Toothpaste exists to drive people to madness. Why else is an entire aisle dedicated to the same glop? If not to ruin your life?, and to foretell the end of days?, why are we doing this? Toothpaste is dedicated to making a shit-ton of money for massive detergent manufacturers. You are their patsy, you have been all your life -- And YOU are falling for some strange symbolistic end of days puzzle, which proves that you have so very little time left on earth to make things right. You may wish to ask your psychic how this ends. If you don't yet have a psychic, you could do a lot worse than to call Sondra. There was a moment when Retail evolved into something lovely, rewarding, and elegant, c.1861, and then there was the moment when retail died. (Let's just say c.1994). Of course Time Magazine did not decry the "Death of Retail", as iconically as God's Death... [q: "Is God Dead?" a:'Gott ist tot' ] In a recent slumber party, Nietzsche told me that "they got that article all wrong", [and that] "The article [was] Missing the Point", AND that [he'd] "prefer not to be quoted any more, just the same", [as a dead person of course...], and after all it was Time Magazine, (which is a rag) So I wont tarry with his legacy here. I woke in a fever substantial enough to finally kill my lingering nasal infection, which is how I know that I was winning the proverbial debate. Abrasive + Fluoride + Detergent = Toothpaste Toothpaste has literally nothing to do with Nietzsche, nor does Nietzsche have anything to do with Toothpaste... However, The end is near and God IS in fact dead, and your toothpaste saw this all coming. I have always been mediocre in all endeavors, with ZERO expertise in anything, and less in oral hygiene... How could I know what the meaning of toothpaste really is for mortal earthlings, our galaxy, or the broader cosmos, except to say... ...Nothing -- Because Toothpaste is bullshit masquerading as patriotism. Pure and simple toothpaste exists to drive people mad. Do you really have sensitive teeth and gums? or does your angst with the state of the world make your teeth scream in anguish as you brush far too harshly? A 2016 systematic clinical review indicated that using toothpaste when brushing the teeth does not necessarily impact the level of plaque removal.[7] However, (it was cited) [that] the active ingredients in toothpastes (fluoride) are 'able to' prevent dental diseases with regular use.[8] I will say, as the bulbs dim in my ceiling cans, (so to speak) That it often becomes difficult to see with certainty that exact moment when something significant changes. Slow Decay, is something which nearly always appears irreversible, once we actually discover it's movement -- And far fewer people see it coming. Generally, the Romans didn't see collapse coming, and indeed it took some time to happen... But for a few, who knew they would be dead well before everything went to shit -- Juvenal for example, saw it coming. Alas "the end is nigh" sandwich boards wouldn't come into fashion for a dozen centuries hence. ...And Juvenal was a satirical poet, so nobody listened to him. Anyway his acid tongue would not have been tamed with any dentifrice (toothpaste). We all saw that pollution was going to soon account for Asthma, Allergies, Cancers, and many more health complications, but we preferred our cars to caring about Climate, and health. So why would anyone second guess oral care's effect upon mental health? When it comes to preventing our own destruction, why even bother with Toothpaste? Lest we digress into discussing corollary climate related destruction, Pollution, Toxins, & micro-plastics..., (also in your toothpaste). For every bullet we seem to dodge, (so to speak) -- There was someone who'd yelled "Duck!", and another round in flight, before you'd flinched the first. Recently -- I'd also gotten worked up about the unfathomable variety of Deodorant at the corner drug. This is only slightly less confounding than Toothpaste, but because my local stores keep deodorant locked-up behind Lexan Doors, I'd never given this assortment too much thought, (if only because it's such a challenge to purchase roll-on, locked up like Jewelry). Dare I beg to sniff one before I buy it? -- I think I will just go without deodorant. If you are losing your religion right about now, you are not alone; hold fast because there is perhaps some squishy wisdom from the toothpaste aisle, but not much. It is a dark Prediction which may help a wee bit, as we slide off this tilted saucer on an oversized glop of toothpaste. We'd seen it all coming, and perhaps repositioned our bodies to land upon someone less fortunate. So there is this campy radio Advert. in constant loop amongst mattress ads, and Injury attorneys for "California Psychics" and their golden throated announcer with a western whistler as a soundtrack, explains that some states are great for commerce, others for banking and such, but if you want a clairvoyant person you need to call someone in California... They also end their AD reading by saying, "If your experience with "California Psychics is NOT life changing -- Then it is free..." HMM.... well... I'm not saying that the fluoride will kill you, but that Toothpaste and making "the right" decision on which model, is a serious talisman of societies' unwinding. So, What is Toothpaste Actually For? It's for cleaning your mouth right? OKAY!.. Alright. But. perhaps you've strolled down the toothpaste aisle, and not even considered why there is a "Toothpaste Aisle". I wanted to say in full daylight of our dimming future -- that the size and complexity of the Toothpaste aisle is inversely proportional to a culture's advancement, regardless of it's general oral health.. Toothpaste is just dandy! OK? It's unchanged composition, and excessive variety will foretell the imminent demise of all who'd frequent this pasty orgy. I've never heard a radio ad for California Toothpaste, but if it came with the same "Life-Changing" guarantee... Then that would be the brand for me, I suppose. My grandparents had a full set of dentures by my current age, but I would not call my mouth a win for oral hygiene. And you could guess my age, not by my teeth, but because I listen to terrestrial Radio at home, and in the car. My Grandparent's