Papers: Part III
"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. |
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). |
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. |
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. |
"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. |
The
Mother of All Babels, or Talking Past Baghdad, on the Linguistic
Dysfunctions of War
Mr.
And Mrs. Anti-Climax Accomplish Nothing (Again): How the Collapse
of Feminism has Made Literary Sex Go Bust
The
Global War on Violent Flabbergasm: Sensationalism, S&M,
and the Role of the Mainstream Media in the American Fetish
for Senseless Killing
She's
So Ironical: Cyndi Lauper Does Jonathan Swift and Other Post-(M)Oddities
Shitty,
Shitty Bling Bling: Gangsta Grillz Meet the Permanent Vertical
Smile; Confessions of an Underground Proctologist
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 plug 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.