I found this last night reading Griel Marcus' The Shape Of Things To Come. Its an intense and difficult (read challenging, strangling) book about, essentially, America's constant cycle of betraying itself and the promises it was founded on (and that it keeps making). He looks a lot at how American artists, politicians and public figures (David Lynch, John Dos Passos, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. to name a few) prophecy this betrayal. It is an eye-opening and frightening read to delve into while we are in the throes of trying to reinvent ourselves as a nation (yet again), coming off the heals of a fierce betrayal heading potentially into another.
For spring time--for election year:
The pursuit of happiness is a national drama played out before an imaginary audience, an audience that includes all Americans, living and dead. As an actor, one seeks oneself; one also seeks to fulfill the aspirations of all those less brave, knowing that to fail one's own quest means the betrayal of everybody else.
Coming upon this during a particularly difficult night, it ruined me.
Happy March.
March on...
Mark.
1 comment:
“It is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans are, as Americans, the most self-conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief that the other nations are in a conspiracy to under-value them."
Henry James.
(Provided by my friend Julie, I won't take full credit)
Where's your Mackers response? How is y'all's piece coming?
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