rapid decay rest upon my beloved grandmother's second-shift job, working on the line of a candy factory for a decade. If it hit the floor, it was free -- And the cost per calorie in their generation (when there were perhaps three loathsome tooth-paste options available) -- meant that candy would supplement their income in at least two ways -- Flouride be damned. But they drank tea. Lots of tea, and black and green tea has more Fluoride than most Toothpaste, so it's fair to say that the Toothpaste couldn't save them then, and it wont save you now. Regardless of the mid-century ubiquity of Minty Toothpicks, Fluoride, Mouth-wash, floss, etc... one's pearly white enamel can only defend it's castle for so long -- and then the crown crumbles beneath wint-o-green, and butterscotch hard candy. So today we have better teeth, (perhaps) but diabetes will get you if the tooth-ache does not. Anyway -- Fluoridation in tap water, ground water, and even tea is so ubiquitous, that it circles back to... What is Tooth-Paste really for?, if not for making gobs of profit for Detergent Marketers. If you had to invent the perfect widget, with the lowest cost to produce, and the highest margin/consumption rate... I dare say, it may be simply: chalky paste, fluoride, and flavoring. (Fluoride [Fluorite CaF2] is the 13th most abundant element on earth).... And yet nobody even considers it's ubiquity, when mixed with Calcium Carbonate, Limestone and AKA Chalk [CaCO3], another uber abundant and cheap component, a paste is formed and mixed with flavoring to make you salivate, but the brushing is your salvation and not the toothpaste aisle. Fluoride (/ˈflʊəraɪd, ˈflɔːr-/)[3] is an inorganic, monatomic anion of fluorine, with the chemical formula F− (also written [F]−), and, it is essentially a white and colorless salt. There is almost as much fluoride in Green Tea, as a pea-sized dab of toothpaste, right? So when we begin our California Psychic session, we've already fed a certain amount of data into the "Life-Changing" machine. Name, Address, Credit Card, and from a few data points one can extract a rather large sample to base-line who's calling. What I wanted to know specifically and not from a mid-western psychic, was, "whether the end was Nigh and whether Toothpaste contributes (if not) to our unwinding, but then as predictor of our imminent doom". So I called California to get a base-line on how the Paste Aisle would save/destroy humanity. And... Don't get me started with Hummus (ous) or Hommous... and IF we are all bound to an exaggerated wordsmith lexicography whereby Three ingredient pastes have culturally sensitive mis-spellings, then we have some soul searching to do before rounding the corner into Yogurt (ghort)... Surely misspelled... and finally into the psychic nourishment of the Frozen Pizza aisle. Whereas variety was once the spice of life, it now foretells doom and destruction. Here is How. If everyone you know buys toothpaste, and everyone opens their mind long enough to consider it's constituent parts, then any school-age child (psychic or not) could conclude that the packaging, and then perhaps the flavor profile decided their preference. All of the rest of the marketing is perhaps residual bull-shit. Have a look at the spin. Toothpaste needn't be applied in a long glob the size of a mature caterpillar, the instructions indicate a "Pea-sized" amount. There is no technical reason that it comes patriotically spiraled, or has "Flavor Crystals" -- There is no upside to an advanced abrasive, baking soda, or "More Whitening" -- As fluoride and scrubbing are it's only real scientific attributes, and one was more or less disproven. Fluoride itself is used to create Hydrogen Peroxide, and you could simply swish & gargle with some flavorless peroxide to whiten you teeth. Nobody should give two shits about which, or what brand they choose, because it is that simple -- Toothpaste has but three components: paste, fluoride, and flavoring. The question of what toothpaste is for, has been answered by every dentist, and nearly everyone acknowledges that it may be a good idea. So we go along with the seemingly logarithmic charade of choice. The fractal fluoride aisle is so staggering in it's complexity as to cause paralysis for many upon entering the "Choice silo" If there were only two or three models, you would be happy? This was going to be my first question for the "California Psychic". There is however derision on the topic of flossing. Floss cannot be made sexy, tasty, nor enjoyable by elaborate marketing spin. Flossing is innately masochistic, quite boring, and loathsome. Depending upon your mood, Toothpaste, like gum or deodorant, can be personalized even tasty. Lest we forget, that it is always the same basic shit: Paste, Fluoride, Flavor... And Floss is just string. Variety, and we are not discussing chips or beer, but Toothpaste -- Can reach a point where deciding causes angst, regret, even disappointment. It is fair to say that too many choices exist. If Toothpaste were organized hierarchically such that there were a 'clear favorite', or 'best option' presented with some secondary/ tertiary choices... Then we would not fret, nor regret our selection. But nearly all toothpaste is now packaged in glossy, metallic, foiled and patriotic cartons of red white & blue. You are doing the right thing selecting nearly anything except for those "Natural" ones. In fact if you ignore "Tom's" you are still doing your proud nation a favor with nearly any other choice. OH!, sorry I almost forgot, about the latest dark-side lunacy -- Charcoal. Charcoal, the Yang to Baking Soda's Yin, is a sordid ebony and ivory love story and neither really matters to your mouth. If you've thought the better of using Charcoal on your arm-pits, whilst wearing a white oxford, then why would you brush with it? If you were born before 1980 then you would recall a time when Baking soda was NOT marketed as beneficial to everything you'd consume. You simply used it for baking and perhaps some household clean-up. You are going to be fine; IF you could just steer clear of this toothpaste aisle, and all of it's hellish demands. My next question for my "California Psychic" was, "Am I using the right toothpaste?" Am I doing this right? How difficult is the