that we cannot bear to look upon the image of the midair mystery man jumping to his doom and so end up censoring the image. This was good because it enabled everyone to print the image again, really big, just to prove that we are now brave enough to face the image. Look, here we are: facing it.
Photoshopped images of a future London after some future flood? Horrendous, yes. But also quite cool. After all, didn’t New Orleans look dramatic? The picturesque hobos, the battered streets, the martial law surrounding the chain stores . . . and what a soundtrack: Between all the blues and all the jazz, nature could not have wreaked havoc in a more culturally enriching setting.
For years, torture was a very worthy, late-Pinter sort of subject, but now it’s family entertainment with pliers-on-body action adding real piquancy to the plots of hip television series like
Lost
and
24.
The whole taboo has really lifted of late: After 9/11, the
New York Times
said that conversations “in bars, on commuter trains, and at dinner tables” were now turning on the relative ethics of torture. It’s almost worth a supplement spread: Torture Chic.
“Disaster movies will never be the same again” was one verdict, in the
Guardian,
on
United 93.
Oh, good. So they didn’t die in vain. If nothing else, at least we can point to 9/11 as having revived a moribund movie genre. Unfortunately, Nicolas Cage and Michael Peña didn’t resurrect the cop buddy movie with Oliver Stone’s
World Trade Center,
in which two men bravely fight an evil even worse than Gary Busey in
Lethal Weapon.
Hopefully, other moribund movie genres will also get a twenty-first-century calamity boost. Personally, we can’t wait for the first weird weather sex comedy. Or the first post-Guantanamo caper flick.
The acclaim for
United 93
was deafening. Apparently, it was “unifying, and uplifting, at a time when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are going badly.” Which is, surely, kind of weird. Everything’s fucking up! With our governments’ efforts to rectify matters only seeming to derectify matters further! But look, here’s some proper brave stuff. It’s uplifting. More than the nightly news, certainly. We’re sick of that stuff.
Of course, artists are beholden to reflect the world around them, and if that involves getting off—in a simplistic way—on the drama of it all, then at least it’s not standard-issue Hollywood escapism of rappers in fast cars. Or maybe, in fact, this is the new escapism: seeking respite from the fruitless gloom by getting kicks from bloody, handheld, vérité docudramas on the more horrific flashpoints of the age. “There’s so much to see right now. What do you prefer? There’s the Twin Towers film or the New Orleans film. Then there’s
Fast and Furious: Nightmare in Najaf.
Oh, and
The Taliban Terminator,
about the British sniper in Helmand Province. It’s apparently a bit like
Phone Booth
—only they haven’t got a functioning telecommunications network.”
CARBON OFFSETS
Planting trees: What can possibly be wrong with that? Well, nothing usually. Except if those trees become fig leaves. Fig leaves to help cover up an enviro-hellstorm. Which they won’t be able to do. Because fig leaves are small, and enviro-hellstorms are big. The wonder of carbon offsets shows that there really is no problem you can’t solve by throwing more money at it, even if that problem is born from having money. Honestly, it’s like a little miracle.
So Coldplay can feel okay about the CO 2 emissions of their super-success enormo-gigs by funding the planting of ten thousand mango trees in India. In this way, a recent interview can proudly report the band flying “by private jet to Palm Springs . . . The band can now afford to fly wherever possible.” (Of course, pretty soon there might not be any palms or any springs when they fly to Palm Springs—but that won’t be their fault!)
In such ways, even an utterly atomized populace can change
Photoshopped images of a future London after some future flood? Horrendous, yes. But also quite cool. After all, didn’t New Orleans look dramatic? The picturesque hobos, the battered streets, the martial law surrounding the chain stores . . . and what a soundtrack: Between all the blues and all the jazz, nature could not have wreaked havoc in a more culturally enriching setting.
For years, torture was a very worthy, late-Pinter sort of subject, but now it’s family entertainment with pliers-on-body action adding real piquancy to the plots of hip television series like
Lost
and
24.
The whole taboo has really lifted of late: After 9/11, the
New York Times
said that conversations “in bars, on commuter trains, and at dinner tables” were now turning on the relative ethics of torture. It’s almost worth a supplement spread: Torture Chic.
“Disaster movies will never be the same again” was one verdict, in the
Guardian,
on
United 93.
Oh, good. So they didn’t die in vain. If nothing else, at least we can point to 9/11 as having revived a moribund movie genre. Unfortunately, Nicolas Cage and Michael Peña didn’t resurrect the cop buddy movie with Oliver Stone’s
World Trade Center,
in which two men bravely fight an evil even worse than Gary Busey in
Lethal Weapon.
Hopefully, other moribund movie genres will also get a twenty-first-century calamity boost. Personally, we can’t wait for the first weird weather sex comedy. Or the first post-Guantanamo caper flick.
The acclaim for
United 93
was deafening. Apparently, it was “unifying, and uplifting, at a time when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are going badly.” Which is, surely, kind of weird. Everything’s fucking up! With our governments’ efforts to rectify matters only seeming to derectify matters further! But look, here’s some proper brave stuff. It’s uplifting. More than the nightly news, certainly. We’re sick of that stuff.
Of course, artists are beholden to reflect the world around them, and if that involves getting off—in a simplistic way—on the drama of it all, then at least it’s not standard-issue Hollywood escapism of rappers in fast cars. Or maybe, in fact, this is the new escapism: seeking respite from the fruitless gloom by getting kicks from bloody, handheld, vérité docudramas on the more horrific flashpoints of the age. “There’s so much to see right now. What do you prefer? There’s the Twin Towers film or the New Orleans film. Then there’s
Fast and Furious: Nightmare in Najaf.
Oh, and
The Taliban Terminator,
about the British sniper in Helmand Province. It’s apparently a bit like
Phone Booth
—only they haven’t got a functioning telecommunications network.”
CARBON OFFSETS
Planting trees: What can possibly be wrong with that? Well, nothing usually. Except if those trees become fig leaves. Fig leaves to help cover up an enviro-hellstorm. Which they won’t be able to do. Because fig leaves are small, and enviro-hellstorms are big. The wonder of carbon offsets shows that there really is no problem you can’t solve by throwing more money at it, even if that problem is born from having money. Honestly, it’s like a little miracle.
So Coldplay can feel okay about the CO 2 emissions of their super-success enormo-gigs by funding the planting of ten thousand mango trees in India. In this way, a recent interview can proudly report the band flying “by private jet to Palm Springs . . . The band can now afford to fly wherever possible.” (Of course, pretty soon there might not be any palms or any springs when they fly to Palm Springs—but that won’t be their fault!)
In such ways, even an utterly atomized populace can change
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