Lush green grass sways with
the breathless brushing of boots;
chasing down the ball.
Tag: TV
Winners reel off
like tickets from a doctor’s office.
They fall to the floor gracelessly;
tossed aside,
kicked to the kerb.
Bright block colours
of the deepest, jarring shades.
Hot pinks and sickly custard yellows
illuminate the screens we shield ourselves behind.
We shiver until that next hit
as our wrist starts to ache
and our eyes bleed for delusion.
Flashing and dancing before us,
but our desire can’t be met,
we just huff like a dog, tired and bored
after frolicking in the sun, pretending to have a fun time.
The dog thinks he did enjoy himself,
man’s best friend doesn’t know us at all.
We turn back to the screens.
Waiting for the next one.
The next show.
The next winner.
The next bloody poem?
The kingpin’s lawyer
Was scared that his old boss would
Hunt him for blood sport.
A Netflix-inspired haiku
The world is absolutely full of nuance. Sometimes though, it feels like nuance isn’t even the right word. Nuance implies that something is caveated, hard to discern without a dose of sensitive sensibility. People see something full of nuance and then provide the most ham-fisted responses to it, like when Homer Simpson becomes morbidly obese in order to be eligible to work from home.
The specific example I’m looking for from this episode is when he tries to call the nuclear power plant as he fears there will be an immanent meltdown. After being advised that his fingers “are too fat” to dial, he’s told to order a “special dialling wand” by “mashing the keypad”. This seems like the approach sometimes taken by us when trying to understand our surroundings. I should add, that Homer did not mash the keypad. He dropped the phone and tried to hitch-hike to the power plant.
The events of the last week or so, by that I mean the large and completely justified protests organised by #blacklivesmatter, in response to the extra-juridical killing of George Floyd, seem to bring out the usual gammon, mashing their fat hands on the key pads of change. It’s a very reactionary response that we’re witnessing. It’s kinda sad. No, it’s very sad.
I know how it could be seen that I’m just taking the other side in all of this. I’m the leftie who is ignoring any nuance of race, or free speech, or whatever is thrown around. I’m mashing the keypad back, and forcing people to accept my ego-pushed rules onto a populace who knows better and can see the nuance. It feels like a fair criticism, in that one could argue that we are both approaching the same incident and issue from different sides, and refusing to appreciate the other. There will be lefties who don’t translate their thoughts into the debate with adequate dispensation to the other side, this is a great shame.
I guess what I am going to go on to do then, is explain why I am correct and all you people who jump up on twitter hashtags criticising #blm, or better yet, proclaiming that “#whitelivesmatter”, the sister-fingering cousin of “#alllivesmatter”, are wrong. Yes, I’m assuming that this is how I’ll start my argument for why #blm is a legitimate movement which demands our respect, understanding, and support.
Clearly, I intended to actually write this today. It’s late now due to some unexplained circumstances, so let’s treat it as an introduction to something which maybe I’ll carry on talking about later. If nothing else, it’s a pretty fun metaphor for how people are going off the deep-end over this.
Categories
Video killed the random-o star
I have a bizarre obsession although I imagine it is one pretty widespread across the population. Here it is: I love to re-watch TV shows and films I’ve seen countless times before. I don’t know why. The Simpsons, Peep Show, The Office, and the collective works of Will Ferrell – these are the obstructions to my daily doing of the stuff.
I don’t know why they give me solace but the option between binge watching the series’ and movies which I’ve seen countless time and doing something somewhat alien to me, I know which one I would choose in a heartbeat.
Like I’ve said, I don’t think this is necessarily particular for me – it feels that I have countless friends who opt for the same mundane, unentertained, passive watching of things we can already predict through repetitive experience.
It’s funny. Often times, when it feels like there is ultimately no point to anything, that time is finite and we need to seize the opportunity to enjoy what we have, we instead choose to sit and watch the idiot-box and digest the cud of the pre-watched entertainment. For myself, it’s like I just compound the feeling of helplessness which comes from feeling like I’m not experiencing anything new by resorting to my comfort food – a diet of enjoyable yet old media.
What is it about these forms of entertainment which is so addictive? Is there a desire to make these art forms so addictive? Whilst I don’t know too much about aesthetics, is there some sort of golden ratio or golden angle which all TV and film attempt to tap into in order to retain popularity?
To say that the media I consume all too often have special knowledge and ability to apply anything golden, would be all too self-indulgent. If there is a list of the great television shows and films, whilst some from my repertoire could probably feature on it, there would be an even longer list of those that don’t. In fact, my list is notoriously filled with cult classics and what I imagine could be best described as pre-cult classics – those which still haven’t had their latent day on the freak show circuit.
Yes, it seems to me that there has to be a kind of Kantian-, transcendental philosophy which we apply to how the media impacts us. We can’t necessarily look at our favourite TV shows and films as objects which affect us and cause us to have specific representations of them based on what it is itself. No, we have to remember that we, as the subject, exert our own influence over how we see these things, these objects from which we form ideas.
This is not to mean that it’s necessarily a posteriori, or based on experienced. It might not be necessarily be conscious or even learned behaviour. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason outlines how we utilise a priori truths to understand the world around us. These are internal to us. Although we don’t control them or shape them, these affect how we represent the appearances of the world around us.
There seems to be something that draws me to binge-watch these same shows on the TV. I don’t necessarily know if there are common themes or what it is, but something draws me to them. This may be internal but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is not reality. So what does this mean with regard to watching these shows incessantly? I’ll have a think.
Do we need to feel bad about the impulses and behaviours we adopt? Something draws us to them for some reason. Their appearance maybe understood by the necessary truths we conceptualise internally but that doesn’t mean it’s a choice. Maybe there is something to be said about just enjoying this and going with it? Why fight it? What will fighting achieve? Furthermore, will anything else take its place as more useful? Isn’t watching The Simpsons on repeat simply another form of living?
I decided to write something other than traffic lights today. I’ll put it down to feeling a little down and having a late night but wanting to just write to enjoy it. No pressure on coherent or logical arguments. Just spewing my thoughts out onto a page over something I think and worry about a lot.
I’m sure that I’ll follow it up one day. What I’ve written doesn’t make a huge amount of sense perhaps, and it’s far deeper than what I’ve outlined in around 600 words. It’s just something to think about, particularly about how Kant’s Copernican Revolution may help us to understand these parts of our behaviour. I’m sure a lot of work has been done on it by psychologists and psychoanalysts amongst others. If there is anything out there which I should read about – please hit me up with it. Thanks.
The Disinterested Philosopher Gets By 