actual act of deciding? The menace of toothpaste whitens, polishes, and sodium mono-fluorophosphate binds atomically (radioactively) to your teeth enamel, bones, and is generally then pissed out within 24 hours. Fluorine is the 13th-most abundant element in the Earth's crust It is widely dispersed in nature, not entirely in the form of fluorides via the toothpaste aisle, but in loads of natural stuff. How much do you actually know about your preferences? Does anyone do research on the package claims?: "1000% Whiter Teeth in Just 7 Days", "Noticeably Whiter Teeth in One Brushing", "Restores Enamel", "Lowers Sensitivity", "Freshens Breath All Day Long", "Works while you Sleep" "Includes Carbon Offsets", "With Charcoal" (for some unknown reason) "With Burnt Logs Inside", "For Sensitive Fuckers"... But will toothpaste actually get you laid? What is the real goal here? Brush Brush. Green Tea has nearly as much fluoride as your toothpaste, and a liter of tea can reach the Maximum daily fluoride intake. Anyway Fluoride is a neurotoxin, so how much is good? and when have you had too much? Does this factor in your decision to get jacked on fluoride. Straight from the NIH: "Each increase by 0.5 mg/L in the water-fluoride concentration was associated with a decrease by 8.8 IQ points in the children who had been formula-fed in the first six months of life." Which explains some of my own issues... You are welcome. But don't worry because it is not the Fluoride which will kill you, it is the abundance of choice. You are simply not wired for this many options of the same fucking thing. So... I'm sort of right here -- That Toothpaste is sort of bad. Too much of anything... And, Everything in moderation, right? Yep, I know what you are thinking... It's not your fault that you and your kid are having trouble deciding on what brand neurotoxin, you'd prefer. Perhaps you've reached your Recommended Daily Allowance already, and are just entering that dreaded tunnel. But seriously, all of this has been studied to death, and you will be OKAY once you find the right toxic combo for you, even if you've become so retarded as to select Charcoal, and its slimy comrade, Baking Soda to juice up your freshening routine. What you are still sure to struggle with, is WHICH ONE? ...And the existential even Nietzschean question of Why? God may not be dead, and anyway, you will not need her by your side for this Sisyphean drama. Researchers have found that some ways of measuring the negative impact of too many fucking choices upon decision-making -- (They seem to be less reliable than others)... Namely, perhaps that the most dramatic measure of decision confusion — "paralysis", or the likelihood of someone simply refusing to make any decision whatsoever —is “wildly erratic” across the range of studies and scenarios. Toothpaste is that exact quagmire. It is simple stuff, but it is killing us softly, willingly. "MY" California Psychic (Sondra), said that I was not likely really channeling Nietzsche. She told me that, "Toothpaste was not innately evil", "but that my angst was perhaps fraught with the scale and menace of too many damned choices", "That I would not directly die from Fluoride, hunny...", and then she gave me the number for a "California Psychiatric" service. She'd predicted that, "Once I actually made a few choices of preferred: Toothpaste, Deodorant, Hummus, Yogurt, and the like", "that [I'd] likely just stick to that brand, and [I'd] be OK", "but" she conceded [that] "Therapy was not really her thing..." Anyway she, (Sondra, my psychic) said [I] "...should avoid the toothpaste aisle altogether", and candy too". and she knew that My grandmother worked in a Candy Factory, even knew which one... and she also knew that My mother recently passed away with all of her teeth, and that she was quite indecisive... She also said that I "had a cute blonde dog", and I'd supposed that all of that was likely out on the internet someplace... Except for the bit about my Grandma's second job, and her dentures... which was weird. I have to decide now whether her consult was "Life Changing", But I suppose I have some decisions to make first.
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A well formed sentence never comes as easily as insults, or curse-words. Our poverty of compliments, like currency, can't mature without some seed money. Whether you are on your way up, on your way down, or simply on your way out... Holding the door for someone can change someone's day, and a positive ripple occurs without condition. Any Simple nuance can change people slightly, just as the subtleties of an object can inspire creativity. But subtleties can be tough to identify, let alone gather in our digital age. Forming an object in your mind, misses a lot of nuance as humans were wired to consolidate patterns not context, and fill in blanks by bias. Appreciation of simple forms is lost to the robots we've become, and the nuance as it were, is the special sauce of art. Modern vision means that forms are separated cleanly from all that goes into making them, and what they should be. What do you cherish? Prejudiced, retouched, cleaned-up, weightless, without atmosphere or shadow, leaves only the flattened GIF version of what was once cherished. Gestalt efficiencies to our world view frees-up space in our crowded minds exchanging a cuddly warm bunny with a compressed cardboard cutout of a cat. Because gestalt principles already filled in all the blanks, we see a lot of our worlds alike, and we see them without considered objectivity. With our heads buried in screens, we surf select & shop shapes and colors; We befriend a cover photo, and even get romantic with a GIF. (E)fficient perception is flatter than 2D, and it is a total bore. The shopping graveyard of online detritus resting beside any dumpster, commits our historic record to the landfill in a comical sediment. Cheap-shit forms our historical record. Excavations will later reveal the archaeological absurdity of compacted crap we've consumed by GIF. Some say that not getting wrapped up in the little things -- Or fixating on what one wished for, but didn't achieve, is peaceful, even blissful. But If ignorance is truly bliss -- Then why am I so miserable contemplating dumb shit on a rainy Sunday?
