#its very obvious to see in my art which era i fixate on the most

[kabukiaku]

Any art of mountain? Asking for a friend and totally not my hyperfixation ✨️✨️

i haven't drawn mountain ghoul even ONCE. oh man I'm sorry mountain enjoyers 😔 </3

[paragonrobits]

A friend asked me to give a stab at a Tierlist Maker for Video Games Not Yet In the Video Game Hall of Fame Tier List Maker, so here's my list for it!

This is based primarily on what I considered to be overall value to gaming history as a whole, with games with greater influence or impact ranking higher than those that had less impact on those to follow, or on culture. All the entries are those that have been nominated to the Hall of Fame, but not actually inducted as of this post's writing. Games that I personally like are generally rated higher, though mostly because I'm more familiar with them and thus can judge their impact from a personal POV.

(Tier List explainations, below!)

SHOULD BE IN ALREADY

Final Fantasy: I mean seriously. How is this one not already in yet?? It is not, as my research suggests, the first true RPG; that likely goes to games like Ultima. It is certainly an incredibly influential one; FF is a name closely associated with JRPGs in general, and its diverse class system is one of the strongest things to do with it, as noted by challenges like beating the game with a party of Black Belts. FF is THE name of RPGs in general and I'm startled it hasn't made it in, though I suppose that's owing to more notable entries (Hard as that is to imagine). It doesn't hurt that the majority of my favorite FF titles are those most similar to this one, such as FF6 and FF9, in terms of approaching the general world setting and class systems. Most significantly is that this game popularized RPGs and made them accessible, in ways that previous games such as Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest did not; the field of gaming would be VERY different without it; RPGs became VERY popular, to the extent of RPG elements being almost universal among other games in the modern day. (I am also pleased and amused to see 8-Bit Theater mentioned on the actual Wikipedia page. Now THAT'S notability!)

Sid Meir's Civilization: HEY NOW HALL OF FAME JUDGES, DON'T YOU BE MOCKING CIV, ALRIGHT. CIV IS FUCKING AWESOME. Okay, jokes aside, I'm genuinely astonished as the Civ series is considered the first true main game of the 4x series, and it shows; the entire genre centers around expansion, resource usage and diplomacying or conquering your enemies, and considering the impact of this game and its sheer popularity, to the extent of the meme of the game getting people to play for Just One More Turn, I'm a bit disappointed that it's not already in the hall of fame. I also note that I am personally more familiar with the spin off Alpha Centauri, a sci fi variant, which is still one of my all time favorite games.

Half-Life: Given this game's popularity, to the point of its release alone consigning the likes of Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines to cult classic status and its engine spawning a whole THING with GMod and the usage of physics mechanics in FPS games, one thing of note is its use of scripted sequences; at the time, an unknown in most games of the time. There may be something to be said for how the entire game is spent as Gordon Freeman, behind his eyes, possibly engendering a lack of separation between self and character that would be later emphasized in games like Bioshock. It's influence on games cannot be denied, with publications using it as a bookend between eras of gaming. One consistent element of what seems to make this game so distinctive is its approach to storytelling, without simply imitating film techniques which don't always work well with gameplay.

Candy Crush: This is an example of something I don't personally play myself, or even like very much, but I'd be remiss to dismiss it out of hand. There's no denial that phone games are one of, if not THE biggest market of games in the here in now; if now in scale, certainly in quantity. You might call it the TF2 Hat Economy theory; people aren't spending BIG bucks, but they are spending a LOT of little bucks all the time. It proves that highly accessible games that are generally free to play, with optional purchases, are a legitimate means of game business, and this certainly revolutionized how games were seen by the money-makers.

Super Smash Bros Melee: I loved this game as a kid, but truth be told i have a bit of a love-hate relationship; i REALLY dislike the competitive community that has fixated hard on this game, so any thoughts on it will have a slight element of pause beforehand. Even so, I can't forget the thrilled delight I felt watching the trailer for this game in supermarkets for the first time as a kid. at a time when getting any new games at all was a HUGE deal in my family. So, there is a lot of feeling behind this one! Ultimately, I have to concede that while i have complicated feelings about this game, its worth noting that the vast majority of things that made Smash iconic, and influenced the competitive scene AND the games inspired by Smash AND shaped the course of the series going forwards, largely owe themselves to Melee in particular. 64 was far more slow paced, while Melee began the trend towards much more fast paced action (and while I doubt it's SPECIFIC to melee as a whole, it may have been a trend for the genre from then). Melee is STILL widely played, especially on the competitive scene, and this sort of longevity always bears evidence of notability.

Goldeneye 007: I have to admit that despite being a kid in the 90s, despite someone who put most of their time into gaming, and despite being someone whose favorite system at the time was the Nintendo 64, I mostly missed out on the trend of history by honestly not being that much into this game. I have to say that I DID play it, however; I just never managed to get past the first level or so. I have strong memories of triyng and failing to sneak around a snowy lair of some description; it wouldn't be until the mid-2000s, playing Deus Ex Human Revolution, that I got the hang of stealth. All the same, personal indifference really doesn't matter much because HOLY SHIT THIS GAME HAS SOME STAYING POWER. IT HAS INFLUENCE, FRIENDORITOS. Perhaps chiefly, at the time it was made, consoles were not considered viable platforms for first person shooters; Goldeneye revised that notion, and created a whole revolution in multiplayer and shooter games. We would later see the ultimate consequence of this in games like Halo, which further revolutionized the whole genre. Ironically, the stealth attributes I was so bad at were part of what made the game so unique! It's one of those games that may not have aged well, by modern standards, but its import to gaming as a whole goes a long, long way.

Guitar Hero: I expect this one might be a bit hard to justify, but on its own, this game is INCREDIBLY innovative, though its not entirely the first of its kind, having mechanics based on earlier games. The very first entry has a respectable library of 30 songs, which is impressive considered at the time it was made, its not likely people expected it to get as far as it did; bear in mind that the massive libraries of later games were the result of years of this game series being a massive steamroller of a franchise! At the time, this one was an unknown. It has an interesting history as being a successor of sorts to an arcade exclusive, and inspiring a genre of imitators and spiritual successors on its own; of great note is the sheer impact this game had. With so many of those successors, the increased value of liscened soundtracks, and the way the game's concept became so influential, its astounding this one isn't already on the hall of fame. (It's also very fun, but fun alone doesn't make for memorability, sad to say.)

DESERVES IT AT SOME POINT

Myst - an iconic and incredibly atmospheric puzzle game, I'm genuinely surprised that I haven't heard talk about this one in some respect; it bears note as a rare game with absolutely no conflict whatsoever. I actually rank this one on par with the 7th Guest in terms of atmospheric games, though their tones could not be more different. So why do I think this game deserves it at some point? It was an incredibly immersive and beautiful game, lacking in genuine danger or threat, encouraging the player to explore and tackle the puzzles of the game. This sort of open-ended lack of peril makes it an interesting precursor towards certain flavors of sandbox games around now. It's worth noting that it was a tremendous achievement, given technical limitations of things such as the CD-Rom it was stored on, maintaining a consistent experience, as well as tying narrative reasons into those very constraints. It has been compared to an art film; if so, it certainly is the sort that invited imitators and proved to be a great technical achievement.

Portal: PORTAL! What can I honestly say that hasn't already been said by other people? The amazing integration of a physics engine into innovative puzzle solving, combined with a slow burn sort of minimalist plot reveal concerning the AI proving itself to be a kind of reverse HAL 9000? This game got a HUGE number of memes back in the day, and I expect anyone reading this can probably reference a few. The cake thing, certainly, and its relevance to matters of deception. There is much discussion over the game's utility in academic circles, which is certainly quite notable, and for my part, I'm interested by the point that at first the game gives you a lot of hints towards what you're supposed to do, gradually making it less obvious for the player you're on your own entirely, using your experience with the game to get past the puzzles from there, and its excellent game design. Ultimately though, I place this below Half Life in hall of fame urgency, because while I probably like this one more, it doesn't have the same impact on other games, per say. (That's a lot of awards for it, though. Wowza.)

Resident Evil: Is it fair to call this one the major survival horror game of its era? No, because it's apparently the FIRST, or at least the first to be called such. It's certainly up there with shaping the genre as a whole, both its immediate predecessors and modern games. The flavor of a survival horror can even be judged about whether its close to Resident Evil's style of defending yourself with limited resources vs controlled helplessness. It's also worth pointing out that I quite like the restricted, cramped setting of the mansion, rather than an expansive city; Biohazard was a real return to form, even if its something I mostly watched through funny lets plays because OH NO ITS TOO SCARY I CANT WATCH.

Asteroids: It's called the first major hit of the golden age of the arcade. I'm forced to say... yeah, it absolutely deserves it. The actual implementation and hardware of the game makes for interesting reading, and so its innovative nature ought to be noted: it lacked a soundchip at all, making use of handmade circuits wired to the board. It's reception was great, beating out Space Invaders and needing larger boxes just to hold all the money people spent on it. It also invented the notion of tracking initials on the top ten score, which has implications for arcade challenges.

Ms. Pac Man: This one consistently ranks HIGH in gaming records of its time, though there is admittedly some confusion to whether it or Donkey Kong was a better seller. Interestingly it appears to shape most of the gameplay mechanics people remember most for Pac-Man, such as the improved AI of the ghosts. It's more highly regarded than the original game, and on a personal note, I remember being a kid and seeing this arcade machine at ALL the laundry places my family usually wound up going to.

Frogger: It's placing on this list is not solely because CUTE FROG. The accessibility and wide appeal of the game bears a great deal of consideration, the flexibility of its formula, and just how many dang times it's been ported in one form or another. (And also, cute frog.) It also gets points for the creator being inspired for the game when he saw a frog trying to cross a road, hampered by the vehicles in the way, and he got out of his car and carried the frog across the street. The game is also evident of broad appeal, and some money-makers resisting it, goes back a long way; it was apparently dismissed as a kid's game by some, which just goes to show that some problems are older than quite a lot of gamers alive today.

