Fridge Notes from Beyond the Grave: Classics Edition

"Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!" - Socrates (a roughly literal translation)

Cousin Morgan, you will never be an orator.

A brief note of thanks is in order to Scott and Will of The Lecture Series and Corey and Josh of Book Thug Nation for permitting me to speak last night. Though it was sparsely attended and my performance was far from perfect, it was nonetheless an enjoyable experience that all involved seemed to enjoy in some respect. (The comment by one attendee that my lecture was "the scariest lecture he'd ever heard" has not gone unappreciated.) And for anyone who has an affinity for used editions of major and obscure works in all the major genres, I can't recommend Book Thug Nation enough. Anyone in and around the Brooklyn area are encouraged to check it out.

For those who missed the event but are still interested in reading my lecture, "On Perpetuating Our Political Institutions By Way of Our Disassembling and Reassembling of Them," you will certainly have the opportunity as I intend to put together a xeroxed booklet edition of it when time and money allows.

Permit Me to Stimulate You ... In Person

Biopsy no. 3 is progressing at a glacial pace, to be sure; but that does not ease my obligation to promote it in any way. In fact I've stepped up my efforts by opting to appear publicly in support of it to give a lecture at a book store in the Lion's Den -- that is to say, Williamsburg. The details:

TITLE: "On Perpetuating Our Political Institutions By Way of Our Disassembling and Reassembling of Them" (new and unpublished!)
LOCATION: Book Thug Nation 100 N 3rd St. Williamsburg, Brooklyn (between Berry St. and Wythe Ave.; take the L train to Bedford Ave.; exit at Bedford Ave. and N 7th St.; go west toward N 6th; turn right on N 3rd)
DATE: Thursday January 21, 2010
TIME: 8:00 PM til no later than 10:00 PM (lecture will be 45 minutes give or take)

If you have an interest in the subject matter (or the Biopsy approach to the subject matter) and lack a hatred of Williamsburg that doesn't border on the irrational, then perhaps you'd like to attend? New info to be included as it comes. For those who can't make it, but are still interested as to what, exactly I am to say, the essay itself will appear printed in one form or another. Whatever the case thanks for the continued interest and patience.

Hipster or Insane Secret Policeman?: Thoughts on Haiti's Sad History

By now we've all heard about and been moved by the massive earthquake that slammed Haiti recently, and perhaps by this point we've all heard about and became enraged by Pat Robertson's latest inappropriate but completely expected comments in regards to said earthquake:



Despite the obvious senality, if not stupidity, of the statement, the Reverend has a point. Haiti is, as Foreign Policy stated, the unluckiest country even for one of the third world. Though it was one of the first all-black independent nations, its first ruler declared himself Emperor, its exportable goods rapidly dwindled, it became overcrowded, racked with disease and poverty, its political instability makes nations like Mexico and Myanmar appear utopian by comparison. The earthquake is clearly terrible, though payment for a debt to Satan it is not. If Rev. Robertson had not just wanted to be a dick he'd perhaps know that this hypothetical debt would have been paid in full by 1986, at the end of the dreaded 31 year Duvalier period.

Dr. Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier earned the love of the Haitian people for his efforts in heling relieve them of ailments such as yaws and typhus, and no doubt his election in 1957 as president, however fraudulant it may have been, was welcomed in no small way. However various circumstances such as an attempted military coup in 1958 and a massive heart attack that may or may not have resulted in severe neurological damage altered his benevolence into the exact opposite. Duvalier made himself "President for Life" ruling until his death in 1971. In that time he managade to undo his substantial medical work, allowing malnutrition to go unchecked, the slums overcrowded after he took land from the rural poor and gave it to his cronies, he exerted a massive control over the nation's culture, and used its religious superstitions in a most bizarre manner.

Duvalier had an odd attachment to voodoo, best embodied by his notorious secret police force, known officially as the National Security Volunteers but known better as the Tonton Macoutes, a term based on a type of bogeyman who had the power to make children disappear, which was their basic job description, only it applied to pretty much anyone and not just those Duvalier considered a threat to his rule. They were a particularly ominous force, known for their proto-hipster mode of dress including blue denim fatigues, dark sunglasses and machetes. They were recruited primarily from the nation's poor, answered directly to the President, and not paid. The Totons earned a living by way of bribery and basically taking whatever they wanted from wherever they wanted. They proved a more imposing presence in Haiti than the military, an institution Duvalier despised. Some 30,000 people died as a result of Duvalier's tactics, some of which met miserable ends at Fort Dimanche, Haiti's Guantonamo turned to 11, run by Duvalier's "right-hand woman" Madame Max Adolphe, memorialized thusly:



The force continued to be used up until 1986 when Haiti had grown tired of Francois' idiot son Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, who, out of the goodness of his heart, pledged to donate $8 million to the Red Cross, a fraction of what he ended up embezzling from the country. Though in the event that this, too, gets subjected to Duvalier-style misspending, feel free to donate yourselves here and perhaps we can outdo the exiled SOB's efforts. Nevertheless it is the least anyone can do, hell even I donated.

