“I told my wife the truth. I told her I was seeing a psychiatrist. Then she told me the truth: that she was seeing a psychiatrist, two plumbers, and a bartender. ”
–Rodney Dangerfield
Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam is one of those French Symbolists who probably smoked too much hash and washed it down with too much absinthe while reading too much Poe. He had the sort of poverty stricken and disreputable life that teenagers might find romantic. He’s obscure. That’s a damn shame.
His 1883 story, “The Glory Machine”, part of the collection called either “Sardonic Tales” or “Cruel Tales” is a wonderful example of satiric science fiction.
The story is s sort of advertisement for a machine that will guarantee glory for a play. It is the perfected Claque.
(The Claque is a small group paid either to applaud or boo a performance. In politics the technique is at least as old as the Romans and, in theatre, at least as ancient as the Greeks.)
“The Glory Machine” is both a prediction of the laugh track and about the easily bent mentality of the mob.
In describing the Claque:
“A living statue sitting openly in the midst of the audience, the Claque is the official statement, the avowed symbol of the Public’s inability to distinguish by itself the worth of what it is listening to.”
In describing the principle behind The Glory Machine:
“Let us remind ourselves above all . . . that individuals do not like to contradict public opinion. It pertains to each of their souls to be convinced from birth of the truth of this axiom, in spite of everything: ‘This man is successful; therefore, whatever the envious and the stupid may say, he is a glorious, capable spirit. Let us copy him if we can and let us be on his side in any case, even if it is only to avoid looking like a fool.’”
The Glory Machine is a map to our lives within the society of the spectacle. We are just the breathing parts of a machine theatre, casually passing through the roles of performer to spectator to critic. We are the Claque and, when we are not, we are surrounded by it.
I can think of no better guide to this than “The Glory Machine.” But be warned:
“The summit of the Art is reached when the Claque in person shouts: ‘Down with the Claque!’ and then ends up by appearing to be carried away itself and claps at the end of the play, as if it were the real Public and the roles were reversed . . .”
Many people find it cruel to allow a chimp to smoke and drink. If someone was shipping Johnny Walker and Marlboros into the wild and selling them to the chimps, I’d agree. But when a captive ape takes up smoking and drinking, I cheer it on. Sending said ape to rehab is cruel.
A caged life is a miserable life. If a chimp has found some way to numb itself, some way to pass the pointless hours of another pointless day, I’m not going to sit in judgement. It’s wrong to imprison an intelligent creature like Zhora and doubly wrong to get all sanctimonious about his habits. It’s not like he committed a crime other than not being human.
And now that he becomes a little more human, we decide to send him to rehab. To what purpose? Just to steal away what little joy and purpose remains in his life? For his health? Zhora is twenty six years old. Just how long do we want him for our prisoner?
Humans are chimpanzees. You probably enjoy a drink and maybe a smoke. If you were in Zhora’s shoes, you might really enjoy one.
Zhora, as a former performer, an artist and father of seven, has probably done better in his cage than you have in yours. Let him have a drink and enjoy a smoke.
Zhora has earned it. I doubt you have.
Nan is not well. In the past year, she has broken her back twice and her mind has slipped. In lucid moments, she describes it as a fog. Doctors call it dementia.
She often does not know where she is, who she is talking to or what she is saying. Sometimes she does. These moments are becoming rare. The confusion is common. She is not acting like herself.
This woman who had stoic mastery over her feelings will now sit at her kitchen table crying; who had impeccable manners will now fart without noticing; who devoted her life to her family now forgets who they are. She was a Christian and attended Church every Sunday. I doubt she can now remember who Jesus is.
I had been warned about all this before I visited her on Wednesday. My Mom told me that Nan’s condition had much worsened since the last time I saw her. Yet, it was possible that she’d be fine. Having one of her good days.
I never make a decision based on the best possible outcome. I look frankly at the worst case and then ask myself if the action is still worth it. If she was having one of her bad days, would I still want to see her? The answer was yes.
But I was scared to do so.
Read the remainder of this entry »
pic by Daryl Banks
Being possessed of a deeply charitable disposition, I’ve made some slight changes to improve your experience of The Grumpy Owl.
If you look up at the top, just below the header, you’ll notice that I’ve categorized my posts. This was probably overdue. I’ve been at this for a while and the subject matter has always been eclectic. Yet my readers, depending on how they heard about this place, are usually interested in one type of subject. A bit of organization was required. It has been provided.
Secondly, there’s going to be more posts here but less quality.
Quite a few posts are simply going to be a pic that I like and a quote that I think relates to it. These have already been scheduled four days a week into May.