Uncharted 2: this is one of those games where I cannot honestly say I have personal experience to draw from. Of the playstation's big games, I remember the Jak and Daxter series; I remember Kingdom Hearts, and I remember Ratchet and Clank, and I remember Infamous, but the Uncharted series remains

something of a 'I don't go here?' obscurity in my personal playbook. It does look memorable and charming from what I've seen, and one consistent element I've seen in comments about it is the cinematic nature of the game; it feels very much like a fun heist movie, based on what I have seen of it, and the notable thing is how the game FEELS cinematic.. in a literal way. As in, it combined elements of cinematography with game design, and that's no mean feat: what works for movies are unlikely to translate well to the interactive side, and it shows how that can be done for other games. The extensive praise does the game a LOT of credit!

WORTH NOMINATION AT LEAST

Angry Birds: As noted before, I'm not the biggest fan of most phone games, given that i prefer a more passive experience than most provide. As such, Angry Birds isn't something I've played as of this writing, but I have to appreciate the straightforward and simple gameplay; it reminds me a bit of the Burrito Bison game series, which I HAVE played, and I'm going to go out on a limb and assume it's because Angry Birds is probably the innovation that coined that particular style of gameplay. It's an example of what made phone games profitable and worth the time of developers to work at them; its easy for casual players to get into, and there's a fun sort of impact involved. Given the popularity of phone games, this one has a LOT of influence in getting that rolling, similar to candy crush, if not as much.

FIFA International Soccer: Simulation games are a tricky business; it can be really difficult to get them right, and this game provides an example of it being done in a way that a lot of people REALLY loved, set up an entire game series, and revived the 3DO system after a very bad year. Of note, apparently it was commented that it was more of a simulator than a console game, and this is rather funny considering how simulator is its own genre nowadays! Such do things change. It seems to have been a revolutionary game and simulation; setting the shape for modern sport games of its type, and tending more towards realism (accounting for acceptable breaks in reality) than was typical of the time. This one's position is thus picked for its impact as a whole; while it may not necessarily be a household name now, the series continues on, and is popular enough that even after 20 years, it's still been going.

Elite: I nominate this game in this position for being a startlingly early entry into what we would now consider open-ended games, even with an element of exploration and trading; if one stretches definitions a bit, a precursor towards gameplay of the like scene in 4X players who strive to avoid conflict, if possible. Its technical breakthroughs are some very interesting reading and make for good game history; a vast and complex game (not just by the standards of the era, either), and opening the door for persistent world games such as World of Warcraft.

Wii Sports: A significant game, and much as how other titles mentioned above were famed for gateway entries into gaming for an unfamiliar audience, or those that would want o play on a more casual basis. It seems notable to me for being most suited as a family game, or a more casual experience of multiplayer than usually associated with games like this; this has greatly influenced Nintendo's design philosophy, and one can see elements of this all the way through the Wii U onwards. It's essentially a fliparound from Mario Party; less competitiveness, but definitely meant as a group thing. Controversy is evident, because like with Mario Party, injuries did result from it.

Call of Duty: I place this one here because, while it DOES hold a very significant role in gaming history, with countless imitators, spiritual successors, being a game-changer in ways that its modern reputation might surprise you with, ultimately it is less so than other games such as Goldeneye, Halo or Half-Life. It's development in AI pathfinding and tactics is incredibly noteworthy from a mechanical perpsective, and the sheer level of awards it won is notable. In the end this game's popularity and continuing influence means that it shouldn't be overlooked.

Metroid: You can't spell 'Metroidvania' without this game! A relatively open ended exploration-based game with further options opening as new tools were found give it an interesting vibe, and the oppressive atmosphere distinctive to the game says great things about its sound and level designs. It wasn't the first open world game, or explorer, or even the first to open new aereas based on equipment, but it had ALL of these elements in a very memorable package. (Samus Aran as a female protagonist is something I'm a bit reluctant to give it credit for, as her identity was obfuscated for most of the game, and only revealed in a fanservicey way in a secret ending. All the same, credit where it is due, I suppose!) It's music seems to endure as a mood setter, too!

Pole Position: Perhaps not the FIRST racing game, but still considered one of the most important from the golden age of gaming, and the one to codify many of the firm rules of the game series. It's three dimensional gameplay is incredibly innovative for its time, and having played it and games like it in the past, I'm struck by how smooth the whole thing feels. No wonder it was popular! It is notable for having been designed specifically as a 3d Experience, meant to execute techniques like real drivers might attempt, which makes it a different sort of beast in that it tried to do more realistic actions; in some ways, a precursor to modern trends of realism in many games, for ill or best. Ultimately I think this one is worth a nomination because of its influence towards racing games (a popular and long lived genre, to say the least) as a whole.

OUTSIDE CHANCE

Nurburgring 1: On the one hand, I feel a bit guilty putting this one so low; it is recognized as likely being the earliest racing game in history, and given that I just finished noting Pole Position's influence, it feels a bit mean to rate this one as relatively insignificant all the same. However, in terms of notability, I never even heard of this one, and it was tricky finding information about it. Accordingly, that may say something about its influence, though this position DOES make it noteworthy as the first of its kind, albeit with Pole Position refining and introducing elements that shaped the genre.

Dance Dance Revolution: It feels a bit strange, putting this one fairly low. This thing was a MONSTER back in the day; entire arcades were built around the dancing control peripherals it required, rhythm based games or mechanics specifically invoked it by name, and it was an absolute cultural touchstone for years and years. So, why place it low? Partly, its because I can't just shove EVERYTHING into the 'deserves a nomination' folder; I do think it's fairly reasonable for this one to at some point get a nomination in the future, though ultimately there's games more noteworthy on the whole. It's specific rhythm qualities continue outside of its genre, and are quite influential to gaming as a whole, though unfortunately the series seems to have lost something in notability over time; popularity is a factor, but so is the impact on other games.

NBA 2K and NBA Jam: I put these two together because they touch on similar touchstones for me, and they really did popularize basketball games back in the day. Jam in particular seems to be invoking the Big Head mode that were a big thing in games at the time, at least going from the screenshot. They were very popular and highly beloved games back in the day, though I don't know if they have much influence on later games. I note that interestingly, they take opposite approaches; 2k focuses on AI and realistic experiences, while Jam was deliberately less realistic and more actiony in its over the top gameplay.

Nokia Snake: This one really impresses me for the sheer number of releases, in various forms, it's had! Interestingly, there seems to be little consensus on the name of this game; most just call it Snake or something on that theme. I went with Nokia Snake because... mostly, it sounds funny, and that's how its done on the list. This one is fairly low, but I Have to give it credit for having hundreds of releases!

Farmville: My mom liked Facebook games, a lot. And I am certain this one was one of her main ones! I rate it fairly low, and no doubt her spirit is yelling imprecations at me across the void of time, space, and abandoned socks; all the same, this one is ranked low because of the sheer number of displeasure aimed this one's way. (And to be fair, she complained about it. A LOT.) It is thus notable for unusually negative reasons; an example of exploitation, pressuring players to pester their friends to play it in an equivalent to electronic chain mail, and microtranscations.

Tron: I'm inclined to give any game that takes place in a computer land and uses programming or mechanical terminology a free pass! Interestingly, this has some association with the Snake game, as they have similar gameplay and Snake games are sometimes called Light Cylce games, after this one. It has an interesting history; the graphical system was chosen largely because it was believed it was more likely to be achieved before the deadline.

NO BUSINESS IN THE HALL OF FAME

Mattel Football: I do feel a little mean putting anything in this category; firstly because I don't want to make actual fans of something sad, and secondly because I believe you can probably find notability anywhere you look, if you are inclined. And here is the chief difficulty with this one: I could not find any real information in this one. It has no Wikipedia page, a google search only led to undescriptive links of SALES for the game, but not any information on the game itself. Notability is my main resource for sorting these entries, and honestly? If google has nothing on you, that's a pretty poor sign. Sorry, Mattel Football, but you look like a poor man's Game And Watch. You're no Portal, Myst or Pole Position.

[sataniccapitalist]

APRIL 09, 2020

It's All Over but the Shouting

Wafers-

A few months ago, David Masciotra, a free-lance writer and author of Against Traffic, among other works, approached The American Conservative with a proposal for an article, which would be a review of my American Empire trilogy. He subsequently submitted the article, and never heard back. Since I'm neither a conservative nor a progressive, but only a writer interested in Reality, it's possible that TAC got spooked by David's essay. (To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, "Americans can't bear too much reality.") However, it's also possible that by that time the coronavirus was starting to make itself visible, and that TAC was thrown by that rather than anything ideological. I guess we can give them the benefit of the doubt. In any case, David and I agreed that I should just post his essay on my blog, and accept the fact that no American publication was likely to run it (for whatever reason). Hence, here it is.

It’s All Over but the Shouting: Morris Berman’s Work on American Decline

“Stick a fork in their ass, and turn them over. They’re done,” Lou Reed dryly announces on his 1989 song about the American Empire, “The Last Great American Whale.” The rock and roll poet’s grim diagnosis of a culture gone awry makes for a fine lyric. If Reed were to have expanded his morbid one-liner into a 1,000-page trilogy of books, full of assiduous research, brilliant anecdotes, and despite the sad subject matter, immensely enjoyable, and often amusing, prose, he would have something resembling the series of books on American decline from cultural critic, historian, novelist, and poet, Morris Berman.

Berman, while a visiting professor in the belly of the beast at the Catholic University in Washington, DC, began writing the first installment in the late 1990s,The Twilight of American Culture, after observing the coalescence of several pathologies that are now beyond dispute as inflicting pain on American life: staggering rates of inequality, governmental dysfunction, an ever-expanding militarism, the fracturing of communal and civic life, and the dominance of anti-intellectualism, visible in everything from an increasingly shallow pop culture to misspelled words on public signs. There was also an aura of threat in the air, of the kind predicted by Don DeLillo in his 1985 novel, White Noise. Like the thick presence of humidity on a summer afternoon, Americans couldn’t see that their neighbors were becoming selfish, and often cruel, but they could feel it.

Having studied the downfall of other empires, Berman saw the window for American reform closing. He warned that if America did not drastically transform its public policies, ideology, and working conception of citizenship, its troubles would only intensify and calcify, bringing a once-promising civilization past the point of no return. In the two books that followed—

Dark Ages America

and

Why America Failed

—Berman meticulously demonstrated that America’s myopic focus on profit, at the expense of everything else, its zest for war – at home and abroad – and its lack of self-awareness and insight had escalated, making recovery virtually impossible.

