Andy Warhol, that is.
The other day I watched a DVD of "Superstar", a 1990s era reflection on the great artist's life. And in the years since his untimely and unnecessary death (he died of a common post-operative infection), much of the world that cares about such things has continued to award him accolades for being what he certainly was, a pop visionary.
Some of his work is so iconic--soup cans and Marilyn over and over--we can hardly separate it from the fabric of commercialized culture he appeared to comment upon. He was perhaps the first to look at the detritus of mid-century America and say --"okay, it is a culture". Or at least it seemed that way. His comments on his own comments are famously minimalist and self-effacing. In any case, his was a new way of appreciating the world in which we found ourselves.
However, he also accomplished something else more insidious and also very long-lasting: he made it seem intelligent to be shallow. He made it seem "above it all" to wallow in it all. This is a convenient illusion. For when one worships the soup can, one is worshiping the soup can. It doesn't matter that much if you smirk and understand that you are worshiping the soup can. You are not saved from banality by irony.
There was a time when so-called artists seemed to find pop (or mainstream) culture unrelievedly wretched. They rejected it utterly, and not always to their cultural benefit. For instance, in the fifties this rejection of pop led to an embrace of a rather dull form of jazz over a much more exciting form of music called rock and roll. But by embracing Warhol in the early sixties, the art world decided it would have its cake and eat it too.
Except we are all eating cake over and over again. Knighting shallowness has resulted in a benighted cultural and political landscape. And it has probably played no small part in fomenting the overall dumbness of American public life (especially the ruinous reign of Bush).
I say we call a halt to the worship of the mediocre ubiquities of corporate-generated culture; and that we re-examine whether we have any affinity at all, as thinking adults, with the bland, selfish shallowness that Warhol glamorized.
--Reinassance
Monday, January 05, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Culinary Harm
I am a long-serving member of the Manhattan dining brigade. And as a member of that favored regiment, I have become accustomed to a relatively high standard of culinary achievement. I will therefore admit that my personal ability to walk to some of the best dining halls in our nation has probably made me prejudiced and unfit to render some of the judgments found below.
The occasion for my culinary comments has been a recent, long road trip during which I dined at some well-known eateries of a type commonly found within a half-mile of nearly any Interstate exit between Maine and San Diego.
Obvious to any traveler is that the roadside restaurants are many and are almost always outposts of the same few national chains. This is not in itself a fault. Similarity across a nation is just another word for "culture". In France, every town has its kiosk, cafe and brasserie; in Great Britain, the pub and betting parlor. So if there is anything negative to say about the sameness of American roadside dining, it must be of its nearly uniform awfulness.
I will briefly comment on just a couple of the offending establishments, confident they stand in for most of the rest.
Earliest on the trip came an encounter with Chili's. I can note it but briefly, as I doubt I want to recall it in much detail. I will admit I was expecting it to be mainly Mexican or Tex Mex. But I detected a lack of chilis and instead a preponderance of laminated, spiral-bound menus (which, I have learned, is a bad sign). I believe I may have ordered something crumbly or cubed wrapped in a tortilla. I cannot recall its flavor except that it had little. My daughter fared worst, having ordered fettucine al fredo with shrimp. This was more or less a dish of hot milk. The worst insult was that one could tell the basic quality of all the foodstuffs--the chicken, the shrimp, the beef--was low. That they were indifferently prepared, and served with stultifying sauces with tired, wrinkled bread, only accented the suspicion that one had been cheated. Is it true this chain started as a popular beanery? I wish it could go back to its roots.
Applebees presents itself as a funky, Tiffany-lamped hangout where, perhaps because the posters are all sort of crooked, a movie star may at any moment elect to put in an appearance. Again, we ordered from laminated, spiral-bound, colorful menus with lots of beauty-shots of burgers and shrimp. My four tiny bacon-cheddar burgers were served on four tiny, stale buns. The cheese was not melted. The fries (were they fries?) were neither crispy nor soft inside but kind of raspy and difficult to swallow. One of us ordered a salad which was passable except for the sad sludgy dressing of a type we could not identify. Here the insult came with the bill: they charged us as if we had dined at a real restaurant.
We enjoyed a good breakfast at a place I considered unlikely: The Cracker Barrel. If you like grits and eggs and bacon (I do), choose this place over all the others. The only problem with Cracker Barrel--and maybe it was only because it was located in the South--was that the management had posted a large sign in the entry hallway stating their commitment to serving all races and creeds without discrimination. I have to admit this made me feel less comfortable under the gaze of some of the older, more serious-looking diners of whom I am certain were adults in the days of Medgar Evers and on the dark day when Doctor King was murdered.