Monday is for bartending; Tuesday: Baseball, Wednesday: Owls, Thursday: Style. I’ll figure out Fridays soon enough. Just gotta find something else that’s never really topical and always there. I also want to avoid a bad noise to signal ratio.
I’m going to continue posting my normal content. It’s simply going to be on top of a bedrock of regularly scheduled crap content. I’ve been unhappy with the irregularity of my posting for some time but, as Picasso said, you can’t always be exorcising demons. Besides this, the internet has changed since I started here.
Tumblr, twitter, short bursts of information are the way of the present. We’ve gone from bite sized chunks of information to nibbles. The internet is a buffet of appetizers. You can’t live off it but it still tastes good.
I don’t mind gearing the owl to better reflect the era (I enjoy both twitter and tumblr) and the abundance of these nibbles makes it easier to create my own.
Having said that, I still love writing more than tweeting. Some ideas are over-serviced by 140 characters and some can’t be serviced at all. As Ebert once said: “No good movie is too long and no bad movie is too short.” I’ll just try to provide the right amount of words for whatever subject is at hand.
These new regularly scheduled posts are the bowl of peanuts on the bar. They’re not the booze (they’re not even the chicken wings) and they’re not meant to replace either. They’re just something to nibble on.
Hope you enjoy them and that they’re not too stale.
“I have found that when a man reaches the advanced age of 71 years as I have, the continual sight of dark clothing is likely to have a depressing effect upon him. Light-coloured clothing is more pleasing to the eye and enlivens the spirit. Now, of course, I cannot compel every one to wear such clothing just for my especial benefit, so I do the next best thing and wear it myself.”
–Mark Twain: The New York Times, 8 December 1906
The above pic is from here. The bottom one was emailed to me. If you know where it’s from, let me know. (Update: Bottom pic from here.)
“Well, my dad taught me that there’s three parts. There’s hitting, there’s defense, and there’s baserunning. And as long as you keep those three separated, you’re going to be a good player. I mean, you can’t take your defense on the bases, you can’t take your hitting to the field, and you can’t take your baserunning at the plate. But defense, is number one.”
pic nicked from here
“The hard part about being a bartender is figuring out who is drunk and who is just stupid.”
–Richard Braunstein
These are my undigested internests for February 17th through February 19th:
- Left Behind – The sad truth is everything we are seeing we have already seen. Despite presidents who come and go, permanent war is a hallowed American institution. Start if you will with the War of 1812, the invasion of Mexico, and the carnage of a Civil War. Move to the mass murder of Native Americans and theft of their property, the killing, torture, and prison camps in the Philippines, then the blood-drenched 20th century. The 21st likewise dawns red. It never changes. Doves protest, hawks rule, ordinary people pay the penalty. All wars are “just.”
- Stereotyping People by Their Favorite Author (by Lauren Leto) – I like stereotypes and I like authors so . . .
- Print Roger Ebert: The Essential Man – It has been nearly four years since Roger Ebert lost his lower jaw and his ability to speak. Now television’s most famous movie critic is rarely seen and never heard, but his words have never stopped.
- Dirk Hayhurst Article About His Shoulder Injury -
There might have been some good reasons to protest these Olympics but there’s no need to continue protesting them. These Olympics are protesting themselves.
As Napoleon once said: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” And make no mistake, Vancouver is making some huge mistakes.
The whole thing has been a mess and a disaster. It might be the worst Olympic games ever staged and Canada has come out of the whole thing looking like a hypocrite, a bully and an incompetant. Our mask has slipped.
Because we’ve decided to use the rules and technicalities to cheat other nations of practise time, any of our wins are meaningless. Only our losses have meaning. Our losses say that even given a major and unfair advantage, Canada still can’t “own the podium.” It’s like losing with a head-start.
These Olympics had a head-start on losing.
Before the opening ceremonies had even begun, a mixture of Canadian carelessness, stupidity and greed for gold killed a Georgian luger.
Since then, ice has failed, concession stands have been shut down, thousands of ticket holders have been turned away, the poorly designed medal ceremonies have been unattended, the opening ceremony was marred by malfunctioning hydraulics and a performance by Bryan Adams, there’s been a lack of zambonis and snow, events have been cancelled due to completely seasonal weather, our media has revealed itself as a cheerleading team instead of reporters and Canada, in spite of its cheating ways, has still failed to “own the podium.”
Any sensible protester would have to ask themselves what exactly are they protesting here? The public failure of their enemies? What more could they possibly add to this clusterfuck? Can they make the Olympics look worse than the Olympics have already made themselves look? I don’t think so.
