Mickey Z

Cool Observer

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Love means never having to say you're Tyler Durden...

Posted by Mickey Z on 01/24 at 11:06 AM

Tuesday, January 24, 2006.
Fight Club Day.

The last 40 or 50 pages really knocked me over, Mickey.
A fascinating read.

An attempt to jolt oneself out of the horrible hypnotism of the normal, the “sane,” the reasonable.
Throughout most of my life, I did this by traveling.
I’d be somewhere for a while, then begin to think: “What the #### is going on? Jesus!” And, I’d pick up and wander off. For a few months, I’d have those “new eyes,” you so often refer to. I’d be more awake, more alert, much more on edge. Then, all too soon, the strange, new environs would become strangely like everywhere else, and I’d begin my escape plans all over again.
Hemingway did it by facing death, in one way or another, throughout his life - till, I guess, he figured he had nowhere to go but “into” death, and he was gone.
Tyler did it with violence and mahem.

It’s all about being alive, and knowing it - moment by moment… feeling some sort of magic, passion, wonder, excitement… LIFE!

It’s LIFE whiich most terrifys “corporate America.” ( And, it has ALWAYS been a corporate America… Always.) Life is awake, passionate, open, free. Nothing could be less corporate, less governmental, less “reasonable.”

Posted by joe on from Oregon 01/24 at 11:53 AM

Site’s back online and everything looks great… can’t spend too much online today, must prepare for new job starting tomorrow, and I’m sure that in no time I’ll be tempted to toss filing cabinets out the window and blowing up the building and all that. Offhand, well I’d say yeah, I was thinking the same thing about the clues about the split personality. The very way they first met on the beach seems so dreamlike that I could see it not really having happened and all that. Wonder how the book would have worked if CP had kept them as separate people?

Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 01/24 at 11:58 AM

I too found that it read as though Chuck went back to leave clues. However I’d also seen the movie prior to reading.
The frustration of the character did build nicely with piece by piece falling together.

I appreciated the repetition of phrases - I think it’s necessary for a first read, especially if one’s not seen the movie.

I thought often, that if only the character had not been so firmly entrenched in the package sold to him (by his father, by the status quo, etc.), he might have been empowered to find a more creative outlet that could have eliminated the entire mental breakdown.

Maybe he’d be a regular Expendable?

Posted by Amelopsis on from neoCanada 01/24 at 12:18 PM

Life. It’s all about life. This is the essence of this book. Living life, as opposed to existing in the world by the sufferance of the corporatist state.

The violence inherent in being a living human being is wussified out of us by the manufactured fears and sensitivities of the corporatist �� (Out of deference to the majority of posting Expendables, I shall refrain from attacking the most pernicious manifestations of wussification.)

Palahniuk’s vision of a man commanding his destiny must, in deference to the wussification of the media industry, be mitigated and called into doubt by the split personality ruse. “He’s defective, that’s why he’s violent.”

No. Humans are inherently violent. THe purpose of civilization is to lead us away from non-productive violence...ie, the kind that makes us easier to control.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

And then:

Alienation. This book is all about alienation. Violence, the need to destroy in order to control, is prime evidence of social control’s breakdown and its hideous consequences. Social control makes the world a livable place, because death and violence are only “fun” if they’re not happening to you. This is a parable of our Western greed-machine gone wild, run amuck, become Tyler Durden.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

And then:

Palahniuk’s writing in this book, unequaled in his subsequent career, demonstrates that everyone has one truly excellent book in him. (Not her.) In the case of (CatLady ref) Knut Hamsun, that book is agreed to be Hunger; in Hemingway’s case, The Sun Also Rises; in Faulkner’s, As I Lay Dying. One superb book apiece, please.

So what is Palahniuk’s claim to fame in Fight Club? He broke no new literary griound, as Faulkner and Hemingway did; he made no abstruse philosophical concept personal and immediate, as did Hamsun. He grabbed the Zeitgeist by the balls and twisted hard. So did Bret Easton Ellis. Palahniuk did something more than these things: He wrote the most visual novel I’ve ever read. I read the book and saw the movie. The movie doesn’t look like the book, particularly, but the book looks like the movie. The difference? The images that define the split personality can’t be misinterpreted. Reality is bifurcated by showing the split, not mentioning or describing the split.

It’s a tour de force that I admire unreservedly. The fact that I can keep going, making more and more observations about the book, means it’s a major work in a minor ouevre and, just possibly, “might” stand the test of time and be read for years to come.

Posted by Mudge on from Austin 01/24 at 12:21 PM

just wanted to respond to a couple of things from yesterday…

i was sort of having a little joke with the atheism bit but i think it is one of the those things society has got the burden of proof the wrong way round on. why is it necessary to prove there is no god rather than to prove that there is a god?

the same thing tends to happen to the antiwar movement. the burden of proof should be on those making a case FOR war, not against it.

Mudge - about that article. the man is a typical bitter expat. he works at harvard an oxford and is espousing typical establishment positions. I know have mentioned several things Scotia on this site but i have probably mentioned far more US things. the difference is highlighted becuase majority of commenters on this site are from the US.

He is also misrepresenting burns.

The telegraph is a murdoch newspaper and should be treated as such.

