The Atom Analogy

In my mind and less in my speech, and of course also in the writing and speech of others, I really enjoy and admire the atom analogy. Steak and gravy go together like carbon and hydrogen atoms. People are really like atoms. Really. They are lone individuals but they form compounds and bonds. And since everything is made of atoms the analogy is undeniable. You'd have to be contrary and perverse and maybe even ignorant to deny it.

You have essential unity via essentially individual units [chaotic unity, of course, but you get what you get]. The universe and its near-infinite children. Surely this is a cliche so utterly used up that it can no longer be regarded for its innate profundity. And this is an era in which truly profound things are rarely unexploited, and many go unnoticed, and explanations are plentiful but useless.

This is no trick of relativity, either; it is the flow of energy in a near-infinite system, a constant. So humans are like atoms and minds are like particle waves, and it makes sense to an ignoramus such as myself because there are particle waves and atoms which constitute existence. And a dam in the flow, another cliche: the river of life, of time, as symbol.

And what happens when too many atoms get together? When they are large atoms in a small space, strange things may be known to happen. Weird events unfold and pathetic explanations are offered half-heartedly. In the face of such overwhelming reality any response is valid, but no response is perfect. So an atomic blast can be likened to the cultural, but especially political and scientific, mentality that created and employed them.

It could also be likened to any crisis, or any situation. All it would take is a little ingenuity and time and flexibility. The analogy doesn't have to be terrifying, or depressing, or uplifting. In the end it is only so much information, among so much other information, that may or may not convey an idea or relation.

The information cliche has to be recalled - information age, intellectual property, the internet. The fatal overdose and over-reliance on indirect information. And yet without indirect information we would be as good as blind, liable to agree to any sort of political or social manipulation. And 'chemical realism' proposes: a statistically mediocre, unfair, yet still incredible life that may or may not be understandable. Everything else is secondary, to use another cliche.

In such a reality, runaway events are not unknown. Their products can be disturbing or beautiful. All outcomes are possible and likely, variety and monotony are equals, there is the positive sense of an open-ended question that has been posed since our eyes opened. Status is part illusion and part deception when elementary similarity is the only trustworthy rule. The question is do we use Occam's Razor, or Occam's Lathe?

Black Friday

I decided to do a commercialism/consumerism bit because in the United States of America it is Black Friday, which is a day when the bottom falls out of consumerism and people draw blood for 20% discounts on dishrags and various goods manufactured overseas. The obvious problem is that Black Friday is not patriotic. If you want to see how eager the average citizen of the world is to sell out their country, you just have to search YouTube for Black Friday videos. It seems most people would bum-rush the secret service for a $20 doohickey or polymer-based thingamajig.

What really sickens me is the subliminal vibes I get from the videos. There are literally herds of consumers. Yes, they are consumers at that point and, to the people advertising at them, not humans. They forget themselves in a strange orgy of incompetent and overloaded greed. I see that as degradation. There are a few news stories about it each year but no gigantic outcry.

Well, I think that Black Friday makes explicit the implicit degradation of consumerism, in which every bit of human potential is swept up in a subhuman madness to get the most for your money - from corporations to the individuals who mimic their behavior. There are no particular individuals to blame for a pathological, systematic problem. I don't hate consumerists. I don't even pity them. They are just bums with money, and in this era being a philistine is completely acceptable, so they work towards the next holiday, the next sale, the next iPhone, et cetera...

Despite facile attempts at being ethical and ecologically friendly, consumerism is more and more a bald lie that people chase because there's little else to do in the modern world but buy things, favourite things, attend things, unbox things, use them, show them off, and throw them out when they become outdated or broken. Oh and if you don't fit into this system there are labels for you: from communist to hobo to slob to snob. This goes beyond the differences between a pedestrian and a highbrow activist. I don't want my and my descendant's future sold to the highest bidder and sold at inflated prices to a mindless horde. I have to wonder if the bottom has fallen out of consumerism, but despite scenes of insane lemmingism I feel it will continue to be a powerful force in the world. Smug capitalism laughs, because this is all a useful distraction.

