FWIW – a literary site

 

The author’s most recent book is The Orgastic Future, a profound work of poetic nonfiction about the interconnectedness and depths of consumerism, plastic pollution, climate change, plague, runaway ego, and other threats facing the planet.

It has been described as “A 21st century HOWL” (A. Shoumatoff, New Yorker & Vanity Fair), “Visionary, must read” (Mercurius Magazine), “Something out of its own time,” “An urgent read for every person living on the planet,” and “A poetic companion piece to Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction.”

A unique balance of the literary and informative essay, it appeals to anyone who loves classic and 20th century literature or philosophy, or is concerned about the environment and state of the world.

 

 

 

Philosopher Michel Meurisse on how New Media and Social Media have decimated attention spans, discrimination between Deep & Shallow, intellectual rigor, real connectedness, and general appreciation… and what might be done to escape being a Content Consumer

 

 

 

 

 

The Last Take

( or What It Means To Be Human In 2019 )

 

 

 

I.

 

It’s 2019 and something disquieting is emerging. We almost cannot see it because it’s too near, but it’s slowly beginning to come into focus. In our bodies it feels like something between weariness and nausea. It is one cultural problem that is not caused by our abject politics. But our current political despair is one of its symptoms.

 

The Deadspin writer Tom Ley came as close as anyone has yet to tracing its outlines. In a recent piece entitled “The Content Maw,” he pointed out how “the technologies that allow for and even demand the creation of content advanced to a point that the content creators, and thus consumers, have been left choking in the dust.” In short, the limitless proliferation of platforms for producing and receiving Content—TV, blogs, iTunes, Hulu, Spotify, Twitter, Facebook, Periscope, Netflix, smartphones, podcasts, etc—have created a cultural environment where anything that can be said is probably being said. Useful things and plenty of the utterly useless.

 

There are “good” TV shows, insightful blogs, and so forth, but they exist in the context of a boundless river of shit that swamps their significance. Good art and valuable information is automatically devalued by the sheer, limitless enormity of Content that we wade through on a daily basis. No show, or post, or idea is so intriguing that we will not likely forget it within 24 hours. 

 

Putting it yet differently: Form has exceeded Content to such an extent that Content is now empty, fungible, completely interchangeable with other Content.

 

This week, for instance, I read a very insightful and well-written Op-Ed by Pankaj Mishra in the New York Times critiquing the current British ruling class over Brexit, and placing their malignance in the context of British Imperialist adventurism. Ten years ago, I might have sent it to a friend and discussed it, or thought about it more deeply for a few days. Not today. Today, information comes at us too fast to linger too long on anything. Shakespeare could return from the dead and publish a new sonnet in The New Yorker. It would be a sensational event—for a week, maybe. And then our attention would drift elsewhere and we would scarcely think of it again.

 

 

II.

 

This sudden explosion of Content has resulted in material changes in how we are human. We assume here the human not as a fixed form but as an ever-changing concatenation of possibilities of being, possibilities that are conditioned by our material reality.

 

 

III.

 

 

Here is what it means to be human in 2019.

 

It means to be cynical. In a world of limitless takes, think piece, opinions, art, music, the value of any Content seems to grow lighter… Where one could once take ideas seriously, for instance, today they are balloons floating away in the breeze. It is a trite point, but where everyone can be a “writer,” now no writer conveys any particular intellectual authority. Where limitless ideas are available, no idea is vital. Where new music is coming at us every millisecond, and all music ever created in the past is at our fingertips, individual pieces that once seemed essential or even sacred are cheap.

 

It means to be isolated. It is another trite point that, with the limitless number of choices for Content available, people increasingly are all on different channels. When I was younger, it seemed like every adult I knew could bond over the latest episode of MASH or Cheers. Today, any shared reference point has vanished. Moreover, we are alone because it simply takes a great deal of time to consume as much Content as we feel we need to, and consuming is, largely, a solitary activity. To watch the shows that appeal to us, listen to the podcasts that have been on our list, read the news sites that we want so that we stay informed, all of this takes up hours now of our day that are not spent interacting with others meaningfully.

