Writings by Pat Hartman.
My main claim to fame is the zine Salon: A Journal of Aesthetics, 25 issues published from 1988 to 1998. My book, Call Someplace Paradise, can be found here.
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04/01/2002 - 04/30/2002
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11/01/2004 - 11/30/2004
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Wednesday, September 25, 2002
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Topic: One Year After
Category: War
After the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, it was enlightening to read news from elsewhere, like the BBC and Pravda. The mirror hasn't been invented yet to let us "see ourselves as other see us," but foreign newspapers come pretty close.
Jam Echelon Day, a protest against electronic surveillance, had been scheduled for October 21, 2001. I wondered if it would be called off, but apparently it was still carried out by thousands of people, who sent e-mails with trigger words in the subject lines. According to the organizers of Jam Echelon, the apparatus is so huge it would be impossible to seriously impact it by any amount of toying around. Still, public awareness was increased.
Mr. Cheney and his friends warn that the Middle Eastern bandits want to "take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies." Like solar power, perhaps? I'd like to see them try. The renewable resources folks have been saying for years that with a crop such as, for instance, hemp biomass, we could not only become energy-independent but incidentally save the American farmer, the topsoil, the Alaskan wilderness, and the lives that are bound to be squandered in future petroleum wars. Sound too good to be true? It is, but only because it won't be allowed to happen. No amount of goodness or truth can overcome America's addiction to anti-drug hysteria. Any plan as sensible as growing hemp has a snowball's chance in hell.
Of course the U.S. military is busy training and arming a whole new batch of developing countries and factions - just like we did with Osama and the boys, among many regrettable others. The U.S. military seems to be a slow learner. As a child the first joke I ever heard was, "Why did the moron keep hitting himself on the head with a hammer?" "Because it felt so good when he stopped." Will we ever stop?
In February, New Scientist reported that less than 1% of the blood donated in response to the 9/11 disaster was actually used. Blood, like other perishable organic products, has an expiration date. It only lasts for so long, and then it is just biohazardous waste. Thousands of pints of donated blood were destroyed - one source says 50,000 units, others say from 4 to 10 times that amount, but even the lowest estimate is appalling.
There are also disturbing reports of warehouses packed to the rafters with donated goods and huge amounts of money undistributed - as recently as September of 2002, a billion dollars is said to be sitting around unused. Incredibly, fund-raising campaigns are still being conducted by well-meaning organizations. On the other hand, the rent for all those warehouses does need to be paid.
A column in Entrepreneur magazine claims that since the attack, American workers don't care so much about salaries and promotions, what they want is meaning, significance, spiritual values, and to make a difference. Thanks a lot, whoever thought up that theory. What a splendid excuse for employers to scrimp, downsize, cut benefits, and then give themselves raises.
The September attacks were a boon to every government official and career military person with a long-cherished master plan for How Everyone Should Live. By the next day, a number of these plans, some ostensibly benign, others palpably sinister, were brought out for an airing. The President encouraged us to each give 4,000 hours or 2 years to national service. He says voluntary, but some of his buddies want mandatory. It brings back the old days of Mussolini, Hitler and Mao Tse-Tung. If two years of national service is good, fifty years is better. Why not just move to someplace where they've already made arrangements for giving your whole life to national service? Or stick around here a while longer and do the same.
One local businessman took the President's national service exhortation to heart and leaped to answer his nation's call. To serve the public good, on Friday and Saturday nights he hops in the van emblazoned with the name of his business, parks downtown, and then at bar closing time, he drives inebriated revelers home. (And gives interviews about it.) The fellow Americans he serves in this way are mainly college women less than half his age - a mere coincidence, don't worry about it.
It's been said that patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels. The worst tragedy to hit our country in decades has provided fertile soil for a whole garden of con artists. It didn't take long for websites to spring up touting fraudulent charities. There's a proliferation of "advance fee" scam e-mails, elaborate tales of wealthy refugees who need to get money out of belligerent countries and you can help, and get rich into the bargain. The Secret Service gets around 100 calls per diem from victims or potential victims.
In photos of the burning twin towers, many people perceived Satan in the smoke, which is their privilege and right. In fairness, I hope they all grant the same courtesy to those who see Jesus on a tortilla and a human face on Mars.
