Certainly Psycho is one the most exhaustively scrutinized films in history.  At one time there was even an analysis of the film in print comprised of stills from every shot reproduced in sequence with commentary.

Psycho has been so thoroughly culturally assimilated that one need only screech in imitation of Bernard Herrmann’s score or mention the Bates Motel to induce a shudder among the squeamish.

Despite a half century of horror and gore, spatter and snuff inspired by Psycho, it remains a shattering yet perversely satisfying experience for audiences.  Speaking personally, only the psychoanalytic epilogue dates the film now.   I found it as unsettling as I did thirty years ago.  I would be delighted to hear the comments of anyone who may have seen the film upon its initial release.  I can not imagine the experience of seeing Psycho cold in 1960, when Ben Hur, Pillow Talk and Some Like it Hot were the year’s big films and typical examples of the era’s popular tastes.

Examining it again this evening, I found its basic narrative structure fascinating.  As in Robert Bloch’s novel, the film yanks the viewer’s sympathy abruptly from one character to another.  We first follow Marion Crane the fugitive.  Then we are compelled to empathize with Norman Bates; who doesn’t share Norman’s anxiety when the corpse-laden auto he has driven into the swamp momentary halts its descent under the mire?  Next we are allied with the detective Arbogast as he attempts to unravel the mystery.  Each exploit familiar tropes to seduce us  — the good-hearted runaway tale, the murder caper, the detective story — but subsequently betray our expectations and disorients us.   Finally we are paired with Marion’s lover and her rather strident sister (minor and undeveloped characters) as they confront Norman and his mother in the denouement.

Upon examination, none of the characters is particularly likeable.  Their behavior is insensitive, deceptive, or simply criminal.   Motives are murky and no one seems to entirely trust anyone else.  By any commercial standards and certainly Hollywood’s of the era, the characters and structure are brazenly unconventional.  It is little wonder that the studios refused to finance the picture.^[1]  It’s bizarre; it breaks nearly every dramatic tenet since Aristotle proposed his unities.   Yet it succeeds and remains an extraordinary model of cinematic economy and emotional impact.  So much so that it inspired a “shot by shot” remake by Gus Van Sant in 1998.  While not truly an editorial or cinemagraphic duplicate of the original it is a remarkable and, to the best of my knowledge, unparalleled cinematic experiment – something qualitatively distinct from a “remake” yet more than an “update”.   Neither homage nor exploitative knock-off it might be described as an audacious, sincere and noble if ultimately futile probe of cinematic magic.   On the other hand, perhaps it informed Van Sant’s later work; Elephant (2003) is also radically unconventional in structure, seemingly devoid of empathy.  It flouts common story logic and character development.  In Elephant, we are perversely curious about the murderers’ methodical preparations then revolted when their violence erupts.  The narrative indicts our own voyeuristic attraction to cinematic (and real) violence by dwelling on its banality by by denying us any “justice” or “explanations”.  This unadorned and arbitrary brutality is shocking and profoundly disturbing – just as in Psycho.^[2]

The studio had it right in 1960.  Psycho should never have worked.   Nor should have Elephant 43 years later.

Pay no attention to that man behind the camera.

1. ^[1] Hitchcock produced it himself and waived his director’s fee for partial ownership.  The film was by far the most profitable of his career. ↩
2. ^[2] One can’t help but believe that Psycho would have been a stronger film without the final explanatory scene.  It is noteworthy that Van Sant choose to greatly abbreviate this in his version of the story but without it, we might have been denied the delicious final image of Norman. ↩

