On Blind Passion.

Over the past few days I’ve watched a hodgepodge of movies. All great. The one thread that binds them all together: blind passion. Blind passion can lead you astray, it can make you focus, it can steer you into a big puddle of dumb luck. All these films show the various effects of this passion, whether it manifests as frenzy or the deep, cool river of knowing calm.

#1 Saturday morning. Early bird showing of Black Swan.

In this case, blind passion for perfection drives one young woman to madness (among other things).

Note: Another Darren Aronofsky movie, Pi, is damn good and also shows how blind passion = obsession.

#2 Sunday morning. Netflix. Exit Through the Gift Shop.

In my mini-quest to watch as many Oscar-nominated movies as I could, this Best Documentary nominee landed in my instant queue. What I thought was going to be an uber-cool documentary about street art was instead a documentary about street artists and a crazy guy who’s blind passion for capturing life on a video camera accidentally made him an “artist” raking it in at Sotheby’s. It’ll make you both cringe at the situation, feel embarrassed for the art world, and feel stupid for not blindly following your passion.

#3: Monday night: Kurt & Courtney

Years ago while I was a student at Indiana University Bloomington, they had a screening of a documentary about the possible murder of Kurt Cobain in the student union. Admittedly, it was compelling. When I saw Kurt & Courtney on Netflix, I thought I’d found it. It wasn’t the one I saw in college, but it was interesting. For Courtney Love, blind passion = ambition. Like crazy, no-one-and-I-mean-no-on-is-going-to-jeopardize-my-chance-at-fame and-fortune ambition.

 

#4: Later Monday night: Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage

Ah, Rush. This documentary was great. In the case of Getty, Alex, and Neil, blind passion wasn’t blind at all, really. It was as clear-eyed as they come. How else could three guys have a successful band for 25 years+? It was just passion for their style of music (and a determination to not cave to the music business) that has made them what they are. It’s old-fashioned love for what they do. And it’s infectious.

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Fear, loathing, and forgetting

It’s funny how you forget. Forgetting can be deliberate, inadvertent, or mandatory. Mandatory forgetting is a necessary thing: the human body helps women forget the pain of childbirth so there will be plenty of people around. But the other types of forgetting are trickier, more slippery to pinpoint.

Last night we watched Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Illegal drugs and mood swings aside, the man was a testament to what someone can accomplish when they have no fear and a profoundly unshifting, principled core. Those traits combined are an alchemical mix. He was an American patriot and a truth-speaker, the rarest breed of writer and a rarer breed of activist. I had forgotten what a force he was and how his analysis is so applicable to the post-9/11 American debacle.

But why did I forget? Was it that after Election Day 2004 it was a mandatory forgetting – just to get through the last 4 Bush years? It’s strange, what you forget.

When friends we hadn’t seen in awhile started talking about their interest in homesteading, organics, the sinister side of farming conglomerates, and continued wool-pulling over consumers’ eyes, I realized I had forgotten again. I knew the harm of factory farms, of pesticide runoff, of synthetic foods, of unnecessary vivisection, of multi-national corporations who own elected officials. I knew it, but chose to forget. But I’ve remembered now.

Whether forgotten deliberately or not, I’ve remembered that people like Thompson and people who risk much to expose truth for the good of many exist. I’ve remembered that while bank balances, suburbia, and full-time jobs prohibit most of us from stocking the frig with local organic food every week, there are small things to be done – every single day – that make a difference. It falls in line with the main point behind this blog’s name: know more, know less. Except in this case, the more I remember, the more I realize I have probably forgotten.

The Brand Crush: Why Some Companies Are Just Dreamy

Some stores just strike you. It might be the experience in the store, the warm, fuzzy feeling of their corporate responsibility policies, the nostalgia of the brand, or just the products themselves. Millions of dollars have been put into studying how to make people fall in love with companies. We all know it. But something about certain companies just makes us want to blow all the rent money in an hour.

And with more than 10 million Facebook users becoming fans of brand pages each day, sharing one’s favorite brands is becoming more commonplace. It opens up a separate discussion of the alignment of oneself with the companies he or she endorses. Still, it’s fun to crush on brands. And which brands you fall in like/love with might surprise even yourself.

Take Anthropologie. I flirted with this store for about 45 minutes Saturday. And it’s not my type. I tend to shy away from overpriced stuff, but the atmosphere, the rustic-meets-victorian-meets-naturalist vibe is so appealing. The clothes, the displays, even the dressing rooms propel you out of the pedestrian mall you’re at and into some sort of dream state where you begin to fantasize about moving into a farmhouse and wearing wellies outside with big wool sweaters and skirts to feed chickens and coming inside to drink earl grey and read Walden and paint that old dresser and feed the wood stove and start a stew with the green beans you put up last year.