Mindfulness. If gravity let go today, the Abyss you'd fall into would be 'space', and all of the crap you owned would scatter around you like flakes in a snow-globe. The fractured jetsam (a billion tons of cheap-shit) would smack you in the face and neck. Assuming you'd showed restraint in your online life, you'd still be throttled by someone else's Shake-weight, or Shark Vacuum. And of course that wake-up call would arrive far too late. If we are edging toward the apocalypse, via A.I. and Climate Crisis, then what kind of flotsam would you prefer hit you in the head? Something nice from your shoebox of collectibles, or someone's discarded Ab-Flex? Shouldn't postponing all plans because of lousy weather, leave me at peace to consider larger analog concepts? Perhaps take a bubble-bath? Finish some house project, build a jigsaw puzzle in my bathrobe? Or... perhaps more online shopping?, because I don't own a bathrobe. Consider the shape of our digital world, where actual context became the faded fantasy of the digital age. Sound-bites and snap-shots support 2D scrolling for the forgeries of our forgotten authenticity. Digital consumerism is like unfolding a map of the place rather than visiting the place. Software becomes the Pumpkin Spice Latte, while Hardware is the Coffee it should have been. It's a cover-up for the daily crime of not tasting, seeing, feeling, or touching anything intrinsically valuable. Can you even trust a person who drinks shitty coffee? We are all typically busy rushing around getting shitty coffee and such, and in spite of so many daily considerations, we often fail to recognize the patterns and the objects which connect us with our path. Since the Big Bang, this our home, our universe, even our multiverse trends toward only one end -- Exponential Complexity.
Consider the Bicycle. In over 200 years it's form has not changed significantly, if at all. They rust in a barn, deliver lunch, are decorated for parades, and picked clean beside a street sign, but they give back with no apparent conditions to whomever throws a leg over. The simplicity of their form is enviable to any young engineer. Their parts are interchangeable and the essential analog bikes don't require any owner's manual. They will (of course) have motors added, but inevitable complexities will temporarily phase out the analog bike, and this evolution will only betray its nearly primal elegance. The Bicycle may soon be regarded like the record player is today -- revered for what it once was -- Now disregarded in a fog of compelling "E" advancements -- The Marketing of Cassettes, CD's and then Spotify. The inevitable convenience of a button press, for a playlist betrays the humanity of the "Mix-Tape", or actually listening; even to the B-sides. The analog bicycle is morphing into obscurity, like the Cassette, and later the LP; becoming something else. A classic Ten-Speed has become a GIF on a webpage; and once your robo-E-bike arrives, it waits for you, props up some tools and perhaps a tarp, still an elegant potential energy, but aging ungracefully with uncharged batteries. Complexity confounds our primal understanding of just how entangled we are with the simplest objects, without giving them any thought. A Pencil, A Carrot-peeler, a Puzzle, a Pocket-Knife, or Watch. Some days I wonder why Rolex still markets such an antique idea on the back of every fucking magazine, in spite of Casio, Android, Fit-bit, and Apple. And it is because of a lack of nostalgia for certain... But it is far more than antiquarian marketing. They are selling a version of authenticity, and the opportunity to feel something timeless. To hold something analog, authentic, with a tiny heartbeat (for a fee of course) is market gold. 'Something' precious (using the other definition for the term "Gestalt") begets an object greater than the sum of it's parts. Something "Classic", with or without attached Nostalgia -- It is worthy of regard.
Considering the value of something and not its price, is an ancient lesson. The simple process begins with regarding something, and not merely possessing it. Holding something which is so essential, so elemental, like a glass of cool water; touching the cool glass, considering its weight, shape, and the edge of the rim as it closes to your lip. We sip and seldom consider how lovely a cool glass of water is to behold. From the Vinyl age, clicks and pops of the stylus danced as the diamond drives down the canyon of an elegant groove, rolling through a forest of bumps, and valleys. Driving the shoulder, spiraling inward to finish beside the label of a B-Side. The composition, simply music of course, but it was also a journey -- The pensive regard for being there, Music like braille produced by touching. And it requires our careful hand, as custodian to the tone-arm. The needle spirals to rest along the shoulder and rotates in an eddy. As metaphors go, we rush to our vacation and never consider the route, the path, a slug-a bug, nor the roadside attractions. We "Fill UP" so we "don't have to stop", This, perhaps is why a record is so mesmerizing, because it is the roadway, and the road-trip, and the intersections, the fruit-stand, Ice-cream, and the pit-stop. When the stylus hits the run-off and slows to stop... we became enriched by the travel, and also by not arriving any place at all. Mom tossed your records in the trashcan c.1997, and decades later the "mature you" sniffles through mildewed bins of stacked cardboard in feverish re-discovery of that one "Sticky Fingers" zipper jacket you'd once taken for granted. Never giving full weight to the gestalt of it's art-form. Slugworth will keep tugging at you to cop a feel of the new feature-laden yet soul-less E-scooter, and you will inevitably cave to the gentle pressure of a throttle. Spotify will diligently tweak your algorithm to better feed you full of 'preferences' as if stuffing geese for Foix gras. You will donate your steel wonder-bike to charity, and embrace some new-fangled transport chair... Never considering the vacuous exchange of one's soul for a fucking gobstopper.
