get me away from here I'm dyin'
Sep. 23rd, 2010 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueAfter very little sleep, woke up after my alarm had failed to go off (the classic "set for PM instead of AM" glitch) and 22 minutes before I was due at work, which meant I had about three minutes to throw on clothes and deodorant. I had to wake up earlier than usual so that I could leave for several hours in the middle of my shift to attend the opening of a DMA exhibit, and applaud to speeches about how artists like me are important and be given glasses of wine, tuna in cones, and small Caesar salads on fried Parmesan cantilevers.
Which all sounds very hoity-toity, but once the rich people speeches were done it was mostly a chance to hang out with my friends on the staff and chat about various ways I think the museum experience could be hacked for nontraditional visitor groups. And since Ciro and I were enthusiastic about the food, the circling waiters were enthusiastic about visiting us as regularly as possible. Then I had to head back to the office. My life and persona are very oddly divided these days. I'm sort of losing a sense of self and feel as though I'm not grounded to anything.
At the office, I discovered I've lost my key card, so I had to break into the building. Then all my shows got cancelled. It is like working overnight security, this job. Still, I wish I could find my key. If the valet parking guys at the DMA pocketed it, the joke's on them, because you can get into this building without it, as I have demonstrated.
I don't know whether I've mentioned, but one of my favorite blogs is hilobrow, and lately they've been issuing merit badges. My application for one of these badges is below.
Merit Badge 4/Feral Tendencies
REQUIREMENT:
4. Explain the significance of the dancing chicken in Werner Herzog’s Stroszek.
U.S. culture has had two dominant "chicken dances" -- the oompah
chicken dance craze in the 80s, and "The Chicken," popular in 50s
rhythm and blues circles (and featured in the film Blues Brothers).
The oompah that formed the basis of the former dance was originally
called "Der Ententanz," the duck dance, and it continued to be called
so in Germany, where the fad hit in the 50s. Add the bunny hop, also
popular in the 50s, and you have three dancing animals which
correspond to three novelty dances from a decade of postwar expansion,
and a German youth culture trying to distance itself from the Nazi
mindset of their parents and come to terms with the new borders of
East and West Germany.
In Stroszek, a man named Bruno flees prison and then abuse in Berlin
for the freedom he believed he would find in America, a land
mythologized by decades of aspiring immigrants, the "liberators" of
Berlin from the Nazis, and the rebuilders of West Germany under the
Marshall Plan. Surely, Bruno could be reconstructed, and could dream
the American dream promised by movies and rock and roll. However, when
Bruno reaches Railroad Flats, a town full of nothing but empty prarie,
he finds the same problems he had in Berlin. His home is to be
reposessed. His girl has to turn to prostitution to survive. The move
has changed nothing but scenery. The cyniscism of 1970s Berlin is
revealed to be an accurate perception of reality. Bruno returns to
crime for a measly $32, and decides afterward to burn his life down by
setting fire to his remaning posession, a truck, and then to shoot
himself.
However, before he fires his shotgun, he sets in motion three dancing
animals in coin-operated attractions, so that as the film concludes we
watch not his death, but a capering chicken, duck, and bunny. Herzog
wants us to examine what we have seen not with nihilism, but with an
existential eye. We are not used to thinking of animals as beings that
dance. We think they can be trained to emulate dance, or can perform
mating displays, but we do not imagine they dance to express enjoyment
of music or movement. Although we think of birds as musical, we
generally exclude chickens and ducks, perhaps because they are "food
animals" and not free songbirds. (Indeed, we last saw Bruno carrying a
frozen turkey.)
The chicken in particular calls this belief into question. Coin
operation aside, the chicken could choose to stop dancing, but it
returns to peck the small jukebox and restart the cycle. Or is it
choice? Is the chicken not dancing, but reacting with discomfort to an
electified platform, and pecking at the jukebox not to continue the
dance, but to eat, stuck with too short a memory to learn this will
give it a shock? We can laugh at the chicken -- even delight in the
movements of the chicken -- but as the sequence continues we are
forced to consider whether or not the chicken is complicit; whether we
are exploiting or applauding the chicken; whether the chicken is
Bruno; whether the chicken is us.
THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS:
7. You have become feral. If someone leaves a dish out for you in the
back yard, are you backsliding, or making progress, by accepting?
Explain.
You are making progress. As a feral being, you are interested in your
own survival foremost, and an easy source of food advances that goal.
Any rejection would be an attempt to transcend society and perhaps
assert that your own isolated society is superior -- still an
engagement with the notion of civilization.
9. Can feral mean different things as civilization advances? For
example, the Amish drive horse-drawn carriages instead of hover cars.
Are they feral?
Although the manifestations of what is feral may change, the basis of
feralism will always be anarchy -- not an idealist conception of
anarchy, but a genuine lack of civilization. A rejection of social
norms is not enough. As long as the Amish have concerns which go
beyond survival, they are not and will not be considered feral. The
fact that they can be considered a group at all belies feralness. That
said, I do believe that currently the notion of being feral includes a
rejection of techology -- assumes a hairy, naked man in the woods.
However, as technology advances, the ability to reject it becomes more
and more the privilege of an upper class which can afford not to
vaccinate and not to answer e-mail. Those living in feral conditions
in war zones and the aftermath of disasters squat near water pipes,
carry guns, and steal MREs if they can. I believe this notion of feral
will become dominant as we see more images like those from Haiti,
Afganistan, Liberia, Somalia, New Orleans, and other places where the
protections of civilization have broken down.
SHORT ANSWERS:
14. Have you tamed something? Provide an example. Do you think it is
really tame, or scamming you for Lucky Charms?
I found a pregnant cat with half its face ripped off, and although I
did not want a cat I thought it was best to care for her until I could
find homes for the eventual kittens and get her spayed. I named her
Scarface for obvious reasons, although over the course of a few months
her face healed, which I would not have thought was possible. She is
now a lap cat who prefers to stay indoors and lives with a retired
couple in the suburbs, where she is very tame and friendly. I do not
think they call her Scarface.
It is not clear to me whether or not I did any taming, although the
cat switched from running away from people to running to people during
my tenure. Although I say I found the cat, it is more accurate that
the cat decided to try to run into my house any time I opened the
door, although I do not have any pets and do not like to have pets and
did not encourage it. There were several other people in the apartment
complex who tried to feed, medicate, and coddle the cat, but it would
reject them to sit at my door or move from window to window so it
could see me wherever I was in the house. I am pretty sure it took
advantage of me, and don't know what it got out of doing so.
ARTS AND CRAFTS:
20. List several inhabitants or activities of Lou Reed’s Wild Side.
Would it be a good place for a walk?
1. Holly, a transvestite from Miami who may be a prostitute. Invites
others to walk on the wild side; is presumably already there.
2. Candy, a prostitute. Invites others to walk on the wild side; is
presumably already there.
3. Little Joe, a prostitute. Is asked by Lou Reed and New York City to
walk on the wild side, but does not respond.
4. Sugar Plum Fairy, someone interested in good food and dancing who
"they" may either mistake for a prostitute, try to make a prostitute,
or both. Is told by "them" and Lou Reed to walk on the wild side;
agrees.
5. Jackie, a girl who gets in a car crash, possibly while in a manic
phase, who might have benefited from some medication which would have
encouraged her (as Lou Reed encourages her) to walk on the wild side.
6. Lou Reed, the narrator, who suggests or agrees that the above walk
on the wild side; may be offering this simply as independent advice
from someone who is not himself on the wild side, or may have a vested
interest as someone who is indeed on the wild side.
