Sympathy For The Hotdog

On Saturday night I found myself in what, for me, was a very strange and unlikely situation.  Sitting in a noisy pub I found myself:

1. engaged in a discussion about the widely reported crises in the marriage between Cheryl and Ashley Cole, and
2. arguing in defence of the former X-Factor winner as entitled to some privacy and perhaps even a measure of sympathy.

What made the entire situation even more bizarre was the fact that complimenting my role-reversal was my friend’s equally unexpected insistence that Cole had, to over-simplify things, made her own celebrity bed and had to lie in it.  Anyone who knows us both would tell you that I’m the one who rants and raves about pop stars and popular culture while he can appreciate them while turning an astute critical, cultural and aesthetic eye on their products.  Where I tend to shout and rage, my friend can provide a gentler, more reflective voice.

Back in November, I wrote a post with the title Cheryl Cole is a Hotdog.  In it I expressed my distaste for Cole as both a product and an illustration of a cultural process that manufactures the empty presence and appearance of celebrity in order to satisfy our desire to be witness to actual talent and greatness.  Cole is not the only such product, but she’s one that is continually shoved in my face, especially during X-Factor season (when the aforementioned post was made) so she was a fairly obvious target for and illustration of my arguments.  As far as I can tell, she has no amazing musical talent either as a member of Girls Aloud or as a solo artist nor can she dance particularly well.  Given my own arrhythmic disabilities I probably shouldn’t be too harsh on the last point.   What she is good at is being the object of a popular adoration that is willing to take the visible, superficial markers of fame (fashionable clothes, obvious wealth etc) as definitive indicators of  the talent and achievement they are supposed to reward and indicate without caring to inquire if fame and some form of greatness are actually involved.

That’s what really bothers me about Cheryl Cole and many other celebrities.  So many of us are willing to participate in and encourage a cycle that satisfies a desire to witness true greatness through a succession of empty cyphers.  Celebrities like Cheryl Cole are incorrectly seen as set apart from and elevated above  their fellow humans because people believe they are rare and unique.  People react by placing them in a category of rarefied individuals who deserve special treatment and to whom the normal rules of behaviour and social intercourse don’t necessarily apply.  This is wrong.

Cheryl Cole is not a great genius.  She is, as I argued in November, a cheap, empty cultural product that we are all at least partially responsible for, including me.  In some small, almost undetectable way my writing about her contributes to the process of manufactured fame she is part of.  She doesn’t deserve special treatment in the form of accolades, honours, praise or opportunities that the rest of us are denied as non-celebrities.  All she did was be part of a winning team in a contest of mediocrity.  Still, I can’t really blame her for taking the opportunities that then presented themselves.

As the ongoing saga of Mr Cole’s serial infidelity has stretched on and on I’ve found myself thinking about my vehement conviction that Cheryl Cole shouldn’t actually be treated any differently than the rest of us non-hotdogs.  This led me directly to the position I found myself arguing in favour of on Saturday night.  If, as I maintain, Cheryl Cole is not actually anything special, if she is just an empty celebrity package and doesn’t deserve to be treated differently than the rest of us, then it doesn’t matter what the situation is, she shouldn’t be subject to different rules in any situation.  No ordinary individual would expect to discover his or her spouse had been unfaithful through one of the daily newspapers, nor would that person find it acceptable.  If those same papers continued to add pile revelation of cheating upon revelation accompanied by intimate photographs on the unfaithful spouse my guess is that a lawsuit might well result and that some of the very same red-tops who are so excited about what’s happened in the Cole household would be outraged at the affront to common decency.

I don’t know Cheryl Cole and I don’t particularly want to.  I suspect I would irritate her and she would bore me.  At the same time I also suspect that as empty as she might be as a simulacrum of celebrity there’s still enough of a human about her that her husband’s behaviour  must be nothing other than painful and humiliating and that’s without all the ongoing press reports and speculation.  She may have chosen to live her professional life in the public eye.  She may not deserve the fame, status and wealth that have been accorded to her, but it is vital to remember that she achieved her status through the desire and help of a very willing public.  From my standpoint it would be hypocritical for me to say that I don’t think Cheryl Cole is special or deserving of special treatment in general, but that in the case of her marriage falling to pieces she doesn’t deserve the privacy or sympathy due to anyone else.