What can be said for the tug from these foreign objects in space? The Software, whose gravity imperceptibly strips us of our souls, and leaves us weightless, floating. Adrift in an empty house, where lonely echo's are damped by meaningless crap? Balling up yards of wrapping paper should give anyone pause. Pushing back from the table with the meat sweats, The wave of our Consumerism breaks against the rubbish bin, and we wander back in from the cold with the same shallow sinking feeling. An intangible urge to own something authentic. And... Rolex can fill that void, but a "Pre-Owned Rolex" may end the search for authenticity, for the moment. The trouble with the digital age is the software; Software subtly wiping clean our hardware's heart. Those tangible objects we'd actually care to hang on to, make the circuit from precious to packed-away.. A photograph is only numbers or chemicals in a bottle until it is printed. A slide-show can only inspire, when presented at scale. Nearly everything pinched or zoomed lacks the context to be truly inspiring. A vampire casts no shadow, and without that simple anchor she is always unmoored, adrift, and eternally alone. When it is all cleaned up, it becomes nothing more than a click-able icon. Many cultures don't believe in photographs; Some even believe they are harmful -- That they may take a copy of a soul away from where they belong. Unlocking part of them from local shadows, smells, objects, and appropriate atmosphere. Whilst another image can transcend the moment, and convey far more than the subject or topic. The composition of a photo is now so easy, and ubiquitous, as to perhaps be the very definition of ubiquity, but where do they all go? How are they kept and cared for -- displayed, and cherished?
I'm Okay with the "convenience thing", (giving my soul away to the android)... but I want to be certain to keep a few things sacred, those meaningful things, close to me. I've got to thinking about what fits in the box we carry from city to city. In fairness your home is just a really large carton, but from house to house -- The proverbial shoe-box contains the things which perhaps even your spouse has never seen... or was unaware were important. If you lost your home tomorrow, what treasure was in that precious box? How would you fare knowing it was lost? Dumb junky shit, for certain... but whether the box is tiny, or figurative, it may possess some 'analogue' things. This is the box which contains or represents value. Valuable tokens can be a shell, or a shell collection, a doll, a coaster, matchbook, or a pen-knife... They are valuable because they remain loosely anchored within a place, time, and texturally enmeshed with their provenance. These analogue items have value not because of their marketability, but because they are not. They are totemistic in the least, and infinitely valued for their back-story. There is a story behind every object. The modern dilemma of which is that nobody gives a fuck about that back-story. It's all junk!
Rationally, everything not accompanied with it's contemporaneous marketing, is Junk. The spin is in the software. The hard edges of life's real Gestalts are the boundaries defining a fucking rainbow, the Pyramids, the Eifel Tower, or your record player. The real world is made of things and not fantasies about those things. Your world is brought to you by tangible objective thinking. For some, a car crash may awaken them, to the "important things" in life, and for other's there comes no shock from a catastrophe which would shake them from a video game, or their Insta-Meta-Fix. But The Company doesn't love you, and being their product means that the other actors also do not give a fuck, as long as you "LIKE" them. Which can leave one clawing back for something tangible, authentic.
Back to the analog thing... There are objects which even out of native context represent value, utility, and authenticity. They are not fake, and are no longer marketed, But the photo of something gets super fucking complex when the Philosophes get involved in their assessment, or worse the Shrinks evaluate how you should see it.
In fact, it can be said that objectivity toward anything is blind-sided by its own Gestalt. Basic tenets of fleeting observation will "F" UP the whole perception thing leaving you struggling to find value in dark corners. In 2024 I re-upped a resolution to be mindful of the important things, and to regularly put a roll of film in -- A record on the turntable -- And to regard every rock I skip into the ocean for what it is. In plain view of everyone, I vowed again to focus on those tangible things, and not the "Likes". I'll struggle without a light meter, as I did in college, and to deliberately make things harder for myself, but I'm paying close attention to their details, and laying waste to my forcible indoctrination into the cult of Gestalt Psych. With Gestalt Principles there are apparently a shit-ton of rules to the brevity of our vision which hijacks objectivity in attempt at making us more efficient observers. It is a 2D render of the real world, where I apparently live, but nobody knows anything about. You can skip over the science part here:
The rules as it were, are so unforgiving that we tend to forget about the Punctum, and the Product. How an orange tastes, is exchanged for "Orange", and nothing rhymes with orange.
