The Deterioration of Cinema and the Decline of Civilization

It has been noted in newspapers, magazines, and blogs that, on the whole, when it comes to mass entertainment, television is vastly superior to the movies.  Still, this phenomenon has not yet been solipsized upon, and so it does not yet exist.  Herewith, we rectify the situation.

First of all, yes.  Television "on average" (whatever it means to "average" programming) is vastly superior to virtually anything you will find in your local multiplex.  Inevitably this is blamed on economics.  A movie cannot hope to be successful unless it attracts millions and millions of people.  This means tapping not just the domestic (American) market, but the vast hordes of potential moviegoers overseas.  And if, as Robert Frost said, poetry is what gets lost in translation, then a corollary may be that big explosions are what gets added in translation.  The bigger the booms, the bigger the bang for the big bucks.  But in the zero-sum game that is corporate filmmaking, extra money doled out on effects likely means money stripped away from such things as scripts and actors.

Thankfully, the creative types who may have previously gravitated to the big studios' movie departments, may still find outlets for their creativity on the small screen.  The realization hit the Solipsist recently that an ever-larger percentage of his Netflix cue is devoted to series-DVD's.

(Digression: Blogger profiles (see yesterday's post) don't have a space for favorite television shows.  Herewith, then, in no particular order, a Solipsistic list of TV enthusiasms, sans hyperlinks: The Wire, Lost, Fringe, Damages, Rescue Me, Star Trek (all incarnations are OK, but especially TNG and DS9), Seinfeld, The West Wing, House, The Simpsons, The Shield, Arrested Development. YNSHC is not ignoring Battlestar Galactica, but he has not been keeping up with it recently, so he feels hypocritical about putting it on the list.  End of digression.)

The question, then, is what does all this mean?  On the one hand, nothing much.  So, people will now gather around the water cooler to discuss TV shows more often than they discuss movies.  It was probably ever thus, anyway.  YNSHC remembers back in elementary school the water-cooler conversation (well, OK, the Scooby-Doo lunchbox conversation) more often revolved around last night's "Happy Days" than on any particular movie.

Still, YNSHC feels that something is being lost.  We are ever more isolated as individuals.  It's becoming less and less common to have the NEED to interact with people face to face.  The Solipsist himself, for example, not long ago made contact with a college friend he hadn't spoken to in about twenty years.  Turns out she lives within a relatively short driving distance.  And yet, they still haven't gotten together for lunch--mainly because of being busy, but also because there just doesn't seem to be the need: The internet makes daily visits of a sort commonplace, while also increasing the inertial drag of just wanting to stay home and cave.

Instead of going to movies with friends, we simply watch TV shows at home.  And blog our recommendations instead of chatting about things we like.

But what's the cause and effect here?  Are we more inclined to stay home and watch TV because TV is so much better?  Or is TV so much better because we as a society are so much less inclined to go out and interact with our fellow human beings?  YNSHC thinks it's a little bit of both.

On the upside, this leads to good TV.  On the downside, this drives us all further and further into our atomized, self-programmed, and, yes, solipsistic little worlds.  

The Quest for Uniqueness

"We are all individuals here!

"I'm not!

"OK, except for him"

--Monty Python paraphrase

You know, you think you're pretty special, and then you find out that you're not.

One of the nifty features of Blogger.com is the profile page.  The nifty aspect is that, when you list your interests or favorite movies or favorite music or favorite books, the list gets turned into hyperlinks.  Then, when you look at your profile, you can click the individual links, and you will be taken to a page listing other people who share that interest.  The humbling part, though, comes in the numbers.

See, the Solipsist has always considered himself a fairly interesting person, with undeniable if eclectic good taste.  But while he was not surprised that the great unwashed masses--some 45,000 individuals if Blogger is to be trusted--share his liking for "Raiders of the Lost Ark," he was more than a little taken aback by the revelation that about 6,900 other bloggers also list "Miller's Crossing" among their favorites.  And is it really possible that 30,799 other people also list "LA Confidential"?!?

And then there's music.  OK, not surprisingly over 80,000 people crush on Elvis Costello, but how is it possible that 6,400 others go in for The Magnetic Fields?  And 8,000 people are listening to Badly Drawn Boy!

