blogorrhoea political economic and cultural observations in the register of dismal dilettantism
Saturday, December 06, 2003
ANKARA 2
Th?s traffic doesn't half kick up a blanket of smog! ?t's a good thing so many Turks smoke, as it's all that keeps the air breathable. Had fun at the Maltepe bazaar yesterday. At 2.12 pm, the place ?s full of p?rated software, electronic games and DVDs. A shout goes up at 2.13, and by 2.14 a host of stalls have d?sappeared behind rollerdoors and tarpaul?ns. By 2.30 all ?s as before
The Turk?sh papers are grow?ng cross w?th Europe. Certainly, it is hard to argue Turkey is not effect?vely being isolated by europe's suits and uniforms. First UEFA abandon all Turk?ish venues from the European Cup, then Britain refuse all civilian visas from Turkey, then NATO has moved its executive get-together from ?stanbul to ostens?bly safer climes. The story is doing the rounds that British papers are reporting that passengers on a British Airways fl?ght pan?cked when they observed seven Turkish passengers praying. Leaving aside the fact that, were ? a religious man, ?'d be given to the odd in-flight supplication to the heavens, sa?d Turkish passengers insist not a prayer was uttered throughout. More stup?d self-defeating orientalism from the great and the good ...
Not much else to report. Most people ? know have been brought low by the?r annual cold and the standing few are bravely standing in for them. ?t seems one does not ask such favours here - if your colleagues decide you are sick, even tired, they summar?ly send you home and lift your load. As Australians spr?nkle their congress with 'mate', so do the Turks w?th 'arkadas'. 'Arkadas' literally means 'one who covers my back' and here that's exactly what it's taken to mean. Uncommon pretty to watch it is, too. The only thing about which ? have ever agreed w?th Honest Johnny was his insistence that 'mate' be const?tut?onally honoured in the land. Of course, ? doubt he meant a word of it, but ? was made angrier still by the coterie of power-dressed ersatz feminists who came at him on the issue. 'Mate' they gravely asserted, was the battlecry of the patriarchy - effectively condemn?ng every woman who has mates who stand up to pee as a witless lackey to perf?d?ous Man. 'T?s the curse of the Australian lefty to endure some dodgy fellow travellers.
Anyway, ?'ve some fellow travellers of my own, and it is time to step ?nto some pide together. The word for 'fellow traveller' ?n Turkey is 'yoldas', and, yes, ?t also does duty here as 'comrade'.
I may be quiet for a few days now as duty hollers.
Oh, and carn the Austral?an yoof team! 3-2 over B-R-A-Z-?-L!! Hope bloody Blatter was watching ...
Ankara is, for the most part, brand new. Attaturk hurriedly began building the minute he had a nation-state for which to build a capital. No complaints, mind, but methinks he built it a skerrick on the small side for the four millions who inhabit the place now. Crossing the road here is only for those with sharp senses, immaculate timing, nimble feet and a goodly dollop of that Turkish fatalism. Were I but a decade older and slower ?'d be obliged to spend the rest of my life on this side of the road. That said, what's left of the old bit of Ankara (or Angora, as it used to be) is all of 3200 years old. The Hittites, King Midas' Phrygians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Caliphs and the Ottomans have all left their mark here - much of it in and under the castle that overlooks Ankara. ?ts walls are built out of any old block that came to hand at the time, including Roman statues, summarily beheaded and turned sideways.
The news of the day makes for thin pickings. More than 150000 cancellations have hit the economy hard, and ? haven't once heard a foreign voice here in the three days ?'ve spent dodging Ankara's fleets of angry Renaults and Fiats. So ?'ve been Turking it up a storm. One thing - one of the many things - ? like about Turkey is that everything has a political significance. Politics is lived through the people here, not confined to a few homogenised and pasteurised institutions. My moustache matters because ?'m gravely assured social democrats have particular moustaches, definitely not to be confused with the foliage sported by those of other persuasions. The same with the football teams and telev?s?on stat?ons - and the same with the pubs. On Monday night, my arkadas and ? took my moustache into a socialist pub for pre-match drinks and into a Kemalist pub for the big match itself. Galatasary were creatures of rare beauty on the night, and strutted all over a workmanlike Juventus. My little pod of proud nationalists expressed their joy loud'n'long, and my ears were ringing as ? took my wobbly legs bravely out into The Traffic That Does Not Sleep.
