Adherents to the apocalyptic tradition have now, in pluralist societies, two powers not well known to secondary cultures: freedoms of religion and association. By removing the social structures so effective in oppressing the minority culture, the primary has disarmed one of the major reasons for continued loyalty to the apocalyptic secondary identity (and the infrastructure that surrounds it). If there are no codified methods of oppression, then the methods and metaphors of apocalypticism lose relevance as critical techniques.

Brewing on the back-burner is the next series I will undertake, which I have tentatively titled "The Armory of Ardor: Sex and Semiotics," an examination of the symbols, codes, and communication of American sexuality over the past few decades. I am very much interested in the interplay of power in language, and the notion of the illicit and the taboo aggregates power and control around itself.

I will post as I can, and thanks for reading!

A population can be insular without necessarily demonizing cultures peripheral (or, as insular derives from the Latin for island, external) to itself. Insularity is, in the case of the oppressed secondary culture experiencing apocalypticism, cautious self-identification only with those who share cultural competencies. It is a survival mechanism in a time where political subversion or the appearance of subversion brings drastic consequences.

There are two problems with the myth of the American Dream. The first is the simplest: It isn't true.

A concise description of Wikipedia from the New Yorker. Link via Kottke.

Perlstein has beaten me to the punch when it comes to a dissection of the primary narrative of conservatism, as I have been struggling to articulate what I have been observing on the national stage. The recent legislation against stem cells, the production of the "culture of death" terminology, the movement against equality for homosexuals all seem rooted in the solidarity of Christian conservatives and evangelicals. Perlstein does not neglect the intertwined trajectories of modern conservatives (perhaps they call themselves "neoconservatives" these days) and the fundamentalist Christian movement, but I do not believe he goes far enough in attributing the narrative of persecution to the nature of evangelicism.

The heart of the evangelical and conservative Christian cultures is apocalypticism. Despite disagreement and attempts at disambiguation, apocalypticism is primarily a critical technique employed by sociopolitical commentators that shrouds its analysis and subversion in the language of the eschaton (the "end times").

"When your better days are dead and gone
You learn to sing sadder songs."

Expect a few new articles after I’ve recuperated.

While revisions and remakes are in vogue, and some are ultimately the best expressions of their characters and storylines (see Batman Begins, for even though I love Tim Burton’s original, Nolan’s film is the Batman that was always meant to be), there is a slight feeling of the unnecessary hanging around Superman’s neck. Though I haven’t seen the original films, even I, an ignorant outsider to its cinematic history, left the theater thinking, “That was good… but it didn’t really seem new.”

Of course most of the thematic expressions are ultimately the same as in earlier Superman films and source material, but what we have with this movie that we did not get with earlier work is a polish to a mirror shine. Christopher Reeve’s wire-work cannot possibly compare to the lifelike CGI illusion we see flying, diving, and crashing to earth from space. No technology from the 1970s could have given us the puzzlingly creepy impression of a bullet striking Superman’s impenetrable eye.

What I’m not qualified to comment upon is whether Kate Bosworth’s Lois Lane is in any sense better or reminiscent of Margot Kidder’s performance in the original Superman, but with that qualifier, I’ll bet that Kidder had to have been better. Bosworth is lifeless and unconvincing. Though her child (yes, we’re supposed to believe Bosworth has an attachment to perpetually sticky child her fiancé drags along) doesn’t fall into the too-precious-by-half movie child cliché, he does come pretty close.

The Superman played by Brandon Routh is more golem than Moses; instead of a charismatic leader we have an indestructible servant, silent and solemn, sacrificing for a world that readily embraces his absence (Lane has even received a Pulitzer for the article “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman”). Though we are battered by the notion that such seflessness is an act of leadership, this Superman rarely speaks, rarely gives any context to his action other than to stand as a beacon of simple opposition. He is an immovable object, a force of nature, not a figurehead or a messiah.

I’m somewhat surprised by the negative tone I have struck here in this review—I did enjoy the film, and it’s nice to see Superman get a modernized treatment. But with the quality of Singer’s prior work, it’s upsetting to see him settle for a mere updating, rather than a true revitalization.

