Writings and Letters

A blog oeuvre… a "bloeuvre"

Tag: historicity

March 23, 2019

Where is The Point?

I was walking through Trafalgar Square, listening to a little Billy Shears. It was a mild day. The sun blasted me with radiation and I felt the tinge on my skin. After a long winter, it was nice to feel something on my face other than a hollowing chill. Stunted cars passed along the periphery and occasionally squawked back and forth to each other in their abrupt shrieks as they drifted on. I walked in the opposite direction, silent, high. I was thinking about what I usually do: the past.

Out ahead, I noticed some chalk graffiti. The crude calligraphy acted like a type of timestamp. Not in world-time, but human. The curves and dashes of the individual letters were larger than necessary and left too much space between. The fast and loose execution implied hesitation, lack of assurance and practice. I thought of a child. A little boy with his pink/red chalk crouched over and writing these words and symbols. Just two words over and over again: “The Point” and above it was an arrow pointing in the direction I walked, north.

What was the child trying to tell me? I wondered. The Point was just ahead. As I continued on and the cars passed I came upon another message. It was The Point again, but it was upside-down and the arrow suggested the other direction. Had I passed it? Had I, indeed, missed The Point?

I continued on and was soon greeted by another sign. This time I was informed The Point was actually across the street, or perhaps was the street itself. Are you trying to kill me? I asked the imaginary kid in my head. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders and I kept going on my way.

Then the messages grew more cryptic, frantic, irrational. Arrows large and small, pointing in all different directions, The Point appeared everywhere, ending with a large bullseye with “THE POINT” at the center. Was this The True Point?

I was reminded of the games I used to play as a child. We used to gain such pleasure out of our absurdist forms of play. Children are quite good at it. Even if they cannot provide an entire conceptual apparatus, their little brains do make note of the irrationalisms around them and the frantic effect this perceived nature carries out. It is quite silly, isn’t it?

After a little while longer the graffiti failed to reappear and I was alone again with my thoughts. I realized I hadn’t seen any of these drawings when I walked south only a few minutes earlier. Or at least I didn’t remember them. How could I have missed it? What would have been my interpretation of The Point had I come across the bullseye first? What if I had witnessed the boy? Was it even a boy? Was it a child? What made me think of it as such? Who will know any of this once these rain clouds overhead unleash their payload and wash away any record of the intellectual footprint?

I suppose my word is the best we’ll have to go with then. But it was there. Just over there. The Point.

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April 3, 2016

Infinite City: The Trouble with Facts Is…

[The below piece: “How We Got to Now” was featured in The Daily Chimera, a news-gathering/reporting and opinion-based website last week. It concerns the on-going disputes over the historical accuracy of certain aspects of the city’s past.]

 

For the past three months the city has experienced a vicious back-and-forth between two dissenting groups of citizens. Death threats have been made, fights have broken out at protests and rallies, arrest have been conducted, a federal investigation has been issued, and much more. This “War for True History” as it is being called has divided parents, teachers, students, citizens in the city. 90+ days into this conflict, it is possible we may have forgotten how this all really started. This was evident yesterday at a protest outside the publisher Macmilliamous-McGrood’s city headquarters. There, both protestors and advocates confused facts and details about what actually caused this unrest.

Below is an effort to explain and clear up some misunderstandings. Here is a very short summary:

Basically it started with one parent. We will call her Mrs. T on account of the innumerable death threats she has received since this all started (she is under police protection at the moment). Mrs. T was displeased with the Macmilliamous-McGrood textbook’s origin story of the city. She took offense at the glorification of the founders (Ludwig von Küssenass and Hans-Johanns Schmudieb) and the overlooking description of the native tribes that inhabited the land before any Europeans landed. She was concerned this kind of (as she saw it) poor historical accuracy was detrimental to her daughter’s (and the other children’s) education.

Her letter to the principal is below.

Dear Principal Wexinburhe,

I am writing you today as a concerned parent. My daughter returned home last week with her Centuries of Events and Peoples history book. This year she gets to learn a great deal about her city’s history. It’s very important. She’s quite excited to learn about all the people that came before her to build up this city we all live in today. I, too, was excited to see her get the opportunity to learn more about the immediate world around her.

I was, however, greatly disappointed in the textbook’s brief summary of the “origins” of our city. Specifically, I was shocked to see the land described as “mostly underutilized” by the “tribes-people” until “the infamous German pirates” came along. There are two things that are particularly upsetting about this excerpt, and the whole summary. The first being this sense of “underutilization.”