I see Vertigo whenever it appears on the big screen; it is a film that demands a theatrical experience, not because of scale but because of its extraordinary intimate intensity.  We still go to see a movie while we watch a video at home.  Vertigo is a film to be seen. I believe this is not merely a semantic anachronism.  “Seeing”, paradoxically, is more active (and therefore more satisfying) than “watching”.  A visit to the cinema requires forethought, a commitment of time and, presumably, attention which represents an investment, even an obligation to participate as spectators.  We sit silently in the dark with strangers.  We detach ourselves from the external world for a couple of hours and allow ourselves to be manipulated: to be told a story. ^[1] Great cinema requires one to surrender oneself.  In the case of Vertigo it asks us to dive into a whirlpool of obsession, perversity, mendacity and nightmares.   In exchange, it offers a quintessential cinematic experience for those willing to truly attend.   Its themes are operatic in scale and its rewards are equally grand.^[2]

Viewing Vertigo periodically is akin to revisiting a great steakhouse for an anniversary dinner.  Repetition does not diminish the pleasure; with each iteration new subtleties appear complimenting familiar flavors and memories recalled. One may similarly reprise great cinema: always a film reveals itself again to the viewer.  The film may never change but we certainly do.^[3]

I’ve seen Vertigo perhaps a half dozen times now (always theatrically — I could never watch it on video even when I was researching Hitchcock in college).  I have relished the film as a naive viewer and dissected it as an academic.  Despite this, it astonishes me each time I see it.  On Friday, I marveled at the long sections devoid of dialogue.  The opening scene has but two lines and even they are unnecessary.   More significantly, the “courtship” of Scotty and Madeline is almost entirely silent.  Scotty watches voyeuristically, surreptitiously; just as we in the audience watch the screen.  On the page this must have appeared quite tedious.  For several minutes of screen time Scotty follows Madeline in his vehicle and on foot; to the florist, to an art gallery, to a graveyard accompanied only by Herrmann’s hypnotic score.  It is pure silent cinema.  The gaze, the POV shot, and the music convey everything necessary.  But the true function of this protracted silent sequence is to seduce us into empathizing with Scotty, to share his fascination with the mysterious Madeline.  Effective cinema compels us to invest ourselves in the story and Hitchcock deployed the entreating language of cinema as few others have.

Most modern producers would have cut this sequence in the script down from ten minutes to well under one to conserve screen time and foment action.  But Vertigo inhabits an operatic realm, where characters fall fatefully in love in moments but where the drama of love is played out in extended adagio passages.  Functioning as his own producer, Hitchcock had the luxury to make this, the most operatic of his features exactly as he desired.

As I mentioned, I really have no new insights to offer regarding this remarkable film.  For those interested I will recommend two titles from among the dozens on Hitchcock:  Donald Spoto’s, The Art of Alfred Hitchcock, and Hitchcock/Truffaut.  However, I can offer something tangible to anyone who has not seen Vertigo, particularly those under the age of 25: I will pay for your admission at the Laurelhurst Theater this week.^[4] Simply write me via the contact page.  Hell, tell your entire sophomore class.  Don’t miss it on the big screen!

1. ^[1] Sadly, our gadgets have penetrated the sacred space of the theater and defiled the sanctity of the dream palace. ↩
2. ^[2] I am certain someone will one day adapt the film to the opera or musical theater stage. Bernard Herrmann’s magnificent score was inspired in part by Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.  So integral is his music that I would argue that the marquee should always include Mr. Hermann alongside Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak as the “stars” of the picture. ↩
3. ^[3] In the case of Vertigo the film has changed.  In 1996, a restored version of the film, including new 70 mm theatrical prints, was released which, in addition to restoring the original vivid Technicolor, remixed the soundtrack and even replaced certain sound effects.  Critics (with whom I sympathize) argued that this exceeed the archivist’s purview.  For example, the gunshots in the opening chase scene were updated to presumably sound more menacing.  It has been argued that this misplaces emphasis within the scene; the narrative is not concerned with the bad guy or even the pursuing police officer, only the circumstance which leads to Scotty’s vertigo. ↩
4. ^[4] Restrictions apply.  All electronic devices must be OFF upon entering the building.  There is to be no talking once the lights dim in the theater. ↩

Across the lobby, the Coen brothers latest offering, True Grit, was also playing.  Continuing my unexpected “western” interlude, one of the previews was for a new film entitled Cowboys and Aliens.  Like nearly all contemporary trailers, this one concisely revealed all the major plot points in 2 minutes: futuristic cowboy falls to earth, local cowboys try to run him out of town, violent aliens arrive and terrorize the local townsfolk^[2], local cowboys and space cowboy ally to defeat invading aliens and, although not explicit in the trailer, space cowboy probably wins local cowgirl’s heart.

