I’ve been watching various episodes of the classic series The Shock of the New, that thirty years ago covered the development of modern art over eight one-hour episodes. In the video above, from around 25:20 to 28:20 is perhaps my favourite three minutes of TV this year – the message feels just as relevant now as I imagine it did then, perhaps even more so. They don’t make ’em like this anymore.
“Take, for example, an ad that calls itself an ad, makes fun of its own format, and attempts to lure its target market to laugh at and with it. It pre-emptively acknowledges its own failure to accomplish anything meaningful. No attack can be set against it, as it has already conquered itself. The ironic frame functions as a shield against criticism. The same goes for ironic living. Irony is the most self-defensive mode, as it allows a person to dodge responsibility for his or her choices, aesthetic and otherwise. To live ironically is to hide in public. It is flagrantly indirect, a form of subterfuge, which means etymologically to “secretly flee” (subter + fuge). Somehow, directness has become unbearable to us.”
How to Live Without Irony, Christy Walpole, New York Times
“Isn’t there supposed to be an irony, some grim humor, some sense of the peculiar human insistence on seeing past the larger madness into small and skewed practicalities, into off-shaded moments that help us consider a narrow hope?”
The Art of Fielding is quite a lovely, comforting book. In many ways it was the perfect holiday read this summer. In many ways it should have been my perfect book – easy-to-read mid-brow fare, feted by the likes of Jonathan Franzen, giving some sort of insight into the human condition, and fundamentally all about baseball. And yet something was lacking, something wasn’t quite right. Read the rest of this entry »
That is consumption in the sense of consuming stuff, rather than suffering from tuberculosis, you’ll be pleased to hear. You may be less pleased to hear that this is a lazy link-heavy post. Anyway, this is what I’ve been consuming this week… Read the rest of this entry »
I think there were a number of factors in me not turning into a horrible drug addict in my youth. Fear was a significant one. I was (probably still am) self-centred enough to think that if I ingested illegal substances I was bound to be the unfortunate statistic, that I’d either have that rare biological make-up that would lead to a terrible, painful death from a single Youthful Drug Experience, or I’d be given something laced with rat poison, with the inevitable consequences. Read the rest of this entry »
Wait until next year 