One More Joke.....

I forgot another of my favorite jokes in the last post.

What did one tampon say to the other tampon?

Nothing. They're both stuck up bitches.


jb

Three Jokes

Here are my three favorite jokes:

1. Did you hear about the fire that swept through the George W. Bush presidential library last weekend?

Both books were completely destroyed.


2. What is the difference between a tale that is told in the North, and one that is told in the South?

The one in the North begins: "Once upon a time, in a land far away......"

The one in the South begins: "Ya'll ain't gonna believe this shit...."


3. What did the deadhead say when he ran out of pot?

Man, this music sucks!


jb

Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette

Last weekend I saw the latest Sofia Coppola film Marie Antoinette. This is one of the freshest, most innovative and original films to be released last year. I was surprised that it didn't receive more buzz. Perhaps this is because it is set in the 18th century and covers the life of a French monarch.

I won't summarize the film in this entry. I just want to take issue with a review submitted by critics of the A.V. Onion club. I love the A.V. onion club. I visit their site most everyday, and find their reviews spot-on and insightful. So, I was shocked to learn that my beloved club gave Marie Antoinette a "C."

Check out their review: http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54274


I completely disagree with their assessment of this film. While the reviewers call the movie "daring" and Coppola "inventive", the film is ultimately dismissed for being superficial and "checking off" history's highlights through a hurried and ineffective plot.

I don't think this film, and I wouldn't necessarily call it a history or a period piece, is interested in presenting the historical events of the French Revolution or Marie Antoinette's role in the politics of that era. Granted, it is somewhat of a revisionist look at this personality, but overall it is not a film whose mission is to tell a historical story. That story has been told, again and again in film and literature. Furthermore, Coppola, by presenting the interior lives of the monarchy, essentially locks the viewer inside the walls of the Versailles along with them. They, and we, the audience, are not aware of the political situation boiling outside of those walls until it is way too late.

Instead, Coppola gives us a fresh look at monarchy and the people who enter and become trapped in that political system. Coppola's mission is to couple youth with decadence, using this particular French monarchy as her backdrop. Marie Antoinette was only 14 when she moved from Austria to France to assume the throne. Her husband, Louis the XVI, was only 20 when he became king after his father's death. Employing young actors, using the youthful music of the 1980's, showing scenes of champagne drinking, pastry eating, and costumes of opulence all help illustrate Coppola's themes and objectives. The scene with all of the desserts and shoes to the tune of Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy" solidifies the film's purpose, and its so fun to watch.

The whole point is that these characters, these historical figures, are young - too young to reign, as the newly appointed king says. And they are caught in a monarchical system where the only thing they have to do is spend money and indulge their senses.

While Lost in Translation was an excellent film, I will go out on a limb to say that Marie Antoinette is bolder, and more original than Coppola's most acclaimed film. It was one of the best films of 2006. Can't wait to see what she does next.

Voting for the Rich

For the past 7 years, I have wondered why so many Americans vote against their own class interests. For example, why does a working- class, Georgia mechanic with 4 children vote for someone like George W. Bush? For that matter, why would she vote for a republican, the party of elities who work in the interest of other elites?

The explanations for this socio-political phenomena are comlex and varied. An obvious explanation is that republicans have controlled the body politic of this country for many years, setting the cultural and political agenda, through its use of a well-oiled and efficient propoganda machine that convinces the Georgia mechanic that republicans are the party of the people, the comman man. For someone who works long hours, and has tremendous family responsibilties and limited free time to pursue alternatives sources of news, the propoganda is hard to escape and very seductive. She doesn't have to think or act; she simply consumes the information and gets on with her busy schedule.

Another very interesting explanation was provided recently by David Graeber in his article "Army of Altruists," published in the Jan. 2007 edition of Harper's magazine. He connects voting to larger issues of education in this country. Graeber, discussing the increasing impossibility of class mobility through academic accomplishment, suggests that America stills operates on the "promise of unlimited upward mobility." Sure, anyone who has taught college students lately knows that the myth of meritocracy, and that "pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you will become rich and famous" ideology is alive and well in the U.S. However, Graeber notes that today obtaining a college education does not lead one necessarily to a good job or a comfortable income.