Simultaneous with the development of Berman’s argument, the United States suffered the worst attack on its soil on September 11, 2001, and responded by launching not one, but two disastrous wars. Its housing market and financial system crashed, liquidating much of middle class wealth, and it reacted with giving away boondoggles to the very parties of greed that caused the crisis. Then, in 2016, as the citizenry began to stratify in ways more violent and intractable, Donald Trump became President-Elect. Berman, whom the New York Times and other mainstream outlets dismissed as cynical, cranky, and “anti-American,” looks more and more sterling.The left and right argue about nearly everything, making extreme accusations about each other. Maybe one camp is right on other issues, and the other is correct on some, but the larger possibility to consider is, what if they are all wrong on the main issue?

As Berman put it during a recent email exchange that I had with him:

Conservatives and progressives alike are patriots; like Trump, they seek to save America, or make it great again. What they are ignoring is the rhythm and record of history. All civilizations rise and fall; there are no exceptions to this rule, and America is not going to escape its fate. The great Southern historian, C. Vann Woodward, first suggested the inevitable decline of the nation in 1953. Andrew Hacker stated it clearly in The End of the American Era, 1970. Between that year and today, there have been a host of books—my trilogy on the American empire included—that have pointed out that civilizations come and go, and that now is our time. Yet on both the right and left, there is no recognition of this bedrock reality. If you do recognize the larger picture, you can't possibly care about impeachment, for example, or who wins these silly Democratic debates. All of that is theater, not reality.

The reality is ascertainable from the daily deluge of grim headlines—lead poisoning in the water causing irreversible brain damage in children, the rise of the “working poor,” near-daily mass shootings, America spending hundreds of billions on weapons of war while ignoring its crumbling infrastructure. Pundits and politicians have a tendency to treat all of these signs of pathology and dysfunction as isolated, but an unobstructed historical vantage point, which Berman’s work provides, suggests that all of America’s problems—from high rates of functional illiteracy to political corruption—are trees growing out of the same rotten roots.

Berman’s project becomes more excavation than analysis, demonstrating an affinity for radicalism, in the original sense of the term, which is identifying and criticizing an issue’s origin, rather than obtusely obsessing over its consequences. America, from its inception, was dedicated to commercial conquest, and equated “the pursuit of happiness” with the acquisition of wealth and property. The third book in Berman’s trilogy, Why America Failed, relies on assiduous research and sharp analysis to prove the case over its 400 pages. Meanwhile, the consistent papering over the more accurate story he tells, with red, white and blue advertisements, robs even many of the country’s leading dissidents of a holistic perspective. In his deployment of cultural criticism, Berman shows how, although his politics tend slightly toward the left, he is most in mourning over America’s destruction of tradition and refusal to balance its desires for commercial dominance with small scale, communal concerns:

Dating back 400 years—the continent was filled with individuals whose idea of the good life was goods, i.e. money and property. There were dissenting voices, such as Capt. John Smith and the Puritan divines, but these were increasingly pushed aside. The title of Richard Bushman's book, and the book itself, are good summaries of the process: From Puritan to Yankee. America was effectively born bourgeois; it had no feudal period. And while feudalism had its obvious drawbacks, it also had some serious advantages: community, craftsmanship, ties of friendship, meaningful work, noblesse oblige, and spiritual purpose, among other things. The American experiment was based, from the first, on hustling, opportunism; this is what the "pursuit of happiness" really meant in the eighteenth century—go out and get yours (which the Founding Fathers certainly did). "Virtue" originally meant putting the needs of society above one's own personal interests. By the late seventeenth century, the meaning had been inverted: it now meant personal success in an opportunistic environment. Blaming the corporate elite has its limits, because what virtually all Americans want is to join the upper 1 percent. Thus American spirituality, such as it is, can be summarized in a single word: More. More, more, I want more. Our leaders reflect our values, which is how America's consummate hustler, Donald Trump, wound up in the White House. In that sense, we have a genuine democracy.

In his seminal essay, “Democratic Vistas,” Walt Whitman worried that “genuine belief” had left American life. In the mad race for money and status, Americans were forgetting or neglecting the sociopolitical principles that could construct a spiritually strong society. For “genuine belief” to thrive, the believers must, in spite of their partisan or ideological disputes, maintain some adherence to tradition – a set of ideas, rites, and practices that form the foundation of their politics, behavior, and vision for the development of their culture.

Berman attempts to achieve a balance in his cultural and historical analysis by spotlighting societies where edifying traditions are steadfast, helping to anchor their respective cultures, and help inhabitants connect to each other with a shared sense of purpose. In Neurotic Beauty, Berman writes about Japan’s traditions of craft, family, and advantageous use of empty space in art and identity, and how those traditions are under siege by Japan’s own move to large scale, corporate capitalism. In Genio: The Story of Italian Genius, Berman examines the Italian gift of injecting space, movement, into static situations – the result of which is, arguably, the most significant creative legacy in the Western world.

It is not only through travel and study that Berman is able to contrast cultures that maintain some loyalty to their best traditions with the American fixation on commercial, technological, and militaristic “progress,” but also through his own experience. He asserts that the “best decision” of his life was moving to Mexico, and one of his worst decisions was waiting so long to do it. When I asked him about the “traditional society” of his Mexican home, as juxtaposed with his previous home in Washington, DC, he began with the caveat that “Mexico has been heavily Americanized, and traditional values—community, friendship, craftsmanship, spirituality—have accordingly been eroded in favor of hustling, individualism, alienation, and meaninglessness.”

Nevertheless, his move to Mexico was a “bet” on the lasting elements of tradition and communal life in Mexico, and it is one that has proven itself wise. Berman offers an anecdote to illustrate the camaraderie and generosity that often characterize his relationships and interactions in Mexico:

Something like this happens to me at least once a week, and it always wakes me up to the fact that I am not living in the US anymore. I live in an apartment building in Mexico City, one floor up. One day I was coming home from the supermarket, going up the stairs, carrying plastic bags full of groceries, and one of the bags broke. Contents spilled out all over the stairs and onto the ground: oranges, Diet Coke, whatever. At that point, at the top of the stairs, the door to the apartment there opened, and a 5-year-old girl peered out. Without saying a word, she came down the stairs and helped me put the spilled groceries back in the bags. When it was done, she went back upstairs and closed the door.

Berman would not argue that acts of kindness never take place in the United States, or that every single Mexican behaves according to an ethic of solidarity, but the rarity of friendly relations in America, and the breakdown of community, as documented at length by Robert Putnam, Sherry Turkle, and many other scholars, is not accidental.

“For one thing, girls are taught to fear men, in America (possibly with good reason),” Berman said, and added, “The sexes pretty much hate each other, or are at least wary of each other. But equally significant, Americans of all ages are taught to not help other people (we even arrest people who attempt to feed the homeless). Their problems are their problems, not yours. You are not your brother's keeper, and in general other people are rivals or enemies.”

America has failed to enact the social welfare policies of its democratic peers in Western Europe, but what Berman indicts goes to deeper to core of America’s character. America has also neglected to preserve its “bonds of voluntary association” that Alexis de Tocqueville believed were crucial to the health of the society. In that sense, Americans interested in conservatism might consider that their country is the least conservative in the world. It invests almost no effort in conserving anything, from the beauty of its natural environment to the social ties that are essential for a durable civilization.

The improvements of American life for blacks, women, gays, and workers were possible through the courageous social movements of the 20th century, and these are improvements that Berman admires. He cautions, however, that none of them address the central problem of American culture:

Those were certainly great successes, and they made a great difference for the people involved in those movements. Personally, I applaud them. The problem, however, is that all of them were bids to have a greater share in the American pie—bids to enter the dominant culture. None of them envisioned, a la Lewis Mumford, Henry David Thoreau, or Ernest Callenbach, a different type of society. They merely wanted a greater role in the society as is. The only group that stood for a completely different way of life was the Native Americans, and look what we did to them. The savagery of that genocide, of a people who dared to disagree with the American definition of "progress," is unbelievable.

When Martin Luther King turned more radical, expressing opposition to the “spiritual sickness” of America, rather than only its racist laws, the country turned on him. Similarly, Berman describes in his trilogy how most of the public mocked and ridiculed President Jimmy Carter for his televised "Spiritual Malaise" address, given in Annapolis in 1979—a speech that now appears prescient in its condemnation of uncontrolled consumerism, unabashed selfishness, and the stunning inability of the nation to observe its own behavior.

The candidates in the 2020 race for the presidency, including the president himself, routinely repeat the bromide that the election will determine the “direction” of the country. The "soul" of the nation is somehow always at stake, and yet regardless of who gets elected, things continue to spiral out of control. Morris Berman’s sobering assessment doubles as a “Dead End” sign, warning that the winner might influence the speed and comfort of travel, but that ultimately, we're headed for collapse.

[theangrypokemaniac]

Sinnoh has massive flaws as an era, although it's starting to feel like the good old days compared to the present piss-poor offerings.

The major drawback is the amount of 'recurring characters', ones not good enough to be in it fully, but inflicted upon us nevertheless.

I did care about Ash. I did care about Team Rocket.

I was prepared to care about The Misty Replacement, as in the girl shipped with Ash.

I was prepared to care about The Brock Replacement, that is the older brother figure who does all the cooking, carries the medicine, and knows about Pokémon.

I don't give a toss about extras who outstay their welcome.

Hoenn only had Drew and Harley. What was wrong with that?

There are just too bloody many.

Why does Dawn require so many opponents, as if she's of the greatest importance? Why won't Jessie suffice?

I accept the necessity of Paul as The Rival, and we were at least permitted to resent him initially, before the writers fanboy'd like there was no tomorrow.

I admit I liked two of them. They therefore featured the least.

Typical.

Nando

The Blondel of Iberia

A softly-spoken, raven-locked troubadour, roaming the many pathways of life, playing his songs for those weary travellers he encounters on the road.

He's wearing a cloak! The finest use of material to ever be invented!

All this ethereal grace considering the dub lumbered him with the most appallingly unsuitable name possible.

It could've been Raphael, or Dante, or Leonardo.

Oh no, let's name him after a restaurant chain. That adds gravitas.

