It was very interesting , yesterday at the movies, to see Beyoncé as a normal person in “Dreamgirls”. By a normal person, I mean someone who…just happened to be someone. I tend to think of her, and the other people who haunt the whereabouts of MTV as “possessed” people. I mean, the video clips you see in MTV nowadays are so saturated with sex that I end up seeing the dancers and singers as the distant heirs of the sacred prostitutes of the temples of classical India. People possessed by sex. My readers ( non-existent , but I still feel the need to believe I am writing to someone) will see me as obsessed with sacredness, given that two posts before, I had been writing about the sacredness of money in modern life. Maybe that, sacredness is something separate from God. Even when society does away with God, as it has done in our secular times, sacredness still survives, and grafts itself to our other pursuits – fucking, shopping.
Consider the great commercial centres of our times. When you go in, as you will do on every other Saturday, you will first see great banners whereon are printed the photographs of supermodels. This is the ground floor, on which, more often than not, are found the booths selling perfumes and jewelry. Hommages to the body, and the body’s power is proclaimed in these great photos of beautiful people. Lesser pursuits are attended to in the upper floors – clothes, to be worn when one is not having sex, furniture, stuff for children…but first the perfuming and adorning of the body. Are not our times the Days of the Whore ? Not that I am against Her Power, though I’ve never slept with one, if my readers will pardon me for that ( which I doubt). Those great photos of models, everywhere, are they not sacred objects , Signs of our Times ? Ideals, which few among us can attain ( certainly not me, with my flab and my fondness for beer. I am a low caste of my times ). I tend to lower my head in reverence, when I enter a commercial centre.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Sometimes I have these fantasies of myself as someone who is immensely involved in sex. Like Graham Greene, who at one point in his life had a notebook with the address of around fourty prostitutes. I had a friend who was liked by women – once, I introduced him to a pretty real estate agent, and in my presence, they had the most innocent of conversations. The next day, the woman phoned him and , in passing, he told her he had a cold. She sent him a big bouquet with a “Get well” card. In “White Teeth” Zadie Smith says, about Salim ( I think that’s his name), the handsome teenager: “He was one of those people who radiated sexuality. He would enter a crowded pub, and from the very back, a woman would elbow her way to the bar, to offer him a drink”. My friend was like that. Once, I saw him try his best to seduce a woman – a very easy woman. He failed. She liked him, but for a professional reason, could not go out with him. What I mean, is that he did not have some special technique – I don’t think that exists. He simply was someone women liked to be with. You could not pin it down to any particular reason, I don’t think it was because of his Oxford accent, nor because of his nice clothes, nor because of the fact that he was a womanizer ( a fact which, paradoxically, attracts many women). These were add-ons , bonus points, on a core of sexiness which attracted them. He himself , obviously, would have refuted the idea that he simply happened to be someone whom women liked, and attributed his success to his efforts. At one point, when he was in France, he used to suscribe to three magazines: Men’s Health, which he described as an excellent magazine, Union, a kind of very French porn magazine, in that it had literary and scientific ambitions beyond its fleshpot nature, and Marie Claire, a solid, no –nonsense middle class women’s magazine. “Marie Claire women are my hunting ground” he explained to me. “The Vogue and Cosmo crowd are either too rich, or too wannabe rich for me”. So, he read his Marie Claire every month as an intelligence gathering activity on his prey. It reminded me of Holly Golightly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” keeping newspaper cutouts of articles on baseball because it was good conversation material with men. Come to think of it, I will allow to him the fact that there were two factors at work: he was a sexy guy, but he also worked on it. He liked women, but then at fifteen, who doesn’t , unless you’re gay ( nothing insulting meant to gay people). Then he realised that he was successful with women, and he started to work on himself, rounding the corners, shaving off the rough edges. And obviously, became marginally more successful at it. Marginally, because in the end, it’s the other side which really decides. I guess we all start like him at fifteen, desperate, but so desperate that it aches, to get laid. He had the right ticket, was on the good wave, and