I no longer feel the need to introduce this series. If you want to read the others, click the Bigmuscle bigtab.
11 June 2003
Where do we begin, and where does the other leave off? Can we answer this question, or do we sometimes feel like love is joining flesh into seamless flesh at points of contact like joined twins? In the beginning, this union is exhilarating. Later it's stifling as you find yourself trapped in another's skin, in another's desires, inside another's flesh and expectations, and the only way to escape is to chop off the other like you would your own arm. (The metaphor extends: later after the amputation of the other, the remainder can feel less like the phantom itch on the hand that no longer exists than the urge to reach or gesture with a limb that isn't there, that is no long attached, no longer a part but apart.)
But this metaphor covers over another: the union of the dyad is how it feels to the organism, on the other hand how the relation functions is another matter entirely. What is this metaphor that gets lost under that satisfactions and frustrations and loathings and self-loathings of loving and hating? The metaphor is one of reflection. We see ourselves in the mirror of the other without recognizing who we are looking at--and that indeterminate who is left open, because the me we misrecognize covers over the other's "me," and we never see him because we see what we want to see, which is further complicated by the fact that we almost never have conscious awareness of what we want to see in an other in the first place. This is best illustrated in the way we loathe another person because he has traits that we loathe in ourselves, yet we never recognize him as being like us, as being akin; as we do when we see ourselves in a mirror looking unflattering, we turn away with a pained look of disgust. We turn away from ourselves. And so we never see. This dynamic lays bare the dynamic of Love.
And how fucking dare anyone out there make fun of Britney after all she's been through! She lost her aunt. She went through a divorce-uh. She has two fucking kids. Her husband turned out to be a user, a cheater, and now she's going through a custody battle. All you people care about is readers and making money off of her.
She's a HUMAN!!! What you don't realize is that Britney's making you all this money, and all you do is write a bunch of crap about her. She hasn't performed onstage in years. Her song is called "Gimme More" for a reason—because all you people want is more, more, more, more, MORE!
Leave her alone! You're lucky she even performed for you bastards! Leave Britney alone. Please.
[Sobs.]
[Pause. Composing himself.]
Perez Hilton talked about professionalism. And said if Britney was a professional she would have pulled it off no matter what. Speaking of professionalism, when is it “professional” to publicly bash someone who's going through a HARD TIME? Leave Britney alone! Pleeease. [beat]
[Sobs.]
Leave. Britney. Spears. Alone. Right. Now. I mean it. Anyone who has a problem with her, you deal with me, because she's not well, right now.
[Quiet sobs, then loud sobs, some choking.]
[Pleadingly] Leave her alone.
[END]
I almost always listen to music when I write. Tonight’s selection, for a variety of reasons, is Sufjan Stevens, and my least-listened to disc of his, The Avalanche. Remixes, failed attempts, favorite non-releases, and would-be B-sides. Check it out.
Chris Crocker. How is one to speak of him without resorting to phobia or condescension? Or perhaps affection? What I would like to do with this post is attempt a critique of something I believe he represents that does not have recourse to those other things. This offers a fairly fine line, between fire and tears, let us say; it is a finite walk, a balancing act. It is a highwire act, and it is up to whoever is reading to determine when and if I fall.
In all honesty, my initial reaction to the Leave Britney Alone video was a certain kind of boredom. It was my first exposure to Chris Crocker, and I fully recognize why it fascinates and could imagine how this boy has become such a phenomenon on the internet, even before his exposure reached me, the least exposed to this world except through friend and boyfriend. The intensity, the personality, the personal nature of it, which is to say the intimacy of it, is captivating. This video has the sort of thing that makes good porn captivating—the idea that you are getting a peek into something sincere and unguarded. Good porn feels like a true voyeurism, which is to say a perspective that is supposedly hidden from the object on view. As in this situation, porn is never the case of unknowing spectacle. As much as a performer "forgets" the camera, the camera's presence and its recording function is reliable precisely because this recording is intentional. Someone wants you—yes, you—to see this footage, so it is always shaped to some to degree, and this is another way of saying that there is an aesthetic involved, and that there is a desire, and this is a self-conscious desire. And there is therefore an audience—an audience of which the subject is aware. The implication of an audience means the awareness of an other watching in this case—isn’t that funny that the awareness of the self is contingent on an other watching? Yet, not so much. It is not so surprising that the circle that encloses the observing other encloses the self. Self awareness is a mirror and the mirror is the other, or, as we say, the audience. And within this doubly enclosed circle we have performance.