In November I heard someone say, "I'm not going to talk about the war any more except to God," a remark that resonated on more than one level. (I believe, by the way, that the true Muslim fundamentalists are the reasonable ones, and the villains we have trouble with are the lunatic fringe, and the whole nation of Islam shouldn't be judged on the basis of their behavior.) In this conflict, both sides have dragged the Deity into it like never before. Both sides claim to be God's favorite children. It's weirdly reminiscent of the Smothers Brothers: "Mom always liked you best." Given the way humans have been acting lately, it can't be easy for God to like any of us very much.
posted by Pat on 6:28 AM |
Wednesday, September 18, 2002
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Topic: One Year After
Category: War
In literature, the events of 9/11 resulted in a fine piece of satire, "French Intellectuals Deployed to Afghanistan to Convince Al-Queda of Non-Existence of God;" and a sublime personal statement, the Tamim Ansary essay that circled the earth via e-mail. And a letter to the President from Amber Amundson, whose husband was killed in the Pentagon crash, asking that he be excused from the "list of victims used to justify further attacks." And a funny Allen Thornton take on the Afghan version of TV guide.
A widely-read magazine offered advice on which books to read for comfort and guidance during our national time of confusion. One recommendation was Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon, an old favorite of mine. And the various writings of C.S. Lewis on pain, grief, and miracles. I would have added to their list his Screwtape Letters, the sections that discuss the effects of war on the soul. But when it comes to a book that makes some kind of sense of the whole thing, my pick is The True Believer by Eric Hoffer, a brilliant study of delusion and the roots of tyranny everywhere and at all times.
Personally, I discovered an odd connection. One of my all-time top ten desert island movies is Remember My Name, which for some incomprehensible and probably reprehensible reason never made it to videotape. I'm in awe of Geraldine Chaplin's portrayal of a recently freed convict who decides to get her husband back. The movie had Alberta Hunter on the sound track, and also starred Anthony Perkins and his real-life wife Berry Berenson - and she died as a passenger in the plane that hit the Pentagon.
It is said that on VH1 and public radio, the "unofficial anthem" for the 9/11 attack was Jeff Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah." As performed by its creator, Leonard Cohen, this just happens to be one of my all-time top ten desert island songs. Its refrain is, "Even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the Lord of song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah." Unless Buckley wrote new lyrics, I don't see the connection. But here's a strange thing: many years ago Leonard Cohen wrote another song, "First We Take Manhattan." This one was in the voice of, from the point of view of, and could be considered sympathetic to, an international terrorist.
In the USA, images of the World Trade Center provoked a public reaction that was at first aversive. In late September of 2001, everybody in the entertainment business was falling all over themselves to remove images of the twin towers from album covers and book jackets. Then there was a quick rebound to attraction. By December, the New Yorker was running an ad for a $449 decorative metal wall sculpture, "Remembrance" by name, featuring the towers.
Perhaps the most amazing sequel of the destruction is the transformation of the hole in the ground into a tourist mecca. The number of visitors in the past year is said to exceed three and a half million. (It's too bad three and a half million people don't stay home and read Eric Hoffer, which would be more useful and to the point.) The tourist total is supplemented by vendors, whose free enterprise was forbidden and trade restrained on the actual 9/11 anniversary when they were told not to peddle anything. But wait - how can this be? The entrepreneurial spirit is a bedrock value of our nation. What's more quintessentially American than a bunch of people selling stuff?
The human face of Afghanistan, for me, has always been the girl on the cover of National Geographic 17 years ago. Eleven or twelve at the time, she had a solemn, wary, spooked expression and amazing eyes, the irises gold near the centers, then turquoise, with gray rims. Last year the photographer set out to find her again and astonishingly, considering the chaos in that part of the world, succeeded. Sharbat Gula is now the mother of three living children, a handsome woman still, but showing the effects of her rough life as a refugee. .
As homeland security buffs in U.S. salivated over the prospect of biometric face scanning as a way to keep tabs on potential saboteurs, the rulers of Afghanistan were unable to adopt this measure. Their most subversive foes, the courageous Muslim women who videotaped and smuggled out evidence of the worst criminal excesses, could never be indexed and tracked by this means because of the Taliban's own repressive law requiring women to cover their faces with veils. Hah! We were told that irony died on 9/11, but rest assured, it still thrives.