Moving forward, much like wading through some musty records, I'd prefer to find a few things which I enjoy, and get to know them better, and even get better at them -- with them, than to get some new shit. I'd really like to rediscover a few simple gestalts from my top drawer, which like my Leica M3 or my wife, are far more than the sum of their parts. Recently another scuttlebutt regarding whether Steve McCurry retouched, or "Gasp" photo-shopped some of the most iconic images of his generation, puts a lens on authenticity vs. artificial... The android versus the flesh, analogue versus digital. The Jealous cardboard cutout GIF hunter, versus the Creative Renegade ...[And fuck A.I, right?].... We can banter about whether McCurry is obliged to share his potentially dirty secrets, or if he is destined to lose face, and value because he "Cloned" his work, doctoring images and dressing them up in a new EXIF, to share as fraud-ish. This is one gigantic 'sour-grapes' argument for the record books, in full stride with the envy, jealousy, and storm of divisive mud-slinging, that has become our world. This envy could re-write history and open Magnum to digital critique. I'm not sure what side of the argument I fall, nor if, "I'm not a photo Journalist..." grants amnesty and absolution for de facto fraud. If kids glued to screens were to visit a gallery and see a McCurry in person, and pick up a film camera in hopes of carrying that analogue torch forward in such a boorish digital world... Then The value of McCurry's work remains bedrock. If there is going to have to be a "Man Behind The Curtain" then let it be you, and may you be a good one. The truth is that My Apple Watch never worked properly, and doesn't give me much pleasure, and nobody ever asks you, "Hey is that an Apple Watch"? But When I put a 21 jewel mechanical complication on my wrist, whether is was kept up someone's ass as my birthright, or not... It's polished gestalt form often starts some fascinating conversations. The vanity underlying an arsenal of token junk in my top drawer is precisely how one envisions being regarded for having bought them. This is the sizzle of marketing. Making the right choice, with meager means, also means cherishing what one owns. The currency of having a cool-ass iPhone wore off c. 1997-8, and what would be really cool right about now is being spotted chatting up an old friend on my old steel Nokia slider, with a built in FM radio. Not sure If I can get than to work on 5G. ...And NO, I don't have a Rolex. "When Talent Fails, Indignation Writes the Verse" -Juvenal But if You see a Steve McCurry Photo in person, or you Listen to Tom Waites' "Early Years Volume One", on Vinyl, (because it is not available on Spotify)... Or if you struggle to clean the Carb on your vintage Beemer..., Then you know the value, and perhaps passion of Gestalt Objectification. And Regardless... If you didn't wade through the monsoon floods holding 27 pounds of analog camera gear over your head to frame the shot of a man rescuing his only means of income from the flooding... (and you are ready to crucify McCurry for decades of magic making), Then you have a lot of soul searching to do. And if it's not interesting, then you are probably not close enough.
McCurry Post Script:
LINK “Photojournalists can debate the issues until they’re blue in the face, but the public at large simply doesn’t care. The public believes images are manipulated because they are. And they don’t discern between a photoshopped magazine cover of Kim Kardashian and a news photo from Afghanistan. Why should they? They only care whether the photo moved them during the 0.5s they viewed it. Internet culture demands our outrage. We align or distance ourselves from Team McCurry instead of focusing on the real matter at hand: Can we produce an image that our intended audience believes they cannot make? And does it make them want to consume more? If “everyone is a photographer,” then professional photographers will only succeed if they offer a unique and “better” product to their intended audience, which translates into a high quality image and good service.”( )... “McCurry has an audience. Afghan Girl is so ingrained in popular memory that I’ve seen it used multiple times as a Halloween costume. I can’t think of another photo that has reached that threshold. Castigating him for having the imperialist eye of a white male? Totally valid, but remember he’s a 66 year old white male from Darby, PA who helped define the very genre he’s criticized of shooting within. This is akin to criticizing Bruce Springsteen for having an 80s rock sound.” MAY 18, 2016 ALLEN MURABAYASHI
https://petapixel.com/2016/05/18/opinion-steve-mccurry-doesnt-matter/
lugubrious /loo͝-goo͞′brē-əs, -gyoo͞′? - adjective
Autumn adheres like plaque to the un-showered wading amongst her dead leaves -- Soggy beneath the wheels of winter's gloomy greyhound. Solstice they call it; Idling smoggy behind Daylight-Savings. The Solstice Bus Vinyl upholstered womb-like canned-goods carrying tallow gray bodies, In the condensing belly of winter. Our calendar has been defined by festive meals, and traditions, such as Mc Rib, Enjoy! Over-wrapped unfashionable parkas circle arctic-ly for months smelling ourselves. Sweaty yellow-green glazing filter our shortened soap opera days, aboard winter's sodden bus. Here, in the solstice, we yearn for something authentic to occur, to shake us -- A crash, perhaps or a derailment. The bus of winter's discontent drones along concealing a retired sun. Here, pine-green safety glass, becomes the prophylactic pinhole of a total eclipse through a metal whale. Scarred tint film shows nothing alive, no glow, nothing warm -- no infrared, just