Festivities

For some reason, the thought of eating turkey leaves a strange, plastic-y taste in my mouth. I think I'll pass.

The Cult of Louis and other turkey talk

The story begins in 17th century France.

Lacking the immediacy of modern telecommunications, Louis XIV’s spinners constructed an elaborate media machine that would generate an image of their young monarch as demi-god and disseminate it to the oppressed masses in order to win over public opinion.

An entire art school and spinoff artistic tradition was established specifically to support this very endeavor—to make Louis look good—as well as to help him decorate his new house. And so the revered Académie française came to be, recruiting the most promising artists of its day via an elaborate and well-publicized competition where the contestants were held captive in their studios for 106 days and directed to paint a specific allegorical theme. The grand prize winner of the coveted Prix de Rome was sent (woo-hoo) on an all-expenses paid vacation at the Villa Medici in Florence, where he could churn out Italianate masterpieces to his heart’s content. These, of course, were all shipped back to Versailles to cover its many empty walls.

The Prix de Rome competition would spawn a tradition of grueling, battle-to-the-death contests that continues today and includes most notably the Tour de France race. The mere suggestion of a contest seems to send a frisson of pleasure through many people in that country. But to me the most fascinating element in this story lies in the wacky propaganda machine that was spawned during Louis’ reign. Commisioned paintings of the young king often depicted His Royal Louis-ness surrounded by a writhing community of supporting players—hovering angels, genuflecting villagers, pointing bystanders and bleeting animals—whose sole collective purpose was to make Louis look good.

Now, fast-forward to Thanksgiving Day, 2003, to Bush's surprise visit to the Baghdad airport. Known as the famous Turkey Shoot, this choreographed photo-op would both spur a tsunami-sized wave of patriotism in the United States and, well, make George look good.

And so he stands, demonstrating protective assurance like a compassionate monarch as he holds the perfect turkey on a platter before grinning soldiers. It has since been reported that the dead bird was in fact a plastic stand-in, no doubt a cruel joke to the participating troops. Whether or not this is true is beside the point, because the entire apparition was strategized like a 17th century painting; its importance didn't lie in the turkey, but rather in the gesture that it represented.

Within 24 hours, George’s public relations people had successfully painted an image that would have taken Louis’ boys at least 24,000 hours to orchestrate. Today you can even buy a Turkey Dinner Bush talking doll—complete with plastic bird—that utters phrases like: "I was just looking for a warm meal somewhere," and "Thanks for inviting me to dinner... I can't think of a finer group of folks to have Thanksgiving dinner with than you all."

Sadly, the term Turkey Shoot is also used to describe a decidedly one-sided battle. It’s no accident that the term ‘spinning’, commonly used to describe the creation of media stories, is better suited to yarn. As in lies. As in pulling the wool over…

Ewe get the picture.


[with inspiration from Dr. Amy Schmitter, "Representation and the Body of Power in French Academic Painting," Journal of the History of Ideas 63, no. 3, July 2002, pp. 399-424.]

Fly-by Kitty: A World Out of Order

It’s all about balance.

From where I see the world, wealth wouldn’t exist without poverty; power without powerlessness; beauty without bad taste, Vespas without Hummers.

Historically renowned for their refined aesthetic sense, the Japanese qualify objects of utter beauty as belonging to the realm of shibui. On a visual level, this encompasses things that are simple, pure, rough and often monochromatic. Shibui represents a type of deeper beauty that only time can reveal, as exemplified by time-worn artefacts or wave-washed beach stones.

According to the aforementioned law of balance, shibui can only exist if its antithesis is also floating somewhere out there in the world. Like the evil twin in an ancient folk tale, this diametric doppelganger takes its form in things gaudy, colorful and overly ornate. Japanese products that fall into this category often involve celebration, and occasionally involve pachinko machines.


Immune to land borders and language barriers, manifestations of kitsch are shared—and sometimes travel—between cultures. Post-modern cultural historians, who have claimed the term "anti-aesthetics" as their own, would weep with joy at the news of the Taiwan airline, Eva Air, that recently adopted Hello Kitty's over-licensed image for its visual identity. Hello Kitty Air's flagship airbus is painted from nose to tail with images of Kitty and her friends who, by the way, are not shibui.

Similarly, in the city where I live (admittedly in the eighties) there was an Italian furniture store that sold glossy molded plastic bed frames—with built-in surround sound stereo systems—that would have fit right in on the set of Aliens. Could this abomination have sprung from the loins of the very culture responsible for Alfa Romeo Spiders and Renaissance art? Necessarily so, I would argue. One couldn't exist without the other.

I see this same principle of balance playing itself out in my own domestic world. I’ve long been aware that, in order to strive for perfection in certain areas of my existence, I have to surrender to complete and unapologetic chaos in others. My paid work demands that I be precise, exact and detailed. Which maybe explains my perpetually messy home. I’m happy with its permanent stack of dirty dishes, and offer no excuses as I’m convinced that if every aspect of my life was perfectly ordered and strung taught, something somewhere would snap like an overextended violin string.

Without this give and take, without this balance of order and dis-order, my whole world would just… go…… sproing.

On Vision

I recently noticed a new trend. Or maybe it wasn’t a trend but rather me paying attention to something I’d never noticed before. Maybe the trend really began with me repeatedly logging a certain pattern and then filing it with the other detritus that makes up my memory.

