The Glass Character

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Iconic cupcakes and other irrelevancies

This is the greatest mystery of the human mind—the inductive leap. Everything falls into place, irrelevancies relate, dissonance becomes harmony, and nonsense wears a crown of meaning.

John Steinbeck

This WILL make sense: itwillitwillitwillitwillitwill. . . and if it doesn't, it's cuzzadafact that I just got up and am not yet fully awake and have many other things to do.

I've been compiling a list of things that belong together, mainly because they annoy the shit out of me. If they seem dissonant, irrelevant, etc. (I almost said "whatever"!), then bear with me. Soon all this nonsense will wear a crown of meaning.

The cupcake theme leads the way, more or less, because cupcakes have become ubiquitous since that moment some time in the '90s when Carrie and Miranda sat there on a park bench cramming their faces with cake and talking about (what else?) "crushes".

Cupcakes might've become Big (to coin a phrase, an awful one) anyway, but somehow-or-other, perhaps because of Carrie spitting out little pieces of cake while she waxed all giggly like someone in high school, they blew into the stratosphere - imagine little multi-colored sparkly-icinged projectiles raining down on us all - and still dominate kids' birthday parties, baby showers and even WEDDINGS.

No more does the bride-to-be fuss and twitter (I mean "twitter", not "tweet") about that dire necessity of marriage, the wedding cake. She won't have one anyway. It'll be a cement-frosted edifice made oout f styrofoam and it will cost $1550.99.

No, she will fuss and twitter about importing "special" cupcakes like the ones Carrie and Miranda ate 18 years ago on Sex and the City. From the Magnolia Bakery in New York.

This is how cupcakes become. . .(and here is my point - yes, there is one - ) iconic. And if cupcakes can become iconic, so can everything else.

The word is thrown around so casually these days that no one notices any more. James Bond has his iconic martini. The Kardashians have their iconic stupidity. Justin Bieber has his iconic stupid haircut. Simon Cowell has his iconic nastiness. And I'd think of more, but I don't have to: just listen for it for one day and you'll see.

So what is an icon? It's a symbol so culturally significant that it comes to stand for a whole world of meaning. I think it even has religious importance, a focus for prayer or worship. It hardly relates to cupcakes. But in this air-puffed, sugar-spun world, maybe it does.

Let's get the next one out of the way now because it nauseates me so much: "awesome". In the course of a day, I hear this 29,000 times, to the point that it means nothing at all. In fact, its empty-headed non-meaning is worming its way into the dictionary, as so many non-words eventually do.

"Here's your change."

"Awesome."

"I had my shoe fixed."

"Awesome."

"My AIDS test came out negative."

"Awesome."

And so on, and on, and on.

If something really is "awesome", such as whatever-that-American-thingie-is-called, Mount Rushmore, or Old Faithful, or the Sistene Chapel or something, I don't know what the response would be because you've already used up "awesome" on all those stupid, empty-headed, meaningless things.

I saw a book not long ago: 500 Things that are Awesome, or some-such. I flipped through it and, as my Jewish brethren say, plotzed. One of the things they listed as "awesome" was your colon. It described in detail its role in processing human shit as it made its way out your - I won't go any further, but hey, it's "awesome", isn't it?

Another one I'm hearing every day: "surreal". Maybe it's because our whole world is surreal now. But it's being applied to everything, i. e. the plumbing failing or having to take your cat to the vet. "He was throwing up furballs. It was surreal." Why do these words catch on? Is it a disease, and how soon before we all start scratching?

I will add to this "no problem" in place of "you're welcome".

"Thanks for loaning me $5,000,000.00 till payday."

"No problem."

What does this mean exactly? "This is not a problem." " There is no problem here." Why say that instead of the courteous non-phrase "you're welcome" (which doesn't mean very much either)?

People say it BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE IS SAYING IT. Mooooooooo!

But the lowing herds of humanity don't stop there. "You betcha" sometimes stands in for "No problem," and means even less.