Unlike any of its American counterparts—the utterly noxious cultural misconception Xiaolin Showdown chief among its thematic rivals—the subtext beneath Naruto’s glossily animated surface and big, expressive eyes is a story about the corrosive effects of child abuse.

This is a show about the abused, about how the traumas visited upon us in childhood build our worlds in bruises and blood.

The first track off Deja was the first song they played--more an atmospheric dabbling than a true song. "Tautou" drifts in on gentle guitar and a crash of cymbal, with Jesse Lacey's keen voice whispering "I'm sinking like a stone in the sea / I'm burning like a bridge for your body," and this couplet is repeated, first at a whisper, then a keening wail, as the lights pulsed. The crowd, mostly people younger than I, threatened to overwhelm the low vocals with their insistent yelling. As "Tautou" faded out into distortion, the band members waved, and a new guitar line broke out.

I've listened to Deja more than a few times, and know each of its songs--instrumentation and lyrics--like well-worn paths in the back yard, comfortable to tread, welcoming your presence. This guitar line was reminiscent of several but specifically none, and as such I can only presume it's off their upcoming record, which (if the t-shirts are accurate) called Fight Off Your Demons. It was darker, its verses sung tensely, building, only to erupt into screams and shouts.

La Zona Rosa is a small venue, walls around asphalt, and as such the acoustics left something to be desired, so I cannot say for certain if what I heard was really the literal content of the songs. But that chorus, that exploding guitar work, that crashing drums, the fluttering liquid bass, they were met with a throat-ripping wordless scream. A full-blooded furious scream that chilled the bone. Standing in a crowd of a thousand people watching the kaleidoscopic frenzy and the shattering lights onstage I felt the hairs on my arms stand on edge.

While Deja found more of its tracks played than their prior record, Brand New played their ode to teenage romance, "Soco Amaretto Lime," to the following cheers of the adolescent crowd. Having left high school and college behind me, the pathos and blatant youthful escapism were lost on me. The acoustic guitar graced Lacey's voice as the rest of the band left the stage.

But as with any concert, this was the false start before the encore, where the more violent, more insistent songs of their catalog came out to feed off the manic energy near midnight. It was here that the cognitive disconnect between the content of the songs and their audience was most readily apparent. "Me vs. Maradona vs. Elvis," despite its non-sequitur title, is a story of a sexual predator, enticing and devouring the women in his path. The strumming guitar and the hushed vocals conjure the impression of quiet shadows and cold bedrooms, furtive encounters in the dark, strangers in the night trying to find what the empty winter sun cannot show them.

You laugh at every word, trying hard to be cute / I almost feel sorry for what I'm gonna do / And your hair smells of smoke / Who will cast the first stone? / You can sin or spend the night all alone.

The story of "Maradona" is that of an aggressive, deceitful male, of the posturing of these one-night stands, the futility of a meaningful encounter. Far from the male victimized by the loss of his virginity in "Sic Transit Gloria (Glory Fades)," the narrator of this song has found the most satisfying way of fulfilling his needs: Taking it from these girls, cultivating the impression of sensitivity, leaving behind him an abattoir bedroom of sweaty bodies and crying eyes.

You're using all your looks that you've thrown from the start / If you let me have my way, I swear I'll tear you apart / Cause it's all you can be / You're a drunk and you're scared / It's ladies night, all the girls drink for free

The girls in the audience, none older than 20, they cheered and they shouted, they screamed out the lines with Lacey, celebrating the story of their own exploitation. I listened, and waited for the coda's crashing noise, astounded by the song's warm reception.

I will lie awake, lie for fun / And fake the way I hold you / You'll fall for every empty word I say

The bitterness and the cynical aggression permeated their next song, "Seventy Times 7," a punkier, musically less ingenious concoction than most of their other work. But where the riffs fail to invent, the lyrics and their poison more than make up. "So have another drink and drive yourself home / I hope there's ice on all the roads / You can think of me when you forget your seatbelt / And again when your head goes through the windshield."

Appropriately their last song was "Play Crack the Sky," an extended metaphor of love as a ship sunk in the cold Atlantic, the narrator calling out "I am the one who haunts your dreams / Of mountains sunk below the sea / I spoke the words but never / Gave a thought to what they all could mean." Describing the end, eyes closed, Lacey lets the house lights die around him and with a wave and a thank-you left the stage.

