A bad political haircut.



From an aesthetic standpoint, Communism was without a doubt the least appealing philosophy in the history of political organization. Other than the Russian Constructivists, whose stylistic forays never quite meshed with the industrial and social imperatives of the moment and soon fell into disfavor, the style of Communism -- Socialist Realism -- was always a bad look. Social realism cloaked the aspirations and esprit of whole societies the way a big, badly made, ill-fitting suit hides a good physique, and gave Communist countries a shambolic image redolent of old potatoes, body odor and stale cheese. The Soviet bloc style was the aesthetic projection of a sodden, Orwellian reality: what future you will have will be without joy.

A friend has just returned from Hungary, where all the Soviet-era statuary that littered Budapest were gathered up and stuck in Szobobark ("Memento Park"), a desolate spot on the far edge of the city, where they moulder and tarnish and collect bird droppings, unseen by all but the most crusty, die-hard, party loyalists.....beribboned old functionaries looking up at Lenin and gumming silently in a thin, late afternoon snow.

Heed the Call of Vigorous Commerce!

What is it about the Victorian broadside that so pleases me? Is it simply nostalgia? Portly, vested, mutton-chopped America in the Guilded Age, relentlessly optimistic and vigorous in pursuit of its Manifest Destiny? Or perhaps the self-assured, hearth-fire coziness of the British Empire? Sherlock Holmes on the case, the Hindoos subdued, the labouring classes mindful of their place?

Or is it instead the sheer hysteria of the medium? Overblown, stentorian exhortations and adumbrations - "LIFT HIGH THE SHINING CUP OF ENTERPRISE FOR ALL TO SIP!" "SMALL INFRACTIONS, SEVERELY PUNISHED!! A DEFENESTRATION OF PETTY THIEVES IN THE STRAND A FORTNIGHT HENCE!" A zillion different fonts try to outpoint and outserif each other.


It resonates with my own, overwrought rhetoric. And if I only could, I would post each blog entry in 15 different wood type styles, each one redolent of horse urine, sagebrush, cool granite banks and the sweet cedar of freshly-built gallows.

Surrealist Journalism - A Post-Structuralist Critique and Meta-Textual Dialogue

[Doug wrote:]

No, the actual Mark was not slouching, nor were his eyes dead. The actual Mark has little if anything to do with our story. The Mark of the story, however, is a cold, hard man, a man of action, a man who drives a cop car and has seen the bad side of the world. He is a man qualified to cut through the crap. He calls life as he sees it, and he sees it with clear, hard eyes. The rose tint wore off long ago.

His slouch is a statement -- a strategy. Cigarettes, while implied, were at no point stated.

The Dodge Diplomat of the story is an '86 with vinyl bench seats. And the Doug of the story (wait, he is never named, let us call him the model narrator) may end up in the back seat, behind the prisoner grille. Which, by the way, the Diplomat of the story will have.

Anyone who knows you will think this is funny, anyone who doesn't will think you are world-wise, impressive -- and dangerous. Umberto Eco will write an essay about "The Layers of Mark". A course on Mark Gorney vis á vis Mark Gorney: Sémiotiques Syncrétiques will be taught at Université Toulouse.


[Mark wrote:]

Interesting, funny, disturbing and strange. Morbid yet opaque. Piquant yet clairvoyant.

Here is my assessment:

1. It’s an ’88.

2. I have bad posture?

3. My eyes are dead ? ? Gee..thanks.

4. I have latent violence? Well yes I guess I do, but it’s only about scum, assholes and criminals.

5. The front is seats are cloth, not vinyl, and there are two seats. Yours and mine.

6. The impression I have of your brother is that he’s a heartless, soulless, uneducated, cigarette smoking proto-serial killer. Is that accurate?

7. Have you ever thought of writing surrealist fiction?

In Which I Am Advised to Embrace my Inner Lightweight

So my brother and I are driving across the Golden Gate Bridge the other day in his 1986 Dodge Diplomat police cruiser. He drives it with the slouched, knowing crustiness of a detective who's seen far too much in his years on the force. Because he's a world music publicist.

For my part I've spent the whole of our trip up to Napa and the whole of the way back talking about my Novel, or rather Problems with my Novel, or rather Reasons Why I Can't Conceive of Starting to Think About Writing my Novel. In a thousand sentences launched with a screwed up face and "See, the thing is...." I have talked about Structural and Metaphoric Subtlety, and Biblical Mythos, and the Hero's Journey, and a gazillion other tricks the Real Writer has in his bag, none of which I feel I have, all of which make me a Fraud, a Hack, a Fake. I just write about Stuff. And if I have anything to say about the human condition, any compelling and nuanced psychological insights to fold within the subtext, it will be entirely of the reader's invention. I have no subtext, I whine. When I write, see, it is what it is...and that's all.