Everyone ? meet seems pleasantly surprised with the new government, and on first impressions ? can see their point. Prime Minister Erdogan responded to the ?stanbul bombings in firm and measured tones, pointing out that he wouldn't countenance phrases like 'Jewish terrorists' or 'Christian terrorists' and that ?slamic Turkey should not have to put up with 'Islamic terrorists' - for him, they are 'religious terrorists' at best. Good on him. The Turks are livid about the changing of venues for European championship matches (Galatasary had to play Juventus in Germany, and so must Besiktas meet Chelsea there) and the British decision to refuse all civilian visas in Turkey. They don't guarantee more outrages will not occur here, but point out that no-one else is in a position to guarantee that either. That is, after all, the content of 'globalisation'. ? cop these diatribes - invariably delivered over drinks my interlocutor has insisted on buying for me ('you are a guest in my home') - in sad agreement. Would Chelsea be playing in Germany if London had been bombed, I am moved to wonder. Did Britain refuse Americans visas after S11, I don't even begin to wonder ....
Oh, and ? went to the post-office today. Two things Turkish post-offices don't sell are envelopes and stamps. So this blog constitutes the sum-total of my communication with the outside world for now.
Thirty hours of squirming from buttock to buttock and fantasising about cigarettes, two twenty-minute sessions of stamping from foot to foot whilst actually smoking cigarettes, and three showings of 'Pirates of the Carribean' later, yours Not-At-All-Dismally-Just-At-The-Moment drags contentedly at a Maltepe, sips delicately at a cai and blogs adjectivally at you from throbbing Taksim in (insert all adjectives here) Istanbul. The street behind me teems with chain-smoking amblers, fishmongers, purveyors of costume jewellery, mobile phones and pirated VCDs - all going industriously at it as if the rubble behind them hadn't been a consulate a week before. The only thing that's changed is that these finely honed salesmen aren't selling much. Each and every taxi driver proffers long, articulate, damning and usually unsolicited discourses on the political economy of their plight - neither a good word for the bombers nor the 'coal?t?on' ... just the shrugging realisation that yet again the designs and interventions of others have thrown a spanner in the Turkish works. Shrugging, because these are a fatalistic people. You get that way when shit keeps happening, I dare say. Always Turkey comes back and always Turkey takes another hit. The ups and downs that inhabit the memory banks of a 46-year-old Turk must make for jagged drama indeed compared to the gentle undulat?ons that shape my grasp of the past.
Did my share of culture-bathing and rubber-necking yesterday, but did take time out to catch 'Master and Commander'. I loved the ambience and the look of the film, and it's worth a look for those alone, but the backbone of the O'Brian books is the mutually complementing and warmly edifying relationship between the intriguingly-rich-but-humanly-not-quite-whole characters of Aubrey and Maturin, and on that account the film is pretty thin fare - thinner even than one might expect of a two-hour action pic . Rusty's Jack carries off the Errol Flynn portion of the remit and does okay at the benevolent-despot bit, but he's done better than this, for mine. Oh, and a point would have been nice. In short, I am certainly at least as deeply disappointed as I am resolved to buy the DVD.
Well, I'm off to catch the Fenerbahce/Besiktas derby now. Tomorrow, a venture across the Bosphorus and the day after that off to Ankara, where I should have more reliable access to a computer (and be more used to the Xq!?? keyboard) and perhaps a thought or two worth the bloggery.
If you were as busy as I am you wouldn't even bother to issue this hiatus alert.
So there.
Coupla administrative notes while I'm here, though ...