Ironic that the lifestyle it makes me dream about is so counter-intuitive to the $198 sweaters and $10 dresser pulls. Still, I love it, even though I’ve never spent a dime here. (I’m not the only ones who love it. Some are “Anthroholics”)

Barbour is another brand that extends beyond its jackets and hats. And thanks to its new ad, Jameson is quickly becoming one, too.

So every time I get a catalog or step into one of these stores every few months, it’s like getting a smile from a crush one day while standing at my locker. Sort of.

The Champagne of Costumes.

flickr.com/photos/richevenhouse CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

On several occasions this week, Miller High Life showed up. An afternoon beer here, a couple over a conversation there. It’s cheap. It’s good. It’s nostalgic: It was introduced in 1903. It’s one of the beers I remember my dad drinking when I was a kid. It’s oddly fancy: golden color, gold foil label, and the tagline? Classic.

This spike in High Life, along with talking about upcoming Halloween, reminds me of one of my dream costumes: The High Life Girl in the Moon on the bottle. Other gals have pulled it off: here. here. and here. I’d love to pull this Annie Oakley-esque commercial American icon off, too.

Someday I’ll have a big enough Halloween occasion to put it together. I don’t need much of an occasion to have a few High Lifes, though. It is the Champagne of Beers, after all.

Will it Deep Fry?: State Fairs Bring Obscene Foods into the Limelight

Flickr: Kevin Dooley cc 2.0

I like State Fairs. Something oddly nice about walking into a mix of a Normal Rockwell painting, a seaside midway, and the infield during a NASCAR race. But when the State Fair rolls around, it’s the same conversation: the “what-is-the-weirdest-deep-fried-thing-to-eat?” talk. The most jaw-dropping deep frieds seem to be deep-fried pizza, washed down with a deep-fried Pepsi. Also deep-fried Moon Pies, candy bars, pickles, avocados, and Spam curds. Then there’s “Pigs in the Mud”, thick-cut bacon drenched in chocolate.

In Texas, they hold a “friendly food fight” where they choose the best, most creative deep fried foods in a contest. Among the recent winners: deep-fried lattes, deep-fried peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwiches, fried cookie dough. This year’s winner? Chicken-fried bacon. Oh the humanity.

Deep-fried State Fair food prompts us to openly condemn the mere existence of such concoctions. We turn our noses up at the very idea that people are out there – right now – fully submerging Twinkies in boiling fat. Some of us try them anyway, shelling out a chunk of change to say we tried it. (Sometimes it is worth it.)

Note: Fried foods can be traced back to even ancient Rome, where they made fritters. The Dutch took this and made it better: they created doughnuts.

We act shocked that such culinary obscenities are out there, but we’re perfectly fine to NOT be shocked about some of the things Americans chow down on every other week of the year. But it seems like the everyday State Fair-type foods – and their nutritional content – are coming out of the woodwork. These late summer stints of Pigs in the Mud just shine a light on some other calorie bombs.

There’s the increasingly popular Eat This, Not That, which tells you the worst foods in America. The worst? Outback Steakhouse’s Aussie Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing has 2,900 calories and 182 g fat. But wait. Of course cheese fries are going to be awful. Correct, but ETNT also uncovers surprises. The worst “healthy meal” is Ruby Tuesday’s Bella Turkey Burger with 1,145 calories and 71 g fat. Wash that down with the worst drink: Jamba Juice’s Chocolate Moo’d Power Smoothie. It has 900 calories, and 166 g of sugar.

For shock value, there’s the This Is Why You’re Fat blog. Food so obscene, Justice Stewart would know it when he saw it. A dip for Oreos – made of melted-down Oreo filling. Bacon nachos, hold the chips. And my favorite, a Bacon and Cheese muffin.

Then there’s the Meat Ship and a Sloppy Joe Krispy Kreme. Oh. My. God. Gross.

So while the State Fair briefly drags out the deep-fried wonders, remember that you don’t have to wait until August to be disgusted. There’s plenty of that to go around every single day.

Now I’m off to eat raw spinach.

How Misinformed Hecklers, Teabags, and Shatner Remind Us to Pay Attention

I’ve resisted the temptation to post about politics. Circa 2003 and 2004, I was a frequent, nearly obsessive blog reader, and they were mainly progressive blogs that were, admittedly, invigorating. Politics was one of my first loves. (There’s pictures out there somewhere of dorky me volunteering on a local campaign at 16.) The thrill of the election, the logic (or lack of) of the argument, and the good old-fashioned theater of democracy in action made politics exciting. It made me feel as if caring about it with fervor aligned me with something bigger than myself.