At best, they could be scapegoated,
It’s so bad that I spent four years looking forward to Olympic hockey –the only hockey that I really love– and now I can’t bring myself to cheer the Canadian team. The arrogant hubris, the desire to win at the expense of fair play, all of these things make me regard Canada with an even deeper loathing than before.
Whatever my problems are with this country, hockey has always remained untouched. These Olympics touched it. Touched it right in its special place. And it makes me feel dirty. Not even dirty in the good way. Dirty in the I need sixteen hours in the shower type of way.
I just can’t say: “Go Team Canada.” I just can’t feel it.
This actually hurts me. Though I lack nationalism, I express my tribalist instincts through my support of sports teams. It seems a safe venue for the feelings, which are natural, and I believe all that cheesy nonsense about how sport exemplifies the human spirit. It does.
Sadly, these days. cheating to gain gold is what the human spirit is about. Sports can’t change the worst or the best in us. They just show it. Just as the gladiatorial contests of Rome illustrate the cruel values of that society, the Olympics show the shallow, moronic and chintzy values of ours.
Blaming them for that is like blaming the mirror for your haircut.
The problem is not that the torch malfunctioned. The problem is, the spirit has. Although I should know better, I’m still disappointed.
Being old fashioned, I cling to the belief that it’s not whether you win or lose but how you play the game. Bigger than any team, bigger than any athlete and bigger than any championship, accomplishment or accolade is the game itself.
The game must be respected. It must be a fair and square match. No one wants to win on a technicality. No one wants to lose that way. You want to play your best against an opponent who is playing their best. And you want to win.
There’s no shame in being beat but there’s shame in losing. Just ask any kid who dropped the ball. Ask any cheater if it was worth it. If their victory was real. Only a psychopath would say yes but, then again, only a psychopath would cheat.
Canada has forgotten this. It only sees value in gold and none in how the gold is won. As such, its victories are meaningless. By granting our athletes more practise while limiting that of their opponents, we have only cheated them out of victory. Not all the media cheerleading in the world can change that.
And I’ll cheer a lot of things but I will never knowingly cheer a rigged match or the team associated with it. I’ll cheer a loser playing hard before I cheer a juicer breaking records and I’ll cheer a champion playing hard louder than either. Because that’s sports. That’s the Olympic spirit.
It’s a shame Canada forgot that and a disgrace that Canada cheers for it.
The Russians want to build a gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea. There’s just one little problem: There’s still over 150,000 unexploded WW2 bombs in that sea.
pic nicked from here
Bactec Int. has been contracted to clear the Baltic Sea of the 70 mines that block the pipeline.
“When the robot finds a mine, a surface ship releases a high-pitched wail to scare away nearby marine mammals, sets off a small explosive to scare away any fish, and then plants and detonates a small charge on the mine. Altogether, it takes Bactec two days to clear each mine.”
There’s some worries about the exploded mines adding to pollution but it sounds like the Baltic is already a toxic, mine-infested shithole. So let the robots pollute and let the humans choke on their waste. Because at the end of the day, you either choke on your waste or you get blown up by it while you build a pipeline to help you produce more waste. It’s just that simple.
These are my undigested internets for February 17th from 12:30 to 18:45:
- Brainwashed by a parasite « Neurophilosophy – The spores of the fungus attach themselves to the external surface of the ant, where they germinate. They then enter the ant’s body through the tracheae (the tubes through which insects breathe), via holes in the exoskeleton called spiracles. Fine fungal filaments called mycelia then start to grow inside the ant’s body cavity, absorbing the host’s soft tissues but avoiding its vital organs.
- Parasite Makes Ants Resemble Berries – Fruit pickers beware. That red berry might actually be an infested ant’s rear end.
- Philip K Dick’s FBI file and the bizarre story of a neo-Nazi plot to start a Third World War | Technoccult – “Undoubtedly, one of the prime reasons why Dick attracted attention from the FBI was a series of bizarre letters he penned to the Bureau in the early 1970s, in which he described his personal knowledge of an alleged underground Nazi cabal that was attempting to covertly manipulate science fiction writers to further advance its hidden cause.”
- Evo Morales launches ‘Coca Colla’ – Telegraph – Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president and known for chewing coca leaves at UN meetings, has launched a drink featuring the leaf called “Coca Colla”.
Although Ryan Oakley began his career as a simple rake (drunk) he has since become Toronto’s most renowned flaneur (no car) and notorious dandy (overdresses). A misanthropic composer of psycho-geographical fictions (bad science fiction), he is also a server of food, a tender of bar and a washer of dishes. While performing all these functions with efficiency and elegance (disdain and malice), he somehow finds the time to publicly criticize friends, strangers and cultural crap. He's a bit of a dick.
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