As you may or may not know, the Chinnemuuk and Othahathaway peoples had occupied that land (by the most conservative of estimates) a full three-hundred years before those two pirates and their gang arrived. The textbook describes their usage of the land as: “…seasonally for ritual dances, games, and political meetings…” This is a blatant understatement of the facts. Both the Chinnemuuk and Othahathaway had come to use much of the land that now makes up our metropolis on a daily basis. The specific area in question (“Gorgon’s Alley” as referred to in the text) was of such deep religious and political significance. The only reason they visited the two islands at the mouth of the river (which had much different names than “Eye” and “Mond”) in each season was so that they could appease their spiritual ancestors together, and continue their long peace practices. I wouldn’t think I need to remind an educator, but perhaps I might, the Chinnemuuk and Othahathaway had waged bloody campaigns against each other for years over the usufructuary rights of the land. Entire generations of people were born, lived, and died knowing nothing but fear, anguish, and continued hatred for the other group during this time period. Western Civilization does not have anything like this in kind. Not the 40 Years War, not even the 100 Years War. The conflict between the Chinnemuuk and Othahathaway went well beyond those two wars combined, and on a scale of comparability were by far bloodier and more tolling on the people than anything the European campaigns might even imagine. So when these two peoples came together to celebrate in shared spiritual practices, and participate in games and tattoo one another, share harvests, etc. it was as a means of perpetuating peace and harmony. Also, it was a means to protect them against other warring tribes from the south and the west. My point here is that this land was being used for a long time before the Europeans came along, and it was of much greater significance to those people than some trading post for pirates.

Speaking of the pirates, this leads me to my second complaint/concern. What is with the beatification of these two pirates? They’re pirates! The textbook seems to paint them in a much lighter tone as the reader goes on. By the end I expected them to start referring to the pirates as “laissez-faire apostles” who freed the world of “evil-doing collectivism.” I mean, my God, these were the same men who (along with their subordinates) pitted the Chinnemuuk and Othahathaway against each other, reigniting the war. They were perpetrators of by any account what can only be described as war crimes, enslaved what remained of both tribes, sold off women and children to other insidious Europeans who came along (including the Spaniards!), and should only be credited with bringing the disgusting habit of mechanized/organized subjugation and exploitation to the New Land.

None of that gets mentioned in this text. And I’d rather have that than some lame, half-informed, mostly balderdash writing about cartoon pirate figures bettering some “unused” land, as if other human beings never existed beforehand—like some sort of Shangri-La. That’s not history. That’s science fiction.

As someone who comes from a displaced, marginalized background, from a group of people who have often been side-stepped and left better off unspoken about in the annals of human history (which is to say white European-dominated history), I would appreciate if the school would make a much more concerted effort to educate not only my daughter (who shares my lineage), but also her peers. So that we do not destine ourselves to these awful tragedies again.

I understand the school probably has some sort of deal with Macmilliamous-McGrood and cannot necessarily rid themselves of this nonsense. But perhaps you can issue a formal complaint to the company, or insist the teachers offer some proper context to the lack of text involved in this largely fictional historical narrative.

Thank you for your time.

– Mrs. T

 

Principal Harvey Wexinburhe (who has not received as many death threats) responded about two months later, after consulting the school board and sponsored education board. That letter reads as such:

Dear Madame.

May I first take this moment to express my deep gratitude for sharing your concerns with me. As you are certainly aware, Tussock-Chandler Junior High (brought to you by Valvoline®) prides itself on being one of the most prestigious public schools in the city. The school does not achieve these accolades without the support of students’ parents—such as yourself—and their communication with the school—as evident in your letter. For over one hundred years the school has maintained its excellence, an excellence students benefit from and parents rely on, because of the continued community support it receives. It is without question that this support is what holds the utmost value for Tussock-Chandler (brought to you by Valvoline®) and its continuation means the prolonged success of the school. This support comes in many forms, as I’m sure you are aware.