I find it sickening. Others might see it as fun or harmless, but consumerism guts economies and degrades not only the planet but the human spirit. For all that, spineless millions are unable or unwilling to give up the endless chase and (almost all) world leaders are curiously quiet on the matter. If commercial reform is going to happen, it will have to start with the literate consumer and work its way down the food-chain. Greed is a powerful and addictive drug, next to which cocaine looks like baby powder. This habit is going to leave our species on a truly heartbreaking comedown, and the more we snort the harder we will fall.

And I'm not innocent. Nobody is innocent, and I admit that we need things. However there are currently too many things and not enough reasons for them to exist. Production quotas could be fairer to natural resources and manufacturing does not have to be concentrated in coastal China. There are a lot of things that could be done, and our deluded quality of life might have to change, but if it doesn't, it's only a matter of time before herds of North American Consumers are fighting not for deals, but for livelihoods, to say nothing of consumers, producers, and bums across the world. So in the end I have to give it to Black Friday: thanks for showing how disgraceful we really are at our cores, and hopefully we notice this and do something about it.

Douchestache

Douchestache – unrelated to Movember – just a good portmanteau. Feel free to spread it. Or hate it. I think it's good for a chuckle or two.

Terrible Mustache Month

But it's all for a good cause so everyone's happy and cheerful about it. Especially anybody with an epic mustache.

Still it's kind of odd and all. If someone were to suggest a month where a woman, say, stops shaving her legs or armpits I'm sure there would be zealous adherents and frothing opponents. In short there would be some type of stir, instead of some type of placidly accepted status quo and some good-natured chuckling. And I'm not just Politics of Identity 101 with a spastic keyboard or anything, so in lieu of a truly similar month for women (I'm thinking February because Valentine's should be for the true lovers ONLY) I have this funny idea and I write it out cautiously on the blog. Should there not be an equitable analogue? Does it even matter?

Movember is just kind of unremarkable. If you forget to grow your mustache there will be mounting tension toward the end of the month as the involved stare you down. If nobody you know engages in this sort of behavior there is a chance of escape, but those around you will otherwise consider you a cancer supporter if you shave your top lip. Maybe they'll be joking, but the thought will have existed all the same. I think a man should grow a mustache whenever he damned well wants or when there's no more razors or shaving expertise around. Yet who can contradict the almighty important cause?

Oh but wait, the best part of all of this is yet to come: growing hair is a constant, unconscious, passive thing. What better way to fund-raise, and show support for a cause, and do something profound than to let alone a natural process for a couple of weeks? When some men grow out their facial hair they are looked at funny, and if they have unfortunate trimming habits they will be judged accordingly, sometimes negatively. Some men can only grow sparse facial hair, and do not want  patchy, isolated follicles and the pseudo-juvenile appearance that goes along with that.

Finally, explicit focus on the mustache makes a dilemma for the habitually bearded. What does he do? He wears a mustache as a matter of habit but when it is not isolated from a beard it is less of a statement, because a 'stache simply makes more sense as part of a bearded face.

I don't know. I think it's an odd business for a good cause, part of the passive-man reorganization of society that has been underway for the better part of two thousand years. I have no alternatives so I am not critical of it, but I look at it strangely – as I look at the unfortunate mustache on my own face. And I am tempted to get rid of it, but then I just know that the end of November AKA 'Movember' (A statutory holiday for hipsters and activists) will turn into a hazardous farce if I dare shave at this point. Occam's Razor, even, could not solve this type of problem

Community.net/No Obituaries Yet/Don't Panic/What?

NBC is a troubled network. Let's get that out of the way. Other networks have crazy-popular TV franchises and series and the name of the game is viewership. Quirky shows don't do super well in a line-up crowded by quirk-fests such as Glee, Big Bang Theory, and How I Met Your Mother. However you look at it, or however you feel about quirky television, there are still lame-stream sitcoms being made in this era, and they are still watched. NBC has led the pack in terms of quality for a while. 2009 was a ridiculously strong season for them: 30 Rock at its peak (or just over it), Community out of the blue like a bolt of lightning, and Parks & Rec to round out the quirky slapdash humor.