His lyre pays tribute to Mew, because Nando knows she's The Rarest Of All Pokémon, thus refuses to be impressed by any deformed horse like Arceus throwing its weight around.

Damn straight.

Ursula

A pretty girl with lovely clothes and the spark of a proper personality.

You're not wanted round these parts, love.

I have no particular animosity towards Dawn, but it irritates me how the world revolves around her whims, where if she's lost in the woods, it's a major disaster, and if an attack heads in her direction, she must be protected in case she shatters.

It makes a refreshing change to find someone firmly inoculated against the lures of the temptress.

Also, alongside Ursula from Dinosaur King (the real Jessie), I'm glad of any attempt to reclaim that name, considering most of my generation, upon hearing it, think only about evil old octopus women.

As for the rest?

It's that bad I prefer the Unova bunch to these.

Reggie

Reggie is even more of a knob than Paul. As above, being Ash's enemy meant that, if only by narrative, he was intended to be somewhat disliked.

Not Reginald. No, he's the kind one.

Oh really?

When Ash and Paul have their showdown, Reg starts wittering that it's just as well Chimchar took up with Ash, since he wasn't suited to Paul's 'battle style'.

Battle style.

Is the what he calls mental and physical cruelty?

In Reg's amoral cesspit of a mind, there is no right and wrong, so do whatever you feel.

Reggie is quite aware of how his brother tortures Pokémon, and not only is he unconcerned, he excuses it with euphemism, hoping the audience will obligingly forget too.

What's more, he implies it's Chimchar's fault for not pulling his weight, and Paul abandoning him was the compassionate thing to do.

Cynthia

Suffering severe Bridge Nose Syndrome.

She may be Champion, but I don't remember Lance turning up all the time where he wasn't wanted.

She doesn't even use her influence properly. Rather than give it straight to Paul, order him to shape up and stop spanking the monkey, she fannies about with her cod mysticism, emptily preaching about how Ash and Paul are spiritually linked, with magical, beeyewteefull events taking form just because they met.

That's right, don't bother about Paul clearly being a psychopath, for 'tis ART!

It's the same as trying to convince me that Ash, Dawn and Brock were the Divine Trio because they all saw Something Nasty In The Lake District, as if they have an intrinsic bond foretold in ancient prophecy.

The writers pull this knowing two thirds of the Holy Trinity, plus Paul the Fallen Angel, will be leaving, at which point we'll be expected to stop being overawed at the great majesty they all apparently possess and transfer allegiance to their usurpers.

What's the point?

Angie

Yet another smackhead from that lunatic stare.

What shining genius decided giving all the characters contracted pupils was a good idea?

She looks like one of those kids whose parents dealt with nits the traditional way:

Shaving the entire head and painting it purple.

A barnet resembling privet hacked at by a paralytic gardener before he conked out.

I've seen her arc three or four times, and I still remember nothing about her, except for the amazing skill she possesses to make Ash sneeze on command from a distance.

Conway

One word: nonce.

A clichéd weirdo fitting into Pokémon's Four-Eyed Freaks fixation, where anyone with a slight visual impairment is a weedy, know-it-all bastard or on a register.

Oh yes, and this lad comes with hidden delights, because his glasses gleam like a giant cockroach, just in case he wasn't creepy enough.

Zoey

The human black hole. Has the incredible ability to suck all the joy out of a room just by appearing. A personage of absolute lead.

Too nice and over familiar, lacking a single detectable personality trait.

Bland, empty, and with the charisma of vomit-sodden cardboard.

Sinnoh is a prolonged saga as it is, padded with nonentities like her and Kenny.

Alright, episodes must be devoted to Dawn's Contest career, however tiresome it is, but why exactly do we need any about Zoey and Kenny? Why should we care?

Every time I sat through a competition Dawn lost, I resented that she was no further along on her quest, equating to another episode eaten away by this shallow, blackened hymn to superficiality.

Compare this indulgent treatment to the sneering disrespect shown to Jessie, an actual main character, who not only had to win her Ribbons practically off screen, but the writers delighted in hammering home how worthless she was in only scraping into the Grand Festival because Princess Salvia took pity on the deluded wretch.

They favour their own inventions over the original cast, then dump 'em as soon as the next generation arrives, so how could they ever matter if even the creators eagerly cast them aside?

After all the effort on my part to put up with the entire witless farce, Zoey beats Dawn in the finals!

Why?!

I understood the unspoken law of Ash not being allowed to win a League until the very last series, for fear whatever came after would be anticlimactic, but why should this deadening failure apply to May and Dawn?

By the culmination of the Contest rigmarole, it's obvious they'll be making their exit for the next region's Girl, so why couldn't either bid farewell to the fans with a victory?

Why must they be incompetent too?

Even if achieving their dream dampened any hunger to carry on, they're departing anyway, so what difference does it make?

At least Ash will continue, but for May and Dawn, it's the end.

How could any fan be satisfied with a smarmy vacuum of a creature like Zoey succeeding instead?

Barry

Eyes of molten evil.

The second-worst character ever created (Iris is top of the ranks), Barry is a smug, arrogant, screeching dweeb jabbering his oh-so endearing catchphrase about fining anyone who slightly irks him, so sure is he that his feelings should come above everyone else's

He truly believes he has a God-given entitlement to demand lesser lifeforms should arrange themselves to suit his pleasure, that they are morally compelled to shield him from  meagre inconvenience.

Twat.

Knocking the little geck out of the League was the most noble thing Paul ever did. It practically redeems him.

This is what I cannot comprehend:

Ursula is openly conceited, rude to Dawn, and brags about her own excellence even after losing.

We're asked to dislike her.

Barry slags Ash off constantly, is convinced of his own divinity, and jeers at Team Rocket.

We're supposed to see him as a 'good guy' and welcome his arrival.

Why? Are Ash and Team Rocket fair game, but offending Saint Dawn's intolerable?

Again, it astounds me how temporary, region-specific stars seem to count for more than those who've been here since the beginning.

Whilst they're here, that is. Once gone, you wouldn't know they'd existed.

Kenny

He wears a matador outfit to compete.

It's a crying shame Tauros was never given the opportunity to gore him.

As usual, it's Piplup I blame.

Each generation likes to flaunt the starter Pokémon, presumably in the hope of flogging more games, that's why Ash usually catches all three, or they're spread out amongst his friends.

It's about time Team Rocket had one.

Can't do that, they only appear five times per series now.

Piplup is a whiny attention whore who refuses to evolve. In consequence, he can't advertise the next stages in the evolution chain, so we have to keep seeing Barry and Kenny instead, that's why Empoleon and Prinplup are always walking about.

This equates to three characters having the same Pokémon, albeit in different incarnations.

There's variety.

However, Kenny's true purpose is much more grim than that.

Fans will ship Ash with The Girl, a useless endeavour when it's destined to come to nothing when she's kicked out.

In Hoenn and Sinnoh, an effort was made to wean shippers off in preparation for the upcoming split, so alternative suitors were introduced, with the girls effectively pushed on to them.

May got Drew.

I don't mind that. He had some refinements.

Dawn got Kenny.

...

What, you want me to cheer for such a revolting couple?

Have I not suffered enough?

What unpardonable crime did Dawn do to deserve such a horrible fate?

She's not a bad-looking girl. She can do better than an ugly, portly, shrunken, pie-faced cretin! 

You do this to me when Nando exists?

Sod the age gap, that never concerned anyone here.

This being the Kenny who spends four years belittling Dawn by constantly reminding her of a humiliating childhood experience, even giving her a nickname too!

Dawn is visibly distressed when he does this, but he's a fine candidate for romance?

She has to settle for a sweaty, lecherous herbert like him, who doesn't even try to atone for his unfortunate mug by being kind?

I suspect the whole Sinnoh adventure was really him wearing down her self-esteem until she believed he was the best available, wanting her to be grateful for his slobbery attentions.

It won't stop there either. He'll trap her for the rest of her life by isolating her from friends, followed by accusations of how undeserving she is of his 'love'.

Such is Dawn's lot: absent father, pushy mother, whinging penguin and abusive boyfriend.

Kenny's already a perv:

He's not looking at her face.

She knows he's not.

Ash and Pikachu have noticed an interesting feature further down.

Aipom likes it too.

[the-far-bright-center]

eventually, even stars burn out

“Sometimes there are things no one can fix.”

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve become increasingly concerned that my days in the SW fandom (or at least, the tumblr side of it) may be numbered.

I very much hope I’m wrong about this. So, on the slight chance that it might help somehow, I’ll try to explain why I feel this way right now.

As most of you know, I have an extremely fraught and complicated relationship with Disney’s so-called ‘new canon’ material, which all began when TFA left me so heartbroken that I’ve been unable to trust anyone at all with Star Wars ever since. I struggle to believe that the Skywalker saga will ever be treated with the adequate respect and care that it requires, and I fear that new material will only attempt to further erode its original mythic meaning....just so the ‘story’ can be continued on indefinitely. It is therefore difficult if not impossible for me to be excited about ‘new canon’ content, because ever since TFA I view every single piece of SW media released by Disney with (imo warranted) mistrust and skepticism.

After a certain SW animated series ended earlier this year, I had thought I would finally be free from the strain of constantly worrying about ‘new’ content. My blacklists covered most of the major things I didn’t want to see, and tumblr’s filter feature seemed to take care of the rest. It still took some careful navigating not to run into sequels-related crap and other random shit, but it was not impossible. I’d breathed a sigh of relief, and carried on minding my own business, living in my SW happy place where the things that distressed me didn’t exist.

But then some news broke, and suddenly, my hard-won calm was shattered. It felt like someone had kicked the heart right out of me. My carefully constructed safe space felt safe no longer. I’d thought the PT and TCW era would be safe from Disney, at least for a while. But I was wrong. It was like all the faint hope I had left for my ability to withstand the current Disney!SW onslaught fled from me in a single instant, and have been in a state of anxiety, depression, and despair ever since.

I’ve been so scared, because the last time I felt this despondent was after TFA, when I honestly thought I would never feel anything warm and light and beautiful about Star Wars ever again. And it ended up taking me YEARS to move beyond that, and to reclaim my feels and to get into the headspace I needed to be in to truly enjoy it again.