Most of the time, we made our way to McDonald's. This is because McDonald's is terrible, but in a way we have become accustomed to, and also because they don't charge very much. Finally, it is important to note I have a weakness for the Big Mac.
--Renaissance
Thursday, January 01, 2009
The occasion for my culinary comments has been a recent, long road trip during which I dined at some well-known eateries of a type commonly found within a half-mile of nearly any Interstate exit between Maine and San Diego.
Obvious to any traveler is that the roadside restaurants are many and are almost always outposts of the same few national chains. This is not in itself a fault. Similarity across a nation is just another word for "culture". In France, every town has its kiosk, cafe and brasserie; in Great Britain, the pub and betting parlor. So if there is anything negative to say about the sameness of American roadside dining, it must be of its nearly uniform awfulness.
I will briefly comment on just a couple of the offending establishments, confident they stand in for most of the rest.
Earliest on the trip came an encounter with Chili's. I can note it but briefly, as I doubt I want to recall it in much detail. I will admit I was expecting it to be mainly Mexican or Tex Mex. But I detected a lack of chilis and instead a preponderance of laminated, spiral-bound menus (which, I have learned, is a bad sign). I believe I may have ordered something crumbly or cubed wrapped in a tortilla. I cannot recall its flavor except that it had little. My daughter fared worst, having ordered fettucine al fredo with shrimp. This was more or less a dish of hot milk. The worst insult was that one could tell the basic quality of all the foodstuffs--the chicken, the shrimp, the beef--was low. That they were indifferently prepared, and served with stultifying sauces with tired, wrinkled bread, only accented the suspicion that one had been cheated. Is it true this chain started as a popular beanery? I wish it could go back to its roots.
Applebees presents itself as a funky, Tiffany-lamped hangout where, perhaps because the posters are all sort of crooked, a movie star may at any moment elect to put in an appearance. Again, we ordered from laminated, spiral-bound, colorful menus with lots of beauty-shots of burgers and shrimp. My four tiny bacon-cheddar burgers were served on four tiny, stale buns. The cheese was not melted. The fries (were they fries?) were neither crispy nor soft inside but kind of raspy and difficult to swallow. One of us ordered a salad which was passable except for the sad sludgy dressing of a type we could not identify. Here the insult came with the bill: they charged us as if we had dined at a real restaurant.
We enjoyed a good breakfast at a place I considered unlikely: The Cracker Barrel. If you like grits and eggs and bacon (I do), choose this place over all the others. The only problem with Cracker Barrel--and maybe it was only because it was located in the South--was that the management had posted a large sign in the entry hallway stating their commitment to serving all races and creeds without discrimination. I have to admit this made me feel less comfortable under the gaze of some of the older, more serious-looking diners of whom I am certain were adults in the days of Medgar Evers and on the dark day when Doctor King was murdered.
Most of the time, we made our way to McDonald's. This is because McDonald's is terrible, but in a way we have become accustomed to, and also because they don't charge very much. Finally, it is important to note I have a weakness for the Big Mac.
--Renaissance
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Gone are the Days of Careful Foreshadowing
Three quarters of the way through this blog post, I will get to the point of the post. I am telling you this now so that you keep reading the post until that point, and then I will hope that my main point will keep you reading until the end, when I will tell you once again what I have told you.
Actually I am not sure if the above will hold true. But I do know I have noticed that the older a book is, the less likely it is to have a "prologue" or an italicized section designed to give you a reason to read the first 250 pages, or a first chapter that seems to come from a different, more piquant story than the one you soon begin to read; until you realize that the chapter you just read actually comes from somewhere in the middle of the book.
Seems like this is a crutch for the modern writer. Does it mean the moderns are less skillful? I am not one to say (or at least not one to write). But I do know I have a tough time imagining Flaubert needing to spill a few beans about Madame Bovary at the beginning, only to spill the rest of them later.
Movies have indulged in this for quite some time--or anyway, it seems they started doing it before authors took it up. Maybe that's because movies have long been made for a busy audience--folks who don't have that much time and who need to be reassured that, if they spend some time on this story of yours, they will be rewarded later.
Gone are the days of careful foreshadowing: when, just by telling the tale very skillfully, the author was able to convey a sense of what was to come. Here are the days of blunt propositions: step right up--have a peep inside! We won't disappoint!
We get bored so easily today. We feel left out and lonesome if we discover ourselves reading a book that has not already given us every reason to believe we will have made good use of the time we've spent. The prospect of having spent an hour alone, risking the failure of our reading investment, seems to shame us into leaving books closed that have not early made us secure.