But there was competition by shows that simply got more viewers. So the NBC lineup was always dwarfed by Two and a Half Men or American Idol or any type of one-dimensional trash. I've stopped watching television and I think the latest season of Community is the most inconsistent yet. I have more or less stopped watching or being excited about it, but there was at least one fantastic episode, so the show is not a write-off. There have been enough weak efforts, though, that the executive decision to shelve the program is not entirely surprising. There are simply not enough regular watchers to buoy the show, and the fans are a dedicated bunch but they're not the millions of people the show needs to survive.

The news is that NBC have moved Community off the roster of televised shows for the midseason (January). Whether this is to be competitive or what it means for the show remains to be seen. Obviously, television nerds are furious about this decision, especially since the reeking bomb that is Whitney has not been cancelled yet. And that show is probably the reeking bomb of the season, but I understand why it was made and why the network is still apparently supportive: the dumb pantywaist yuppie demographic needs its fix of lukewarm comedy, and Friends was so long ago, and so fondly remembered, that it would be foolish not to try and resurrect that kind of audience and show.

But nobody can recapture that magic. Friends had something that no contemporary similar show has captured. Perfect Couples was near to doing it but got canned just as things were heating up. Then the Paul Reiser show that NBC doesn't even acknowledge having broadcast. Things are tough at that network and there's just no coherent stance. They can't have too many Parks & Rec, 30 Rock, or Community-styled shows without appearing 'highbrow' or purveyors of 'comedy snobbery' so they have to pander to the folks who are still loyal to Two and a Half Men. Whatever. Some people watch television for background noise, or to simply stare at moving pictures, or to yawn and relax. Not everyone wants to think about a joke, remember a scene, or pay attention. That's how it is.

Well, Community may stay or it may be cancelled. Lots of good shows don't last long, and lots of bullshit keeps airing after any of its worth has expired. I believed television was more or less hopeless before Community and I'm sure another great show will come along. Eventually. Until then people can keep trying to make this into an issue. But it's not an issue, it's just a slight deviation from regular programming.

The Unpublished Writer

There's really no worse type of writer. There are hack writers, there are pretentious litterateurs, there are boring scholarly writers, there are award winners, there are profound writers, there are dead writers, there are exciting but empty pulp writers, and there are amateur writers who fund 200 copy runs out of pocket and sell most of them to friends and family and get interviewed in small town newspapers. All of those writers are doing what they love and are not worried about tomorrow: they produce, sometimes they get published, often they are the victims of overrating and hype. For the most part they are just adding to the colossal pile of wasted paper that represents literature in situ.

Then there are unpublished writers. Like cockroaches, they are headless survivors, unable to feed on their aspirations, often orphaned from inspiration, hiding in the shadows and mostly consuming (when they can, headless and all) and producing filth. It's impossible to really understand how many unpublished writers there are, or what drives them. Beyond merest subsistence, this type of writer has few goals that are concrete. A poem-a-day work quota, three hours of prose/day, or half a screenplay each night are not unbeknownst to the unpublished writer, but they are better acquainted with day-jobs and drinking binges and hopelessness. When they set down to work on half-forgotten characters and plots, these poor souls get caught in a vicious cycle of re-reading and compulsive editing. They are procrastinators, and in fact their relation to cockroaches is facile and untrue.

The cockroaches, at least, get published and exist in the tedious middle-ground of writerly success: readings, signings, 10-15k a year plus some royalties if they're lucky,  and maybe some articles and exposure pieces to round out the old portfolio. They could go into television or radio writing. They could go into various types of copy writing. Marketing and advertising are the prime escape vectors, but times are hard. Sometimes they're shortlisted for a prize and their cachet goes up for a while and they entertain visions of success.

Compare this to the spider that is the unpublished writer: day job madness, late nights, drugs, hair-pulling typing escapades with open source word processors. They see themselves as hopeless moonlighters. Somewhere in an immense tangled web of wasted promise, these writers slowly produce tortured works that are blurred with self-revelation and inconsistent style. Then silence for weeks or even years. Inspiration comes brightly and passes quickly and leaves no marks. No, the unpublished writer is wretched, and each year passes without a printed work or anything noteworthy for the portfolio. Queries are shot down in flames, credentials are nonexistent and mocked, routes to success are suggested, and the book is closed.