After George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, I was done. I was tired of everything – the blogs, the stupidity, the blatant lies. Me, someone who had been so into the political scene and its ramifications for the country, had checked out. Cliche 20-something apathy ensued. I lost faith in a process that I had so much faith in.

Like lots of people, Barack Obama’s campaign – and the sheer elation of knowing George W. Bush would be back in Texas where he belonged – got me fired up again, but not with the fervor of before.

Now my youthful, wide-eyed energy about politics is like the last swig of whiskey in a fifth – enough to give you a taste but not enough to get you to the point you were hoping the whiskey would get you in the first place. (That’s sad, too. I’m only 28. I guess that’s how quickly jaded politics turns people.)

But with the latest video of hecklers hijacking town hall meetings of Democratic congressmen and women over the August recess, I feel like I need to post something about politics. Ironically what has been going on the past few days isn’t really true politics. Its more of a lobby-sponsored, concocted mini-mob that shows up at any and all Democratic events in home districts. Hecklers, fueled by righty talk radio that stirs up flat-out lies about the government killing off old people and all the “birther” nonsense, are conjuring shouting matches with their senators and representatives about the “government takeover” of healthcare.

(Note: I’m all for disrupting a hearing when all other channels have failed. I’m all for posing tough questions to our elected leaders. The crazies have every right to do so. It’s just really sad that the basis of such patriotic acts are lies in themselves.)

Lately, it seems like there’s a dangerous mix of ultra right-wing events: Sarah Palin quit to possibly raise money and an army (word deliberately chosen) for her election to a national stage; Glen Beck’s WTF moment (skip to 2:50) on the air with a caller; teabaggers blind and deaf to anything not spouted from a pill-popper with a shirt-pulling tick; Texas governors who want to secede. The future of these events could be a frightening scenario.

So what if it continues? Not even 60 Democratic Senate votes and the cucumber-cool of Obama can quell an angry mob. At what point does this become frightening? And if it does become frightening, wouldn’t that be a surprise? We suffered through the Bush regime for 8 years and watched the world suffer more than us. If these folks turn nasty/violent, how ironic would that be?

Maybe this is nothing – just another Bill Ayres-esque fiasco that is whipped up and deflated just as quickly. Or maybe it’s the beginning of an even greater American divide. Either way, I’ve learned that it pays to pay attention. To not completely check out, no matter how disheartening it gets. Because you never know when the angry mob is going leave the school gyms and YMCA community rooms and take to the streets.

p.s. Check this out. Are they for real? Seriously.

Excuse me, is that a Blackberry in Your Corset? or Seeing History versus Retweeting It

I spent some time this weekend learning about the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, a.k.a. the Chicago World’s Fair. Until that point hadn’t I known very much about it – just that it was one of the biggies when it comes to historical events of that age.

But it turns out this event was incredible. Like the kind of thing I’d wish to be transported back to if, say, I came across an abandoned tardis or something. And not just because I have a crush on this part of history. But because it was such a watershed event. Just a summary of how happenin’ this 1893 shindig was:
life-size replicas of Egyptian structures
the first Ferris wheel
the first American exposure to bellydancing (it was known as – wait for it – the “hootchy-kootchy”)
Buffalo Bill Cody was rejected for exhibiting his Wild West show, but set up nearby and drew a crowd
Scott Joplin introduced ragtime music
hula dancing shined some light on Hawaii for one of the first times
Products that were introduced: Cracker Jack, Juicy Fruit, Quaker Oats, Cream of Wheat, Shredded Wheat, Aunt Jemima pancake mix, and the hamburger.
Frederick Douglass was Haiti’s delegate to the fair
buildings constructed for the fair are still part of Chicago today
John Phillip Sousa’s band played on the Midway every day

But a huge difference between now and then was that to attend the event was the only way to experience these incredible new inventions and architecture and gadgets and products. Today, though, ideas and creations are known even before they are produced. We’re reading tweets about them, watching videos of them, and hearing about how great they are from people who have access to them because they are celebrities, high-profile, or connected.

Although the explosion of social media and real-time information has transformed the way the world works for the better, there will always be a trade off. A part of me wants to go back to a time when having a ticket to an exhibit was really exclusive – one where there were no bit.ly links, no iPhone videos on Facebook, not even a TV crew there to dispatch the news of the latest and greatest thing.

But then again, if I did go back, I’d just want to blog about it.