 

It means to be frozen eternally with hesitation.

 

Once upon a time, I’d like to imagine that people consumed Content with the intent of doing something meaningful with it: finding a recipe online to then cook an actual meal; spending time on social media to actually meet with people in the real world; reading an article to actually then go engage with the world more fully. Somewhere along the way, something insidious happened: the process of consuming information somehow became not a means but the end in itself. We read far more news, blogs, gossip, data than could ever be practically useful to us. We watch cooking shows not to cook, but just to watch. We interact with others on social media not to form deeper connections, but to eavesdrop and remain alone.

 

Consuming Content is no longer a means, but a masturbatory ritual. We know that it is addictive (and now talking about our addiction is the newest form of masturbation), but we’re too far gone to come back.

 

Marx said famously: “Philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point is to change it.”

 

 

IV.

 

Humans want to know things before we act. The “Content maw” preys on this natural desire. We naturally seek knowledge about other people on social media; we seek knowledge about the world through blogs and news sites; we seek knowledge online about things important to our life (what’s that rash on my leg, am I paying too much for car insurance, and so on). I spend hours on Spotify because I want to know more about my favorite musicians.

 

We have been lulled into a “paralysis of analysis.” The online world is full of professional knowers and their takes. Maybe we are all professional knowers now.

 

Kierkegaard wrote: “The present age is one of understanding, of reflection, devoid of passion, an age which flies into enthusiasm for a moment only to decline back into indolence.”

 

With every passing day, we are more content to Consume rather than to Act, to participate in the useless circulation of Knowledge than to Engage in the world. What today passes for Action is frightfully pusillanimous: a politician makes a heated remark and it gets replayed on the news for 24 hours. One celebrity says something “scandalous” about another celebrity, and we all agree that something has really “happened.” To show our political involvement, we post ardent, clever political opinions on Facebook, and all conspire together in the lie that we have “done” something. But in none of these cases has real Action ever occurred; we content ourselves with slights of hand to convince ourselves that something is actually happening.

 

 

V.

 

In my fantasy, this essay is the last take. After this piece, we decide that we have had our fill of Consuming and we can begin to step into life as it is.

 

The life that exists when we’re not Consumers… Cooking a meal with a friend… sitting on a park bench listening to the sounds of the city around you… making love with someone… walking in the woods… writing in a journal… playing a musical instrument… being together… listening to each other… caring for one another… taking photographs on good cameras… doing a crafts project… enjoying the feeling of freshly laundered sheets… having an intellectual discussion with a friend… sailing… swimming… shopping in a market… putting in a good day’s work at your job… playing with a child… repairing something in your house… meditating… jogging… practicing yoga… learning a new language… cradling a glass of red wine on a cold winter’s night.

 

The river of shit will flow on. Content will continue to come at us hot and fast, and we will always feel the urge to keep Consuming. The world will change when we are able to say, at last, that we have Consumed enough. We have seen enough. We know enough.

 

No one will give us permission. Just the opposite, the realm of Content will tell us that we need more before we are ready. Once we have consumed just a bit more… then we will be ready. Once we’ve browsed just a bit more… eavesdropped just a bit more… zoned out into the Screen just a bit more…

 

To decide not to be a Consumer anymore, therefore, is a leap of faith (another Kierkegaardian concept). To truly Act, to break free from the “paralysis of analysis,” one must simply do it. In this sense, you always take action before you are ready. This is the meaning of Action. Not to complete the circulation of Content—because it never completes, it just spins in an endless loop—but to suspend it entirely. To take Action is to rest in what knowledge you have, to rest in what you have Consumed, and know that it is enough, whatever it is.

 

 

VI.

 

To step into life is to simply step away from the world of screens and devices without a second thought.