And I just... don’t know if I have that kind of energy anymore. The last three years have taken a huge toll (in RL I mean, not just in fandom). On top of my seemingly never-ending mental health struggles, I’ve had some physical ailments that went un-diagnosed for a long time and for which I’m only just starting to receive treatment. I’m always tired, mentally, physically, and emotionally. All of this makes the prospect of going through that same process all over again seem daunting, if not completely impossible.

Because back then, after TFA, when I felt that I’d ‘lost’ the Original Trilogy, I still had other places to turn. I was able to go back in time, and re-ignite my passion for SW again by re-watching the PT and TCW. But now? will those be taken from me too? have they already? is too late ?

(Have I just been delaying the inevitable, all this time?)

Horrible thoughts like this keep coming into my mind. Despite this, I haven’t given up totally...not yet. I’m still hanging on, or at least ...trying to. But in the midst of all this, I’ve been attempting to figure out what exactly is going on here. Why do these things upset me so badly that it causes me such intense emotional reactions? To the point that I can hardly converse with friends online anymore, without fear what they will say? To the point that I can’t even talk to my (very supportive) husband about Star Wars anymore without freaking out about spoilers?? To the point that I even end up feeling suicidal at times? Why does it feel like my whole world is collapsing?

Maybe it’s as simple as the fact that, when I was growing up, ‘Star Wars’ was always, from as long as I can remember, something that was ‘finished’. Complete. It was over. And its completeness was a source of comfort to me from the start. Here was a story that contained darkness and struggle, but which had an ending. And an uplifting, mythic, and spiritual one, at that.  And even later, when I was a teen and in my early 20s during the release of the Prequels, it was still something that had an end in sight. From the beginning of the PT, we knew that once those three episodes were over, the saga would be complete.

And that’s just the thing. With Disney’s Star Wars, there is no end in sight. It is something that, for all intents and purposes, could be dragged on indefinitely. And that thought is terrifying enough to make me start feeling panicky all over again. Years and years of feeling like this, all the time?? Dear Force, make it stop. D:

It’s becoming clear to me that it’s not just about one particular piece of media that I want to avoid. It’s not just the fact that something so close to my heart has at times been treated disrespectfully or even threatened with annihilation, and that I’ve felt helpless to prevent it. It’s not about my various and sundry issues with Disney’s version of SW. It’s not even that I believe that all of Disney’s SW output is inherently ‘bad’ or bound to be terrible just because it’s under the brand of Disney. I mean, I’ve been willing and able to ignore the aspects of ‘new canon’ that I loathe, and pick and choose from the bits that I do enjoy (which are few and far between, but do, occasionally, still exist). And law of averages would suggest there would have to be some decent or even, gasp, quality content at times (see: Rogue One, for instance).

So what, then, is *really* causing me so much pain and anguish on an almost daily basis? What is making my continued attempts to be part of the ‘fandom’ feel so incredibly futile?? It’s not the additions to canon themselves, but rather the frequency and sheer number of them, along with the fandom reception of these potentially infinite ‘additions’ that are causing me so much turmoil.

In the years since TFA, I’ve attempted to deal with this by viewing Disney’s ‘new canon’ as just another version of an Expanded Universe—in other words, as something optional that is not required in order to understand and appreciate the original, and that only needs to ‘exist’ in my mind and as a part of my headcanon if I wish it to. So, despite how much some of this material hurts me on a personal level, and despite the fact that the sheer amount of it makes it difficult to navigate around, up til now I’ve been able to continue as at least a semi-functional SW fan in its wake.

But lately, I’m beginning to be concerned that this method is not an adequate way of dealing with this. Because, even though *I’m* perfectly capable of ignoring the ‘new canon’ material that I don’t want to see, my need to ignore it makes it almost impossible for me to interact with 99% of the rest of the fandom.

And without interaction, a major component of fandom itself is missing. And it’s that sense of isolation and alienation that is killing me.

While tumblr as a platform has changed the face of online fandom for many (and made it unrecognizable to me in so many ways), I am still very old school in that I believe that the main purpose of fandom is to a) enjoy what we love to the nth degree, b) share what we love with each other, and c) through discussion about our shared fictional passions, create transformative fanworks, such as fanfiction, fan art, edits, fan vids, metas, etc.

This may seem like I’m stating the obvious, but unfortunately for a vast majority on tumblr, “fandom” has become less about the above, and far moreso about keeping up with actors’ and creators’ social media accounts, using fiction as a platform for ‘performative’ social justice in which people show off how ‘woke’ they are, and, worst of all (for me), constantly fixating on announcements, trailers, and news about ‘the next big thing’. It seems like, for many fans, speculation about upcoming releases is more important than enjoying the content that already exists. It’s what they LIVE for. And the minute those new pieces of media appear, everything else that came before is just... forgotten, or cast aside, in favour of it. This leaves me feeling like I’ve been left in the dust. Because, for me, the mere idea of ‘the next big thing’ fills me with nothing but extreme anxiety, depression, panic, as though I have a giant black hole in the pit of of my stomach. I live in utter DREAD of SW news. So my ability to relate to other fans and to interact with them on any meaningful level has greatly diminished due to this factor alone.

In a smaller fandom, where announcements maybe happen once or twice a year at most, I can often weather it. For example, several years ago, I left a fandom for a certain popular tv series, but remained semi-active just for the sake of one particular ship from it that I still loved. I was able to avoid most news and spoilers because it was just one show with one season per year, and that was it. But with SW in its current form, with Disney’s need to pump out new content on what seems like an almost weekly or even daily basis, it’s becoming too much for me to bear.

As I said in a previous post,

 “.....one of my many problems with Disney’s current treatment of Star Wars is that there is such a thing as ‘too much canon’. In the days of the EU, it didn’t matter how much of that was released, because any and all of it could be dismissed at a given time, because it was never official canon. But nowadays, EVERY DAMN THING has a film, book, show, comic series, animated short, video game, etc. about it. And this actually angers and distresses me, because it begins to leave less and less room for headcanons and for fans’ imaginations to run free. When there is SO much ‘official’ canon that it covers all the backstories and little ‘in between moments’, where is the freedom for writing fic and just…imagining things? Star Wars is not Marvel-verse, and should not be treated as such. Not all canon is (or even SHOULD BE) considered  ‘equal’, and this is something that, in pre-Disney times, was understood and respected. The main saga films were canon. That was it. The rest of it fell into various gradations of ‘sub’-canon. And imo, that is how it should, ideally, still be.” 

To have constant ‘additions’ to a canon that is as long-established as Star Wars feels completely disingenuous to me. So each time something new is announced, it feels like a breaking of the fourth wall. A chipping away at my ability to continue *believing* in Star Wars. It feels like someone keeps bursting into a completed story to try to mansplain it to me, saying, ‘ha, just kidding!! it’s been 30 years, 20 years, 10 years, 5 years (etc) that you’ve loved this and believed in this, but ACTUALLY the story is not REALLY over! look over here, we want to make money off you so we’re pretending the story is continuing even though it’s fake and forced!! haha!!!’  

Most of my Star Wars ‘feels’ are predicated upon a very simple premise, and that is the fact that the Skywalker saga (aka the PT and OT), AS IT EXISTS IN ITS ORIGINAL STATE, is the story of Anakin Skywalker, and that it is a complete and coherent myth, and an ultimately uplifting and redemptive tale. Everything I love about Star Wars comes back to Anakin Skywalker, his cosmic role as the Chosen One, and his eventual redemption. The fact that he, through the power of his son’s unconditional love, returns to his True Self, breaks free of his chains and sacrifices himself for his loved one, setting himself and the galaxy free. Everything depends on it, and revolves around it. My love of Anakin and Padme, my love of Obi-Wan and Anakin. My love of Snips and Skyguy, my love of Luke and Vader. My love of the Skywalker family, and their entire PT and OT storyline. And of course, my love of Anakin himself.

And what is more, all of the above is likewise dependent on the fact that the OT generations’ tale is an unequivocally heroic one, and that its heroism is complete and lasting, on both familial and galactic scale. It is not something left unfinished for the subsequent generation(s) to ‘complete’. The original saga as *I* know it does not require the ‘next generation’ in order to make it truly heroic. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the tragedy of the Prequels is completely redeemed by the end of Return of the Jedi. It is NOT carried forward as some kind of ‘curse’ onto the next generation. The Skywalkers are representative of the state of the galaxy, and, through Anakin and Luke’s story in the OT, both they and the galaxy itself are  reconciled and made whole again once and for all. That is the entire point of the Chosen One prophecy, and of the metaphysical, galaxy-freeing role that redemptive love plays in the (original) Skywalker saga. If that seems ‘unrealistic’ to contemporary audiences, well, you know what?? Too freaking bad!! Star Wars is not supposed to be ‘realistic’, it’s supposed to be a MYTH.

Take that away, and there IS no Star Wars for me.

And yet, that is exactly what TFA attempted to do. It attempted destroy this basic long-held truth, and with it my ability to love and feel even anything remotely positive about Star Wars,  its story, and its characters. And so it is understandable, I would hope, that ever since then I would greet new ‘additions’ to the original canon with extreme mistrust, skepticism, and even outright despair.

But despite my (imo) perfectly legitimate and justifiable reasons for feeling this way, I still realize that having such, erm, extreme reactions to even the mere prospect of new or additional content is not ‘normal’. ‘Normal’ fans are happy when they get new ‘canonical’ content right?? Unfortunately, I am not and will likely never be able to be a ‘normal’ fan in this way. When it comes to Star Wars, I will never be able to feel even the remotest bit of excitement for any such new canon content. (Which, in this case, more often than not simply means ‘officially sanctioned by a giant corporation, created under a set of confusing, disjointed, and entirely arbitrary standards, and deemed permissible for you to consume and ‘believe in’ as a real version of characters and events’, but I digress...).

Everything I love and understand about Star Wars existed before Disney ‘did’ anything to it, and everything that I still value about Star Wars to this day is likewise not dependent on whatever Disney might try do to it in the present or future. But even though I know this on an intellectual level, whenever there is new content coming out, it nonetheless still feels like a mortal threat, looming on the horizon. It feels like it’s going to try to take away everything I love all over again. And I fall into despair because I honestly lack the strength to fight it.

(Or at least, I lack the strength to fight it alone.)