he surfed…. But is that the whole story ? Do guys really like women ? Like most men, he would have been profoundly offended to be called a womanizer. It is a survival of childhood. Boys says: “Girls, buuuuuuuhhhh. Sissies. They cry for nothing”. It’s something more than that. Boys want to be heroes. The fact that women fall on their scarred bloody chests, wipe their sweaty foreheads is a bonus point, to which they are supposed to barely pay attention. A guy shouldn’t suscribe to Marie Claire. He may read Union, or Playboy or whatever in the company of other snickering comrades. He will, in a guilty way, flip the pages of Men’s health at the supermarket, to know stuff about diabetes, cholesterol and how to please a woman. But generally, he believes himself to be invincible. His body can, of course, withstand gigantic amounts of drinking, smoking and bad food. Coz he’s a guy , godammit. He will wear the same clothes for thousands of years, until they fall from his shoulders. It doesn’t matter. A concerned woman WILL come and buy him new ones because she SAW the glint in his eyes which said that he’s a MAN who’s been through STUFF. Women are just supposed to HAPPEN, beautiful walkyries who give you rich pussy after your BATTLE. You’re not supposed to RUN after them. So, all that makes me wonder about my friend. How come he admitted to me that he suscribed to Marie Claire ? He was nearing fifty at the time. Maybe, in some way, he was admitting, to the particularly young and harmless looking guy I maybe have looked at the time ( though I wonder whether I could have looked harmless at any point in my life. I usually look like a bum, walking on the streets, mentally arguing to myself, or else I look like a suicide bomber. I have a very Muslim look, much more Muslim than my Muslim friends) that the great success of his life was that he had been through a lot of pussy. An indirect admission, in old age, of failure – so masculine, in a way, maybe that’s what drew him to it. Look, that’s all I ever been able to do in my life. Accept me for what I am, I did not die in the mud from a gangrene infested wound, like I should have.
Shouldn’t we come back to me ? This is MY blog, goddamit, for my self glorification. It is my tiny slot of intellectual masturbation, granted to me by the American Department of Defence, the Jehovah of the web, which has probably taken note of of my Muslim look ( but I don’t care. I’m a GUY, remember ? Bullets bounce off my chest. My bullets rip through the bodies of six baddies. Their bullets, although they’re twenty around me, all miss me, like Arnie in “Commando”). Well, what about me ? I don’t know. My friend has hogged the whole blog post, warts and all, he was an elder male, a guy who’se been through nearly sixty years of livin’….I can feel around me my women colleagues and friends, asking me his phone number…but anyway, despite everything, let’s return to the topic of myself. I was saying….that I sometimes imagine myself as someone immersed in sex, someone who really loves it, works on it, devotes himself to it, and does it well. Now , sex is something, according to the Sacred Book of Manhood, is not something which a man is supposed to pay attention to. It is ( remember that bit ?) supposed to HAPPEN. And when it does, you do it well, with effortless ease, then lay on your back, light up a fag, and say ( if you speak French): “Alors, heureuse ?” ( untranslatable. Something like: ( said in a detached manner: “So, happy ?”). Gosh, the fucking DEMANDS which are made on you as a man. But at least it’s less ridiculous than being a modern woman. FUCKING SHIT the demands on a modern woman. The perfect body. The smart IQ. Successful at work. Successful lover. Successful housekeeper. Successful mother. Whore, caring mother, perfect host, smart at work. FUCK!!!!!! Thank God I’m a guy, even if bullets are supposed to bounce off my chest. In the end, there’s a charitable humour which is reserved for guys who fail in life, like most do. Men can be laughed at, for the pants which fall off their loins , for anything. For some reason I can’t fathom, at this point in my drunkenness, though it has helped me throughout this post ( praise be to the 200 Aztec gods of drunkenness) you give absurd standards to men, and then give them a laugh and a warm hug when they fail to reach it. You also give absurd standards to women, and give them a dry look when they fail to reach it. Life is an absurdly difficult game, which almost everyone fails, ( and you don’t really want to know about the ones who succeed, they probably shouldn’t wander in a dark alley, there would be a mob waiting for them with bricks and clubs ) but for some reason, men always have the consolation of the pub, this strange world where everyone is forgiven, as long as you can pay your drinks. For women there’s…..I don’t know. Watching all the seasons of “Sex and the City” and “Desperate Housewives” at one go, I guess.
