Nailing our Cultural Coffin, One Unquestioned Re-categorization and Ill-Assumption at a Time. (*Warning- overt doom-sayer over-dramatization follows*)

As much as its not a new thing (in fact it seems lately a bit over-observed and often a trite and empty buzz-phrase), it’s nevertheless been on my mind a lot that, in countless regards, we’re currently residing at a bizarre cultural turning-point. Decisions made and actions taken in regard to the social-structures of our current transitional society are guaranteed to, for better, worse, or just “different,” turn the world that we live in into a place that we wouldn’t have recognized or foreseen five or ten years ago. The current dilemmas and changes (economic, cultural, social, technological, commercial, etc.) that the world is facing could either force us to think more creatively and overhaul outdated systems, thoughts, and ways of functioning that are no longer viable, healthy, constructive, or pertinent… or they could force a tail-spin, as society-at-large continues to blindly rest on the laurels of failed old- and untested new- systems, from which the mass-populous eventually looks around and notices that we are deadlocked into a way of life that makes us irreparably miserable.

I know, I know… I can’t even write these sort of words without a bit of a cringe at the over-dramatization. I’m no doomsayer or garden-variety conspiracy theorist. But maybe it’s time that we consider a bit whether part of the reason that these sentiments make us a bit queasy is that what WOULD have seemed laughable and pompous not that long ago is uncomfortably close to being REALISTIC for the real-life drama-quotient of the present situation.

Whether appropriate or exaggerated, this possibility should prove fodder for our consideration. Increasing our mindfulness of how we live, what we support with our time and money, what information we intake, and how we filter that information into what views and opinions that we choose to subscribe to can be nothing but positive, particularly in a time like this, when nearly every aspect of our collective lives bears some sort of “what’s next?” element.

This is no time to criticize each other for over-analyzing things, for looking at too-broad of a picture, or to even mention the words “You think too much.” We live at a juncture when thinking critically about everyday situations is among the only ways to find possibilities of the positive in impending negativity. Analyzing why we do what we do MUST become a more constant and widespread phenomenon if we are to use trying times as learning experiences rather than long-term detriments. Even if the clichéd synopsis’ of our present situation are overblown, this sort of mindset certainly can’t cause us any harm.

Just one bizarre case in point: A recent Monday’s Boston-area newspapers featured a rather surreal media-squabble story that alarmed me quite a bit. It featured a local football-”hero” and a “super”-model, their henchmen (“security”), and a couple of working photo-journalists (relabeled “paparazzi” for the added drama and stock-image automatic vilification) in a South American jungle-nation. As this story is now about a week and a half old, I’ll just relay a cursory recap in case you didn’t catch it.

Basically, the photo-journalists were commissioned by their employer to take pictures of the quarterback and model’s “top-secret” second wedding ceremony (which was so “clandestine” and “private” that its only purpose was as a media-stunt for a different publication). When the photographers were “caught” doing so by the couple’s “security”/ henchmen, they were basically kidnapped onto the property that they had previously remained off-premise of, and were detained (or attempted to be) there until they surrendered their camera and film. When the photographers refused and escaped, the henchmen opened-fire at them, missing their heads by inches and shattering the windows of their vehicle. (I wish I had have thought up this scenario for fiction… but most workshopping groups would probably have told me it was far too preposterous to be compellingly realistic.)

As you can probably guess from the code-switching in this synopsis, for the purpose of this entry I’m most interested in the issues of semantics and linguistics at play in this story, and how those translate into cultural assumptions and a set of media-based (and consumer-digested) binary codes.

Let’s remove the character stereotypes from the scenario and replace them with other stock images. If the same situation had taken place in the middle-east, for instance, the celebrities and security would be labeled “terrorists.” If they were immigrants in a US city, the headline would have read “mafia-related.” But our current culture seems unwilling to be dissuaded from the general binary assumption that “celebrities= heroes, paparazzi= villains.”

To quote the British rapper Scroobious Pip (from 2008’s Strange Famous Records release “Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobious Pip- Angles”) “I always had the feelin’ I could never be the villain, ’cuz the villain in the films is always backlit.” (for more relevant quotes on similar issues of pivotal semantics, check out the title track to that record, “Angles.”)

The photo-journalists in this scenario were paid to do a job. That job facilitates the celebrities’ ability to do their own job (particularly in the case of the super-model), of which the principle occupation and exorbitant pay-checks are derived from having photos taken of them, and maintaining the public interest (their primary claim to job-stability and commercial viability) that only the media is capable of ensuring. Photo-journalists doing their job facilitate the jobs of celebrities, yet somehow that very same media expects us to believe (and it seems that much of the populace is all too willing to) that the facilitator is somehow (by way of the facilitation itself) oppressing and victimizing the facilitated?