I don't know if this is a catch-phrase or just a stupidity, but whenever something disastrous happens, a fire or a shooting or 9-11 or anything on a traumatic, unexpected scale, everyone says, "I thought I was in a movie."

No one seems fully present in reality any more. It's all watched on some sort of vast screen in 3D, and we're just spectators with no active role. "It looked like a movie." "I heard some sort of popping noise."

That popping noise is GUNFIRE, you fucking idiots, and that is what it really sounds like, not the "BLAMMMMM!" that has stood in for decades on TV and in movies. It's a sound that comes out of some sort of central sound effects bank, and it's the only way movie directors can convince people that a gun has actually been fired. It's kind of like cars exploding into fireballs when someone lights a match. It doesn't happen that way, but it has nevertheless become our collective reality.

So when someone fires a real gun, it sounds kind of like a muted firecracker, a puh-puh sound, and no one dives for cover but just stands there stupidly waiting to be shot because THIS MUST BE A MOVIE. Which might be followed by another statement (if such a thing were possible):

"This must be dead."

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Out of the inkwell, into my dreams

Betty Boop - she's such a bitch

The cartoons I used to watch very early on Saturday mornings (I mean before the REAL cartoons came on, like Huckleberry Hound and Bullwinkle and Linus the Lion-Hearted) were way, way old. I mean, these barely had any talking in them, mostly just wacky music from some distant era, and I loved them.

There was something called Tarrytoons, early Warner Brothers cartoons called Merrie Melodies, very old Disney (I particularly remember "Bugs in Love"), and of course ancient Popeye, a figure so coarse and ugly he should have scared me. Not only was he smoking a pipe, one of his eyes really was popped out!

At the end of these antique Popeyes there was just a split-second glimpse of an inkwell, trademark of the animator Max Fleischer (video posted above). As a kid I used to wonder if I was imagining it, it was over so quick. I thought it was magical. Much later, when my kids and I got into the habit of taping bizarre old cartoons, we used to try to freeze-frame on it, usually with no success.

But before Popeye, even, there was Betty Boop, a frenetic little sexpot hallucinated by the Fleischer studio. These cartoons had a fever dream quality combined with non-stop, manic activity. The characters, as far as I could make out, were all animals, some of them very hard to identify. (And let's not get into that Goofy versus Pluto debate, and how a mouse could own a dog.) When they first brought out Betty Boop in the surreal Dizzy Dishes - she isn't even named but just sort of appears standing on a table - it all gets very strange, indeed.

It gets very strange because Betty has bulldog jowls,long pendulous ears, and a snout that keeps popping out grotesquely. Betty either has some sort of bizarre facial deformity, or else. . .

She's a dog.

A dog wearing garters and high heels. In other words, a bitch.

In subsequent cartoons the animators decided to turn her into a human being, making her flappy ears into earrings that still looked suspiciously canine. Mae Questel's squeaky voiceovers helped bring her decidedly flaky character into focus.

People have come out with all sorts of boopery about this subject: how Betty reflected the morals and mores of the times, how her barely-there skirt (always showing at least one garter) and wispy top, which sometimes fell off altogether, illustrated the daring style and energy of the madcap twenties and early '30s. Turner Classics made a whole documentary about this, about pre-Code Hollywood and the racy, suggestive language and dress that was common in movies before Will Hays and the suffocating legion of "decency" (read: sexless repression) shut it all down.

You can see what happened to Betty over the years, and it's alarming: her barely-there dress evolves into a suffocating uniform, completely destroying her giggly, girlish flapper/vamp image. But the thing to remember about Betty is, she was a caricature right from the start.

If anyone had a head that size, for one thing, they'd bloody fall over. (Though note that the later Boop incarnation shows a head much more in proportion with her body.) Her huge eyes with their fans for lashes are almost scary. She's a sexpot who jumps out of an inkwell, but she might as well be jumping out of a cake at some LSD-inspired stag party.

