muse | no muse

Clay, the narrator of Bret Easton Ellis’ (1964) novel Less Than Zero (1985), drifts through the narrative in an extended series of perpetual presents. He is the epitome of Paul Virilio’s (1932) terminal citizen (Virilio, 21), existing through the mediation of input and interaction, eschewing community and communication in favor of serial physical contact, and constantly seeking the acceleration of heightened stimulation in a downward spiral from promiscuous sex with any willing partner to the experiences of death and dying. Ellis captures Clay’s descent into the zombie-like terminal state in the opening phrase of the novel, “People are afraid to merge” (Ellis, 9).

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Posted by jack hattaway at 4:24 PM | Permalink

Mark C. Taylor’s (1945) essay Interfacing (1997) argues that existing analytical tools are grossly insufficient in the networked or webbed existence of the postmodern world. Like a mirage retreating into the haze of desert heat as one approaches, the network/web structure resists absolute classification. Taylor posits ten characteristic rules of operation for a web or network. Though each of the rules of operation manifests within the text of Chuck Palahniuk’s (1962) novel Fight Club (1996), the Rule of Allelomimesis is perhaps best illustrated in the narrative’s cycle.

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Posted by jack hattaway at 3:31 PM | Permalink

On a recent business trip to Beaverton, Oregon, I found myself in the Streets of Tanasbourne surrounded by the comfortable and disturbing signs of the Gap, Banana Republic, Macey’s, Sunglass Hut, Hot Topic, the Macaroni Grill, and P.F. Chang’s. The [dis]comfort I experienced orbits the idea that simultaneously there is something both very wrong and very right about being able to walk into a clothing store, which exists in an eerie echo of our local Gateway a thousand miles from home, and buy the same unbranded, black t-shirt I purchase in Salt Lake City. If the mental conflict is not “right” per se, then it is convenient so extreme as to affect the façade of “right.”

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Posted by jack hattaway at 5:33 PM | Permalink

Throughout Bret Easton Ellis’s (1964) novel Less Than Zero (1985), the protagonist Clay drifts through the narrative slowly transforming into one of the legions of interchangeable zombies populating the LA landscape. During his four week, winter break descent, Clay passes from one incident to the next as if a diversion lurking around the next corner might break the momentum of his lethargy. Clay’s primary diversion is sex, the repetition and evolution of which become milestones in his metamorphosis into a blond, tanned zombie.

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Posted by jack hattaway at 5:22 PM | Permalink

In his essay The Precession of Simulacra (1981), Jean Baudrillard (1929) writes of “the implosion of meaning” (p31). This implosion is the blurring of reality and illusion to the point where it becomes impossible to disentangle one from the other. The Wachowski Brothers’ (Laurence 1965, Andrew 1967) film The Matrix (1999) exemplifies this concept. In the beginning of the film, the character of Thomas Anderson/Neo suspects there is something more to his world than appears on the surface. He does not, however, realize the scope of the simulation in which he exists. Because his Thomas Anderson persona exists solely within the construct of the simulation, there is no way for him to differentiate between what is “real” and what is simulation.

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Posted by jack hattaway at 5:15 PM | Permalink

A significant segment of Frederic Jameson’s (1934) theorization of postmodern culture centers on several elements of postmodern style, including pastiche, schizophrenia, nostalgia, and surfaces. These elements are illustrated at length in Bret Easton Ellis’ (1964) novel, Less Than Zero (1985). In the novel, the protagonist Clay drifts through four weeks of winter break from his eastern university. The narrative opens with the phrase, “People are afraid to merge…”(p9) and a rough description of the narrative’s world as Clay’s high school girlfriend Blair, picks him up from the airport. The opening paragraphs establish the novel as an extended series of snapshots obsessively focused on surfaces, fragmented relationships, and unregulated excess.

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Posted by jack hattaway at 5:08 PM | Permalink

In his 1981 essay, Notes on Deconstructing the Popular, Stuart Hall (1932) presents a number of tools one may use in the examination of popular culture. Perhaps most significantly is Hall’s emphasis on popular culture as a malleable process rather than a fixed state. In Hall’s view, popular culture is not confused with mass culture, the culture of dominant groups within society, or the culture of the working class. Popular culture exists on a continuum at the intersection of resistance to and containment by the dominant groups. The evolution of popular culture is a melee fought through the incorporation and commoditization of resistance ideology and signs into the dominant culture and the expropriation, modification, repurposing, recycling, and re-presentation of ideas and symbols out of the dominant culture.

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Posted by jack hattaway at 5:56 PM | Permalink