And another year passes, and with it any hope of true and honest publication. All they ask for – these withered shells, who write from their soul, who wouldn't use a vanity publisher if they were paid to, whose every word is wearied and grim – is a spot at the corpse-crowded table where the hacks drink greedily and pontificate about saleability and audience, where the old guard hoard awards, where the bright new prodigies bullshit openly, and where the eyes of the reading public are focused like the glimmering eyes of wolves in the dark... yes, the reading public, waiting for their three or four inspired works per decade, habitual readers who yearn for something new – something, perhaps, that has been overlooked, a supposedly worthless bauble in the cold, dying grasp of the unpublished writer.

Daylight Savings Time

Probably the worst invention ever, Daylight Savings time robs hard-sleeping, late-rocking people of one full hour of darkness and also ensures an early nightfall for the rest of everyone who goes to bed on time. There's no deal like less daylight. I once researched DST and saw that it was done mostly to screw with farmers and boost consumerism. Seeing as where screwing farmers and chasing consumerism has gotten us, perhaps it's a good idea to drop DST like the filthy bastard it is. We don't need our only link to natural time (moving sunlight) altered on an arbitrary day.

We could also experiment with waking up later, not having an ironclad, unrealistic time-table for small business and retail, or just being happy with the usual dawn and usual dusk. These things do not have to be altered, and the hour everyone gains is actually a lost cause, more or less. DST is one of those small things that's actually a gigantic sign of human arrogance and the arbitrary nature of 'time' as mechanistically conceived nonsense.

We are, apparently, an intellectually gifted species, so why do we balk at the idea of darkness? Why do we ignore the fact that there is simply less sunlight at certain latitudes? Why do we delude ourselves with arbitrary judgements? Why can we not live in harmony with nature's cool tricks? Turn your lights off and keep sleeping. Buy blankets for your bed and keep your furnace off and grow a thicker skin, humanity. In 50 years our starving ancestors will hate us for hoarding comfort in our time, and if they find our elder selves they will skin us for our treasured soft-skin, even though it is fragile and lets cold air through.

Maybe I say this because I like darkness at 6:30 in the morning, and I wouldn't mind an 8:00 AM sunrise in mid-December. I think if you live in the northern or southern hemispheres of this planet you should goddamn well deal with the colder temperatures and the fleeting sun. Make the most of your day, don't change it by an hour so you can feel like you're doing something.

P.S. It occurs to me that I may not know anything about DST, in which case my objections stand. If DST was never brought around these frustrations would never have existed. I don't know whether DST actually steals or gives hours (which is unlikely, as matter and energy yadda yadda) but when it  changes anything, it does so in a troublesome way. If DST is responsible for darker mornings and longer evenings, then I suppose I am against my own self-interests, which is fine, just look at America. Yadda yadda yadda.

Notes on the Not-so-Recent Fad of 1980's Revivalism and Nostalgia

The 1980's are roundly praised for absolutely no reason. Everywhere you looked six months ago people were going on about the 80's without actually knowing much about the 80's. This 'retro-movement' is by all means a strange thing. People who haven't seen Gremlins in theaters walk around citing Ghostbusters and E.T. as if they've never seen a fluorescent windbreaker. The 70's had better everything and the 60's were strange enough to win any contest for oddball decade. So what does the 1980's have left that its sound, its appearance, and its (utter lack of) soul are praised by clueless jags?

The first point is that the people who grew up in the 80's are becoming adults, and by extension tastemakers. Some of these people are making music and film, or TV and literature, or whatever, and consumerism needs its 'movements' even if such things don't have meaning. The generations that were born in the 80's are clueless and willing to attach themselves to any movement to gain friendship and acceptance, because they are not quite yet adults. Folks born in the 90's are sort of alienated but since they don't have even faint memories of the 80's it is far easier for them to look upon the time with rose-tinted glasses.