To argue that along the lines that Cheryl Cole, as a celebrity, has decided to make a living in the public eye and therefore cannot expect any privacy or consideration when it comes to her private life shows just how naked and uncaring the popular desires and public appetites motivating the celebrity-as-hotdog manufacturing process really are.  At the moment those feasting on the empty-calories of Cole’s fame are unable to disguise, and in many cases unaware of, the fact that they are simply chewing this particular hotdog up before spitting it back onto their plates.

Celebrity or peon, genius of sub-average, I’m not so sure anyone deserves to be treated like that.

Post Script

I still not sure about this post, mainly because I feel like the criticism I’m making remains part of sordid instance of the celebrity process.  I’m going to go ahead with it.  I’m also aware the it may seem to be arguing that real celebrities of true talent and greatness would be fair game for the kind of publicity Cole is currently receiving.  That’s not the case, but it is a separate issue.  As I said at the beginning this post was inspired by the fact that I found myself defending Cheryl Cole’s right to at least a measure of privacy and some sympathy something I still can’t believe happened.  As I’ve tried to explain though, my views of the celebrity process in general made doing so, in my eyes at least, the only tenable position.

Technology: Educational and Economic

There isn’t too much to report here at the Omphaloskeptic.  The attempt to make one meaningful post per week remains desperate and, according to most standards, unfulfilled.  This post won’t redress that; instead it’s just a fairly disjointed and rhetorically failed panegyric to my current two favourite technological fruits.  Or something. . .

Those two fruits are:

1. The electricity monitor that arrived today as part of the new ‘package’ my household has opted for to facilitate our migration from one energy supplier to another.  Not only was I able to open the box containing our electricity meter and clamp some sort of magnetic loop connected to a transmitter unit around a big fat electrical table, but I was able to do so in front of the neighbours while muttering phrases to myself which clearly demonstrated my incredible practical, DIY know-how.  They think I’m both a scholar and a person capable of earning a crust with my hands.  My unshaven face helped sustain their illusion and  I didn’t even have to resort to allowing my jeans to slip from my waist in  the way I’ve seen so many highly skilled tradesmen allow their trousers to. . .
2. The podcast version of the BBC Radio 4 Show A History of the World in 100 Objects.   I’m listening to this via podcast simply because I can’t be sure of catching the episodes as they are broadcast and I’m loving it.  It’s presented (and written?) by the director of the British Museum and before the first episode was broadcast I was intrigued by the idea of tracing human history with reference to objects in a museum I’m relatively familiar with.  I was also sceptical about how it might work though the fact that the series is “A” rather than “The” history of the world assuaged my raw, anxious mind.  From the first episode on I’ve been fascinated, delighted and not once disappointed.  While each episode takes an object in the collection of a certain museum as a starting point the narrative of the series as a whole ranges far and wide especially when you keep in mind the fact that each instalment is roughly a quarter of an hour long.  Sometimes at the end of an episode I’d like to know a bit more about the object it centred upon.  More often I’m left pondering on and dreaming about the historical trends, developments and turning points that particular object was an excuse to talk about.  If I was a brilliant person I’d be able to adapt this structure to my own academic field and present a course or book or radio show charting the course of literary history in 100 works or, better yet, 100 significant passages.  I’m not a brilliant person so that’s not going to happen, but I would strongly suggest that all of you out there have a listen to this show.

That’s all.  I’m going to post this, switch the PC off and make a note of what kind of change that action registers on the new electricity monitor.

Topic For Discussion: I Am That I Am

This week I’m teaching Raymond Chandler’s The Long Good-bye to a group of bright students in the final year of their degree programme.  I’m really looking forward to it.  It’s the kind of novel that, in my experience, students have no hesitation about pontificating on; they find it accessible and aren’t intimidated by it in the way they’re scared off by the allegedly “literary” reputation of say, The Crying of Lot 49 or, as it’s alluded to in the Chandler novel, “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock.”  I may even try to smuggle a reference or two from “Prufrock” into my lecture.

