In my post-post musings on Edward Docx's postmodernism article I eventually wended to recollection of this Bret Easton Ellis thing about Charlie Sheen from a few months back. As I recalled, it made the opposite argument about the current cultural state of affairs (I'm referring to Docx's final point; I refused to give it away in my last post but have already slyly done so this time). I recalled Ellis making the argument from the direction of pop culture, rather than that of art & philosophy; making the argument more entertainingly, if equally more glibly, displaying an annoying and evidently calculated ethical slipperiness.
I was right about that much. But wait, I thought as I reread the Ellis. Is this really the opposite argument? Maybe this is a description of where we are now, the rococo moment, the high-baroque waterline of irony. And Docx is looking down the valley at the big A-word to come. Or maybe they're arguing the same thing in totally opposite ways. Ellis' dichotomy of Empire and post-Empire (of course it had to be "post-" something...) concerns itself centrally with the role of authenticity--actually it's about authentic authenticity versus overplayed and therefore inauthentic authenticity. The question is whether these two authors' very different ideas of authenticity can be bridged. OPINION: Yeah, I've concluded that it is actually the opposite argument, but the two papers make a fascinating side-by-side comparison. ••• APPENDICES, relation of which to foregoing discussion will be neither confirmed nor denied 1. Here is a story about a man who has, for the last forty-two years, been single-handedly building a castle for himself in the Colorado wilds. 2. Taos, New Mexico: the watercolors of Cady Wells, the wood carvings of Patrocinio Barela, and, of course, earthships. Comments are closed.
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A Selection• Gone Walkabout
• Migration • Music as Drama • Crossroads II • 10 Best of 2014 • January: Wyoming and the Open • February: New Mexico and the Holes • Coming Up • Notes on The Accounts • Crossroad Blues • Labyrinths Archives
October 2020
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