The Death of Postmodernism

The Sisyphean goal of the author is to capture objectivity by depicting the relationships between people in a definite moment. The river of humanity flows on, the same despite the bank on which you stand.

From our current position in 2010, we view the United States joining much of the world in enacting socialism. The effects of such cultural change have been unseen since the political revolutions of the 1960's and the subsequent birth of postmodernism. The early stages of a new artistic movement, often termed pseudo-modernism, trans-modernism, and even millenialism, are imminent.  The acme of millenialism will likely be reached within 5 to 10 years. The first ten years of the twenty first century have been an attempt to sort out where we, as a culture, a nation, and a globe, stand; much like the Modernists did one hundred years ago.

It is plausible that in 500 years, future humans will view the beginning of the 20th century as the beginning of modernity.  By entering into the twentieth century, a subconscious break with the methods of the past was embodied linguistically. The traditions associated with the nineteenth and all of the other "teen centuries" were displaced by the modern era of the twenties. Shifting ideologies and a new global dynamic resulted in World War while the advent of technologies such as the car, the airplane and electricity improvements begged questions of angst.  What have the past two thousand years been leading to, and where is humanity headed?  It is the perpetual goal of the arts to answer such questions. In the early 20th century, these attempts culminated in the fractal modernism of Joyce's Ulysses and the Cubism of Picasso and Braque. 


Today, in the twenty first century, life and meaning are so disconnected by human constructs – especially those of the past few decades: television, the internet and youtube – that rather than immanent meaning, reality is abstracted from its source through representation. An example of this is reality television, which aspires to imitate. A majority of people live in this structure of representation, through which raw emotion attempts to be translated and identification between individual and art is underpinned. The choice is between entertainment and art.

The power of the internet presents immediate access to information, which  causes a reliance on technology for reassurance. Whether you want to learn how to silk screen a t shirt or how to break up with your girlfriend, you can find how to do it on the internet. Intuition and learning from mistakes is passe. What are the repercussions of this? Those motivated enough have the ability to self-teach and discover for themselves. Many seek, browse and click through the internet warehouse, retaining what they choose to, which becomes increasingly sparser as new forms of entertainment arise.  The cream rises to the top.

Where is truth? Truth lies hidden in entertainment, and entertainment is pervasive. One has to search for it, or know where to look. Interactiveness is characteristic of this movement.

I'm not the only one who believes in post postmodernism. Here's an article I found that relates a bit to the movement.

A View From Afar

This is pushing it, but hey, that's what I do.

Top Notch Care Company

I’ve got to be honest. I know some of you may think that I’m sick, that I should enjoy being mobile while I can, but seriously, enough of disclaimers: I really admire power wheelchairs. I mean manual wheelchairs are great and all, but for those folks who have difficulty with upper body strength and are in no shape to walk around, those power wheelchairs are pretty, pretty sweet.

I can just imagine it: wind blowing along my scalp, weaving in between pedestrians, maybe even cruising in the bike lane because, let’s face it, when your moving at 10 miles per hour or faster you can’t have old fogies with knee walkers and rolling walkers or young whippersnappers with backpacks getting in your way. If you want mobility, and I mean real mobility, then power wheelchairs are the only way to go.

It’s not that I don’t value my own legs; believe me, I do. It’s just that if I am ever at the point where I need a manual wheelchair, I will decline it in favor of a fast moving power wheelchair. That is my ideal way to get around when I am enjoying my golden years.


This is a pretty good example of post - postmodernism, but stick around for posts this week that will demonstrate in full what I mean by this abstruse theoretical term, and will attempt to give it a better name.

My Blog Portfolio

These are some of the other blogs that I write for. They don't involve post postmodernism or classic literature, but they are for work, and I try to make them cool. By clicking on the desired link you will find topics of interest, as well as a non-partisan perspective on national and international states of affairs.Just throw 'em in the ol' Internet Warehouse.

www.LuxuryOD.com

www.BusinessBigShots.com

www.IsraelNewsNet.com

www.DealSpice.com

www.FashionBeautyBlog.com

www.NationalHomeMover.com

I'll Be Carving Your Cantaloupe Tonight

Tonight's a great night to carve fruit, I thought, digging my spoon into the stringy ganglion of the cantaloupe. I can do it with a knife, but it's more difficult to get all of the seeds in the garbage can; it's much easier with a spoon.