BOREDOM/LAUGHTER/PHOBIA As in the tradition of a Shirley Bassey concert, Chris Crocker begins his Britney monologue at the level of 11, and he sustains that level throughout with occasional spikes to 12 and sometimes even 13. Just when you think he can’t take it up a notch, he does so, and then goes up another notch. But without the artistry of someone like Dame Bassey—and how should he have this power at such a young age when she has had a long lifetime to learn how to overwhelm us so completely?—Mr. Crocker can only hover like a hummingbird or an insect around the same high pitch. Though his attack is sustained and intense, it is this deadly consistency that is the hobgoblin of his speech, and the thing that makes it boring. But that which makes the monologue boring is, of course, the thing the makes it funny. On the level of a temper tantrum, which can only be the first way anyone apprehends this clip, it is hilarious. And I think this aspect is what accounts for a good portion of its popularity.
For me, close on the heels of the amusement, is the urge to reach into the screen and smack some sense into this kid. It is difficult to tease out the differences among the utterly vapid subject matter, the grandiose self-involvement, the chip on his shoulder, and in-your-face femininity. I’d like to say that this final factor lacks power for me, but I can’t, and that shames me. The moment that comes to mind, strangely, is from the movie Carrie—not the adaptation of the Dreiser novel starring Laurence Olivier and Jennifer Jones, but the movie version of the Stephen King book—in which the gym teacher played by Betty Buckley saves Sissy Spacek’s Carrie from the humiliating, locker room maxi-pad attack by Carrie’s schoolmates and in the next scene confesses that she wanted to smack Carrie too. It is this annihilating, knee-jerk demand for normalcy of which I am so ashamed. But one doesn’t have to honor that demand any more than to recognize that it is there and to therefore resist it. This is instructive. Your fears and repulsions needn’t be something from which to—or with which you—recoil, but they can teach you; they can remind you that what we learn to react to with irritation or revulsion can tell you who you are by reminding you who you would like not to be, and therefore remind you of how brave those people are who reflect these parts of yourself back at you.
They are not brave because they show you who you are, but because they are unafraid or unashamed to do precisely what society would prefer they not do. We constantly torture the feminine out of little, queer boys, and the kid who resists this is to be admired. Anyone who resists this is to be admired regardless of his or her age. This accounts for precisely why—and I don’t know if this applies to Chris Crocker, nor do I think it matters one bit if it does or doesn’t—this phobic encounter accounts, however, precisely for why the rights of the transgendered matter so deeply to the politics surrounding same-sex desire. This is not my point with this piece, but it is worth mentioning that there are gay and lesbian folks who find insult in being grouped with those who wish to become the other sex. But if you find femmey guys and butch girls offensive, is it because you were one at one point that person, and don’t you wish someone stood up for you instead of making fun of you, ostracizing you, or kicking your ass? And even if you never had this experience, how could it be any clearer that wanting to become the other sex isn’t that different, to the straightest of the world, from having a hint of the other sex in you? Since there is only one relationship that is recognized—between a man and a woman—do you really think, as a man, that you’re earning points by playing rugby and following the Yankees? You only invoke a playground pecking order by rejecting the transgendered in this way—even if you never had any interest in liquid eyeliner (or for you lipstick ladies out there, even if you did). Seeming straight will never protect you from the people who want to hurt you because you’re not straight. Just ask Senator Craig.
ON THE QUESTION OF COMPOSURE Part of what, I think, makes Chris Crocker so fascinating to so many is his lack of composure. Whether his tearful or defiant face is a purposeful performance or not—and I cannot tell if it is or not and is therefore a composure of its own or not—Crocker’s temper tantrum is the very representative of a lack of composure. On its face, Leave Britney Alone is an uncensored display. Within a culture that is obsessed with composure, with being what you seem, with a self-identical clarity, with a hygienic fear of infection by terrorism or an untoward desire, where our politicians are supposed to be appear to say the correct things and toe a certain line, there is an exhilaration in the exhibition of someone ranting with a complete lack of composure. It matters not at all that it is about Britney Spears, in fact the serious investment in something so trivial makes it that much more delicious, that much more personal, and that much more pornographic.