FUCK. This post was supposed to be about me and my FANTASIES, or PHANTASIES, if you’re an old style anglophile, which I wish I had the power and priviledge to be. All right, I wasted it talking of my friend and his Marie Claire readings, which is in a way, a masculine endeavour ( you give your life to your buddy. Without thinking, you sprung out of your hole in the trenches and saved him, who had been hit in the leg by an evil cowardly sniper ( that necessity of DUMB, COWARDLY, SIMPLE EVIL in the masculine mind, women know so much more on that score, understand from early on that your worst enemy doesn't wear a hood, doesn't tie girls to railroad tracks, he is the nice guy at the office who always takes you to lunch). You got hit by three or four bullets, but you dragged him back. THAT NEED, TO HAVE THE HORNPIPE BLOWING AT YOUR FUNERAL AND A WEEPING WIDOW AND LITTLE JOHN JOHN WHO SALUTES YOU AS YOUR COFFIN GOES BY). John John , for my illiterate readers, refers to that photo of Kennedy’s son, John John ( I wonder whether Kennedy was really that smart, if he couldn’t think of a second Christian name for his son) giving the salute to this father’s coffin as it passed by, killed by that monument of American muddleheadedness, that guy, whatever was his name, who could shoot three or four perfect shots within a few seconds – I will not defile my drunkenness by remembering his name.
FUCK NUMBER TWO Can we come back to me ? Of course we can, but is it really worth it , after I have spoiled my carefully cultivated image of myself, first by invoking my friend, the Man who was liked by Women, despite his assiduous reading of Marie Claire ( women too, mind you, don’t like too much the idea of a guy who likes them too much, who reads their stuff, who actually PAYS TOO MUCH ATTENTION to them), second by mentioning Shafty, as his Navy colleagues used to call him, also known as John Fritzgerald Kennedy, who got laid by Holly Golilghtly, also known as Marylin Monroe, among others…after this, can I have some space in My blog for myself, please ?
Ok, I have been able to think of myself, again. It all started innocently, with that sentence, saying that I have sometimes have fantasies of myself being someone who is immensely involved in sex. Not, the reader will have understood from the above, in an ABSORBED way. A MAN can, if he wishes to, be intensely involved in sex , but he is supposed to be intellectually and emotionally DETACHED from it. The young ( of course, sexually attractive ) Sociology student asks him : “ What has been the frequency of your sexual activity since your wife went to China ?” He, ( despite his too many beers since his wife went away, he of course still has a flat belly) : “Well sometimes I … go to see … prostitutes” ( the scientific tone disculpates him). She ( wondering, of course, secretly sexually aroused) : “How many prostitutes have you slept with ?” He ( in a scientifically detached manner) : “Around 200. I don’t keep an exact count” “200 ? So many ?” ( That secret male desire : to IMPRESS). He, holding a beer bottle in his hands , detached, almost sad about it : “Yes, I think so” ….etc etc the reader can imagine the rest of the story. Of course she, the sociology student will sleep with him etc ( how could she not ?) . To repeat myself, my fantasy is to be involved in sex, yet to remain clean of the
STUFF that gets involved with it. It would be a sport exploit. Since my wife went to China, I would have slept with hundreds of prostitutes. My dick would be irreproachable, always answering the call of duty. Beyond the demands of these women, I would still have a lively interest in the women in the street, in the world of the web, thus manifesting an irreprochable manliness. Yet my soul would remain pure of the taint of sex. I would indulge in it with delight and perfect sportive performance. Yet I would remain a good boy, interested in higher pursuits. In the end, it is the dream of every man to be a perfect warrior, a perfect fucker, yet also be , beyond all this , a poet and a philosopher. The sensitive boy sissy, whose long hair we tugged at school , is , in some strange way, part of our masculine identity, the top of our edifice, while the bottom remains the rugged motherfucker who can fix the plumbing and give you a dirty joke and a prod in the ribs when you most need it.
Further thoughts ( I like the detached academic tone, which disculpates me from failure, because even if it is failure, it is one at a high –end level. O the masculine need to put one’s defeats at a high level, so that it gives the consolation of heroic death – the walkyries shall YET arrive, their rich moist pussies granting validation of manliness) : Oh gosh, I have forgotten. I have failed my first date, when the car should run smooth, when the restaurant should be perfect. Maculinity is the DEFEAT of the outside world, the saber-toothed tiger, the rundown car, the insolent waiter.Ah’m sorry, ah’ve forgotten what thought it was that I came upon while I went to pee ( peeing is an interesting no man’s land of gender. Some more liberated women friends of mine have no hesitation to say that they are going to pee. On the other hand, the very act of peeing marks a strong gender boundary. A woman has to hide behind a rock. A guy just walks back a few steps and turns his back. There’s a slight tinge of masculine power about the act, because it takes place through the penis, while defecation, an act which belongs to a much lower plane of being, is altogether another matter, wholly removed from sexuality. Peeing is a sort of very vague distant cousin of sex, an ugly mimic of it ). Ah’m sorry- it came to my mind, then it flipped its wings away ( the excuse of poetic language, when one has failed to perform the crude basic act. The flight to reassure the girl/woman that one’s poet ceiling exists, when her feet went through the plumber floor).
