Saturday, February 08, 2003

AN EDITORIAL in the NYC suburban paper Newsday offers some serious, detailed, far more viable options to an Iraq war—if the right-wingers have any actual goals other than going to war under whatever excuse is at hand.

posted by clark 11:58 AM

IN A BIND: The normally at-least-semi-lucid New York magazine media critic Michael Wolff has gone mildly insane in his most recent essay.

He took the firing of an editor at a big NYC book company, something that happens darn near every month at one of those places, and whipped up a big concoction of a piece claiming the whole book biz is an old-media dinosaur stuck in a permanent death spiral.

This is the sort of fluff I've been hearing for eight years from the Wired dorks (hey, just 'cause their own book division went sternum-up…) and for over twenty years from the disgruntled-hippie-curmudgeon set. But from where I sit, books (as a fiscal if not a creative endeavor) are about as strong as any media endeavor during our current Great Depression Lite.

When the Kmart Corp. began its current tailspin, what was the first asset it sold, the one most certain to fetch a premium price? The Borders bookstores. That tactic's what the financially sicker-than-sick AOL Time Warner is doing now. The AOL Internet racket wound't fetch 'em the price of a measly banner ad; but the conglomerate's book units (including Little, Brown and Time-Life Books) would, so they're what AOLTW's putting up for sale.

The ol' dead-tree-lit biz has certain advantages in the current marketplace. Unlike websites, it puts out a tangible physical product (that can even be resold on the used market). Unlike periodicals, its products have relatively indefinite shelf lives. Unlike periodicals or broadcasters, books aren't dependent upon slump-prone ad sales. Books can be "affordable luxuries," little treats you can give yourself or loved ones.

Wolff claims there's no need to romanticize The Book anymore, because it's become just another lowest-common-denominator, dumbed-down product. But then he claims nobody's buying books (or at least caring about them) except a little Northeastern elite (that happens to coincide with his own readership). There wouldn't be mass-market books if mass markets weren't buying them.

There are a few problems besetting the book biz these days, above the general economic malaise. Wolff's just mistaken about what they are.

First, book publishing can't be run on a healthy, long-term basis on the kind of profit margins demanded by media conglomerates obsessed with The Almighty Stock Price. Thus, even the making and selling of highly commercial titles is best handled by independent firms. (Thus, the spinoff of AOLTW's book arm might be better for both the seller and the sold.)

Second, there's the little matter known as Serious Literature. Like "independent" film and "alternative" music, it's a niche genre that appeals to customers who think they're hipper and smarter than any dumb ol' corporation. (Whether the customers really are all that hip or intelligent doesn't really matter.) They're a piece of the business even more apt to be better serviced by the non-conglomerates.

Wolff sneeringly dismisses serious-lit lovers as passé crackpots, out of tune with the 21st century. Actually these are the gals n' guys who, when they're doing their jobs right (as writers, editors, sellers, and readers), unearth and reveal the truths about our age.

It's the media hype speed-freaks like Wolff who, from this corner, seem more like relics of a discredited time.

posted by clark 1:35 AM

Friday, February 07, 2003

SPROCKETS DEPT.: Last weekend, the newspaper pundits were full of ponderings concerning the state of "independent" film, following the end of the past Sundance Festival in Utah.

Reality check time.

Sundance, now either part- or majority-owned by Viacom, is not really about independent filmmaking and hasn't been since at least 1997. At best, one can say it's about "art house" film marketing, the sort of thing at which Roger Corman, Sam Goldwyn Jr., and their cronies used to excel. At worst, it's just another excuse for celebrity gossip bullshit and studio dealmaking corruption—precisely what truly independent film is a rebellion against.

K Records cofounder Calvin Johnson has defined an independent record label as a record label that's neither owned, financed, nor distributed by one of the five majors. A similarly simple demarcation could be made for independent movies, except for the huge gray area between a film's production and its distribution.

The days of such indie-film companies as Goldwyn, Cinecom, Cannon, DeLaurentiis, Hemdale, and Atlantic Releasing have gone the way of RKO and Monogram. Nowadays, only three truly independent theatrical distributors in North America are big enough for Variety to notice—IFC Films (owned by big cable-TV-system operator Cablevision), Lions Gate, and Alliance Atlantis. All the bigger "indie" distributors are merely niche-market (and non-union) subsidiaries of the intellectual-property conglomerates: Fox Searchlight, Sony Classics, Miramax (Disney), New Line (AOL Time Warner), and Focus Features (Vivendi Universal).