Initially I thought this confluence of westerns nothing more than an amusing coincidence. However, as I digested my pizza on the walk home and mulled over the screening, it occurred to me that these three films presented a neat (and no doubt simplified) overview of masculinity in the Western over the last 60 years.   Red River was produced when the “wild west” was still an image (if romanticized) within living memory.  It presents its masculine heroes as extremely competent; they are exceptional marksmen, exhibit diligence and perseverance, and behave honorably if brutally.

By the time the original True Grit was produced in 1969 (from Charles Portis’s 1968 novel) the Hollywood western was moribund and the definition of American masculinity likewise was being enervated by counter culture trends, by economic stagnation, and by the flagging military intervention in Vietnam.  In both versions of True Grit we no longer see the indomitable males of Red River.  In fact, it is the female character Mattie, who displays the competence and determination previously reserved for the cowboy. ^[3]  Both Cogburn and LaBoeuf are still accomplished lawmen (the law was still clearly the exclusive purview of men) but their shots don’t always hit their marks, nor do these men posses the stony confidence of their cinematic fathers.

Over the next few decades the Hollywood western continued to appear occasionally, usually in revisionist forms repudiating their own cinematic and historical insensitivity; Dances with Wolves and The Unforgiven are two examples.  Now it seems there is nowhere left for the cowboy but fantasy. So acute are our anxieties over the iconic masculine gun slinger that we have extracted him from any historicity or narrative realism.  He is simply now another trope to be mashed up in the genre grinder that is modern Hollywood.  In Cowboys and Aliens he appears to be reduced to a chaps wearing version of a Starship Trooper, exterminating “bugs”.^[4]Gone is the moral certainty of the old western.  Forsaken is the ambiguity of the late era westerns.  Now we have the infant’s version of the cowboy playing shoot ‘em up, the aliens functioning as proxy for the “redskin” savages of a previous era. ^[5]

Of course none of these incarnations of the cowboy is “true” but I do find it interesting that we’ve come to a point where we’ve infantilized our image of western masculinity.  As with so many aspects of our culture we seem to be retreating into the illusory comfort and security of childhood.

Can we escape our own escapist trap?

1. ^[1] Scarface, Bringing up Baby, His Girl Friday (perhaps the fastest of the fast talking depression era pictures), Ball of Fire, The Big Sleep, To Have and Have Not, The Thing, Gentlemen Prefer Blonds, etc. ↩
2. ^[2] a curious repackaging of the colonial captivity narratives and post 9/11 fears as explored by Susan Faludi in her provocative book, The Terror Dream – 2007 Metropolitan Books ↩
3. ^[3] Mattie’s appearance coincides with emergence of the feminist movement in America and I suggest was the cinematic harbinger of Thelma and Louise who appeared two decades later. ↩
4. ^[4] Starship Troopers — the extremely violent 1997 film in which the carnage is presumed palatable because humanity’s adversaries are enormous insects: lower life forms implicitly devoid of morality and unworthy of mercy.  Such is the “enemy” always characterized in propaganda. ↩
5. ^[5] Expect next summer to see Cowboys, Aliens and Pirates of the Caribbean 5 released. ↩

I had not seen Rope since it was reissued theatrically in the early 1980’s along with Rear Window , The Trouble with Harry, and Vertigo.  Of these, Rope is perhaps the least appreciated; it is historically notable primarily because of its experimental structure: unedited shots, each approximately 8 minute in duration, comprise its 80 minute span.  ^[1]  It is however wonderfully entertaining.   The story was adapted from a stage play; the action takes place entirely in one set over what we now call “real time”.  These restrictions do not, as one might expect, diminish the film although it is undeniably “stagey”.