Posted by michael on from scotland 01/24 at 12:22 PM

Sorry: yesterday / today chatter…
(Joe - it’s not stealing - it’s her own site! And - I’ll buy music from indi’s like her or others I want to support, but I’ll download free music forever!)

And I would throw a filing cabinet out the window if I could today - just because it would be instant gratification. Go James, go!

Posted by Amelopsis on from neoCanada 01/24 at 12:23 PM

Wonderful analysis, Mudge.
I’m also drawn back, again and again, to various portions of the book. The idea of threatening to kill people if they don’t turn off the TV and actually live their lives just delights me: “LIVE, damn it, or I’ll kill you!”
Sometimes it seems to me that it will take those sorts of direct threats to wake up most of the population - and, even then, many will probably choose to turn out the light and go back to sleep.

James - it’s really good to see you. I’m glad you’re glad about your job. I hope it works out well for you.

Michael, great to see you, too.

Amelopsis - so, you’ve decided to “go down swinging!” I’m going to go the same way.

Posted by joe on from Oregon 01/24 at 12:50 PM

Regarding Mudge’s comment in #4: I read the book and saw the movie. The movie doesn’t look like the book, particularly, but the book looks like the movie.

I had this exact same reaction—it was my first reaction, in fact, within the first few pages of the book. I’ve read thousands of novels (not a boast—a sickness), many of which have been turned into movies. This one received the best book-to-movie translation of them all, and I believe it’s because Palahniuk, as he wrote, saw the novel as it would appear in a movie. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wrote it as a screenplay first, then removed directorial devices and added a little narrative.

Fight Club made me uncomfortable in the movie version, less so in the book. I don’t know how this would’ve played out had I read the book first. Part of it has to do with growing older, having done the biker/badass thing pre-29, seeing too many friends end up in the hospital, prison or dead, and coming to a place where the literal expression of violence is a turnoff. For most of my life (and I’m sure most of us can relate), there’s been a level of anger vibrating just below the surface. Someone looks at me wrong, says the wrong thing; a boss is an asshole to me; GW on TV; someone cuts me off in traffic, then flips me off—I’ve not only wanted to kill someone, but I’ve wanted to do so in the bloodiest, most painful manner possible. And this was without the aid of video games! Fight Club, seems to push these buttons, and is thus a universal experience—a HOWL against our impotence when compared to the World Machine.

I loved the self-help group angle. Classic, and I have a lot of friends in various stages of rehab who are all about coffee in Styrofoam cups, folding metal chairs and telling perfect strangers the story of their life. Desperation seeking a “positive” outlet, but the shit keeps pushing to the surface, a neverending supply.

I guess what I appreciate most about the book is Palahniuk’s ability to extrapolate our individual need for healing/resolution out into a socially relavent statement. Like Wilhelm Reich, he’s telling us that our individual disease is reflected in a corresponding social disease—and here’s how it would look if we did more about it than sit around on folding metal chairs, sipping coffee in Styrofoam cups and telling strangers how miserable our lives are.

Every Democratic politician should have this book shoved up his or her ass.

Posted by Hawk on from Boulder, CO, USA 01/24 at 01:00 PM

Mickey: I will never doubt the power of Tyler Durden again!

All bow to the Mechanical Contrvium....

Posted by Hawk on from Boulder, CO, USA 01/24 at 01:09 PM

Hawk,
"I loved the self-help group angle. Classic, and I have a lot of friends in various stages of rehab who are all about coffee in Styrofoam cups, folding metal chairs and telling perfect strangers the story of their life...."
I sort of feel like this place serves a little of that purpose for me; in a much less drastic manner of course.
Somewhere that a common sentiment is understood and that’s the starting point for whatever other discussion might be suggested by our good Host, or might (as he said today, and which makes me feel a little guilty) just start off, regardless of the post topic.

Posted by Amelopsis on from neoCanada 01/24 at 01:32 PM

Thanks for your patience, everyone...while I was “trying” to get on my own site. Anyway, love the comments above. Yeah, the self-help group angle reinforces the absence of community theme. Chuck taps into all of us who yearn for a tribe, so to speak. Corporate America creates pseudo-tribes on a daily basis but there’s nothing organic about them. Dare I declare that the way each of you drifted to this comment board—uncoerced, at your own pace—helped create a our own fight club of sorts.

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 01:37 PM

Re#11:

What he said! Exactly.

Posted by Amelopsis on from neoCanada 01/24 at 01:43 PM

Amelopsis #10: You are sooooooo correct.

I have this image of a large table down at the Trident Cafe (here in Boulder), with you, Mickey, Mudge, Joe, Chris, Rosemarie, Helga, James, Michael, and all the other Expendables (sorry I can’t remember you all!) coming and going… but the table is never completely empty. It’s a place that cannot be coopted, conversation is free, and tipping the barista is a pleasure.

Mickey’s Bookery and Cafe, where the scones are vegan and the beverages are anti-oxident....

Posted by Hawk on from Boulder, CO, USA 01/24 at 01:46 PM

I’m with you on that, Hawk-- too bad that all of you can’t make it to my Kitchen in Hell Housewarming party this Saturday. I’d even have some separate bacon fried bacon for Mudge… though i don’t actually know how to make bacon fried bacon. Do you need a cast iron pan? And yes, I’m sure there’ll be some Xerox machines that would look great splattered all over rush hour 3rd Avenue for my new job.

