Meme se Maya: The Bigger, Dirtier Picture behind the "chapa" episode

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Quit playin' videogames with my heart.

The pastiche intensive music video to Lana Del Ray's "Videogames" is postmodern Americana at it's hypnotic, dizzying best. It's heart break in the time of i-PODs, hyper-reality, paparazzi surveillance, Youtube, homevideos, webcams and retrofitted Hollywood nostalgia.


This is a music video situated precariously on the "bad edge of postmodernity" (ala Mike Davis).


The ground here says STOP and says you're on the Walk of Fame both at once. Fame is subsumed in the city's larger security apparatus, frequently and relentlessly policed.


I can't think of a more fitting metaphor for love and heartbreak. Lovely song title. Haunting lyrics. 


It also helps that it is significantly allusive to a movie I consider my religion, David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. and channels something of a Mulholland mood, what with the darker side of LA and Hollywood. There's some Twin Peaks in here, too. The raw footage reminds me of Laura Palmer and Donna dancing in the woods. All the falling recalls one of the opening scenes of Mulholland Dr., where Rita's character is seen stumbling through a palm-tree dotted street in LA, in a moment of surreal amnesiac abandon. David Lynch has often had as his muse the idea of a Lady in Trouble.  Lana's beauty in this video is quaint and melancholic and I can almost envisage her creeping out from behind Lynch's characteristic red-curtains.  Lynchian-esque would be an adjective I could use to describe her...mood, her dis-ease. and that voice. 


Another interesting touch is the inclusion of Paz de le Huerta, of BoardwalK Empire fame, in which she played the coquettish vampy siren Lucy Danziger. This seems an appropriate reference to the period drama, set in a gilded age of jazz-age excess, Prohibition, speakeasies, criminality and celebrity. Of course, all of these themes are refracted through a decidedly cinematic lens in Boardwalk- courtesy Martin Scorcese, whose aesthetic is felt vividly in the series.

 There's a sense of privacy, here, on Lana's part. A privacy gone dangerously public. A privacy surrendered and a privacy invaded.  A lady in trouble- a pouty lipped siren on the edge. A videogame postscripted by the looming presence of a GAME OVER sign- lit in sexy, sultry neon no less.

                                       

A Daily Particular

(Written in 2009)

Comfort zones discomfort me. I begin to take myself and the world around me for granted when I am safe and secure in my comfort zone, and in the process, I cease to question, challenge, and upset the status quo. Every once in a while, a little something happens in my life that shakes things up; ruffles a few feathers; disturbs the peace. And it is in these precious moments that I feel most vital, most alive, most free. One such significant moment that I still recall with perfect clarity chanced upon me 9 years ago.

I can still recall his face, and how its contours changed as he smiled at me. 9 years and it all seems and feels so immediate. He jangles in my head along with all those other daily particulars, names of people, places and other groceries one stores in their mind's address book without ever actually reaching out to them, or wanting to. 

I like thinking of these items as permanent household fixtures if you will. They exist. I trust my bed because it doesn't grow wings overnight- it sticks around. I trust my network of family, friends and acquaintances because they occupy delineated spaces. The soap dish for the soap; the washing machine for the clothes; the front porch for the car. The electricity bill hangs around too, in all too officious earnest. 

They could be coupons- the ones that ask me to cut along the perforated lines. And the ones that caution me not to use the scissor in mommy or daddy's absence. They could be the contacts on my cell phone's address book; or my friends list on Facebook. Ever accessible, ever navigable- like my fridge, or the national archives. 

This is my safe, ever polite cereal box existence. (Please) Cut along the dotted lines. Be safe. Be supervised. (Kindly) Don't talk to strangers. (You are advised to) Protect yourself from the unexpected. (Please) Return things where you found them. 

It's been 10 years. I can still recall his face. He is a Clarks salesman who sold me a pair of shoes on Oxford Street 11 years ago. He's a really good guy. I had a relationship with him that lasted all of 7 minutes. I won't say I've forgotten his name, because he hadn't one to begin with. He is the Clarks salesman: Australian, million dollar smile, priceless goodness.

I guess it would be fair to say it was the moment. If I could, I would clutch it and spin it around on its invisible axis to show you, but I'm afraid I can't. Rather, I'm glad I can't. It was the moment- my moment- and I was and am sovereign over it. For there it was. No perforated lines to cut along here. None of the safe and boring linearity of my address book. 