lengthening goldish shadows striping the belly of our 40 ton coffin, and a phone with no charger. Within the Solstice, everything vibrant comes to die. "Winter Solstice", an elegant name for gloom. Here we ratchet up our snacking. Crisp Factories run extra shifts to meet demand for salted fat, and the false hope that 'Pita Chips' might be a safer alternative enroute to diabetic coma. Autumnal discontent abord this "so-called" Celebratory "Holiday" bus-ride; We compress our desiccated summer selves into forced air. Corrugated skin confined, anguished versions of our bygone Golden Hours. Sleeplessly self medicating, we endure ritual seasonal affective disorder... Adjectives Explode: Salty, Fatty, Sugary, Nasty, Arterial Pudding, Inflammatory, Constipatory (quote) "Comfort-Foods" engage our softening savage selves. Here abord the Melatonin Mobile we swaddle into track-suits, leggings, and moo-moo's -- Ample stretch endures the broadening, and dreadfully long celebratory season of the Witch. The Solstice is not in and of itself evil incarnate, nor the Devil stalking you, but a test of your wit, your strength, and your will power. Technically speaking, It is nothing more than the concealment of the sun at the Pole of your given hemisphere, when it hides like a coward from you completely for a brief moment. 3:28 AM this year to be precise. The upside of which is inventive snack-foods, pagan rituals, and "Holiday Joy". Another Bright-side is that after December 22nd at 03:20, you can begin to claw your way back to verdant shamrocks. Druidic peoples, so called Pagans, and basically anyone (even practicing Catholics), who ever worshipped the sun, realized rather early that not having the sun around most of the day long would lead to long liquor lines, food shortages, inventive alternatives, and depressive snacking. "Creative Alt-snack sellers served Newts Toes, and Coca Leaf Crickets, Chicle, and ground a bunch of stuff up with spices and called it sausage... or chorizo. Hungry Savages even found a way to milk sheep, goats, and cows. It becomes a real existential struggle to find any 'rando' fare of sustained winter energy. Ever more inventive candy coatings would come much later. In the so called "Dark Ages", Snack-Food stumbled into more earthy flavors such as Mud and Dirt. Finally, as colonized slavery made all the labor easier for the leisure class a " Happy Snackcident" happened the Moment reluctant Spanish aristocracy sweetened the mud-like bitter cacao powder, iced it and served it at church while worshipping Santa. In 1680 cocoa was served in combination with melted ice to the nobles present at the auto-da-fés. The popularity of the drink among noble women was such that, (not content with drinking it several times a day), they were drinking it in church too. This indulgence pissed off the bishops, who started a propaganda poster campaign in 1861, banning chocolate sipping in churches during lugubrious sermons.[36] What would later become a "Coffee Clutch" ...Chocolatadas, held at the end of "church services", became popular amongst the ladies. And so they built Rectories. It should come as no surprise that this ritual and new found snacks were stumbled upon around Winter's Shortest Day. When one stares back at a fancy package and remarks that eating "THAT" or Eating the whole bag of "THAT" was a bad fucking idea; It is born of despair, and necessity. At Stonehenge the Primary Massive Trilithon faces outward from the middle toward the mid Winter Solstice Sun, a sort of "Talk to the Hand" from a far smarter, and industrious pre-history. Today, inventive adult assholes decided that Clocks (another nasty invention, born of restless loathing for increasing darkness) are reset to accelerate the squalid greyish glow of our skin against our LED daylight. In Modern times we scuttle outdoors in metal coffins for food, and race home to compress crumbs beneath our blankets for another 15 hours of darkness. Pasty pallor betrays the Instagram filter. Bygone "Boys of Summer" or "Madonna" singing "Holiday", aboard a cute dimpled grin, we dine upon dreadful grey salty crap, bad bar food, frozen meals, canned goods, and all-in-all we act like eating crap is worthy of the so called "Holiday Season". We even substitute cool Music for old fucking Christmas Carols which most mumble through, for want of anyone recalling the second verse. Snack bags, and Cookies you'd steer clear of in mid June -- will now make your "Season bright". As many times as we have endured the winter's grip, we remain amateurs. Amateur /ăm′ə-tûr″ Noun: 1. One who has not yet figured out how NOT to do something. 2. One lacking the skill of a professional, To not be good enough at something as to make it one's profession. 3. One who has not or does not accept money in exchange for a task/ activity. Our elastic relationship with the truth, stretches thinly veiled toward greedy gluttonous boredom. Unsurprisingly Spam and the Mc Rib by which we hail Seasonality have roughly the same ingredient count, and shelf-life. We are all amateurs this Holiday, because as many times as we have been here... Our recidivism rate is 100% re·cid·i·vism ri-ˈsi-də-ˌvi-zəm : NOUN, 1. a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior. Recurring. From the Latin recidivus (Re) Back, and Cado (I Fall). e.g. Fall Back. (Funny Right? just like Daylight savings time... I digress) 2. The act of a person repeating undesirable behavior after having experienced negative consequence of/for that behavior. Consider anything called "Pumpkin Spice". And ask but one question... Why? Why does this caloric fictional horchata-fueled abomination propel anyone around our equatorial "upside-down"? Desperation. That's Why. In here