April 23, 2004
I laughed, I cried
True or False: the following headline exemplifies the concept of irony:
Bush Hails His Environmental Record on Earth Day
April 22, 2004
Who Needs the Maytag Repairman?
On Sunday the Seattle Times published a photograph of flag-draped coffins leaving Kuwait International Airport. Today the paper reports that the photographer, Tami Silicio, has been fired by her employer, a military contractor resupplying troops in Iraq. Taking such photographs, it turns out, violates Pentagon policy. In fact, according to government policy, the news media are forbidden to show any image of dead American soldiers. The Pentagon guidelines warns, “The prohibition includes…the movement of remains at any point” (quoted in USA Today).
Despite the chilling aura of censorship surrounding this case, I was delighted to find that the war-profitering contractor, Maytag Aircraft, is in no way related to Maytag Corporation, makers of my washer and dryer (and probably yours) and home of the affable Maytag Repairman.
April 16, 2004
Email the White House!!
Have I been too hard on the current administration? Is our White House more representative, more responsive, more attune to everyday Americans’ hopes and concerns than I give it credit for?
I was pleased to find today that you can email the White House and they’ll write back to you. They’ll even post the most critically important email questions and answers on the White House Interactive Home Page.
Let’s take a look at what kinds of hard-hitting, penetrating questions Americans ask of their president, and how he responds.
There’s Daphne from Fresh Meadows, New York, who wonders if it’s true that the first President Bush hated broccoli “so much he took it off the White House menu?” Wow, that’s a tough one. I’m not sure Scott McClellan, the White House Press Secretary, can handle it. Oh, but wait, he doesn’t have to! When you are the product of a political dynasty founded on oil money and warmongering, you can always call up backup forces, and here, the original Bush answers the question. Yes, a cameo appearance by President H.W. Bush! Here’s what he answers to Daphne: “I never asked that it be removed from White House menus. I just vowed that I would never eat it again, and I have courageously stuck to that promise.”
Awesome!! Father, like son, sticks to his promises! That’s right, Mr. President, don’t back down now from that terrible broccoli threat. The green menace? Bring it on!!
Hmmm, what’s else have prodding Americans been asking the White House? Scrolling down the page, we see a very probing question, perhaps one of the most critical indictments of White House policy I’ve seen so far this election year. Tiffany from Canton, Ohio, bitterly writes, “Can you please move the President’s speech to another time? I want to watch American Idol. How about moving the speech to 9pm?”
Ouch! If I were Scott McClellan I’d be hiding my tail between my legs after that ass-kicking. You’ve got to hand it to this White House, though, they’re brimming with irrepressible devotion to the truth, and McClellan admirably answers Tiffany’s concerns, saying,
I think we are going to stick to the 8:30pm time tonight. There are some important issues that the President wants to discuss with the American people at a time when most Americans will be able to hear what he has to say. The good news for American Idol fans is that FOX is moving tonight’s episode to tomorrow night at 8.
Sock it to ‘em, Scott! How’s that for a White House comeback! Yes, you heard right, the White House is making official pronouncements about important domestic issues, such as our television schedules and the alarming number of bad singers whom millions of Americans can’t live without.
Now if the White House can only help me get HBO.
April 13, 2004
The President Emboldens Me
A few notes about tonight’s Presidential Press Conference…
- This was only Bush’s third prime-time press conference in which he took questions from the press. The last one was a year ago, shortly before the Iraq War began.
- Bush used the word embolden twice. Embolden: to render bold or more bold; to hearten, encourage (OED)
- Saying something doesn’t make it so. When Bush says he “honors” the troops who have fallen, it doesn’t actually perform any honoring. Unless you’re a priest saying “I pronounce you man and wife,” your words don’t actually perform any actions. For Bush to really honor the American soldiers and civilians who have lost their lives in Iraq, he needs to do something more than just saying he “honors” them. Allow their caskets to be photographed by journalists (rather than hiding the fact of their deaths). Attend their funerals.
- Bush is allergic to apologies. When he was asked directly whether he should apologize for his handling of the War on Terror, Bush dodged the question.
- Bush said “I believe that freedom is the deepest need of every human soul.” Two words: Patriot Act.