The political creature in our Land is the paradigm case of this composure of which we are so tired that we turn to a screaming child on YouTube to find something—anything—that feels different from the calculated sincerity that assaults us every day on our national media. Senator Craig shows us all what it’s like to inhabit that suffocating demand to embody the joyless place of expectation that only finds its relief in an airport men’s room stall. No one can withstand that demand to please. American politics has become so willing to please on the surface—and only on its face—to maintain its place, that it has lost sight entirely of what it means to care for, to husband, to uphold, the public interest. The public interest is not what the public finds interesting, which is the domain of the celebrity, but that which is actually for the public good, what is sustaining for society, both now and in the future. I speak of civic duty, which is a grave duty, and one that has been traded for the triviality of a popularity contest, for likeability, for respectability, for a composition. We live in a nation where a politician would willingly promote laws that would punish him for his own desire only to maintain his power. This is not just a betrayal of the self, but it is the betrayal of the public trust on the most egregious level. Yet, we forgive, because we understand pressure, pressure to conform, to compose, to seem and not be, and not to lead. We forgive because this is a collective arrangement, and we understand how the collective can force the hand, force it into a handshake, a handshake deal, how it can force the face into a shape: a ghastly blissful smile.
That last line is a reference that will pass over the heads of many readers, which is a pity because it comes from a Brecht poem, which only survives in English, which Bertolt Brecht wrote about the actor, Peter Lorre, and his experience in Hollywood. I quote it now, only because our politicians are indistinguishable from our celebrities, to our great national detriment:
The Swamp
I saw many friends And the friend I loved most Among them helplessly sunk Into the swamp. I pass by daily. And a drowning was not over in a single morning. This made it more terrible. And the memory of our long talks about the swamp, Which already held so many powerless. Now I watched him leaning back Covered with leeches in the shimmering, Softly moving slime, Upon his sinking face A ghastly blissful smile.
Smile for the camera, Senator—Senator Craig, Senator Clinton, Senator Obama, Senator Spears, Senator Crocker. Do you vote for the world your grandchildren will live in or do you vote for the person with whom you’d most rather enjoy a beer? Smile. Smiles everyone. Smile. Smile for the camera.
RAGE We might now, after such a long excursis, return to what should by now be the obvious topic of this post, which is clearly Chris Crocker’s deathless outpost, Leave Britney Alone.
We are, or I should say, I am, presented with a number of problems, or shall I call them, opportunities, to end this post. But instead I will invoke anger. Rage, O Goddess, sing of the rage of Chris Crocker.
When I happened upon Leave Britney Alone, I had never heard of Chris Crocker, or rather I had never heard of the videos and the phenomenon that travels under that signature. Though his name is a pseudonym, Chris Crocker is not, or does not appear to be, a fiction in the order of a J.T. LeRoy or Anthony Godby Johnson, though he bears the markers of a similar fascination. It is really in the order of an insult to invoke the names of these great fakes of the internet and the publishing world in the same paragraph mentioning Chris Crocker because 1) “Crocker” does not lay claim to any of the spectacular hardships of those ersatz Lost Boys and 2) it is the video transparency of Chris Crocker, and his meetability, that exempt him from such a distasteful hoax, or, at any rate, lends him some much-needed credence. Yet there is a striking similarity in the collective taste for such a creature. This similarity is not his fault, yet the desire for the sexually-transgressive/sexually ambiguous, uncensored child remains. The appetite for this strange configuration remains so powerful that no one has mentioned it thus far to my knowledge. Except me.
But let us speak of rage. According to an article on thestranger, Chris Crocker is a boy, somewhere in the South of our Nation, and he is supposed to be who he says he is. I am circumspect in the way I present these facts because I have been taught to not trust the media. I don’t know why I feel this way but it probably has to do with the utter inability—or perhaps lack of interest—that the media has shown of late in reporting what happens in the world. I don’t blame my circumspection. Yet, here we are, and we have this piece, and we have “Chris Crocker”’s video posts, which are no more or less real than these words you are reading now on your screen.