Was going to focus on Fight Club, let alone a dozen other things I need to get done, but I’m fixated on this thing that Mudge mentioned about authors with only one superb book to their name. Does any known author break that rule? What about Shakespeare, or doesn’t he count because some say he wasn’t a real person, didn’t invent the plots to his plays, etc. etc.

Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 01/24 at 02:15 PM

James: With all due respect, I’m not down with Mudge’s “one great book per author” rule.

One of the books we considered reading before Fight Club asserted itself was Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion, which has the feel of a big, fat modern classic and is one of the great books I ever read. Kesey also, in a fit of post-LSD lucidity, wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which, though slimmer (ala Fight Club), is also a work of lasting creative genius.

I could be full of crap, however, since what I believe to be a classic is often not what the Consensus believes—and many so-called classics strike me as pompous excrement.

Man, I wish I could be there for your Kitchen in Hell Housewarming. I’d even test out the bacon fried bacon to make sure it’s presentable to Mudge....

Posted by Hawk on from Boulder, CO, USA 01/24 at 02:27 PM

The Consensus meaning Mudge, right? And what about Dostoy with all of Notes..., Crime, Idiot and Karamazov? Though man, if there’s one writer I’m so sick of it’s FD, but that’s my own fault I guess.
And I think the trick to that recipe is the precise timing of when you add the bacon. Be back in a few hours…

How long will we discuss Fight Club, by the way? Just today? Still have to read the end more thoroughly.

Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 01/24 at 02:31 PM

Wew, there’s a lot of great thoughts on here today! I’d have to say that, first of all, I prefer Survivor to Fight Club. It has more of a staggering nature about it, in my book, and the blasts of shock and weird fact that Palahniuk throws in (am (I being over cynical if I say he does this to rejolt the reader’s interest?) weave in more completely with the themes & narrator. Also, I think the book is more even.

That said ... Fight Club is a staggeringly cathartic piece of work. I haven’t reread it for some time, but I read it two or three times in the year after reading it, and dipped in a great deal. It’s a superb read. Some of the images are so staggeringly well conceived (such as hunting for deer in the ruins of the financial district of Manhatten, if memory serves me aright) they are almost haunting.

Piecing together such a well conceived book is difficult. It alternates between a hyped up form of surrealism (did anyone else feel a sense of shock when Project Mayhem was first introduced?) and deliciously black observations on trite life.

Having worked an irritating number of shit office jobs in my twenties, the sense of meandering tedium is astoundingly well realised. The scene in the movie describing insomnia while the narrators weaves in between the dull detritus and his own fanciful, probably accurate predictions (planet Starbucks, the IBM constellation) is quite dizzying.

I have no really strong opinions about the book, apart from that it’s a staggering work of art and I would recommend it to anyone to read. No doubt we each took something unique, sliced observations that fit in with our own conceptions of ourselves & the outer world. That in itself is grounds to think the book will last.

If I could single out one element that stands out most strongly, it’s the forceful comments on catharsis that the author offices. Parasite & cancer support groups, “I want to have your abortion,” threatening the boss with a horror story of co-workers going postal, a plane coming apart at the seams, young men losing teeth and leaving face imprints in a splat of blood on a concrete floor ... damn!

Catharsis - captcha says “waiting”

Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 01/24 at 02:41 PM

To offer another view, the narrator is more like the unbalanced ego of a man with corporate images as his superego & Tyler Durden as his id, possibily mutated due to the suffocating crap of the everyday world.

“Destroy a piece of corporate art ...” I think that line alone supports my view. Is repressed struggle (a sense of powerlessness in the face of omnipresent billboard demands) always a source of possible violence? I have no idea personally, but the presentation of breaking out in the novel certainly thinks so.

We can’t die without a few scars - everyone in a wussified world like ours feels marginalised by such pointless violence as offered by the video games & movies.

I have a horrible feeling I know how Fight Club will be immortalised. In a few years (decades?) it will be repackaged minus the nihilism, & exclusive overpriced Fight Club gyms will open, where executive types go, pay a contradictory fortune for their fighting clothes & belt the shit out of each other ... putting $$$ into many corporate pockets.

The plus side of that? A lot of executives will beat the shit out of each other! (evil laugh)

Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 01/24 at 02:49 PM

Michael #5: I’m not taking this man or his column seriously, just for the record. I think it was a joke on Dr Ferguson’s part, but that it appeared on Murdoch’s organ just means it’s being mooted by Someone In Power. I think that’s a little worrisome.

For all of me, he can misrepresent Burns until the cows come home...it’s the least of his sins.

Joe #7: “Sometimes it seems to me that it will take those sorts of direct threats to wake up most of the population - and, even then, many will probably choose to turn out the light and go back to sleep.”

Hence the need for fiction that will bonk their sleepy noggins. Movies, less so, since they’re by definition a borrowing of someone else’s visual imagination. But my GOD there’s nothing gonna do it for everyone, and it’s worth having multiple arrows in one’s quiver.

Hawk #8: “Like Wilhelm Reich, he’s telling us that our individual disease is reflected in a corresponding social disease—and here’s how it would look if we did more about it than sit around on folding metal chairs, sipping coffee in Styrofoam cups and telling strangers how miserable our lives are.”

Uh-huh. Exactly.