Erstwhile Armadillo, rugby tragic, rock sentimentalist and all-round thorn-in-the-jackboot-of-the-Australian-Right Chris Shiel would have it known he is now flying solo. Humbly suggest a visit to accomplished Melbournian eclecticist and thinker-of-good-thoughts Barista, too.
Oh, and the man on the radio has just reminded me of my impending trip abroad. I'm off next week, you see. Been looking forward to it with pretty much the demeanour of a five-year-old on Christmas Eve. Finally, a chance to dissolve the accumulated dismarrhoea of these 26 remorseless months in the tide of vital conviviality, teeming variety, cultural tolerance, living history, sheer beauty and cherished friendships that is this destination of joyous memory.
You'd think a chronic dismalist like me would've known better , really ...
My never-ending quest for quality literature has inevitably brought me to blogorrhoea's archives. Would it not be interesting, I'd thought, to see what we were saying as the inevitable slaughter in Iraq drew close.
The worst thing about being a dismalist is that one's predictions are so often right ...
Anyway, I did find this little flight of fancy on how Peter Weir's *Master and Commander*, then but freshly embarked upon, might (and should) turn out. Ideally, American Blogorrhoeaics who have seen the film (and at least one Australian currently domiciled in The Belly Of The Beast), will offer detailed commentary as to the width of that inevitable gap between the fancifully ideal and the brutally real ...
Monday, October 14, 2002
PATRICK O'BRIAN - good physic indeed for blogorrheaic dismarrhoea
I am uncommon gratified to find the ever discerning Tim Dunlop blogging a hymn to He Who Must Be Read Forever By Everybody. HWMBRFBE (as I like to call him) was surely Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, and Charles Dickens come back to earth in more compact form. His mighty Aubreiad traverses the Napoleonic age to the strains of Locatelli, the bubble and hiss of unfathomed waters rushing by the taff-rail, and the insistent thunder of perfidious Albion's eighteen-pounders. Delighting at every sensuous shudder and sway of His Majesty's (purloined) Frigate Surprise, voluptuates the vessel's slave and master, Jack Aubrey (who is surely Horatio Nelson, Lord Wellington, Matthew Flinders, Marco Polo and Peter Pan come to earth in expansive form). Negotiating his return, with customary clumsiness, from a precarious perch at the futtock shrouds, whence had closely been studied a passing nondescript booby, stumbles Ship's Surgeon, natural philosopher, particular friend to the captain - and spy - Stephen Maturin, whose preoccupation with a binomial nomenclature that might do the bird justice will send him head-first down the companion-way. Maturin - clearly Joseph Banks, Watkin Tench, George Byron, GK Chesterton, Tom Paine, Ian Fleming and Thomas Bell brought to earth in uncommon scrawny form - will doubtless recover in time to afford his particular friend's artless spontaneity the countervailing measure of reflection and finesse it requires successfully to execute the Admiralty's will.
As for the film, I should not hesitate but send it back was it not to feature the Plum Duff and the Drowned Baby.
I should be uncommon sore tried, too, should they serve up a creation devoid of: (a) Stephen clumsily making his way through some beast-infested jungle; (b) Stephen banging his head or falling overboard; (c) Stephen putting a waister's brain to rights [I must see a trepanner before I die]; (d) Jack discoursing on women or promotion; (e) Jack going at it, toe to toe, with a froward froggie; (f) a duet from the Great Cabin; (g) a crewman caught in the 18-pounder's recoil; (h) Diana deploying the decolletage with malice aforethought; and (i) the Reading of the Articles of War.
These seem relatively inexpensive must-haves to me.
Beyond that, I shall be most happy with many a wide shot of Surprise sailing large and the odd rippling broadside. I should like to have Spartacus as the theme (not merely because I'm a Godless Owenite, nor just because it listens uncommon well, but rather because The Onedin Line proved that Nothing Else Will Do).
... that a blogger in his cups should not his Power Mac broach.
Aye, Mistress Jane. And if he desist, he is a blogger not ... ______________________________
PANTS OFF ...