One such instance is financially. Another through volunteering time and expertise. The one I find most beneficial is when the parent(s) continues the exemplary education their child/student receives in the classroom at home and assists in reinforcing the schooling lessons, homework, values, morals and ethnics the child learns while attending Tussock-Chandler (brought to you by Valvoline®). There are more still. The most common form of support the school receives is often by way of open, unadulterated communication from the parent. This is the method in which you chose, and we are very grateful for such support. Without you, and parents of your ilk, Tussock-Chandler (brought to you by Valvoline®) would not be able to properly assess what teaching methods, school courses, textbooks, et al. are properly utilized in the continued education of our young generations. 

Tussock-Chandler (brought to you by Valvoline®) prides itself on teaching every upcoming generation in the most effective, responsible, socially conscious way possible. We firmly believe in the fact that children will be the future. Perhaps that is a little obvious, but we do not reduce this universal truth to some platitude. We take this idea very seriously and strive each day to ensure our students, your child, have the best education (an omnibus word we see encompasses the following: fundamental learning, social interplay, proper rectitude). Without the best education provided, our future leaders, workers, thinkers would be operating at a deficit in society. That would be a horrible travesty. So to receive your letter is of the utmost importance to us. 

We were all very troubled by your letter. We took the issues raised very seriously. The fact you were so deeply disturbed by the historical account of our city’s founding gave us pause in considering teaching the passage to the students in the future, in addition we questioned our relationship with Macmilliamous-McGrood. So please know that your concern was our concern, too. 

That being clearly stated, I must inform you that the school board and the education board affiliated with our sponsored patron (Valvoline® — For All Your Motor Oil Needs) have decided to continue teaching the passage in question as is, and to continue our contract with Macmilliamous-McGrood. The reasons being are thus, as provided from the boards’s ruling opinion: 

– “The passage which is being challenged is in line with the generally accepted history of the city and coincides with historical facts as they happened from the point-of-view of the founders and collaborators. Whether there is any validity to the opposing view is not to the point, and broadly speaking does not confute the accepted position. All of the information provided in the text is accepted, even by the complainant. The only difference seems to be evident in semantics. Therefore, since most of the information provided is accepted as historical fact, the boards rule the text historically valid. 

Furthermore, there is the notion of “Proper View” (as indicated in Section IV, Area 41B of ECFA). The city needs to be viewed by its citizens in the best imaginable light available. To tarnish this view would possibly engender a loss of faith in the city and the community. It is imperative then that the children of Tussock-Chandler Junior High (brought to you by Valvoline®) need to experience a “Proper View” of their city’s founders, and anything possibly contra to that point is unacceptable. Children’s minds are fragile, and the slightest threat of disillusionment can wreak unprecedented damage for the future.” 

– “Tussock-Chandler Junior High (brought to you by Valvoline®) is a public school that accepts whatever provisions provided to it by both the city and its sponsored patron (Valvoline® — For All Your Motor Oil Needs). In this particular instance, with respect to the historical textbook received from Macmilliamous-McGrood, the city and the sponsored patron agreed to a lengthy contract with the education textbook publisher. Macmilliamous-McGrood provides quality textbooks to schools across the nation and is generally well-respected. For the book in question, Centuries of Events and Peoples, a team of historians collaborated to create the text, and collectively have years of experience. The board is more inclined to accept the work of those historians, and trust the judgment of the publisher over the complainant. 

Even if the boards agreed to the notion that the passage was unacceptable, or that (say) 90% of the textbook’s contents were historically dubious, the boards could not possibly enforce any change. The books the school receives are upheld by lengthy contracts (as implicated above). So there would be very little, if any, change possible for Tussock-Chandler (brought to you by Valvoline®).”

Your concern, time, patience, and understanding are very much appreciated, and we look forward to your continued passionate assistance in making Tussock-Chandler Junior High (brought to you by Valvoline®) one of the best schools in the city, state, and nation.

Sincerely.

Principal Wexinburhe.

P.S. On a personal note, being never a teacher or historian, I found your version of the city’s origin story quite interesting, but as they do not fit within the national education algorithms of the “Every Child First” Act (ECFA), specifically with respect to the “Proper View” rule, I encourage you to curb those lessons for your daughter. Perhaps it will be something covered later, say in high school or the university.