 

All of the platforms that serve you Content. Break them and don’t look back. It’s time to burn the whole thing down and start over.

 

Only in breaking free from the realm of Content can we emancipate the arts and sciences. Writing can one day be writing again, and not empty Content. Music can be music again. Film can be film again. The truth can be true again.

 

It seems that colors themselves have faded (and greens can be green again, and yellows yellow).

 

If you think about it too long, or post about it on Instagram, you’re already lost. Just burn it all down, immediately.

 

In ceasing to be Consumers, we regain what it means to be human. When we all, collectively, cease to be Consumers, then we can begin to restore our garbage culture.

 

Step away from your Content and into the world.

 

 

 

 

 

— About the author

 

Professor Michel Meurisse is standing on a space rock traveling 67,000 miles per hour. What a feeling. Don’t try to find him on Instagram or Facebook, because he’s intentionally avoiding you. Not everyone: you specifically. In his free time, he enjoys waterskiing and regret.

 

The following vignettes are from Nights Redolent Of Death, a collection of dreamlike prose by Greek writer Costas Despiniadis, translated by Konstantina Georganta

 

 

 

 

 

The Room 

 

Night. Cold. I am walking around smoking, huddled up in my jacket. A soft rain has started. I turn into a small alley not knowing why. It’s not my usual route and I have probably never been here before. The alley is dark, quiet. Mud and water in puddles. The more I walk, the narrower the alley becomes. No houses on its sides, only high walls. I am under the impression that it is a dead end, but the thought of going back where I came from never crosses my mind. I keep on walking in absolute darkness. On my right, a small door. I open it and enter a low-ceilinged room. It’s empty and barely lighted by a candle in a corner. The room has a wall with three doors. The right and left ones are padlocked. I open the middle one, and what I find before me is a sign with huge red letters reading NIGHTS REDOLENT OF DEATH. I shut the door terrified, looking for the way out of the room. To my surprise, there is no door anymore. The empty room is now filled with books and papers, piles and piles of them, which I knock with my every move, and they drop down on my feet. In a minute, it is impossible for me to walk with all of these books lying around. I stand still in the middle of the room. I pick up a book and open it. All its pages are blank. I throw it away and pick up another. Same. I start going through all the rest in a frenzy. It takes me a moment to realize that no book has anything written in it. I want to escape this small room, but there is no door. I suddenly feel a cool breeze on my neck. I cannot understand where this breeze is coming from, as there are no doors and no windows anywhere. The breeze grows stronger. The candle is blown out and the room is sunk in absolute darkness.

 

 

The Lollipop 

 

Night. I am sitting on a bench at the beach looking at the sea. There is an old lady nearby dressed in old rags selling lollipops in all colours on a half-wrecked cart. A little girl in dirty clothes, one of those selling tissues in the streets, passes by and stares at the cart. The old lady takes a lollipop and offers it to her. The little one hesitates. ‘Take it, my treat,’ the old lady says. The girl takes it with a smile, says ‘thank you,’ and goes away quickly holding the whole world in her two hands. A little farther down the road she meets someone, must be her father, who shouts at her like a madman in a language I do not understand and slaps her. The lollipop falls out of her hand and the little one starts crying. She tries to pick it up from the ground, but her father pulls her angrily by the hand and they walk away.

 

 

The Cat

 

It’s a quiet December night. Snow has been falling outside since early morning. I am sitting at my desk, reading. The radio can be heard in the background; a pointless political talk is on. Suddenly, my cat, lying until that moment unconcerned on his little rug, gets up, leaps and lands on a small bookcase right beneath the window. He is staring at something, staying still for a long time. Since all is quiet outside, I cannot really tell what he is looking at, so I return to my book, smiling at his ‘folly.’ Secretly, however, I am envious. What I wouldn’t give, if only for a moment, to look calmly at the snow falling in thick darkness. What I wouldn’t give, if only for a moment, for All Human To Be Alien To Me.