I taste It very meaningfully, as if It alone is capable of articulating what I am trying to say; as if It were able to consummate those wicked, ever evasive thoughts that ricochet across my mind, this way and that, mixed up, simultaneously seeking and resisting a permanent postal address where I can call on them as and when I wished, at whatever hour any day and I would be sure they would definitively remain the same.

The salesman hasn't an address, however. He remains a stranded moment, not whole but membranous, uprooted from time and space, residing on continuum avenue (no left or right turns here), resisting my permanent fixtures, defeating the stationary and mind numbing tangibility of electronic appliances, microwaves and postal addresses. He happens. 

He is more alive to me than so much of the immediate world around me. I tire of the daily particulars. They are too constant, too secure, too earthed in their safe, reliable existence. 

The convivial chatter, the eating utensils and their perfectly rehearsed cacophonous clatter, mother's reliable daily platter- they come easy; so easy that they lull me into that distressing state of......half sleep. I am Marx's proletarian and they are my daily opiate. I know not pain nor pleasure, but only the soul stifling anesthetic of a convenient life complete with 'Directions for Use'. Be safe. Be supervised. Cut along the dotted lines. 

I can't deny that I have often longed to cut along this precious memory of mine- to borrow Horace's phrase, 'seize' it as you would the day. I have wished to hold it and turn it around and examine it in the light, when I am suddenly and joyously reminded there is nothing and no one to hold, there is little to seize, indeed seizable. There is a smile. There is a personal history engraved. Not on stone- but on whichever breeze chanced upon my path that fateful day. There is revelation upon revelation but no Holy Book upon holier pedestal. There is Truth. But there's another customer. In line. 'Thankyou. Have a good day.' There is Big Ben which must strike 12. 

I've bought my shoes. He's handed me the receipt. And I haven't an excuse to linger, probe and stay. Whatever we had is far and away. And I haven't an excuse. There is nothing to excuse. Forgive me please for sounding this obtuse. 

I've bought my shoes, and he's handed me the receipt. 

I've lost the receipt. Never mind the shoes (I was swept off my feet).

Never mind his name. And just as well. 

I had a relationship with him that lasted all of 7 minutes.

Not accessible, not navigable, but simply, lovingly, sincerely,

there.

Centre Justified.

It's interesting that as I've progressed through school onwards to college, the more I wish to unlearn and the more I wish could be undone.

There are lots of reasons for this, one being that I haven't had a conventional educational career- already being in my third gap year. This present gap has proven disruptive in so many ways, both good and bad. But always instructive. I feed off disruption.

All the same, I must believe that between all the scholarship and reading, writing and thinking, deconstruction and agonizing analysis, I can retain some semblance of a pre-intelligent, pre-literate, pre-narrative self.

That self has so much to say and so much to do. I know it. I'm just hoping it hasn't died beneath the weight of all those words.

Sometimes I think that the shelf-life of a book is its afterlife. All these prophecies, histories, mythologies- are posthumously ours. We're all just paying our awe-struck respects.

A library is not unlike a cemetery to me. It's where knowledge goes to die. Goes to rest in silent peace. But like any good old ghost story, I believe, not all of it (knowledge) is dead yet. Some of it still haunts. Still resists. Feels like the oldest haunting in all the world. Feels like a mystery that's not myth yet. Feels like the unknown and unknowable. Feels like the stuff of a story, in search of a narrator. But there's no narrator to be found because maybe- the narrator is as implicated in this story's wonders and horrors as the characters are themselves. How could the narrator tell it, when he/she too, was it? All authority is lost. Authorships are disrupted, turned on their head. The scene is set- the camp fire frustrates against the firewood in its hunger for secrets, the marshmellows are ready and there's an appropriately spooky night chill- but no storytellers.

I have never wanted to get to know my pre-intelligent self more than when I'm at the library. In a flickering moment of semiotic disruption, I tell myself- there is nothing here. This is a maze of knowledge. All the truths here are centre justified or left aligned.

None of the books make any sense. They say nothing at all. Maybe if I held them, or smelt them, or tried tasting their pages, they'd mean more.

The universe seems to say, get over yourself, I came a really really long way, and I am not studied in my absolute awesomeness, nor am I cautiously humble about my infinite vastness.

I'm so much bigger than you and better than you and infinitely smaller than you too, and you will never shelve this.