Having not viewed the film in over 2 decades many of the details had faded from my memory.  Two moments in the film particularly delighted me this evening.  The first is a deep shot in which we see from a foreground living room though a dining room and into a kitchen.  The maid is moving to and from the extremes with the frame, clearing plates from atop a chest in which the MacGuffin has been hidden and shuttling them back to the kitchen.  She makes three trips while, off screen, the principle characters chat.  The action is incredibly mundane yet with each return of the maid the tension builds because of the context — might the chest be opened?  There is no anxious music, no extreme close-up, no camera movement yet around me the audience was completely rapt.  The second delicious moment occurs when a departing guest is mistakenly given the hat of the murder victim. Visible to the camera, but overlooked by the characters, on the interior lining of the hat are the victim’s initials.  The audience in the house actually gasped at the revelation.   Too often modern films might solicit a reaction with shock, the cinematic equivalent of a slap to the face — a facile act.  Hitchcock’s shot was an invitation, a seduction, a treat.  It had the audience leaning forward in their seats, not retreating from a sensory assault.

These two cinematic coups are subtle yet extremely powerful.  Yet both would be unthinkable to most modern directors.  The first because it expects patience from the audience and the second because it demands attentiveness.  In addition, since all contemporary media, even feature films, are constructed with the knowledge that the overwhelming majority of consumers will view the work on a small screen (perhaps as small as their phone) visual details are exaggerated, exposition replaces depiction and emotional significance is telegraphed with trite music.

For some time I have lamented what I perceive as a regression in the craft of film editing.  As with so many commodities in our culture we equate quantity with quality.  More edits equals more value.  The ludicrous chase sequence from the James Bond film, A Quantum of Solace, may be taken as an example.  I defy anyone to watch this sequence shot by shot and deduce the spatial relationships of the protagonist and antagonist or logically place them within the setting.  It is a disorienting and ultimately frustrating spectacle.  In contrast, the opening chase from Casino Royale, depicting Bond’s mandatory lavish property destruction also succeeds as a tense chase because the editing creates a consistent and comprehensible space of action.

Cinema is not a succession of shots: it is a progression of shots.   It can be the dozen long takes of Rope or the hundreds of shots from the most elaborate Bond chase but as the very basis of cinema, every cut should be made as deliberately as that of a surgeon cutting flesh.

1. ^[1] the maximum duration possible with the 35 mm film equipment of the era ↩

Federal Budget Graphic

Second, here’s a terrific interactive feature produced by the NY Times which allows you to “fix the budget”.  I suggest any citizen concerned with our federal financial crisis consult this and send their “solutions” to their congressmen.  Of course this is a simplified version of the budget puzzle facing our representatives but it can provide useful guidance to Congress as to each citizen’s priorities.

You Fix the Budget

My solution for the federal deficit

There is no longer enough time to allot each us of the 15 minutes of fame to which were are entitled under the Warhol Amendment.^[1] For the current population to enjoy their guaranteed 15 minutes, our collective attention must be monopolized for 171,232 years.  Even if we trim the individual allotment of fame to one second we would still need to maintain a permanently induced fan stupor among the human throngs roaming the planet for approximately 190 years, well beyond the current life span of our species and certainly more than most of us can spare considering the average daily commute.

Of course we could reduce spectator side of the equation.  We might have to settle for less than absolute global fame.  But even if we posit that an audience of one billion (roughly the television viewership of the Olympic games) might be sufficient to appease all but the most ambitious reality TV show participants, we could only reduce the span required for us each to shine in the limelight to 28,538 years – a negligible improvement unless you happen to have the life span of the more recalcitrant radioactive isotopes released from the Fukushima complex.