 

 

The Sparrow 

 

I am crossing N. Square together with my friend T. We find a wounded sparrow trying to fly in vain. We decide to take it to a vet or an animal rescue. It’s Sunday and nobody is answering our calls. After many tries, K is the one who finally answers the phone and offers to help. A young blond kid with shiny blue eyes, who was playing right next to us, brings us a carton box. We punch three or four holes in it, pick up the wounded bird softly, and place it inside. We call a taxi, and just before T and I are about to go in, the kid looks me in the eyes and tells me with sorrow: ‘I so wish for the little bird to survive, Sir.’ ‘It will survive,’ I assure him, stroking his head, and I shut the door. In a little while, we are at the Nt. neighbourhood. We locate K and hand him the wounded sparrow. He examines it carefully. ‘Its eye, wing, and most probably its spine too are hurt,’ he tells us, adding, ‘It has a minor chance of surviving, but leave it with me and I’ll see what I can do.’ In three days I call K and ask him about the sparrow. ‘It died a few hours after you brought it to me,’ he answers.

 

A few days later I happen to pass by N. Square again. In the distance I see the kid who had helped us with the little bird approaching me, running. ‘What happened, Sir, did the bird survive?’ he asks with sincere agony. ‘It has survived, it has thanks to you,’ I answer, trying to avoid his eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

—About the author, Costas Despiniadis

 

A beautiful, poignant rendition of Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,
in tribute to Led Zeppelin, by sitarist Anand Vyas 

 

 

 

 

—About the musician, Anand Vyas

The following is an excerpt from Bill’s Quest, a novel-in-progress by Jared Daniel

 

 

 

 

Bill’s Epiphany

( or When Our Naive Hero Gets Drunk On Mezcal
and Assaults A Statue Of Tom Cruise )

 

 

 

Bill’s gaze fell from the faraway hill to two people in the foreground across the road. The two people were a woman and a man. The man wore silver make-up on his face and on his hands. He wore clothes that had been painted silver. Also he wore sneakers that had been painted silver. Also a silver sombrero. Also he held a silver gun.

 

The woman was blond. She wore flip-flops, short shorts, a tanktop that was loose and a bra. The silver-painted man had one arm around the woman. With his other hand he gripped the gun. The gun was very long. Its muzzle rested on the temple of the woman. Extended in front of herself, the woman held a stick, a metre or so of stainless-steel metal alloy. Affixed to the end of the stick there was a phone.

 

This is strange, Bill thought. I am seeing something strange.

 

Bill sipped from the blue drink in front of him. He looked to the small opening of the straw. Many times in his life Bill had heard that things happened for a reason. He could not say where he had heard it. “Everything happens for a reason.” Somewhere. Many times. Bill was certain.

 

But there’s gibberish, though.

 

Is gibberish one of the things that happen for a reason?

 

Bill looked from the opening of the straw to the window across the room. A scooter brushed through the frame. Somehow the woman and the man hadn’t moved. The muzzle of the gun remained resting on the temple of the woman. The woman held the metal stick with the phone. The phone did not seem to want to take the picture. Too much time was passing. The camera that trembled. The two flexed faces. The long silver gun. Everything inflating beyond the point you would think that it could.

 

But there were reasons, Bill knew. Purposes. The woman would get a picture. The silver-painted man some money.

 

But me, Bill wondered.

 

I am on vacation.

 

I’m a tourist.

 

But for what purpose?

 

Bill wondered if perhaps his whole vacation might be a type of gibberish.

 

Or trip?

 

“Trip,” Bill decided immediately, was better than “vacation.”

 

But was his trip a type of gibberish?

 

A car blurred through the frame of the window. Bill looked into his large blue drink. The ice had melted. He watched the umbrella very slightly drift. Again he looked out the window to the muzzle of the silver-painted gun. The woman held her smile perfectly. So did the silver-painted man. The camera trembled. The camera wouldn’t take the picture. Bill looked to the dark hill. He looked at the spot on the hill that the sun was behind.