--Renaissance
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Actually I am not sure if the above will hold true. But I do know I have noticed that the older a book is, the less likely it is to have a "prologue" or an italicized section designed to give you a reason to read the first 250 pages, or a first chapter that seems to come from a different, more piquant story than the one you soon begin to read; until you realize that the chapter you just read actually comes from somewhere in the middle of the book.
Seems like this is a crutch for the modern writer. Does it mean the moderns are less skillful? I am not one to say (or at least not one to write). But I do know I have a tough time imagining Flaubert needing to spill a few beans about Madame Bovary at the beginning, only to spill the rest of them later.
Movies have indulged in this for quite some time--or anyway, it seems they started doing it before authors took it up. Maybe that's because movies have long been made for a busy audience--folks who don't have that much time and who need to be reassured that, if they spend some time on this story of yours, they will be rewarded later.
Gone are the days of careful foreshadowing: when, just by telling the tale very skillfully, the author was able to convey a sense of what was to come. Here are the days of blunt propositions: step right up--have a peep inside! We won't disappoint!
We get bored so easily today. We feel left out and lonesome if we discover ourselves reading a book that has not already given us every reason to believe we will have made good use of the time we've spent. The prospect of having spent an hour alone, risking the failure of our reading investment, seems to shame us into leaving books closed that have not early made us secure.
--Renaissance
Saturday, December 20, 2008
A Shoe-in for the Low Point
Last Sunday, as all the world now knows, an Iraqi journalist at a news conference threw first one, then the other of his shoes at President Bush's head.
Smirking, Bush ducked both times and later said "So what?"
No doubt comics the world over felt a week's worth of material had been written for them, and "the Arab street" has made the journalist a folk-hero. But for any American who cares what the world thinks of his/her country, the act becomes--once the chuckling has died down--a deep humiliation. Worse is the clear sense that Bush was asking for it (having invaded the journalist's nation on a liar's dare).
Perhaps more wretched than any of that is the apparent fact that Bush neither understands the sadness of the moment (not for him but for his country), nor cares.
"So what?"? Is that the best you can come up with? Having been subjected to the worst insult an Arab can throw, you, Mr. President, as the representative of your people, can offer no more reflection nor care than "So what?"?
How many years of good will and intelligence will the next President have to muster before the damage to our national image can be repaired?
It is all of a piece, sadly for us all. You're doing a heckuva job, Bushie.
--Renaissance
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Smirking, Bush ducked both times and later said "So what?"
No doubt comics the world over felt a week's worth of material had been written for them, and "the Arab street" has made the journalist a folk-hero. But for any American who cares what the world thinks of his/her country, the act becomes--once the chuckling has died down--a deep humiliation. Worse is the clear sense that Bush was asking for it (having invaded the journalist's nation on a liar's dare).
Perhaps more wretched than any of that is the apparent fact that Bush neither understands the sadness of the moment (not for him but for his country), nor cares.
"So what?"? Is that the best you can come up with? Having been subjected to the worst insult an Arab can throw, you, Mr. President, as the representative of your people, can offer no more reflection nor care than "So what?"?
How many years of good will and intelligence will the next President have to muster before the damage to our national image can be repaired?
It is all of a piece, sadly for us all. You're doing a heckuva job, Bushie.
--Renaissance
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Skilled at Photoshop?
In the age of Photoshop, so-called "photographic evidence" has all but lost its power to prove anything more than the digital dexterity of its presenter. And in the case of a borderline crank subject like the study of UFOs, it has simply made for some very cute, very silly pictures of obviously home-made, very carefully photographed models of craft pretending to be evidence of who-knows-what.
And then there are pictures like the above, which to a skeptic like myself (who also happens to have made a living for a time being really pretty good at Photoshop), presents an intriguing prospect. The photograph and its companions were allegedly taken at Green Bay Wisconsin in 2007 and can be found at www.ufoevidence.org.
There is every possibility the photo is doctored, so let us begin with that premise. However, it would have required the skills of someone who is at once truly masterful (Hollywood level at least) at creating verisimilitude--take special note of flares of light ovetaking thin branches as the craft apparently "moves" during the exposure; truly motivated to deceive the public into belief that the sighting really took place; and truly inept or truly not interested in gaining notoriety or payment for the deployment of their considerable skills.
