Thanks to some intrepid game engineers and a little luck, I’m now writing for The Game Cookery, check them (and me) out at http://www.thegamecookery.com. You’ll find my first piece, titled “Play Me” there, along with a lot of ingenius ideas for upping your ante when you’re down for some wicked fun.
Chuck Klosterman has perspective to burn. I would bet a large sum of money on his being correct (or at least pursuasive) ninety-five percent of the time, whether or not I personally disagree with his thoughts, particularly as they relate to the age old question “What does it all mean?” Ostensibly, he makes a good point on the subject, on many subjects, and one in particularly is, what’s with Publishings’ state of affairs? We rank 18 out of 24 nations in terms of the relative effectiveness of our educational system, and routinely have low reading rates of adults across the nation. But that’s not all, Culture as a whole generally sucks, countries hate us for the shit we spew out. So, it seems significant to read a passage from Chuck Klosterman’s IV, a collection of essays from his days spent writing for Esquire and Spin magazine, who said this:
Michael Moore is the best example of Klosterman’s statement. I mean, if culture as a whole loves Paris Hilton and continues to promote her for reasons I cannot comprehend, then who I am to contend with popular opinion? I have no stake in her celebrity. If she sells, then market her. In this day and age, with the markets crashing and people desperate for ideas that sell, in a market devoid of originality, then Chuck is right, Culture is not wrong, it’s our realistic gossip-gulfing self. The disappointment sets in because our realistic makeup doesn’t match our idealism. But….
If disagreement with mainstream culture simply means that your ideas aren’t preferred, then consider the opposite, by Stephen King, who says, “There is a kind of unspoken (hence undefended and unexamined) belief in publishing circles that the most commercially successful stories and novels are fast-paced….the underlying thought is that people have so many things to do today, and are so easily distracted from the printed word, that you’ll lose them unless you become a kind of short-order cook, serving up sizzling burgers, fries, and eggs over easy just as fast as you can. Like so many unexamined beliefs in the publishing business, this idea is largely bullshit…which is why, when books like Umberto Eco’s The Name of The Rose or Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain suddenly break out of the pack and climb the best-seller lists, publishers and editors are astonished. I suspect that most of them ascribe these books’ unexpected success to unpredictable and deplorable lapses into good taste on the part of the reading public.”
I think, we all liked McDonalds hamburgers, and look where that got us. Fast food and bigger belts – can you consider these ostensibly unintended consequences the “not wrong” taste of Culture? Or is Chuck Klosterman’s assertion that culture’s not wrong or right just really saying that culture is the result of freedom of choice, and where we’re at is the result of freedom, not taste, because from what I can tell – we don’t have any.
Photo by Mauricio Quiroga – Miami’s Memorial Statue
Funeral Bell: Photo by Steven Stokan
As mentioned yesterday, journalism is now one big communal discussion; and there’s no standard bar to measure the quality of information suffusing itself through amateur or journalistic outlets nationwide and abroad (even my own writings here). It’s led to a lackdaisical attitude and general indifference towards the quality of writing and stories, and now we’re addicted to sensational news and getting it at breakneck speed. It’s all taken for granted.
Here we are: quotes from The New York Observer, “The story burns more intensely and then it burns out more quickly,” said Jonathan Alter, the Newsweek writer, musing about the life cycle of pieces. “And there’s so much information and so much political coverage that it’s easy for good stories to be lost entirely in that register.”
“Very few of these stories have a long finish,” said Michael Duffy, the nation editor for Time. “The gong dissipates quickly.”
“My instinct is that there is such cacophony of commentary that it does sometimes drown out ideas from good and deeply reported journalism,” said Marcus Brauchli, the executive editor of The Washington Post.
“In the Internet age, the cycle is constant and people don’t really have time to reflect all day on a single story in the newspaper,” he added. “And it’s more difficult to set the agenda for very long.”
Photo by Chloe Scheffe
Chuck Klosterman uses words like abject, schism and ungulate. I sulkily admit I had to look up their meanings. Reading a half hour of Chuck Klosterman’s disquisitional essays in A Decade Of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas is mind-blowing on this level. I assume a well-thumbed thesaurus is always with him; but I have no proof beyond his particular, intellectual and varied, speech staccato peppering all his work. I’m in awe, but not in love.
