Avatar

I recently saw Avatar and can I just say, the movie is freaking rad. I won’t go into details but what I will say is that you do forget that the people are blue….

I love getting engrossed in fantasy worlds. LOVE it! But I always do this one thing to myself, which is purposely remind myself that this is only a movie, it will END in a couple of hours, and back to my regular life I will have to go. It’s very cruel, I do this to myself during the most exciting or moving movie moments. I wish there could be a fantasy world where the beings didn’t look so humanoid, where the flora and fauna look completely unlike anything we have ever imagined. I mean, a forest with no leaves, predators that didn’t look like animals we already know of. And WHY THE HECK DO THEY HAVE TO KISS LIKE HUMANS DO? Come on James Cameron, be more original will ya? I guess we wouldn’t relate to the romance if they just brushed their tails together – just wouldn’t be the same if they weren’t humanoid I suppose but it bugs me all the same.

Expressions

Wow, so here I am again, after all those years of Xanga, and after all those years of No Xanga……! My intentions are good but let’s see how long I last at this.

Inspired by my friend Helen’s witty and charming blogs, I attempt once again to express myself this way. Self expression has been a big theme for me lately. From the things I say to the way I dress, to being in therapy and discovering what’s actually at the very core of me – I’m becoming bolder. The thought of putting my thoughts on the internet, however, goes one step beyond what I’ve done before. It feels like someone (me) has made a slit along my brain and inverted it with pressed thumbs — creating a prickly flower with all the inner, previously protected parts sticking out.  Sort of like a mango. Sort of grotesque. A little scary, very intriguing. Sure, I’ve blogged before, but now that I’m older it feels much, much harder…

It feels good, to let my grotesqueness hang out there. Do you know why? Because it’ is honest. Martin and I just came back from Barcelona where I was both attracted to and disgusted by Gaudi – how in the world does he make mere stone remind me of, but not actually look like, gaping skulls and melting bones and sinew, and flowers that look hellish, and saints who look sinister? The man was a gross but man was he expressive.

End of thought.

I recently caught wind of a particularly sinister figure in history – Edward Bernays. As Freud’s American nephew and in the 1920′s he took his uncle’s idea of the unconscious (and that people’s unconscious can be manipulated using emotions), and really screwed the whole country with it.  Credited as the founder of Public Relations, he developed techniques he called “engineering of consent” – well beyond the the line of brainwashing, used by presidents and large corporations alike. The man wrote a book called Propaganda, for goodness’ sake. It’s a manual on propaganda.

Anyway, I haven’t had time to research him but here is a Wikipedia entry which lists his feats.  One of his techniques was to link products with people/ideas/things that are already popular- classic example is celebrity endorsements and product placements in movies. This guy was a genius!

I did watch the first of four installments of a BBC Documentary called The Century of Self (you can see the whole thing free via google video) which discusses him, and it sends shivers down my spine.  In a nutshell, prior to Bernays, people bought goods based on need, and commercials sold products based on how durable and long-lasting they were. But it wasn’t meant to last – here’s a quote from a Lehman Brother’s banker in the 30′s on the topic:

“We must shift America from a needs- to a desires-culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America, man’s desires must overshadow his needs.”

Good God, Lehman Brother’s. Frighteningly relevant, no? Now every time I’m tempted to step into JCrew I think of this darned quote and this darned documentary and these darned old men. How I long to prance, unmanipulated, in those skinny-leg corduroys….

I’m obsessed with Bernays. He really should be understood in his historical context, which I do not understand. I shall reseasrch this and elaborate further.

On another note, Martin just asked me what I ate so far today. I told him 2 bowls of Total, graham crackers, one chicken wing, one bite of an Italian sandwich, and two chewy fruit candies. He told me I am like a rodent and walked away. (!)