 

 

 

“Mezcal,” Bill said quietly to himself. He had never seen the word before. He read it on the menu of the bar in his hotel.

 

Bill carried the small glass using all ten fingers. He set it down on a table in the sand. He sipped the mezcal to the bottom. Immediately he felt elated. He went back through the lobby into the bar and ordered another and returned with it to his table. Bill did not often drink alcohol. It was fun, he decided. The elation came mixed with excitement and surprise. He made several more trips between the bar and the table. Before very long he was drunk.

 

Bill slumped in his chair and considered the pale wood surface through the clear liquid in his glass. A dignified little scene. Dignified and serious. Bill imagined a large blue drink with an umbrella in its place. It was very obvious. The glass of mezcal was much, much better.

 

He lifted the glass and swirled the liquid. He drank it. He remembered the sounds of the waves. He tuned into the sounds. Soon he was bored. He looked to the waves. He remembered the wax museum. He stood and threw back the last sip. There wasn’t one. He threw the glass into the darkness. He moaned. In his mind the moan was something like a howl.

 

Inside the hotel the lobby was still. Bill wanted to chat. There was nobody behind the counter. Next to the counter there was a stand. Pamphlets. Bill picked one at random. He leaned on the counter. Promising to inspire, the volcano hovers in the mist over Puebla silently stating her immortality.

 

“Big volcano,” Bill said to himself.

 

He threw the pamphlet hard at the floor. He pushed off the counter. He entered the wax museum.

 

The wax museum was a long, narrow room. The figures stood back to back in a line down the middle. Bill rolled against the wall— shoulder, chest, shoulder— then pushed off with his elbow. Between each pair of shoes golden nameplates passed by on the floor.

 

María Félix     Diego Rivera     Jared Borgetti     Cuauhtémoc     Pancho Villa

 

Bill didn’t recognize any of the names. Pancho Villa maybe but he wasn’t sure. Diego Rivera maybe. Bill felt no warmth toward the names. They held meaning indirectly. He knew that other people knew the names. That the names belonged to people whose lives had held meaning. After death the meaning had continued on. It had travelled by wax through time. Bill felt jealousy. He saw himself as wax. He saw himself as a figure lined up with the others in the long narrow room. Travelling.

 

Hernán Cortés     John Lennon     Jesucristo     Vicente Fox     María Rojo

 

Bill’s shoulder touched the wall and he rolled. He turned the corner. He looked up and stopped. A familiar face. Bill pointed at the face.

 

“Tom Cruise,” he said.

 

The statue of Tom Cruise stood without neighbours, alone facing the back wall of the museum. Tom Cruise wore a tuxedo. Bill remained pointing at the face. The face appeared tense and contemplative, as though reliving difficulties confronted in the past.

 

“Thomasss,” Bill said.

 

He lowered his finger and then whipped it back, “You frigginnn’…”

 

Nothing came. He pulled back his arm. He threw his fist, connecting hard with the forehead of the statue of Tom Cruise. The forehead was hard and glossy. It rebounded Bill’s fist. Bill lost his balance, stabilized, then lunged forward pointing. He breathed on to Tom Cruise’s face. There was damage to the face. The eyebrows, misshapen, appeared furrowed. It was as though Tom Cruise were looking down. As though he were obstinate. Like he refused to meet Bill’s eye.

 

 

 

Bill felt the bed suddenly underneath him as a vague feeling of regret accompanied him from sleep. He lifted his head. He recognized his t-shirt and his shorts from the day before. He felt soreness in his hand. He looked at the back of his hand. There was a strange glossy substance. He remembered. Tom Cruise.

 

Bill rolled off the bed and stood. He turned until he saw his suitcase. He began packing his clothes. He vomited on the floor. Crouched on the floor, he reached for the towel that was also a swan.

