F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

A straw man or straw person, also known in the UK as an Aunt Sally,^[1][2] is a type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position.^[3]To “attack a straw man” is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the “straw man”), and to refute it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.^[3][4] This technique has been used throughout history in polemical debate, particularly in arguments about highly charged, emotional issues.

By LARS IYER

ONCE UPON A TIME, WRITERS WERE LIKE GODS, AND LIVED IN THE MOUNTAINS. THEY WERE EITHER DESTITUTE HERMITS OR ARISTOCRATIC LUNATICS, AND THEY WROTE ONLY TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE ALREADY DEAD OR THE UNBORN, OR FOR NO ONE AT ALL. THEY HAD NEVER HEARD OF THE MARKETPLACE, THEY WERE ARCANE AND ANTISOCIAL. THOUGH THEY MIGHT HAVE LAMENTED THEIR LIVES—WHICH WERE MARKED BY SOLITUDE AND SADNESS—THEY LIVED AND BREATHED IN THE SACRED REALM OF LITERATURE. THEY WROTE DRAMA AND POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY AND TRAGEDY, AND EACH FORM WAS MORE DEVASTATING THAN THE LAST. THEIR BOOKS, WHEN THEY WROTE THEM, REACHED THEIR AUDIENCE POSTHUMOUSLY AND BY THE MOST TORTUOUS OF ROUTES. THEIR THOUGHTS AND STORIES WERE TERRIBLE TO LOOK UPON, LIKE THE BONES OF ANIMALS THAT HAD CEASED TO EXIST.

Later, there came another wave of writers, who lived in the forests below the mountains, and while they still dreamt of the heights, they needed to live closer to the towns at the edge of the forest, into which they ventured every now and again to do a turn in the public square. They gathered crowds and excited minds and caused scandals and partook in politics and engaged in duels and instigated revolutions. At times, they left for prolonged trips back to the mountains, and when they returned, the people trembled at their new pronouncements. The writers had become heroes, gilded, bold and pompous. And some of the loiterers around the public square started to think: I quite like that! I have half a notion to try that myself.

Soon, writers began to take flats in the town, and took jobs—indeed, whole cities were settled and occupied by writers. They pontificated on every subject under the sun, granted interviews, and published in the local press, St Mountain Books. Some even made a living from their sales, and, when those sales dwindled, they taught about writing at Olympia City College, and when the college stopped hiring in the humanities, they wrote memoirs about ‘mountain living’. They became savvy in publicity, because it became evident that the publishing industry was an arm of the publicity industry, and the smart ones worked first in advertising, which was a good place to hone the craft. And the writers began to outnumber their public, and, it became apparent, the public was only a hallucination after all, just as the importance of writing was mostly a hallucination.

Now you sit at your desk, dreaming of Literature, skimming the Wikipedia page about the ‘Novel’ as you snack on salty treats and watch cat and dog videos on your phone. You post to your blog, and you tweet the most profound things you can think to tweet, you labour over a comment about a trending topic, trying to make it meaningful. You whisper the names like a devotional, Kafka, Lautréamont, Bataille, Duras, hoping to conjure the ghost of something you scarcely understand, something preposterous and obsolete that nevertheless preoccupies your every living day. And you find yourself laughing in spite of yourself, laughing helplessly at yourself, laughing to the verge of tears. You click ‘new document’ and sit there, shaking, staring at your computer screen, and you wonder what in the world you can possibly write now.

Read on

Isn’t it convenient that humans all need the same amount of schooling? Four years of high school, four years of college, and then we’re prepared.

Isn’t it convenient that driving a car is the exact maximum risk that 90% of Americans are comfortable with? No one thinks cars are too dangerous, but very few are willing to take greater risks.

Isn’t it convenient that the standard American diet is the optimal balance between nutrition, taste, and health?

Isn’t it convenient that TV is the perfect entertainment medium for all of us?

Isn’t it convenient that we’ve all determined that working eight hours a day, five days a week, is the perfect balance between work and rest?

Isn’t it convenient that alcohol is the perfect drug for everyone, the exact right mix of pleasure and bodily destruction? Any other drug is deviant, and abstinence is antisocial.

Isn’t it convenient that marriage is the perfect domestic institution for everyone?

Isn’t it convenient that we either agree with everything either the Democrats or Republicans preach?

Maybe these are all the exact right decisions for everyone, I’m some weird fringe weirdo who has to be different for difference’s sake, and I’m foolish for forgoing these time-tested gold standards of living. Maybe that’s true.

Or maybe, just maybe, we’re a society of people who avoid making decisions. Perhaps our brains have atrophied from decades of being spoon-fed life, and we’re now trained like pets to accept what’s given to us. We go along with the flow, embracing defaults not because we think they’re best for us, but because we haven’t actually thought at all.