I did some research on the C.C. phenomenon—only a little, I promise you, because, Gentle Reader, I wanted to honor, a little, the context, or truly the contextlessness of the Leave Britney Alone experience as I first found it. You see, this single video has far surpassed any of C.C.’s previous video-posts. In fact, the last time I checked on YouTube, Leave Britney Alone has had more viewings—well over seven million—than the original cause: Spears’ appearance on the MTV music awards (which had a reported viewing audience of seven million—this number, as with all other reports, is subject to question, yet this is what I read). Try to imagine seven million. That is only a million less than what is supposed to be the population of New York City (according to the US Census Bureau). Okay, try to imagine a million people. Have you met a million people? Do a million people know who you are? (Is this circle getting smaller?) Now, are you nineteen-years-old? And are you being home-schooled by your grandmother because it is feared you’re too femmey to literally survive public high school? Is your first boyfriend someone you’ve never met in person but is—like almost all the other intimate relationships you have ever had—relegated to the internet and the telephone? Now, assuming all these factors are “true,” let’s go back to seven million people knowing who you are. Who are you now?
“Chris Crocker” is a resistance to some boy’s situation, which is to say his environment. In thestranger article he says he has always been femmey, he looks up to women, not men, not gay men, but women, specifically. He puts on eyeliner (beautifully) and posts videos titled Bitch, Please, wherein he enumerates the various useful ways of saying “Bitch, please…” (though I felt he missed a few good iterations as his performance escalated) or This and That wherein he responds to people, real and internet, who have attacked him. This appears, on the face, to be the reaction of an embattled person, a person who must resort to the internet to be credible, or at least heard. This is a person who describes the people who “friend” him on MySpace as “fans.” Fans. This is a person who believes himself—whether its true or not, according to this thestranger piece—to have fans. Do you have fans? Does he have fans? Or does he have people who watch him to see what he’ll do next? And what is the difference between having fans and being a freak show and being Edie Sedgwick?
But our topic is rage. Where is this rage? The Muse of Epics—who is even less truthful, who is much more enamored of effect, than the Muse of History—knows because in Bitch, Please, This and That, and Leave Britney Alone that rage is on view for all to see, in Epic display. What disarms these pieces—what takes them away from self-conscious, calculated performance, or in fact, what arms them entirely—is, for example, is the imperious gaze that Mr. Crocker gives the camera—his camera, his eye to the world—at the end of Bitch, Please, or his, as he states on YouTube, entirely seriously tearful defense of Britney Spears in Leave Britney Alone? The world he speaks to is so much larger and therefore so much entirely smaller and specific than his viewers might believe. The pain he imputes to Britney Spears is his pain, it seems. How else to understand the emotional level to which he rises in this defense of a celebrity he can only know through the news or what he reads and believes? He tells us that if we have a problem with Britney that we should come to him. He tells us that we should leave Britney Spears alone, and that he means it. He speaks to us as though he knew her personally; he speaks to us as though he knew us personally. Chris Crocker defends Britney Spears as though she were himself, and I have little doubt that—if this is a sincere display, as I think it probably is as much as it can be—that this is the case. Replace “Britney Spears” with “Chris Crocker” and you have the real message to the world. Seth Green hit the nail in the head far more accurately than he might have intended in a celebrity-parody of an internet-celebrity defending a pop-music-celebrity. To this imaginary personality, even to himself, called “Chris Crocker,” an attack on a celebrity like Spears is an attack on himself. In his mind, he is her equal; he is capable of accepting the blows thrown at her, in her stead. Though he is a kid in the South who refuses to reveal his real name or location—for obvious reasons—he feels capable to speak to us so easily, as though his internet fame is on the same level of the manufactured fame of a Britney Spears who has had corporations and smart managers-since-fired behind her. Mr. Crocker not only takes on the machine that produced Britney Spears, that has turned on her, but the audience that consumed her, and that now consumes him as an object of derision. His rage is a delicious internet treat that we chew on as a zero-calorie moment, which we discuss for a week or two until the flavor is gone. Then we spit it out and forget it. The joke we call History will remember Monica Lewinsky, Anna Nicole Smith, and Britney Spears longer than Chris Crocker and his undisguised tantrum about himself. It is being forgotten even as I type this. Even as he signs the contract to his reality series.
