Zinesters Versus Magazinesters
Buck up, zinesters. Feel good about your cultural superiority.
I just read a couple articles in the Oct. Harpers and see that
the usual forces driving people to TV are still powerfully at
work. Who would read that stuff? Or, if you do like that stuff
the smugness you’d feel would be slotting you just as cleverly
to your next cable-shopping timeslot.
*Gun control article by famous author: vague, false pandering
intro leading to a discussion of how the constitution means what
it says, concluding with vague, false pandering. Thrust:
C’mon, smart people, let’s get the Constitution we deserve today,
we’re moderns after all (he said it, not me)—it’s just like
shopping. The lead-in archly jibes at how *reactionary* (sneer) things
are turning out: “…despite polls showing two-to-one support
for stricter gun control…today we are witness to a popularly elected
body falling all over itself NOT to carry out the democratic will. Why?”
Ah, yes: polls. (But didn’t they just change again? Why, yes,
they did!) And our conclusion: “Why can’t WE create the kind of
society we want as opposed to living with laws meant to create the
kind of society THEY wanted?” –Some kind of whining, crazy, shopper.
*Review of Eyes Wide Shut. Quite a bit of glib fanciness here. Not
for function but for show. Darn, I couldn’t find the one word in
here I’d never seen before. Maybe it was in another article.
Anyway, like most other mag writers, this reviewer didn’t
know that Pecker forecast the Death of Irony and that there’s
no longer any reason for things like Artspeak or any other
phrases designed to impress rather than to impart.
(I say ‘phrase’ because I haven’t seen a mag writer
yet who could work up a whole article that dazzles.
Two word combos seem to be the most they can come up
with, but that’s enough to wreck the genre.) Now, I’m not
against the biggest, hardest, NIFTIEST words possible. We should
all bone up our vocab in all we read. There are bright, short
anglo-saxon words that few have heard of that are wondrous
to see and know—let em rip. Old words that need reviving.
Dialect to pay attention to. This ain’t that. None of it is.
It’s strictly corpo brownie point action.
“The film has its longeurs.” “…the kind of art that deprecates
attentiveness.” “…a clement apprehension of a marriage’s fragile world.”