These niche divisions don't sit around buying up movies completed by rugged individualist filmmakers (despite the Sundance Festival's mythology). More and more, they're financing, packaging, and asserting total creative control over the products they release. (Miramax bankrolled the last Broadway revival of the musical Chicago to spur interest in its now-current film version.) They package mid-budget films as career-enhancing vehicles for stars under contract to the parent company. They crank out movies in fad genres for as long as the fads last (Pulp Fiction-esque hip violence, black-middle-class relationship comedies).

Some of the films but out by the big studios' farm-team units are at least sort-of cool.

But they're not independent films.

So what exactly is an independent film?

Here are a few guidelines:

• If it was made in Britain in the past ten years and doesn't have James Bond in it, it's probably independent.
• If it was filmed in Canada and actually set in Canada, it's probably independent.
• If Tom Hanks was involved in any aspect of its production, it's absolutely, positively not independent.
• If no cast or crew members have ever been on Jay Leno, it stands a good chance of being independent.
• If it stars a current or past boyfriend of Jennifer Lopez, it's probably not independent (if it was made after or shortly before said Lopez hookup).
• If it's all about the wacky travails besetting an independent filmmaker, it's almost certainly an independent film (albeit a trite one).

• If it was directed by a woman who isn't also an actress, it's likely to be independent.

• If it was directed by an African American whose surname is neither Lee nor Wayans, it's almost assuredly independent.

• If it's about racial struggles but doesn't have a noble white hero, it's apt to be independent.

• If it includes a female character who both takes her clothes off and has actual speaking lines, it's more likely these days to be independent.

• If it includes a male character who takes his clothes off (without being hidden by a dresser drawer or a potted plant), it's undoubtedly independent.

posted by clark 11:41 AM

Thursday, February 06, 2003

A VIGNETTE ABOUT SURVIVAL AND 'REBELLION' in rural Eastern Washington can be found today at the unlikely spot of SexNewsDaily.com. Scroll about halfway down the hereby-linked page to find the memories of one "Larry K." concerning the girls he knew back home, who drank and cavorted like rebel girls everywhere but who disdained abortion or even contraception—because they saw what used to be called the "shotgun wedding" as a path to an at least marginally-better existence.

Mr. K also chides college-grad feminists for not seriously considering the plight of the non-affluent:

"To lower class women the world doesn't look like patriarchy; it looks like it's run by a class of women and men who run it to their own advantage.… Feminism failed because it failed to seriously consider the fears of the mass of women who don't have many options."

I also see the world, or at least the non-Moslem world, as controlled by "a class of women and men who run it to their own advantage."

White affluent women are the second most privileged class in this country. It's not surprising for such a woman to see only affluent men above her socioeconomically, and then to perceive the whole of society as "The Patriarchy."

I'm not denouncing such women. It's easy to fall into limited perspectives. It's harder to imagine life from somebody else's point of view.

But it's vital.

posted by clark 11:42 AM

Wednesday, February 05, 2003

THE PRINT MISC should be at most subscribers' postal receptacles in the next few days. If it isn't, lemme know.

It's also at Confounded Books (Belltown), J&S (formerly Steve's) Broadway News (Broaday, natch), and M Coy Books (downtown). Further outlets should be online within the week.

THE ANTIWAR MOMENTUM keeps a-buildin'. The next big local event is on 2/15 (the Ides of February) at Westlake. Info's at www.feb15.org.

posted by clark 12:44 PM

Sunday, February 02, 2003

MORE INACCURATE, IRRESPONSIBLE "Seattle totally sucks, man" whining came today in the unexpected spot of the Seattle Times Sunday magazine section.

Writer William Dietrich compared Seattle's downtown to that of Portland and Vancouver BC. He gave our town last-place marks in everything from public transit to residential development. He blamed Seattle's perceived failings on a lack of a strong, paternalistic planning bureaucracy capable of deciding what's best for everybody and acting freely on its decisions.

Reality check time.

Yeah, we're over a decade late with starting a big multi-county transit scheme; but the Times doesn't particularly love the one we've now got (Sound Transit) and opposed the grassroots alternative to it (the Monorail initiatives).

