NEWS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Including Friday’s Feast. Have you had a go yet?

Welcome to my daily Diary post. Have you noticed how quickly the Burma Cyclone disaster has gone from the news? Of course, this was inevitable as soon as the China earthquake struck. But what does this say about the news?
Well, seeing that people are still dying in Burma, and the Junta is still pretty uncooperative, it says that the news isn’t an accurate portrayal of what’s going on. Rather, it’s a ‘snapshot’. But of what?

Of what the news corporations wants us to see.

The sociologist, Baudrillard, noted this in his view that mass media produced what he called ‘infotainment’. News is not a reality, but a form of propaganda.
News corporations, like other companies, need to make money. Hence news today is always geared as much towards entertainment as anything else. And once we begin to see news as entertainment, the news can really be manipulated.

Most news channels are mouthpieces for Big Biz.

So they are unlikely to do anything that would hinder the march of Big Biz. For this reason, celebrity culture becomes part and parcel of the news. This is because celebrities encourage us to spend in order to emulate them.
But there’s much more to this Big Biz propaganda. Alongside the rise of celebrity news has come emotional news. Rarely do we see a tragedy nowadays without a roll call of victims, crying away, baring their soul, and we feel for them every time.

Of course we do, and why shouldn’t we? We ARE human.

But this is not ‘news’. Rather, it is a process whereby our emotions overpower our rationality. You see, the world works through reason, not emotion. For it to be any different would be anarchy.
Emotion is uncontrolled. And in the news placing emotion above reason, the result is the public descend into a kind of emotion-fest, and then, sated, moves on. Hence no tragedy, no annoyance, can any longer produce the rationality in the public to want to do anything about it in the long term.
In essence, by turning the news into a form of emotional entertainment, our thoughts on issues become fleeting, and Big Biz, and the puppet-politicians they’ve put in place, get on with controlling us unimpeded.
Well, that’s enough of a rant for today. After going deep, let’s have some entertainment here, too. Here we go with my this week’s Friday’s Feast.

© Anthony North, May 2008

FRIDAY’S FEAST

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Appetizer: What is the nearest big city to your home?

York. One of the most historic and beautiful cities in the world. Initially called Eboracum by the Romans, Constantine the Great rode from there to save the Roman Empire from collapse.
Guy Fawkes, who plotted to blow up Parliament, came from York, and Britain’s most infamous villain, Dick Turpin, was hanged there. Later, it was to become the centre of the railways revolution.
New York was, of course, named after it.

Soup: On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how well do you keep secrets?

Not telling (I suppose that gives me a 10).

Salad: Describe your hair (color, texture, length).

Light brown. Short. Beginning to thin.

Main Course: What kind of driver are you? Courteous? Aggressive? Slow?

None of the above. I stopped driving in 1984, a couple of years after I came down with chronic fatigue syndrome, as I had a habit of passing out at the wheel. And once gone, I learnt very quickly that I didn’t miss driving.
Okay, I know many need a car due to their job, where they live, etc. But it really isn’t a big deal. Even if people just drove less, think what it would do for the environment. And why do people need SUVs?
They’ll be putting a gun turret on top next.

Dessert: When was the last time you had a really bad week?

The last time I felt self-indulgent.

Okay, that’s it for this week, folks. Have a good weekend. My Diary post will be back Monday. Don’t miss it!

© Anthony North, May 2008

HOW TO FANTASIZE

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What’s on today: A post inspired by a Writers’ Island prompt. Have you had a go yet? … PLUS … A poem for a Sunday Scribblings prompt. A response to Friday’s Feast. A poem for Friday 5. Click Eye On the World for my current affairs.
YOU KNOW IT’S THE WRITE WAY

HOW TO FANTASIZE

Fantasy is an unusual word. It suggests the fictitious. After all, the most crazy stories are known as fantasy – and I’m not just speaking of ‘swords and sorcery’. Many people seem to live in a fantasy world.
We’re deeply suspicious of them. They are not quite ‘all there’ – or they are habitual liars. Yet all culture is actually geared to fantasy. After all, isn’t art a representation of how an artist’s mind sees something, rather than actual reality itself?

Some would say religions are based on fantasy.

I think this may be true, but this is not a slur on the religionist. Rather, it is honest, accepting that everything in life has a touch of fantasy to it.
The sociologist, Baudrillard, understood this when he devised his concept of ‘infotainment’. Based on modern media, images are so mixed up that we cannot know what is fact and what is fiction.

In one sense, this is the ultimate postmodern nightmare.

But I think ‘reality’ has always been like this. We can understand it through semiotics, or the science of ‘signs’.
A typical sign is a cloud. Depending on its consistency, colour, etc, it convinces us of what the coming weather will be like. In other words, we are convinced of a reality before it actually becomes reality.
Unfortunately, though, signs can lie. Take a can of soup. If hungry, the picture itself can make us salivate. Yet, it could be a lie. It could be a can of worms. The ‘sign’ produced a fantasy so strong that it affected us physiologically as well as psychologically.
Beware of the word, ‘fantasy’. It cons you into thinking it doesn’t apply to you.