... to Rampaging Roy Slaven and his latest tour de force, Marking Time. The maestro got the dialogue just right, and whoever did the casting nailed it with a jackhammer. Every one a bloody gem. And the Forsythe kiddie a fair dinkum revelation. Yours Dismally will not soon forget them.
He probably won't forget messrs Howard, Ruddock, Hill and Reith, either.
But he'll be trying real hard. _______________________________
SPOT ON ...
... is Galal Amin, who wrote in the 3 September issue of Al-Ahram:
"To what extent were these developments a sign of the triumph of capitalism -- in the Marxist sense -- over socialism? Has free market ended the state monopoly over the means of production and terminated the state monopoly over the decisions of production and investment, or has private monopoly replaced state monopoly? Have consumers won back from the state the right to determine the type and quantity of products, or have they forfeited their rights to private business? Has state-run central planning disappeared, or only been replaced by conglomerate vision? Has the role of the state diminished, or does the state still intervene in the economy to promote the interests of big business, such as arms manufacturers, even to the point of waging wars?
It is misleading to speak of the triumph of one system over another. The capitalism that invaded the Eastern bloc bears only a passing resemblance to the capitalism advocated by classical economists. Likewise, the socialist system that fell apart had little to recommend it to the socialism embraced by Marx and Engels." _________________________________
... I guess unprecedented national debt, current account deficits and consumer debt must not be fundamentals. They'd better not be too fundamental in the US right now, either, else what's going on there would be the grand-mother of all sucker rallies ... ___________________________________
A RHEUMY SQUINT AT IRAQ
If I were a Shi-ite, a Kurd, a democrat or from a tribe traditionally opposed to Saddam's, I'm guessing I'd've wanted Saddam out. That's most of Iraq, I guess. But it's nowhere near that simple, of course. In totalitarian political cultures, many come to define the province of their lives differently from, say, bloggers. They want education and health for their kiddies and electricity and water for their homes, and conceive of politics and such as of another realm. Such people are passive allies if they're getting what they need, and resentful foes if they don't.
Then there are those who strongly opposed Saddam, but did so on grounds no less antithetical to US occupation and US-sponsored puppet governments. I still can't see how a democratically constituted Iraqi government could be at all to Washington's tastes.
Come to that, I still can't see how or why Iraq wouldn't split bloodily at the seams the minute the splitters think it time to go for their cut.
And I still can't see how any of this has advanced the cause of western-style democracy in the Middle East one iota. Anyone serious on that account would have recognised the priority of the Palestine Question long ago. But then, it's hard to find a plethora of peaceniks among the ranks of the neocons in Washington, the Likudniks in Tel Aviv and the likes of Tanzim, Islamic Jihad and Hamas (in the formation of which, incidentally, Tel Aviv had a firm hand) in Ramalah.
I guess institutions - constructs of mind and convention all - can benefit profoundly from war and rumours of war in exactly the way most people - corporeal sentient beings all - can't.
I persist in thinking the invasion of Iraq a murderously ludicrous adventure on both the exporting-democracy criterion and the control-the-non-renewable-resources-the-rest-of-the-world's-gonna-need-for-the-foreseeable-future criterion. The costs - human, political, economic and strategic - still look to me as unsustainable as they are unavoidable.
Madness from the off ... _______________________________
OK, are we serious about this being a 'World' Cup or aren't we?
You can't keep chuntering on about the 'spirit' and 'colour' the lesser teams bring to the occasion and how vital it is to 'spread the rugby gospel' on the on hand and give them such a shoddy deal on the other. You can't on bemoan 80 point differentials while at the same time doing nothing to help 'minnows' escape such fates.
At the very least, you must:
1 force big member unions to dock competition points from clubs who won't release players for national teams
2 provide funding for minnows to pay for these players should an independent committee find their unions unable to do so
3 propagate the notion that the Cup is the sport's highest peak (and best advert) and that other rugby interests must yield to it
4 reform the judiciary process that saw a previously unblemished Cau Cau get 2 weeks for an airswing, while repeat offender Lawrence Dallaglio got nada for a punch that opened up Werner Greef's forehead and rendered him unfiit for the Boks' next game
5 make penalties for illegal extra players so clear there can be no arguments or alternative 'interpretations' (who doubts Samoa would have been docked a point?)
