Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Timing Is Everything (Missed Connections)










        All of us have probably had occasion to feel or say that “it’sall a matter of timing, ” and fortunately we probably care in unequal degrees aboutthe many things we may have “missed” through our inattention, miscues, missedcues, etc.







Peter Griffin, Example of "Post-Modern Architecture," Zhengzhou Green Fair, China


    I think I missed (am currently missing and will continue to miss) post-modernism.  The only thing the term has ever meant to me(that is to say, the image that forms in my mind whenever I hear it) is ofthe Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan becoming overfull (even after its porcine over-expansion), over-capacity, and artmarketers desperately meeting in secret committees to coin a new term to promote and sell subsequent "art events" and so-called "art developments."  Branding, after all, is everythingthese days.




 

      Today, while engaging in research concerning theweird and deplorable "human microphone" (the people control device/exercise being used atcontemporary political rallies), I learned that I really must have missed "queer theory"  too (although I knew of its existence) because it is apparently in the process of being supplanted by "post-queer theory" (skip to end of linked article).






 

Scully and Mulder.  For some reaon, Mulder is identified in this photo as the "Post-Modern Prometheus." 


        I can survive without regret both of these losses or deficiencies.  Generally I am able, when I need or want to,to understand complicated, even insanely prolix, pieces of literature or technicalwriting, provided their authors are sincerely trying to communicate, are making a palpable effort tomake themselves understood







M.C. Escher, Relativity, 1953.  Modern? Post-Modern? None of the above?  Queer, certainly, and proudly so.


        I cannot accomplish this, however, nor can I abide reading self-involved,neologism and jargon-filled academic or pseudo-academic writing thatclearly seeks to impress, but is nothing more than grotesque and distorted Fun House mirrorfare.

         I sincerely believe that this kindof work is intentionally self-deceptive and that it also seeks to deceive readers based on the authors' contempt, anger and fear.







Post-modern Chinese surgical needles (Actual caption label)








Mrs. Danvers must fit in here somewhere.  The rest is silence, except for:





(Bonzo Dog Band links from Keynsham, 1969)


[Please Note 3 links in Paragraph 3]

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