So how much must we collectively sacrifice so that individually we might relish our famous 15?  The sad news is that we’ll have to lower our standards significantly.  10,000 people might appear imposing if lined up outside your door to serve subpoenas but this sum would be considered an average night at many college sports arenas and would be a disastrous turnout for real celebrities such as Lady Gaga or Tony Robbins.  However, if we redefine fame at this threshold each of us would need to devote only 2,500 hours (104 days) to blind adoration to be assured of our own 15 minutes.

Personally, I could devote at least 1,000 hours to Carol Burnett and Richard Feynman but everyone would have to make certain that 15 minutes was reserved for each of any 10,000 fellow planetary denizens.  Excess veneration could be directed at one’s discretion and would no doubt be appreciated by the recipient but to insure fairness, the 10,000 minimum objects of glorification (OoGs for short) would have to be monitored by some institution with powers of enforcement, possibly a division of the IRS.  It would in fact be a fairly simple matter to include a 1099 type form for Fame Distributions with every tax return.

Whatever the eventual oversight mechanism might be, we must act soon because the population continues to inexorably increase and the resulting pressure on the fame economy threatens us all with the unthinkable – anonymity.^[2]

1. ^[1] The Warhol amendment was adopted by the UN in 1983 as part of a package enumerating newly recognized unalienable rights which for first time defined the

   1)right of ignorance

   2)the right of mediocrity, and

   3)the right of collective indoctrination. ↩

2. ^[2] The global population is projected to exceed 10 billion by 2050, rendering the equitable distribution of fame practically impossible. ↩

Therefore, I am instigating a new series of posts culled from creative misfires, forgotten sketches, and neglected inspirations entitled Aborted Overtures.

He had surrounded himself with the accouterments of a socially distinguished life.  He was respected by his peers and well compensated by his firm.  He enjoyed the modest luxuries afforded a reasonably prosperous bachelor of his age; he ate out when the desire struck having long ago grow accustomed to the curiosity a man dining alone inevitably solicits.  He ordered wine and too felt at ease having but a glass with the appetizer or, if he had no obligations the following morning, he would just as readily consume the entire bottle protracting his meal well beyond what decorum allowed – even to an eccentric known throughout the theater district for disproportionate gratuities.

It may have been his encounter with K but he did not feel like eating at all this particular evening.  He had not seen her in over a decade.  Nor had he given the period in his life when she was a prominent character, a dozen years, any scrutiny until she appeared earlier that day.  His life he considered as being mastered by momentum; a successful life was one that kinetically, unceasingly moved forward exploiting all advantage of birth, education and wit to navigate an unperturbed course.  But as he chatted with K during the intermission his sense of continuity flittered.  The trajectory of his life, which he perceived as a perfectly straight line though an undulating historical landscape, quivered.  Fragmentary jagged memories arose and ebbed.  He realized that he had lost track of the conversation in which he had found himself an unwilling participant on the mezzanine landing.  He attempted to conceal his confusion with frequent gulps of wine.  He always brought his own though the house management frowned upon the practice.  Once they had even threatened to cancel his subscription – a hollow ultimatum as it turned out.  To satisfy the liquor control commission however he did agree to deposit his wine at the bar, unopened, before each performance.  This ostensibly allowed the staff to control his intake.  For a small corkage fee he was thus relieved of the considerable inconvenience of concealing a bottle in his tuxedo but he adamantly refused to tip the bartenders: a tacit protest against the overt silliness of the arrangement.

K continued to speak and he must have occasionally responded for her countenance betrayed none of the annoyance of one ignored, yet he could not recall uttering one word since her appearance.^[1]

1. ^[1] The first  page from an untitled and unfinished novel.  Abandoned after two pages when I realized that I couldn’t pull together the dozens of suspects or reconcile the various MO inconsistencies in my serial killer’s signature established the first three paragraphs. ↩

Royal portable quiet de luxe, destined for Petaluma after an oil bath and ribbon replacement at Ace Typewriter here in Portland.

