VENEERS OF HEGEMONY, VOL. I

Those who fear systematically tend to disobey written rules while at the same time adhering to unwritten, so-called natural norms.

The lawless anarchist out-of-doors, the inner sycophant riding herd. 

CALL YOUR AGENT

Culture Workers must be constantly aware that spectacular (as opposed to secret) production will inevitably amplify certain aspects of a work, beneficial to the spectacle, and create an ugly Image-in-the-World that might take a whole series of lifetimes of contravision and traduction to undo.

PALACE COUP

The people have spoken.

& MSNBC goes ever more meta, replaces self described "Angry Weatherman" with cute, loveable puppy, Bong Cha, who also holds the rank of Colonel in the North Korean Air Force. Puppy to be voiced by gringo humorist, Roberto Smigel.

American leftists overwhelmingly feel the move better reflects their need for a televised political mascot & champion.

SO BEAUTIFULLY RETRO...

Well, the Freres Lumiere had their shot. Now it's Melies' turn. The thing about Avatar  is that, notwithstanding all the bells & whistles, it could have been made in 1938, with squeaky Shorin Sound at Mosfilm. A socialist realist picture transposed to some fantastic candyland where Pan is Stalin. This rather fresh bit of product arrives complete with the Problem of the Nationalities, a sweaty-handed respect for Soviet Science, and Techno-kulaks like Giovanni Ribisi who can’t be kind to Mother Russia, er, Earth. The militarized muscle propping up capital, in the end so, so meek. And beautiful blue masses mustered into revolt by the class-traitor in the wheelchair. The only thing missing in this world of hunters, is a tractor, striped with war paint. Everywhere you look, it's an advert for monumentality, like those statues of Lenin or Hussein's crossed sabers. I never thought the fishbowl of Fascist Space could look so beautiful & clean, man! Sign me up.

The movie also is amusingly designed as a Vertovian allegory of its own production -- putting actors at ease about motion capture technology, helping them rise from their crippled & banal naturalism into the kabuki world of The Volume, into the lair of the wizard Melies. 

It's Deep Ecology exported into virtuality. 

In Cameron's world, the digital humane has as much value as the leaf, but less than the floating mountain. And as for the stereoscopic micro-registers of rumble filtered emotion -- Cameron makes Lucas look like Leo McCarey.

Hippie fascists around the world might fade their glazed smiles, unhold hands, & pause for a moment to consider that if James Cameron is the king of anything, it is not of the World or the Universe, but rather the techno-kulaks. And also, that he represents the full sexless firepower of hollywood hegemony, that the natives can only muster bows and arrows against. So lock n’ load!

WHAT WILL IT BE TONIGHT, DARLING...

To the extent that our everyday lives are ruled absolutely by the amoral (paramoral?) forces of commerce and technology, bourgeois morality was forced to set up its' Government-in-Exile in a new scape: 

our phantasies and our images.

A rather dull state of affairs.