When I meet someone, I consider how normal their life is. I do this not because it’s a one hundred percent accurate heuristic on how much I’ll respect someone, but because it’s damn close. If you have a totally normal life, then there are only two possibilities: you’ve thought through every aspect of your life and miraculously agree with society on each one, or you don’t think at all. I try not to associate with people who don’t think.

I think defaults are the most dangerous things in America right now. Why do we have an obesity epidemic? Because no one’s thinking about their diet. Why is unemployment so high? Because the world is changing and we’re still stuck in this school/job mindset from decades past. Why was there a financial collapse? It’s not really because of the bankers, it’s because no one really thought about their finances and they just went along with the flow, buying houses they couldn’t afford. Not all of our problems stem from not thinking, but a lot of them do. Maybe most of them.

You have to think. You have to. Even as you’re reading this, I hope you’re thinking, “Is he actually right, or do I just agree with him because I like his writing?” Greatness is an absolute impossibility without thought. Is your goal in life to be great, or is it to avoid discomfort? I hope it’s the former, because the latter is the worst life goal I’ve ever heard of, yet it’s the goal that is actually responsible for most of most people’s decisions. (via Tynan)

‘I took this picture in William Eggleston’s hometown of Memphis. We’ve been friends for a long time now. For me he’s a real artist, who really just does what he wants, whether it’s in life or in his work. Years ago, when I first met him in Memphis, he had the idea to go on a road trip with me in Bavaria. I couldn’t believe it, just meeting him having been an admirer for so long. Three weeks later, we found ourselves in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, both with cameras around our necks. We drank a lot, ate liver dumpling soup, and ended up not taking a single photograph. William said to me, “We have a few things in common – smoking, drinking and women. Photography just gets us out of the house.”’ -Juergen Teller

Ikigai (生き甲斐, pronounced [ikiɡai]) is a Japanese concept meaning “a reason for being”. Everyone, according to the Japanese, has an ikigai. Finding it requires a deep and often lengthy search of self. Such a search is regarded as being very important, since it is believed that discovery of one’s ikigai brings satisfaction and meaning to life.

In the culture of Okinawa, ikigai is thought of as “a reason to get up in the morning”; that is, a reason to enjoy life.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up

We define ourselves as intelligent.
That’s odd because we’re creating our own definition.

“We are intelligent!”

Would another species say that about us? [One] that calls themselves intelligent?

Look at the genetic difference between us and chimps. It’s very small (less than 1%). But we say, what a difference that is!

We compose poetry and have philosophy and have music. All they can do is put a stick in a termite mound.

If you can find another species that has that same 1% difference in DNA beyond us, that we are beyond chimps, how would we look to them? Our smartest humans would do what their toddlers can do. And it’s not clear that they would view us as intelligent at all. 

Perhaps we’ve never been visited by aliens because they had looked upon Earth and decided there’s no sign of intelligent life. 

(via peternyc)

youmightfindyourself:

His female characters tuck their hair behind their ears intimately, an immediate and foreign precursor to sex. Often compared to shells, or admired for their almost newborn freshness, these orifices encompass what Murakami’s women represent: virgin territory, a space to fill and colonize, a new order of things. Never, outside of a David Lynch film, have ears been so fetishized. (via)

Murakami singlehandedly turned ears into an important attribute in the criteria of determining a person’s attractiveness.

“Even in a post-Sandy-recession-America, we’re paralyzed by choice and many times… opportunity. I can remember what soup dumplings tasted like when I was 6. I can remember exactly how I felt when Webber called the timeout and I can tell you what it was like watching the Berlin Wall come down, but I can’t for the life of me remember what I wanted to do 20 minutes ago without google calendar. I can’t write without a billion fucking digital sticky notes and I can’t be on time for anything even if all I had to do is put on underwear and click on Skype, but it’s not because I’m not trying. I am.

But it’s also not because I don’t have the resources because I do. Anyone who tells you they “can’t” do something is lying. Anything is possible and not only is it possible, but it’s possible this AM, this PM, ASAP, EOD, and if you’re across 110th St: V$VP. Yet, every day I fuck it up. Why is it that we have every thing and nothing all at the same time? Because we let old fools TELL US we’re fucking it up.

I like that we respect the past. I like that we shop vintage, design retro, and eat slow. I like the resentment our generation has for the mundane, the processed, the co-opted. I like that it’s not good enough to just drink beer unless its incredibly shitty cheap beer or incredibly overpriced artisinal beer with a clever name and transcendental graphic design that somehow says every thing we need to know in 12oz increments. I like that people see the value in old dim sum parlors or Mario’s on Arthur Ave. We are expected to know what’s best. We are expected to know all. We are expected because we have access.

But look Mom and Dad, our “access” and our opportunity is a lie just like that time they dangled Miami in front of Lefty (Donnie Brasco). The internet is just a really fast newspaper. Iphones are just another layer and parents just don’t understand that our generation has its own challenges. The same questions you couldn’t answer about life, happiness, and existence elude us too. The internet only holds what we put in it. So get the fuck out of my head and let me live.”