Sexuality is so funnily different, according to the sexes, with regard to class. A man feels the need to make a woman feel that he is a plumber who also ( but he’ll reveal that only bit by bit) happens to be a poet. A woman , on the other hand, feels the need to make her man understand that she’s a lady and then, reluctantly, she’ll slowly admit that she also happens to be a whore. Women start from the top , and work their way down. Men start from the bottom, and work their way up. But the bit of revelation is touchingly frightening for both. Men will admit , with some fright, that they are poets. Women will reluctantly admit that they are whores. The advantage belongs , I admit , to men : there is some glory in admitting that behind the plumber was also a poet, if one has been convincing about the plumbing bit. There is some letting down in admitting the whore bit, unless the man has been sufficiently touched by the lady part. Starting from the bottom is easier.
The masculine mistrust of women: the weeping widow afterwards went on to marry a Greek shipping tycoon. Women will not honour the poet in us, will not become sssshhhhhhhhhhhiiiiing librarians of our works .
The feminine mistrust of men…MEN. The resentment, so politically correct, even NECESSARY in our times, of men, in order to be a normal woman. For centuries before, a resentment against women, was politically correct, even NECESSARY, to be a normal man.Thus spins the wheel of fortune. The need to feel resentment against the weaker one: that eternal need of the dominant one. The slave owner NEEDS to resent the slave, for his feebleness, his cunning, his treachery. The master has the stronger vices, those of greater strength, of bullying. The slave has the weaker vices of duplicity.
I’m so sorry that I forgot what it was that I was thinking of while I went to pee. In my mind it has the ripe moist feel of unconquered pussy, of unkissed lips. High school love, who went out with someone else…
Shouldn’t we come back to me ? This is MY blog, goddamit, for my self glorification. It is my tiny slot of intellectual masturbation, granted to me by the American Department of Defence, the Jehovah of the web, which has probably taken note of of my Muslim look ( but I don’t care. I’m a GUY, remember ? Bullets bounce off my chest. My bullets rip through the bodies of six baddies. Their bullets, although they’re twenty around me, all miss me, like Arnie in “Commando”). Well, what about me ? I don’t know. My friend has hogged the whole blog post, warts and all, he was an elder male, a guy who’se been through nearly sixty years of livin’….I can feel around me my women colleagues and friends, asking me his phone number…but anyway, despite everything, let’s return to the topic of myself. I was saying….that I sometimes imagine myself as someone immersed in sex, someone who really loves it, works on it, devotes himself to it, and does it well. Now , sex is something, according to the Sacred Book of Manhood, is not something which a man is supposed to pay attention to. It is ( remember that bit ?) supposed to HAPPEN. And when it does, you do it well, with effortless ease, then lay on your back, light up a fag, and say ( if you speak French): “Alors, heureuse ?” ( untranslatable. Something like: ( said in a detached manner: “So, happy ?”). Gosh, the fucking DEMANDS which are made on you as a man. But at least it’s less ridiculous than being a modern woman. FUCKING SHIT the demands on a modern woman. The perfect body. The smart IQ. Successful at work. Successful lover. Successful housekeeper. Successful mother. Whore, caring mother, perfect host, smart at work. FUCK!!!!!! Thank God I’m a guy, even if bullets are supposed to bounce off my chest. In the end, there’s a charitable humour which is reserved for guys who fail in life, like most do. Men can be laughed at, for the pants which fall off their loins , for anything. For some reason I can’t fathom, at this point in my drunkenness, though it has helped me throughout this post ( praise be to the 200 Aztec gods of drunkenness) you give absurd standards to men, and then give them a laugh and a warm hug when they fail to reach it. You also give absurd standards to women, and give them a dry look when they fail to reach it. Life is an absurdly difficult game, which almost everyone fails, ( and you don’t really want to know about the ones who succeed, they probably shouldn’t wander in a dark alley, there would be a mob waiting for them with bricks and clubs ) but for some reason, men always have the consolation of the pub, this strange world where everyone is forgiven, as long as you can pay your drinks. For women there’s…..I don’t know. Watching all the seasons of “Sex and the City” and “Desperate Housewives” at one go, I guess.