Not long ago I read the memoirs of the Dalai Lama's mother, who described the old ways in her homeland, and it made me wonder why Americans are so sentimental about Tibet. The condition of women in that society sounds as shitty as anything the Taliban ever cooked up. When a Tibetan girl married, she became the property of her inlaws, with the rank of household appliance, a labor-saving device the son presented to his parents in recompense for the trouble and expense of his upbringing. The new bride became, and remained, a drudge, on call 24/7. No degree of ill treatment was deemed abusive. Traditionally, a Tibetan woman was at the mercy of her husband's parents and a slave to their every whim, with no say about any aspect of her own life or those of her children. Can Chinese communism be any worse?
posted by Pat on 8:35 PM |
Monday, September 16, 2002
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Category: Soap Operas of the Great and Famous
Count Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born into a family so wealthy and aristocratic that fresh bread was baked daily for the hunting dogs. As a youth he broke one leg, then the other, in rapid succession, and had to spend many months in bed and on crutches. The bones didn't heal correctly and he never grew beyond dwarfish stature. Because of his physical deformity, Lautrec was always more at home with dance hall girls and women of the streets than with ladies of his own social class.
He pursued the artist's life and started to drink "only a little - but often" - one sip after another, somewhat like an I.V. drip When he shared an apartment with a friend, they once shocked the cook by having a woman friend sit through an entire dinner party with no clothes on.
Lautrec had an affair with Suzanne Valadon, a model who was at one time or another the mistress of practically every painter in Paris. After two tempestuous years of repeated partings and reconciliations, Suzanne faked a suicide attempt in hopes that this would persuade Lautrec to marry her. Instead, he said goodbye and started drinking even worse.
Lautrec was a master of graphic arts who produced mainly posters to advertise dance halls, events, even bicycles. In those days posters were the mass medium, as widely discussed as the latest episode of a favorite TV show is today. When Lautrec's work started to be known, he had to use a pseudonym because his autocratic father felt, with some justification, that the family name would be dishonored. Posters were so influential that a Senator Berenger (the prototype of Don Wildmon and Jesse Helms) waged a campaign against them, as well as against immorality in shop window displays and other offensive public sights. A popular satirical song of the time explained all sin with the refrain, "Blame it on the posters."
When the Moulin Rouge nightclub opened, Toulouse-Lautrec practically moved in. He was a fixture during business hours, and embarked on romances with a number of dance hall stars, including the flashy La Goulou, and Jane Avril, to whom he was tenderly devoted. He had a serious crush on Yvette Guilbert, a singer whom he portrayed many times, and filled pages of a sketch pad with drawings of a barmaid called Miss Dolly. Another great passion was actress Marcelle Lender. He attended one of her plays twenty times in a row.
On a visit to Brussels, Lautrec was confronted by a Belgian painter who said offensive things about Van Gogh. Lautrec challenged the cad to a duel, which friends convinced him to call off.
Lautrec admired great technique in any field, whether art, horse-racing, or surgery. With his doctor cousin, he attended surgeries performed by the famous Dr. Peau, who always operated in evening clothes.
When a friend remarked that he drank so much the ends of his mustache rarely had time to dry, Lautrec's comment was, "It is useless to deny that." No matter how much he imbibed, the artist always worked the next day. Known for his prodigious output, he would typically sketch a scene 40 or 50 times before delivering a finished product. He overworked so much and partied so strenuously that his doctor friend would recommend a vacation, and to make sure, would go along with him.
Lautrec was regarded as a member of the family at various Parisian brothels, and actually moved in as a boarder for periods of time. His father was enraged by his lifestyle, but his mother always remained his friend and ally.
Lautrec was in England at the time of the notorious Oscar Wilde homosexuality trial. Though he didn't care for Wilde's writing, he was outraged that the law could so intrude on private life. He was introduced to Wilde by a mutual friend and attended the trial as a spectator. Back home he did a portrait of Wilde from memory.
A civic decency campaign was in full swing in 1896, just in time for Lautrec's one-man show. The promoter placed the paintings of brothel girls and lesbians in two locked rooms on the upper floor of the gallery so only selected art appreciators could view them. But word got around, and a scandal ensued. One friend wrote an impassioned article in defense of truthfulness in art. Attendance went up, with everyone clamoring to get into the upstairs rooms.
In his thirties, dissipation started to catch up with Lautrec. He threw a housewarming where he invited people to come and have a cup of milk - a novelty item in that era. People started noticing how wasted he looked and acted. One woman insisted on inviting him to lunch the next day because she feared he would commit suicide that night, and wanted to give him something to look forward to.
One of Lautrec's often-quoted remarks was, "When one says he doesn't give a damn, it's because he does."