You have to ask yourself: was this character really created for children? Cartoons started off as general entertainment, a way of padding out the bill (you really got your money's worth in those days), usually shown with a movie feature or double-bill along with the newsreel and short subject. People had longer attention spans in those days and could stand to sit in a theatre for three or four hours.

If the movie was adult in nature, then - most likely - so were the cartoons. In the early 30s, this trampy little vamp ran around in her nearly-nothings, showing cleavage, having little "accidents" that tore her clothes away entirely so she had to dive behind something.
Meant for kids? Though it was hardly Fritz the Cat, I doubt it.

Somewhere along the line, maybe when TV came in, cartoons began to gravitate kidward and grow more tame. I never even saw most of the outrageous Boop cartoons I've found on YouTube: they must have been banned as unwholesome. Don't want innocent 8-year-old boys having fantasies about some trampy little tart!

Is forgiveness just a fad? (A Thanksgiving meditation)

verb (used with object)

to grant pardon for or remission of (an offense, debt, etc.); absolve.

to give up all claim on account of; remit (a debt, obligation, etc.).

to grant pardon to (a person).

to cease to feel resentment against: to forgive one's enemies.

to cancel an indebtedness or liability of: to forgive the interest owed on a loan.

"So what happened when you went to prison to visit the man who murdered your children?"

(choking back tears) "I chose to forgive him. It was the only way I could let go and go on with my life."

Am I the only one who has trouble with this?

Am I the only one who is beginning to see this trend, often displayed on reality TV and investigative crime shows like Dateline and 20-20, as a sort of spiritual fad that lifts the victim to the level of sainthood?

How long will it be until this "forgive him and let go" will become a kind of social imperative? I'd say it's right here, folks, and not just in Sunday school any more.

Lots of things become trends, fads. Medical diagnoses change and shift, particularly in the realm of psychiatry. I can't help but notice how many people (particularly women) who used to be "borderline" (as in borderline personality disorder) are now "bipolar", as if somehow their disorder morphed in response to a kind of medical fashion.

At the root of it all, the problem is this. For the most part, human beings are herd animals. Very few break out of the pack, and those who do are seen as daring innovators, geniuses, or totally nuts. (Note that some of these subversive souls, whether they were aware of it or not, founded religious movements that changed the course of history.) The vast majority of people are deeply conventional. While thinking outside the box is superficially praised, how many have enough guts to carry it out?

Lots of jokes, most of them pretty mean, are made about the fact that this "forgive" stuff seems to stem from fundamentalist Christianity which grows very thick in the US south (where, perhaps mysteriously, most of these lurid crimes seem to come from). The essence of these remarks seems to be, well, maybe it's inbreeding, which can surely drive down the IQ points over the generations.

But there's more going on than that.

As a child I was steeped in Christianity, even though it was kind of middle-of-the-road and never involved snake-handling (which I would've enjoyed) and plaster saints weeping blood. The Lord's Prayer was dusted off and recited at every opportunity, including before school every morning (and how did the few Jews and Muslims in the school feel about that? I do remember some Jehovah's Witnesses leaving the room for those few moments, and though they seemed like unreasonable cranks then, now they strike me as courageous).

It's a pretty antiquated sort of prayer with terms like "hallowed be thy name" and "thy kingdom come", which meant absolutely nothing to me back then because no one ever told me what they meant. I just parroted them back because I was supposed to. I didn't have much choice.

Then came the meat of it: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." As a kid, I thought of trespassing as breaking down a fence on public property, something my friends and I had done once or twice and would obviously fry in hell for.

It was only later, much later, that I figured out the real meaning of "trespass". Though I had seen new and much more hip translations of the Lord's Prayer that performed elaborate flips and porpoise-leaps to avoid using the original archaic terms, I came to see trespassing as a sort of violation of our natural boundaries. Which, apparently, we were always supposed to forgive without question. What a lovely and appropriate thing, what great conditioning to deeply instill in a child, particularly a girl child!

