Obsessions and Lamentations #11 - Waste Land Edition

I’m looking around at the current cultural landscape, or at least the view I can see from my window, and is it my imagination, or is there absolutely nothing going on worth talking about? I guess if I were one of the paid employees of one of our few remaining multi-media conglomerates I’d have to crack wise on the showdown between (hold on a minute while I look this up) Adam Lambert and Kris Allen on American Idol. Did the right man win? Is the other guy gay? What significance can we read into the upset? Obviously, I’m making all this up from whatever is in the ether or what I just picked up doing a google search a few sentences ago. That’s how easy it is nowadays folks, and since you and I know it don’t mean shit I’m not going to waste our time pontificating on the shifting political landscape, Prop 8, authenticity vs. phoniness, yadda yadda yadda. I’ll leave that to the sage bloggers at the Huffington Post. 

So what else is going on out there? Apparently, some couple named Jon and Kate have some kind of reality show on (hahahahahahahahaha) The Learning Channel. I know this because when I flip around my cable guide and pass The Learning Channel, it shows virtually non-stop listings of some show called “Jon and Kate”. Occasionally, in the supermarket, while attempting to buy various salted and/or smoked pork products, I see a picture on a magazine cover of a couple sitting on a couch with the headline “Jon and Kate…do something…trouble….”.   Then, on my television, there appear commercials advertising some show about this very same Jon and Kate, who seem to have a lot of kids and who seem to be having some kind of relationship trouble. I also surmise that Jon did something bad and Kate is not happy with him, because I see a slo-mo shot of the couple on their famous couch with Jon looking down in a chastised fashion and Kate shooting him daggers from the far end of the furniture. Anybody care about that either? Right, why would you?

So as lilacs out of the dead land mix memory and desire, I conclude that May is, in fact, the cruelest month. Really friends, I’m scrambling for something worthwhile to spew about. Sure, I can give you a bunch of reasons why I think it’s vaguely important that the new Star Trek movie is so good, like, for instance, that it preserves and revitalizes the notion that no man is an island in these inward looking times or that the Kirk/Spock, emotion/logic duality is still right at the heart of the problem of what it means to be a human being and that this continuing allegory of the struggle is and always has been a helpful way of illuminating it, eventually coming to the inspiring conclusion that somehow the two can become friends, realizing their need for each other outweighs the ever-present temptation to go it alone. Maybe Jon and Kate should go see it on date-night. 

As for music? Eh, don’t ask me. I can’t keep up with it even though I keep trying out of amateur-critic necessity. Everyone’s talking about the new Grizzly Bear so I guess I’ll have to check it out and maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised. God, I hope so. I don’t mind wallowing in my record collection, but I’d like to think something is going on somewhere that is strong enough to make me want to participate. I tried the new St. Vincent but while parts of it were interesting it just didn’t take. I’m much more excited about my new vinyl copy of Illinoise, a four year old record that sounds great and actually holds up. 

One unequivocal recommendation I CAN make is for a book, which is typical, since no one reads anymore. It’s David Lynch: Beautiful Dark, by Greg Olsen. Here we have a lovingly critical analysis of all of Lynch’s directorial work, from his student years up to and including Inland Empire. There are just enough biographical details to tell a coherent story, but the meat of the book is in Olsen’s interpretation of the films, which takes Lynch very seriously and meets him on his own terms. I’ve watched and thought about Lynch’s work deeply since Blue Velvet burst into my consciousness 23 years ago, and I found my established notions constantly illuminated by Olsen’s careful deconstruction of the symbols and subtexts which run through Lynch’s films. Olsen is quick to point out that though his reading is informed by interviews with Lynch, his family and his coworkers, and by periods of watching Lynch work, his views are still his own and are likely not the only valid ones. But more often than not, I think Olsen gets to core of Lynch’s enterprise, which is primarily concerned with dramatizing the conflict between primordial drives towards love, community, aggression and bloodlust. This book will make you want to watch the movies one more time and maybe even search out the ones you missed. I know man, I wish I could have tipped you off to something that required less effort than poring through a 700 page book, but you’ll thank me – someday.