fictive orange Wonka characters serve "Turkey", beside cemented fruit segments locked like Han Solo in verdant Jell-O. Is there any moral in this fable? Yes, simply stated, Watch Out! for the fucked up inventions of the idling brain, including those scriptured in bad blogs. This Junk-Food will all will flush counter clockwise until spring which is a mere six months away. Have Faith, and crumble some chips atop your casserole. Fictive traditions purport to perfect celebratory smorgasbords of pure evil. And Yes, this awful nostalgia fueled Holiday cuisine may kill us all, if the hum drum doesn't do it first. Hence the inventiveness of space-age snacking. As if the so called Holiday's were not beige enough on the merits of Venison, Dark Meat, Herring, and Casseroles... our decor, (excepting a trillion tiny light-bulbs strung everywhere to simulate the bygone sun)... We are now forced to decorate, nay deck the halls with really dumb shit. 1. A dead Tree, desiccating in the corner dropping needle dander. 2. A Fucking Red Plant, know as the churlish Poinsettia. Noun: A Crimson abomination, (basically) a tiny blood stained tree which never fades, Poinsettias are not a flower, They do not "Point" at anything in fact, and they smell like vomit on compost. 3. Pumpkin Spice..., Period. 4. Old Socks hanging around out in the open, some with snacks in them? 5. Glazed Meats, [You are welcome]. And... Every other first year intern-brainfuck snack-food creative project from Frito-Lay, Mondelez, Heinz, and InBev seem to be introduced this season, when you simply lack the will power to say no. Introducing the worst shit ever invented and packaged by your thirteen year-old stoned-self. It' is how things get done during the Holidays. Seasonally speaking our culinary journey for the forthcoming 6 months is simply to suffer the indignity of snackcident. To survive our limited edition decor, Blasé' activities, and stranger than fiction snack remorse make this runway sketchy, and anyway this plane is way too heavy to get off the ground now. The very seasonality of everyone's Holiday will be predicated, punctuated, even postulated upon the King-Fucking-Missile of fast Food... Le Mc Rib. This Winter, as full grain silos compress into Muesli, 56 day-old chickens mature into boneless wings, just before being basted in Franks Red Hot and Butter... The Cattle, Horses, and The Pigs all lie down... and Dog Food factories smolder to consume the rest... And viola!, delightfully ripe Pigs wander nonchalantly out of the manger into a tall corrugated processing plant, where they are picked clean to their carcass for the Celebratory Holiday Cuisine we have all been fasting for. It is Mc Rib Season people!, Celebrate... And Mc Rib rings in the true spirit of the holidays! It harkens in our winter wonderland, and even punctuates a fearful Hannukah -- but it cannot last. Pork, Water, Salt, Dextrose Rosemary extract. “That’s it! Only five ingredients.” Lovely... How can it be that a former McDonald's Chef de Cuisine became a TikTok Star doing nothing more than the "grand-reveal" of how the McRib came to be made? Zero Cover-Up? Fully Transparent? Perhaps there are less components in Mc Rib, than Spam, and certainly less than Pumpkin Spice Spam, but it is nevertheless a cult of it's own. The venerable McDonalds wanted to clear the air about their most successful special edition, Pre-Hannukah wonder drug that it is, which hits the shelves round Thanksgiving -- well prior to their Spring-time second-runner-up -- The verdant seasonal Gaelic fascination, the "Shamrock Shake". This Druidic late add to the calendar is the way forward, so look for it. Here calendars will be synchronized like seal-team chronographs, to ring in the holidays with McRib, then quarterly kick that shit to the curb drowning a shot of Whisky in a near neon Shamrock-Shake, before celebrating spring's rebirth with Caveman Jesus, and a Filet-O-Fish. The Devil lurks in less frequented corners of your favorite Grocery, and Bodega... Lucifer follows you through the grocery aisles for months making ludicrous suggestions. Shit Man!, And you believed beginning with full sized bars at Halloween was the end of it. Just this one, and then you would break free of "the habit" as soon as the clocks changed. "Double Down!", you holler at the dealer. "Hit Me!" ...And so he does -- Introducing Grain Alcohol infused with Doritos scum, Yessss! In the orbit of your most stoned imaginary friendships, you could not have invented a cult of crap foods as outlandish as the Velveeta Martini, Candy Mac N Cheese, or an Arbee's Vodka... Let's face it that if you don't write for South Park, you likely cannot see clear of the car wreck which is happening in real time. Yet the empty wrappers keep coming back to haunt you in the night like Jacob Marley and Tiny Tim. Steer Clear of the madness of crowds. Just say no, ... and Yes!, that plain vanilla ice-cream will do. But just as I have no business eating a Mc Rib this holiday season, I could be tempted; right? OKAY, so Candy fucking mac-n-cheese, in all it's Rosicrucian splendor seems so foul that one can add to their Xmas List for Santa to bring nothing but the head of this Kraft intern to them in a pillow case. Come the 22nd at around three in the morning, we can begin to look back at this like a bad dream, or maybe just wait until after New Year's Day to change your trajectory. It is a slow snowy road-trip, so drive carefully, perhaps humming a bit of U2 or King Missile instead of a carol, and remember "Nothing Changes on New Year's Day". Curly Fry Vodka is as real as Santa Claus ...And so it Goes that I have nothing more to say. Except Good Luck. |
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