The Living Dead
For an excellent synopsis about how aspirers to "crunch" can kill the thing they most want to achieve ... read this article in Vanity Fair by a.a. gill, in which he discusses the monstrous new condos being erected around residential areas of New York. These new glass towers are an outrageous visual insult to the aesthetics of the nineteenth century neighborhoods in which they obnoxiously stake their claim. All the while, they market their Dreherian material authenticity in the form of "bog-stained Irish elm, gnarled Honduran corset pine, [and] smoked Austrian oak" wood finishes, while also touting "the provenance of the washing machines and the door fixtures". Sound familiar to readers of crunchy cons?
These multi-million dollar "lifestyle condos" are being marketed to wall streeters who desire the social cred of having made it in the big bad city. Gill makes all-important point that merely by building and marketing these condos, that "big bad city" is sterilized and commodified to the point of vaporization. Gill says it best here: "Fund managers kill the thing they crave." Indeed. The same could be said for the author of "crunchy cons", whose voracious craving for and analysis of "authenticity", encapsulized in the form of a mass market book, threatens all that is in fact "authentic". We humbly submit that pointing out this fatal paradox is not a bad raison d'etre for any blog, even this one.
These multi-million dollar "lifestyle condos" are being marketed to wall streeters who desire the social cred of having made it in the big bad city. Gill makes all-important point that merely by building and marketing these condos, that "big bad city" is sterilized and commodified to the point of vaporization. Gill says it best here: "Fund managers kill the thing they crave." Indeed. The same could be said for the author of "crunchy cons", whose voracious craving for and analysis of "authenticity", encapsulized in the form of a mass market book, threatens all that is in fact "authentic". We humbly submit that pointing out this fatal paradox is not a bad raison d'etre for any blog, even this one.
posted by kathleen at 9:59 AM
22 Comments:
"...encapsulized in the form of a mass market book..."
The paradox also shows itself in the blog ads on beliefnet. I just saw an ad on his blog which boldly queries "What kind of kisser are you? Take the free quiz." I've noticed in the last several visits a lot of T&A-laden images, dating sites and ads for pyschic readings. In a sense I don't care, just like I don't care what nationality his booze claims to be. However, the fact is that he is always claiming to be above such crass capitalism; a major tenet of his book is that being beholden to such low forms of making a buck is a problem with mainstream conservatives. Physician, heal thyself.
Hi all:
This obsession of the Jeffersonian agricultural republic is what turns me off from the crunchy conservatives. Honestly, I've never understood this preference for the rural life over the urban. It must be peculiar to Anglosphere conservatism. Continential conservatives aren't as fixated by farmers and rural life. They respect them but they don't become gooey eyed and blubber like babies.
I suspect is explain the kitschy urban architecture: the desire to transplant the family farm in the city.
xavier
xavier
In a matter that rises to the level of Mr. Dreher's Liberalism the City of Chicago has done the following.Chicago Officials have asked organizers of a downtown Christmas festival, the German Christkindlmarket, to reconsider using a movie studio as a sponsor because it is worried ads for its film "The Nativity Story" might offend non-Christians. The last time I checked the first five letters of Christmas where Christ.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061128/D8LLRK9O0.html
Please let officials in Chicago know how stupid this is. The address is
moseinquiry@cityofchicago.org
This is the Mayor's Office for Special Events which made the decision. It is headed by James Law. His address is
JLAW@CITYOFCHICAGO.ORG
If you think that was awful than read the following story.
http://living.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1771362006
You always here people like Andrew Sullivan et. al. harp on what the church does to Gays. When do you think they will cover this?
"you kill what you crave" -- man, but doesn't the thrust of this post go double for eastern orthodoxy being overridden by these WASPY converting types? how depressing that must be for the ethnics. the thought of attending a bells and smells orthodox service surrounded by white protestant malcontents is so ... off-putting. and sorry, but in catholicism you don't have that problem. it's already multi-ethnic -- and if "authenticity" is the goal, that's what makes it more "authentically" american.
Maybe this Greek wannabe-ism is merely the more civilized, post-graduate version of this phenomenon. Except they've evolved from Greek letters to complete words.
what is also totally disgusing are these grown men whining about how catholicism isn't MASCULINE enough for them. AGAIN, the quickest way to kill your own masculinity is to sit around whining about how unmasculine your church is, and/or converting to another church because it allows you to glom onto someone else's perceived masculinity.