And so unfortunately, from my perspective (even though I know that of course people don’t intend it to come across this way), when other fans get so excited about the new stuff, and when it seems like they so readily just accept it without question, it ends up leaving me feeling as though I’ve been left behind. As though what *I* love is, in their eyes, not enough. That somehow, the original Skywalker saga is not enough. That loving Lucas-era canon, but not Disney’s, is just me limiting myself or ‘missing out’ somehow. Whereas, from my perspective, the original material IS ‘enough’. It feels complete. It IS complete. Believing it’s not complete seems to me to be exactly what Disney wants people to think, so they can justify all of their never-ending additions, re-writes, retcons, and continuations.

And thus every time Disney churns out more content, and I see people around me acting like this content is not just a fun (and entirely optional) addition, but is rather something essential that all fans ‘deserve’ and need (despite having been perfectly fine without it for years, if not decades), just makes me feel even more alienated than I already do. Again, it’s not merely the existence of the constant stream of ‘new’ content that is killing me, but rather the fact that this content is greeted with elation by what seems to be the majority of fans these days. Yeah I know this makes me sound like I’m just resentful and bitter that other people are happy. Please know I don’t begrudge others’ happiness. Rather, I’m just struggling with the fact that while others are excited, I cannot be, thus leading me to feel isolated and left out.

But since the last thing I want is to rain on anyone’s parade, I try to be sensitive to this. Other than my various early anti-TFA rants (which I got out of my system years ago), for the most part (with the occasional exception), I’ve been keeping mum on these matters. But more often than not, in order not to be a source of negativity to others, I just end up hiding away, not talking to anyone, retreating further and further within myself  to the point that I wonder what I’m even doing here anymore.

The level of pain and anxiety and stress that all of this—from the constant stream of new content, to fans’ reception of it, to my own desperate attempts to avoid and ignore it—causes me cannot be adequately summed up in just a few words. I struggle to convey how I feel to most people because I honestly don’t know how to explain it. I feel ridiculous for even writing it down. It sounds so silly when I type it out, even though in my heart and mind, this is a very real and debilitating issue. Every time something new is announced, I become sick to my stomach, I can’t eat or sleep, I have intrusive, racing thoughts, and I feel that I have to hide out for days, weeks, or even months. I have to limit who I can talk to, and WHAT subjects I can talk to them about. And each time, it begins to feel more and more futile to even bother trying to avoid everything. Like trying to swim upstream, or to remain upright in a tidal wave. It is a constant onslaught, and I’m not sure how much longer I can weather it.

(Yes, there are some underlying mental health issues going on here that no doubt contribute to things on some level. However, it’s a complicated situation, because for many years I have been turning to fandom as a sort of therapy for myself. My most beloved fictional universes, characters, relationships, and stories are a safe-space for me, a refuge I can retreat into when my existence becomes unbearable. A coping mechanism. I don’t use that term lightly either... some days, it literally keeps me alive. And so when that coping mechanism feels like it’s being ripped away, my downward spiral into the abyss is terrifyingly swift indeed. But this is an extremely personal matter, which I won’t go into any further here, because I don’t want to diminish the topic at hand, which is a legitimate and very real struggle of mine, and is something that affects me regardless of the state of my mental health at a given time.)

Just to be clear, I’m not trying to worry anyone. I’m not planning on going anywhere just yet, and hopefully not for a while. This blog is too important to me. The people I’ve met here are too important to me. Star Wars, such as it exists in my heart, is too important to me. Despite the fact that I’m struggling emotionally, and despite the fact that it’s increasingly difficult for me to find content for this blog, I have been determined not to abandon it, and have made sure that I have a queue ready for the days when I don’t feel up to posting.

That being said, I do feel the need to be honest here about just how much of a struggle it has been to hold on, and just how alienated I have felt from so much of what is considered the normal fandom experience. And to express my anguish and despair over the fact that I can never, ever be innocently excited about new content being released in this Disney era. Doesn’t matter what it is, or who makes it. Ever since TFA, I am simply unable to ever feel happy that it even exists in same world that I inhabit. And this makes me fear for my longevity in a fandom that seems to thrive on the very thing that I abhor most and that fills me with constant dread.

While I’m uncertain these days as to whether ‘happiness’ is even possible for me in this physical existence, I do feel that my fandom experience ought to be, at the very least, a source of comfort. But as more and more of my SW safe-spaces are eroded, as more and more words must be blacklisted, as more and more tags become ‘off limits’ to me, I have fewer and fewer corners of this fandom to which I can turn.

I wish things were not like this. I wish *I* were not like this. It would be so much easier if I could just be happy like everyone else. But sadly, it seems that when it comes to being able to participate in and enjoy SW fandom in its current form, something in me is fundamentally, irreparably, broken.

What I hope to accomplish by writing and posting this, I’m not entirely sure. Obviously, I am not trying to make anyone feel bad for enjoying what they enjoy. Nor am I even seeking ‘validation’ on this matter. Because, while there are no doubt others out there who feel similarly (and *big hugs* to them if they do), I am not actually looking for commiseration or to ‘wallow’ in misery at this time. For some reason that just makes things a hundred times worse. Because...I’m still trying to hold out hope that even someone as damaged as myself can nonetheless continue to love Star Wars and even be part of an active online community.

So for now, I just needed to get this off my chest in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, by doing so, I can find a way back from this.  

[coreymichaelsmithson]

The Spaniard

I was once given a gift of love by a stranger.

It lasted only a few hours of one evening, but it seemed like an époque, an age of unalloyed bliss. I could, of course, elucidate for you the mechanics of our pleasure … pepper this text with explicit particulars, offer up all the "naughty bits" that people love to fixate on. With a few choice expletives, I could stir your discomfort or your titillation, your outrage or your envy. But I'll spare you all that, and share with you instead the emotional epiphany that bloomed within this one encounter. Trust me, as I lead you into and out of the hothouse.

The stranger and I walked towards one another from opposite ends of a hallway … both of us clad only in towels, striding barefoot by closed doors, from behind which we could hear all the moans and slaps and sighs of a place like this, a place where men gather to lose themselves in pleasure, or pain, or both. In the dim center of the hall, we passed one another, unable to see much more than our outlines … for in a house of red lights, there are only silhouettes, blurry and unfixed suggestions, just enough visibility to define a few salient details. You can see things that suggest the paintings of Francis Bacon: cages, metal rails, open mouths, anatomy lit by televisions or neon, torsos half-cloaked in shadow, limbs dangling from slings, nightmarish smears instead of faces. Club music pulses from hidden speakers. If you have a checklist of sorts, and many men do, you could stand under a bare bulb, and see if each potential dance partner passes muster ... but you probably wouldn’t glean very much, because certain kinds of dark have a real thickness to them.

I could not see him, but I could feel him, even from a distance.

The gravity in the room had changed. Suddenly, we were like two comets of equal mass, each interrupting the other's trajectory, turning until we were in a locked orbit around one another, spinning together through the glittering dust of space and time. He guided me backwards through the hall, until we stood under a lantern, and we looked into one another's eyes, and everywhere else, and nothing that I saw under the scarlet lamp surprised me, save for the irresistibility of his dimples. But in that moment, I knew him, and he knew me.

The first thing I did was to place my hand upon his heart, and he placed his own hand atop it. I reached up with my free hand, and ran my fingers through his beard, and he did the same with mine. The hair on his jaw was soft, luxuriant. He closed his eyes, and I could feel his grin more than I could see it. Everything else fell away: the DJ's music and its insistent "untz-untz-untz", the reek of poppers and desperation, the nearby custodian with his latex gloves and disinfectant. We were alone.

Arm in arm, we walked back to the room I had rented. It featured a narrow twin-sized bed, with the cheap kind of plastic-covered mattress that is easy to clean. There was a storage locker beneath, and a monitor on a tilted bracket, and a mirrored wall. Not much for décor, but it was sufficient.

After an initial, overpowering rush of ardor, we strung our remaining hours together with long passages of conversation. I learned all that I could. He was an architect, and a polyglot … born and raised in Spain, now living in Germany and working in France. While men in other rooms around us groaned through their catalogue of kinks, their grunted litanies, the architect and I just lay there, naked and entwined, and talked about art. We talked about Matthias Grünewald's "Crucifixion", the interpenetrating forms of Moshe Safdie's "Habitat 67", the genius of the Centre Georges Pompidou, and Moroccan food. We talked about Serge Gainsbourg, Divine, Carravaggio, the Taj Mahal, Versailles, Berlin's decadent years, and Bernini's "Ecstasy of St. Theresa" … to which, a short while later, my facial expression would be favorably compared. Our conversation flowed with such ease, such candor … it seemed we had been friends for years, rather than minutes. Obviously, we did much more than talk, but our dialogue was every bit as stimulating as all of the nonverbal, concupiscent business.

Men in our culture are trained from an early age to avoid intimacy. Vulnerability and emotional availability are seen as a weakness. Even platonic affection is looked upon unfavorably. The "bro-hug", in which the two parties' bent arms and clasped fists form a boundary, a barrier to real closeness, is an unsatisfying expression of our anxiety. Men are so starved for touch that we sexualize and even pathologize our needs; love becomes horseplay in the locker-room, trust becomes violent sport, lust becomes wrestling, and curiosity becomes a secret assignation in an underground cave. Men are encouraged to swallow their emotions, wall up their desires, and refrain from physical bonding. As a result, some butch dudes are drawn to heavy BDSM scenes as a way of coping with this conflict … own pain before it owns you, use ritualized shame to regain a sense of control. “Real men” punch each other instead of kissing. “Real men” rape or get raped.

In this setting, in this harsh climate, two men lying peacefully in each other's arms can feel like a revolutionary act.

All around us, we heard sounds of guys hurting one another, or begging to be hurt. All of the devils in Hell were howling. Masculinity became a showy, loud parade of safewords and signifiers, and from behind a hundred closed doors rose a chorus of denials, denigrations, demands. Meanwhile, in the midst of all this, the architect and I embraced. As our neighbors spat and hurled invective at one another, the Spaniard and I examined, and fondled, and praised all that we touched. We took our time to explore, without fear of reprisal or rejection, and to enjoy all the soft, yielding sensations of adoration.