Also, he suggests that walls around institutions of higher education are now fortresses, where only an elite few get in - primarily kids from the middle and upper middle classes. He says that the number of working-class students in universities across the country has been declining for decades. As a side note, Graeber says that the inaccessibility of a college education in the 1980's and 1990's was further complicated by the fact that during this time some people who had previously been exluded were now being accepted. This, of course, was the 80's and 90's era of identity politics, but as Graeber tells us, that acceptance of different identities was not extended to the "redneck" or the "baptist" for example.

So, given this social backdrop where education is not even within the realm of possibility for a good portion of the country, Graeber says the reason why the working-classes have voted republican, and for Bush in particular, is quite simple: working-class people can "imagine a scenario in which they might become rich, but cannot possibly imagine one in which they, or any of their children, would become members of the intelligentsia."

This exaplanation not only suggests that the idea that anyone can get rich and be whatever they want in this country is still powerful, but it also assumes that this portion of the populace has come to associate republicans as the party of the little person, and the democrats as the party of educated, intellectual elites. My question is this: how and when did this happen? We know, historically, it has been quite the opposite. And I would argue that it didn't start with the ostensible good ole boy, brush clearing, pick-up truck driving, plain speaking, George W. Bush.

jb

R.I.P. Jean Baudrillard

Did Baudrillard really die, or is this hyper-reality? Simulacra?

Here is an obituary of sorts : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6425389.stm

I first encountered Baudrillard in a Literary Theory class in my M.A. program. We read Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomena. His most famous ideas of hyper-reality, and simulacra were explained in this text, although he introduced these in earlier works. Anyway, this book hit me like a potent rock n roll song; it was electric. Some of my classmates found it too nihlistic. For example, after reading it, my friend, Scott, suggested that we all slit our wrists because, according to Jean, life had no real meaning or purpose anyway.

Nevertheless, this book sparked my intellect and forced me to look at media in new and unexpected ways. I remember being at a live music event (shortly after reading this text) in a local club in Virginia, with the band on stage in front of me, and two television sets covering the band arranged on both sides of my view. I kept watching the TV sets, rarely looking at the live event in front of me. Of course I thought of Baudrillard ......along with that U2 lyric "even better than the real thing, child."

Later, in my PhD program, the work of Jean Baudrillard was vigorously problemitized for me. How dare he say that the gulf war didn't exist? How dare he focus our attention on image and simulation instead of real world events? Some professors and peers suggested that his work was ultimately conservative, irresponsible and de-politicizing. I don't disagree with these assessments, as postmodernism is hardly a politically transformative theory. It works well in analyses of art, but it seems too playful and self-indulgent to explain or address the material conditions of life. And Baudrillard was a supreme postmodernist in my estimation.

Still, I won't forget my first encounter with Jean Baudrillard. May he rest in peace.

JB

No Person Land

The title of this blog entry stems from a conversation I had last friday at the campus pub. I was sitting around a table with a professor in sociology at hamilton, a professor in comparative lit at Hamilton, and Janet Halley. Halley (http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/jhalley/ ) is a professor of law at Harvard, and was giving lectures at Hamilton last week. Anyway, we were engaging in small talk when Janet turned to me and asked, "so, what do you do here?" I said that my status/position was complicated as I am a PhD looking for that elusive tenure track appointment, currently occupying a fixed, administrative appointment. We talked about spousal hires, being in a two PhD relationship, etc etc - all the bullshit that has been my existence for more years than I care to think about.

After batting around that disturbing subject, Janet asked where we lived in Clinton. To continue the topic of my previous post, we informed her that we lived on Dwight ave., in Fred Wagner's old house. Turns out Janet used to be on the faculty at Hamilton, and has been to parties at Fred's house, I mean, our house. So many people in this community have been to our home - before we set up residence. Anne and I then began to wonder if other former Hamilton professors, such as Eve Sedgwick or Chandra Mohanty had been in our (Fred's ) home. Interesting to wonder......

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. The point of this is, as Janet left the table to go back to her room and nap, she said to me "you have to get out of no person's land."

damn straight.

with a little luck and perserverance maybe someday I will.

jb