Cue that “what’s next?” element here… If this sort of thing is any indication, those laurels we could choose to rest on are planted in quicksand.

Art and Ideas in an Economic Recession.

Everyone I know seems to be scrimping a bit financially right now. This is probably redundant; something that goes without saying... and it's probably also a fairly obvious assertion that among those affected are "artists," a group who are often labelled and stereotyped as "starving" to begin with.

These artists, however, seem to me to be in a better place to use the economic hard-times as a growth-period: Rather than dollars-signs, the commerce of our trade and the coin-scale of our success is composed of ideas and creativity. These things are not intrinsically tied to economic fortunes. In fact, I think there are gains to be made by being forced to limit our resources, to need to separate our intellectual capital from our fiscal.

This is a great time to change our cultural thought-processes, to finally make the moves away from consumerism that we've been toying with the hypotheticals of for so long. This economic downturn could function as a golden-period of innovation in arts and ideas, particularly if we strive to view our limited expendable incomes not as a factor that constrains our creative outputs, but instead as a factor that provides much-needed opportunities to reassess the way that we think about and engage in creative tasks.

This is a good time to really enact the old credo that's deep in and important to most of our artistic subconsciouses by now; that we learn the rules so that we know how to best break them. This is an ideal time to utilize all the rules that we've learned in order to break those same rules more thoroughly, and in more creative ways, than ever before.

Think: Do I need this tool? How can I do this differently? What less-orthodox medium can I use to make my point more poignantly? What means can I use to get my message out that could attract more attention than the tried-and-true by way of their unusual and un-tested methods?

In the past, the "starving artist" mantra/ cliche usually involved scrimping on food to buy art-supplies. What I'm saying is rather, for the overall benefit of your artwork, and the potential to say something truly progressive and innovative with it, try not to buy conventional art-supplies. Figure out alternatives.

Is it for any reason, besides past rules that you learned as a foundation for your skill set that, if you're a painter, for instance, you need to purchase canvasses to paint on? What else could be used to fulfill the same purpose, but more creatively, and perhaps to the better demonstration of the concept of the piece (not to mention more economically)? I promise, there are plenty of things, and I definitely feel that more artists being coerced to think this way will produce far more interesting art.

As another example, it would greatly benefit most musical acts to re concentrate their attention on creating more genuinely interesting sounds by stopping dishing out unrealistic sums of money to record in pro- or semi-pro studios to make "radio-ready" demos when they're still quite a few rungs on the industry ladder down from radio-play. Adhering to current "professional quality standards" does not always equate to a more listenable (or even more marketable) product. More creative-sounding recordings and noise-making that not only cost less money, but come about because they cost less money??? How can you go wrong? How are we ever going to hear anything new or original again when even the lowest-caliber local bands in any given city pay to record in the same sort of studios which are stocked with same sort of gear as everything on the radio? Conventional machines (which cost money) make conventional sounds (which sound like money, rather than ideas or creativity).

Utilize this tight time-period. Make it your opportunity. Change the way that we think. This is a great opportunity to remove dollar-signs from the creative-exchange, to make the idea-market decidedly and intentionally our own.

The Slow Season, But Cold.

“It looks like
Summer’s come early
This year,” I mumbled,
Through silver smoke
I can’t discern from
My breath in the cold,
By sub-arctic dumpsters
Behind the mall-attached
Restaurant I work in,
As a coworker and I
Smoked frigid boredom,
Waiting for tables that
Wouldn’t come, reflecting
How similar, though brittle,
It was, to the warmer
Season, the one we expected
To be this very quiet and still.

While waiting to find out where I head next for grad.school, I work in a restaurant that's attached to a shopping mall. Summers are always slow. Last year, this month was still smack in the middle of our busy-season, which didn't end until long after the snow had melted. The last couple of weeks have felt like the summer, in terms of business. I've been trying to put off writing about the current economic situation that we're all grappling with for as long as possible (mostly because I hadn't completely made up my mind if the issue had already been over-tread by the media and blogosphere-at-large, or if the attention has been, and is, warranted because of the all-encompassing nature of the changes in our social-climate). I've had alot of time lately to think about how and why people aren't spending money, while standing around waiting for them to come through our doors and spend the money that, in turn, allows me to spend money. The poem above is a brief musing I jotted down while sitting by the dumpster, grabbing some polluted air... I post it less because of my pride in how it turned out, and more because I felt that it worked as a fitting preface-piece to my next entry, which will feature some musings about the place and potential of arts and ideas in times of economic recession.

Stay tuned.