 

Needless to say, the response did not go over well with Mrs. T. After reading the letter, she gathered some like-minded parents (most of whom were from various minority ethnic groups, and not all of their children attended Tussock-Chandler) and started staging protests and sit-ins at the school. This eventually started being broadcast over social media, and within a week of the protests the news outlets picked up the story and ran with it (apparently there was not too much going on in the news cycle at that time), then a counter protest group rose in defense of the school and the origin story. The next thing you know chants turn vicious, people get angry, outsiders try to capitalize on the frenzy, social crusaders and grassroots organizations fly in from all around the country to attend rallies, everyone has an opinion on the situation, Donald Trump mentions it in one of his speeches saying: “In the old days, we just took hags like [Mrs. T] out back behind the shed and beat the living shit out of them, just as our founders had intended.” matters deteriorate so quickly people start throwing fists for a cause they don’t even fully understand, usually mature adults get six to twelve-month sentences in jail for things like: criminal threats, intimidation, harassment,  and assault: schools become grounds for outward hostility instead of learning centers, it becomes total bedlam.

And to think, all this started over a few disputed words from a sentence in a junior high school book. It just goes to show how tightly people cling to their histories—because their identities are the manifestations of them.

It actually reminds me of what one of the city founders once said, Hans-Johanns Schmudieb fancied himself a philosopher. He said: “When you spit in the face of an idol, you spit in the face of thousands.”

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February 27, 2016

Infinite City: A Brief History of Gorgon’s Alley

[The below is a selection pulled from the Macmilliamous-McGrood history textbook. It is featured in courses taught from 6th to 8th grade levels across all citywide public schools, and has been of much debate lately in the news.]

“Stretching for almost half the inner cheek of Hemlock Bay, across six different city wards, sits the city’s oldest, most significant piece of real estate: Gorgon’s Alley. For almost twenty miles the ever-expanding bay-front property holds some of the most historic buildings, as well as headquarters for most of the legacy companies that established the city as a center of commerce for the nation: Rindgegessen Shipping, Sangrar Corp., Wesstersson, Fratolish&Hiang&Perpeshk, Dudoso Companies, to name a few. More importantly, it represents for many dwellers the essence of the city.

The origins of Gorgon’s Alley started at the delta of the Mond where the river splits into three tributaries that pour out to the bay. It was in the fertile banks between these three streams that Gorgon’s Alley begins. Originally a location for the indigenous Chinnemuuk and Othahathaway tribes-people gathered seasonally for ritual dances, games, and political meetings, the land was mostly underutilized until the infamous German pirates Ludwig von Küssenass and Hans-Johanns Schmudieb sailed through the inlet of Hemlock Bay and laid anchor at the mouth of the Mond River.

Fleeing from the Spaniards fresh on their tails, the legend proceeds that the pirates thought they could lose the armada in the bay. Because of the mist that falls from nearby King Thelonious Mountains and masks the bay, it provides the perfect concealment for nefarious sea-fairing vessels. As the pirates and their crew sailed across the black bay, they came upon the opening of the river. At first, because of the thick vegetation and size of the three off-shooting streams, the two swashbucklers thought they had found three distinct rivers, not one. They planned to lose the armada by sailing up one of the three—seeing as their boat was crafted for sailing across great distances, through shallow and deep waters.

When they learned, however, that the tributaries were all part of one great river, bottle-necking at the point of the dovetail, they decided to use this knowledge to their advantage. They sailed back out of the river and lured three of the Spanish ships into the northern leg where they then managed to destroy the leading vessel and trap the other two. They then sailed around and fired at will upon the other ships, defenseless as they did not have rear cannons, or the ability to turn their ships around. In hindsight, the Spaniards acknowledged it was a mistake to follow the pirates up the river. It is known to them as: ‘El Error Náutico.’

With the utter destruction of three vessels in a matter of a few hours, and the other man-o-wars being too large to traverse the river—risking a broach—the armada retreated from the bay, leaving the pirates with their victory. Fearing the Spanish were waiting to ambush them the moment they fled, though, the Germans decided to lay anchor and camp on (what is now) North Eye island.From that point forward marked the beginning of European involvement, and the founding of the city.

[Fun Fact Attack! Originally referred to as ‘Norden Ei,’ and ‘Suden Ei’ by the German pirate/explorers, ‘Ei’ in German means ‘egg.’ Phonetically, though, the word ‘Ei’ sounds like the English: ‘eye,’ which is where we get the names today.]

It was not long after settling both North and South Eye islands that the leaders von Küssenass and Schmudieb were able to turn the small merchant port into a bustling city of commerce —free from the long reach of royal arms in Europe—starting at the heart of the Mund’s delta, and slowly sprawling out from there.