Empress Amelopsis #10: “Somewhere that a common sentiment is understood and that’s the starting point for whatever other discussion might be suggested by our good Host, or might (as he said today, and which makes me feel a little guilty) just start off, regardless of the post topic.”

Uh-huh. I testify, brethren and cistern.

MZ #11: “Corporate America creates pseudo-tribes on a daily basis but there’s nothing organic about them. Dare I declare that the way each of you drifted to this comment board—uncoerced, at your own pace—helped create a our own fight club of sorts.”

Uh-huh. Why I’m here.

James #14: “...I’m fixated on this thing that Mudge mentioned about authors with only one superb book to their name. Does any known author break that rule? What about Shakespeare...”

Take this with the boulder of salt that’s always required when “consensus” does its work. Thomas Wolfe’s books are much of a muchness to me, sort of like a box of dates: wonderful if you like that sort of thing, cloyingly nauseating if you’re not a fan. Consensus, in her wisdom, decrees Look Homeward, Angel is brilliant, the rest of the stuff not quite so much so...how can one tell? I’m serious, I can’t tell one from another. Fitzgerald’s books? Gatsby or bust, says Consensus; I think The Beautiful and the Damned and Tender is the Night are equal to this level of quality. It’s a handy generalization, though, and serves as a starting point for seminars, this “one per person” rule.

Chicken fried bacon?! Breaded, deep-fried, and served with cream gravy?! I’ll be there in a few hours.

Posted by Mudge on from Austin 01/24 at 03:07 PM

Most interesting ruminations, Mickey! I can’t add anything today as I haven’t read the book but it sure sounds as if it might be a good read. I haven’t see the film either btw.
And a warm ‘welcome’ to all you MZ’ers and expendables. ‘Mickey’s Bookery and Cafe’ sounds good to me, Hawk!
What says the Empress about the result of the Canadian elections? ‘I told you so’ perhaps?
Pleasant temperatures today (around 75F) but a scorcher tomorrow.
Auf Wiederemailen,
Helga

Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 01/24 at 03:17 PM

Hi Helga! It’s 65F here, sunny and lightly breezy...just this side of paradise, actually.

Hawk #15: “...Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion, which has the feel of a big, fat modern classic and is one of the great books I ever read. Kesey also, in a fit of post-LSD lucidity, wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which, though slimmer (ala Fight Club), is also a work of lasting creative genius.”

I think Consensus has anointed {i]Cuckoo’s Nest[/i] as the Work of Merit. Frankly, though, I think that’s because it’s possible to read in less than a month.

James #16: Dostoyevsky gets a pass, per Consensus, because there’s so very much to say about his work. Same for Shakespeare, Ibsen, a few others...in case there’s a misunderstanding here, I’m using Consensus to personalize an opinion formed by looking at a lot of reading lists...where only one work shows up on a reading list (eg, the International Baccalaureate list) I assume Consensus has spoken.

Tolstoy? War and Peace. And so on.

Chris #17: “Piecing together such a well conceived book is difficult. It alternates between a hyped up form of surrealism (did anyone else feel a sense of shock when Project Mayhem was first introduced?) and deliciously black observations on trite life.”

Project Mayhem was a piece of over-the-top scenery that allowed the theme of control as violence, violence as control to recrudesce.

#18: “I have a horrible feeling I know how Fight Club will be immortalised. In a few years (decades?) it will be repackaged minus the nihilism, & exclusive overpriced Fight Club gyms will open, where executive types go, pay a contradictory fortune for their fighting clothes & belt the shit out of each other ... putting $$$ into many corporate pockets.”

That it hasn’t happened already just means that Palahniuk won’t license the name and image of Tyler Durden. I am as sure as rain in Spain stayin’ in the plain that the idea was mooted as soon as Brad Pitt showed how ripped he could get.

Posted by Mudge on from Austin 01/24 at 03:34 PM

Helga I left a comment or two about the election on yesterday’s comment section (this morning’s discussion was delayed due to unseen forces keeping MZ from accessing his site.)

My many opinions on the varied consequences to our country can be summed up ineloquently by saying that I’m pissed off at my fellow Canadians and their lemming-like behaviour, I’m not suprised, and I’m livid at our media for leading the lemmings on a southbound path leading to the edge of a cliff.

Let’s hope the fall’s not to great to survive, keep your fingers crossed for us, ok?

Captcha says “family”...which I think we are, of a sort; here’s to you all!

Posted by Amelopsis on from neoCanada 01/24 at 03:38 PM

Hello everyone. Welcome Helga and Chris. Thanks for the family comment, dear Empress. It’s yet another warm, sunny January day in NYC. Shocking.

Hawk #13: It makes me weepy to consider how unlikely it is any of us will ever find a place like the one you describe. That unlikelihood is what drives so many to despair, it drives us toward gullibillity in the name of finding an explanation—any explanation—for the state of things and our own state of perpetual dissatisfaction. We’re all so adept at blaming this group or that...but like the bull in the bullfight, our eyes are fixed on the cape instead of the matador.

James, you ask a good question. I had not intended to make a Fight Club-related post tomorrow so I guess today’s comment board is it, re: our discussion. Unless someone has a better idea. As Ross Perot sez: I’m all ears.