6 ensure in future draws that lower ranked teams don't always pull the short straw when scheduling means some sides play four games in 12 days
7 institute some sort of merit system for players in the comp's bottom half.. perhaps a 'best of' team picked after pool games with some small emolument or prize - perhaps even a game against the highest ranked side to miss the semis - a warm up for the final?
8 Decrease the value of penalties and dropgoals from three to two points
That'll do for a start.
MEMO: BOB BROWN
Goodonyermate!
MEMO: STEVE IRWIN
I suppose I shouldn't expect too much from a bloke who spends most of his time with reptiles, but even so your outburst about Bob Brown was down there with the shark shit.
You're a passionate bloke, aren't you Steve? Passionate about the rights of crocs and other animals and presumably plants on our planet. As is Dr Brown. But you're not too keen on him having the right to speak to the American President in our own parliament, are you? (this after being refused a question) Apparently, you are friendly with the President (not surprising given you think Howard the best leader in the world) so perhaps this clouded the view your Australian background could have afforded you. You might remember we have a tradition of saying what we think, especially in our own back yard. It's called standing on your dig... I would have thought you of all people would understand that. I wonder if in Dr Brown's shoes, those of a man with a passionate belief that a great wrong has been committed at Guantanamo, you would have had the guts to stand up to the world's most powerful man in parliament, occasioning a torrent of abuse and character assassination? I wonder. Maybe you would, if it involved crocodiles rather than humans.
Bob Brown is a brave, intelligent and compassionate man. You think he should be 'taken out the back and given a good belting'. I reckon if you value Australian independence that much you ought to just piss off back to America with your mate George. Take John too.
And stay there.
MEMO: GEORGE BRANDIS
George, you have some serious reading to do. I know, you've just done a fair bit and your head hurts, but I'm afraid this is essential for your balance, before it's too late.
You could start with Thom Hartmann's piece from last year, which elegantly drew disturbing parallels between the rise of the Nazis and the Bush ascendancy. Or US author David Niewert's blog Orcinus (http://dneiwert.blogspot.com) which daily tracks his nation's slide into the foothills of fascism. Real fascism, involving the abuse of the sort of power the Greens will never get within a bull's roar of. Closer to home, you could try yesterday's Webdiary offering from Jane Doulman, who said of your speech that it
'struck a vein of fear in my being that I never thought existed. Why am I thinking, as a once passionately proud 8th generation Australian, I am ashamed of this country, I don't like what it stands for anymore. Why, for the first time in my life, am I thinking perhaps, when I finish the Phd, we should leave?'
Goodonyer George! That's the way... keep it up and you could drain the swamp of bleeding hearts in Australia, leaving only right thinking people like you. Heaven!
There's only one increasingly fascist strain of political persuasion in Australia, George... you know you're soaking in it! So marinated in fact, that you could read the articles above without twigging. Or refusing to twig.
Your speech is a low point in our parliamentary history, a nadir. You waffle on about Brown and Nettle's 'affronts' to manners and 'the standing orders and procedures of this chamber' as if civil disobedience is never warranted, as if the transgression of these standing orders was somehow more abhorrent than the grave abuses of democracy Dr Brown referred to and for which Mr Bush is ultimately responsible. As if Bush is more entitled to retail his lies in the (still beating) heart of our democracy than Brown is to ask his pertinent questions. Your reliance on the nature element in Nazism to tar the Greens is desperate stuff (Nazis liked their Mums too I gather.. is there perhaps something a bit fishy about that as well?) and your accusation that they embrace fanaticism, 'a set of political values which will not brook the expression of legitimate political differences' is a real hoot and a bad case of projection to boot. But it's dangerous too and I don't know if you're too dim to appreciate that or too cynical to care. Not good either way George.
