So Phillip Roth points out that each year some 70 readers die off and are replaced by just 2, fucking 2, mostly reading Harry Potter novels which is fine when you're 12 yrs. old but a little sad when you are an adult, unless of course you're reading it to your kid then more power to you for getting the weans into literature...
What Roth was getting at though was something a bit deeper i believe, the fact is Roth is the last of the great writers with readership, a writer who didn't have to write movies to sell books, Palahnuik's career never took off until Tyler Durden became Brad Pitt became Ed Norton, not that the book didn't stand on it's own it's just the morons never thought to read it until they learned their new favorite movie was based on a book, and what Roth was really getting at was if you want to earn a living punching the keys you can enter the canned, stolid world of academia via the billion MFA in Writing programs or write screenplays... but what scares me most is..
we need to be spoon fed our ideas, when i hear people who i believe to be intelligent talking about the emotional power of Spiderman 3 it makes me want to vomit, it's emotions on cue, forced to watch Spiderman 3 on a plane ride i couldn't help but think that culturally the US of A was leading the world into one colossal, steaming pile of shit... fact is reading makes you think, lets you dream, teaches you new words, it's passive in an aggressive sort of way, it makes the brain work even if the body is resting, when an engaging book is put down it usually keeps bouncing around the head whether you like it or not hence that critical thinking shit, maybe i'm just being a pompous ass and in this case good, i'm glad to be one, i'm glad i don't go to movies and engage in the mass culture crap that the media conglomerates try to force feed me, keep me just engaged enough to buy crap, trinkets for chores as it's known on the shores of the Toxic Towers, if i get a little misty on cue cuz Spidey's friend sacrifices himself for the cause i would consider moving to Idaho and doing the Hemingway Waltz with a Reminger...
Remember kids, television will suck the fucking life right out of you, what did they do to poor Alex when they needed to teach him to be a good citizen, Alex who liked his spiked milk and bit of ultra-violence, that little scamp from a Clockwork Orange, while they made him watch television didn't they, propped open his eyes and force fed him the culturally correct...
Most acting is not art, note i say most and Bollywood not included, most of it is self indulgent narcissism caught on film, like looking in mirror and watching yourself masturbate, the glamour machine produces famous people with little or no talent who are famous for being famous, call me old fashioned for being a bit spun on the classics, but i wonder what the average septic tank could tell me about the A Big Two-Hearted River?, why were the grasshoppers black, remember the buckwheat cakes and trout for breakfast, what was Nick Adams doing fishing alone anyway? what was he trying to escape? What about Jay Gatsby? that rich cat with the problems that were never really talked about, the meaning conveyed between what was written on the page and what was inferred in the mind, what of Randall Patrick McMurphy? what of Raskolnikov? of Lady Brett Ashton? of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty? of Mark Renton? of George and Lennie? of George Willard? of old William Lee? of Frankie Machine?
2 comments:
Yeah, uh, Spidey 3 was a real disappointment.
Well said.
You just have to look at Britney to see how little progress we've made. These are the people we choose to elevate? After all the pathways have been cleared by great minds, we just seem to let the weeds grow over them again.
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