I spent part of today skimming through the novel, marking up passages that might be useful in my lecture or discussion and I was struck by one in particular.  Those who visited the Omphaloskpetic last week will be glad to know that it has nothing to do with anything as trivial as sandwiches.  Early in The Long Good-bye when he’s been offered and hesitated about accepting the job of looking after the writer Roger Wade by Wade’s publisher Marlowe is treated to the following piece of advice by Wade’s wife, Eileen:

You can’t judge people by what they do.  If you judge them at all, it must be by what they are.

Every time I read this short passage I have to suppress an urge to grunt “huh” whilst scratching my head.  I’m not sure how to respond or even what all the possible responses may be.

I think part of the problem is that the division Eileen draws between action and essence and her favouring of the latter is an incredibly alien concept in the word(s) I’ve spent my life in.  Growing up I heard of lot of self-serving, sound-bitey comments about the need to “walk the talk.”  A good sight better was the admonition I heard from nearly every quarter that “actions speak louder than words.”  What popular wisdom like this points to is, I think, the fact that it’s very hard to judge who or what a person is without reference to their behaviour.  That being the case, how can it be possible to judge someone by what they are and not what they do?  Can there be any difference?

My half-blind, groping response to the second of those questions is “yes, there may well be a difference.”  I’m sure all of us have taken actions that we will never be able to comprehend or justify in large part because they are not in keeping with our character or identity.  That does not excuse or justify such actions, it just points to the strangely bifurcated, polyvalent nature of the human experience.  Demands to “walk the talk” try to deny the fact of that polyvalency at best.  At worst they are the expression of a thoughtless ignorance that won’t even recognise it.

Of course, that first question, how do you judge someone’s inner being without looking at their actions, is incredibly hard to answer.  It may be impossible.  Thinking about it I tried considering myself according to what I am, rather than what I do.  The exercise was interesting but incredibly difficult because even safe within the bower of my own interior monologue action and identity kept running together almost before I’d noticed.  Try it;  I suspect you’ll discover something similar in your own ponderings of the issue.

At the minute I’m in more than half a mind to start my seminar later this week by pointing the students toward this particular passage and asking them to consider it with reference to a) the rest of the novel, and b) their own lives and experience.  In the end I suspect I’ll restrict myself to asking them about a).  Whatever the case I figure this is precisely the kind of question that has earned me a reputation as lecturer who runs “tough” seminars.  The students will probably respond by making it clear, in a non-verbal way, that they are judging me entirely by my actions.  If, however, they have a great set of answers ready to share I’ll have to wonder if one or two of them have stumbled onto this blog. . .

. . . I think I can cope with that.  When I was growing up and hearing demands to “walk the talk” I took solace in a piece of music released on an album the year before I was born.  In the words of Peter Tosh “I am that I am.”

Jebus Fish Update

I was hoping to write a much longer and carefully organised post today, but that isn’t going to happen.  I have had a few private messages after my last post and I’d like to inform everyone who has been wondering that the Jebus Fish seems to be doing very well indeed.  S/he has deepened in colour, something we’re assured is a sign of good health, keeps darting from place to place within the habitat and has a very hearty appetite.  Apparently resurrection is a calorie-intense business.  A big breakfast follows the big sleep.

Other than that, the time since my last posting has been busy and I’ve had all sorts of thoughts about potential topics flying through my head.  For example:

• The Pope’s wonderful take on the equality laws here in Britain started a number of wheels turning.  Personally I’m very concerned that equality laws might require certain people and groups to stop discriminating against others such as homosexuals.  It’s just so unfair to expect people to treat others with respect and tolerance!  It also doesn’t respect or tolerate them.  Or something.
• A number of anti-cyclist hate groups on Facebook have been brought to my attention.  Thankfully very, very, very few people belong to these groups, but the threats of vehicular violence against people pedalling away on two wheels is disturbing.
• The fact that over the past few days the ongoing response to Salinger’s passing, in the UK at least, seems to have been hi-jacked by the image of Norman Mailer.  Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate Mailer’s work but I do find it somewhat odd that the extrovert seems to be stealing the limelight produced by the death of the recluse.  Apparently you’re still something of a loser if you want to talk about Snr. Hemingway.
• The album my wife and I received as a Christmas gift that I cannot stop listening to no matter how hard I try.  The fact that during my commute when I’m normally listening to a huge range of music I keep returning to this album, often having decided I’m going to listen to something, anything else provides some indication of precisely how much I’m enjoying it.  Earlier today I even found myself singing one of its tunes and doing a humiliating little shuffle step behind the trolley I was steering around the supermarket.  The music I was hearing in my head made me so happy I didn’t even try to stop.

Those and other topics have been occupying me in my free moments.  I may write about all, some or none of them.  If you have any desire to read more Omphaloskeptic nonsense on any of the above topics do let me know.

Jebus Fish in My Sitting Room

As an overeducated sceptic the Omphaloskeptic has always believed the widely circulated story regarding the origins of the Christian fish symbol that seems to be most at home on the back of cars, Honda Civics in particular.  It’s actually a pretty good story.  Early on in the history of this particular religion, when adherents were likely to be persecuted, they adopted the ichthus as a kind of secret code for more than it’s classical Greek definition of fish.  I’m not going to spend the time figuring out how to render the word in the Greek alphabet, but it is the case that its letters form an acrostic, in Greek of course, representing the first letter of each word of the phrase “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Saviour.”  I don’t think it matters what your personal theological outlook is, that’s a pretty clever way of signalling to fellow Christians that you share their beliefs at a time when doing so could be dangerous; it demands a certain amount of education for one thing.  It also comes in handy that fish and fishing figure rather noticeably in New Testament symbolism.  As of last night, however, I’ve started to wonder if there isn’t another explanation.  My wife and I witnessed our own miracle of the fish – not fishes, definitely no loaves – and in this case it wasn’t a Jewish messiah who was the protagonist but a cherry barb fish (puntius titteya).

For Christmas this year I organized the necessary equipment for a small tropical fish habitat for my wife.  She followed all the instructions for getting it set up and a few weeks ago, having added some living plants to the system that, hopefully, will achieve a complete biological balance, introduced two cherry barbs to the habitat.  One didn’t last so long.  We’re not sure if that was Flaubert or Molière – the names she chose – we never learned to tell them apart.  It doesn’t matter.  Despite being hardy little buggers one passed sadly on.  Yesterday, when my wife returned from work and we couldn’t find the other French author in our aquarium, we assumed he’d followed his friend.  Both of us were more than a bit bummed-out by for two reasons.  First, we were supposed to be looking after our fishy friend; his death was untimely,unfair and served no purpose.  Second, it was only a matter of another week or so before we’d be allowed to introduce another  individual to the tank without being in danger of destroying the equilibrium of the biological filtration system.  Another death meant that something was seriously wrong.  Either way, we were responsible.

I’d been busy writing all day so hadn’t spent any time really looking at the tank.  I knew beyond doubt that I hadn’t seen our remaining fish for at least two or three hours.  I was cooking dinner and my poor wife was growing increasingly agitated by the fact her remaining fish was still missing.  We concluded he had sadly left this world and agreed I would wash up whilst she dealt with the remains of her friend.

I was scrubbing a plate when I heard shouting from the other room.   My first thought was that the spaniel had decided to dive head first into the the tank and was making a difficult job more unpleasant for my soul mate.  What was happening was even better . . .

When she began rooting around for the allegedly dead fish my wife exhausted the obvious options of the plants, the rocks and the gap between the heater and the tank wall before opening the housing for the filter.  At first glance it seemed the poor fish had died and been sucked into that same housing.  Then it fluttered a fin.  A second later it twitched its tail.  By the time I arrived on the scene the fish was able to swim in the weakest, most exhausted manner imaginable from the plastic dish it had been imprisoned in for what must have felt like an eternity.  For the next three or four hours we couldn’t take our eyes off it.  The poor thing could hardly swim and we worried that we’d wake up to find it back in the filter or floating belly up.  Instead it’s been darting around the tank all day in a manner I can only describe as frisky.

