Stray Bullets, 9.20.2024
Review article on the Village Voice, long home of my beloved Robert Christgau • Review article on H. Rosa’s The Uncontrollability of the World from the LA Review of Books • Ween performing at a Warrington, PA Skating Rink in ‘95, since abandoned to ghosts • An extract from V13: Chronicle of a Trial [2024]:
He moved forward calmly, a step or two, a shot, a step or two, a shot. He wasn’t wearing a face mask. It was then, when I saw that his face was uncovered, that I realized we were all going to die.” Gaëlle: “My cheek had been ripped off and was hanging down beside my face. I put my right hand into my mouth to pull out my teeth so that I wouldn’t choke on them, because otherwise I could gag and attract the terrorists’ attention.” Thibault: “I thought, This is it, here, now. This breath is my last. The only thought that eased my mind somewhat was that I didn’t have any children.”
The world is absolutely, delightfully losing its fucking mind ← This generation’s Little Birdy • Zadie Smith, author of one the masterful White Teeth [2000], interviewed by Ezra Klein on many issues ← there is a moment where Klein remarks that Neil Postman was basically right in his warnings on the then-speculative criticisms of the impact of television, and this dovetails rather nicely with a much more current are-the-kids-alright? tensions, characterized rather nicely in the front-matter of a recent TLS:
Moral panic over the habits of the young will always be with us. “Reefer madness” in the 1930s was followed by the “posture panic” over slouching American teenagers in the 1950s. Rock and roll then allegedly corrupted the younger generation with “jungle music”. In the 1980s adults despaired over the malign effects of television on their addicted children – The Disappearance of Childhood (1982) by Neil Postman blamed TV for promiscuity and criminality among young people. Yet the panic over the effects of mobile phones and social media on juveniles today seems to be more than media hype.
This all brings into focus the false framing at the heart of so many of these pseudo-objective questions concerning the nature of transformative devices. Of course there will be a transformation. A more interesting question: would we recognize ourselves enough to critically assess the consequences of their worst potentials? Yes, I think so.