In literature, YNSHC can claim a little bit more distinction.  Sure, nearly 100,000 people list Catch-22 among their favorites--and well they should.  But only 154 have claimed The Yiddish Policeman's Union (although 2,700 claim its author, Michael Chabon).

It's not easy being individual.  And while this is disappointing for those of us, like YNSHC, who wish to leave their mark on the world, we should probably take comfort.  No matter how strange you are, there's a good chance that cyberspace holds dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of other people just like you.  And thanks to the internet, these shambling, dysfunctional outcasts can reach out to each other and console themselves in their shared peculiarities.

And one can still carve out small niches for oneself.  The Solipsist is one of only two members of the Blogger.com community to claim an interest in "Random Lists." (Let's give a big Slopist Shout-out to James Tate!!!!)

(Digression: Yes, since the only suggestion I got for Solipsistic followers was "Slopists," that's what you all are now.  See, if you don't vote, the badguys win!  End of digression.)

And YNSHC is the ONLY member so far of the community of enthusiasts for "Things that look like other things"!

Good cult potential, there.

Conundrum (A Brief Post)

There's no "I" in team. Of course, there's also no "U" in team. But, if there's no "I" and no "U," who the hell is there?

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Additional suggestion for "SciFi Saturday":

"Meerkats of London!"

Children in the News

I. "Please, Sir, May I Have a House?"

So the Indian government has taken bold action against in the battle against juvenile homelessness.  All you need to do is appear in an Academy Award-winning film.

That's right, two of the urchins in "Slumdog Millionaire," Rubina Ali and Azahruddin Ismail, are being moved out of the Mumbai slums and into "apartments near an [undisclosed] prime location."  No word on whether their parents get to go with them.

What would have happened to the kids if the movie had lost?  No condos for losers, one would imagine.

Now the Solipsist really feels bad for Mickey Rourke.

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II. "You Get to Sit When You Show Your Work!"

Dateline: Minnesota.  In the little town of Marine on Saint-Croix (that's not a town-name, that's a whole darn prepositional phrase!), teachers are experimenting with new classroom furniture that liberates kids from the strait-jacket of the traditional desk.  This must be great news for left-handers if nothing else.

The idea is that kids, being the hyperkinetic bundles of energy that they are, should be able to stand up, sit down, squat, kneel, or, presumably, cartwheel about the classroom.  Having the opportunity to vent the excess kid-o-watts will allow kids to focus less on sitting still and more on the academic subjects at hand.

The Solipsist thinks this is a great idea.  He would further propose giant hamster wheels on which the tots can jog while memorizing their times tables.

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III. "Can I Just Do It 'Til I Need Glasses?"

Does your teenage son spend a great deal of time in his room with the door closed?  Does he have a strange rash on his palms?  Any vision problems?

Well, parents, this is all a perfectly natural part of adolescent male development.  Yes, your son is simply experiencing the joys of. . . .

Playstation!

"OK," you're thinking, "door closed, yeah.  Eyestrain, I get that. . . . But a strange rash on his palms?"

That's right, folks.  The British Journal of Dermatology (renew your subscription now) has published a report on a condition first discovered by Swiss doctors, Playstation palmar hidradenitis.  The condition, which manifests itself as painful bumps on the palms of the hands, is a result of too much time spent pleasuring oneself--with a video game.  The condition is curable--provided the patient refrains from gaming for a week or two.  But good luck trying to get kids to stop.

Interestingly, this is only now coming to the attention of the medical community, and so apparently wasn't a problem with the older generation of video games.  Maybe what's needed is a return to the classic paraphernalia of teenage recreation.

In other words, tell your teenage sons to go back to playing with their joysticks!

Sorry.

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IV. A Guide to Dathonian English 

(Courtesy of Emi Ha--all from "Seinfeld")

"Did he CRUMBLE?"--Get to the point.

"Oh, I'm stressed!"--Things are pretty bad.

"Hoochie Mama/Serenity now!"--I'm about to lose it.

"I'm not freaking out!!!"--I'm freaking out.

Thoughts on Violence

So the readers of The Solipsist have weighed in in favor of some degree of nationalization of American industry.  More on this in an upcoming post.

(Digression: We need a name for readers of the Solipsist--"Rots?"  Nah.  But, y'know, something to distinguish such exemplars of good taste and erudition.  We're open to suggestions.  End of digression.)