FUCK. This post was supposed to be about me and my FANTASIES, or PHANTASIES, if you’re an old style anglophile, which I wish I had the power and priviledge to be. All right, I wasted it talking of my friend and his Marie Claire readings, which is in a way, a masculine endeavour ( you give your life to your buddy. Without thinking, you sprung out of your hole in the trenches and saved him, who had been hit in the leg by an evil cowardly sniper ( that necessity of DUMB, COWARDLY, SIMPLE EVIL in the masculine mind, women know so much more on that score, understand from early on that your worst enemy doesn't wear a hood, doesn't tie girls to railroad tracks, he is the nice guy at the office who always takes you to lunch). You got hit by three or four bullets, but you dragged him back. THAT NEED, TO HAVE THE HORNPIPE BLOWING AT YOUR FUNERAL AND A WEEPING WIDOW AND LITTLE JOHN JOHN WHO SALUTES YOU AS YOUR COFFIN GOES BY). John John , for my illiterate readers, refers to that photo of Kennedy’s son, John John ( I wonder whether Kennedy was really that smart, if he couldn’t think of a second Christian name for his son) giving the salute to this father’s coffin as it passed by, killed by that monument of American muddleheadedness, that guy, whatever was his name, who could shoot three or four perfect shots within a few seconds – I will not defile my drunkenness by remembering his name.
FUCK NUMBER TWO Can we come back to me ? Of course we can, but is it really worth it , after I have spoiled my carefully cultivated image of myself, first by invoking my friend, the Man who was liked by Women, despite his assiduous reading of Marie Claire ( women too, mind you, don’t like too much the idea of a guy who likes them too much, who reads their stuff, who actually PAYS TOO MUCH ATTENTION to them), second by mentioning Shafty, as his Navy colleagues used to call him, also known as John Fritzgerald Kennedy, who got laid by Holly Golilghtly, also known as Marylin Monroe, among others…after this, can I have some space in My blog for myself, please ?
Ok, I have been able to think of myself, again. It all started innocently, with that sentence, saying that I have sometimes have fantasies of myself being someone who is immensely involved in sex. Not, the reader will have understood from the above, in an ABSORBED way. A MAN can, if he wishes to, be intensely involved in sex , but he is supposed to be intellectually and emotionally DETACHED from it. The young ( of course, sexually attractive ) Sociology student asks him : “ What has been the frequency of your sexual activity since your wife went to China ?” He, ( despite his too many beers since his wife went away, he of course still has a flat belly) : “Well sometimes I … go to see … prostitutes” ( the scientific tone disculpates him). She ( wondering, of course, secretly sexually aroused) : “How many prostitutes have you slept with ?” He ( in a scientifically detached manner) : “Around 200. I don’t keep an exact count” “200 ? So many ?” ( That secret male desire : to IMPRESS). He, holding a beer bottle in his hands , detached, almost sad about it : “Yes, I think so” ….etc etc the reader can imagine the rest of the story. Of course she, the sociology student will sleep with him etc ( how could she not ?) . To repeat myself, my fantasy is to be involved in sex, yet to remain clean of the
STUFF that gets involved with it. It would be a sport exploit. Since my wife went to China, I would have slept with hundreds of prostitutes. My dick would be irreproachable, always answering the call of duty. Beyond the demands of these women, I would still have a lively interest in the women in the street, in the world of the web, thus manifesting an irreprochable manliness. Yet my soul would remain pure of the taint of sex. I would indulge in it with delight and perfect sportive performance. Yet I would remain a good boy, interested in higher pursuits. In the end, it is the dream of every man to be a perfect warrior, a perfect fucker, yet also be , beyond all this , a poet and a philosopher. The sensitive boy sissy, whose long hair we tugged at school , is , in some strange way, part of our masculine identity, the top of our edifice, while the bottom remains the rugged motherfucker who can fix the plumbing and give you a dirty joke and a prod in the ribs when you most need it.