I’m alone in my lovelessness – there are those who are head over heels: two friends of mine are crushing on Chuck because, as Lauren Salazar from Daily Intel put it, he’s got a ‘nerdy hotness’ about him that makes you sympathize with his wistful fictional characters (he says that “No one ever has sex in his books because he identifies more with people being rejected”) and quirky personal real-life stories. Just select a piece from Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, a running commentary on pop culture and its icons – an extension of his comprehensive work – and you’ll find a man colored by hilarious juvenile tales and a keen awareness of how to translate what happens around him into a contextualized concept.
When asked if he had a critical aesthetic, which sounds to me like a question about his particular brand of presentation, he says, “I don’t know that I have an aesthetic, really. If I do, it would be that I think there are people who want to think critically about the art that engages their life, and I think you can do that with any kind of art. There’s this belief that some things can be taken seriously in an intellectual way, while some things are only entertainment or only a commodity. Or there’s some kind of critical consensus that some things are “good,” and some things are garbage, throwaway culture. And I think the difference between them, in a lot of ways, is actually much less than people think. Especially when you get down to how they affect the audience. So when I write, I don’t think it necessarily matters what I’m writing about. I think it matters the way I think about it. The chord changes, and the lyrics on a record have value, but their real value is how they shape the way people look at their own lives.”
Although Chuck states that no one can really write an objective piece because it’s based on the author’s “subjective objectivity,” he nevertheless strikes a chord with partakers of pop culture; I think that chord is a collective sense of cynism. In his own words, “I think there’s an element of cynicism in my writing, but I’m an optimistic cynic.”
Photo by Ellen Choi
There’s a surprising few of us getting coffee, hanging out, and catching up on the fine cuisine offered around L.A. – and then blogging about it. My curiosity about the people in the Los Angeles blogosphere led to me to these L.A. expatriates and colleagues. Enjoy!
Dawn licks the serrated edges of the city, threatens to douse the night in lurid illumination. The darkness quivers, and I stir from sleep.
It is the City Of Angels, but only devils brood here. They draw new blood everyday. The dark heart of Los Angeles is seeded by baneful demons. I was an angel once, but the devils breathe smoky strife. Their noxious breath infects the plumbing and pollutes the air. I am here; never immune. The infection spreads from one person to the next. As each betrays the other, our dystopia threads the angst that frisks our bodies, setting in, a virile mix. Love is lost. Another empty vessel emerges into day from the depths of unrequited love.
We are here; Stripped bare, beaten up, hearts set firmly in ice. We drive in heated traffic, scratching at the walls that surround us, at our isolated existence. Anger sets in. It burrows deep into our flesh impregnating our bodies with unhappiness. LA promised. We were moths to the flame, we never had a chance. I am a remnant, left in the fire to burn to ash. Not knowing what to make of the evil devices against us, we hide in protective crevices, which avail nothing. We are bloodied by the dawn.
Many a night have I pried open my eyelids to finish books and articles written by writers whose voice provoke a sense of accomplishment, and my faith in humanity. Meaning, I finally found someone who’s intelligent – at least on paper. Witty, dextrous, thought-provoking, hit your knee hilarious or let’s face it – cutting-edge bitchy – writing is always welcome to my time. It makes my day. In Derek De Koff, I found credence. In his article This Is My Brain on Chantix, he thinks on the struggle of smoking and medicinal induced suicidal tendencies, with big help from a small pill.
Educate Yourself….Read Something Already…………
The bloggers of NY Magazine’s The Cut…..Their fashion judgments are brutal but you’ll be laughing so hard, you won’t care they’re so catty.
Jezebel: Celebrity, Sex, Fashion: Without Airbrushing….If you think the gays and girls from The Cut are ruthless, you’re about to get a lesson in clever putdowns and cutting remarks. Run mostly by women, I’m surprised I don’t hear more about this blog in mainstream media.
Copyranter…….This saavy New York copywriter knows how to turn a phrase and make it count. He guarantees two blog postings per day (guarantee void everywhere).
Something Rotten……Copenhagen is a hot bed of interesting social observation. Aaron is adept at making his observations to the point and thoughtful, and sometimes just down right funny as a Londoner on a quest for love in the city of cycle culture.
Finally, to open up your network, the Fistful of Euros site will show you where to find the blog winners of 2007 here.
In the wake of deciding whether or not to start this blog, I came across Everywhere magazine, and in it, an article detailing How We Learned to Love Los Angeles. This was the perfect cue. People need to know that L.A. is more than a defunct concrete jungle.
NO SAINTS IN L.A. 