I don’t want to imply that our cherry barb is out of the watery, metaphorical woods yet.  I’ve tried imagining what it would be like to be trapped in the human equivalent of its situation – down a mine, under rubble etc – and it’s horrible.  The poor thing could be swimming around in shock or surviving on adrenaline.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he makes it through another day, then another and a whole succession of days after that.  These fish have an expectancy of 8 or more years.

In the meantime, having witnessed this fishy resurrection, I’ve taken to calling our French author Jebus Fish.

My wife won’t let me stick him on the back of our car.

Sandwiches

A truly good sandwich is a beautiful experience.    I’ve had a few in various parts of the world: French baguettes with fine ham, good cheese and a bit of mustard; monstrous creations of thinly sliced pastrami, corned beef and sauerkraut topped with just a half pound or so of chicken liver paté and a kosher pickle and cold beer on the side come to mind immediately.  The first time I visited New York City I arrived at dinner time then I woke up jet-lagged and hungry in a mid-town hotel in the disgustingly small hours of the morning.  The remnants of three sandwiches for four people were more than I could finish and I was able to drift back to sleep with my anachronous appetite sated along with the addition of an over-price mini-bar beer.  I’ve even made one or two sandwiches I’ve been quite proud of.  One was such a pleasure that it’s a good thing I was alone when I ate it.

There are also bad sandwiches.  The ones that taste of little, if anything.  They come in plastic containers, sit on bread made soggy by wilting lettuce and anaemic tomatoes.  Their cheese, if they contain it, tastes off.  Any animal protein they contain is tasteless at best, dry and fuzzy at worst.  Toasting exacerbates the problem but, apparently, is a means of distraction.  These sandwiches make you feel filthy and ashamed to be your mother’s child.  They are like a horrible defecation in reverse: unavoidable at the time but unspeakable and best forgotten.

I always figured that this kind of mass-produced calamity and betrayal of what can be a wonderful food due to its simplicity was the result of very recent developments in our world.  It seems I was wrong.  Back in 1953 Raymond Chandler’s The Long Good-bye was published.  McDonald’s had yet to take over the world.  There wasn’t a Subway on every corner and Quizno’s wasn’t even a mean glint in its degenerate daddy’s eye.  Late in the novel, with all the troubles and cares of the type you’d expect to be sitting heavily on the shoulders of one of the original hard-boiled detectives Philip Marlowe has something to eat:

I went down to the drugstore and ate a chicken salad sandwich and drank some coffee.  The coffee was over-strained and the sandwich was as full of rich flavour as a piece torn off an old shirt.  Americans will eat anything if it is toasted and held together with a couple of toothpicks and has lettuce sticking out of the sides, preferably a little wilted.” (Chandler, The Long Good-bye, chapter 45)

I wish I could deny the truth of Marlowe’s statement about toasting and toothpicks.  I can’t.  All I can say is that it’s probably a good thing that Marlowe lived in LA rather than Chicago or Boston or, of course, New York.  In the the Big Apple especially he would have been assured of a regular supply of great food including truly wonderful sandwiches rather than having carefully to hunt them out.  There would have been no reason for this clear connoisseur of the sandwich not to stop and grab one en route to see a panicked client or a stakeout or to speak with some windbag of a cop.

Faced with that situation I suspect that, like most of us, Marlowe would have had a hard time maintaining his stony, cynical facade.  A happy, fat Marlowe just wouldn’t be able to face down the tough crooks, sneer at the rich men who feel they’re above the law or get the bombshell on the terms dictated by his secretly sensitive heart. Plus strings of roast beef in your front teeth and bits of kosher pickle on your shirt don’t tend to make you look tough or sexy, just sloppy.

So what’s my point in all this?  Well, it seems to me that despite its simple nature a truly great sandwich will always remain something of a beautiful mystery.  If not Marlowe, ham that he is, would have had a larger repertoire of cute observations on the subject.

Then again maybe we’ve both just had too much coffee chased by too much bourbon.