Further thoughts ( I like the detached academic tone, which disculpates me from failure, because even if it is failure, it is one at a high –end level. O the masculine need to put one’s defeats at a high level, so that it gives the consolation of heroic death – the walkyries shall YET arrive, their rich moist pussies granting validation of manliness) : Oh gosh, I have forgotten. I have failed my first date, when the car should run smooth, when the restaurant should be perfect. Maculinity is the DEFEAT of the outside world, the saber-toothed tiger, the rundown car, the insolent waiter.Ah’m sorry, ah’ve forgotten what thought it was that I came upon while I went to pee ( peeing is an interesting no man’s land of gender. Some more liberated women friends of mine have no hesitation to say that they are going to pee. On the other hand, the very act of peeing marks a strong gender boundary. A woman has to hide behind a rock. A guy just walks back a few steps and turns his back. There’s a slight tinge of masculine power about the act, because it takes place through the penis, while defecation, an act which belongs to a much lower plane of being, is altogether another matter, wholly removed from sexuality. Peeing is a sort of very vague distant cousin of sex, an ugly mimic of it ). Ah’m sorry- it came to my mind, then it flipped its wings away ( the excuse of poetic language, when one has failed to perform the crude basic act. The flight to reassure the girl/woman that one’s poet ceiling exists, when her feet went through the plumber floor).
Sexuality is so funnily different, according to the sexes, with regard to class. A man feels the need to make a woman feel that he is a plumber who also ( but he’ll reveal that only bit by bit) happens to be a poet. A woman , on the other hand, feels the need to make her man understand that she’s a lady and then, reluctantly, she’ll slowly admit that she also happens to be a whore. Women start from the top , and work their way down. Men start from the bottom, and work their way up. But the bit of revelation is touchingly frightening for both. Men will admit , with some fright, that they are poets. Women will reluctantly admit that they are whores. The advantage belongs , I admit , to men : there is some glory in admitting that behind the plumber was also a poet, if one has been convincing about the plumbing bit. There is some letting down in admitting the whore bit, unless the man has been sufficiently touched by the lady part. Starting from the bottom is easier.
The masculine mistrust of women: the weeping widow afterwards went on to marry a Greek shipping tycoon. Women will not honour the poet in us, will not become sssshhhhhhhhhhhiiiiing librarians of our works .
The feminine mistrust of men…MEN. The resentment, so politically correct, even NECESSARY in our times, of men, in order to be a normal woman. For centuries before, a resentment against women, was politically correct, even NECESSARY, to be a normal man.Thus spins the wheel of fortune. The need to feel resentment against the weaker one: that eternal need of the dominant one. The slave owner NEEDS to resent the slave, for his feebleness, his cunning, his treachery. The master has the stronger vices, those of greater strength, of bullying. The slave has the weaker vices of duplicity.
I’m so sorry that I forgot what it was that I was thinking of while I went to pee. In my mind it has the ripe moist feel of unconquered pussy, of unkissed lips. High school love, who went out with someone else…
Monday, June 25, 2007
The seriousness of money ( glamourised people):
The other day while at a friend’s place I saw bits of a television series which is about a group of highly trained forensic policemen. I think it wasn’t “The Experts” but one of its imitations. The story had that lighting particular to American series and some of their films, a kind of glossiness with a lot of steely blues in the interior scenes. It also had that tensely glamorous atmosphere, with policewomen with something too pert and too smart about them, and the men looking like spinoffs of George Clooney or Brad Pitt. Everyone moves with a sort of crispness , no one ever fumbles, never hesitates. The computer guy sits on the computer and with a few keystrokes , enters into the Pentagon’s secret database or some other inaccessible place. It takes him a few tries to guess the bad guy’s password.
I don’t watch much of that kind of movie, but I am conscious that this taut ubersmart look is very much in fashion nowadays. Two years ago we were served with “Mr and Mrs Smith” which was so drenched in glamour that it wasn’t an action movie anymore as much as a sort of religious work, a Mystery play of style.
A profound gravity characterises people who are soaked in that “glamour liquid”, they are rigid like the faces of old emperors whose corpses have been preserved in lacquer. When I go to parties, I sometimes come across young people working in corporate positions in big companies. They also give off that impression of almost supernatural seriousness about themselves, as if, while tolerating the company of mere mortals around them, their minds were elsewhere, attuned to the higher spheres of creation, in touch with the innermost cycles of money. Their shades are sacramental masks, behind which their eyes, turned inwards, gaze at inner vaults laden with gold and pearls of great price.
In “Voyage au bout de la nuit”, Celine remarked on the sacred character of the banks he saw in New York, cathedral like buildings where business was conducted in reverential silence.
Maybe humanity has never been so serious as it is nowadays. It’s hard to know, for these are things about which we have pretty little information regarding how it was, in the past. The demands we make on today’s children would probably have surprised our ancestors. We certainly ask too much of today’s women – perfect bodies, success at work, perfect housekeeping, perfect mothers. The pressure is getting harder on men, too – perfect husbands, attentive, yet winners at work too.