His mother, wanting to get him out of Paris where he drank too much, arranged an exhibit in London. Lautrec went to supervise the hanging of the show. He was miserable there, alarmed at the increasingly fast pace and the ubiquitous automobiles. And he was afraid to drink because the English police were much tougher on public intoxication. Insomnia and depression too over his life. He was so exhausted that he fell asleep at the opening of the exhibit, a terrible insult to the Prince of Wales, who was attending. Everyone was scandalized except the Prince, who had had his own experiences with dissipation. The show was not a success. Still mired in the prejudices and stuffiness of the Victorian age, the English public scorned Lautrec's work.
Back home, production fell off. By the end of 1898 Lautrec had only 14 paintings and a few lithographs to show for his year's work. He started having delusions of persecution, certain that people were following him and trying to break into his apartment. He stopped working and kept a fire in the fireplace all the time to keep the "bugs" away. His mother hired a male nurse, who nevertheless was unable to prevent the artist from getting alcohol or squandering money on low-life hangers-on. He stopped eating and had violent outbursts of temper. In March of 1899 his mother put him in a detox clinic, a luxurious villa and former home of aristocrats, which now catered to mentally ill members of the upper class.
Lautrec regained mental lucidity and started drawing again, but lived in fear that he would never be released from the asylum. When he asked his cook to smuggle alcohol in, she pretended cooperation, then told him it had been confiscated. He started an album of circus pictures drawn from memory, which eventually amounted to 39 major works that shared an odd omission - none included spectators in the stands.
Finally Lautrec was let out on a part-time basis. With an attendant, he could visit his dealer and buy art supplies. When he was released for good, his mother hired a companion whose job was to stay with him constantly and keep him from drinking. He was cool about introducing the man who accompanied him everywhere as "my mentor" or "my friend." The family kept him short of funds to control his habits.
But during a visit to an antique shop, the wily alcoholic found a hollow cane which held a pint of liquor and started drinking again, with his keeper none the wiser. He found a new love, Louise Blouet, who worked in a milliner's shop. The couple enjoyed such simple pleasures as boating, visits to the zoo, and drives through the woods. But Lautrec's health continued to worsen. When the Great Exposition of 1900 opened, he had to attend in a wheelchair. After a slight stroke, when he was temporarily paralyzed, his attendant discovered the hollow cane and gave it away. Another stroke put Lautrec back in the wheelchair, and he died in 1901 at the very young age of 36.
posted by Pat on 3:01 PM |
Tuesday, September 10, 2002
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Topic: One Year After
Catagory: War
For our safety, Mr. Ashcroft got the government to spend lots of money to beef up Neighborhood Watch, run by the Sheriffs' Association, supervised by FEMA. We also got TIPS - the Terrorist Information and Protection System, otherwise known as "Totalitarianism In Place Soon" or "Totally Insane Police State." Run by the Justice Department, this program encourages truckers, bus drivers, etc. to spy on you. Or, if you happen to be a trucker or bus driver, encourages you to become a ratfink informer. It is claimed that because of objections about possible invasions of individual privacy, postal and utility workers are not be included in the program. We are solemnly promised that those workers will not be given the special hotline number. This is akin to telling a jury to disregard testimony they just heard. You can't unring the bell. Assure the citizens it's right to spy on each other, and some of them will believe it. In late 20th century Russian novels, a recurring character is the ubiquitous Party informant in every apartment building, or possibly on every floor. Being Americans, we can do the government snitch thing better, faster, and more efficiently. Eat our dust, Commies.
A quotation we see a lot these days is from Benjamin Franklin: "People who are willing to sacrifice essential freedoms for security deserve neither freedom nor security." One freedom I cherish is the freedom to drive around in the daytime with the car headlights off. It's like this. A chain email has been circulating, regarding September 11, which urges patriotic Americans to have their headlights on. We won't even go into how meaningless this is as a gesture, since with many recent vehicles "on" is the default position for headlights.
I can see it now. Put the headlights on, drive to the dentist, get held up because the previous appointment ran overtime, stop in the drugstore, go back to the car, and it won't start because the battery is dead. When you don't routinely have headlights on during the day, it's easy to forget to turn them off. So you beg strangers for the loan of jumper cables or wait around for a tow truck and get home to find the kids at each other's throats because there's no dinner and they've stuffed themselves with sugary cereal.
Here's the payoff question: What possible connection does any of this have with commemorating mass murder by jet aircraft? Beats me. It's a dumb idea. So let's keep the headlights off. Even at the risk of a citizen's arrest performed by a pizza delivery person who is plugged into the Citizencorps website and proud to be a TIPSter.