[Fun Fact Attack! Fans of Greek myth, the pirates/explorer/entrepreneurs nicknamed the tributaries: Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa: hence ‘Gorgon’s Alley.’]”

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February 7, 2016

Palpable [Poetry]

Some five years ago I was strolling towards a precipice. I was on my last lunch break for my old job. They were laying everyone I knew off in a restructuring strategy. It was going to save the company millions, you see. Millions that would allow the company to go on—for at least some months until it was sold and restructured again (entailing further massive layoffs), only to be rendered defunct a few years after that.

I walked over to the nearby five-tower glass monolith, the Westin Bonaventure, which stood like an onyx power-structure in the Los Angeles cityscape. Something borrowed from the future of a Power Rangers world. Staring at it as I approached, I saw the reflections of the city in its glass face, distorted by its curvature and scope. I witnessed how its material manipulated the images of the outside world projected on it.

I crossed a bridge into the outdoor courtyard, which was a glorified plot of grass with concrete-potted trees surrounding it, and pool. A few people sat outside at the tables of the in-hotel brewery restaurant. I passed them without making eye contact and walked into the atrium of the hotel.

The atrium felt much like an inoperative botanical garden. Dark glass ceilinged the place, pouring shaded light down into the cavity, and I was environed by six levels of honeycombed rock. A giant spiraling nest of cement sprawled out before my eyes, like the city itself, in this inspirational and foreboding fashion. I walked along the outer-portion of the grey-tiled passageway observing the cavity’s innards. Remnants of the lingering recession were still present—an air of tired optimism, or obstinance about the place. Most of the store fronts that lined the balconied walkway were closed. Looking down at the lobby level I saw what was meant to be a man-made “lake” with fully-functional fountains, but instead all that remained was a dry bed of smooth blue, gray, and black rocks.

I felt the odd contradiction of familiarity and strangeness as I rounded the third level. The hotel was suffering from a time-spatiality error. The businesses that remained were in a state of aesthetic paralysis. I passed the single hair salon that sported but one patron. The posters of hair models that skinned the windows outside looked aged–as if someone fleshed out Patrick Nagel’s work. This clinging to the bygone made me a little disheartened.

I kept walking, eventually making it over by the small corner of independent restaurants in the yellow section of the hotel, or was it the red, or blue, or green? I cannot recall. You see each pillared section looks the same from the inside apart from the scantly colored corners. Every time I had visited the hotel, I would have to walk in a circuitous manner until I stumbled upon a familiar location. (Ingenious for commerce, if only there was any to be had.) The restaurants that remained looked like they were on their last days, too. If not today, then soon. Who would come here? I wondered as I walked around. The customers were few. Some were older guests who were overwhelmed by the prospect of venturing out into the great wide metropolis, most were staff either from the hotel or nearby offices like myself. There were perhaps six of us total in the entire hotel there to eat. The word desolation came to mind. Then Detroit. Then suburbia. Then melancholy.

A few years later I recalled the above scene after reading Federic Jameson’s words about the very same hotel: “…[it] aspires to being a total space, a complete world, a kind of miniature city…”

Back to the moment: A sad song came on, or maybe it was a happy song that made me sad—I forget which now—and I began to think about the dance the space had between the interior and exterior realities, and then I began to think about how my inner projections might be affecting the outside world, and the external projections affecting me, and I tried to focus on consciousness and understand what it meant in the moment, but instead I was too upset and too hungry to think any further. All I wanted was to sit and eat a sandwich and feel the moment.

So I went to Subway.

I came across the establishment during one of my previous walkabouts through the atrium. Located on the highest level (the sixth level) of the atrium, it just appeared one day, out of the blue—or maybe it was always there and I just forgot about it from my previous trips. Typically, I ignored the sixth level because of its drab nature. It only contained a Pho restaurant and closed storefronts. It hurt to see the failure and potential most evident in that barren space.