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When is violence justified?  This is the central question at the heart of Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means by William T. Vollman.

Short answer: Seldom.

Vollman, a Bay Area-based novelist and journalist, was preoccupied with this question, and he produced a seven-volume (!) answer for McSweeney's.  These seven-volumes are here condensed into a "slim" 700+ pages.

Vollman is a good writer, and his approach is to use case studies, both historical and current, to develop a "moral calculus" of violence.  Not surprisingly, and not too controversially, he suggests that imminent self-defense or defense of others is a reasonable justification for a violent response--although he does qualify that the response should be proportional; if a dangerous situation can be resolved without violence, it should be.

The author wants to provide a set of instructions, an algorithm if you will, for evaluating when violence is allowable.  He tends to hedge a bit, though, "In short," he tells us at the beginning, "you have the right to make up your own mind."  One would hope so.  At the same time, one feels that, after wading through hundreds of pages, one should be provided with a more definitive answer to the book's central question.

Vollman claims that he is no philosopher, merely a writer who has undertaken a great deal of reading and some travel to various zones of violence (Bosnia-Herzegovina, the slums of Jamaica, rebellious provinces of Thailand).  Still, the main impression one is left with at the end is that self-defense is a fairly indisputable justification, and that other justifications for violence (e.g., defense of creed, defense of homeland, defense of race, etc.) are more or less justifiable to the extent that they approximate imminent self-defense.

This hardly seems ground-breaking.

At the same time, some of Vollmann's sketches are worth reading.  He opens the book with "Three Meditations on Death," which are among the most accessible and interesting sections of the book.  His account of time spent hiding out in a bombed out dormitory in Zagreb is compelling.  In sections set in Southeast Asia and Jamaica, however, his quest for verisimilitude--specifically, his attempt to approximate the speech of the residents--becomes distracting.

One provocative conclusion, though: When it comes to attitudes towards violence, Vollmann is more sympathetic to the abolitionist John Brown--whom many would deem a terrorist--than he is to Gandhi.  And he makes a good point: While John Brown engaged in possibly avoidable violence, he was pursuing what most would consider a worthy aim: the end of slavery.  Gandhi, a moral exemplar to many, took non-violence to an almost satirical level, claiming, for example, that the proper moral response of Jews to Hitler's policies should have been to voluntarily go to the gas chambers, so as to prove themselves of a higher moral nature.  Vollmann has it right when he claims that non-violence, as an end, is no more justifiable than violence, and that a truly moral actor must consider it a (hopefully avoidable) means to a moral end.

A Place for Everything and Some Things Out of Place

So how about those Oscar picks?  OK, so the Solipsist didn't pick "Slumdog Millionaire," but he was intentionally going with a dark horse.  And, heck, he got all four acting awards right despite having seen nothing but "The Dark Knight."  Any major-leaguer who bats .667 will end up in Cooperstown, right?  (Well, after they drain the steroids from his system, anyway.)

You're welcome!

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Speaking of movies, YNSHC has been struck lately by a recurring theme on the SciFi Network.

Saturday nights, SciFi promotes what it calls "The Most Dangerous Night on Television."  By this they are referring to their 9:00 PM offering, generally a grade-B science-fiction/horror movie.  In addition to the standard fare of aliubs, buntants, zombies, and other science-fictional/supernatural menaces, the movies often launch from a premise of "more-or-less scary things in places where they're not supposed to be":

Sci-Fi logo. . . .

Ominous voice-over: Tonight, a SciFi original movie. . . .

Cut to: Ext., aerial shot, zoom in on a bustling airport terminal

V.O.: It started out like any other vacation. . . .

Cut to: Int., airport terminal, a happy family walks down a busy corridor, carry-on luggage in hand, a young girl skips along, holding a teddy bear.

Young girl: I can't WAIT to get to Disneyland!

Cut to: A group of young, ridiculously attractive men and women with backpacks.

Young Man #1: Dude, this is going to be the best Spring Break ever!

Cut to: A dark storage area, light and shadows, a crate rocks violently back and forth.

V.O.: . . .but nothing could prepare them for what comes next!

Blackout.  Sound of a crash and a roar.

Smash cut to a woman, running, looking back in terror, pursued by something monstrous.  As the camera closes in on her, she screams.