Finally, a crowd of people as far removed from popular tastemakers as anything, American Republicans, praise the 80's for Reagan and Bush. Anyone who has followed American politics from Nixon to Obama knows that there has been little reason for public trust and acceptance. Anyone who is willfully ignorant of this will praise Reagan for gutting the economy and being a tool of special interests. This set a pattern that is more or less still followed today, and more knowledgeable places than PUBLICATO can tell you all about it. So even people who are not hip, and who consider hip people to be a crowd of fornicating, godless sinners praise the 80's.

Operation Just Cause, the Iran/Iraq thing, Contras, Noriega and lasers in Panama... the list of strange and shadowy 80's events goes on. That's not even including domestic issues, global music, fashion trends, computer games, and the incredible spread of corporatism and globalism during that time. You'd have to be insane to look to the 80's and enjoy anything about the aesthetic (except for Robo-Cop, Blade Runner, John Carpenter's The Thing [NOTE THE RECENT REMAKE], Prefab Sprout, American Psycho, Michael Jackson, but I digress and contradict myself). If you're still willing to try, and think the list of 80's saviors is indestructible, I have a stinging rebuff for you to swallow.

Everyone worth a damn knows about Leonard Cohen and his minimal songs with masterful lyrics... most people know that he released a decent album in '88 called "I'm Your Man" which, despite being made in the 80's, was pretty decent and almost managed to overcome its production, which is synthy and generally aged a lot worse than The Cohen himself. Then there's this which is probably the one and only time Cohen is unable to overcome production. When you think of the 80's, set this song to the bombing of Panama, the crack epidemic, or anyone wearing a bright pink jacket in an acid rainstorm and cry, because the world ended in the 80's and all that misguided nostalgia is people burying their heads instead of dealing with the present.

It's easy to look back with rose-tinted glasses if you were too fucked up to realize what was happening, or too young to understand it, or you were simply born in a later time and it is a mythical place for you, but the 80's aesthetic was roundly panned as soulless and shitty for a lot of reasons. M83's newest release is probably the final bit of sub-popular 80's worship before the inevitable backlash and death of this rather unbelievable fad. M83 is years past its prime itself, so this final affectation is rather ironic and fitting. By 2013 only clueless people will "OMG I loooove the 80's baby!" mindlessly. Goodbye, 1980's, until the 2030s. You will not be missed and you have not been missed and your best achievements will still be safeguarded and the fact they took place in the 80's will be a footnote.


I can't exactly trace when 80's revivalism began, but judging by the attitudes of some of the hip girls I know I'd say it began, in the underground, between three and six years ago and hit sub-mainstream maybe a year and a half ago, and maybe a few months ago it became a thing that even the most culturally retarded person could indulge. People are going to be tired of it in a few months, because true hipsters are already making fun of the 80's again and have moved into the 90's where they will literally starve to death or the 70's where the drugs will kill them.

Occupy Everything

It started in New York about a month ago and I was a smug bastard thinking that they were all hippies and idiots. I felt for them but on the other hand they were 'neo-hipster, marxist-lite scum' who didn't understand economics or politics. I called my sources and they told me exactly what I thought, that these people would disappear in a week if not a few days and that their incoherent protest would mean nothing. Yet the reason for this puerile protest was entirely valid and concrete. People, I thought, are either too angry or too defeated to voice their complaint precisely and effectively.

I was a little more right about that part. I've been mostly working since the protests started, I've been unable so far to attend the local protest, and I have heard only a few scattered reports and read a little about the issue since it started. But I have been paying attention. At this point, with the protests spreading and dissatisfaction being aired around the world and income equality becoming a talking point that the ignorant or hostile factions cannot slap down into silence, it seems like these protests are hopeful. They certainly point to a vitality that has belonged to lifestyle activists for the past three years and now finally belongs to everyone. In 2008 there were few protests, most of them astroturfed (and badly) or so far across the spectrum that they were close to insane, frothing rambling.

Imagine my relief when I see on the TV crowds of people of mixed ages and origins, all united, across the world, in protest against... well they're in protest against a lot of things. Mostly coming from America is the "99% rhetoric" which targets the super-wealthy and their stooges, and also the financial sector, lobbyists, and many of the other diseases of affluence that have sickened American democracy since its inception. In Canada, the branch plant of America, the protests are similar. The word 'oligarchy' is being thrown around a lot in conjunction with 'corporate' and people might understand what is meant by those words.