And yet, if we take the position that the photo must be doctored, because of course UFOs are not UFOs at all, but always a hoax, then what are we saying? We are making several assumptions about human character and skill that begin to equal or surpass in their collective unlikelihood the possibility that something inexplicable (to wit--an Unidentified Flying Object) was recorded by a photosensitive device behind some trees in Green Bay not long ago.
The rest is for us to ponder.
--Renaissance
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Ground Zero is No Joke (Unless You're Talking About Construction Schedules)
None of the following should be construed to minimize the catastrophe that took place at the site of the former World Trade Center several years back. I was certainly close enough to "the events" to know it was all shock and awe and nothing at all funny.
However, seven years on we still have this enormous hole in the ground. It is the size of the downtowns of several notable cities I have visited: Portland, Oregon, for instance--a city large enough to have a AAA farm club; or New Orleans--certainly the French Quarter is not much bigger than this acre of hell in Lower Manhattan. Simply put: it's a big hole and lots of buildings were destroyed.
Now comes the joke: they keep saying they are putting up buildings there. This is probably because it would hurt too much to admit the turbaned enemy can awake each morning knowing that, where he knocked down skyscrapers, no skyscrapers now stand. It may also be due to the interlocking nature of dozens of business deals that have been made over the ashes, and to admit that one is not putting up buildings would be to scuttle those deals and all the money that rides upon their progress. All that said, here is a fact: they are not putting up any buildings at Ground Zero.
Sure, there is the Freedom Tower. The Freedom Tower, which will be the tallest building in the United States when built, is a two-story high concrete stump surrounded by a moat of pilings and mud. In no way does it resemble a skyscraper and barely resembles a building. Three or four years ago, they put six girders in the ground--and then stopped. There are two mighty construction cranes towering above the stump, and they both have big American flags on them. But they are mostly silent. A handful of hardhats poke around the site each day, perhaps hammering a nail or two. The site was broom clean and ready for construction in 2002. No other buildings have laid even a foundation (except for the memorial, which is destined to be largely underground).
Folks, they are not putting up any buildings at Ground Zero.
Don't let any computer rendering make you believe otherwise.
There are no buildings now. There are no buildings getting ready to be built. There are no buildings on the horizon. There are only the computer renderings.
I believe this is because Larry Silverstein, the lease-holder of the site, knows that, since he received billions for the loss of the twin towers, and since he is not compelled to build, and since there is no market at all for any office towers he would conceivably build, he would be mighty foolish to waste all those billions on a clutch of very tall skyscrapers that will cost him all his billions and sit empty and make him go broke before the paint is dry in their corridors. I believe there was a limited market before this fall's financial meltdown and that now, only a crazy person would put up an entire city's worth of buildings just blocks away from the epicenter of that meltdown. Heck, it is a wonder that the nearby Goldman Sachs tower is continuing towards completion.
There's no hope for any construction at Ground Zero. And that is a sad sort of joke: the terrorists won.
By the way: I hope I am proven the world's worst prognosticator, and that they have everything tall and shiny by 2012 just like they keep promising. But I am not feeling optimistic.
--Renaissance
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
However, seven years on we still have this enormous hole in the ground. It is the size of the downtowns of several notable cities I have visited: Portland, Oregon, for instance--a city large enough to have a AAA farm club; or New Orleans--certainly the French Quarter is not much bigger than this acre of hell in Lower Manhattan. Simply put: it's a big hole and lots of buildings were destroyed.
Now comes the joke: they keep saying they are putting up buildings there. This is probably because it would hurt too much to admit the turbaned enemy can awake each morning knowing that, where he knocked down skyscrapers, no skyscrapers now stand. It may also be due to the interlocking nature of dozens of business deals that have been made over the ashes, and to admit that one is not putting up buildings would be to scuttle those deals and all the money that rides upon their progress. All that said, here is a fact: they are not putting up any buildings at Ground Zero.
Sure, there is the Freedom Tower. The Freedom Tower, which will be the tallest building in the United States when built, is a two-story high concrete stump surrounded by a moat of pilings and mud. In no way does it resemble a skyscraper and barely resembles a building. Three or four years ago, they put six girders in the ground--and then stopped. There are two mighty construction cranes towering above the stump, and they both have big American flags on them. But they are mostly silent. A handful of hardhats poke around the site each day, perhaps hammering a nail or two. The site was broom clean and ready for construction in 2002. No other buildings have laid even a foundation (except for the memorial, which is destined to be largely underground).
Folks, they are not putting up any buildings at Ground Zero.
Don't let any computer rendering make you believe otherwise.
There are no buildings now. There are no buildings getting ready to be built. There are no buildings on the horizon. There are only the computer renderings.