I love America, but for once I’ll say it: the Americans are the main culprits in this frenzy for overachievement, overglamourisation. In the 19th century, Americans were already considered a deadly serious people. A nation of immigrants, hell bent on self improvement, on making it to the top. Historians are amazed at the thoroughness with which the Civil War was conducted, the Yankee armies methodically laying to waste every Southern city they came upon, the battles fought with extraordinary rates of casualties, for the times.
American humour has a random quality to it, the kind of jokes one expects from people who work too much, and start laughing at anything in an exhausted relaxation of the nerves. Woody Allen’s humour doesn’t count as American, it is quintessencial Jewish humour, of an old, old people, who have been through everything and expect the worst as part of life.
One can only hope that this madness of self-seriousness, self-worship will not take hold in the human brain. Our species has not gone through all that it has gone through, to end up becoming a bunch of hyperneat overachievers, with trembling hands and a jar of sleeping pills on the bedside table.
That would be really sad, especially now that science has given us the means to really enjoy life on this planet. Personnally, I feel that we have enough science as it is, and that it is dangerous, even madness to embark in more research in fields such as genetics. We should rather use the knowledge we have to make the world a garden, a place where people live good, simple lives . It may seem naïve, but the poignant thing is that it is actually possible . A remote possibility, but one which exists, unlike the never-never land of communism. But unfortunately, with this craze for more and more things, all them sleek and glossy, and with people themselves becoming sleeker and glossier, as if they also started to become like the products they own, we are going far from the idea of the world as a garden ( and closer and closer to the world becoming one big airport, with its sanitised atmosphere, its duty free shops, its dull people reading dull magazines, its deadly seriousness).
The other day while at a friend’s place I saw bits of a television series which is about a group of highly trained forensic policemen. I think it wasn’t “The Experts” but one of its imitations. The story had that lighting particular to American series and some of their films, a kind of glossiness with a lot of steely blues in the interior scenes. It also had that tensely glamorous atmosphere, with policewomen with something too pert and too smart about them, and the men looking like spinoffs of George Clooney or Brad Pitt. Everyone moves with a sort of crispness , no one ever fumbles, never hesitates. The computer guy sits on the computer and with a few keystrokes , enters into the Pentagon’s secret database or some other inaccessible place. It takes him a few tries to guess the bad guy’s password.
I don’t watch much of that kind of movie, but I am conscious that this taut ubersmart look is very much in fashion nowadays. Two years ago we were served with “Mr and Mrs Smith” which was so drenched in glamour that it wasn’t an action movie anymore as much as a sort of religious work, a Mystery play of style.
A profound gravity characterises people who are soaked in that “glamour liquid”, they are rigid like the faces of old emperors whose corpses have been preserved in lacquer. When I go to parties, I sometimes come across young people working in corporate positions in big companies. They also give off that impression of almost supernatural seriousness about themselves, as if, while tolerating the company of mere mortals around them, their minds were elsewhere, attuned to the higher spheres of creation, in touch with the innermost cycles of money. Their shades are sacramental masks, behind which their eyes, turned inwards, gaze at inner vaults laden with gold and pearls of great price.
In “Voyage au bout de la nuit”, Celine remarked on the sacred character of the banks he saw in New York, cathedral like buildings where business was conducted in reverential silence.
Maybe humanity has never been so serious as it is nowadays. It’s hard to know, for these are things about which we have pretty little information regarding how it was, in the past. The demands we make on today’s children would probably have surprised our ancestors. We certainly ask too much of today’s women – perfect bodies, success at work, perfect housekeeping, perfect mothers. The pressure is getting harder on men, too – perfect husbands, attentive, yet winners at work too.
I love America, but for once I’ll say it: the Americans are the main culprits in this frenzy for overachievement, overglamourisation. In the 19th century, Americans were already considered a deadly serious people. A nation of immigrants, hell bent on self improvement, on making it to the top. Historians are amazed at the thoroughness with which the Civil War was conducted, the Yankee armies methodically laying to waste every Southern city they came upon, the battles fought with extraordinary rates of casualties, for the times.
American humour has a random quality to it, the kind of jokes one expects from people who work too much, and start laughing at anything in an exhausted relaxation of the nerves. Woody Allen’s humour doesn’t count as American, it is quintessencial Jewish humour, of an old, old people, who have been through everything and expect the worst as part of life.