But now that we have put his rage for recognition to the side, finally, I can get to the purpose of this post, and by that I mean the title of this post, which is the nature of celebrity.
About three decades ago, Andy Warhol declared, presciently that everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes. When I think of statements like this, I usually think of the Frankfurt School and Walter Benjamin and wonder what they would think of the world today, because the stuff they wrote about--what Adorno called the Culture Industry--and the way media affects the populace haunts me to this day, every day. I think they would commit suicide rather than live in a world of reality television and the blogosphere. Similarly, I imagine that the men who wrote the American Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, if they came in a time machine to the Twenty-First Century, would be appalled by the state of the Nation, despite, or, really, probably because of, their patrician sensibilities.
We live in a time when everyone believes in the necessity of their own celebrity. The person we call “Chris Crocker” is young enough to believe that this is the way the world is supposed to be. Celebrity is now available to everyone, for a time, as Warhol said. The larger question is: do we want it? And within that question is why do we want it? It seems that in this version of reality we are stuck with is the question of if we are only real if we are on television--and that being on television has become coterminous with being on a screen, any screen, even a computer monitor. Somehow, now, being famous—which is being known—is the same thing as being real. For politicians this may be one thing—which is awful enough—but for you and me, this is something else entirely. We have entered into a time when Warhol’s whimsical prediction has taken on the quality of a curse.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * We close, appropriately, with the delicate Sufjan Stevens song playing as I write these words. In my mind, in my mind, this song is titled, "I made a lot of mistakes."
I fell in love again
all things go, all things go drove to Chicago all things know, all things know we sold our clothes to the state I don't mind, I don't mind I made a lot of mistakes in my mind, in my mind
I drove to New York in a van, with my friend we slept in parking lots I don't mind, I don't mind I was in love with the place in my mind, in my mind I made a lot of mistakes in my mind, in my mind
you came to take us all things go, all things go to recreate us all things grow, all things grow we had our mindset all things know, all things know you had to find it all things go, all things go
if I was crying in the van, with my friend it was for freedom from myself and from the land I made a lot of mistakes I made a lot of mistakes I made a lot of mistakes I made a lot of mistakes
you came to take us all things go, all things go to recreate us all things grow, all things grow we had our mindset I made a lot of mistakes all things know, all things know I made a lot of mistakes you had to find it I made a lot of mistakes all things go, all things go I made a lot of mistakes
"Chicago (Adult Contemporary Easy Listening Version)," music and lyrics by Sufjan Stevens on The Avalanche, 2006.
To see the other BigMuscle.com meditative reposts, you can start at the beginning or go to the last one. I suggest the former, but you are, of course, allowed to do whatever the hell you want. It is the Internets, after all. This is the fifth in the series.
11 June 2003
Where do we begin, and where does the other leave off? Can we answer this question, or do we sometimes feel like love is joining flesh into seamless flesh at points of contact like joined twins? In the beginning, this union is exhilarating. Later it may be stifling as you find yourself trapped in another's skin, in another's desires, inside another's flesh and expectations, and the only way to escape is to chop off the other like you would your own arm. (The metaphor extends: later after the amputation of the other, the remainder can feel less like the phantom itch on the hand that no longer exists than the urge to reach or gesture with a limb that isn't there, that is no long attached, no longer a part but apart.)
But this metaphor covers over another: the union of the dyad is how it feels to the organism, on the other hand how the relation functions is another matter entirely. What is this metaphor that gets lost under those satisfactions and frustrations and loathings and self-loathings of loving and hating? The metaphor is one of reflection. We see ourselves in the mirror of the other without recognizing who we are looking at--and that indeterminate who is left open, because the me we misrecognize covers over the other's "me" (or "I"), and we never see him because we see what we want to see, which is further complicated by the fact that we almost never have conscious awareness of what we want to see in an other in the first place. This is best illustrated in the way we loathe another person because he has traits that we loathe in ourselves, yet we never recognize him as being like us, as being akin; much as we do when we see ourselves in a mirror looking unflattering; we turn away with a pained look of disgust. We turn away from ourselves. And so we never see. This dynamic lays bare the dynamic of Love.
They are so mysterious. A classic from modernhumorist that I wish I'd written. But I didn't. The well isn't dry, only sandy, so I direct you to wetter places. From 2000.