I sit at the table with my cantaloupe on the plate and I cut it into crescents using Guillermo's white handled Brazilian knife. I then lie it flat and quickly dice at it, like a cantaloupe chef, but not to cut through the rind, just enough to allow me to bend the slice against its natural propensity and see gaps between bite size orange teeth smile back at me. I suck so the juice doesn't spill down my fingers and flecks of juice don't fly onto the table but this proves useless and sounds unattractive. I sit back down with a paper towel in my hands. The fruit is succulent, ripe, sweet. I eat my fill and wipe the table down, put on a pot of water for tea and clean the kitchen.

I brought the plate with half a cantaloupe over near the sink, and collected the eaten canteloupe slices with difficulty - like wet fish they flopped and slipped through my hand. This is all that fit in the garbage. I unhooked the plastic bag from its holder and sitting it on the floor tied the handles, an angry up-facing cantaloupe stuck out at either gap. It would be too late to turn it over now, I thought. And I took out the garbage.

As I was walking back up the stairs I saw a girl who was with me yesterday on the subway. Watching me stare, she said "Hey." I  said "Hey," in disbelief. It was not the girl.

Postmodernism Between The Ancients

Scene: Heraclitus and his wife in a supermarket deciding on tomorrow's dinner. 

He: Plotting is living. It is the driving force behind human consciousness, the advancement of the individual, the state, the world. How can we bear death without organizing life's events? 

She: What is a life only of events? 

He: Without a plan, empty chaos, undeserving of death's culmination.

She: Meanwhile, time flows and your plots are oars in the river. Friendship, love, enmity, it all drifts away from you before you see it. 

He: The plots help us for when the time comes to square up against fate. 

She: If you let it carry you, you could see more landscape. 

He: We would get lost. When we fail, the challenge of structure is satisfying in itself.

She: You said it, we fail. What's the point of planning for failure? 

He: Failure is certain. Life is uncertain. What's the point at all?

She: That's exactly it. None. 

The New York System of Transportation

              The New York Subway System is the most beautiful system of transit ever conceived. It criscrosses, bumps, hiccups, jumps, stalts, heaves, groans, hisses, weaves, narrows, slows, stops, indefatigably sighs and pumps through day and night, some lines coming more infrequently than others, a surge of borough to borough transportation. I look at it and think how can it grow? The G train is a favorite rags to riches story of mine. My only experience prior to taking it when it began running properly – about every 5 minutes  – was between the hours of 12 and 3 a.m. to get to a certain warehouse party in the middle of sketch central. Now it is shiny and sleek and powers through tunnels and across el tracks to serve lower Brooklyn and follow the F. It's only natural that they should go together, seeing their placement in the alphabet. United at last. The Success of the L Train is prized by Williamsburgers and championed by Bushwickers. The 6 train is frequently overcrowded and you have to wait for the next one. The T will be built eventually. But the improvement of lines in existence is especially important. Overall quality with hope for the future. The 21st Century American Dream, in contrast with the symbolism of the Manhattan skyline, last century's homage to capitalism. Not that there's anything wrong with that, in the same way there's nothing wrong with the image of the Coliseum.
           Does that sentence make me a socialist?

East Williamsburg Art Show

The Eastern District art gallery off the Morgan stop is having an East Williamsburg show for the next month. The opening party is tonight, with a live DJ, free drinks, and some crazy cool avant garde art. I'll be there.

My friend Aakash Nihalani is going to be exhibiting. Aakash is my neighbor; he lives below me in the blue house on Boerum. He's a good guy. Below is some of his work:

So come tonight, and have fun with all of the post- postmodern artists and New York Writers.

New York Writers Plot

Caravaggio's "The Martyrdom of St. Matthew" (1600)

  When I lay in bed after that date, my heart was light and beating like a dog’s foot when he’s dreaming about hunting rabbits. I wanted so badly to lean in and kiss her as she opened her door, lips glistening in the faintest hint of a smile, and then with a final “bye,” she disappeared, leaving me behind, forlorn in the hallway. Seconds later, I was elated as I entered our apartment because I had done it, gone out with the girl I loved,and I knew there was only progression ahead. Or decay, but I didn’t let that thought enter my mind; my only sorrows came from impatience. 

I slept soundly and warmly and dreamed of a girl in my class at school, who wasn't bomb, though she certainly did have some sexual potency. I moved in with her, at random, and was up in Murray Hill for some reason, trying to get back to my apartment, skating of course. In the dream, Murray hill was a real hill, and there were a couple of kids playing skate up ahead. One of them did a front flip, and in awe, I went down a side street to avoid them. When I finally arrived home, I saw her - Kelsey - and she looked at me with her head cocked and said the roommates aren’t home, do you want to do it? And I said yes. So we stripped casually, but she stripped layer after layer. And I asked, I thought you wanted me? And she replied, I do. But all she did was remove another layer of longjohns, or panties, or sheer tights. 