It says, every time you begin a new sentence, the words are actually just falling off the goddamn page, because the world of words, is flat. The world of words hangs on an edge. Reading this world is a tenuous exercise and requires adjustments for loss of idiom. There’ll be seepage and stuff will get out; top secret stuff. Some of it will get out because it never really got in, to begin with.

All the same, I am sure you will search me out and call for me in the void, which is not the same as emptiness. It is the most fulfilling hollow of all, and if you try, you can hold it in the palm of your hand. The void is a giant metaphysical cunt. And I use the four-letter word here with the utmost deliberation. It is no mere coincidence that one can conceive both an idea and a baby. There is a pressing linguistic relationship between sex and knowledge. 'Ken' means both 'know' and 'give birth' (Barbara G Walker, 1983). When I am conscious of the yawning divide between the sign (signifier) and the signified, the image of falling into a gap or a hole, helps me express that lapse in signification- it's a deep and dark cleft. It's as frightening as it is welcoming. I feel that in order to achieve a better understanding of Self and Source, I must come to terms with the hole. All of them. The one I came out of- the one my words come out of and the one in the iris of my eye through which light enters. Each of these holes is an opening- it's a way in, and a way out. I must not fear the dark. And here's why.

The pupil- that dark, circular aperture in the iris of my eye, the aperture of the lens through which we view the world and maintain perspective and host worldviews,  is black.
The pupillary lumen is black. The word lumen is Latin for light and an opening. These connections remind me that for all our preoccupation with vision, illumination and seeing the 'light', all our light, all our luminous ideas and insights are refracted through a void of utter blackness. I do not fear the dark- I cuddle up next to it, and in its deep chasm and dark cavity, I sense possibility and promise. I sense a source. There is an opening in the dark.


As for words, and language, instead of an opening, I am presented with the obtuseness of an edge. Thales was right. The world is flat.

That's a lot of fallen words. We reinventorize them so that they rise again, and fall again. and rise again. left to right and right to left. We collect ourselves as we gather all the words together, as we pick up the fallen ones.We learn em up and commit them to memory, without asking whether they're committed to anything beyond their own semantic schemes. As Korzybski said, the map is not the territory. The word is not the truth. The word is not the first or the last, nor the beginning or The End. I speak and write in words but these words are never really, truly, my own. We killed it when we christened it. And yet, here I am- such a  mouthful. I'm gagging on the galaxy, choking on cosmos- not quite getting there. Every word leads me to yet some more words, as every map leads to yet some more maps, ad infinitum. As Bateson says in Steps to An Ecology of Mind (1972), "The territory never gets in at all....Always, the process of representation will filter it out so that the mental world is only maps of maps, ad infinitum." We are locked in a loop of recourse. I know my references but I know not the source. Maps of maps. Words of words. Gods of gods. Narrative of narratives. Texts of texts. Names of names. Kinda like the cover to Memento. Damn, that was a great film! And so, I regress infinitely.

Speaking of names,  something about the culture of “naming” in general fascinates me so much. It's very functional and irrational at the same time. Pseudonyms have always been as much about evading the public eye and masking the private as they have been about resisting the convention of naming all together, despite acquiescing to the 'need' for a name in the first place, a true testament indeed to the importance of being Earnest. This begs the following questions:

 If we could re-name ourselves as we willed, what implications would that hold? Would such an exercise leave way for protean shape shifting identities? 
Has the concrete, given name anchored identity and rendered it static?Am I as personal as my name?
Is the extent of my Person the extent of my Name?(and vice versa) Can my person extend over and beyond my given name? 

 

You know those moments when words and language and names of things, for a brief moment, don't make sense? but make lots and lots of sound. Not so different from water-sound, owl-sound, cricket-sound, neon-buzz sound or empty corridor-sound. That's where it's at. That's the magic. 

I like to think every word has an underbelly. And sometimes, when a word leaves my mouth, my tongue longs to lick its nether regions.

As I fall, the universe seems to say: You will soon recognize that your intelligences will do you little good, or bad. they will simply do. Your sentience however, will save you. It will not wonder whether to be or not to be. You won’t need to make sense of the world around you; you will have sense.  Sense will be had, not made.

and then and then pre-intelligent Ahmed dies. Society and correctness resurrect him; he's come around again, back within the margins. And he can spell truth all over again.

Here he is

Centre justified

Left aligned.

Posthumously yours.

Forgive me for sounding obtuse.

That's a lot of fallen words.