Cut to: Int. Office of Airport Manager.  Slade Pumpman, Airport Security Manager is screaming at a group of men in suits:

Pumpman: Damn it, Frank!  There's a puma loose in the airport!

Rapid sequence of people running, soldiers shooting, an explosion!

SciFi logo again: Pumaport!  Tonight at 9:00 on SciFi, the Most Dangerous Night on Television.

Of course, this genre had its apotheosis with "Snakes on a Plane," but SciFi must be commended for its commitment to the ideal.  Actual titles include "Chupacabra: Dark Seas," in which the legendary goat-sucker of Puerto-Rican myth manages to stow away aboard a cruise ship, as well as the more self-explanatory, "Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York" and "Sharks in Venice."

This got the Solipsist thinking: The possibilities are endless!

"Octopus! Nightmare in Montana."

"Mollusks on a Hammock!"

"Cats on a Boat!"

"Raptors in Memphis!"

"Badgers 3: Desert Terror!"

And for our Jewish readers: "Tref! Cheese on a Hamburger!"

The Solipsist would like to invite his loyal readers to submit their own titles.  Surely, the SciFi network would welcome the suggestions.

The "N" Word

Barack Obama has a problem with the "N"-word: It's ugly and un-American.


No, not THAT "N"-word! What's wrong with you people? Read on:


When Marx and Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto, they didn't have Russia in mind. As you'll recall from Poli-Sci 101, they suggested that the relationship between workers and the means of production was in the midst of an evolutionary process, a process that works its way through stages like feudalism, capitalism, and socialism before arriving at the ultimate goal, communism. Communism was presumably the endpoint for them, or at least the most advanced stage they could come up with.

For better or worse, though, their vision apparently came to an ignominious end with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union. The paragon of communism had collapsed, capitalism had won, and Marx and Engels were reclassified as failed visionaries, much like Joan of Arc or Stanley Kubrick (the later version anyway--I mean, did you SEE "Eyes Wide Shut"?).

But, again, they didn't have Russia in mind. While they must have been flattered that the Bolsheviks saw fit to carry out their work, they might well have advised against it. See, Russia was still a feudal society when the communists came to power. It hadn't really begun the capitalist phase, much less worked its way through it. They wanted to skip right over capitalism and socialism and go right to communism. They were like geckos trying to evolve directly into people (and, yes, some people are not far removed from geckos, but they're the exception, not the rule).

No, The Communist Manifesto was targeted at readers in capitalist countries--countries that were ready to move on to the next phase of evolution--socialism--before heading toward the utopian communist future. Marx and Engels were looking at more advanced industrial societies like Germany or England or, eventually, the United States of America.

Which brings us back to the "N"word: Nationalization.

It's been creeping into the American conversation over the last few weeks. It's another shibboleth, of course. The political takeover that dares not speak its name. It's looking more and more, though, like the federal government is going to have to take over one or more giant banks in the not-too-distant future. As unappealing as this sounds to most bankers, shareholders, and Republicans--as well as a good portion of the American population--it's probably going to happen.

President Obama and everyone else are not surprisingly doing everything they can to assure us that this is a last resort and would be a temporary situation at best. As Obama has said, nationalization may be fine for places like Sweden (those commie pinko bastards!), but it's not a great idea for the United States.

Except maybe it is.

Now, the Solipsist is as American as the next guy. (Well, as long as the next guy isn't from Ecuador or Canada or something.) He loves baseball! He sticks hot dogs down his pants every 4th of July! (He's said too much!) The point is, he is in no way advocating some sort of overthrow of the American way of life.

But people are so worried that nationalization will start us on the road to socialism, and YNSHC can't help but wonder if that's really such a bad thing. If the government takes over some banks, some shareholders and managers will be wiped out--but ordinary people's deposits will be safe. And if socialization of finance leads to socialization of healthcare, we may all end up having British-looking teeth, but at least everybody gets to see a doctor.

Maybe Marx and Engels were on to something after all. Maybe communism didn't collapse because it was a terrible idea, but because it was being implemented in a country that wasn't ready for capitalism, much less socialism. Maybe the US has exhausted the capitalist possibility--or if not exhausted it, at least stretched it so far that it's ready to snap into something new.

The times they are a-changin' folks. The future is an interesting place.