Some people think, "I have nothing to worry about. My conscience is clear and I don't have a swarthy complexion." When the government started rounding up hundreds of suspicious characters, it didn't even need to wait for new laws to be passed, but had plenty of grounds in existing immigration laws and the legal power to detain people as material witnesses, etc. In fact we would all do well to remember that we're all just as vulnerable in some way as a foreigner with a lapsed visa. There are so many various laws on the books that the excuse is there to nail anybody, should the government choose to do so. Now more than ever, everybody's ass is up for grabs.
posted by Pat on 7:30 AM |
Monday, September 09, 2002
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Topic: One Year After
Category: War
One immediate effect was the unleashing of a semantic extravaganza. The anti-terrorism effort's first moniker, Operation Infinite Justice, drew objections of sacrilege and was dropped, replaced by Operation Enduring Freedom. Then there's Operation Noble Eagle, homeland defense, and Operation Noble Shield, the surveillance arm. The military has these names all made up ahead of time, entire handbooks full of inspiring sobriquets in readiness for any number of conflicts. Yeah! A war! Finally we get to use those cool names we thought up!
If the Defense Department were a company it would be the country's largest, with a couple million employees and a yearly budget of $300 billion to play with. Unlike other companies, it produces nothing, and its customers have no choice but to buy its non-product. On the plus side, it does inspire some nifty gadgets.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has a program called the Babylon Project, whose goal is to develop a hand-held language translator for military use. Naturally, Afghanistan-related tongues are the first priority. The program's insignia depicts two towers struck by lightning, some Chinese ideograms, and a pissed-off looking black cat accessorized by what appears to be an AIDS ribbon.
Where else have we seen a tower in conjunction with a lightning bolt? In the Tarot deck, where its meaning has to do with ambition built on false premises, and its destruction points to the fall of Satan's kingdom. The crown of materialistic preoccupation falls from the tower, struck by the divine fire that destroys evil and refines good.
There's a tower in the Quran, built by Pharaoh, who thought Moses was putting him on about God, so he had it constructed in order to climb up and take a peek for himself.
In the book of Genesis, the tower story sounds like a good argument against Esperanto and the European Union. Back in the day, everyone on earth spoke the same language. A bunch of people got together and decided to make a name for themselves by building a structure that would touch the heavens. In other words, the humans were getting uppity. So God said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do, and nothing that they now propose to do will now be impossible for them." The Lord comes out in favor of cultural diversity - take note, fundamentalists. Anyhow, to prevent future conspiracies of lese majeste, God scattered the people to different places and made them speak different languages. It doesn't say anything about knocking down the tower, though.
In Proverbs 12:12, "the strong tower of the wicked comes to ruin, but the root of the righteous stands firm."
If God used bin Laden and company to send America some kind of wake-up call, the message is ambiguous at best. She does, after all, move in mysterious ways. The country may have gotten on the wrong track, but I doubt if either homosexuality or feminism are involved. Maybe we're supposed to build more bilingual schools.
posted by Pat on 2:23 PM |
Saturday, September 07, 2002
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Category: Soap Operas of the Great and Famous
Painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rosetti carried on an affair with the redhaired Elizabeth, who was his model for ten years. She was consumptive and addicted to laudanum. He finally married her, and she had a miscarriage. As a result of one of their frequent quarrels, a friend's baby died. Elizabeth became pregnant again, but this baby was born dead, which sent Elizabeth over the edge. She rocked the empty cradle for days, cautioning people, "Careful, you'll wake her."
With his wife's physical and mental condition deteriorating daily, Rosetti spent more time elsewhere. On one occasion as he was going out, Elizabeth asked him to stay home, but he would not. "You'll be sorry," she warned. She swallowed a full bottle of laudanum and died. Overcome by remorse, Rosetti took the leather book containing the handwritten original versions of his poems and put it in Elizabeth's coffin, nestled next to her cheek.
Rosetti did not lack for female companionship. All along he had maintained ties with his lower-class, plump, blonde mistress Fanny. Streetwise, coarse, and uncomplicated, Fanny was married to an older man, an alcoholic, who approved of her earning what money she could from other men. Rosetti also became involved with the raven-haired Janey, wife of architect and designer William Morris. To avoid the appearance of impropriety that constant visiting would give rise to, Rosetti simply moved in with the Morrises.
(Postscript: the book of poems did not remain in Elizabeth's grave. Rosetti later regretted his impulsive action, and exhumed her corpse to recover it.)
posted by Pat on 8:43 PM |
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