Their live presence is strong, but there are still the hints of production work cleaning up their rougher edges on their albums. While a perfectly manicured appearance would no doubt seem stale and robotic, the intricate harmonies and the precise instrumentation is one of their strongest suits in their recorded work (excepting the freshman Weapon, which relies mostly on lyrical jabs to counteract its reliance on genre convention). But the vitality of the live scene is an unparalelled outlet, and theirs is a show not to be missed.

So keep your eyes out for a new Empty Signifiers coming soon!

What is solitaire, though? Why do we play it the way we do? What does the game communicate to us? Games meant for an individual are often seen as a way to pass the time, to occupy the mind, to busy the fingers. But games are agreements, contracts entered into between players, or between the player and the game itself. The game and the agreement are both encapsulated in the rules of the game. The rules are the reason you play the game, and the very thing you play, simultaneously. Whether you expect it or not, the act of playing the game is an act of agreement, and it is worth taking a minute to examine what you're agreeing to.

Start at the start. What is the card? Pairing a unit of measure with an amount of the same; it is almost a mnemonic device to teach Arabic numerals. The numeral 2, and two diamonds, two clubs, two hearts, two spades. But after the numeral ten, we encounter the "face" cards--the anthropomorphic display of royalty, the Jack, the Queen, the King, and ending paradoxically with the ace, alphabetical, anumerical. We have an unexpected island of humanity in a sea of abstraction, of quantized units. And they are not just any people, they are the ruling class.

The by-now-familiar game of Solitaire we all recognize begins with an arrangement of seven stacks of cards, with each stack consisting of the same number of cards as its position from the left (that is, the first stack from the left contains one card, the second stack two cards, etc.). The goal is to order the cards into suits, beginning with the ace and ascending numerically until reaching the king. But to achieve this goal we first order the cards into four stacks, starting with kings, and arranging them in a flip-flop color order--red, black, red, black (Stendhal would surely approve).

It is almost an exercise in mannered futility. Begin with one arbitrary hierarchy--that of space and number--and replace it with another arbitrary hierarchy, a mixture of color and number, while aiming at yet a third arbitrary hierarchy of homogeneity. What is it about? What are we agreeing to? What is its purpose, locked in the rules?

It does not seem to mean anything. It does not seem to have a purpose other than killing time.

But we begin with a hierarchy. A progression through space from left to right of an increasing quantity. And to progress through space is to progress through time; we begin with one card and apportion our stacks with more and more, until we have seven cards at the end of the line. We seed the stacks, arrange the layout, set the field ourselves.

It is easiest to remove the stack with the fewest cards, and to do so is to open the space that stack used to occupy. One can fill empty spaces only with kings, with patriarchs; and from the patriarchs we descend until we have an ordered kingdom descending to the lowest quantity. We alternate colors but we are not finished. We must arrange the cards into their own suits in reverse order, until the king lands on top, in his rightful place at the throne.

The game speaks to ethnicity and segregation, to the rightness of homogeneity and clearly-defined color boundaries. In today’s cards the backdrop is whiteness, but it would be wrong to speak of “white” cards; no, the colors are red and black, and the redness and the blackness is a point of difference, a dimension to be controlled for, a reason to arrange. In the initial stage of the game we place black cards on red cards and vice versa, but only in tightly-controlled descending numerical order. In the final stage—to “win” the game—we place the colors in the same pile, rearranging our initial diffusion, creating two stacks of each color. That is winning, that is the state in which we seek to move the universe of solitaire: every color has its place.

That white is not a color of the cards is telling. It is the backdrop, the canvas against which red and black are defined. Whiteness is the state of things until color comes to mar the canvas with contrast. There is no reason to consider white in the cards as a special entity, because white isn’t even a color here.

Some things to think of next time you play the cards and rearrange the colors into their proper order. The imperialist in Napoleon surely saw the draw in being able to arrange your own universe, to lay the colors down in quantities, to take the extant numbers and move them according to your whim. It speaks to the ethnocentricity of imperialist Europe in its entirety, in its previous business with the slave trade, in the future destruction of the Native American.

Perhaps there is no hint of overt conquest in the game, and this is simply “reading too much into it.”

Maybe it’s just not in the cards.