Although I woke up slightly confused as to the meaning of the dream, I felt good about last night. My classes dragged like a loose muffler that morning. We were reading Ellison’s Invisible Man in AP English, and we had to write an essay about it, in preparation for the test in a few weeks. Mine was poor. I didn’t worry. 

At lunch I talked to Buckley, but not about his sister. The fact was I didn’t really know what to do. It weighed heavy on me, and burned, but sometimes you learn more about how you feel from not talking and keeping it inside you to fester and boil and then eventually secrete out in some kind of concoction, than you do from just letting it flow before it’s finished cooking. So we spoke of the rain, and of class, about college a bit, and the summer. Time is the school in which we learn, someone once said. Boy he wasn’t kidding. 

The afternoon was all about me holding my chin in my palm and thinking about her, my next chance with her, seeing her after school maybe, almost not wanting to see her, in order to preserve those memories of her perfection, of the ethereal memory of the night prior without any blemish or additional faux pas caused by my fawning to muck it up. But then the overwhelming passion I felt for her conversation, her smile, and that strong insatiable urge for her body…I passed another resolution. I had to kiss her to progress past the point of insipid flounder. 

When dinner came and went, I decided against going to Buckley’s, and instead, he came over to me.

“Yo man, what’s up?” he said, flouncing onto my bed. “Wanna get high?”

“Nah, not reals, I’m just thinking about how high school’s almost over, and like our whole world is about to change,” I lied.

“Yea, it’s pretty heavy stuff man.”

At that time it was like the whole world was impending, and come September it would either collapse into flames or explode into light. It was Wednesday, with that pervasive feeling that we as Americans get when over the hump, when a lilt of ennui begins to settle in for the night as we prepare for the latter half of the week and the eventual days of release. 

“Hey man, why don’t you and Dela ever hang out on the weekends?”

“I dunno. I mean she just studies. You know how she doesn’t really like to party.”

you’re so full of it Buck. she used to go out with Aron all the damn time and come back drunk and giggling at two in the morning when you had fallen asleep and I was busy putting toothpaste on your face, to get you to awake with that burning compound on your upper lip, and I would wait listening for your itching and hear sex sounds, the motion, the moans, something so foreign that I didn’t know how to regulate and balance the feelings of disgust and curiosity. “Yea, but she used to go out with Aron, didn’t she?” Just saying that bastard’s name made me cringe and shiver with jealousy at how he, disgusting wretch who just so happened to be graced with some family connection in Northern California, was able to go to an impressive school that I had no shot– and not nearly enough money – of getting into. With that reputation the knave had seized my Dela’s innocence, leaving her alone to her nunnery of books as I’m sure he worked his way through the rounds of college girls he was accustomed to fucking, while she, poor she, waited with dedication for him to return. If only I could convince her of the strength of my love for her, of my desire to be with her and become Buckley’s brother by marriage – then, only then, could I be happy. 

“Yea, I guess. Have you ever invited her out with us?”

“Hey man, what’s with you and Dela anyways?” He cocked his head and pulled back, giving me those squinty eyes. “I mean she’s my fuckin sister, man.”

“Buckley! I’m surprised at you! How can you be so defensive when you know that Dela is a sweet, lovely young girl. She’s intelligent, interesting, and fun. And she’s got great tits.” 

“You fucker.” He punched me on the arm as I sniggered, but little did he know I meant all of it, and was crude at the last bit only to get his goad. 

“Nah, but seriously, I mean I can talk to her about lots of stuff. Like, she’s your sister man, and I mean being related to you, no shit she’s cool.” He ruffled his feathers with modest appreciation. “It would be fun if we could all hang out sometime.”

“Yea, whatever, just remember she still dates Aron.”

“Dude, I know that,” a plan beginning to form in my desperate head, “but you know I like Dela as a friend.” He glared at that remark, not entirely sure what to make of it, but feeling my good will, decided to trust me. I mean, I am his best friend. “Why don’t you invite her to Stacie’s party on Saturday? I mean, she studies all dang day. I’m sure she wants to go out.”

“Why don’t you invite her to Stacie’s? That way you can see that she doesn’t want to come to a high school party.”

“Well maybe I will then.”