- Bush sees the transformation of Iraq from dictatorship to a democracy with free elections as central to the greater transformation of the Middle East. Bush is only promoting the rhetoric of democracy, however. What about Saudi Arabia? Any U.S. policy geared toward a democratic Middle East must address the problems of Saudi Arabia, a repressive monarchy whose citizens have very few civil liberties. As long as Saudi Arabia is our ally (in other words, supplying oil), the United States will overlook this black hole of democracy in the Middle East.
April 08, 2004
Irregular around the Margins
I’ve been a devoted follower of The Sopranos ever since I borrowed the entire first and second seasons on VHS from a friend, back in 2000. I’ve managed to see every episode since, even without having HBO, by begging, borrowing, and sometimes just showing up unannounced, uninvited at the right place at the right time. At times my desperation to see the show bordered on mania. Before Season Four began I even had a nightmare in which Tony Soprano came to me, snarling in my face, spit flying everywhere, yelling, Why the f**k don’t you have HBO? You better get it, you sad little freeloading f**k.
Ah, gotta love the sinner and hate the sin.
Now, with the fifth season in full swing, I’ve been thinking, is it really all that? Would the world end if I never saw the show again? Up until last Sunday’s episode I would have said yes.
But the episode—Irregular around the Margins—aired and blew me away. Without a doubt, it was the best episode this season and possibly the best of the past couple seasons.
There are two reasons for this. The first is that the show was back to focusing on family rather than crime. After all, The Sopranos is ultimately a family drama. The rest is just window dressing. Too often this season ancillary tensions between ancillary characters have been competing with the more compelling storylines. The brewing war between Johnny Sack and Little Carmine, the sociopath Feech and his territorial piss-posts—these plots are at best distracting and at worse like watching a bunch of local villagers squabble over a goat while outside the village gates the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse silently annihilate entire civilizations.
Face it, Tony and his troubling familial relationships—the civilization of Tony—are what we come to watch: Tony’s disintegrating relationship with his wife, his distant relationship with his children, his antagonistic relationship with his sister and uncle, and now, with this episode, his uneasy reconciliation with his own nephew, Christopher, whose fiancee, Adriana, Tony had nearly slept with.
The writing of this episode was so hewn, the symbolism and allegory so finely wrought, that I think it brings into relief why cultural critics should pay attention to The Sopranos. And this depth and richness is the second reason why the show blew me away. Its incest plot and the struggle between generations—Tony versus Christopher, whom Tony is grooming to be his successor—transforms the show into something reminiscent of a Greek or Roman tragedy.
In fact, I am reminded of Goya’s disturbing masterpiece Saturn—a haunting painting of the Roman titan Saturn devouring one of his children. According to one myth, Saturn was later thrown from the heavens by Jupiter, another one of his children. No wonder Saturn wanted to devour them. But myth aside, the painting is of course allegorical. It doesn’t seem to be about war in the heavens so much as an awakening of primal savagery, the collapse of civilization and the rise of nothing but rage, revenge, and unrepressed urges.
Tony Soprano embodies this struggle between savagery and civilization—and the rise and fall of one or the other is inextricably linked to the destruction or rejuvenation of his own family. Tony recognizes this at some level and even seeks Dr. Melfi’s help. It’s a “breakthrough,” Melfi tells Tony, to recognize this struggle and even attempt to avert it.
But can he? One aspect of David Chase’s (the creator of The Sopranos) worldview crystalized in this episode, namely that we cannot control our bodies. Our bodies betray us. We see this repeatedly in “Irregular Around the Margins” in the three principle characters of the episode, Tony, Adriana, and Christopher.
Consider each character separately:
Tony
Tony has some sort of cancerous cyst removed from his scalp; this melanoma, unpredictable and unsettling, is what makes him feel “irregular around the margins.” It’s as if he cannot trust his body anymore. There’s also Tony’s casual drug use, which he could control if he tried, but he doesn’t. When Adriana offers him a line of cocaine, he smiles and says, “I won’t say no.” And finally, there’s his libidinal urge, his bodily lust for Adriana that he only keeps in check by luck. They’re interrupted right at the moment when they could kiss for the first time.