One of the closed fronts was a Japanese Shabu Shabu and Barbecue restaurant that had shut its doors before I ever came around—or perhaps it never opened. Maybe the story behind the restaurant is that it was going to open before the Crash, the business owner was very excited about the new venture. The restaurant engrossed about a quarter of the business space on the sixth level, with a capacity to seat over two hundred people at any given time. The restaurant was a hybrid of the best of Japanese cuisine: a section for shabu shabu, teppanyaki tables for the more popular crowds, and a sushi bar. A robust menu that would satisfy any ravenous hotel guest, or city dweller. Waiters and waitresses adorned in traditional kimonos and haoris. An entire replica of feudal Japan, famous sites and battles, tales of moon princesses and further lore all strewn across the lower third of the restaurant’s windowsills. If one travelled the length of the establishment from the green (or blue or yellow or red) side of the sixth level to the blue (or green or red or yellow), the entire ancient history of Japan was on display in the little fitting. All these great possibilities, and endless spectrum of positive futures. It might have been grand. But then the subprime mortgage crises. Then the money dried up. Then the owner never got to realize the dream, and instead took a dive over the nearby 5th St. bridge onto the 110–caused a sixteen-car pileup and seven-hour traffic jam. Or maybe not. Probably not, but that’s where my head was at then: bleak.

The Pho restaurant, Mr. Baguette(!),  which when I first visited used to be the Happy Cow pho spot, was another of the random establishments that appeared on the verge of collapse. It was a chimera of “French” sandwich shop and pho cuisine–meaning one could order an assortment of twelve-inch deli sandwiches on a baguette and/or classic pho bowl, all for unbelievably cheap prices at the same location. The establishment was so clean. I assumed because of the lack of use, and well-maintained care it received from the staff. The owner, or maybe he was just the manager–but the story is stronger if he’s the owner, so–the owner stood alone behind the counter awaiting for someone, anyone to come in and order food. A lone cook stood staring into the nothingness of his pans hanging above his head. I made eye contact with the owner/manager. He smiled. I nodded and kept walking. I felt ashamed, but accounted it to my general mood.

Minutes later I sat with a twelve-inch Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sandwich, chips, and 24.oz soda-pop in front of me. I noticed the Subway was installing a few draft beers, and had some other bottled brands on display. It was a technique to get more customers. I wondered if it would work, or if the establishment was going to go under like everything else. Then I started thinking about the past, and wondering about the future. Slight misery crept into my mind as I took a bite. I turned my attention to one of the two televisions.

The daytime show from one of the broadcast networks was interrupted when a car chase broke out somewhere in Torrence, or maybe it was San Bernardino, I don’t remember anymore. Guy in an SUV was hauling ass through the city streets trying to avoid the cops. He got onto the interstate, then got off. He drove fast up the shoulders, crossed briefly into on-coming traffic, ran a red light or two, but for the most part was a pretty respectable criminal. The nice cashier who made my meal and tried to interest me in a beer instead of soda was emptying the garbage (or sweeping the floor) near the television. He looked up and watched for a little bit with minor excitement. “Rapido, rapido!” he joked, laughing to himself before going back about his business. Not too long after, the SUV made a wrong turn in front of a high school and the police blocked any chance of escape. The SUV then came to a slow, respectable stop. The driver put the car in park and then tried to make like hell out of the scene on foot. I can’t remember if he made it to the school doors and they were locked, or if he never made it past the steps. Irrespective, the cops were on him quick. He dropped to the ground and they jumped on him.

Things could have been worse I supposed. I could have been that guy.

My lunch finished, I walked back to work. I lingered a bit, walking slowly back down each level, passing the empty stores, trying to avoid the eyes, trying not to give any unnecessary hope. I saw a future for them, as I’m sure they saw the same for me. We were mirrors to one another, unable to give the other anything more than themselves.

All that was left for me was to brave my fate. Questions remained as I walked out the doors for what I knew would be the last in a long time. The answers were as likely to be found outside as they were inside.

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December 13, 2015

“Ur-uh… the Start of a Writing Project: Ruminations on Historicity and Mission Statement”

Just the other day a video was brought to my attention. It concerned a particular filmmaker (T Patrick), who claimed he filmed Stanley Kubrick some sixteen years ago in 1999 confessing (before his mysterious death) he helped President Nixon, NASA, the United States stage one of the most (I’m told) profound, important, moving moments in human history: the 1969 moon landing. There, in the crudely edited video, a man sat in monochromatic orange, or soft red (I’m not really good with colors) and confessed to the off-camera filmmaker that he, Stanley Kubrick, helped the government stage the moon landing.