We've had bureaucrats with big designs for how we were supposed to all want to live. They gave us the "urban village" and Seattle Commons schemes, which many citizens denounced as giveaways to private developers. (Oh yeah: Dietrich's story highly approves of government givewaways to private developers. He praises Vancouver's heritage of politicians who've been exclusively devoted to such giveaways.) So now we've got unofficially planned zoning schemes to promote luxury condos on every block that isn't reserved for single-family homes (i.e., any block where the non-affluent might currently live).

What Vancouver really has, besides the land giveaways and the SkyTrain: A downtown constrained to a two-square-mile isthmus, surrounded by a city equally water-confined, discouraging highways and sprawl. It also has a Canadian political system in which the "highway lobby" has traditionally had less clout.

What Portland really has, besides the light rail: A flatter central downtown with smaller blocks and no alleys, encouraging more foot traffic and tying the "hip" areas (Burnside and the Pearl District) closer to downtown than our Capitol Hill and Queen Anne are to our central business district. This lack of topological barriers between the business district and residential districts is the chief reason why Portland has a downtown high school and supermarket and we don't. (Of course, it didn't help that Seattle closed Queen Anne High in the '70s.)

Seattle's transportation and sprawl problems haven't been solved, and probably can't be solved, by professional bureaucrats acting by fiat. It's the bureaucrats we've got who've made such a mess of Sound Transit, led the fight against the Monorail, and helped promote sprawl. (Remember that failed state transportation referendum last November, that would've given trickles of cash to transit and gushes of cash to more suburban highways?)

Dietrich, and the Times, want a Seattle with more potentials for insider dealmaking and fewer democratic checks and balances. I want better. So, I'm certain, do most area residents. And that doesn't suck at all.

posted by clark 7:09 PM

THIS GROUNDHOG DAY is full of shadows.

Amid the ongoing ickiness of war and rumors of war, Shuttle Explosion II came along to remind us that American techno-might does not equal invincibility; that Americans can needlessly die horrific deaths at the hands of their own government's wrong decisions (such as NASA's chronic corner-cutting), with no overseas enemies involved.

If the deaths of these six Americans (one of whom was born in India) and one Israeli have any meaning at all, it will be to help dissuade a few more citizens from blind faith in their government and its promises.

WHILE MUCH OF THE NATION was being reminded about the frailty of technology, I spent the weekend (when I wasn't moving the print MISC into stores) being reminded about the eternal strength of the plain ol' human body, at the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival at Town Hall (a former Christian Science church). There've been countless erotic-art group exhibitions in town before, but never this big or this well-publicized.

The Friday-night opening and auction left over 150 people lined up outside waiting for the chance to enter the filled-to-capacity auditorium. Once inside, many patrons removed jackets to reveal the requested "provocative" attire. (Signs were posted at all doors leading to other parts of the building, announcing "CLOTHING REQUIRED Beyond This Point.")

There were guys in leather chaps or Utilikilts or puffy pirate shirts. There were ladies in thong bikinis with body paint, or thongs and burlesque pasties beneath see-thru dresses, or vinyl hot pants and '70s-esque knit halter tops. There were lots of corsets and other cleavage enhancers. The wearers of these costumes (some of whom were older and/or wider than the standard "model material") all glowed with the pride of being admired, being desired.

There was a glorious vibe in the air of joyous celebration, of taking a vacation from winter blahs and sharing a form of instant intimacy with several hundred other adults. Unlike much of the "sex industry" (porn, strip clubs, advice manuals, etc.), there was no mercenary hard-sell attitude; not among the viewers and exhibitors and not even in most of the art.

There were 80 or so artworks on auction night, and over 200 artworks in the subsequent weekend exhibit. (About half the auction pieces were also on display the following two days.) The artworks themselves encompassed most of the popular visual-art media. There were photos, paintings, drawings, cartoons, sculptures, and collages, in all sizes and shapes.

The subject matter of the works hewed close to a rather narrow variety of scenes, rather than the full possibilities of erotic expression.

There were many solo "figure studies" of women and men of assorted adult ages, nude or in fetish garb.

There were many bondage scenes, of a woman or man either tied up alone or being disciplined by an always-female dominant.

There were scenes of kissing and/or groping among lesbian, gay-male, and even a few hetero couples.

There were two or three scenes of fellatio, but none of cunnilingus.