I believe this is because Larry Silverstein, the lease-holder of the site, knows that, since he received billions for the loss of the twin towers, and since he is not compelled to build, and since there is no market at all for any office towers he would conceivably build, he would be mighty foolish to waste all those billions on a clutch of very tall skyscrapers that will cost him all his billions and sit empty and make him go broke before the paint is dry in their corridors. I believe there was a limited market before this fall's financial meltdown and that now, only a crazy person would put up an entire city's worth of buildings just blocks away from the epicenter of that meltdown. Heck, it is a wonder that the nearby Goldman Sachs tower is continuing towards completion.
There's no hope for any construction at Ground Zero. And that is a sad sort of joke: the terrorists won.
By the way: I hope I am proven the world's worst prognosticator, and that they have everything tall and shiny by 2012 just like they keep promising. But I am not feeling optimistic.
--Renaissance
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
A Small Plea for Transportation Parity
I am told President-Elect Obama has an on-line suggestion box. If this turns out to be true, it will soon contain at least one note from an Eastern Seaboard voter who would very much like to see a change in the way our nation orders its transportation priorities.
We know already that Obama wants to pump up our "aging infrastructure" (as it seems always to be called) with billions of dollars worth of patches and struts. I say, how about a whole new system? One that relies far less on the resource-squandering, city-destroying, strip-mall enabling automobile; and far more upon one that has been successfully embraced by what a former cabinet-member once referred to rather contemptuously (in a more headstrong time for the U.S.) as "old Europe"?
I am talking about high-speed rail.
As an occasional traveler to Washington, I can attest to its attractiveness on a limited scale: the Acela, a slow-poke among the world's high-speed trains at about 150 mph, gets you from New York to DC in less than 3 hours. It feels like no time at all if you have even a moderately good book to read. Why can't this be speeded up, and why can't it do more than serve the Boston-Washington Corridor?
Can't we build a fast train that extends to Florida? If that is too much, a line from New York to Chicago is certain to be heavily utilized--and if the rails are laid well and the train moves at European-level speeds, the trip would probably take about five hours. It would easily compete with air travel, considering the deep circles of hell that our airports have become. What's better, trains are so much more fuel efficient than cars, this becomes almost a case by itself--for national security, even (if you want to stretch it).
Once, my family and I missed a flight from a city in southern Spain to Madrid, and we had a flight out of Madrid later in the day. It seemed we were in no position to make that flight back home. But we got on the Spanish "Ave" train, and it sped us to the capital at over 200 miles per hour. We ended up beating the missed plane by about half an hour. I have long regarded this as a stupendous achievement.
So, President Obama: all I want for Christmas is a promise that you will build a comprehensive high-speed rail system. Note, please build them as follows: Boston-Richmond; New York-Chicago; San Diego-San Francisco for starters.
--Renaissance
Sunday, December 07, 2008
We know already that Obama wants to pump up our "aging infrastructure" (as it seems always to be called) with billions of dollars worth of patches and struts. I say, how about a whole new system? One that relies far less on the resource-squandering, city-destroying, strip-mall enabling automobile; and far more upon one that has been successfully embraced by what a former cabinet-member once referred to rather contemptuously (in a more headstrong time for the U.S.) as "old Europe"?
I am talking about high-speed rail.
As an occasional traveler to Washington, I can attest to its attractiveness on a limited scale: the Acela, a slow-poke among the world's high-speed trains at about 150 mph, gets you from New York to DC in less than 3 hours. It feels like no time at all if you have even a moderately good book to read. Why can't this be speeded up, and why can't it do more than serve the Boston-Washington Corridor?
Can't we build a fast train that extends to Florida? If that is too much, a line from New York to Chicago is certain to be heavily utilized--and if the rails are laid well and the train moves at European-level speeds, the trip would probably take about five hours. It would easily compete with air travel, considering the deep circles of hell that our airports have become. What's better, trains are so much more fuel efficient than cars, this becomes almost a case by itself--for national security, even (if you want to stretch it).
Once, my family and I missed a flight from a city in southern Spain to Madrid, and we had a flight out of Madrid later in the day. It seemed we were in no position to make that flight back home. But we got on the Spanish "Ave" train, and it sped us to the capital at over 200 miles per hour. We ended up beating the missed plane by about half an hour. I have long regarded this as a stupendous achievement.
So, President Obama: all I want for Christmas is a promise that you will build a comprehensive high-speed rail system. Note, please build them as follows: Boston-Richmond; New York-Chicago; San Diego-San Francisco for starters.
--Renaissance
Sunday, December 07, 2008
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