Needless to say, I was intrigued by the possibility (though highly unlikely) that the moon landing was, in fact!, a staged film operation to dupe the world into believing the United States had won the Space Race. So I watched the fascinating work:  https://vimeo.com/148297544

Though immediately, as the large text of T Pat’s presumed production company came on screen, I could not shake the feeling I was being had. Perhaps it was the amateurish nature of the 45+ minute documentary that I could already perceive some sort of joke being played on my wits, there was a disturbance in the force–so to speak. Perchance it was the element of truth! about to be imparted to me. So… I pressed on.

Seventeen minutes into the documentary, before getting to the confession, that coveted payoff I was waiting for, the overtones of duplicity were stirring. The word “FRAUD” crept up in the background of my mind. It was visible throughout the video like the unspoken violence witnessed in the aftermath of a crime scene. 1) the very deliberate, at times comical, disjointed “rough” editing style, 2) the insistence of T. Patrick to inject himself into the documentary again and again with his voice-over to tell this overdrawn 48-minute story that easily could have been five 3) the terrible lighting of Kubrick that suggested chicanery, half his face cloaked in the dark (why? for shame? for shame!) 4) in conversation Kubrick had lost his typical low-end New Yorker timbre, 5) even poor lighting aside, Kubrick just did not look like himself.

After about 20 minutes, I had enough. This could not be true, right? So I did a little further digging. I found a second video that claimed to be a “raw” version (even though there are edits) of the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR4pf6pp1kQ  This time without the sophomoric editing and heavy splash of Orange Crush, the argument grew slightly more compelling. Partly one must wonder why not release the first five minutes or so of this footage and call it a day. That certainly would capture the imagination of all those who watched it: though it would still have to answer for the fact that (gaudy aesthetics cleansed) the Kubrick in this interview still did not look, or sound (essentially “act”) like Stanley Kubrick, and even more there was a type of playacting, a sense of improvisation afoot. T Pat would egg Kubrick on with a question that would lead Kubrick to answer exactly what (one must assume) T Pat and the rest of the audience wanted to know.

Still unsatisfied, still dubious, I marched forth through time.

After perhaps a minute longer, I found yet a third video concerning this confession. It was titled (most aptly): “Beware of the FAKE Stanley Kubrick confession” and consisted of about 18 minutes of my now favorite filmmaker (T Pat) instructing Kubrick–actually his name is Tom–on how to best tell the story of the faked moon landing.

So problem solved, it was all a lie. But it got me thinking.

I cannot recall the moon landing. I was not there along with the millions of upon millions of other human beings, sitting/standing in front of their television sets around the world all those years ago watching the moment happen. Even more, some of those people who were there might not even remember, they might lean back hard on the footage they have seen time and time again, letting that become their memory, their historical consciousness, their truth when in fact they never saw the event, only read about it in the newspaper the next day and then later seen the footage retroactively reconnected the two and thought: I was there, I knew what it was like. So when the moment this video came along, I could not rely on my own personal memory to say: “No. This is bullshit.” before even watching it. I had to do some research. I had to stretch back into the past and dig up some bones on the Internet that might help paint a more accurate picture of what was happening. [Of course, the part that is so fun to me about this Kubrick “confession” is the idea that no one, presumably besides the astronauts that were there, can be absolutely certain there was a moon landing. Similarly, no one can know for certain that this interview was inauthentic other than those involved. Such a wide gap between the primary and secondary memories is what in part allows such “theories” to arise and threaten the authenticity of the historical narrative… and that’s fun to me.]

So what was happening? Setting aside the fact I believe (like many hoaxes) this was created in jest. How else does one explain the overall incoherence of the editing, or the obvious self-aggrandizement of the filmmaker, the humorous likeness to Kubrick’s own idiomatic lashings when the actor does not execute his vision of the scene or dialog (seeing the un-edited version where poor ole Tom is chided for not understanding what he is saying reminded me of the real Kubrick verbally working Shelley Duvall like a punching bag on The Shining), how to explain the ease with which one can refute the evidence with its own extended rawness in the matter of an hour or less? How indeed. What I am more interested in is what this fake-documentary (“fokumentary”) means to memory, then therefore historical consciousness, and ultimately historicity. How this fokumentary was able to use film to alter (for however briefly) a consciousness of the public (however few) and open a niche for an alt-narrative to fester in the historical understanding of that thing in the past we call “the moon landing.”