Now that I think of it, the adjective considered most desirable in a child, the description that seemed most fitting and appropriate for all of us, particularly girls, was "obedient". I can't help but hitch this horrendous term to the passive concept of "forgiveness" which to me came to mean, "It's all right what you did, I don't object to it," or at very least, "I will never hold you accountable for the damage you did to me."

I will let that sink in for a moment.

Every time I hear this "I chose to forgive him" thing on TV, which is practically every day now, it seems to be connected to some horrific act like a mother losing all her children to an axe-murderer, usually her husband or boy friend. Whenever this woman comes on - and yes, she IS usually from the US south, the Bible Belt of North America - the announcer always says something like, "In an incredible and selfless act of spiritual generosity, Betty has forgiven the murderer for this horrific deed." She will then say something like, "It's the only way I can let go and heal my life."

Oh?

Whatever this mysterious phenomenon is, I can't buy for a minute that it is going to free someone from traumatic memories and anger (fury?) towards someone who has ripped away the essence of their life. It isn't human. My feeling is that the anger will be pushed down and covered up with Bible verses, and the reward - a huge one in fundamentalist Christian circles - will be the status of sainthood. The victim's selflessness and saintly ability to completely do away with all traces of vengefulness and anger will elevate her in a way that must be mighty comforting.

But hold on a minute.

The popular culture, as it always does, is slowly but surely bending the meaning of forgiveness from the traditional "forgive us our trespasses" thing (and I still don' t know what that means exactly) to something more - well, more hip and modern.

Let's revisit the definitions I quoted at the beginning of this post.

fer-giv] Show IPA verb, for·gave, for·giv·en, for·giv·ing.

verb (used with object)

to grant pardon for or remission of (an offense, debt, etc.); absolve.

to give up all claim on account of; remit (a debt, obligation, etc.).

to grant pardon to (a person).

to cease to feel resentment against: to forgive one's enemies.

to cancel an indebtedness or liability of: to forgive the interest owed on a loan.

This analysis of the concept of forgiveness begins to alarm me when I note the thread that runs through it: not holding the offender accountable. If this were practiced to the letter, of course, the legal system as it exists today would totally disappear.

"To cease to feel resentment against" is even more incredible. Bing, bing, bing - I no longer hate this guy! I love him as one of God's children, even though he strayed from the path of righteousness and hacked my children to pieces with an axe. No more anger, no more dreadful feelings of having one's guts ripped out. It's all fixed. The indebtedness has been forgiven, the emotional loan written off.

But at the same time, I found this juicy little tidbit in that ultimate authority on the social imperatives of the 21st century, Wikipedia:

In most contexts, forgiveness is granted without any expectation of restorative justice, and without any response on the part of the offender (for example, one may forgive a person who is incommunicado or dead). In practical terms, it may be necessary for the offender to offer some form of acknowledgment, an apology, or even just ask for forgiveness, in order for the wronged person to believe himself able to forgive.^[1]

Oh really?

That sounds more like a moral contract to me: admit what you did, you slimeball, and feel goddamn sorry about it, and apologize to me for the damage you did, and maybe THEN I'll consider forgiving you. The wrongdoer must own up, must confess and truly take responsibility (which is not at all the same as confession: "I had a bad childhood and couldn't help myself" being a common dodge). But hey, I watch Dateline, I keep track of these things, and most of the perpetrators have the dead-calm unsweating demeanour of a shark, their beady eyes expressing not a trace of human emotion. These are sociopaths who wil never admit they did ANYTHING wrong and who are, alarmingly, "gotten off" by fancy lawyers in too many cases. The lawyers often look just as sharklike and devoid of humanity (i.e. Drew Peterson's defense lawyer who eerily resembles him, his cold predatory eyes sunken into his expressionless face).

Remorseful? These guys? Give me a break. They love the attention. They go on national TV and pretend to cry, choking out "sorry" to the interviewer as if on cue. "I loved my wife! I loved her more than anything in the world!", etc., etc., etc.

Forgive THAT.