The main danger of walking on the wild side seems to be the
possibility that you will be mistaken for a prostitute, although
Little Joe, a prostitute, is not on the wild side and therefore
prostitution and the wild side must not perfectly overlap. The
alternative -- not walking on the wild side -- seems to lead to
crashing one's car at high speeds. Ultimately, the superior choice is
to walk rather than drive; Lou Reed flatters us by not making obvious
points about fossil fuels and the advantages of an active lifestyle.
Which all sounds very hoity-toity, but once the rich people speeches were done it was mostly a chance to hang out with my friends on the staff and chat about various ways I think the museum experience could be hacked for nontraditional visitor groups. And since Ciro and I were enthusiastic about the food, the circling waiters were enthusiastic about visiting us as regularly as possible. Then I had to head back to the office. My life and persona are very oddly divided these days. I'm sort of losing a sense of self and feel as though I'm not grounded to anything.
At the office, I discovered I've lost my key card, so I had to break into the building. Then all my shows got cancelled. It is like working overnight security, this job. Still, I wish I could find my key. If the valet parking guys at the DMA pocketed it, the joke's on them, because you can get into this building without it, as I have demonstrated.
I don't know whether I've mentioned, but one of my favorite blogs is hilobrow, and lately they've been issuing merit badges. My application for one of these badges is below.
Merit Badge 4/Feral Tendencies
REQUIREMENT:
4. Explain the significance of the dancing chicken in Werner Herzog’s Stroszek.
U.S. culture has had two dominant "chicken dances" -- the oompah
chicken dance craze in the 80s, and "The Chicken," popular in 50s
rhythm and blues circles (and featured in the film Blues Brothers).
The oompah that formed the basis of the former dance was originally
called "Der Ententanz," the duck dance, and it continued to be called
so in Germany, where the fad hit in the 50s. Add the bunny hop, also
popular in the 50s, and you have three dancing animals which
correspond to three novelty dances from a decade of postwar expansion,
and a German youth culture trying to distance itself from the Nazi
mindset of their parents and come to terms with the new borders of
East and West Germany.
In Stroszek, a man named Bruno flees prison and then abuse in Berlin
for the freedom he believed he would find in America, a land
mythologized by decades of aspiring immigrants, the "liberators" of
Berlin from the Nazis, and the rebuilders of West Germany under the
Marshall Plan. Surely, Bruno could be reconstructed, and could dream
the American dream promised by movies and rock and roll. However, when
Bruno reaches Railroad Flats, a town full of nothing but empty prarie,
he finds the same problems he had in Berlin. His home is to be
reposessed. His girl has to turn to prostitution to survive. The move
has changed nothing but scenery. The cyniscism of 1970s Berlin is
revealed to be an accurate perception of reality. Bruno returns to
crime for a measly $32, and decides afterward to burn his life down by
setting fire to his remaning posession, a truck, and then to shoot
himself.
However, before he fires his shotgun, he sets in motion three dancing
animals in coin-operated attractions, so that as the film concludes we
watch not his death, but a capering chicken, duck, and bunny. Herzog
wants us to examine what we have seen not with nihilism, but with an
existential eye. We are not used to thinking of animals as beings that
dance. We think they can be trained to emulate dance, or can perform
mating displays, but we do not imagine they dance to express enjoyment
of music or movement. Although we think of birds as musical, we
generally exclude chickens and ducks, perhaps because they are "food
animals" and not free songbirds. (Indeed, we last saw Bruno carrying a
frozen turkey.)
The chicken in particular calls this belief into question. Coin
operation aside, the chicken could choose to stop dancing, but it
returns to peck the small jukebox and restart the cycle. Or is it
choice? Is the chicken not dancing, but reacting with discomfort to an
electified platform, and pecking at the jukebox not to continue the
dance, but to eat, stuck with too short a memory to learn this will
give it a shock? We can laugh at the chicken -- even delight in the
movements of the chicken -- but as the sequence continues we are
forced to consider whether or not the chicken is complicit; whether we
are exploiting or applauding the chicken; whether the chicken is
Bruno; whether the chicken is us.
THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS:
7. You have become feral. If someone leaves a dish out for you in the
back yard, are you backsliding, or making progress, by accepting?
Explain.
You are making progress. As a feral being, you are interested in your
own survival foremost, and an easy source of food advances that goal.
Any rejection would be an attempt to transcend society and perhaps
assert that your own isolated society is superior -- still an
engagement with the notion of civilization.
9. Can feral mean different things as civilization advances? For
example, the Amish drive horse-drawn carriages instead of hover cars.
Are they feral?
Although the manifestations of what is feral may change, the basis of
feralism will always be anarchy -- not an idealist conception of
anarchy, but a genuine lack of civilization. A rejection of social
norms is not enough. As long as the Amish have concerns which go
beyond survival, they are not and will not be considered feral. The
fact that they can be considered a group at all belies feralness. That
said, I do believe that currently the notion of being feral includes a
rejection of techology -- assumes a hairy, naked man in the woods.
However, as technology advances, the ability to reject it becomes more
and more the privilege of an upper class which can afford not to
vaccinate and not to answer e-mail. Those living in feral conditions
in war zones and the aftermath of disasters squat near water pipes,
carry guns, and steal MREs if they can. I believe this notion of feral
will become dominant as we see more images like those from Haiti,
Afganistan, Liberia, Somalia, New Orleans, and other places where the
protections of civilization have broken down.
SHORT ANSWERS:
14. Have you tamed something? Provide an example. Do you think it is
really tame, or scamming you for Lucky Charms?
I found a pregnant cat with half its face ripped off, and although I
did not want a cat I thought it was best to care for her until I could
find homes for the eventual kittens and get her spayed. I named her
Scarface for obvious reasons, although over the course of a few months
her face healed, which I would not have thought was possible. She is
now a lap cat who prefers to stay indoors and lives with a retired
couple in the suburbs, where she is very tame and friendly. I do not
think they call her Scarface.
It is not clear to me whether or not I did any taming, although the
cat switched from running away from people to running to people during
my tenure. Although I say I found the cat, it is more accurate that
the cat decided to try to run into my house any time I opened the
door, although I do not have any pets and do not like to have pets and
did not encourage it. There were several other people in the apartment
complex who tried to feed, medicate, and coddle the cat, but it would
reject them to sit at my door or move from window to window so it
could see me wherever I was in the house. I am pretty sure it took
advantage of me, and don't know what it got out of doing so.
ARTS AND CRAFTS:
20. List several inhabitants or activities of Lou Reed’s Wild Side.
Would it be a good place for a walk?
1. Holly, a transvestite from Miami who may be a prostitute. Invites
others to walk on the wild side; is presumably already there.
2. Candy, a prostitute. Invites others to walk on the wild side; is
presumably already there.
3. Little Joe, a prostitute. Is asked by Lou Reed and New York City to
walk on the wild side, but does not respond.
4. Sugar Plum Fairy, someone interested in good food and dancing who
"they" may either mistake for a prostitute, try to make a prostitute,
or both. Is told by "them" and Lou Reed to walk on the wild side;
agrees.
5. Jackie, a girl who gets in a car crash, possibly while in a manic
phase, who might have benefited from some medication which would have
encouraged her (as Lou Reed encourages her) to walk on the wild side.
6. Lou Reed, the narrator, who suggests or agrees that the above walk
on the wild side; may be offering this simply as independent advice
from someone who is not himself on the wild side, or may have a vested
interest as someone who is indeed on the wild side.
The main danger of walking on the wild side seems to be the
possibility that you will be mistaken for a prostitute, although
Little Joe, a prostitute, is not on the wild side and therefore
prostitution and the wild side must not perfectly overlap. The
alternative -- not walking on the wild side -- seems to lead to
crashing one's car at high speeds. Ultimately, the superior choice is
to walk rather than drive; Lou Reed flatters us by not making obvious
points about fossil fuels and the advantages of an active lifestyle.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-27 01:03 pm (UTC)