I immediately thought of Stalin–because that’s appropriate. I thought of how he manipulated photographs and literally eliminated political adversaries (or more accurately perceived adversaries) from the picture. In other words, when Uncle Joe was tired of the Old Bolshevik comrades, not only did he have them liquidated, but he also purged their very existence from photographs, as well as included himself in a few. Then I thought of the Egyptians–because whatever. How Hatshepsut claimed to be the rightful heir to the throne. She created images of herself with more masculine features including the manly pharaoh regalia of a false beard, and insisted the gods intended on her to be ruler. This was all evident in the art and writings that were created during her reign. A great deal of which was almost destroyed by her stepson, Thutmose III. He tried to destroy or alter all the iconography and written word about his former stepmother-turned-regnant-turned-pharaoh after she died (of cancer it is believed).  

In all three instances, mediums through which we recall the past (tools on which we are so dependent, especially when we ourselves cannot recall, or recall accurately) were manipulated in and effort to force the narrative in an alternative direction: a “revisionist” approach to history in all three cases. And that is really where the similarities between these three disparate characters begin and end (unless you want to say both Stalin and Hatshepsut both worked in government–be my guest).  But it brings to mind this notion of historical fragility.

I recently read a novel by the late, great EL Doctorow: Ragtime. I highly recommend it. I had been thinking about the fragility of history, how difficult it becomes at times to be able to separate fact and fiction, and then I came across the very first few pages of Doctorow’s work in which a fictitious New York family has their summer day interrupted by none other than Harry Houdini as he crashes his car in front of their house. The beauty and genius of this simple moment when the historically real (Houdini) crashes into the world of the fictive (Doctorow’s imagination). From there onward the book is an amalgam of these two seemingly contra styles of narrative playing together on the same page. There were moments when reading I had to stop and think: “Is this a real person?” Some were. Some not. “Did this really happen?” Some did, others no. It was this great expression of the duality in our doxa.

What’s more is what can be said about the novel when considering its depiction of the past (the novel being set in pre-World War 1 New York) through the contemporary understanding when it was being written. When Doctorow wrote Ragtime (presumably between 1971 and 1975), he was diving back into the past to write about this “Progressive Era” United States. But because he was writing about the past from the present, he could not help but inject his time with that of Ragtime‘s. In trying to write a story concerning the past, he had to leave his present finger prints all over it, tainting its authenticity along the way. Using facts until they no longer served his purpose and allowing fiction to carry on forth. He had to cut corners, fill in the gaps, elongate and contract in order to tell the story. In part because he is a novelist and Ragtime is a novel. But also because he could not recall the early 20th century, but (more importantly) no one can. [Fredic Jameson explores this at more depth in his exhaustive book: Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Don’t let the title scare you away, the prose will do that just fine.]

It is difficult to understand the past when the ground on which one stands is so loose and ever-shifting, and so goddamned expansive! To put it another way: If you throw a hula-hoop into the ocean, everything inside the hoop is HISTORY and everything outside it is PAST. There is a great deal of the past that is not being accounted for, and therefore the fragility begins to play. Furthermore, even when we start to dip into the past we begin to taint it with our contemporary state. The further we become detached from a person, moment, event, and/or the further the gap between actual and collective memory becomes, the more we begin to place ourselves into that past and erect a narrative called history.  So in this sense, we cannot help but create “story” in our understanding of the past.

This is not to suggest that all history is lies (like the fokumentary) or historians liars (like our friend T Pat), but it tends to point in a direction that capital-T “Truth” is very hard to come by and the lines between reality and fable can become quite roily. It is better to understand history as the best attempts by humans to connect with the specters and try to make the most sense out of them, and that’s not easy. But it’s important work goddamnit! We need that connection to the past. We need to have an understanding (however partial and imperfect) of our origins and hope that will provide in us a sense of closure and comfort for our mortal selves. We know there was a person, or a place, a moment, an event that occurred out in the distance, we know “it happened” by virtue that we are here now. But to reach back into a cognitive void and pull forth an understanding of it requires story.

And I like that idea. It’s fun for me. It’s fun to think about, write about, discuss.

So, I imagine, in a very strange, circuitous way this becomes a bit of a mission statement as well. Here at “Writings and Letters” there will be, with any bit of luck, a “pious yet playful” approach to the real and unreal. There will be fiction, non-fiction, stories from the present, the past, some maybe even the future! and political or philosophical musings (why not?), then right back to talking about slaying dragons, and a review of an obscure General Public album (just kidding, it’d totally be on All the Rage), and… others…

A panoply of pastiche.

Join me, won’t you?