My hope is caused by the fact that the protests attract a good cross-section of people, and are opposed only by the ignorant or politically entrenched or apathetic. In other words this is a confrontation between a system that has succeeded only superficially and its adherents and, on the other side, the people who have been forced to subsist under that system, many of whom have suffered, many of whom have made incredible sacrifices, and many of whom have been spat on for most of (if not all of) their lives by 'the bootstrap crowd' and anybody with hard-fought comfort.

It's the age old combat between those who glean the spoils of life off the backs of those who are born into lesser stations. Has modern wage-slavery finally been unmasked? Is the structure of the world going to change? Is commodities trading going to be outlawed in favor of concrete economics? Are world governments going to concede that they have become accustomed and comfortable with oligarchy? Are America's taxpayers going to be reimbursed for the incredibly reckless and unsustainable policies of its government for the last decade? Is the financial bail-out going to be rectified? Is Greece going to be allowed to fail so that its oligarchs can be exiled in shame? Will the money system and its vice-like grip on human life and potential finally be broken? Will this be the renaissance where our species overcomes its petty tribalism and begins to plan for a great future? Or are we going to face yet another vast heartbreak that the global, soulless hive of moneyed villains will mock us about for decade after hopeless decade? Will 2011 influence the coming century? Will we be able to do great things without the deadly crutch of ideology?

It's clear to me that after this point there are a few roads: 1) the tyranny of sums and figures will continue to oppress a strained and breaking world, or 2) some type of financial civil-war will break out, or the world will begin to change for the better in a concentrated effort or 3) business as usual with slightly more awareness on the part of the populace, and increased spite and tension.

There are probably many, many more possibilities but I see the above three as the most likely. 1 and 3 resemble each other but there is a significant difference between how they might play out in terms of impact on majority politics. 2 is what might have to happen, with a large scale flight from monolithic credit systems and centralized financial power into personal and communal responsibility and smaller economic plays. World hunger is caused in part by ignorance, warfare, and politics, but when this year's crop harvest is speculated on as if the food supply is a roulette wheel for the rich, then... well what? What happens then? What has been happening for more than 20 years? Why subsidies? Why bail-outs? Why silence?

And I for one am glad that the silence has been broken, and that the clamor is spreading. And I laugh at those sneering bastards in tailored clothes, drinking champagne as they watch the under-classes raise hell. Their time will come.

Surprises of the Bitter Kind

Well the recent news about Steve Jobs passing away is truly surprising. I hardly follow the news but I was reading about Jobs earlier this week. He seemed a very interesting person and while not the first of the first-wave technologists to pass away he was a major figure in that scene.

Will Apple become an even more soulless consumer-vampire without him? Will they continue to innovate or will they simply vacillate without Jobs' leadership? The news is saddening but what's worse is that it draws out the cynic in me: why would someone with Jobs' Buddhist past become a shameless corporatist? Or was it always more than that? I'm sure there are many more balanced and knowledgeable perspectives about it, but I have to wonder.

It's sobering news and it happened so quickly. I remember reading the wikipedia entry maybe four days ago and thinking, "Well that resignation stuff has pretty obvious undertones." Seems I was correct but I was thinking this news would drop in a year or so. The man was a leader, think what you will about Apple (especially the Apple of the last decade), but without Jobs it would've been another IBM or some stolid corporation with little to add to the flood of technologized junk into the global consumer markets but expertise and fabrication.  Instead they offered some glimpse of progress.

With the release of the iPhone 5 coming up and announced pretty much right as Jobs was dying, it seems like we have a juggernaut of a company that may just be losing its stride at this time. There are several prominent iProducts but they are all iterative, and if there is no corporate vision these will be the products Apple continues to sell and improve until they cease to exist, as well.

Well I can't find a Steve Jobs twitter account, so my usual celebrity death spiel will not be played. Instead a subdued close and a good idea for a Halloween costume.