los angeles and america

Part I of III blog triptych. This has been in draft since I began this. Was gonna elaborate in detail, but... Andy and I have an ongoing quip, (and even though Western academic has been equally necessary to our transition) each time we encounter a thick-worded philosophical text by a Western author, it's like "if this was written in the East, it would've been about a 1/4 as long" Besides, this has all been said, known, felt since us begun.

"The Day of Supreme Demise" as Ray Bradbury called it, has been ever mythologized in our history. And of course, in our commercial haste, sensationalized to be commodified. Like all historical record, history's dialog and its contextual process have been disconnected from our perception of it. Our abstraction of space from time has miscommunicated Judgment Day and The Apocalypse each as one, singular, spectacular event -- as a day that simply happens, without composition or moments.

As the Millennium neared, the religious right deemed it as The Moment of Judgment, and the collective esteem, religious or not, found similar interpretative incarnation of this happening. Whether it be an apathetic recognition of it, cataclysmic natural disaster, or the Y2k crash. But it was a moment in America that found us referential construction for the previously artistic and immaterial symbolism of Judgment Day, September 11th, 2001 or 9-11. More than politically and even in the semantics of its date, 9-11 was a tragic collective revelation, a 911 call to arms from a civilization slipping and torn. Yes, it occurred on the soil of America, but the reverberations of this event found our entire existence. It was the birth of a new sincerity -- from the most blamed, most guilty, most naive, most tortured, most liberated, most repressed, and most promising region, America. In the grand composition of an ironic existence striving to be sincere, it would only make sense that the impetus of our potential destiny be placed in the hands of the youngest country.

Make no mistake though, my heart belongs to a metaphorical Pangea. All signs point to that potential realization -- the advancements of mass communication and mass transit, the weakening of the Super Powers (at the very least in collective allegiance to country) spurred by a young generation cultivated in a more cultured, diverse social construction, enabled by hyper-media, immigration and dissatisfaction with the imperial conduct of their countries. And simply, a generation cultivated in a hyper-state of capitalism that wants more and new.

Why America? In simplicity, because in the place where the symptom is most pervasive, will rise minds that understand it most, and the deep resentment to resolve it. In him, the most flawed man, is our greatest potential. So, in this, it is Los Angeles as the seed. The City of Angels, the most epitomizing microcosm of America and this affliction. All the proponents of our transition toward a metaphorical Pangea are hinted in the makeup of Los Angeles -- a metropolitan so diverse. But in this, a place rootless and without a true voice. In Hollywood, the factory of affluence, beauty and magic. But in this, ultimate contrivance, gloss and vanity. Southern California, a place where substance has been substituted for personality and consequently, cool detachment and superficiality. We are young pups clambering for identity, compensating in a manifested state of artifice, and these moments, the fringe of hyperreality. So, the struggle and the transition is simple: can we, as characters in this grand narrative, humanize ourselves?

Truth lies in Judgment Day. We are in its days and moments now. Will we become the romantic existence we can be, or degrade into a pornographic film?