My brother scans the road with dead eyes as we pass between the Art Deco towers. The thick, red cables dip down, swoop up. His fingers touch the wheel with the latent violence that only a life in world music publicity can culture.

"Look," he says to me, "have you ever said anything profound in your entire life?"

"Uh, well.....no."

"So what makes you think you could put anything profound into a book?? Just write, for Christ's sake. Jesus."

The South Tower looms over me. I roll my head and look out at the Pacific.

Dude. The rest of my life is opening up to me in a sweeping vista that, were I not on the vinyl bench seat of a police car, would stagger.

He's right. I'm like....a dolt.

I don't have anything in particular to say.

And....that's all right!



Coming tomorrow -- my first novel.

Wickedly Forbidden.

The 300HP Dodge Charger Hemi Police Special. My next car? Fuel economy is certainly not its strong point...and yet...as we near the time when our society will come to a sparking, grinding halt, there is something even more alluring about power for its own sake. The carnality of poor mileage....the almost sexual temptation to be crushed hard against your seat by the throbbing power of eight thick cylinders with hemispherical heads....but then, when your precious petroleum fluids have drained away, oh, the post-accelerative depression.....

On breasts.

Wonderful things. I don't know that I'm a breast man, per se -- the legs, posterior, hands and ankles all must be factored in -- ankles perhaps the real litmus test -- but the breasts have their heft in the equation. And then there is the whole breast-buttock ratio to consider, as well as the chunk-in-the-trunk zaftigity that tends to accompany a pair of real, screaming gazongas. Real here meaning natural -- and so comes the topic of structural augmentation. Jane Anybody desperate to attain an epic, globular status worthy of a south Indian temple frieze or perhaps a '57 Chrysler's bumper. But I need to recuse myself. Breast implants paid for my education, braces, and shoes, Dad being a plastic surgeon. I'll just say this -- in my first job, as a filing clerk in his office, I encountered an implant on the counter, lying there with the lateral slurdge attendant to its unfettered state. And...well, that kind of took the bloom off the rose right there.

On choosing a Jewish identity rather than that other thing.

Well, a Gentile friend says I'm Jewish, dammit, and I'm not going to argue with her. I always wanted to be something, growing up nothing. And why not Jewish? I'd be proud to be a Real Jew. The Jews have the lion's share of the great violinists, biochemists, movie moguls and tough generals with eye patches. I'll go with that. Anyway, it's easier to be a Jew without having anything to do with the religion, per se. Saying someone's a Jew is tantamount to saying they're Irish. That is, just as you don't have to do anything except wake up and there you are, blang, red hair and a tendency towards gab, fistfights and alcoholism, being a Jew doesn't mean you have to stand up and be counted in temple at High Holy Days to prove it. Whereas being a Christian, well, that implies a proactive, participatory religiousity, does it not? Along with an evangelical fervor and a slow-talking, high-waisted, neatly-combed, somewhat Talibanistic zeal for cultural censure.

On not really being Jewish.

I never received any Hannukah gifts.

Because it's my dad who's Jewish, not Mom, a Presbyterian-turned-Anglican from Minnesota, I get a big "thanks for playing!" from all but the most relaxed Reformed Jews. And I've never heard my dad say "I'm Jewish." But then why would he? He's a rabid atheist, and a bit of an anti-Semite. That's another story, however. This is the Christmas story -- my Christmas story. [Cue "Little Town of Bethlehem," faintly, in the background.]

Mom, from her side, loved the tradition of Christmas. The carols, the wreaths, the tree and so forth. So we always celebrated the holiday growing up, and I guess we celebrated observed it pretty much as any other American family would: with shopping. A lot of shopping. Hundreds of presents. Thousands of presents. Millions of presents. A consumerist wet dream under which you could hardly see the damned tree. All of which had nothing to do with Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ but rather with Dad, or more precisely the expiation of guilt. I guess he felt he was never around enough...I mean, he was always off in Vietnam or Central America -- or even St. Francis hospital, across town -- operating on deformed children rather than spending quality time with us or dealing with his marriage.

Sure worked for me, though! I could hardly sleep for weeks leading up to the big day. And then, wow! Bikes, radio controlled cars, mainframe computers, elephants, Nubian slaves -- it went on and on for days! Sounds of ripping paper and squeals of delight, followed by more ripping paper, and soon the delight and squeals dispensed with to conserve energy for the grim and unceasing ripfest, the struggle to separate twelve square miles of paper from combined industrial output of Germany and Japan. Pets and younger children lost under wrapping, ribbon, stick-on bows and To-From cards, some never to be found again. Hours later, the last gift wrested from under the tree and summarily violated, my dad would sadly say, "I guess that's all, huh?," signalling to the rest of us that it was over and it was now time for us to sink into a black, post-bacchanal depression that lasted through the New Year.

The Christ Child as such, and especially church services, upon which my dad frowned and about which we children thus had no clue, played no part in this.