| EastWesterly
Review
|
The Mainly Annual
EastWesterly Review/Postmodern Village
13th Annual Conference
 The
Mother of All Babels, or Talking Past Baghdad, on the Linguistic
Dysfunctions of War
by Gnome Choamski
“Progress” or “quagmire”? “A
safer America” or “blowback” in the making?
The “main front on the War on Terror” or “a
costly, deadly mistake”? “A slam dunk” or
“bald faced lies”? Babble on, ye TV pundits and
armchair warriors, babble on on Babylon. |
 Mr.
And Mrs. Anti-Climax Accomplish Nothing (Again): How the Collapse
of Feminism has Made Literary Sex Go Bust
by Eric A. Jong
Now that he mentions it, it has. Why, when we were
so worried we’d offend, when we were so terrified of being
brought before the anti-discrimination committee again,
were we so much better at writing about Doing It? Jong makes
a compelling case that sometimes you have to be forced a bit
to feel liberated, that to be a little afraid is to be a lot
hot n’ bothered. Now it’s all just fumbling about
in the (neo) dark (Ages).
|
 The
Global War on Violent Flabbergasm: Sensationalism, S&M,
and the Role of the Mainstream Media in the American Fetish
for Senseless Killing
by Stan Wankey
In the mainstream media, from the CBS Evening News
to CSI, says Wankey, intrusion into the human body,
torture, gratuitous violence, necrophilia, dismemberment, disembowelment
are actually quite a bit more common and explicit than they
are in actual hardcore porn. And Wankey had the video to prove
it. After this paper, I’ve sworn off regular TV altogether:
from here on out it’s SpectraVision, an alternative more
edifying and humane.
|
 She’s
So Ironical: Cyndi Lauper Does Jonathan Swift and Other Post-(M)Oddities
by Clive Hangyve (and His Puppet Tooci)
Hangyve and Tooci were actually quite a bit less odd than their
subjects: Pat Boone does heavy metal, Rod Stewart does jazz
standards, Britney Spears does The Rolling Stones. Klezmer rap
and blugrass covers of Metallica and Scandinavian girls’
choirs doing Nine Inch Nails are conscious enough camp to qualify
as avant-garde, but the others represent a much more deep and
disturbing weirdness. We should have seen it coming when Nixon
showed up on Laugh-In in 1968. But nooo, we were too
busy riding around on our collective high-horse trying to stop
a war and all to recognize the real enemy. |
 Shitty,
Shitty Bling Bling: Gangsta Grillz Meet the Permanent Vertical
Smile; Confessions of an Underground Proctologist
by Joannah Zimmerman
“Guard your grill / knuckle up / you ain’t tough,”
a chorus from a 1990-something Naughty by Nature song, boomed
from the conference room along with the sounds and smells of
dentistry. One exiting attendee assured me as I entered that
it was well worth it just for the laughing gas, although the
seats were uncomfortable. Oh, how right she was. The “It
don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that bling”
singalong was okay, but my momma taught me that if the sun don’t
shine there, ain’t no point in wearing diamonds there
neither. |
Conclusions and a Free Plug
Of special note was the venue for Modismal and Dhong’s
paper presentation and celebrity cookoff, a local restaurant called
¡Gastrogasm! billing
itself as “Genuine Pacific Rimmer Cuisine!” This Correspondent
tactfully failed to mention that the Pacific Rim is on the other side
of the isthmus, but the food was extraordinary enough that it bears
a hyperlink in this report, and is mentioned here in an attempt to
persuade the proprietors into catering more PMV gatherings.
Another odd year all in all, but at least this time,
we could explore wielding the tools of oppression instead being them.
Role play is an important part of any psychological healing regimen,
and This Correspondent recommends it be a more frequent goal of future
conferences, though rumblings about siting next year’s affair
on the edge of a semi-active volcano in what will then be left of
Greenland have not fallen on deaf ears. As much as we do need to witness
the devastation of Global Warming firsthand, might it not be just
as well seen from Palo Alto or Dubuque, Seattle or the Wisconsin Dells?
We thank this year’s participants, the people
of Zamas, and Zelda at the INS for letting Mary Chino-Cherry back
in the country. And wherever we end up, we expect you all there in
2007 - provided the mud holds and the lava don’t rise.
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