ascribing a victor and a vanquished type relationship to any social scenario requires a value set that especially embraces the world for its polarities. we do, after all, live on what could be construed as an enormous magnet. our bodies exhibit magnetism and the molecules that compose them also react magnetically. well, sort of. we entrust our memories to magnets (vhs), as well as our safety (airports). molecules are a mix of positive and negative charges, often in balance. then there are all of those other aspects of molecules, like neutrons and neutrinos and quarks et al. that comprise atoms, completely shattering the linear notion of exact opposition. and what about dark matter?
ok, ok. my argument. things are complex. but also simple. like, say, us.
we are complex. we are also simple. through deductive logic, we are able to 'understand' 'reality'. we deduce what exists through sensory (and extra sensory) perception, and we attempt to confine that reality to a definition of what 'is'. in one corner we have land, or rather, the potential for prosperity as we (as capitalist society) have begun to recognize it as. in the other corner we have the power of action and cloaked hope. we will act in order to make the land as profitable as it could be.
we take on a similar relationship with our bodies, where we (our egos) decide to make our bodies as satisfying (to the ego) as possible. our egos are hungry, and they convince us that they need more food, in the form of personal feats. many take this to mean defeating others, whether it be by irrigating a lawn or slashing your neighbors tires.
do i even need to make a segue into sub prime mortgages? i mean, kanye is at the top sort of (though there's a really good immortal technique lyric that goes 'if you go platinum, it's got nothing to do with luck,
it just means that a million people are stupid as fuck') but mike tyson has scary facial tattoos and ol dirty first went to jail, then got fat, and then died.
i work and live in los angeles, a vicinity certainly not overlooked by inflation (read a good new york times article
here. land has a greater value here than the desert 150 miles away (obviously to us gangster thug capitalists). the society reinforces this (or at least the spectacle of media within society) with conflated egos and lindsay lohan.
she has declared engagement to
samantha ronson. does she plummet? does she rise? do we care? will this influence the economy? perhaps this has all been orchestrated at a meta-economic level, and alan greenspan is involved, and the sinking american ship of identity will resurface, but i doubt it.

(This taken from the amazing site
maximum sorrow of the longest building the artist has ever seen.)
and what do kate moss/pete doherty britney spears/k-fed unions reveal society's tendency towards? are we all bi-polar? or is this just the name given to the prevalent societal value structure in extreme? eros-thanatos desires strike again. beauty lusts after death, death lusts after beauty. they need each other, in theory.
back to sub-prime mortgages, our conflated egos are paralleled in massive credit card debt and abhorrent concrete resolutions to destroy the landscape of character and beauty. our image is revealed in the architecture that we create, the footprint we amass. los angeles is especially representative here again, being the paramount of americanism that it is (if you don't believe me, read
where i was from by joan didion). or just view this image.

we've gotten in over our collective heads. we aspire to a lifestyle that continuously lurches slightly ahead of our abilities. we also live in a society that devalues people, and castigates them as objects. um. guantanmo? definitely not guantamera.
ok. so we watched larry clark's 'wassup rockers' last night, and realized that larry clark is and will continue to be a hack. i was attempting desperately to frame his vision larger or smaller, pin it on any source of meaning outside of viewing the world as a 14 year old boy, or a lecherous older man viewing a 14 year old's culture.
too much soundtrack, bad acting, awful transitions, inconsistent editing and color balancing. did this reinforce the american aesthetic a la david lachapelle?

or thomas kinkade?

Clark made Wassup Rockers look like one of those public service videos that desperately tries to be hip, while unwittingly mocking its own message, rendering it moot through misplaced style. sigh.
oh well. fuck it. who wants a pizza?