The New After-Math
I am approaching another of those age milestones which
prompts assessment-inventory mode.
In one sense I have exactly the life I want—no apparent routine, no
apparent ‘boss’ or structure except the pressure of time itself-- plenty of
creative ceiling. The fact that I have
very little income, cannot master that Wall Street math that makes millions out
of air, and spend inordinate amounts of time devising Rube-Goldberg-worthy schemes to manage, is quite a challenge, some days. I concede this life of spontaneity, as one
gets older, is comprised of myriads of loose ends—things I collect, daily-- thoughts, projects, ideas, inspiration. Then there are the stray people I take
on, the fact that I give time to the insane unemployed physicist in Starbucks, the Holocaust survivor who nags me to at least hear her memoirs because there is
neither time nor sufficient megabytes to write it out; to the blogger with no blog, the
dog-savers and ex-junkie poets, and to my friends--- few as they are, now, the
good ones. Not to mention kids, who
wouldn’t even know my birthday without facebook, and they are too busy or too
guilty or whatever.
I know now that no one will ever pay me back, and that as I
begin to melt more into the fabric of what is the forgotten class of people---
the has-beens and middle-aged-- no one really wants to listen. I am succumbing to the alarming fact that I
go to the library and besides the re-packaged classics whose recent translations are
often offensive and colloquial and wrong, the new books—even the New York Times
top 10 of the year--- well, they are generally a literary disappointment. Do these authors feel like failures? Do they realize that the Housewives of
Atlanta are winning? That Warholian fame
has become cheapened beyond his prediction and 15 digital nano-minutes might be all
there is. That the old has been shoveled
up and piled on dumpsters not because it is useless and obsolete but because it was real and had a shelf-life, and value has become something the hedge funds
determine to accommodate their maximum bonus pyramid.
My life has resonance, I try to console myself, as I leave
the grocery store practically empty-handed.
I attend few gallery openings--- not because I don’t have suitable clothing, but because most shows are just an idea—of course, some
are executed with enormous gestures and presented with unprecedented chic décor-ready
props, but although they ‘look’ good--- as fashion on the runway often does, it
is unabashedly deja-deja-vu for me, and the models, lovely as they are, ‘wear’
the idea, but do not give it real content.
I recently was really taken by photographs of an art-piece done years ago by a window-dresser who actually went a little ‘outside the box’. They were from the 1970’s—she’d actually created pulp-fiction-type drama within the store display windows--- with guns, intrusive characters… even a plaster hand that protruded from the actual store window---‘Help’ it was saying…’I am crossing the line between reality and advertisement, of theatre and solicitation.’ The artist then placed the mannequins in real situations--- dressed and still—in cafes, one even on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum where she sat—all dressed up and nowhere to go… alone, in the wind, among the then-small crowds who went to museums which were still, in the 1970’s, for art and not spectacle. I remember the windows. They were important. But now I realize they were a sort of foreshadowing.
Even the 1970’s still had some credibility, some sense. There were still typewriters and land phones. The people who brought the news on TV had side-parts and narrow ties and dark suits and spoke extemporaneously with unadorned style and used words properly. They had something to say-- and when they didn't speak--- well, that was a statement in itself. How many Anderson Cooper reports would it take to weigh in with Walter Cronkite removing his glasses in 1963? The old journalists weren’t reading prompters and chatting about pop-stars who can’t sing and football stars with fake girlfriends because none of that was invented and people with no talent stayed home or worked in a cupcake factory and hummed to themselves while they wrapped their kids’ lunch sandwiches in waxed paper. Some of them even smoked while they did this.
I recently was really taken by photographs of an art-piece done years ago by a window-dresser who actually went a little ‘outside the box’. They were from the 1970’s—she’d actually created pulp-fiction-type drama within the store display windows--- with guns, intrusive characters… even a plaster hand that protruded from the actual store window---‘Help’ it was saying…’I am crossing the line between reality and advertisement, of theatre and solicitation.’ The artist then placed the mannequins in real situations--- dressed and still—in cafes, one even on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum where she sat—all dressed up and nowhere to go… alone, in the wind, among the then-small crowds who went to museums which were still, in the 1970’s, for art and not spectacle. I remember the windows. They were important. But now I realize they were a sort of foreshadowing.
Even the 1970’s still had some credibility, some sense. There were still typewriters and land phones. The people who brought the news on TV had side-parts and narrow ties and dark suits and spoke extemporaneously with unadorned style and used words properly. They had something to say-- and when they didn't speak--- well, that was a statement in itself. How many Anderson Cooper reports would it take to weigh in with Walter Cronkite removing his glasses in 1963? The old journalists weren’t reading prompters and chatting about pop-stars who can’t sing and football stars with fake girlfriends because none of that was invented and people with no talent stayed home or worked in a cupcake factory and hummed to themselves while they wrapped their kids’ lunch sandwiches in waxed paper. Some of them even smoked while they did this.
So now, maybe the mannequins are the art… the clothing---
well, the packaging--- the ‘carrot’…
another public company on the stockmarket because commodities are no longer wheat and
corn and coffee—these are altered and manipulated, and futured-out. Now there are
handbags and cellphones which move the markets-- accessories-- and yes, there are worthless ideas--- like facebook---
like Zinga and instagram--- ideas which are mysteriously bankable and which put solid-gold spoons in the mouths of the
Goldman Sachs Babies, and the finest sushi on their conference tables, billions
of monopoly dollars in every greedy bank account. Web-ideas trying desperately
to convince us we are not loose ends--- we are connected, we are touching… we
are blogging and we can see Beyonce from our desk, we can tweet her and we can
tweet Carmelo Anthony and Ashton Kutscher and we can see what jacket they are
wearing, and we can see their baby pictures and their girlfriend’s bikini butt
and her spray tan.
Labels: Anderson Cooper, Andy Warhol, Ashton Kutscher, Beyonce, Carmelo Anthony, facebook, Fringe Festival, Goldman Sachs, guns, Housewives of Atlanta, Inauguration, Jimmy Choo, Rube Goldberg, Starbucks, Walter Cronkite
posted by mysocalledwriterlessblog at
8:19 PM
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