Brown has taken himself out of the comfort zone (once again) to protest against things he feels strongly about, setting his face against the government and it's supporters' predictably orchestrated catcalling, feigned outrage and sheer bluster. You, by contrast, safe in the establishment bosom, issue ugly accusations more accurately applied to your own team.
Who do you think would make the best 'good German' George?
MEMO: BOB CARR
So, there's substance to go with the style after all?
I want to thank you for taking your responsibilities to ALL constituents seriously, which sometimes involves pissing off individual units in our patchwork quilt. Your strong support of Hanan Ashrawi's Sydney Peace Prize is I'm sure appreciated by more people than would be willing to tell you publicly. The hunted look in your eyes told a different tale to your confident tone the other day, but you should hold your line - it's the right one, with one minor quibble.
You said in Parliament that Israeli obligations to come to the table are basically on hold until the 'violence' stops. You know that even if Palestinian violence stopped, the Israelis would do something, anything to provoke them into 'violence' which would then justify raids and 'targeted killings' and more fucking settlements. That's the practical aspect of my quibble; the philosophical nub of my objection lies in an allergic reaction to the idea that the people to whom the original injustice was done ought to be the first to desist. Why do you not feel Israel has an obligation to leave the settlements first? They cause the suicide bombs, not vice versa. Say to Israel - how about getting off their land and then, if they keep bombing, all the world (including me) will support your struggle? If they stop, hey presto, we have a two state solution!
Your actions to ensure funding for an exhibition of Palestinian photographs at the Powerhouse are also appreciated. As you say, both sides stories must be heard (and their images seen)... it's been one way traffic for too long.
When you weigh these actions up against your dogged insistence last year that if particular ethnic communities (in that case Lebanese) had particular societal problems, they must be publicly acknowledged in order to be adequately addressed, a pattern starts to emerge. Just as we urge our Muslim brethren to discourage the more strident and dangerous among their number, so we ought to ensure that the Jewish community here understands our objections to the zealots among them, many of whom appear to have commandeered official Jewish-Australian organisations. The impression this gives is of an extremist community, yet as you could confirm, most Jews you speak to have grave misgivings about Israel's direction and leadership. For official community organs to pillory Ashrawi and support Sharon does their community no good in Australia in the long term. Your actions are an eloquent way to express these sentiments.
Goodonyer Bob!
MEMO: LUCY TURNBULL, KATHRYN GREINER, GERARD HENDERSON, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY
Richo, people look at you and immediately understand why the ALP is underwater. Trevor, how would this look if they HAD installed you at the ABC? Rene, you must be sick mate, because one look at you makes the rest of us feel the same way.
MEMO: MARGO KINGSTON AND ALAN RAMSEY
Keep up the good, or rather, the outstanding work. In the future, history will value your contributions ... many of us do right now.
MEMO: ROB
Sorry to be so stop-start old son... it'll be stop for a while now (promise!)
The ghost of Karl Marx lives! A wonderful read and a lovely crash course in The Great Thinkers, much in the gentle tones Big Karl reserved for them when he was alive.
Interview courtesy of Donald Sassoon and Prospect Magazine Heads-up courtesy of Norm Geras
Regular readers might be disappointed to find that Yours Dismally can be something of a proudly conservative philistine.
Now, don't get me wrong. I like a good building. Good building has a long history. It was around when they put together the Parthenon (it's wise to have a puny human's point of view in mind when knocking up large public buildings) and it was still around when they built the Queanbeyan railway station, a host of Australian corner pubs, and the Old Parliament House. Indeed, a Danish chap was able still to draw up a perfectly presentable opera house forty years after that, but he was pretty well an anachronism by then. By then, Australians were much more inclined to knock down good buildings than build them. If good building goes back at least as far as 447 BC, it certainly didn't get far past The Depression.