What I remember most is the sense of permission. Permission to touch, to look, to sniff, to taste, to explore, to enjoy. Permission to relax, to be present, to lounge lazily together on the cheap mattress, nuzzling, with neither goal nor expectation. I rested my head on his chest while he pressed words and kisses onto my brow. Later, during one of our numerous sweating ascents, as we worked together towards our white hot rewards, I stared upwards into his eyes, and received his gaze in return, holding his face between my hands as we moved in unison. We felt unashamed. There was nothing dirty in our coupling, nothing furtive or tainted. It was pure.

A few hours later, after a refreshing shower, we left the bathhouse together and walked through Capitol Hill, ground zero of Seattle's queer life. As a teenager, I had spent a great deal of time there. When I was a young punk-tinged faggot in the height of the AIDS era, this neighborhood was holy ground. It was the first place where I saw that love could be weaponized. It was the first place where I wore queer clothing, hung out with my queer friends, raised my fist in queer solidarity. It was where I could try on various adolescent identities to see what would stick: affected conceptual artiste, potsmoking poet in a black beret and hoop earring, goth queen with runny mascara and ratted hair, pacifist protestor in army jacket and combat boots. Capitol Hill was my real schoolhouse, long after I had abandoned the silly structures of high school. I explained all of this to the Spaniard as we strolled, arm in arm, through the soft, tepid drizzle.

He wanted to sit for a while. We found a quiet, romantic restaurant, the kind of joint with pressed tin ceilings and good lighting. The kitchen was closed, but he got a beer and I got a coffee. There, away from the red bulbs, away from the growling animals, I could look deeply into his eyes, and really study him, and I found that he was even more beautiful than before.

But for all of his graces, and there were many, the Spaniard had one very strange, slightly unsettling aspect … his face kept changing.

It wasn't just his expression. He looked utterly different from moment to moment, shockingly so. His ethnicity was impossible to guess. All the countries of Eurasia battled for supremacy over his features; sometimes he appeared Greek, sometimes Italian, sometimes Turkish, sometimes Dutch. Between sentences, his eye color changed, his nose grew longer or shorter, his cheekbones raised or lowered, his hair thinned or thickened. I've known a few shapeshifters in my life, and have studied other historical ones, people like Feodor Chaliapin, but I have never before encountered one as startlingly adept as this. If I were not so completely convinced of his kindness, his abundant and quite obvious goodness, I would be terrified by the plasticity of his appearance. I gasped aloud a few times as I watched it happen. I knew that I was not going mad, that I was not hallucinating. His face was transforming itself before my eyes. He was an angel who couldn't choose which human skin to wear.

We lingered for a long while, trying the patience of the waitstaff, who were probably eager to finish up their tickets for the evening. We talked about his life in Germany, his upcoming teaching appointment at a university in France. We talked about our relationships, the failures and the successes, the crushed dreams and the enduring flames. We tried to compress as many of our life stories as we could into the tiny space between us.

I told him about the fate of my poor William, who slid into a spiral of drugs and madness and loneliness, a decline that ended with his putrefaction in a darkened hallway. The Spaniard listened to all this, wide-eyed and silent, nodding, and he held my hand throughout. After I finished, and was left at a loss for words, surprising myself once again by the intensity of my grief, he came round the table without a word and held me, cradling my head against his bosom, stroking my hair. He did this with no self-consciousness, even though we were sitting right by the front windows, in plain sight of the passersby. It was the sweetest expression of love, abundant love, and I drank of it like a burnt man in the desert.

Shortly after midnight, I walked him back to his hotel. It had gotten colder, after the rain. Our arms remained wrapped tightly around one another the entire time. We came at last to his place, where he would meet his traveling companion; they would head off in the morning to Vancouver, and then onwards to home. We kissed, and then I confessed what I had known, with absolute certainty, since I first placed my hand upon his breast … that I loved him. And I meant it, so much so that I felt as if a part of my heart were being wrenched from its anchors. And then I walked away, smiling but reluctant, shoving my hands into my pockets and leaning into the quickly chilling air. The night collapsed between us like the Red Sea.

It's quite unlikely that I'll ever see him again. He lives, after all, on the other side of the ocean, near the intersection of Germany, France, and Switzerland, where he has all the riches of Europe at his disposal … while I live in a vapid cultural wasteland, where teenagers eat detergent and racists burn their shoes. I'm desperately poor, and don't know how I could possibly get back to that part of the world.

But, it doesn't really matter, anyway. He gave me the gift that I needed. Right as we were about to part, I realized, as he held his lips against mine, that the intensity of our coupling was as much a matter of urgency as it was pleasure. Seeing the approaching end of something brought every moment into sharp relief. Yes, we met in a lurid place, and yes, our romance could only last for one evening. But the fleeting nature of this encounter helped give shape to our joy, definition to our goodwill. Our dalliance was not the vast ocean of a long marriage, with many tempests and calms; ours was a tiny alpine pond, ringed with wildflowers and glinting in the sun, lasting only a season, or a tidepool that came alive for a few hours, rippling atop a shoreline rock. In its brevity it was perfect. In the days to come I will think of him, and cherish our one flawless night, turning it over and over again in my mind like a faceted jewel, a gem made more brilliant by its rarity. And the next time I'm asked what it means to fall in love at first sight, I will recall the Spaniard, and his devastating dimples, and his gentle radiance … and while I must keep for myself much of what he whispered to me, in the dark, I will later relay in short conversational bursts our glimpse of heaven, our small but significant triumph over wickedness, and what we discovered together in the middle of the bathhouse, way down in the lowly maze where men descend together, into the depths, under the infernal glare of red.

[theconservativebrief]

Every week, we pick a new episode of the week. It could be good. It could be bad. It will always be interesting. You can read the archives here. The episode of the week for July 8 through 14 is “Love Is the Message,” the sixth episode of the first season of FX’s Pose.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a show structured like Pose, FX’s ’80s-set exploration of drag ball culture and LGBT lives in AIDS-era New York, much less one structured like Pose that is as good as this one. With every week, it opens a new door to a new corner of its world, then thoroughly explores that corner, before moving on to something else the next week. Its episodes are adding up to something, but they’re also slices of life, quick glimpses of character, of emotion, of story.

This is welcome in a world where it often seems as though every TV show should come with its own dedicated Wiki, which viewers can furrow their brows over as they watch. “Now who was that? And how do they relate to that other character? And what secrets are they keeping?”

That’s not the case with Pose. I was tempted to call Pose simple, but that gives the wrong impression. What it is is clean, and elegant. The storytelling is always clear, and you always know where every character stands with every other one, despite the show’s rapidly expanding ensemble.

All of this is on display in abundance in “Love Is the Message,” the show’s first truly great episode, the first episode of American television ever directed by a trans woman of color (Janet Mock), and one of the best episodes its producer and co-writer, the mega-mogul Ryan Murphy, has ever been involved with.

Angel has a sad moment. FX

As I wrote in my initial review of Pose, the series is an elaborate stew of nods and references to other pop culture that deals with this era, some of it stemming directly from that era and some of it other works made in the intervening decades.

There’s nothing wrong with this. All TV shows are built atop their influences, and usually consciously so. (TV’s production schedule is so fast that it’s often hard to disguise just where the lifts are coming from.) But it’s also meant that the show has had to figure out how it wants to approach the AIDS crisis in its storytelling. Given its setting and characters, AIDS isn’t something Pose can ignore. But it also seems aware at all times that when it talks about AIDS, it’s competing not just with other TV shows but also with titanic works of American pop culture.

“Love Is the Message” isn’t the show’s first stab at telling a story about AIDS — indeed, the show’s fourth episode, “The Fever,” might have been even more interested in the effects of HIV. But it’s the first real look at what it would mean not just to live with the virus but to live in a time when so many of your friends were dying, and when even people whose lives ostensibly had nothing to do with the LGBT community might have found themselves marked by its passage.

It focuses on the character of Pray Tell, a drag ball emcee played by the great stage actor Billy Porter, who has been very good on the show to this point, but mostly in the role of introducing what has become the show’s most recognizable bit of dialogue, every time he purrs, “The category is…” before introducing a new drag show. But “Love Is the Message” traces Pray Tell’s journey through the last few weeks of his lover’s life, as he watches his boyfriend wane and finally die. And then Pray Tell himself, who is HIV positive, has to consider what he will do to ensure some sort of legacy once he finally passes on.

What “Love Is the Message” made me feel, acutely, was how much those who lived through the AIDS crisis almost seemed to believe it was coming to wipe a whole community off the map. Pray Tell wonders if anyone will remember those who are LGBT if the disease kills all of them, before bitterly concluding that, no, the rest of the world will simply move on and relegate them to a footnote in history. AIDS was ignored for so long, the show argues, because the disease was convenient to mainstream society, killing only those who were kept far away from the center of stories like this one.

But there were two big reasons that changed. The first was art, the vibrancy of queer culture reaching up into the mainstream and shaking it just enough to make those who lived in heterosexual, cisgender complacency realize that those who were not like them were living full, human lives, too, and those lives were being cut tragically short. As this episode ends, Pray Tell seems intent on developing some sort of testament, a message to the future that he and others like him existed. It’s not hard to wonder if Pose itself is that testament.

But the second big reason is right there in the episode’s title. Love is understandable and undeniable. It’s impossible to really get to know two men who are in love and deny what that love is, just as it’s impossible to mistake the look of sadness mixed with longing on the face of trans sex worker Angel (Indya Moore) when she sees her cis guy lover, Stan (Evan Peters), again for the first time in months. (He, similarly, looks overcome.) Love and art transcend the walls that would otherwise divide these characters. And that might as well function as a mission statement for Pose itself.

Stan and Patty work out their differences. (Or don’t, as it were.) FX

It’s perhaps easy to look at Pose and write mostly about its flashiest sequences and moments — those drag balls, or Stan’s work for Donald Trump (who is never seen, like he’s Vera on Cheers or something), or the show’s many layers of performance. They are the most obvious qualities to take home about the series.

But poke underneath those qualities, and you’ll find a show that is intent on underlining the basic humanity of all of these characters, no matter who they are and no matter what they do. In “Love Is the Message,” Mock underlines this by giving almost every member of the cast a moment when they’re framed, dead-center, in a close-up, so that we realize Pray Tell’s story of love taken away from him is also Stan’s story of same and vice versa.

