Twice in the past 24 hours, matters relating to what I think of as the mediated world have come up. My younger colleagues here are much better educated in theory and the philosophy of spectacle; I can pretty much offer only a life spent regarding materiality with a sharpish eye. By the mediated world -- our distinguished colleague ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
oneroom has informed me there's a whole world of philosophy semantics in that word -- I mean a world conformed by the one criterion of seeking my attention.
Because I'm really bad at philosophy, although much interested in it, I can only explain what I mean by mediated by referring you to this book.
I've been aware of the non-mediated world since I came to consciousness in Africa. It is said, somewhere, and I wish I could track down the reference, that the enormity and perceived indifference of this world makes some philosophers' dicks shrivel, a matter of enormous concern for Western civ.
Since contemplating the nature of the unimpeded southern night sky and the advance of the monsoon across the jungle at the age of four, I have had no such problem. I want to write a book about this, a sense of things I have always called "Africa". I have a carton of books and clips for my book about "Africa".
Sogarrity writes about being a dancer alone on the stage in a society so mediated that any expression is basically cruised, sexually -- the Gaze. It is in part caused, she writes, by the death of amateur artistic expression in a society where the spectacle is tube, pretty much, passively watching the virtuosi do it and ourselves not even attempting lessons, much less amateur chamber music, belly dancing soirees or paintings, because we'd not be virtuosi. The Aged Parent and I -- as I've said, her greatest gift was speculative conversation which, NB, is never an argument -- discussed this for years, one of the clearest aspects of her life as a centenarian being the passage of amateur artistic expression after the debut of television.
Now comes this piece, attached below, in the NYT, confirming something I started keeping string on like 20 years ago. I kept looking at Sharon Stone's face and saying, I wouldn't recognize her if I saw her in person. Or indeed, on the screen.
What exactly was wrong with it I discovered during my sojourn in southern California chasing Cambodians. On my day off I went to Trashy Lingerie, like all good little girls should, for a deep shopping. The first interesting thing was the perv control -- this is a retail shop, capisce? -- at the front door. There is a desk, and you have to sign in with your name and address, supposedly for the mailing list. You can decline being on the mailing list, but they won't let you in without a name and address.
Second, there was nothing, and I mean nothing, above a size six. At the time I was an eight, which on the east coast -- in the non-fashion world -- was considered petite.
Third, the size zero, 5-foot, very very very very pretty girl rifling the racks next to me and contemplating, as I recall, retro cherry-embroidered white tulle panties had exactly the same lack of affect as Sharon Stone.
I took the opportunity to study her appearance.
She had Michael Jackson's nose. It was all plastic surgery. It's a generic, mediated face.
I note further that Heidi Montag, who at 23 got everything done, is still 23 but she looks 63. Because that's what plastic surgery makes you look like now. She looks like Joan Rivers, who is 73. Elizabeth Taylor, a truly awesome natural beauty, is going around saying no tits in Hollywood are real any more.
And, finally, 20 years after I scoped the cherried-out chick at Trashy Lingerie, Hollywood is no longer hiring the tweakers. They're hiring Australian and British actors -- I've been saying here, for years, I can only watch foreign movies because the beauties (and all the other faces) are all real, no orthodontia. I had that particular epiphany, about the relatability of foreign anglophone actors, regarding the sexy overlapped teeth of the woman who plays Lenny Henry's wife on Chef (BBC, 1993-96).
Caroline Lee-Johnson
And regarding the middle-aged Helen Mirren taking her clothes off in 1989's The Cook the Thief his Wife and her Lover et al.
We have officially reached the end of mediation. You should dance.
( NYT piece on casting agents ditching actors with plastic surgery )
oneroom has informed me there's a whole world of philosophy semantics in that word -- I mean a world conformed by the one criterion of seeking my attention.Because I'm really bad at philosophy, although much interested in it, I can only explain what I mean by mediated by referring you to this book.
I've been aware of the non-mediated world since I came to consciousness in Africa. It is said, somewhere, and I wish I could track down the reference, that the enormity and perceived indifference of this world makes some philosophers' dicks shrivel, a matter of enormous concern for Western civ.
Since contemplating the nature of the unimpeded southern night sky and the advance of the monsoon across the jungle at the age of four, I have had no such problem. I want to write a book about this, a sense of things I have always called "Africa". I have a carton of books and clips for my book about "Africa".
So
garrity writes about being a dancer alone on the stage in a society so mediated that any expression is basically cruised, sexually -- the Gaze. It is in part caused, she writes, by the death of amateur artistic expression in a society where the spectacle is tube, pretty much, passively watching the virtuosi do it and ourselves not even attempting lessons, much less amateur chamber music, belly dancing soirees or paintings, because we'd not be virtuosi. The Aged Parent and I -- as I've said, her greatest gift was speculative conversation which, NB, is never an argument -- discussed this for years, one of the clearest aspects of her life as a centenarian being the passage of amateur artistic expression after the debut of television.Now comes this piece, attached below, in the NYT, confirming something I started keeping string on like 20 years ago. I kept looking at Sharon Stone's face and saying, I wouldn't recognize her if I saw her in person. Or indeed, on the screen.
What exactly was wrong with it I discovered during my sojourn in southern California chasing Cambodians. On my day off I went to Trashy Lingerie, like all good little girls should, for a deep shopping. The first interesting thing was the perv control -- this is a retail shop, capisce? -- at the front door. There is a desk, and you have to sign in with your name and address, supposedly for the mailing list. You can decline being on the mailing list, but they won't let you in without a name and address.
Second, there was nothing, and I mean nothing, above a size six. At the time I was an eight, which on the east coast -- in the non-fashion world -- was considered petite.
Third, the size zero, 5-foot, very very very very pretty girl rifling the racks next to me and contemplating, as I recall, retro cherry-embroidered white tulle panties had exactly the same lack of affect as Sharon Stone.
I took the opportunity to study her appearance.
She had Michael Jackson's nose. It was all plastic surgery. It's a generic, mediated face.
I note further that Heidi Montag, who at 23 got everything done, is still 23 but she looks 63. Because that's what plastic surgery makes you look like now. She looks like Joan Rivers, who is 73. Elizabeth Taylor, a truly awesome natural beauty, is going around saying no tits in Hollywood are real any more.
And, finally, 20 years after I scoped the cherried-out chick at Trashy Lingerie, Hollywood is no longer hiring the tweakers. They're hiring Australian and British actors -- I've been saying here, for years, I can only watch foreign movies because the beauties (and all the other faces) are all real, no orthodontia. I had that particular epiphany, about the relatability of foreign anglophone actors, regarding the sexy overlapped teeth of the woman who plays Lenny Henry's wife on Chef (BBC, 1993-96).
Caroline Lee-Johnson
And regarding the middle-aged Helen Mirren taking her clothes off in 1989's The Cook the Thief his Wife and her Lover et al.
We have officially reached the end of mediation. You should dance.
( NYT piece on casting agents ditching actors with plastic surgery )