Ace Typewriter — a great shop for typewriter service in Portland.

This morning I typed out a greeting message to my friend on his new machine, then completed a full letter on my workhorse desktop, a cosmetically damaged and incomplete but reliable Woodstock.  On the second page of my letter I hit a patch of dry ribbon.  Consequently, the imprint began to fade, my words dematerializing like a departing ghost.  It occurred to me that words on the page not only have weight, they have depth.  That is: they convey extratextual artifacts of their creator; a historical signature of the moment of their creation and clues about the writer.   I recognize that when I’m anxious, angry or simply over caffeinated, I strike the keys with such vigor that the periods perforate the paper.  ^[1]  In moments of inspiration I am less likely to correct transpositions, confident that my reader or copy-editor will excuse minor errors or that I can correct them after completing the page.  These artifacts give the text depth and are inseparable from the materials of the medium.

Sibling machines from the late 1940’s which will type correspondence originating in Petaluma and Portland

E-mail forwarded and “re”tweets are indistinguishable from their originals because of perfect digital duplication.   There is no corporeal component to the text.  Words are massless, without history.  They may have a provenance encoded in hidden ISP data or transmission records, but to the reader the text is the ethereal, without history.  It is lifeless: denied origin, destination or demise.

With the progress of voice recognition software, I wonder if dictation will soon replace keyboard entry.  ^[2]If so, it will represent the triumph of the conversational over the compositional.  On the other hand, perhaps it would inspire a renewed passion for oratory and rhetoric.  Salons and debate societies could be reinvigorated.   High school forensics might become as popular as athletics.  A new TV series of following the trials and tribulations of a dozen misfit adolescent students struggling on a rural high school debate team entitled Rebuttal might even eclipse the hit GLEE…

I’m pitching this to my agent tomorrow.

1. ^[1] I was chastised as a student for pounding the keys, a habit I’ve been unable to modify even after 20 years use of computer keyboards.  My computer stroke is nearly as percussive as my manual typewriter work. ↩
2. ^[2] I always found the literary and cinematic depictions of the office professional dictating to a secretary endowed with stenographic skills and shapely calves implausible. It’s also a strange quasi-sanctioned “performance”, an erotically charged form of storytelling which recalls both Homeric recitation and childhood bedtime stories.  It seemed to me that extemporaneously  composing formal legal correspondence would be absurdly haphazard and inefficient.  I suppose the secretary couldn’t just type the dictation due to noise and because it would preclude verbal revisions – imperious and dramatic utterances such as, “strike that last sentence.”  Nevertheless, I find it hard to accept this was ever a widespread practice.  Surely today even our vastly overpaid CEO type their own e-mails. ↩

One of the recordings I yanked out was Laurie Anderson’s The Ugly One with the Jewels, 1995.  In her piece The Cultural Ambassador, Anderson references Don Delillo, “And it reminded me of something in a book by Don DeLillo about how terrorists are the only true artists left, because they’re the only ones who are still capable of really surprising people.”

Readers of Delillo’s work certainly will recognize the theme but I could not find the precise passage Anderson may have been citing.  I did however come across a direct quote from Delillo in a NY Times interview from 1991, “In a repressive society, a writer can be deeply influential, but in a society that’s filled with glut and repetition and endless consumption, the act of terror may be the only meaningful act.  People who are in power make their arrangements in secret, largely as a way of maintaining and furthering that power. People who are powerless make an open theater of violence. True terror is a language and a vision. There is a deep narrative structure to terrorist acts, and they infiltrate and alter consciousness in ways that writers used to aspire to.”