Adriana
Like Tony, Adriana is a casual drug user. Well, probably more than casual. The reason she and Tony are in a car accident in the middle of the night in Dover, New Jersey, is because that’s where her dealer is. More significantly, Adriana is diagnosed in the episode with IBS—Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Meaning, she can’t control her bowels and she’s beset with painful diarrhea. Her body, quite literally, is a pile of shit.
Christopher
Last season Christopher made an admirable recovery from a destructive heroin habit. The first four episodes of the fifth season Christopher had been stone cold sober. On edge and quarrelsome, but sober—no booze, no drugs, nothing but cigarettes. It doesn’t last. Hearing the rumor that Adriana had been out in Dover having sex with Tony when the accident occurred—a false rumor, it turns out, although maybe the car wreck was the only thing that stopped the liaison from happening—hearing this rumor, Christopher throws Adriana out and quickly grabs the nearest alcohol he can find, a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka Adriana had hidden in the freezer. Once again, in Christopher’s relapse we find a body that cannot control itself, an urge that cannot bear repression.
Alongside Goya’s Saturn, there is another cultural reference this episode calls to mind. It’s the car wreck—I can’t help but think of the last lines of William Carlos William’s damning critique of American postwar culture, the poem “To Elsie.” The poem begins with the ambiguous line,
The pure products of America
go crazy…
And it ends with these despairing verses:
the stifling heat of September
Somehow
it seems to destroy us
It is only in isolate flecks that
something
is given off
No one
to witness
and adjust, no one to drive the car
No one to drive the car, Williams says. No one is in control, The Sopranos says.
April 07, 2004
Mixed Signals
I know the White House’s policy in Iraq is schizophrenic, but this is getting ridiculous. On April 5th, Bush told reporters, “I believe we can transfer authority by June 30th.” Yesterday in El Dorado, Arkansas, Bush reiterated “We will pass sovereignty on June 30th. We will stay the course in Iraq. We’re not going to be intimidated by thugs or assassins.”
So June 30th is the date we “pass sovereignty”? I’m not sure Bush has taken a look at a calendar lately, but that date is only twelve weeks away. The war has been “over” for months and months, but the past week saw fighting worse than anything that ever occurred during the war itself. Months after Saddam Hussein was captured, armed insurgents are no longer shadowy forces, but solidified bands of guerillas, well-coordinated and with visible leaders. And so Rumsfeld is talking about sending more troops to Iraq? Yet Bush is insisting that we “pass sovereignty” is less than 90 days?
Of course, Bush’s blundering, wrongheaded, arrogant, sanguine obstinacy begs the question, to whom does the U.S. “transfer authority” on June 30th? All it takes is a quick scanning of the AP or Reuters newswires to see how fragile any kind of indigenous civil authority is in Iraq. For example, in the space of 24 hours last weekend, two police chiefs were assassinated. Elsewhere in Iraq, doctors, teachers, and professionals of all kind—anybody who might reasonably make up a moderate ruling class—are being targeted by both Sunni and Shiite fundamentalists.
April 05, 2004
On my desk
I’m experimenting with a Movable Type plugin called BookQueue. This tools lets you scan a book’s UPC symbol with a barcode reader, and then it fetches information about the book from Amazon.com, storing the info in a server database which you can then reference from a blog entry.
So, for example, I’ve used a Cue:Cat barcode reader to scan all the books currently sitting on my desk (I’ve got a big desk). These are all books that in one way or another I’m using for a chapter in my dissertation. They are:
- The Bluest Eye (Oprah’s Book Club) by Toni Morrison
- Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism by Daniel Harris
- The Total Package: The Secret History and Hidden Meanings of Boxes, Bottles, Cans, and Other Persuasive Containers by Thomas Hine
- The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change by David Harvey
- The Seventies : The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics by Bruce J. Schulman
- Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body by Rosemarie Garland Thomson
- Gilligan Unbound : Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization by Paul Cantor
- Child Star: An Autobiography by Shirley Temple Black
- The Girl : Constructions of the Girl in Contemporary Fiction by Women by Ruth O. Saxton
- Productive Postmodernism: Consuming Histories and Cultural Studies (Suny Series in Postmodern Culture) by John N. Duvall
- First Person : New Media as Story, Performance, and Game by Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Pat Harrigan
The tool is different from the Current Reading column on the right-hand side of my blog. That column is essentially a “Listmania” list I created at Amazon, which I sucked onto this site.