So Buckley stuck around a while longer, but realized I wasn’t being much fun, and though I love him I was glad for him to go so that I could be alone with my plan. 

Plan: 

 Stage 1: Date Dela, obtain her intellectual interest and allow her to feel comfortable enough around me so that she will think of me as a potential suitor. ACHIEVED.

Stage 2: Isolate her with the use of Buckley in a party environment. After imbibing copious amounts of alcohol, (or in her case probably a beer or two) she should feel comfortable enough to kiss me, as a friend. In the case of rejection, I will be able to use as an excuse my propensity for alcoholism genetically encumbered upon myself through my mother’s Irish heritage. Proposed Date of Completion: Imminent.

Stage 3: General feelings of sexual tension and unease when with me, (i.e. the willingness to kiss again will spark a full on make out session, during which I will hopefully be able to remove her shirt and brassiere cunningly with one hand, thereby allowing her beautiful D’s to spill out into the open air and, with nipples erect and areolas with goose bumps, they will feel the wet caresses of my tongue). Proposed date of Completion: 3-4 weeks

Stage 4: At this point, she will consider me a valid rival against her foolish long distance boyfriend, and as a result, will choose me over him. Full on coitus will ensue, and I in a showdown duel with Aron, that shmuck with an idiotic name trying to manipulate convention with only one A, will stab him in the belly, leaving him to groan and scream like Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs, with me standing over him and laughing like a mad scientist, and he begging, pleading at my ankles, grasping at my pant legs to spare him the agony, will be satisfied when I finally take my rapier and plunge it through his heart. And after that… Proposed Date of Completion: Post-Graduation, sometime during the summer.

Stage 5: Marriage, the birth of two children, one male and one female preferably because I know how it helps siblings to have one of each sex, but if anything I would have it so that the sister is older, as in my love’s case, so that she is able to see the perils of boys as a gender from her younger brother’s misdeeds and deviancy during youth, and isn’t tempted to rebel against an older brother’s domineering nature, thus resulting in her succumbing by choice to plans like these. 

It was constant burning desire, the beginnings of love, when lust took to the sideline, and just thinking about her made his stomach feel like a snow globe that can be shaken and the snow falls through the water and settles onto the microcosmic town leaving it quiet but prone to haphazard blizzards. 

Jimmy B: King of the Highway

Howdy y’all, it’s the cargo securement king, Jimmy B. I done some driving out west lately. Reckon I got some good load securement stories for y’all this week.

Now when a man is trucking 12 hours a day, Lord knows he could use a drink when he finally pulls over. I got a few favorite waterin’ holes around this great big country. I was at one way out west in Oregon with a nice frother and some famous Tad’s Chicken and Dumplins. Mighty tasty after a day on the road, when alluva sudden a pretty little mama comes a walking on in there. She recognized that there was a boy from out of town with that truck out there. Now I’d never seen her before but she sure was a perty one – real nice gams, and a tight little body, with some really great…teeth. So she takes a look at me, sizing me up, and asks me, “Hey big boy, what do you use for your truck tie downs with a load like that?”
And I said, “Why’s that darling? Lookin for a transport service? Or you just interested in rachet straps and truck tie downs?”
She replied, “Well, quite frankly, I just like to compare rachet straps from boys around the country. I’ve seen some real sturdy ones in my time.”She smiled.

Heheh. To that I tipped my hat and paid my bill. I know a woman’s trouble when I see her – load securement knowledge or no.

