erudite he will seem then, Mr. I-Was-Too-Smart-to-Waste-My-Time-at-CollegeBecause-I-Had-Already-Been-Offered-a-Six-Figure-Job-Holding-My-Thumb-Down-on-the-Boss’s-Chair-so-He-CouldSit-on-It-Whenever-He-Pleased, Mr. I-Love-Big-BusinessEspecially-the-Big-Oil-Companies-Because-I-Suck-Too, Mr. I-Spread-Mayonnaise-on-the-Chrome-of-My-Car’s-RearBumper.
His biography will be entitled To Please the Boss . You’ve heard of people who don’t know up from down? I tell you Lubjec actually thought "the Netherlands" was a reference to Hell. As a Frisian, I have problem with that. And I presume his God is something like Ned Beatty in the movie Network . What seemed like impossibly strange prophecy then is our current commonplace reality now. The corporations control the nations, the media makes the news, and the corporations own all media. Everything is a commodity.
Lubjec worked as an advertising photographer for years. He created images on command, images designed to hoodwink the unalert. And who can remain alert for long in this world? Televisions, billboards, magazines, radios all thumping us, bashing our heads in until we submit, knocking us unconscious so we can be fed subliminally. And the controllers have us thanking them for having pounded us into oblivion: We foolishly believe the oblivion to be freedom, a release from their control, but even there they have lined the streets with their billboards. Dante is nothing more than a brand name now. Didn’t Dante write all the Archies’ songs? Ah, ha!
Maybe Lubjec is right. Perhaps there’s no real joy in life. Life is nothing but people hurting each other until they die. The only truly free person is the person who is free of hope. We are misery. Only the insane and deluded could think otherwise.
Should I cast my lot with the insane and deluded? Should I hold onto the iron life-raft that is hope? Or should I wake up and realize that the abuse that is heaped on me is more than richly deserved? I deserve worse. I am the miserable cretin. Lubjec is merely a realist. I resent his honesty. It interferes with my fantasy of a life that is worth living. I’m a chump.
I am the em-bare-assed baboon. Do I now hold sufficient wisdom to survive this world? Or am I just another cracked vessel? A crack pot, as folks used to say before they meant different things by "crack" and "pot." Or did they? Thoth is truth. Thought is not. Blind obeisance and total resignation to the will of our corporate leaders is the only permissible response. Look around yourself— commodities are facing you right now! Rush out and buy whatever it is that’s being advertised! Now!
Or: reject the unwelcome guest who comes to occupy your head.
Endgames
Edwin became a filmmaker for a year when he received an unexpected, jokingly-applied-for federal grant. In return, he was to produce three short propaganda films for the political party in power. The films were to depict attempted assassinations of the party leader. The propaganda was designed to depict resistance to despotism as traitorous. Each film depicted one of the three largest minority groups organizing in armed resistance. The minorities, one would assume, were building an unholy triumvirate and would carve up the body of the leader and feed him to their dogs.
These films would instill enough fear in the commoner that the commoner would embrace the leader again and despise instead the plotting minorities. The films were successful, and violence against these minorities doubled in the cities. The leader retained his hold on his office.
When Thoth is dead, we’ll peel the film from his eyes. That way we can see what he saw. Various federal agents have been by, looking for Thoth. When the President himself came by, some stupid redneck song, "Drown in the Chattahoochee," came on the radio. I smiled at the coincidence.
I told them all, "I hope you get him."
The last two agents seemed particularly bright and good-natured. They returned later to tell me they’d
His biography will be entitled To Please the Boss . You’ve heard of people who don’t know up from down? I tell you Lubjec actually thought "the Netherlands" was a reference to Hell. As a Frisian, I have problem with that. And I presume his God is something like Ned Beatty in the movie Network . What seemed like impossibly strange prophecy then is our current commonplace reality now. The corporations control the nations, the media makes the news, and the corporations own all media. Everything is a commodity.
Lubjec worked as an advertising photographer for years. He created images on command, images designed to hoodwink the unalert. And who can remain alert for long in this world? Televisions, billboards, magazines, radios all thumping us, bashing our heads in until we submit, knocking us unconscious so we can be fed subliminally. And the controllers have us thanking them for having pounded us into oblivion: We foolishly believe the oblivion to be freedom, a release from their control, but even there they have lined the streets with their billboards. Dante is nothing more than a brand name now. Didn’t Dante write all the Archies’ songs? Ah, ha!
Maybe Lubjec is right. Perhaps there’s no real joy in life. Life is nothing but people hurting each other until they die. The only truly free person is the person who is free of hope. We are misery. Only the insane and deluded could think otherwise.
Should I cast my lot with the insane and deluded? Should I hold onto the iron life-raft that is hope? Or should I wake up and realize that the abuse that is heaped on me is more than richly deserved? I deserve worse. I am the miserable cretin. Lubjec is merely a realist. I resent his honesty. It interferes with my fantasy of a life that is worth living. I’m a chump.
I am the em-bare-assed baboon. Do I now hold sufficient wisdom to survive this world? Or am I just another cracked vessel? A crack pot, as folks used to say before they meant different things by "crack" and "pot." Or did they? Thoth is truth. Thought is not. Blind obeisance and total resignation to the will of our corporate leaders is the only permissible response. Look around yourself— commodities are facing you right now! Rush out and buy whatever it is that’s being advertised! Now!
Or: reject the unwelcome guest who comes to occupy your head.
Endgames
Edwin became a filmmaker for a year when he received an unexpected, jokingly-applied-for federal grant. In return, he was to produce three short propaganda films for the political party in power. The films were to depict attempted assassinations of the party leader. The propaganda was designed to depict resistance to despotism as traitorous. Each film depicted one of the three largest minority groups organizing in armed resistance. The minorities, one would assume, were building an unholy triumvirate and would carve up the body of the leader and feed him to their dogs.
These films would instill enough fear in the commoner that the commoner would embrace the leader again and despise instead the plotting minorities. The films were successful, and violence against these minorities doubled in the cities. The leader retained his hold on his office.
When Thoth is dead, we’ll peel the film from his eyes. That way we can see what he saw. Various federal agents have been by, looking for Thoth. When the President himself came by, some stupid redneck song, "Drown in the Chattahoochee," came on the radio. I smiled at the coincidence.
I told them all, "I hope you get him."
The last two agents seemed particularly bright and good-natured. They returned later to tell me they’d
Similar Books
