Hit the Dirt

Thanksgiving Eve MMXXI

Proiettore e Proiezionista

Today’s Ego-Affiliates are heavily invested in their own Image-Construct, especially in a social context where the distended ego co-opts a superego ruined by past Pères de Soja and other False Coaches.
  Quite the recipe for Toxic Empowerment.
  The soi-disant idealist’s lens is clouded by ignorance and ends up unknowingly reflecting back their self-loathing and impotence. Still hungry for meaning, they grasp at the handiest cause du jour.
  Sanctified by the rightness of their new barnstorm, Authentic Good People gather to unleash the Id of Good Intentions. Histrionics and hysterics ensue. Throw in some property damage and bloodshed and you herald in the Age of Dust.

  Pane, circhi... e specchi.

Media ni Yoru Sagi

Black Cat Gravy

Funk Malted Coagulant

Cue for the Visions: Sangriento y Contundente

“The baby sat in the grass in the heart of the city. Watching life go by before his eyes, he giggled as a grand smile grew on his face. It was too bad he did not see what was coming -- nor could most people...” [end excerpt]

Latter days of the Cold War cue music for a view from Fellini’s of the sloping lawn at San Felipe. The infantile spirit sees beyond any fin del mundo scenario and sways in slo-mo wonder at the universe he will inherit.

Cockscomb of Mfungu

Celosia spicata

Menko 21: Témoin des Horreurs

Embrace the Telescreen

It began innocently enough with an 11-inch black-&-white television sitting behind the bar at the corner tavern. It occasionally drew attention during conversational lulls, or when the batter smacked one into the outfield. No biggie. An aid in camaraderie, much like each man’s drink.
  But over the years as the TV screen grew in size, the conversations shortened. Telescreens began appearing in nicer establishments, competing with Grandmum’s attention over Sunday dinner. Banks now have them, nattering in the background behind tellers. Churches have hopped on the bandwagon with, of course, their own content. (Gotta take advantage of the human eye’s tendency to drift to any screen.)
  The conspiracy-minded will always whisper about Big Brother, but what’s the incentive when it’s all voluntary? Cheapo tech from Asia?   You know things are bad when couples on dates -- an ostensibly sociable if not romantic occasion -- resort to sharing a seat side by side (“date-sidling”) so both can face the telescreen rather than face each other in normal adult conversation.

  In Classic City, all this came naturally, being a uni town with scores of places to drink and turn off the brain from its studies. So eventually every spot got its telescreen.
  Even The Bogle Alehaus, Classic City’s lone UK-style pub, had a telescreen propped upon its antique mantelpiece. The discordant effect of age-old woodwork joined with plastic and electronics was as disconcerting as that chintzy glass pyramid in front of the Louvre. (Gauche, as it were.) Thankfully, the telescreen didn’t last long. Maybe somebody complained. Hopefully somebody complained.
  As well, Uncle Ernie went overboard at his place with not only six megascreens on the walls, but also a flatscreen at every table in the joint.
  “It’s a sports bar,” he nonchalantly sniffed.
  (Credit must be given to one Mr Mutta for never once allowing a telescreen to grace the inside of his own Brooklyn Café.)
  So okay -- two holdouts in a sea of taverns and eateries -- all with the Sacred Screen lording over pigeon-hearted patrons a-drooling. Those are not good numbers.
  Let’s just go to Mack’s. At least the patio there -- as dumpy as it has become -- stands free of any hovering televisual presence. Where adults can enjoy each others’ company with a convivial beverage, uninterrupted. Where friends can hold court regaling themselves with drink, without intrusion. Where…

  Oh, wait…

Johnny Gutts: “What I Know,” Part III

Orville Corporation CEO and Head Solutioniser Johnny Gutts made a brief foray into local public-access television on Heritageville’s Channel 13 recently for several weekly airings of monologues, interviews, and more monologues. Gutts’ unique on-air style was loved by some and criticised by others.
  “The Johnny Gutts Show” was suspended indefinitely whilst the Interplanetary Telecoms Union investigated charges against both Gutts and Orville after he was viewed promoting arms trafficking on air. A favourite segment has been his apothegmatic “What I Know” utterings, picked up from past interviews in Haute Fresh magazine.

Highlights:

“LEADERS OF INEPT and dying organisations tend to focus on the symbolic. No new logos for us!”

“I DON’T JUDGE a book by its cover. I judge the cover. And often I find it wanting.”

“THE THING ABOUT CLOWNS isn’t that people just hate them, it’s that people like to hate them. I learned this when I interned at a circus and I never looked back.”

“I DON’T LAUGH at things because they are funny. I laugh because they are absurd.”

“I OFTEN MAKE PEOPLE angry. But are they angry because I’m right or because I’m wrong? They won’t say.”