Take off in 5 hours.
Three parts my grandfather’s lead soldier, one part photography, two parts Photoshop
In my head, I planned a lengthy post in response to this article. It would have been great; full of factual disputes, quotations, links, etc. I called my editor (me) and reserved 6+ paragraphs for the piece.
Then I learned that christwire.org is a satirical website.
Enter: Poe’s Law
I had just returned from the library from an eight hour studying marathon (finals are great, aren’t they) when I turned on the television and heard that President Obama would make an impromptu statement regarding national security. I then did what any generation-googler would do, and turned to the interwebs. On the Huffington Post, someone remarked that the last time they could recall something like this happening was JFK’s address concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis. I knew then that it was going to be big.
On CNN, Wolf Blitzer insinuated that it might indeed be the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden, a rumor that had been circling the web for a few minutes by this time. I updated my Facebook status: “Turn on CNN.” I learned from a comment on that status that the New York Times confirmed the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Elation.
By the time President Obama addressed the nation, it was widely confirmed and known that Osama got got. Twitter and Facebook exploded. I snagged a few of my favorite tweets and status updates to share with you:
The night wasn’t over. Students at Penn State gathered on Beaver Avenue and celebrated the occasion. It was a patriotic outpouring like I’ve never seen before. To call it a riot, as some have done, would be a gross overstatement. In fact it was exceedingly peaceful. Everyone was in good spirits and ready to blow off some steam before finals began in only a few short hours.
And Gumby was crowd surfing…
That is a sweet, sweet, headline.
Text message conversation yesterday:
Her: Ur stupid
Me: **You’re
I arrived breathlessly at the edge of a clearing, hesitant to enter the golden sunlight. For some reason the shade offered by the canopy of trees stretching their long arms was more agreeable to me. My feet had grown accustomed to having the cool earth beneath them, soft and forgiving. One thing I had learned from all this running was to avoid anything in the open, it was just asking to get caught.
This might be my only chance, though. I had but little time until sunset and they were hot on my trail. I swear I heard voices not far off only minutes ago, they were close on my heels. I would be in caught soon if I did not make a decision.
The clearing was open, sure. But its path was short and direct. Otherwise, I would have to follow its long perimeter; crossing the stream, and then back once again. The sun beat down on the clearing. Now, shortly before sunset, the dried grass shone some sort of golden hue. It was almost as if it were calling me. Yet I could not entrust myself to the openness and insecurity of the clearing. Nonetheless, its prospect was splendid and summoning. I went for it.
Striking out I had doubt—but it was too late for doubt. I was running, one leg fully extended after the next. My feet felt as if they were gliding just above ground level, striking earth a split second a piece. Rhythmically. The feeling of dried grass and solid footing replaced that of forgiving dirt—all the better for running.
The sun was shining uninhibited upon my back and shoulders. I could feel my skin hot, absorbing the rays even as I ran. It was all dazzling and mesmerizing.
I was spotted in the clearing and chased. But never caught. I had committed to my path and now loved it too much to ever be caught. I ran straight, eyes up, not looking back and left the woods far behind me.
Time in the clearing blurred and soon I reached its end. I turned and remained, determined not to enter the arms of the shadowy woods once again. I would run and dance in the clearing forever. At least until the dinner bell rang.
In Defense of Offensive Art is an interesting article from The Awl. It caught my eye because the tag line mentioned a rap group that I find pretty interesting, Odd Future. The article aims to explore the reasons for art that is obscene and why people listen to songs by groups like Odd Future who rap about murder, rape, and that sort of thing. Just consider the group’s full name: Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All.
The article is pretty wordy and at times feels like the author is trying too hard to use big words (self-aggrandizement, heteronormativity, reification, etc. (But I guess that’s what you get from a site whose tagline is: Be Less Stupid)). There was also a conspicuous absence of any substantive discussion on OFWGKTA. It’s a long piece too. I didn’t finish it.
The article itself is not the reason I’m posting. I found something in the comments section that I thought deserved some attention. I think the poster of this comment should have written the article instead. On society’s desire for “Nasty Art”:
TFA is seriously overthinking it.
Let me draw a parallel to something relatively uncontroversial: Roller coasters. Nothing offensive about them, but why do people ride? In some absolute sense there is no upside whatsoever to the experience of riding a roller coaster; in the really aggressive ones you are almost literally clamped in, there is real (if small) danger of serious injury as you experience forces powerful enough to kill you should any small thing go wrong, and once the ride starts there is no way out — no kill switch, no safe word, only the certainty of several minutes of terrifying motion.
Yet people ride these things; I rode the one that circles the New York New York casino twice. It’s not that the ride makes you feel good, or even as some would claim the relief of surviving the experience at the end, it’s that it makes you feel different. In a culture where our feelings are so often carefully channeled, that has intrinsic value.
The world is full of popular things that are far more offensive than rap lyrics about rape. (SAW movies anyone?) But nobody is going to kill someone because they saw a SAW movie, and nobody is going to commit a rape because they listened to Odd Future; the people who actually do things like that are broken on a level that makes art irrelevant. I don’t even think, as TFA finally suggests, that the usefulness of the art is to get those impulses out of our system; I think most of the people who ride roller coasters have no desire to die violently in a car crash any more than most viewers of SAW movies are inclined to commit a violent murder.
What I think is going on here is that we have a favorable instinct toward experiencing new things, even if those new things are somewhat unpleasant. I think the humor some people (TFA author included) claim to feel is a defense mechanism masking the more basic fact that it is interesting to find an unsuspected connection to something so different from ourselves as a murderer or rapist or the protagonist of Crash. If we are very lucky we might find that a great mystery, the why of such people who are not limited as we are by considerations of justice, punishment, or mercy, is not quite so mysterious. And our instinct is to favor learning things like that, even if we learn something about ourselves and our species that overall we’d rather not know. –localroger
Another comment I liked:
You know, I read all thirty-eight pages of that article looking for some tangible evidence that the author had ever even heard an Odd Future song, and I walked away disappointed. –kittens for breakfast
I was reading The Guardian’s Ten rules for writing fiction the other day and came across Roddy Doyle’s first rule: 1 Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.
I laughed derisively. What kind of creep would place a picture of their favorite author on their desk? Especially one who committed suicide?
Then I looked up, and saw a picture of Kerouac hanging from my bulletin board, a postcard a friend had sent me from San Francisco. The man basically drank himself to death. But man, could he write.