© Anthony North, May 2008

TELEPHONE

The telephone rings, it’s always there,
Don’t answer! If you dare;
When just on a desk, or maybe a table,
life wasn’t so bad, ‘cos we were able,
to live a life relatively free,
of constant messages from all to thee;
But come the cell phone, it’s all change,
always with us, as if a chain;
On the train, in the theatre, or even the park,
that damned ring tone, it does hark,
of contact to others all the time,
and if not ours, then other ring tones rhyme,
constantly around us, forever a hell,
giving us no time on which to dwell,
on life without that damned satanic phone,
yet if never a call to us does hone,
we wish someone would ring, ‘cos
we’re all alone

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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FRIDAY’S FEAST – These are the questions

Appetizer: When someone smiles at you, do you smile back?

Now be careful. This is a dangerous question. There is an automatic suspicion that people who smile at strangers are somehow – well, you know. And even if they’re not, what motive do they have?
Do they want something? What type of smile is it? Have they noticed something about your dress? Have you forgotten to zip up your trousers? Has a bird pooped on your shoulder?
So many possibilities. But yes, usually when someone smiles at me, I smile back. And they wonder, am I all there? Has a bird …

Soup: Describe the flooring in your home. Do you have carpet, hardwood, vinyl, a mix?

Carpets mainly. Which reminds me, we need new. This meme is costing me!

Salad: Write a sentence with only 5 words, but all of the words have to start with the first letter of your first name.

All appliances are always available. (Hey, Zelda, you’ve got no chance!)

Main Course: Do you know anyone whose life has been touched by adoption?

This seems a simple yes/no answer, but it isn’t. If we do know someone, then the answer is yes. But if we don’t, can we answer no? I don’t think we can. And I think this because we cannot be sure.
Maybe we do, but the subject has never come up. Maybe we do, but they don’t know it themselves. Maybe we do, but they hide the fact.
We often adopt an attitude that we know the world, and our friends within it. But a question such as this should make us think. Maybe we should adopt a different attitude to what we think we know, and what we don’t.

Dessert: Name 2 blue things.

Well, I was going to say sea and sky. But they’re not. If we take the sky, it is actually colourless. What we see as ‘blue’ is the effect of light upon the sky. Infact, when you think about it, what is blue?
As a colour it’s no more than a frequency of light. Hence, it doesn’t really exist at all. Infact, many things we attribute blue to are not colours either. Think ‘cold’ or ‘sadness’.
So blue may not be a colour, but an attitude. So can I name two things that are REALLY blue? I can definitely name one.
Movies.

© Anthony North, May 2008

A FANTASTIC DREAM

Dreams are crazy, all full of fantasy,
yet they’re symbols of real life, as you’ll see;
My dream last night was just such a one,
there, in my mind, and as quickly gone;
A plastic bottle from which to drink,
a symbol of mind, full of things to think;
A hockey puck made a quick appearance,
reminders of sport, and my adherence;
wrapped in a dirty handkerchief? This I knew,
recalling that I’d recently had flu;
A crumpled note left me puzzled for a while,
but it was my last poem, not in my style;
The unhinged door was easiest to explain,
’twas my life, all open, ‘cos I’m not vain;
So dreams may be full of much fantasy,
but it’s still related to my life, you see;
A dream can be explained; is not full of malice,
You just fall down the rabbit hole
and meet Alice

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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TO BE FAITHFUL - Fiction

I never really understood what faithful meant until I wasn’t. All those years of marriage, and never once did I think of being unfaithful. We were as one, and that was that. Until the loneliness crept in – a deep, melancholy loneliness ….
I put up with it for a couple of years, but I suppose the time comes when you can take it no more – when you just need something else in your life.
I met her at one of the functions I have to attend as part of my job. I wouldn’t say I ‘went’ to them, as such. More I just ‘existed’ in them, as if I wasn’t really a part of it, enjoying myself, or anything like that.
Life becomes this way, with such loneliness. But then I saw her, and something just clicked between us, as if it was meant to be.
We dated.

Good grief! We dated. As if I was a teenager!

The meals were enjoyable. And it was inevitable that one thing would lead to another, and eventually I found myself in her home, kissing, making love, discovering a life without loneliness once more.
It was during this first love making that I suddenly looked up to see my wife stood by us.
I jumped, shocked! And as my lover turned to look at her, the full reality of what I’d done struck home.
My wife seemed incensed. It was almost in slow motion as she bent down, her hands encompassing my lover’s neck, and squeezing the life out of her …
I find it hard to recall the event, and even harder to explain it. Indeed, that’s why I’m here, in prison, facing a life sentence for murder.
Well, it was either that or the psychiatric hospital. You see, my wife died two years ago.

© Anthony North, May 2008