Here's to the hope that some relief comes to all those who need it. Though given what I've just written, it seems most fitting for the currently wrecked Presidential Palace to remain in that condition, as the money required to renovate it can stand to be spent on more deserving projects.

V Magazine's "Size Issue" and the Greater Good: More Related Than Even They Would Think

The United States, like most other nations, is a land of infinite problems that endure stubbornly for centuries only to be ridden of after the forcible spilling of several thousand gallons of blood. What separates our nation from others, however, is the assertion that our many problems -- in addition to our grotesqueries, vulgarities and flat out mistakes -- are actually assets, the kind of assets that are expected to be flaunted by all citizens as a badge of perfection, lest they want to be assumed to be openly requesting an extended prision sentence for treason. One of these "assets," while not the most socially pressing, is undoubtedly the most annoying to any person of measured sensibility.

Like the War on Drugs, the War on Fat exists for no more complex a reason than to enable the vanity, hatred and sadism of a people who have appointed themselves the keepers of what is assumed to be an objective standard of physical appearence with little regard for people's specific body construction or ability to make individual choices, however stupid or unattractive. In essence, there are those who would be contented to have the poor die, as the result of neglected socio-economic matters, so long as their personal tastes are upheld as the ultimate tastes.

Bandying about the term "obesity," these people inflict a certain violence against those of a certain high amount of pounds in the name of public health while actually carrying with them a Straussian belief to meet utopian ends. These non-obese people have a view on body image that makes the grand assumption that their appearence is and always has been the standard by which people in all cultures and civilizations have held themselves in comparison to and lived by, with total disregard for historical record. (In pre- as well as post-Latinized South America, curved women were considered more desirable for their assumed fertility and ability to bare as many children as needed -- read: too many -- and that Europeans in centuries past considered anyone thin and tan -- i.e. underfed outdoor laborers -- to be undesirable peasents.) They take this view and, while feigning concern for "heffer health," seek to mold society into a certain appearence at which the most acceptable extreme extends no further than Kim Kardashian. Anyone with a Kelly Clarkson body type or heavier would be considered henceforth a malignancy on the new order. The allure of the attractive person has had the public consistently transfixed for some time, in league with so tyrannical a notion, and it seems as if it has been only recently that the public has been willing to hear reasoned dissent on the matter.

The "plus-size" model was something of novelty for as long as the concept has existed in this culture, seemingly doomed either to the perpetually frumpy world of big and tall bargain bins or the faux sensitive insipid rich kid irony of Generation X. They were elevated somewhat being displayed in undergarmet ads in upscale malls, however these had a very politically correct Lifetime Channel patronization to them -- the ones I saw in Short Hills some years ago included chubby women stricken with an uncontrollable elementary school giddiness, the fat female equviliant, it seems, of jolliness -- and they were only to be laughed at by their chief tyrants. Only recently has the plus-size model been given a more respectful and artful treatment, in our fashion magazines no less.

America's most popular fashion magazines are the arbiters of the tyranny of beauty, if Elle and Vogue are anything to go by, but their European counterparts, while no less entrenched in elitism, are far more expansive in their creativity and rather than having it rub off onto their American counterparts it has become more fitting for the more independent-minded fashion magazines of this nation to go in all manner of radical directions pioneered by the Euros. V magazine has a particularly indimidating presence on magazine racks, and they have made an effort to challenge more readers and passers-by with their recent spread composed entirely of plus-size models rendered in such a manner as to be indistinguishable from that of the cover of Roxy Music's Country Life.

Strange, ins't it, how there are no hints of the repulsive, the grotesque or the lumpy? Notice, too, how they come off as objects of style and sexuality as opposed to objects of derision and disgust. Some have voiced misgivings in regards to the approach to the spread, as this blogger has, insisting that the retouching reaches an unhappy medium between the plus-size aspect and model aspect. An astute observation, no doubt, about a dynamic that will need to be experimented with over time as attempts become more frequent, though it is my belief that the very use of retouching rings of equality. Though they are indeed fat, we should not forgot that they are still models who are as all too familiar with the rigors of their occupation as "normal" models are. The glamor treatment is, as Sen. John C. Calhoun would put it, a "positive good" for the fashion industry and for America, proving that there is nothing oxymoronic about a hot fatty and could very well lead to having the graceless term "plus-size" eviscerated from our lexicon entirely.

With the beautiful people's dreams of genocide averted, it would seem that Hell is also paved with snobby intentions as well as good intentions. For that we owe V no insignificant amount of thanks.