Q: The Bush children are so mysterious. No one seems to know anything about them. What can you tell me? A:The President’s daughters, Jenna and Barbara, are fraternal twins. They are 19 years old and attend the University of Texas at Austin (Jenna) and Yale University (Barbara).
Q: What else? A:Barbara is the dark-haired one; Jenna is blond.
Q: Oh, come on…what else? A:Barbara was named for her maternal grandmother, Barbara Bush. She was her high school’s homecoming queen, loves sushi and she has been thrown into public life through no choice or desire of her own. Jenna was named for her paternal grandmother. Her favorite musician is Robert Earl Keen and, because of her father’s career, she will not be able to live a normal life.
Q: What else can you tell me about the Bush girls? A:Barbara can produce a powerful magnetic field with her mind. She uses it not only to manipulate metal but, under certain rare circumstances, to alter the temporal stream and reverse the flow of time. Jenna has been described as the trendier twin, and wore a camel and bone cashmere ensemble to her father’s inauguration.
Q: What are their hobbies and accomplishments? A:Jenna made a fortune in 1966 by inventing and patenting Wite-Out® brand correction fluid. She parlayed that money into a real estate empire that included a 200-acre manmade island off the coast of Baja California, where she established a utopian community. Barbara was born with the ability to summon and command the beasts of the forest and the birds of the air. A talented writer, she has authored 27 mystery novels under the pen name "Mary Higgins Clark."
Q: Does either of them have a boyfriend? A:The girls prefer not to release any information about their personal lives. No doubt they have the normal social lives of any college students whose father is the President.
Q: What if one of them married Prince William of England? A:In fact, it would be impossible for Prince William to marry one of the Bush girls because they are actually sixth cousins on their mother’s side!
Q: If they auditioned to be on MTV’s "The Real World," would they get in? A:"Should Jenna or Barbara Bush want to try out for 'The Real World,' of course we would be delighted to consider them," said a fictional MTV spokesman who is completely made-up. "Of course, we would certainly take into account the security considerations, which might be a problem." The spokesman then added, "I’m not real, you know."
Q: What advice might other sons or daughters of presidents give Jenna and Barbara? A:Chelsea Clinton’s brother Matthew had this to say: "The best thing to do is to remain completely unnoticed, so that no one even knows you exist. It’s not impossible."
I have had many, many, arguments with friends and relatives who have told me they want to have their own baby over the years. Not so astonishingly, no one wants to hear you suggest that adopting or just not having children is an option that helps the planet, or that not reproducing might be the correct ethical choice. Why do I think this?
Well, when I was a kid there were 4 billion people on the planet, and it was only a little while ago that the world population passed 6 billion. We live on a finite planet, each new person takes from every other person in terms of resources, plus we live in a terrible time where choosing to bring a new person into the world invokes a whole series of questions about why we might want to do this, plus there are already people here living in shitty conditions who would benefit from a nice parent who wants to care for them, and lastly, I never understood what was so special about anyone's specific DNA that forced them to reproduce that code.
In short, the magnamity that causes a person to want to have a child is somewhat called into question by their need to own that child, to be certain that it is their child. Raising a kid is a huge deal, but to disavow it unless it belongs to you genetically conjures notions of property and immortality that make me very uncomfortable. If you don't want to take care of a kid unless it's "yours," then by my lights, you probably shouldn't be having children. What's so damn special about your DNA anyway? All kids need a good parent, an education, food, and a home. If you can provide these things, why can't you take on someone who is already here?
Anyway, the GayProf says it better than I can and hence this post. Here is my favorite part:
In the seventies and eighties, the nation had explicit discussions about the notion of zero population growth and suggested that people needed to carefully consider the consequences of bringing new humans into an overpopulated world (This idea has seemingly become so unpopular in recent years that the organization Zero Population Growth changed its name in 2002 to “Population Connection”).
The earth, however, is still overpopulated. Since 1980, the earth’s population has grown 30 percent. More people mean more consumption and more waste. It means already exhausted urban structures are going to be pushed to the breaking point.
