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What is this shit? I've tried to answer that question once or twice. When Headfoot came into unholy being, there was a bit of a mini-pseudo-crisis, and at a certain point the thing became all of a sudden way more visual. Then there was a while there when I half-heartedly tried to split the thing into at least two separate blogs because of the whole "Fuck This Ad" thing (of which there's been nowhere near as much, lately, I think because I no longer spend a quarter of my life in the New York City subway system). I took a hiatus once (it was like a week and a half)...
But so honestly I don't really have a grasp on what this blog is. I guess it's a weird hodge-podge—a mulligan stew, if you will.* I know there are people who read it and seem to like it, but I don't have a clear sense of what about it is good (q.v.). I wonder whether anyone likes all of it or if people are really just wading through the stuff they don't like, waiting for the stuff they do. Maybe some people like my insane nonsensical musings about baloney like being an only child and some people like the sad gestures toward humor like the bad movie summaries and some people like when I weirdly complain about signs and bumper stickers or my cruel, nitpicking commentary on people who through no fault of their own don't speak English very well... I can't imagine anyone gets off too much on the shit like earlier today when I pick fights with religious people (i.e., everyone in the world).
Jesus Christ, I'm a monster.
It sounds like I'm being down on myself, maybe. I'm not. I'm the greatest human being who has ever lived, and a pure delight in every way. (At the risk of "oversharing," I can tell you that any woman between the ages of 18 and 40 who comes within a yard or so of me begins orgasming uncontrollably. It's actually sort of a problem.) So let's not make this about me. I'm talking about the blog, here.
The blog, the blog, this fucking blog.
One thing that I don't like about Alt85—I was kidding about the negativity earlier,† but this is something that really does bother me—is that I think part of the reason I'm as prolific as I am here (however prolific that may be) is this weird alternation or sometimes combination of (a) my not wanting the thing to just sit here, languish, and (b) my not being satisfied with the most recent entry, which of course is all that some people are going to see.‡ In other words, all too often I'm posting stuff on here not because I have something to say but because I feel I have to come up with something to say—or, even worse, to bury what came before.
On the other hand, of all the things I'm wanting (by which I mean lacking), something to say is not particularly high on the list.
Well, one thing's for sure, even if every other question goes unanswered: I may very well have just written the worst-ever Alt85 post right here. You and I were here together for it. It's sort of moving, almost. Like bowels.
* Harold Bloom used that expression, "mulligan stew," in his comments on a paper I wrote in college. (He did not like this paper.)
† Not kidding about the uncontrollable orgasms. You have been warned.
‡ Although last month someone found my blog by Google searching "sluts fucking at kindy," so I guess it doesn't matter that much what's on "top."
3 comments:
I always thought this blog was about interpreting the world around us, however inane, through the prism of shared experiences of the ill-defined tweener generation spanning the end of Generation X and beginning of Millenials.
That's what I get out of Alt 85 at least. The title encapsulates the idea entirely: how are we supposed to interpret and live in this world that seems to have become a mockery of the future fed to us as children by Steven Spielberg. We have neither the overt cynicism of the generation before us, nor the canned hope of those who come after us. We wish to be intellectuals but also honest, to be healthily cynical but fair, to rectify the nuanced good and evil fantasies that shaped our childhood with a world that presents both nuance and absolutes.
"Fuck this ad which is inherently dishonest" and "here's what we can learn from Gremlins about an individual's inherent capacity for good or evil" are the essentials, in my opinion. My hopes for future posts are along those lines.
Like what does it mean that in Across the Universe a main character has this film- and generation-defining exchange with his stodgy, Greatest Generation uncle:
Max's Father: Goddammit, Max! Get serious, for once! What are you going to DO with your life?
Max: Why is it always what will I do? "What will he do", "What will he do," "Oh, my god what will he do", Do, do, do, do, do. Why isn't the issue here who I am?
Uncle Teddy: Because, Maxwell, what you do defines who you are.
Max: No, Uncle Teddy. Who you are defines what you do. Right Jude?
Jude: [awkward] ... Well, surely it's not what you do, but the, uh... the way that you do it.
...contrasted with the defining moral statement from Batman Begins:
"It's not who I am underneath, but what I *do* that defines me."
?
When I first found this site, it was the "Where's my pancakes" post. I realized you think much the same way I do, care about the same things I do, and can write about them in a way that is intellectually stimulating and often gives me new insight to my own opinions. You're not afraid to examine things that seem to be unimportant at first glance.
I will mention, however, that despite being only a bit younger than you, that I don't have fond memories of these 80s movies (or just about any movies, for that matter) that you love.
Thanks, folks! You've made me appreciate my own output (like a little Japanese child transfixed over the potty after his mother reads him Everybody Poops).
Matt, ha, just goes to show that taste really is subjective. And Mispogon—holy moly, you even tied it into the title! Awesome.
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