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 03:40 PM

Mudge, I agree with your theory...when viewed from a consensus perspective. However, it might make for an enlightening exercise to ask the same question based solely on personal opinion whether it be books, music, art, whatever. For example, I loved the Stones as a kid and while most touted classics like “Honky Tonk Woman,” Brown Sugar,” etc., I found myself choosing more obscure songs like “Jigsaw Puzzle” or “Soul Survivor” as my personal favorites.

Back to books: I know consensus picks Slaughterhouse Five as Vonnegut’s classic but he wrote several others that I prefer.

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 03:46 PM

Mudge re 21 - can’t say I agree about Project Mayhem. I thought (& still do) it was Palahniuk taking these ideas to their logical extremes, which he does quite a lot in the idea. I mean, if you turn up to work presentations covered in blood & sporting loose teeth, why not beat yourself up in front of your boss & get him to sign you off on the long term payroll? Ditto the soap / lipo clinic raids. As so much of the book is OTT (wonderfully so, IMHO), where to draw the line?

As for the licencing idea, I suspect you’re right. BTW, I heard (no idea if it’s true!) that when actors need to get REALLY ripped, they use horse tranqs as they use up much of the moisture in our bodies, making the muscles stand out like there’s no tomorrow. If anyone knows Madonna they could ask her.

MZ re 24 - Vonnegut stands out as one who can write both an epochal novel & many other great ones. Natch Slaughterhouse Five stands out due to his witnessing events in Dresden, but it’s also outstanding writing ... & then there’s Cat’s Cradle, Sirens of Titan etc, so many outstanding & superlative novels.

Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 01/24 at 03:58 PM

Re Vonnegut - if anyone likes the idea of random middle names from Slapstick, this site will provide one for your own name:

http://tinyurl.com/dwl2c

Or someone else’s:

John Peanut-7 Kennedy
George Chickadee-13 Bush (works for both father & son, somehow)

And apparently the ‘S.” in T.S.Eliot stands for Chipmonk-17

Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 01/24 at 04:04 PM

Chris, that Vonnegut link fits perfectly on a day where alienation seems to be the theme. My new middle name is:
Michael Raspberry-10 Zezima

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 04:08 PM

Kurt Vonnegut sez:

“I want a Constitutional Convention. I want to add four new amendments:
A. Every new child shall be welcomed into the world with joy.
B. At the age of puberty, say 14, every child should take part in a ritual of adulthood.
C. Every adult must have worthwhile tasks to be performed each day.
D. When a person dies, he or she must be sorely missed by many people.”

and

“We’ve got to get back to extended families. We need more people to talk to. I pretend to be interested in sports just to say ‘good morning’ to people.”

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 04:11 PM

Yo.

Mickey wrote in the post After all, without a strong civil society to fall back on, something has to fill that gap and we already have militias, we have the Bloods and Crips, we have paintball, football teams, Ultimate Fighting, video games, the military, hunting, and countless conspiracy theories...all of which assuage some of the frustration most of us feel.

In Poland---and I’m sure elsewhere---one encounters sizeable groups of potentially violent hooligans looking for trouble. When I was back visiting around New Years a friend made an astute observation. He said that this sort of thing didn’t always exist. All the men (boys) of a certain age were shipped off to war, and those who came back had seen enough violence to not look for more.

I’m not suggesting this is always the case, and certainly not suggesting that war is good for societal health. Question is, what to do with boys becoming men in a culture that ostensibly embraces violence? You can incarcerate them (American option), you can run everyone through the mill (as they do in Israel), or...there must be a better way.

Posted by Keir on from The Hague 01/24 at 04:12 PM

MZ, I’m sure there’s plenty of raspberries out there who will welcome you with open arms.

(feel sorry for the extended Chickadee brood, though)

Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 01/24 at 04:13 PM

Just finished Slapstick last week. Vonnegut is a treasure.

Handy Vonnegut quote (from Breakfast of Champions):

We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.

Posted by Keir on from The Hague 01/24 at 04:15 PM

Keir re 29 - it’s a damn good question & a poser. How many people now in jail in the US? The last figure I heard (probably last year) was a ridiculously high one. & military conscription is barbaric; rather like demanding everyone spends two years in a symphony orchestra or at art college - sure, some will find it heaven, but what if that’s not your bag?

Captcha says “various”

I take your point on war & you’re undoubtedly correct. However, some people cheerfully embrace the “what we need is a good war to thin the crowd out” view, and that makes me shudder.

Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 01/24 at 04:16 PM

Keir, when I read this: “We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane,” I said out loud: “OH MY GOD.” Vonnegut is indeed a treasure.

As for your comment #29, you bring up a great point. It’s too bad activism and protest are so stigmatized. Imagine all those young men inspired to be Wobblies or anti-death penalty activists, etc. Nader has always said every family should set aside “civic time” each week to work together to improve society.

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 04:20 PM

Nader has a good point. For my part, I don’t want to feel that I have to make “political art” (thus picking up slack for the civically unengaged around me). No more professional politicians, no more professional activists; everyone involved to a reasonable extent. Things would look much nicer.

Yeah, imagine all of those creative and energetic people aged 18 or so engaged in something meaningful. I suppose Rage Against the Machine worked in this direction. And they did wake a few people up for sure. But at least one problem with their music is that I can imagine tough guys pumping up to it before going on a bombing raid in Iraq.