Re: masculinity & Catholic spirituality. First of all Pikkumatti, mentioning the "shoveling of testosterone" was a little painful, but I get the image. I have 3 sons and I wouldn't be surprised if my wife rents a bull-dozer one of these days, to extend the metaphor.
But seriously, we often hold up St. Joseph as a model for the manly man. The guy is simply not quoted anywhere in the Bible. I'm sure he did talk and said many important things. But face it: he was an action hero. Did he have a beard? Who cares. Did he go around musing about his beard and the beards of others? Uh, no he was busying having angelic apparitions. And getting the job done, whatever it took, with his mind and his muscle.
Likewise when Catholic men execute a plan they don't always send out a press release. Nor should they. We're propelling this ship, row by tedious row -- there's no commentating or broadcasting required. If some men want to sit up on the deck with the women and kids sipping iced latte and complaining about the decor, they can be our guests. We'll keep rowing.
yeah, i was wondering today what Orthodox church CNET'S James Kim attended. i mean, the guy had to have been orthodox. no way would someone have the testosterone to sacrifice his life for his family without having attended the masculinity-soaked services found ONLY at an orthodox church.
test
if we start a new blog, maybe we should call it "businesstransaction.blogspot.com", thereby recognizing Frederica Mathewes-Green's characterization of the Roman Catholic Church's relationship with God. (see page xvii of the Prologue to Frederica's generous tome "Facing East" -- an absorbing read, especially for those with a particular interest in Frederica's dining habits)
oh what the heck, here's the entire frederica mathewes-green paragraph (cited above) for delicious reference:
"We remained worried by traces of salvation-by-works theology in the Catholic practice and a habitual tendency to frame human relations with God more as a business transaction than as love affair. Catholic theology seemed in general too overdone, compelled to parse every sentience and split every infinitude."
meow!
Ms. frederica, of course, made regular appearances as a "crunchy" friend of Rod on the original NRO crunchblog.
I guess she's also a regular on NPR. Here's an audio morsel from Fred where she denounces the Gregorian calender as a "crazy new innovation". LOL. Julians unite!!
Also goes on to detail how much harder their Lent is. GMAB. But I must say her voice is tailor-made for NPR.
aw, she's so special.
well, the gregorian calendar was "devised by a Pope". so nix that one.
man i just can't stop listening to that. she's got it all figured out! we just don't get it, we heathen catholics et al. with our "pastel m and m's". she's out of step, and better for it. congratulations, frederica. i want to be *you* when i grow up.
sorry to harp, but dig it: Frederica speaks about orthodox easter being a different day than non-orthodox easter: "perhaps another advantage is this feeling of being out of sync with the rest of the world. everybody else treats the holiest day of my religious year, the day of Jesus' resurrection, as if it were all about cartoon bunnies and chocolates. maybe that's an appointment i don't need to keep."
"EVERYBODY ELSE". that's right frederica. everybody else SUCKS.
Diane: The 'enormity' of the structure? Holy usage error, Batman."
Should have been gi-normity as in gi-normous.
So how many volumes could be written about the crunchy tone-deafness? I think her material fits in superbly at NPR whose producers seem intent on finding the alternative angle to present about Chrisianity rather than the boring old Catholic & Evangelical stuff whose practioners might state something embarrassing. Here's another one about a liturgical group-hug during Lent; the intro guy mentions calendars again: "For those churches who use the Gregorian calendar, lent began.... for the Orthodox churches using the Julian Calendar.....".
do they have no idea how they sound? or is it they just don't care, and self-congratulation is their modus operandi? in any case, i can totally see why dreher and FMG are friends.
Bubba, I didn't get that from Rod's report. It's a CC site for CCs. He's writing for his audience there, not asserting that they are better.
You guys are right though about presenting your message without offending people. I've never found him offensive, but then I agree with the message to some degree.
Pikku, your new photo is looking mighty Burly. (Or is the term "Burl-esque"?)
Har, har, har....
Darkly comical. I don't know about crunchy, though. But she should definitely be on some TV show like Oprah's with a bunch of mindless celebratory applause to go with her story of self-congratulatory meanderings. Must be nice to go through life and be able to assume that everything you've done simply because you felt like doing it was inspired by a strong faith and deep love of God.
Darkly comical. I don't know about crunchy, though. But she should definitely be on some TV show like Oprah's with a bunch of mindless celebratory applause to go with her story of self-congratulatory meanderings. Must be nice to go through life and be able to assume that everything you've done simply because you felt like doing it was inspired by a strong faith and deep love of God.
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