behind that affect, in and of itself, makes me snarl and weep) at the same time—but that shit coming out of her body (and “face”!) and its immense lack of either fetishistic detail or reference to the exquisite delicacy of the wild (leaves, twigs, vines) summons the visual horror genre so deftly I’m won over. How I love visual art that is art-nouveau-out-the-corner-of-your-heart’s-eye but not necessarily conventionally-art-nouveau enough to find hanging (with that slender layer of dust covering it that covered the art nouveau posters in my department’s graduate student offices) everywhere in-department office hours are held. If I ever teach for a university again I will probably hang posters of subjects rocking out with Romantically “Natural” and/or science-fiction elements coming out of them from places we have been trained to view as terrible. Again, there’s no way this is an original thought. I’m already counting people I know who teach or will teach and who would or already have hung such works of art.

"I’ll be damned if I want most folks out there to do unto me what they do unto themselves."

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 14:17:24 -0500

“I’ll be damned if I want most folks out there to do unto me what they do unto themselves.”

- Toni Cade Bambara (via afrolez)

exhibition-ism: International art collective Crackling Art...

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 17:32:37 -0500

exhibition-ism:

International art collective Crackling Art Group (in collaboration with the cathedral and Opera d’Arte) placed these 50 snails all over the Duomo in Milan.

My cousin, ashamed after building a chair from IKEA. this is...

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 00:08:17 -0500

My cousin, ashamed after building a chair from IKEA.

this is one of the best posts i have ever seen

"And the rigors of love combine with other duties and redouble themselves. Because Fred loves Mary,..."

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 18:50:40 -0500

““And the rigors of love combine with other duties and redouble themselves. Because Fred loves Mary, when he recklessly borrows money from her family and is unable to pay it back, he finds the weight of his misdeed surprisingly heavy upon him. This is not biblical morality but practical morality: Fred has done something wrong in the world, and his true punishment lies not in the next world but in this one. It’s in the pain he has caused… In Middlemarch love enables knowledge. Love *is* a kind of knowledge. If Fred didn’t love Mary, he would have no reason to exercise his imagination on her family. It’s love that makes him realize that two women without their savings are a real thing in the world and not merely incidental to his own sense of dishonor. It’s love that enables him to feel another’s pain as if it were his own. For Eliot, in the absence of God, all our moral tests must take place on this earth and have their rewards and punishments here. We are one another’s lesson, one another’s duty.””

- Zadie Smith, Middlemarch and Everybody

Last week I had the immense privilege of being scared witless by a (what looked to be...

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 14:42:32 -0500

Last week I had the immense privilege of being scared witless by a (what looked to be prehistorically large) coyote doing a light surveillance lap about the backyard. Amazing—no one I told this to believed that I hadn’t just seen a dog (“How did you know it was wild?” “Because I’ve never seen a dog that made me want to hide from it.” My boss laughed at me.) but that was no motherfucking dog, excuse me. I don’t know how to pick up the phone to call or pick up the phone to answer right now. This morning I walked six miles to fetch a gallon of gasoline for my car and it all turned out alright; a nice and non-condescending man at the gas station showed me how to work the portable gas container and filled it for me without making me feel like an idiot who’d been wrestling with a twist-off lid on her knees in front of pump number 5; strangers have been decent and kind to me today even though I go about pretty sure that if I saw me on the street I would definitely not be inspired to kindness. Hey, read this excerpt, I think it’s almost half as amazing as a coyote going about its day.

—-

“But now I wonder if there’s also something new. Not middlebrow, not highbrow (we still don’t have an avant-garde to speak of), but halfway in between. Call it upper middle brow. The new form is infinitely subtler than Midcult. It is post- rather than pre-ironic, its sentimentality hidden by a veil of cool. It is edgy, clever, knowing, stylish, and formally inventive. It is Jonathan Lethem, Wes Anderson, Lost in Translation, Girls, Stewart/Colbert, The New Yorker, This American Life and the whole empire of quirk, and the films that should have won the Oscars (the films you’re not sure whether to call films or movies).

The upper middle brow possesses excellence, intelligence, and integrity. It is genuinely good work (as well as being most of what I read or look at myself). The problem is it always lets us off the hook. Like Midcult, it is ultimately designed to flatter its audience, approving our feelings and reinforcing our prejudices. It stays within the bounds of what we already believe, affirms the enlightened opinions we absorb every day in the quality media, the educated bromides we trade on Facebook. It doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know, doesn’t seek to disturb—the definition of a true avant-garde—our fundamental view of ourselves, or society, or the world. (Think, by contrast, of some truly disruptive works: The Wire, Blood Meridian, almost anything by J. M. Coetzee.)”

—William Deresiewicz, from Upper Middle Brow: The culture of the creative class