Chris (32)---there is a small difference, besides the fact that it may not interest some people, between art college and war. Yes, you still find the same political intrigue, but with considerably less blood.

Posted by Keir on from The Hague 01/24 at 04:27 PM

Keir, yes, art college & war are somewhat different. One has more paintbrushes & absract noodling, the other a considerably amount of blood & death. I was making the point of differing aptitudes making conscription an especially barbaric idea.

Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 01/24 at 04:32 PM

Keir - re Slapstick. What do you make of Vonnegut’s view of improving society?

Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 01/24 at 04:35 PM

Methinks we could give the young men something useful and uplifting to do. In a world in which community was something more than a commercial buzzword, young men could literally rebuild the whole fucking world.
What percentage of the world’s population lives in sub-standard housing? Build `em something pleasant and safe to live in. Ditto for those who have nowhere at all to go.
They could tear down all the banks and corporatized structures and use the building matereials to construct meeting places and huge interior spaces to be used by ordinary people for ordinary gatherings.
They could work on the newly won lands and create ponds and open lands for wildlife and people. They could create farmlands and groves for fruit trees.
In short, they could spend each day doing something which brings joy to the community and happiness for themselves…

We couldn’t do that here, of course, because some of the young men might drink or smoke or light up a joint or use “foul” language…
And, in any case, we have government and corporations to do such things for us.

Posted by joe on from Oregon 01/24 at 04:36 PM

Ah, Joe...sounds like you’re describing the NUtI I dream of…

Posted by Amelopsis on from neoCanada 01/24 at 04:53 PM

Amelopsis, it seems we pine for a world which we’ve never seen, and which only a loving heart can even believe is possible…

Maybe the grandchildren of our grandchildren will see such a world.

Posted by joe on from Oregon 01/24 at 05:26 PM

Hello all.

Sorry I missed the Fight Club flight and couldn’t join you for the reading…

But I’m down with a Vonnegut book for the next round (if there is to be one): Galapagos, Breakfast of Champions, Welcome to the Monkey House, Jailbird or whatever.

re: Keir (on Rage Against The Machine comment and “tough guys pumping up” to it)—Probably so; the same brand of inbred homophobes who are the actual subject of Nirvana’s ‘In Bloom’...

Anyway, off to the studio to lay down some guitar tracks. Ciao for now.

Posted by RT on from The Buyou City 01/24 at 05:26 PM

Joe, whenever I see young men drinking, smoking dope or using foul language I get a few of my young conservative friends and we wrestle them to the ground - outnumbered, natch - and beat them with sticks.

Re manners & such, it reminds me of a Z list celebrity’s comment on the Kray Twins (London gangsters fond of slashing faces): They was real gentlemen ... made sure nobody ever used foul language around a lady ... doh! Very gentlemanly to mutilate people for trifling faux pax, naturally ...

But your world of using all that energy for constructive means is, sadly, precisely what today’s (& probably tomorrow’s) businesses do not want ... after all, safe housing can only be found through hideous, filing cabinet style corporate condo buildings.

Where I live (& have lived, on & off, for most of my life), property values went up drastically about five years ago. Now we have every decent building bought & torn down, & astoundingly ugly high rise shacks have risen in their place. The price of a small boxlike apartment is woefully high ... all the pubs have turned shit ... damn, I’d move but the neighbours deserve better than the yuppie SUV lovin’ scum who’d move in.

Captcha says “#### those ignorant pricks”

Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 01/24 at 05:44 PM

You said it, Joe: “a world which we’ve never seen”

RT: I almost forgot to post the info “you” sent me. Here goes:

The World Economic Forum as well as The World Social Forum will be meeting this week (Jan 24-29). Also, the ILO just announced that “global unemployment continues to grow, (and) youth now make up half those out of work.”
WSF info: http://tinyurl.com/c9e7y
ILO report: http://tinyurl.com/8fjq7

And Chris, what’s wrong with the Z List?

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 05:54 PM

Chirs (36)-- a recent Howard Zinn article (can’t search for it now) mentions that Vonnegut, Eduardo Galeano, Nadine Gordimer (I think) and a few other writers are launching some kind of global network to erradicate war. There aren’t many people I would say this about, but I might consider following Kurt Vonnegut off a cliff.

Posted by Keir on from The Hague 01/24 at 06:11 PM

Joe #37: Bingo.

I experienced Fight Club first as a movie. On DVD no less. It appeared to be hyped for it’s violence when it hit the theaters, so I stayed away. Once I saw it, I was duly impressed. I think the movie is equal to the book. The message about reclaiming Life is loud and clear. My fear is that the majority of folks exposed to the work will focus on the violence for it’s own sake and miss the message. There’s nothing the Corporatocracy would like better than to have everyone beating the hell out of themselves, then going back to work. Project Mayhem on the other hand…

I have also wondered how the police and the armed forces fail to relate to fellow citizens, rather than the system they defend. Don’t we all start as citizens? Don’t we all have families or friends who are citizens? Aren’t the police and armed forces ostensibly designed to protect the citizens? More amazingly, for the most part the folks in the police and military are paid shit for the work they do. It says a lot about the indoctrination these people go through.

Posted by Cart on from near Warshington DC 01/24 at 06:27 PM

MZ - sorry mate, should have said the Y list!