This makes the show feel like, of all things, Mad Men, which also took a wide view of its characters and their lives, even if it was solidly fixated on points-of-view that were well within the mainstream of American pop culture of the time. Mad Men was happy to realize when its characters fucked up, but it always empathized with their fuck-ups, with the idea that they might find their way to some better self if enough time passed. Don Draper might have cultivated the image of a perfect man, but he was empty and broken inside. Mad Men relished that contradiction.

The same is broadly true of Pose, but it reverses the equation almost exactly. Here, the lead characters are those whose society has dubbed them undesirable, who have a plague threatening to wipe them out. And at all turns, the series underlines the ways that they have constructed their own families that are, perhaps, more wholesome than the families that kicked them out in the first place. It is an argument for the primacy of the found family in America that makes its case not by banging a drum, but by simply depicting a bunch of people who have nowhere else to go and find somewhere to go in each other.

Indeed, the one reason Stan is such a prominent character on the show is because he’s a seemingly typical go-go ’80s executive who finds himself flummoxed when his connection to Angel reveals itself to be tender, genuine, and loving. The show never mistakes Stan for a romantic hero — he’s cheating on his wife, after all — but it does depict the ways in which opening a door to acceptance within yourself can cause you to lose your footing in ways that might terrify but also, eventually, reveal their wonders.

“Mother’s Day,” the episode immediately preceding “Love Is the Message,” explores this directly, via stories of the various characters’ relationships with their biological parents and how those relationships are complicated by their very beings. Pose more broadly is a show about how its characters survived being cast out to the fringes of society by those who were supposed to love and care for them and by fiction that refused to depict them as they were and by a plague that seemed hellbent on killing them, only to emerge, stronger than ever, on the other side of that banishment. In an uncertain world, it’s a much-needed balm.

Pose airs Sundays at 10 pm Eastern on FX.

Original Source -> FX’s Pose offers a soulful look at the AIDS crisis — and its best episode yet

via The Conservative Brief

[negativehome-blog]

This book is dedicated to my brother.

 As always, there is no proof. There is only a statement. Believe in the statement and you will sail. Try to argue with it and you will die.

 Inside of all people is one word, a courageous word that cannot die. I may as well write because art is dead, no one cares, so you have to say what you want to say then die. The Earth is not right, there’s nothing inherently good about it. Yes, there’s money. There’s children. Pretty women. But they’re all nothing compared to death.

It’s too hard to communicate what you want to say without killing yourself. Is all communication death? Is the only flavor in my mind the flavor of death? My friend Spencer told me that he’s working on a new film. He’s a filmmaker based in Sacramento. I said to send over the script and I’d let him know what I think. It’s a good script but it has no soul, it’s deeply in doubt and full of awkward lines and decent plot work but ultimately it comes up short. I don’t know what to say to him so I’m only going to text him that I’ve read it and it does reflect him well and it reminded me of him and all the good times we’ve had.

 It’s never going to end. The end is near but it’s never going to end. When the quiet comes and the simple phrases are bagged and sold, the music will never be the same. The season of time will end and all of the youth will be captivated. But no one will care.

 Am I a demon? Are all my friends disgusted by my bad habits, my addictions, my frank manner? Do I even have any friends? What is worse, being lonely or stupid? I’m choosing stupid right now, working hard to get my head right and then I’ll worry about making friends. I mean, what does anyone know really? Is there any truth? I don’t think so. So why have friends at all? They’re only there to be happy and love you. There’s no use for that in my world. I was art and hate and anger, I want death and sadness. Those are the only things that matter.

 Am I running out of time? My head hurts and I’m worried that I might lose control of my body, what if cancer overcomes me or what if my head explodes. I want to text my friend back but I’m worried I might offend him, or he might offend me. I am not honest anymore like I used to be, I try to stay hidden and become a different man than I was the moment before.

 Vagabond remorse of a plastic spoon which suffocates under the nasty sun, while Joan and I are surfing the web and listening to songs by a band she likes, a band I’ve never heard of, a band called Ground Up, they’re a rap group, I like them, they sound down to Earth and have nice flow. Decency was becoming something to me, like wine dancing with the mouth of a friend. I was once her friend and now I am her enemy. How can I explain that to my conscience?

 I don’t plan on being here long, but I do hope to have some idea of myself in the future. To see a certain star and know that there is no hope without me, that maybe I mean something. According to Bob Dylan, I’m the last great American writer. I know that is true but I also feel like a fraud. I feel like Mike Wallace of the Pittsburgh Steelers, or Cal Ripken Jr, someone with a voice and a possible dream but ultimately I have no choice but to stay too long and fight too hard, eat too much and cry too much.

 A senior year portrait of a boy with no idea where he is going, sad and scared, totally useless. He is devoid of mind and spirit, he is only laughing at the soda cans and the vibrators, he is only in cahoots with the sailors and the fragmented realities, the realness of a squirrel or a pine cone, the obvious nature of a tube of toothpaste. He is seductive and he runs when people call his name. He has no future and no past. He is only an alcoholic and an adventurer, a seasman and a logician. He tries very hard to entertain his family and friends, but they all need love instead of happiness. They all want pussy instead of food, they all want poetry instead of songs. I have nothing to offer! I am held captive by my own mind, lusting for the trust of a million women and a million men. I want to be adored by thousands! Instead I am at home watching Sex and the City, far away from the city, in a remote Texas town without any hope of reaching my dreams. I strive for a music sense of self or a time warp test or anything of value, but all I have is a glass of water and a bowl of fruit.

 I certainly don’t care about someone like Betsy DeVos. I just don’t think her narrative infiltrates mine. It makes me selfish and a man of poor taste, but I have no choice. If the shoe was on the other foot I would care, I would need to care. But I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to care for me. I certainly would have no idea what to do, and I wouldn’t argue or fight. I would simply go to work and pray, just like I do now. Nothing would change, but I would probably have something to say about Betsy DeVos.

 I’m writing a book because I need money. It may be awful, may be great. It’s up to you.

 Diseased infancy on an iconic soda can.

 Something creepy becomes something lovely, a bird of prey operating heavy machinery on top of the Empire State Building. There is a vacuum above the centerpiece and a phallic symbol on the side of the car. Dragons are calling each other names while circling the sky, a heathen is dressed like a banker and he files his paperwork and goes to school. No one is sacred and no one means anything. We are all vacuous and ugly, despondent and respected only when we repeat the phrases we are told to repeat. We are nothing but skunks and foul mouthed egoists and necessary fictions that repeat until all of God is in the eye of a young boy, who stands next to a young girl and sings a song that no one has ever heard, who plays guitar and listens as the girl taps the drum, signaling the start of a new era. We are at peace with the safety in the sky, we are at peace with war.

 Microphone hangover on the left of the vacuum, where a giant moon is calling me a cunt and hanging out with my ex girlfriend. A disguised android is walking into the captivating, abstract function and my heart has become a giant thumb. Can you help me discover my past? My friend won’t text me back because he has too much heart, and I have too much soul, and he thinks I’m better off without him. I know I’m not better off without him, I know I need him like the night needs the day or the moon needs the sun, but he is being obstinate. I am watching CNN and trying to identify with this country.

 Doubt has crippled me like a bottle of wine hitting the cement. I have become a slave to confounding truths and am only alive when my heart is sinking, when the fleshy brain I have is always on the move and turning. I have no home without song but I am too tired to play guitar or sing. I can only write this manifesto.

 Social critics are as useful as dead ends. Social critics are a useful as doubt.

 The people I love have been praying for me, but I seem to be alone always with a vacuum stuck to my chair and a thousand wishes that will never come true. My heart tingles with a giant fixation that I will never shake. Where is Karen? I called her an hour ago and she’s still not here. We were going to play video games and smoke weed but she’s still not here.

 I cannot see straight anymore, my velvet head has become a sock and her arms are trying to lift me but I feel too bogus to play along. I looked back at pictures I sent my girlfriend a couple years ago, and I come off as such an asshole. I was trying to impress her and all she could do was laugh and try to make me less self-conscious. I am a loser and I know it, all my life I’ve been one, and now I’m beginning to see.

 A Season In Hell By Rimbaud is the reason I’m writing this. I think he’s the truest writer ever and that poem is his truest manifestation. But I am not a poet and I don’t hope to be. Poets are liars and riddlers, I am more of a straight shooter. I believe in politics and evil and sex, things that poets reject. I believe in countries and law and disease, things that poets take for granted. I do not wish to be a poet, but sometimes I may appear to have a poetic grace that it merely my understanding of a past I have never had.

 Decency of poetry is starting to climb into my mind. Is poetry real? What is the written word? I don’t believe the world needs anymore words, certainly not anymore written words, but I have no choice. What else am I to do? I am not Sinclair Lewis and I am not Basquiat, I am not Warhol or Bowie. I’m not Alexander McQueen. I am not an artist. I am simply a man who wants to express his ideas. Writing is the simplest way.

 I sit pondering the wealth in my heart with a twitch and a hammer and a sneeze. My arms have become my legs and my airs are as important as my heart. My girlfriend is in Brazil. She is taking classes and trying hard to be discernable and fun. She’s not fun, she’s boring and I can’t wait until she comes home so I can break up with her. Songs are playing while I write, Animal Collective, and the dancing verses are inspiring. I like Animal Collective but don’t love them.

 Sardonic, incestual disease keeps repeating itself. I’m wondering if this song is good or not, if I’m write or wrong, if the future has no future, if lives are more important than art, if decency is the ultimate struggle. I find it hard to examine the truth. I’ll never understand the truth and I don’t want to.

 Sleeping with a girl is the most important thing. Everything else dies when that happens. Falling in love, it is eternal. I don’t see anything more important. Maybe love of family and friends. Maybe washing the dishes and combing my hair, maybe watching TV. Other than that there is nothing on Earth more important than loving another human in a romantic way.

 What if its not enough? The world is waiting with bated breath, the world is a Nazi and I am a communist Leftist who needs war in order to survive. My drum has become my fuel and my heart is as big as the ocean, but also as small as a tributary. And dust is nothing when you’re so focused on the truth! I hate the truth, it is pathetic and smarmy. I am a Nazi who is hated by his civilization. Control me and you die!

 Call me what you want, call me anything! I am nothing but the words you speak, nothing but the emails you send or the comments you post. I am nothing!