The United States, which accounts for just 5 percent of the world’s population, consumes 25 percent of the word’s resources and produces 25 percent of greenhouse gases. One new human born in the United States will consume 30 times more than a brand new human born in India and 20 times more than a new human in Africa. Much like the individual who imagines it’s not their SUV or giant pickup truck that is the problem, parents in the U.S. assume no accountability that their individual decisions to have children have broader environmental consequences. Actually, in many cases, children become a justification for a gas guzzling SUV.
No, I am not begrudging people in the U.S. who have children, nor am I interested in the government or anybody else meddling in people’s reproductive decisions. As a nation, though, we need to remember that having children is a choice. Nobody is required to have children. Nobody. End of story.
People like to say that Brecht is cold, but I believe he has a deeper game. When I read a piece like Nannas Lied, I can't help thinking that despite his political and sexual opportunism, he actually had a great deal of sympathy for women. I think this comes out in the poetry and the plays. This is a song about a streetwalker making sense out of her world using a famous Villon refrain as her own. So what if Brecht plagiarized this line or meant it as an intertext, it's the overall effect that seems like it's most important, and in this case we find the delicate and the brutal coming together in an explication of what happens when a girl sells her body and feelings in the market of "love." And apparently, it's not so easy.
Nanna’s Song
Gentlemen, with seventeen years I came to the market of love And I had been through a lot Bad stuff happens a lot Indeed that’s the game But nevertheless, I have some of the blame. (After all, I am a person too.)
Thank God everything goes by so quickly Both the love and even the sorrow. Where are the tears of last evening? Where is the snow of yesteryear? Where are the tears of last evening? Where is the snow of yesteryear?
Of course as you go through the years The love market becomes easier And you embrace them by the score. But your feelings Grow oddly cool If they’re rationed far too little. (After all, any supply has to come to an end.)
Thank God everything goes by so quickly Both the love and even the sorrow. Where are the tears of last evening? Where is the snow of yesteryear? Where are the tears of last evening? Where is the snow of yesteryear?
And also if you have learned the trade well. In the measuring of love: To transform desire into small change Still is never easy. Now, you’ll make it. Meanwhile you become older. (After all, you can’t stay seventeen forever.)
Thank God everything goes by so quickly Both the love and even the sorrow. Where are the tears of last evening? Where is the snow of yesteryear? Where are the tears of last evening? Where is the snow of yesteryear?
Nannas Lied by Bertolt Brecht, English translation attributed to me.
And now, auf Deutsch:
Nannas Lied
Meine Herren, mit siebzehn Jahren Kam Ich auf den Liebesmarkt Und Ich habe viel erfahren Böses gab es viel Doch das war das Spiel Aber manches hab ich doch verargt. (Schlieβlich bin ich ja auch ein Mensch.)
Gott sei Dank geht alles schnell vorüber Auch die Liebe unde der Kummer sogar. Wo sind die Tränen von gestern Abend? Wo ist der Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr? Wo sind die Tränen von gestern Abend? Wo ist der Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr?
Freilich geht man mit den Jahren Leichter auf den Liebesmarkt Und umarmt sie dort in Scharen. Aber das Gefühl Bleibt erstaundlich kühl Wenn man damit allzuwenig kargt. (Schlieβlich geht ja jede Vorrat zu Ende.)
Gott sei Dank geht alles schnell vorüber Auch die Liebe unde der Kummer sogar. Wo sind die Tränen von gestern Abend? Wo ist der Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr? Wo sind die Tränen von gestern Abend? Wo ist der Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr?
Und auch wenn man gut das Handeln Lernte auf der Liebesmess’: Lust in Kleingeld zu verwandeln Ist doch niemals leicht. Nun, es wird erreicht. Doch man wird auch alter unterdes. (Schlieβlich bleibt man ja nicht immer siebzehn.)
Gott sei Dank geht alles schnell vorüber Auch die Liebe unde der Kummer sogar. Wo sind die Tränen von gestern Abend? Wo ist der Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr? Wo sind die Tränen von gestern Abend? Wo ist der Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr?
A series of indiscriminate, even promiscuous, musings on art, culture, politics, literature, porn, and whatever else tickles my fancy. Strong enough for a woman, but made for a man.
About Me
Luciferus
I'll try to be nice: former academic, currently unemployed, and always ornery. Sometimes cranky and impatient with my disappointment with the world. That's a complex fragment, read it again.