Skate Rounds to Brooklyn

http://www.goskateorgohome.com/blog/The best thing about New York is the bridges. BMW, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, that's how I remembered it, from south to north. It's because they allow for interborough subway access, and we all know that public transportation is what really makes a city – that's why L.A. sucks. I'm just kiddin' L.A. I love you. ahem. But the thing about New York is that not only is a car unnecessary, it's impractical. Traffic can add 10 dollars to an uptown ride. But back to the bridges. Of course everyone's favorite is the Brooklyn bridge, since it's brick and wooden planked walkways conjure memories of Whitman's New York, when the city had a vast harbor, and Brooklyn was its own city, which, by the way, if it still were, would be the fourth largest in the United States. And the gulls fly and coast overhead, and it's always sunny and cold and blue skied and all the people who are walking across the bridge are looking back and forth trying to take it all in, holding hands underneath those gothic arches in the high towers, the American flags waving on top – it's the oldest suspension bridge in the country, the Brooklyn bridge. But it's the Williamsburg bridge that I want to write about because when Buckley and I were feeling adventurous, we'd skate over it. The ride was red and blue: the steel mesh cage of the railings of the bridge are red and you can see smeary uptown Manhattan pretty clearly through the grating. Until the river is directly beneath you're skating uphill, which is a drag. It's worth it for the ride down though because the grade is gradually steeper as you get closer to the shore and on a skateboard you can only carve back and forth, weaving so that the board doesn't get the speed wobbles and throw you off of it and you fall and reflexively fall on your palms to protect you even though they inevitably gash and and bleed and you might even have some raspberries on your knees or elbows after rolling facefirst into the pavement – no, instead you dig your heels and toes into the sides of the board because as they hang off you're allowed more lateral mobility as any boardsporter knows (the original phrase 'hang ten' comes from surfing when all ten toes are off of the board itself in order to shred the wave) and so you keep gaining speed trying to carve, but eventually you see the end of the path about three hundred meters away and a solid cement wall, and you know that if you bombed it you'd get the wobbles and even if you carved it you might be running the risk of hitting a pedestrian so you can only jump off, and send the board into the wall careening and falling supine, wheels spinning in stasis. And the adrenaline's pumping and your chest is heaving and you think man, i sure am glad i jumped off when i did because another second or two and i'd be bloodied. 

In Williamsburg there is more grafitti and fewer people. People who are living in New York not because they have the money to afford the luxury of Manhattan or were passed down a rent-controlled apartment out of luck, but because they work in Manhattan and commute, or are artists and enjoy the quiet or whose parents immigrated here last generation and haven't moved because it's home, are the kinds that live in Williamsburg. We skate southeast down a varicolored street with houses that look like matchstick boxes painted the colors of those Valentine's Day hearts that have romantic phrases like 'Be Mine,' and have paint chipping gates and there is a school: a P.S. 89 and a stark playground and basketball court with yellow lines on it and Hasidic Jews everywhere and the men with their hats and their long coats and glasses walk down the street conversing learnedly with their payos shaking back and forth and young pretty wives with their heads covered with handkerchiefs picking their newborn babies in their strollers up as they ascend the steps of these matchbox houses backwards cautiously looking to see that baby doesn't fall out and isn't disturbed by the jump and settle, jump and settle of each step, and I wave and some of them look at me while I wave and their faces have distrust on them and they don't wave back. But I don't hold it against them because Buckley and I are having a day. 

We skate to Flatbush avenue and underneath the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and feel the ages of the crack and the drugs and the danger and the cleaning and the renovation and the new paint and the beginning of gentrification and friendliness, even though it's grounded in curiosity. And we skate, with one leg boardfixed and the other one swinging back and forth on top of the black pavement making small claps as we push and are pulled by the city forward and back. And the brownstones off of Clinton Avenue are surrounded by large elms and the properties are noticeably older and richer and I think of the New York royalty that owned these pads a hundred years ago and how this was farmland and of how young our country is and how money is aristocracy and sometimes the ability to rise also means the ability to fall whereas in England or India at least you're set for life, you don't have to worry about status because it's handed to you and maybe that's good but no, it's not good because it's not American. And we skate along Fulton, past the liquidation furniture stores and the cell phones outlets and sneaker shops and banks and the people and the buses hissing and squeaking as they rise and sink along the curbs to make their stops. And then we're in downtown Brooklyn with black lampposts like the kind that are only around old Washington Square and the mottled black pigeons fly off into the cerulean sky and scatter among the court house, the large legal areas of justice and propriety and flagstoned streets and people walking everywhere and there's seed in the street and there could be a circus around the block with P.T. Barnum saying “Come see the greatest show in the world” and marching his twenty one elephants across the Brooklyn Bridge to ensure people that the flying rumor about the stability of the bridge – or lack thereof – was just that, a rumor and that this is New York City and Brooklyn where we are strong and impressive and acts of virility are commonplace. 

Then when we're back where we started, we're tired and sweaty. We eat some thin crusty cheesestringy pizza and fold it in half and let the grease drip out of the crust side – or not –and drink our Cokes to wash it down and back out we go and see the precipitous towers loom ahead and the hundreds of pedestrians. We sling our boards  under our arms and look at each other and laugh and walk along the bridge,  with everyone else – until midway. We ride the grade down, cutting and weaving and we're back in downtown Manhattan, where we live although the beginnings of the financial district are so different from the ends of the east village that it's like we're still in another borough and we to avoid the traffic, we skate uptown along the water in the the board lanes.