Back That Aura Up With Actual Work

The back of the box for Lady Gaga's Fame perfume reads "Black like the soul of fame." Writer and blogger Virginia Heffernan wrote a really great article about Lady Gaga's The Fame Fragrance. In the article, Heffernan detailed how the scent was supposed to be "based on molecules" of Lady Gaga's own blood so you could have her on your skin, except that it really just smells like flowers. What is this saying about fame? And the merchandising of fame? (Or should I say, Fame? Heffernan pointed out that Lady Gaga went to Sacred Heart, the Fame school.) Celebrity fragrance is a tangible merchandising item with something material you can hold instead of streaming the music for free on the internet, and this is perhaps the closest people can get to possessing a piece of the celebrity (and by "a piece" I mean either the physicalness of the celebrity or in a more general sense, some sort of material manifestation of what Andy Warhol would call "the aura" of fame.) Is it that artists make less money from music now more than ever, and celebrity fragrance is perhaps a way to supplement sales of the celebrity brand?

I heard someone say that they thought people have ideas in the shower is because it's the last place where we don't have our cell phones on us to interrupt our thoughts and make us realize we need to return phone calls and check e-mails, etc. -- so you're unencumbered by other stuff, and your mind is free to wander. So I had this idea in the shower: What if we could bottle celebrity? (Like isn't that what, on some level, celebrity fragrance is all about?) And people would always be trying to steal the bottle? And like, once you put it on you, it's like a Love Potion #9 scenario. People can't help but go crazy about you when they're around. I've been thinking a lot about celebrity fragrance stuff since the last episode of one of the podcasts I do was about celebrity fragrances.

It makes me think of this essay by Andy Warhol reprinted in the issue of Lapham's Quarterly where the theme was "Celebrity," about how he was approached by some big company that asked him if he would be interested in getting involved in their advertising campagn for whatever they were selling. They told him that they wanted some of his "aura" but they didn't say exactly what they meant by that -- and you have to have some kind of actual body of work, not just like, be famous for being famous. He meant, if you're a painter, do paintings. If you're a photographer, have photos. Sidenote: those things will outlive you (and in turn have an immortality) anyway. One's "celebrityness" should be predicated on the work that for lack of a better phrase, supports your aura; your "celebrityness" can't exist on just your name alone. That's why, he explains (I'm doing this by memory, so, you know, deal with it, and by "it" I mean my inexactitude) that whatever your preferred art form is, you should, you know, do it. Then you should count up how many of your pieces you made. That is to say, if you're an photographer, count up your photos. If you're a writer, count up your words and so on. It makes me think about how if you stop doing your art form, you go become some type of expert (write a book, be a celebrity judge on a contest reality show, retire and become a mentor etc.) instead of continuing your art form. Perhaps if you've maxed out your ability to continue some sort of mainstreamy success in your chosen art form in the entertainment or art form, you go do things like teach your art form to the next generation (as in the lead singer from EMF went to go on to teach music -- I found this hilarious Where Are The Now article trending on yahoo, with a decidedly British Brit Pop angle entertaining). What I am NOT saying is "Those who can't do teach." I'm not saying anything about teachers. What I AM saying is that if you're an artist (print, music, etc.) but you've maxed out the success you're going to reach in terms of what we think to be traditional mainstream success, you go do things like mentor on a reality show like Britney on X-Factor or Christina on The Voice.

Ummm...Or the guy in Jesus Jones who became a fitness trainer. Right here, right now, doing crunches, at a gym, somewhere in England.

More Names For Cats

The post-it on the fridge is full! You know what that means? MORE NAMES I CALL MY CATS!

Tamago is the black overweight cat. Oshinko is his sister, with her sleek girlish figure. Some of the following names are interchangeable. Some are for both cats at the same time. Some are just for one cat. You can tell by the name what is what.

Chickenbuddy
(What's Up) WookWook
Chickensnack
Jim Dero and Greg Kat of Meow Opinions
Chanky & Lanky
Meowcalm X
Meowm Emanuel
Honey Obese Fat Cat Don't Care
Mr. Fat & Hungry Cheese
Raja
Snortle & Chortle
Flopabelle
Flopabelle's Canon

...and courtesy of Joe, my husband:
Bartholomew Chubbins
Honey Beast
Little Colossus
Baloney Sausagette

P.S.

