A Few Random Thoughts

Hollywood produces the Iron Man. Literature creates the Ironical Man. Philosophy gives rise to the High-minded Man.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and it has become so vapidly commercialized that it is laughable. To think that our culture should celebrate such trite and sentimental romantic nonsense is beyond ridiculous. Of course it's all about making money -- what else? We live in a materialistic society. But where O where is the passionate joy of Eros? Gone forever, I fear.

On the Sudden Popularity of Dystopian Novels

According to The New York Times, there is currently a surge of interest in classic dystopian novels such as Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm, Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, P.D. James' The Children of Men, and Goldings' The Lord of the Flies. I find this puzzling. Apparently people want to read grim stories about authoritarian societies because they believe Western democracies are headed in that direction. But beware! Morbid fascination with dystopias will help make them come to pass, and we should never, never, never resign ourselves to the inevitability of a world without personal liberties, especial in the US and Europe. So I want to ask the people who are reading these novels --- why be so pessimistic? Wouldn’t it make more sense to read classic literature that encourages us to be strong and resilient? Stories that inspire us to fight against these forces of totalitarianism and fascism, novels about people of spirit and courage who overcome the forces of destruction? If we would change the world, we must begin by changing ourselves, as the sages have been telling us for centuries. And as an alternative to all this negative futurism I recommend the novels of D. H. Lawrence who believed the hope for humanity rests with the individual's inherent capacity for love.

Making Movies

Technology has made it relatively easy for the new filmmaker to make a movie. Now just about anyone with a modicum of desire and drive can see their story turned into a film in the digital format. But this ease of creation does not ensure that the content will have any depth. When movies were made the old way, on celluloid, it took a lot of money, time, and effort, and those requirements were enough to discourage anyone who did not feel compelled to tell the story they believed had to be told.  Today’s young filmmakers have been raised on what Martin Scorsese calls “theme park movies,” movies that rely too much on special effects, imagery, and celebrity actors. Scorsese says he feels like one of the last of a dying breed of filmmakers, the ones who take risks and make movies with personal themes of scope and power. Movies must have scope and power, and they must be made with a passion for truth and a depth of psychology, otherwise they are nothing more than exercises in vanity.

Trumpty-Dumpty

Trumpty-Dumpty built a great wall.
Trumpty-Dumpty made it so tall
that no one could get in or out.
Said Trumpty, "That's what America's all about!"

The Day of the Dead in Mexico

Cultural festivities for  the Day of the Dead (Dia de Los Muertos) in Mexico should emphasize the spiritual over the commercial. Much of the activity I’m seeing around San Miguel de Allende is much more commercial than it should be, and this seems to be the result of too much media attention in the US. Caterinas, painted skulls, and skeletons abound. Is this respectful to the sacred tradition of the holiday? Families get together to make flowers and use them to adorn altars, they gather at home or at el cementerio to remember their departed loved ones, they DO NOT dance around with someone dressed up as a Catrina, and to multiply these Catrina figures (a skeleton dolled up as a tawdry female, for those who don’t know) does a terrible disservice to the spiritual beliefs of the occasion. You might even go as far as to call it sacrilegious. As a cultural festival in honor of the day, it is all rather tasteless. This is just another example of how the US mass media have commercialized and corrupted the traditions and cultures of North America.

The Nobel Prize Has Lost Its Prestige

I’ve always liked Bob Dylan’s music. He’s written some amazing songs. But I don’t think he deserves the Nobel Prize in Literature. Maybe in songwriting, but that category doesn't exist. And now he says he will not attend the awards ceremony, which shows extreme disrespect and is further prove that he doesn't deserve the award. There are many little-known authors who should be recognized and given global attention by that high honor.  Was there no one else to whom they could have given such a prestigious prize? If not, then it should have been withheld for this year. The Literature Prize has now been cheapened, and it has lost much of its value by this one act of disregard for the highest possible standards of literary art.

Too Many Books

Too many books are being published today, placing too great a demand on the modern reader’s time. Why does humanity need so many? The truth is that we don’t really need 90% of them. If far fewer books were published then we could focus on the ones that really matter. In the prologue to the second part of Don Quixote Cervantes writes: “For I know very well what the temptations of the Devil are, and one of his greatest is to put it into a man’s head that he can write and print a book, and gain both money and fame but it . . .”  He goes on to say that “bad books are harder than rocks.” We might say today that it is not the devil who puts the idea of writing a book for money and fame into someone’s head, but rather it is a kind of madness. That madness has overtaken many well-intentioned people who, like Don Quixote himself, are afflicted by a delusion, the delusion that they can write a book of importance which should be published.