NY Times Delillo interview

The assertion, which never previously resonated with me, was disconcerting when I heard Anderson’s recitation for the first time in perhaps 5 years.   It immediately recalled an incident from some time past (perhaps a couple of years, perhaps a dozen, I really can’t be certain).  While waiting to cross an urban avenue I happen to glance across the 4 traffic lanes just as a middle aged man on the opposite corner stumbled and fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes falling off a passing truck.  It was not a pratfall, not a rehearsed flop which we’ve all seen thousands of times on television, not a polished stunt executed by a professional.  The gentleman’s shoe caught on an elevated sidewalk slab, pitching his portly torso froward.  His distended and careening figure reminded me of the crippled pigeons, their feet rounded to stubs by frost or disease or predators, which would land awkwardly on my fire escape in NYC, crash-landing more than alighting upon the iron grating outside my window.  Even as this associative image evaporated he impacted the pavement ignominiously; his flabby arms too slow to rise to effectively break the fall, he took the force to his chest and face.  I was flabbergasted.  The man was stripped naked by gravity and his own mass.  Frail physicality was laid open publicly; I found it grotesque, uncannily repulsive.  Timeless.  He may have been one of our arboreal ancestors, the victim of a weak branch in that instant.  The sensation was ephemeral and a moment later I was heading across the street to offer aid, even as nearer pedestrians were approaching with the same intention.  The fellow hastily recovered his feet, quickly nodded his thanks and ambled on his way, embarrassment flushing his countenance.

This innocuous incident has lingered with me for years, reemerging from the dark caverns of memory occasionally.  This week as I was listening to Anderson, it came to me again, this time tangled with the notion of authenticity.  The man falling was authentic, even primal.  In this age of cultural fragmentation, appropriation, derivation, mediation, and aggregation  I crave the authentic.  ^{[1] [2]}

Authenticity may be the rarest commodity in contemporary art.  I find now that technique and content are secondary to the ineffable quality of urgency and, to mutilate a word, imperativeness – the only art that matters is that which must exist.  Perhaps it has always been so.  Perhaps if I revisit Janson’s and review the current art and literary theory journals I’ll find that this notion has been exhaustively explored.

Yet I return to the image of the man falling.  It was devoid of irony, impervious to it.   Its authenticity was inviolable.

I was working at a winery on September 11, 2001.  There was no television there so we listened to the horrors of that morning reported via radio.  To this date I have never seen footage of the Twin Towers, nor do I wish to.  There happened to be a construction crew working on a winery addition that day so the facility was populated with several more people than usual, yet we did not discuss the events much.  We listened as we worked.   I think now that we were digesting the unspeakable horror: unspeakable because of the incapacitating urgent authenticity of the events.  Within days, if not hours, the incidents had been commodified in replays and contrived reportage which monazited and packaged the events for every conceivable market; it was processed and distributed like a new snack food, the original ingredients listed in illegible type on the back of the package.  Authenticity, once discovered, is immediately exploited.  What is one to do?  Retreat into the works of Rabelais, build a hermitage, take the blue pill and move to a red state?

1. ^[1] see Omar Calabrese’s Sign of the Times, Princeton University Press, 1992 ↩
2. ^[2] Other odd notions come to mind: 1)the requisite of appearing “presidential”: looking the job is more important than doing the job and is now indispensable for any candidate.  2)A Carol Burnett comedy sketch in which a woman confronts and later reconciles with her lover only to turn on the television and hear their exchange performed verbatim.  Her man is incapable of original expression.  He simply regurgitates television dialogue suitable to any given situation in which he finds himself.   Drama has always has functioned as a means of modeling reality, of allowing us to explore prospective behaviors, but we are currently in danger of it entirely displacing authentic interaction.  Like the presidential president we play the indignant betrayed friend from Friends, or the despondent clerk in The Office. 3) The frenzied expression and absurd posing of sports fans when the television camera points towards them.  Having worked on the TV crew at major sports events I have witnessed this strange behavior first hand. With vigor far exceeding any response the actual game induces, sedate spectators erupt from their seats when the camera’s red light illuminates.  They have been inculcated with the prerequisite hysterical response rigidly codified by broadcast television — a complete disingenous one. ↩