Procrastination and Spookyness: Things I Did While Trying to Come Up With Other Things, Partially In Order of Spookiness, Partially In Chronological Order, All of Which Really Just End Up Being A Documentation

So I don't know what the problem is but I thought that people giving me prompts to write about would actually give me focus, but everything always derails back into me talking about what I do when I procrastinate. I guess I vascillate (which I do not know how to spell) between very type A and very type B.

So I belong to this group called the Self-Publishers of Chicago (SPOC) and we do things together like publish zines, help each other with encoragement for problems we deal with in the world of independent publishing and culture, support each other in our creative endeavors, eat Clancy's Pretzels Rods from Aldi (only because there's an Aldi near my house, so Clancy's is sort of our unofficial sponsor), and and um, go out for margaritas, the latter of which sounds like we're on Sex and the City of something.

Anyway, so we did a Halloween zine, but my contribution is of course, in only a tiny way related to Halloween. Lucky for you, I have included it here. I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat. P.S. I'm reading at a release event of sorts for this zine thing on Tuesday at Uncharted Books. Won't you join me for some spooky Logan Square action? More info here.

Things I Did While Trying to Come Up With What I Would Write About For This Zine, Partially In Order of Spookiness, Partially In Chronological Order, All of Which Really Ended Up Being What the Piece I'm Writing For This Zine Is

by Liz "Spooky" Mason

-Listened to 36 of 90 tracks on the CD that accompanies the book EVP: Electronic Voice Phenomenon: Massachusetts Ghostly Voices and enjoyed the author's use of the terms "singularity" and "other dimension"

-carved pumpkin to look like Britney Spears at age sixteen, but with creepy missing eyes (see photo below)

-listened to obese black cat wheeze

-Discussed with roommate how far the radius of rabbinical prayer extends to qualify as effective in blessing food to make it kosher, and if the determinate radius could be measured in some way that is similar to radio frequency territory

-started reading pdf titled "Reducing Long-Term Catastrophic Risks from Artificial Intelligence" courtesy of the Singularity Institute, get totally derailed by the excitement of sudden inspiration for halloween costume which required google search for "Britney Spears Toxic video halloween costume"

-Ate leftover pita with tahini sauce

-made coffee

-watched major talking points of previous night's foreign policy election candidate debate

-made more coffee

-drank more coffee

-helped myself to an additional serving of coffee

-sweated

-Put on "A Little More Personal (RAW)" by Lindsey Lohan and thought "This is actually kind of a good album in a junior high girl kind of a way."

-Youtubed TRL live version of Lindsey Lohan's "Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father)" followed by the official music video and enjoyed that even though the video was from 2005 there was commentary from less than 24 hours ago, quote courtesy of political critic TrollMCTrollinMAKKY: "Why you endorse Mitt Romney? Do all drugged-up Hollywood actresses like you make poorly choice decisions?" Scrolled down further and enjoyed the Yoda-like quote from sage cultural critic krazyashlee101: "She wrote this song, so obvious it is."

-ate 2 (two) pieces of candy corn, proud of my caloric restraint in an attempt to lead healthy low fat lifestyle

-considered working out

-ate huge-ass ice cream sandwich

-Freaked out that I had to be at work in .02 minutes, annoyed with myself that I waited all fucking morning to get ready at the last possible minute and then, combined with the anxiety from consuming too much coffee, had a near heart attack and ironically, proceeded to pretty much have an entire workout what with the sweating and freaking out and getting to work on time

It's Britney-O-Lantern, Bitch

Fake-Out Fade-Out Pop Music Singularity

So you're listening to a song and it gets all quiet and then boom! It comes back full force. In Britney Spears' Till the World Ends, there's that part about three-quarters of the way through, where the music gets all compressed sounding, all quiet and muffled? Then it reopens and comes back, spreading itself back open. (Sort of appropriate, considering the "world ending" topic of the song.) What I like about it is that it's more than just the typical  "Fake-out Fade-Out" device used in pop song construction (like Madonna's Hung Up) because of this subtle little extra noise they add in Till. It's the sound almost of the buzz you hear for a second when you turn on or off the TV. And then when the music reopens, you hear a Britney sex-kitten breath out, like this ahhhhh, that reminds me a little of that Philip K. Dick quote from The Divine Invasion:

You are the breath of your Creator, and as he breathes in and out, you live. Remember that, for that sums up everything that you need to know about your God. There is first an exhalation from God, on the part of all creation; and then, at a certain point, it starts its journey back, its inhalation. This cycle never ceases.