What exactly is a trend? Is it an actual common movement in one direction, or does it rest in the realm of perception?

Popular culture magazines often feature a section that displays several photographs of celebrities wearing the same colour/hairstyle/skirt length/expensive lizard cowboy boots, declaring it as the latest 'in'. This suggests that you could similarly go out into a large crowd, snap photos of five people who happen to be choking on hotdogs, then claim it as a trend. To me, it seems to be treading the borderline of epidemiological study. If anything, it does reflects a certain near-sightedness.

Anyway, it’s all finally about demographics. What I recently noticed was that people around me were wearing their reading glasses as hair ornaments. I first became aware of this six months ago. It then snowballed until I believed that walking around with glasses perched on top of the head must be a new trend. And it does lend a certain air of panache and knowingness to the wearer.

It wasn’t until this week that I threw in the ageing factor. This is no trend, I realized. In hindsight I could see that it was the remaining 20/20 vision types in my age group who were getting older and requiring glasses.

Was I disappointed by this revelation—this reminder of encroaching seniority? Not at all. I now have a shiny new pair of glasses to sport on top of my own head. Sometimes I actually use them to read. Most times I just look… knowing.

I take that back

I've often wondered what it would be like if there was a software program that could reveal the changes that had been made to a received e-mail before the author had clicked 'Send'. An unspoken-word editor, so to speak.

What words did the sender decide not to send? What was I not supposed to know? It would certainly wreak havoc on on-line communications. But I didn't necessarily say it was a good idea... just an idea. And why haven't they invented transporters yet? I'm still waiting!

Dead Nature

I love differences. They inspire travel. If it weren’t for the differences in dress, cuisine, language, music, traffic signs, subways, sirens, smells, sugar cubes and bread that are encountered while traveling, it wouldn’t be worth the flight. Even a two-hour car trip to the nearest city to the south can reveal enough differences to flip your thinking around and send you back home with a new perspective on life. ‘They sure seem American in such-and-such a city’ you might think to yourself after unpacking your car.

Which leads to the differences between the French and English languages. The French can turn a canonic English phrase into something poetic. For example, insomnia becomes nuit blanche (white night), sunset becomes crépuscule enpourprée (crimson twilight), MacDonalds becomes MacdoNALDS (with emphasis on the last syllable).

But in the case of ‘still-life’, typically used to describe an artwork that depicts objects contained within an interior, and that aren’t moving, its French equivalent, nature morte (roughly translated as ‘dead nature’), is VERY different from something that isn’t moving. It is, most definitely, dead.

This nature morte is by the Dutch game painter Jan Weenix, and is currently held in the collection of The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Entitled Still Life with Swan and Game Before a Country Estate, it was painted around 1685. The nature depicted in this painting does look rather dead, don't you think?

The term ‘still-life’, however, implies that the things in the picture are STILL alive. It's a hopeful expression—one that could be used to describe even me, slumped at my desk on a Friday afternoon.

What can we glean from this? For one, that translators are worth far more than the money they’re paid. Language carries with it nuance and implied meaning. No expression or phrase can be exactly duplicated in another language. One cannot clone another culture. C’est interdit!

But we ARE allowed to pack our bags, travel a short or long distance, dive into another culture, and then revel in the diversity and complexity of life on this planet.

Vive la différence!

You'll never believe what happened to me on the way to the cleaners...

I grew up.

Well, not exactly. I did become an adult, though, constantly perplexed by the grownup behavior that surrounds me.

For example, I ended up in a billiards lounge this week, surrounded by co-workers out on day-leave for a pre-christmas celebration. And I found myself looking around the room thinking: 'Soooooooo..... THIS is what grownups do.' After having spent so much time around playgrounds lately, I felt at odds being somewhere without young children. On the contrary, this somewhere was filled with OLDER children yielding pool cues and beer bottles.

And so I played. Although at first humbled by a continuous missing streak, I found my pool game actually improving once my lunch wine wore off, to the point where I WAS GOOD!!!!

I also had to get over the issue of sticking my butt out in public (to take a pool shot), which goes against everything my mother taught me.

In the end, like the true hobbit I am, I slowly moved from observing this grownup adventure to actually participating, enjoying myself, and wanting more. Well, maybe not.

Regarding the Grownup Thing (as compared to the Adult Thing, which we are no matter how hard we fight it): I waste far too much time feeling that I should be acting more like one. Instead, I should appreciate how lucky I am to be on the other side of grownuphood. Because, when you really think of it, grownuphood is simply a club whose membership is made up of People Who Take Themselves Too Seriously.

So, hurray to parenthood, to being a child at heart, to laughing at yourself.

Some day I may even make it to the cleaners.

Resistance is futile

SOOOOooooooooooooooo..... this is how it starts.

One minute I'm an innocent observer, about to publish a comment on a friend's weblog. The next minute... WE ARE BLOG!

This day that started as an errand-running, catch-up-with-my-life kind of day is ending by seeing me join millions of other on-line webloggers collectively publishing the results of our individual neural connections on the Internet.

My laptop sucked me in.

Yes, that's what I'll tell them when they stop me and ask whatever came into your head to make you decide to start a blog? And then I'll vehemently promise never to publish a 'you'll never believe what happened to me on the way to the cleaners' type of story.

With that, I'll wrap up my first official post as a member of this cyber community of thought.

Oh, and many happy rapid cognitions to all during this festive season!