Maybe this forgiveness stuff is just a way of removing yourself from the whole mess. But doesn't it involve shutting down a huge amount of very human rage at being horribly violated? How does one do it? Can we see some followup, please - some honest interviews with people five years later? Are they at peace with themselves, do they feel OK about the perpetrator and the crime, do they still forgive and feel compassion for him/her?

I can't buy it, even though, ironically, there's a whole industry springing up about healing your various physical and emotional maladies by forgiving. The implication being that NOT forgiving is really at the root of your sickness (yet another lovely way to blame the victim - as if they needed more blame).

I don't know, historically I could not feel compassion for Adolf Hitler, nor could I feel it for someone who destroyed my life and didn't even feel any remorse. Personally, I think it's dangerous. If your father happens to have certain Drew Peterson tendencies, won't he take that as license to treat you like his own personal property?

If he is sexually violating you, aren't you indoctrinated to forgive him no matter what? ("Honor thy father and thy mother" just adds another layer of helplessness.)

Won't Daddy find a way to twist your religion around so it suits him? "What's the matter with you, why can't you forgive me, aren't you a good little Christian girl? Get over here."

If you have "forgiven" him like you are supposed to, how likely is it that you'll press charges against him? I'd say, nil. The two are mutually exclusive. But what if he finds someone else to abuse, destroys another life (which is almost certainly the case with abusers), and you realize you could have stopped him?

How Christian is that?

I want to say to these people who so readily forgive, be afraid. Be very afraid. You are laying yourself open to more sharks in this shark-infested world. There is blood in the water, and that blood may be yours. Protect yourself! Though this "I forgave him" thing is beginning to seem like yet another media-driven fad, it's less and less meaingful when it becomes a knee-jerk response, the "right" thing to say, or, worse, something you do to get Keith Morrison to praise your selflessness (though I have a feeling he'd see right through it). We live in an ever-more-narcissistic world, and because human beings are (indeed!) herd animals, most of us don't consciously know how much we are being affected by social trends.

The problem with forgiveness as a spiritual issue - and this is a huge one - is that the Bible doesn't tell you HOW to do it. People who attempt to literally practice Biblical precepts are often very, very uncomfortable with righteous anger, or, for that matter, any sort of anger at all. They prefer Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild to the scary cat who hurled over the moneychangers' tables (in public!) and chased away the sacrificial animals with a whip.

If you can find true forgiveness in your heart (and I might just be up for it if the perpetrator took total responsibility for what they did, fell down on their knees and begged me to), then that's great, and I wish you a happy Thanksgiving. But for God's sake, don't do it because "the Bible tells me so". Don't do it because misguided spiritual leaders or so-called friends say you "should" or "you really will feel better" (especially since so many people don't). If it doesn't come out of your own spiritual core (and if you don't know where that is, you are in big trouble), then it is fake - bogus - the kind of spiritual pretense that made Jesus bloody furious.

The Bible, powerful as it is for many people, is not "God", nor is it "Jesus". In fact, Jesus knew nothing about it in his lifetime because in its present form it didn't exist. It's a lens to look through, just a veil or shadow of an echo of great power that humans barely understand. Our tendency is to get hold of it and squeeze, or render it clunky and literal, perhaps because we are so afraid of it. But it's not a lucky rabbit's foot, nor can we manipulate its messages - or other people - by what the renegade prophet Bob Dylan once referred to as "strings of guilt".

If real forgiveness exists, and I'm not sure too many people are really up for it, it must be a much more dynamic process than the shallow, emotionally-dishonest variety I see in the media. Realistically, it would be a process that could take many years, and probably never be complete. But why must normal human feelings be considered so frightening that grave emotional debt somehow must be cancelled?

Why must wronged people, already aching and filled with outrage, be made to feel ashamed of themselves because they "should" forgive, and somehow can't manage it?

"I can't move on unless I forgive" is the mantra now, and it makes my hair stand on end. I can't move on unless I convince myself this person isn't to blame for destroying my life. The more I look at it, the more bizarre it all becomes.