Keir - I agree! And the Zinn article sounds like real grounds for hope, but I guess people like that are just a few flickers of light in an otherwise too dark sky.

Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 01/24 at 06:29 PM

Wow - I’ve just come back here and a full 23 comments have been added.
I’ll be brief as I have to do some work now: thanks, Amelopsis - must say I was as pissed off as you at my fellow Australians when they gave our conservative government an increased majority at the last federal elections in October 2004.
A particularly warm welcome to MUDGE, you curmudgeon - NOT!
And I quite like ‘Michael Raspberry-10 Zezima’, Mickey!
Interesting post(s) on the Canadian elections can be read here: http://xymphora.blogspot.com
Ciao, Helga

Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 01/24 at 06:34 PM

Hi Folks -

Chris - the situation in your neighborhood is typical of events here. Slowly but surely, money & power is gobbling everything up, and we’re increasingly pushed toward the “margins.” The margins, of course, are where they’ll place the waste treatment plants and the chemical facilities and the strange and frighteningly polluting industries of one sort or another. The margins are where they’ll store the noxious detritus of “civilization.” It’s where blacks and native populations and the poor already live…

Meanwhile, the new construction is all the same - here, in Great Britain, in Australia, in South Africa, in Israel in Thailand in China in Russia… everywhere. Same houses, same big buildings, same cars & trucks, same chain-restaurants, same office material stores, same building materials stores, same banks, same insurance companies, same computer stores, same electronics stores, same music shops and DVD outlets…

I read, recently, that corporations are gradually and quitely lobbying governments everywhere to make it more difficult for people to farm or even have their own gardens or hot-houses. The aim is to see to it that all foods and beverages come from the corporations… All clothing comes from the corporations… All methods of transportation come from the corporations…

Even Orwell would be horrified by what we’re seeing here...there...everywhere.

Posted by joe on from Oregon 01/24 at 06:57 PM

Joe - that take on things sounds horribly prescient.

I stopped going to new cities in Britain a while back (used to love just getting on a train and taking in somewhere new) because they’re all getting to be the fucking same. Same obscene leering tasteless signs advertising homogenised crap which we are instructed to buy.

No more fresh delights of preserved culture new to me, no more browsing in tatty old shops filled with strange & wonderous objects ... just miles of McDonalds & Phone4u offering the same shit to be found in every urban centre, and increasingly, every small town.

All put there by some listless jaded artless motherfuckers, boring wanksplats sat in office board rooms where they draw up superplans that will piss all over our futures.

People who do “adventurous” things, not because it makes them feel alive or elated, but because they can boast about it. Folk that will strive increasingly to distance themselves from the everyday people who live with their grotesque doings.

Weirdos living in such narrow mental space they can’t see, or are in denial from, the fact that they are eroding everyday standards & they, the self styled elite, will have to travel further & further away to feel some cool air on their skin.

I welcome such people doing dangerous things. #### ‘em. I wish them defective climbing equipment. Let them hurtle down from some great height as the clips don’t hold in the rock ...

All because it gives them more money.

There was a great advert a while ago, years back, showing a James Bond type spy doing some daring, stylish feat just so he could leave a gift by an exotic woman’s bed, and the slogan was “All because the lady loves (name deleted at insistence of non corporate blog).”

Today, it’s more like a cultural bonfire ... “all because the bastards love money.

Posted by Chris Wood on from Manchester, England 01/24 at 07:17 PM

I don’t get the Tyler Durden love. some of his sayings taken separately i can see them being used as words of wisdom but the total person i wasn’t too impressed with him and this was before he even transformed into a megalomaniac complete with blackshirts. the minions buy a gun because Tyler told them to some people torture or kill in the army because the leader tells them to then the leader wipes his hands clean of the situation ‘this guy was on his own, we do not endorse this.’

I like Marla though to me she is more of her own person than the other characters. It was funny the way Marla and the narrator divided up the self help groups after Chloe’s death it was kind of like how a married couple divide up their assets after a divorce. a little twist on those marriage vows ‘in sickness and in health...til death do us part.’

Two themes i thought were interesting: the way Tyler violated Cinderella, i bet the Disney people would have been pissed if they had found out. ‘this is not the image of Disney. we only
manufacture good family fun. sir how much will it cost us to give free trips to Disney world to all the families that saw this movie.’ Disney markets itself as that sugary wholesomeness that’s good for all children. and yet they have been known to use child labor in third world countries to manufacture their goods. not to mention how’s a mother in a third world country going to feed her family on a pity Disney salary? then all the movies and stuff come filtered back to this country without all the blood and sweat of the violated laborer. just good entertainment the whole family can enjoy.

i liked the juxtaposition of the narrator’s imprisonment in his own apartment with his Ikea furniture and then the reader finds out he’s recalling this story in a flashback from a mental institution for the criminally insane. at least that’s my take on it. Ikea furniture does sort of resemble an institution especially some of their bedposts. the narrator talks about how everyone has the same type of furniture manufactured by Ikea. how many people with the same shirts sold at the gap do you see walking around you? hmmm i wonder if the black shirts tyler’s minions wore were gap shirts blackshirts the minions are now branded with
tyler’s heart on their hand.

tyler descent into megalomania recalls that quote from Kafka “Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.”