Interestingly, at the end of the Till video, you see Britney push the grate off the sewer where the all night dance party was (and during which we see the world explode). I'm noticing that in Britney Spears videos, that's an example of this common thing that happens where "It's supposed to end -- BUT NOT REALLY."


What I mean by that is that I remember reading somewhere that the video for Everytime she was supposed to die (in a bath tub, after sustaining a head injury) and reborn as a baby. But then NOT REALLY. Her head rises out of the bathtub and IT WAS ALL A DREAM. There was somebody who must have decided they couldn't show Britney dying. Who are we kidding though? Everybody talks about her being dead in the eyes anyway.

Last Scenes of Till the World Ends

Last Scene of Everytime

"Technological singularity" is a thing.

While I was searching around the internet to see if anybody has written a book about the cultural history of the conept of singularity, I found what looks like someone's academic paper about technological singularity.

A "technological singularity" is when a technological advance happens, and that advancement is so complicated, that if you were to take that technology back in time and show it to somebody in the past, they wouldn't understand it at all. That is to say, the technology is too difficult for anybody that came before it to understand. (A dinosaur wouldn't understand a computer etc.) Sometimes it can also mean that AI overtakes human intelligence in a Matrix-y kinda way.
That pretty much explains any TV show or movie about going back in time. What happens if you transplant a caveman in Encino? He doesn't understand the slurpee machine. (And certainly, nobody understands how Pauly Shore could be funny.) What happens if you play Van Halen on headphones to a teenage boy in the 50s?! He thinks its an alien. And so on.

I found a good site about singularity tropes on television, and it made reference to the concept of technological singularity as being "The rapture of the nerds," which I took to mean, when the revolution comes the nerds will be the elite few with the brains and know how to understand technology that the rest of the mindless sheep have not woken up to, also very Matrix-y.

By and large a lot of the writing about technological singularites sems to be about reaching a point where there's no going back; things have gotten either so chaotic or so unpredictable and complicated that the feeling of safety in believing in cause and effect is unreliable. Mmmm... Chicken or egg omelette? Neither. Who wants to eat a chicken omlette? That's like asking if a pig can be kosher.

Singularity Questions Not Really Ever Answered

One Singularity Sensation

The idea of some type of consciousness making an actual decision to cause the singularity to explode into some kind of big bang is interesting to think about, and I would like to believe it. But nothing has ever fully convinced me. My hunch is that most people think when they die they'll get all these big questions answered about god and other relevant topics. But just because you die it doesn't necessarily mean you'll get all those questions answered. And even if there is a god it doesn't mean you'll get the lowdown on him/it/her/they.

What if god was there the whole time in plain sight but we don't have the type of senses we need for god detection? Maybe it's like those people that are missing the part of the brain that makes them recognize people's faces, so they might see the same person everyday and they have to rely on context clues when that person shows up to tell them who they are. Maybe it's like we don't have God goggles or something.

How many times?

So when everything is over (the universe), does it (the universe? reality?) all fold in on itself? How many times has that happened? Isn't that what the cylons believed in the reboot of Battlestar Galactica, that everything keeps happening over and over again? I can't remember what episode it was in and I can't figure out what to plug into battlestarwiki.org to find the quote, but I did find it intriguing that the cylons were the bad guys and they are monotheists and the humans are the good guys and they're the polytheists. Hip hip hooray for some good ol' pagany mother earthy touch-with-our-roots theism.

It makes me think of David Eagleman's book Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, one of the stories is about how one theory of the afterlife is that right before we are reborn, we get to decide what kind of a being we can be for that life. Specifically, we can decide whether we want to be a simpler being than we were in the past life. But here's the thing: you don't get to remember what you were before. So let's say in this life you're a human. After you die, right before you're reborn, you can say, "Wow, life was really hard as a human. Maybe I'll become a simpler being for the next life, like say, a horse." And as you're turning into a horse, you're thinking "Oh no, what have I done? I'm losing my essential human-ness, who? what?  Hee haw HEE HAW" and then you're gone, all memory of the subtleness of humanness disappeared, gone forever...So if, each time, we decide to become something simpler, then what were we before? Before all the simplifying started?

So...Do we keep starting over and over? Is it the same thing? Do we get simpler? More complex? Do we reach a state of complexity where we use up all the everything and fold over? And start over?

Sort of unrelated note: David Eagleman is a neurologist/writer. Also the consultant for the show Perception and a bunch of other super interesting brain-related endeavors.