Things I Want

I liked Entirely Too’s quick post so much I’m stealing her format:

Things I want (in no particular order):

- A clawfoot tub
- A new byline
- A frozen concoction, to help me hang on
- A Tempurpedic
- A really good That’s What She Said
- A Netflix in the mailbox: Weeds Season 4 Disc 2
- A nighttime swim
- World peace for the Iraq, and everywhere like, such as

In life and death, Michael Jackson still an isolated force

This global obsession with Michael Jackson has had a weird effect on my brain. The phenomenon that was the King of Pop has been stuck in the back of my mind since the mega-memorial in L.A. So much so that I watched parts of the Martin Bashir documentary again. Skewed, but fascinating.

Michael Jackson was alone his entire life. He was like a sun in a solar system of fans, of paparazzi, of his own fame. And like the sun, he couldn’t be touched. Too hot. And still just alone and watching an orbit of activity around him.

It’s enough to drive someone mad, really. Isolation. Endless, painful restriction.

And seeing that shiny, gold-plated casket in a sea of 19,000 people, I realized Michael Jackson was still alone. No one knew what it was like to be him in life. Ironically, no one – no one among the millions (billion?) of people who watched his memorial – knew what it was like to be him in death.

He was the only one who knew what it was like to be him. And on Tuesday, he was the only one among thousands to know what finally happens when one dies.

MJ’s Love of Reading Adds to Mixed Emotions about His Death

In the week since Michael Jackson’s death, there’s been mixed emotions. So much so that people are talking about their internal struggles about the King of Pop.

On one hand, he was undeniably a star. Jaw-dropping dance moves. Rhythms that would make a stiff conservative preacher get up and grind it out with the church secretary. On the other hand, there’s the possible pedophilia and the glorious freakishness. We’re saddened because of the disappearance of an icon, but torn between feeling grief and feeling guilt for mourning someone who could maybe do. that. to kids.

This story has changed my perspective on him: Michael Jackson was an avid reader. He was a regular at L.A. bookshops. His favorite author was Ralph Waldo Emerson. And, like in the homes of devoted readers, he had little reading nooks surrounded by stacks of marked up, dog-eared books.

My assumptions about Michael Jackson have been thrown out of whack. Not because I thought he was somehow ignorant (sorry, couldn’t resist); intelligence and weirdness are often found together. It has to do with this tidbit from Jackson’s attorney Bob Sanger, who was interviewed in L.A. Weekly :

“He loved to read. He had over 10,000 books at his house. And I know that because – and I hate to keep referring to the case, because I don’t want the case – the case should not define him. But one of the things that we learned – the DA went through his entire library and found, for instance, a German art book from 1930-something. And it turned out that the guy who was the artist behind the book had been prosecuted by the Nazis. Nobody knew that, but then the cops get up there and say, ‘We found this book with pictures of nude people in it.’ But it was art, with a lot of text. It was art. And they found some other things, a briefcase that didn’t belong to him that had some Playboys in it or something. But they went through the guy’s entire house, 10,000 books. And it caused us to do the same thing, and look at it.”

This makes my already-muddled reaction to his death even more confusing. Maybe what we know as the American public is all wrong. I’m not up to speed on the gritty details of his life and his scandals. From what I recall, the case against him was pretty convincing, but not convincing enough to get a conviction. So what if we’re wrong? If anyone walked into my place today, they’d find naked pictures in more than a few of my books – art, anatomy, history. Misinterpretation of things one doesn’t understand is nothing new. What if MJ was really misunderstood? What if he was this eccentric, weird, complex man whose childhood pain, psychological abnormalities, natural talent, and personal interests mixed up into some odd Jesus Juice cocktail that was entirely innocent? Maybe he really just wanted to help kids have the childhood he never had, but just had a distorted way of going about it? Or is everything we’ve been force-fed by the media true – that he was just a broke, strung-out wreck who molested kids and happened to be one of the biggest legends in American musical history?

We will never really know. That’s what makes it so unnerving. Seeing the video of him perform a few days before he died is really sad. He sounds great, moves great, looks great. More video will come out, more people will start giving interviews, and more information will add to the mystery.

With the real truth about him able to come out now, maybe we’ll learn more things like his love of learning and reading. Maybe it’ll be confirmed that he was a tortured soul who only wanted to be himself and give back. Or maybe we’ll learn that he really did need to be stopped.

Regardless, the man will always be a legend. And I think that for those of us who have split feelings about his death, our feelings toward him will shift with every new piece of news. I just hope that news is true, and that the truth – whatever it is – will be made known once and for all.