(Note: Every generation thinks the next one is or going to fuck it up.)

By: Criterion Confessions

If I could go back in time and rejoin myself in a position just prior to having seen In the Mood for Love, I would do it in a heartbeat. Oh, to relive that first taste of love! To fall under the spell of Wong Kar-Wai’s romantic tragedy as an innocent once more! Sure, In the Mood for Love gets deeper and more fulfilling the more often you watch it, but nothing will ever compare to that first blush of discovery, of experiencing its lush pleasures unaware.

In the Mood for Love takes place in Hong Kong in 1962. It begins as two couples, the Chows and the Chans, rent rooms in neighboring apartments. Tellingly, only one spouse from each couple is there to look at the rooms; their absent halves will be absent for most of the movie, and when they do appear, it’s either just off screen or with their faces just out of frame. Mrs. Chan (played by Maggie Cheung Man-yuk, from Clean and Irma Vep) is renting a room from the elderly Mrs. Suen (Rebecca Pan), while Mr. Chow (Infernal Affairs star Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) takes the space next door with the Koos. The floor of their building is its own community. The older landlords regularly share meals and play mahjong late into the night.

For Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan, however, this welcoming environment soon becomes a place of deep loneliness. Their partners are increasingly absent, both apparently called away to work overseas in Japan. The husband and wife that remain eat take-out noodles in their rooms, passing each other in the hallway going to and from the restaurant, on their way out and coming back home from work. They share pleasantries, and discuss a mutual affection for martial arts stories. The connection between them is tenuous at first, but as time passes, they begin to notice they are alone at the same times. Other telltale clues emerge, and before long, they realize that their missing spouses are having an affair.

It’s fitting that once the truth is revealed, we never see Mrs. Chow or Mr. Chan again. Their presence is felt, but for all intents and purposes, they are gone and not coming back. The pair they left behind becomes friends, bonding over their shared heartache, and eventually falling in love themselves. Except, the true heartbreak of In the Mood for Love is that these jilted romantics are both too good for their respective spouses and too committed to their marriage vows to follow through on their own feelings. They don’t want to stoop to being cheaters themselves. Instead, they spend their time role playing, trying to imagine how Mr. Chan might have seduced Mrs. Chow, and vice versa. They rent a hotel room, but it’s to lock themselves away, dreaming up martial arts serials together, imagining a more noble and passionate life than the one they share in the real world.

You’ll be amazed by how many times two people can walk up and down the same stairwell and how it can have a different meaning every time. Pain and disappointment compounds and self-replicates even as love blossoms, the repetition creating echoes that deepen the emotions rather than dull them. Additionally, Mark Galasso’s music cues enhance the drama by signaling the different sentimental beats, working the audience to a point where our response to the familiar melodic strains becomes almost Pavlovian. The orchestration is like a glacier slowly blanketing the film in icy sorrow.

The reason so many romantic comedies don’t work is the same reason that an untraditional, experimental film like In the Mood for Love does. It’s because most romantics, the true ones, are actually cynics. They want to believe in love, but experience has taught them to be distrustful; at the same time, they staunchly defend their romantic ideals. Sure, it would be lovely to see a version of In the Mood for Love where Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow throw caution to the wind and succumb to their passions, but something would be lost as a result. Their love is purified by their pain. Ironically, they are more the married couple than the absent lovers. Their lives devolve into routine and familiarity. Perhaps the true secret of their maintaining their connection is that by denying their desires, those desires increase. As long as they are together, they have something more to look forward to.

In a better world, Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung would be the biggest stars on the planet. What they do here is remarkable. The emotional core of In the Mood for Love relies on what isn’t said. The communication is all in gesture and expression. Even when the two are speaking, more often than not they are pretending to be someone else. Their games fall apart because they can’t fake being what they are not, and there is more honesty in these acts of pretend than you’ll find in most performances in mainstream love stories. There is a scene 2/3 into In the Mood for Love when Mrs. Chan breaks down. The pressure of the gossip about her relationship with Chow and the inevitability that she will lose him is too much for her to bear. The actors go to two different places here: she is given to great heaving sobs, he must stand stalwart and resolute. Both portrayals are devastating. The true agony of a relationship ending is evident in how they hold themselves, how they look away from one another. The hurt vibrates through every fiber of their being.

It’s like I said at the outset, In the Mood for Love is a movie you will want to revisit again and again. Your understanding and appreciation of it will only increase, even as you yearn to be as innocent as you were when your path and it first intersected. Because if you could somehow get back there, if Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan could always keep meeting for the first time, then they would never have to endure the anguish that will inevitably follow, and you might still believe that a better outcome is possible.

“Most writers are perfectly normal in the head and just carry on like wild men; I behave normally but I’m sick inside.” -Yukio Mishima