 

Some minutes later Bill stood with suitcase in hand, considering the door. He had four pre-paid nights remaining. Four nights until his flight back home. But now he had to leave the hotel because he had punched the wax Tom Cruise. He wasn’t sure where he would go. He wasn’t sure if he would die. First thing was to get across the lobby. He took one last look at his pre-paid room. He looked at the swan on the bed. It wasn’t a swan anymore.

 

 

 

Bill stared out the window of a bus. There were spaces between the trees. The sun was still low. Bill could see it behind the trees.

 

Fleeing from a crime now. I am fleeing from a crime.

 

The branches brushed the light. The tree trunks chopped the sun.

 

 

 

Bill sat in the sand beside his suitcase. He was thinking things over. Not everything was necessarily so bad.

 

Now I am not on a vacation. I wanted to not be on a vacation. I am on the run in Mexico because of violence. 

 

No one was on the beach except for Bill. Sitting in the sand, thinking things over, Bill looked to the horizon. He saw a boat. It was so still. It could have been in sand instead of water.

 

After fleeing the hotel Bill had taken the bus to the first destination that was available. Upon arriving Bill walked the town until it thinned to a strip of green between the beach and a highway. The question was what to do now. Grasping an answer felt difficult to imagine. Eventually though, it was clear, an answer would have to come. And so Bill sat watching the still boat, conscious of its movement forward through time, and of his own movement through time, closer and closer, always, to the knowledge of what it was he would do. The question was the same question as where he would go. And behind this a third question, one that felt thin and spread to a wider breadth, filled the rest of the space in Bill’s mind. The question of why he would be doing the thing that he would do. He would go to a place and he would do a thing. But for what reason?

 

Bill followed the boat through the hours. The sun across the zenith. Finally Bill stood. He picked up his suitcase and began walking back the way he had come. The direction of the town. And he walked knowing now what it was he would do. And he knew the reason why. The reason he’d come to Mexico, even. The purpose of his trip. Sitting there on the sand it had become clear. There was a volcano that hovered immortally in mist. As he walked Bill could see the mist in his mind. Inside the mist hovered the volcano, glinting. Polished.

 

Not a trip at all.

 

I am a person who is on a quest.

 

Some people are different.

 

There is an urge.

 

Sometimes.

 

For some of us.

 

Maybe it is strange.

 

Bill walked with strong, deliberate strides where the waves sank into the sand. Already he felt different.

 

Back home it wasn’t possible.

 

Of course.

 

Home isn’t a place where you do a quest.

 

I had to travel to Mexico.

 

It was something Bill felt certain anyone would have been able to see. He saw himself walking. A man walking on a beach with a suitcase. Anyone, surely, could see it. The amount of purpose in this man’s stride.

 

Bill looked to the still horizon. The boat at the bottom of the tall sky. Waves silently fell from the horizon. Bill halted his steps. He had an idea. It was an idea for the immediate future.

 

An urge, more like.

 

An urge like a big urge for a quest. But this one was smaller. And immediate. A receding wave sucked his feet. He stepped back and dropped his suitcase in the sand. He took off his shoes and his pants. He took off his shirt. He took off his socks. He had never stepped into an ocean before. He stepped into the ocean.

 

“The ocean,” he said.

 

It struck Bill as odd now that he hadn’t ever noticed he was this type of different person. The type who had them. Urges to go on quests. Urges to just walk right into the friggin’ ocean.

 

Bill laughed. He turned on to his back, floating starfish as silent waves rolled underneath. Between waves the ocean wobbled. Bill felt his ears fill with water and empty, a transfer between two worlds.

 

 

 

 

 

—About the author, Jared Daniel 

 

 

An intricate, flamboyant new stop-motion music video from prolific jazz musician and animator Stefan Zeniuk for the song ‘Down, Down, Down’ by the Hoodoo Loungers, a New Orleans Mardi Gras style band, about a mousy fellow and motley group of claymation misfits struggling with their inner demons. 

 

 

 

— About the artist, Stefan Zeniuk