And I do like a good tune. Vivaldi and Bach started something decent, but what we call classical music has not had a moment worth listening to since Vaughan Williams' Scott of the Antarctic in 1948. So that's 1700 to 1948. There was a short revival of music when the electric guitar met a cohort of teenaged baby boomers and the welfare state that gave 'em the discretionary expenditure to match their demographic preponderance, but as revivals go, it was an ill-fated flash in a very large pan. Chuck Berry and his mates started something that would be interesting and varied for twenty years or so, before the Sex Pistols marked the end with 'Bollocks', which admittedly terrific collection wryly, profanely and proudly admitted there was nowhere much left to go but back to Berry. So that's 1956 to 1976.
I like a nice painting, too. Nice painting is what happened between the time of Caravaggio (nice drop of typically bloody realism with good use of darkness for dramatic effect) and that of Munch (His most famous painting "Oh shit! God's disappeared, and now everything depends on what I decide to do next … and I won't believe I can possibly know the truth I need to know until Hayek comes along to tell me prices do the knowing for me, and he's not going to tell me that for another fifty years … and I've no ethical reference point to help me make my decisions until Friedman tells me I can't go wrong as long as I maximise shareholder value, but he's not gonna tell me that for another sixty years" may be found here). For me the highpoint of it all happened way back in 1646. I like Rembrandt, I like Hendrickje, and I like the way they clearly got on together. Turner was okay, too. Anyway, good painting started around 1600 and coughed its last around 1905.
Now, I haven't seen the contemporary art exhibition on at the Melbourne Festival at the moment. It's called 'Orifice', apparently. So strong is my suspicion that this is yet another episode in the century-long saga of unmitigated wank that has been twentieth century art, that I already know I'm never going to see it. So what if I'm wrong? It's the particular exhibition that allows the general vent my mood demands.
Piss-submersed crucifixes, dead cows and soiled sheets were not art five years ago and orifices are not art now. This stuff is defended because it shocks, and that shocking people is a good thing. Shocking people's not hard - just go take a crap on the gallery floor during a showing - maybe in New York, you'd get away with it if you quickly defended the product of your orifice on the grounds that it had 'made the every-day strange' or some such nonsense, but you wouldn't fool the rest of us for a minute - we'd know the turd is perfectly ordinary and that it is the modern art gallery that is strange.
Like pornographers, these galleries merely commodify novelty for bored people. Cui bono? From the commercial promoter's point of tunnel vision, it's win/win, of course. Some punters come in to be shocked at the orifice, and the rest come in to be shocked that the orifice is now art. Confer an award on the right pile of shock-schlok, and the yartz commoonity virtually guarantees a faux-outraged media will march the punters in like lemmings.
The cultural logic of high capitalism and that of Imperial Rome have much in common …
Then there's the little matter of meaning. Art has to make meaning happen in our heads. One way that the art of today is unlike pornography, is that the punter of today requires tertiary training and a fifty-dollar coffee-table programme if s/he is to have a clue as to what s'he's purportedly seeing. What, with modern communications technologies being the way they are, and with the residue of public education still flickering, any ol' prole can see Hendrickje or The Scream these days. More importantly, any ol' prole has the wit to make something of 'em, too. There just ain't any cultural capital to be had in seeing or making meaningful a Rembrandt any more. Of course, there ain't much cultural capital to be had in representing orifices either, so today the meaning is not supposed to happen as punters confront the objects, but as they consult the accompanying abstruse essay in their glossy programme.
For 'programme', read Veblen's 'conspicuous consumption'; for 'opaque essay', read Bourdieu's 'cultural capital'.
Just as busy as when last I issued an hiatus alert, only now I have to mow grass, too. Just dropped in to let you know my Melbourne Cup trifecta ticket might well have Distinctly Secret, Makybe Diva, Mummify and Zagalia typed on it; that Washington needs urgently to get a clue in the Middle East (a self-styled medieval crusader for a general, Turkish troops on Arab soil and no Shi-ite formation left in Iraq on which US soldiers have not fired); and that the season's first Eastern Long-Necked Turtles and Echidnas are out and about. See you in about a week.