Daal mein Kuch Kaala Hain

Somebody needs to rechristen the 27th of December, "Let's lick Patrilineal Dynasty's balls" day. And no, the ballsiness of this message is not just gratuitous frustrating against our present political climate. It's literal. Think balls. Feudal egos. PPP prados. And surnames that are an easy ticket to an Oxbridge education. Think VIP. Think Bakhtwar saying: "Our party is like a family." Think entitlement. Enthronement. Ennoblement. Think over-wrought memorializing, an Olympic season since the day. 

And then, don't think at all. Because that's the easiest way to get through the suffocating observances of 27th December.

Whatever happened to honest, measured appraisals of office bearing political persons' careers? What of all the vehement liberal shout outs for human rights records and violations? Why the amnesiac refusal to be critical in our remembrances and exhume easily forgotten grievances? Should an undoubtedly tragic, unwarranted assassination automatically entitle one to canonization and conveniently absolve one of all error and fault? 

Posthumous revisionings of leaders need to admit alternative readings/interpretations. 

I appreciate cult of personality, I understand hero/ine worship and deification, I respect sentiments, I admire the sacrifices and struggles of partisan workers and the PPP's experience and expedience in party politics.  I am further schooled in popular culture and pop icons, but I will not understand the refusal to speak freely and openly of former leaders in public office.

If you're such a popular figure, then, with the flowers, you should also be ready to receive the thorns. It really is that simple. Call it tough love. 

The state and the PPP establishment have no right to coopt public office and render it a throne. The state must not be partisan. It's an OFFICE, not a Mahal, nor a Jamaat. The office stays. People/leaders come and go. Get over it, get on top of it and stay ahead of it. That's the spirit of service. The servicemen and women are never bigger than service, are never beyond service. 

If BB belonged to the Peoples Party (whatever that means), then surely, her so-called legacy and spoils of leadership are OURS to plunder, pillage and scrutinize. You gotta grant me my 10-110 % here!!! 

She belongs to the citizens she claims to serve, not only in their patronage, but also in their protest. If she belongs to me, and claims to represent me (a problematic idea in and of itself), then surely I should be able to (re)vision her as I will. 

Which is why the idea of a "People's" party is troublesome in the first place. When you're part of the feudal elite, everyone and anyone else can be lumped into the homogenizing category of "People" with condescending ease and remove. This is a convenient exercise too, for the people become the lowest common denominator as seen from the highest of vantage points. It's really never been about the people- it's been about peopledom. There's a cleavage here, one which Pakistan seems to be falling deeper and deeper into. So that ideas of empowering the people/the MANY are only refractions of ruling-class ideology/the FEW. The masses are made. Massification is a project, not unlike the nation-state. I think this Youtube user's comment serves to illustrate how precarious and fragile the term "people" really is: "i will never vote for you people, tum kia jano masoor ki daal kitnay ki milti hai." It is, perhaps unwittingly, disruptive of the People in the people's party. It is poised to question: Whose people yaara? Yours? Mine? Ours? WTF? Masoor ki daal.

In context of the PPP and trinitarian Baap-Beti-Beta Bhuttoisms at large, nothing is more elitist/exclusivist than claiming to speak for and galvanize the people ("masses") when you've been born into landed privilege. Nothing spells elitist reappropriation of apparently populist ideals, more. 

BB, you really were a remarkable woman. I just wish a greater spectrum of remarks would be engaged. 

So on this auspicious 4th Anniversary, also arbitrarily designated a National Holiday - like we don't get enough of those already- I will not contribute to preferred + privileged + dominant canonizing discourses and narratives. 

I will not keep my peace, nor dignified, politically correct silence. I shouldn't have to. 
That's what gravestones are for. And by the likes of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh's entombed legacies, some stones speak for themselves. And some are so boastful, so set, so erect, they silence dissident whisperings all together, and seem to make a second killing and heartier stuffing of fallen martyr.

If only those paying their respects would read more than just their Fatiah. 

*************************************************
Postscript; To the Lost

May you rest in peace. And May I, my mortal self, never find it in this life. 

No ease for me, in Sovereign peace. 
Make that an order of unrest, 
on the rocks please. 

************************************************

This poster recasts the cover to Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" Penguin Books, 1980.
I thought the Mobius triangle would be a fitting way to convey the never-ending spiral of dynastic, in-house politics and symbolise the trinitarian extent of Bhuttoism, today. The PPP arrow might just as well be a bloodline, and a bloody one at that too. The Khaki shades reflect yet another presence in Pakistan's political history: that of the uniform, against whom democracy is sworn as "the best revenge", a vicious cycle all its own.