There were no scenes of what used to be called "the sex act," hetero intercourse. (One of the event's organizers told me no such scenes were submitted.) The only penetrative sex shown was in a large painting of a gay orgy. (Once again, I thought, the Seattle art world's reverse double standards were more open to gay-male sexuality than to straight-male sexuality.)

My first thought about the prevelance bondage art: "It's just so 1998." Some of the S/M scenes depicted the attitude of aggressive egomania that helped make the dot-com era so annoying. Others seemed intended to be "shock art," as if we were still living in an era before there were adult novelty stores in half the nation's strip malls.

But others recognized a more playful spirit to role-playing. Although the exhibition's contributing artists come from all over North America, I pondered whether I was seeing the birth of a particularly Nor'Western flavor of erotica, and what that could be.

I decided it would be an erotica based on playfulness, closeness, and comfort. Instead of the "are we being transgressive yet?" bombast found in much NY/Calif. "alternative" sex art, or the artsy pretensions found in much Euro sex art, NW sex art would acknowledge that people have been having sex since before we were born, and having all assorted types of sex to boot. Het, lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, pain/pleasure, monogamous, nonmonogamous, multi-partner, solo, etc. etc.—none of it's outré, all of it's fun for those who're into it. It's all about connecting with other bodies and souls, keeping warm and passionate during the dreary winter days, being creative and positive, gentle and brash.

Sidebar: Before the exhibition, I'd seen the video Sex Across America #8: Seattle. It's part of a series in which some hard-porn performers and their camera crew travel to different cities. This one featured hotel-room sex scenes taped in the (unnamed but obvious) Seattle Sheraton, Edgewater, and Inn at the Market, plus a billiards bar I'm sure I've been to under other circumstances; as well as clothed tourist scenes at the Space Needle, the Pike Place Market, and around Fourth and Pike.

While merely location-shot here by LA porn-biz people, the sex is a lot closer to personalized lovemaking than to most of the emotionless hot-action usually found in LA corporate porn. Especially in the final scene, with a real-life local couple (who'd previously appeared in an "amateur" sex video for the same director). Prior to showing off their well-practiced lovin' technique, the couple's female half is interviewed by the director: "So I hear the women in Seattle are really horny," he says. The woman smiles back, "Yes! It's all the moisture." It's a cute, charming prelude to some cute, charming nooky.

So there can indeed be a Northwestern eroticism. Another, more vital question: Can eroticism save the world, as has been pondered on this site and elsewhere?

The answer, like so much involving sex, is complicated.

The wide-open decadence of Berlin and Paris in the '30s didn't prevent the Nazis. Indeed, these scenes were among the Nazis' first targets.

The '60s hedonism didn't do much to stop the Vietnam war or prevent the rise of Nixon's gang.

The '70s cult of individual pleasure merely foreshadowed the upscale "lifestyle" fetish of more recent times.

But a strong, supportive gay community, built largely around sexual enjoyment (and around demanding the right to it) is the dominant reason new AIDS infections have been stemmed in urban North America.

And today's most pressing social problems all have sensually-based potential solutions.

Both fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity seek to repress sex, as part of authoritarian ideologies encouraging obedience and disconnectedness.

Today's war fever is profoundly anti-sexual, promoting cold ruthless ambition at the expense of almost everything to do with freedom or compassion.

Our contracting economy keeps most of us shackled and frustrated, while rewarding a tiny elite of whip-lashing doms.

The suburban landscape is a wasteland of beauty-deprived arterial roads and subdivisions keeping people apart and isolated.

Sex and erotica, by themselves, won't solve any of these. A consumerist, self-centered definition of sex could even help these problems get worse.

But it'd sure help if more people used sensuality as a way to become more aware of the world around them, and if more people used sexual intimacy and to learn how to empathically bond with people, to help bring back a sense of community.

And, of course, sex is always a good way to advertise a progressive movement. Spread the joy, share the (consensual) love, propose a world of more satisfying possibilities, and have tons-O-fun doing it.

Come out of the shadows and into the warm pink light.

posted by clark 6:11 PM

ARCHIVES:

• Past weblog entries.
• 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1986-94 columns.
• Reviews of literature & art, nonfiction & culture criticism, movies & videos, and music & noise.
• Longer articles and essays.
• Some slightly weird little fiction pieces.
• X-Word crossword puzzles, now with on-screen solving.
• Cyber Stuff, links to cool and/or useful sites.
• A listing of many Things I Like (and a few things I hate).
• The origin and future of MISCmedia.