One can only hope that this madness of self-seriousness, self-worship will not take hold in the human brain. Our species has not gone through all that it has gone through, to end up becoming a bunch of hyperneat overachievers, with trembling hands and a jar of sleeping pills on the bedside table.
That would be really sad, especially now that science has given us the means to really enjoy life on this planet. Personnally, I feel that we have enough science as it is, and that it is dangerous, even madness to embark in more research in fields such as genetics. We should rather use the knowledge we have to make the world a garden, a place where people live good, simple lives . It may seem naïve, but the poignant thing is that it is actually possible . A remote possibility, but one which exists, unlike the never-never land of communism. But unfortunately, with this craze for more and more things, all them sleek and glossy, and with people themselves becoming sleeker and glossier, as if they also started to become like the products they own, we are going far from the idea of the world as a garden ( and closer and closer to the world becoming one big airport, with its sanitised atmosphere, its duty free shops, its dull people reading dull magazines, its deadly seriousness).
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
I am reading Philippe Djian’s “Criminels” and I can feel an ugliness of being emanating from the pages of the book. There is no physical description of the main characters, as far as I can remember, but I can almost smell their fetid breath, feel their flabby bellies, see their empty eyes. Not that they are peculiar people. The main character, Francis is a laid off harbour worker, there is also a sort of male –hysterical character called Victor, a policeman called Ralph, his nymphomaniac wife Nicole and a woman called Sonia who all the time talks in terms of aura and vibrations, but, oddly enough, seems to be sanest, healthiest person in the story. I say “seem” because it is rather difficult to make up what exactly is happening as the story unfolds, because it is a blur of vapid conversations between the characters, which comes to the reader as through a haze, as if he is sitting dead drunk in their midst. It feels as if you had gone on a month-long group tour of some incredibly boring country – the Kerguelen islands, maybe ? I am maybe insulting the place out of ignorance - and the people you are with are an incredibly bland, boring, suspicious lot, and on the evening of the last day of that trip, the whole group sits together by a camp fire on a bleak shore, under a grey sky, and for some reason, maybe because you want to remember the vacuous horror of this moment, or because you are so drunk that you decide you’d better do this or else you’ll be doing something sillier such as picking up a fight, you have decided to film the whole scene with your camcorder. So there you go, doing close ups of all those faces you want so much to forget, tomorrow morning, picking up snatches of conversations, having long takes of someone’s feet, patiently recording how, as the evening progresses, your “friends” – who, during that one month, have been cheating on each other like it was getting out of fashio – fall, one after the other, flat forward in a puddle of mumbled accusations, laments, wisecracks and flashes of anger. From time to time, the camera shifts to filming the steely, implacable sea and the cruel looking clouds, to allow the viewer some relief. But the analogy is misplaced – because, someone who takes the camera and films these people is , in a way, proclaiming his distance from them. But the reader is emotionally plunged in the story – it is well written enough for this to happen – so there is no escape : one feels at one with the characters, and the terrible thing is that they are not even wholly evil : Francis tries to take care of his insane father, Elizabeth tries to bring together Francis and his son, Francis really cares for Elizabeth. But for some reason , love is not enough, things go awry. The Police (the rock group) said, in one of their songs: “There’s got to be an Invisible Sun, that gives it heat when the whole day’s gone”. It is as if this invisible sun had died out, and nothing good can ever come out of people, however hard they try.
Why is that so ? In the case of Francis, I have the impression that there is a hardened shell of cynicism about him, which makes him say unpleasant things one time too many. He is a Bogart too far gone into being Bogart, and who can only play the tough gangsters , the Lefties and Tigers of his earlier career, and will never graduate to being a Rick or even a Marlowe of his later years. One can only admire the courage of existentialist writers like Philippe Djian, to create such sordid, yet believable worlds as they do. It takes a lot of moral strength to do this without collapsing into madness.
Why is that so ? In the case of Francis, I have the impression that there is a hardened shell of cynicism about him, which makes him say unpleasant things one time too many. He is a Bogart too far gone into being Bogart, and who can only play the tough gangsters , the Lefties and Tigers of his earlier career, and will never graduate to being a Rick or even a Marlowe of his later years. One can only admire the courage of existentialist writers like Philippe Djian, to create such sordid, yet believable worlds as they do. It takes a lot of moral strength to do this without collapsing into madness.
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