Mythic Politik 1: POPulisms

Mythic Politik 1: POPulisms; Dil Bola Pakola.


 25th December, 2011.

The PTI rally today was heartening, to say the least. And I'm not speaking here from a partisan standpoint.  Where I do wish Imran Khan's proclamations were anchored in more than just rhetoric, I gotta admit, rhetoric can be addictive, uplifting and empowering. To that effect, the rally today was quite compelling. It was a sight to behold.

Who needs a solution when you got a slogan? Who needs a future when you're drunk on the heady brewing imperative of now? That kinda sentiment. It's sexy. It catches on. 
I caught on too, not to the politics of it, but the poetics of it. The assemblage, flags, celebrations, speeches. The promises. And how each of these things are performed, staged and cued.  

People are so cynical about Obama, and we all have our reasons I'm sure, but I remember the night of his election, I was suffused with hope and possibility. If I were to freeze that moment in time and take a snapshot, and separate it from what was to follow and what came before, it sure was beautiful. And it still is. Perhaps it is beauty betrayed, but beauty nonetheless.

If I can think of a way to seize the moment and then freeze it, I can perhaps find a way to rescue it from potential betrayal. You might call it an exercise in foolishness, but I call it one of vindication. Pre emptive as much as it is redemptive- my mythic politik. 

I like doing that with pretty much everything. 

That initial point of contact. Before you have to worry about where you must proceed from that point. Just that irreducible speck of satisfaction and faith. Before there's too much gum and tongue. before you hit some posterior wall. Before the after-taste kicks in. before the fall. that's where the magic is at. 

We tend to privilege the continuous. At the expense of the momentous. When we do privilege momentous occasions, we feel compelled to locate them in a bigger history and anchor them in greater contexts and timelines. So that the moment gets mangled with all these other concerns and trajectories. 

Demonstrations of fidelity- political, social ,sexual, what have you- can feel very true. So amazingly powerful and dramatic. The trust we invest in the social contracts, oaths and vows we undertake, is a beautiful thing. Even if it is abused after, as it often can be. It's beautiful when it's plucked out of that timeline. The *moment* we swear upon eternity, minus all the concern with eternity. Now isn't that just the most convenient dream ever?

I saw an expectant sparkle in so many of the attendants' eyes today; their hope in betterment.It's never a waste of time. Because the moment I lose trust, I lose vitality. I lose sparkle.

Sometimes I think, damn the ballot. Bring on the confetti, and belong, for a moment, to something bigger and better than your surroundings. Surrender to the mob. At least, it's a happy mob. At least, the only riotousness here is the mischief of courting possibility and flirting with potentiality. 

Celebrate. Before our preoccupation with continuity and a sense of objective remove, screws everything over and sends this parade under.

Congratulations to all the attendants at the rally today, and PTI supporters in general. In my wilfully and unapologetically contrived snapshot, this day, change *did* come. The revolution did arrive. It may have been two hours late. But it came all right. The flags bear witness. 

If your revolution doesn't stay, don't hold the moment accountable or answerable. Hold the guy on the podium responsible. For the moment is true, but ever so careless. It makes no promises, and keeps no secrets. It is so pure and so irresponsibly perfect. How could you not be swayed by it?

As a caveat to carpe diem, it's not just seizing the moment that's important to me, and freezing it in snap-shot, it's letting go once the seizing's done, and releasing it from the cold clutches of historical continuity, analysis and hindsight. 

Before there's too much gum and tongue. Before you hit some posterior wall. Before you lose yourself in his oral cavity. Before mommy walks in the room and finds you out. Before she tells you you've been bad. Bad enough to commit wholeheartedly to the one thing that makes you good- trust and hope. Bad enough to believe in revolution.

It's only a kiss, mother. It’s only our spirits in the air. It’s only the fizz on the brim of our raised glasses (sparkling water, not sharaab, mother). It’s only soda pop. He was so hot, we were frothing at the lips. But we won’t heed your caution. We won’t handle with care.

It’s only a kiss, mother. It's only a revolution. 

Let us Rejoice, before the fall. Before our belatedness can read the writing on the wall (yes; the very same).

Before there is too much tooth 'n' tongue. Before they can say, you were in college, silly, and ever so young.