I liked the weaving of haikus into the story to aid in the storytelling it was like that story I read by Matsuo Basho, “The Narrow Road of the Interior.” mostly because it was the only other story i’ve read that weaved haikus into the narration.

pull a gun on someone and tell them to stop wasting their life away in that crappy job and follow their dream and remember that person
knows where you live and they will keep tabs on you. the reason the Raymond K. Hessel gives for not becoming a veterinarian is because school is too hard but is this the only thing that is keeping people from following their dream what about the socioeconomic conditions of a society threats of a bullet to the head will not solve this.

yes the repetitiveness in fight club is annoying-the narrator’s use of different synonyms. recall when the fight club members are about to castrate him, he gives a list of alternative words for testicles. huevos, gonads, jewels, I’m like okay man I get it!!!

Another parallel with Kafka: In Metamorphosis Gregor Samsa was a travelling insurance salesman. I bet if the narrator in Metamorphosis gave us a glimpse of Samsa the Salesman at his job it would be similar to the narrator’s description of his job as a recall campaign coordinator in Fight Club-the repetitiveness of the job only the cities change or at least the names change the hotels are all the same. I guess Gregor Samsa’s transformation into a beetle is sort of a description of his routine work. The Fight Club narrator wants a way out of this he dreams of plane crashes.

Posted by tm on from earth 01/24 at 07:35 PM

Mudge, your #19 and 21 answered my #14 fully well, thanks… and Mickey, okay if no Fight Club post tomorrow, but hopefully no one’ll be considered a troll if they comment on it anyway. Though I’ll have even less time online with this new job starting… and with had more time today. Great analysis all!

Still wonder just how well the book would have worked w/o the mental illness aspect. That really would be an interesting take. Either if they were separate people, or who knows what. People I knew had gone through their own issues with being institutionalized and such things not long before the movie came out so I was more sensitive to it then. But hey, doesn’t the movie end differently? They all die or something? Why was that?

Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 01/24 at 08:08 PM

Excllent point, TM: “what about the socioeconomic conditions of a society threats of a bullet to the head will not solve this.” As for loving Tyler, I can only speak for myself. I like what he represented but, as I made clear in the main post, I recognized him for what he was. Ultimately, it is a very “male” book and written to push certain “male” buttons. Even reading it for the third time from a radical perspective doesn’t make me immune, I guess.

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 08:27 PM

Chris - that was a superb post, my friend. Thank you. I was especially delighted with this portion:
“...listless jaded artless motherfuckers, boring wanksplats sat in office board rooms where they draw up superplans that will piss all over our futures...”

That pretty much sums it up. Great post.

TM - excellent analysis. And you’re right, of course, putting a gun to someones head is nuts, and won’t solve any social problems.
But, no one suggests that it will - certainly not Chuck Palahniuk or anyone here.
Still, for me, there’s something satisfying about that psychotic imagery. And, if a Jew in 1930’s Germany had gone door to door with a gun, demanding that people wake up and refuse to let the Nazis come to power, it would have been an insane act, no doubt - but understandable, even somehow sane and reasonable within the terrible context of near-future events…
Within a psychotic setting, which behaviors are sane - and how so? We’re living in such times, no doubt, and I sometimes wonder if my patience and reason aren’t actually symptoms of cowardice and self-delusion…
I struggle to make a buck, struggle to take care of my family, struggle to get by, one day at a time - while the world spirals downward toward some Inner Circle of Hell. Is Tyler Durden really less rational than I am?

Posted by joe on from Oregon 01/24 at 09:03 PM

Just wanted to take a minute to tell Joe that it’s damn good to have him back on the board.

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 09:05 PM

Thanks for a great discussion, Expendables. We should come up with another book “soon.” I second RT’s nomination of Vonnegut...but I’m wide open for suggestion.

G’night…

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 10:24 PM

Thanks very much, Mickey.

It’s been great to be back here with the wonderful expendables. ( I was hoping to run into “Big Country.” Suzanne says he’s been back, off and on, eh? )

My participation will be intermittent, for a time, but I’ll be “in,” whenever life in the gulag will permit…

It has been a fun day. Again - thanks for mantaining this place for all of us, my friend.

Posted by joe on from Oregon 01/24 at 10:41 PM

A final thought of the night then, as I scramble straightening up my apartment trying wind down to sleep earlier than usual for work tommorrow-- still fixated on the beginning, further digesting the end-- as he describes his pre-explosion apt., the line: and the things you used own, now they own you.

And-- ‘you’e satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, you’ve got your sofa issue handled.’ Now, most of my stuff is either from a thrift store or hand-me-down from friends, not exactly a monument to consumerism, but as I obsess about my interior decorating, which, yes Mudge, revolves around my cats’ needs, like to look out the window from a high perch, etc., I can kinda see the problem they described. Fixating on material things isn’t just an eco, etc. statement.

But I am glad I have my cat-furniture issue handled, as well as my Salvation Army bookcase.

Saturday’s menu so far:
Non-dairy macaronni and cheese
Hummus made with walnuts, not tahini
Big tetrazzini pasta casserole dish
Edamame and Butternut squash quiche/casserole

And by the way, if 9pm’s too late for you, feel free to get there earlier, just that the casseroles won’t be ready before then. The bacon fried bacon’s another story… good night and good day, as I’ll be at work the whole time.

Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 01/25 at 12:20 AM