Tag Archives: Norman Mailer

The honor of the American man.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

“Masculinity is not something given to you, but something you gain. And you gain it by winning small battles with honor. Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men.”

-Norman Mailer, from “Petty Notes on Some Sex in America,” which first appeared in Playboy magazine, and then in his 1966 collection, Cannibals And Christians.

Almost done working my way through Mad Men season 2 on DVD in preparation for tomorrow’s return of the show. One of the hardest storylines to deal with so far is that of Betty Draper, Don’s perfect wife who can’t help but evoke ideas of Grace Kelly. Her slow realization that Don’s been cheating on her is hard to take in as all the fragile little pieces of her world break. But then you start to get upset with her for having been so naive, and letting this occur literally right under her nose. But then you have to remind yourself of the place of women in the 50s and 60s and how there’s no way Betty could’ve known any different.

from here.

And on top of it, Don Draper is Don Draper. We want to see him screw around on his wife because, frankly, he’s just a cool guy. He makes a certain level of sleazy look good. He makes it glossy and sexy. It’s amazing what we’ll let a man get away with if we know he’s tortured on the inside.

Fires on the moon.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

It’s Saturday night, I’m staying in, relaxing a little, catching up on a few movies, and I wanted to talk briefly about the moon. To howl at it, if you will. And I wanted to share with you old Counterforce links, to invite you to take gander back at some of our older posts…

Primarily Occam Razor’s post peak oil series, something you should be re-reading constantly. Maybe every other week? That’s about right, right?

That’s what I wanted to do, but I noticed we’ve been getting a lot of hits the past few days for one tag/search term in particular: Autoerotic asphyxiation.

Primarily in reference to my post on the passing of David Carradine, but also on the post from way back when about the death of David Foster Wallace. Is it me, or are people fascinated by weird masturbation attempts gone horribly wrong?

Probably, but I’m not sure I want to explore it too much. Cause eventually that conversation goes Michael Hutchence (sometimes you kick, and sometimes you get kicked!), which is fine, or Soderbergh’s Full Frontal, which is also fine, but it also goes to Ken Park, and that is not fine.

Also, there’s a fine line between being sensitive to a subject and enjoying the outrageous humor in it. It’s a kind of class that I’m not sure I currently possess, to be honest with you. But my basic rule on the subject goes like this: If you’re going to masturbate and someone walks in on you, no matter how awkward or embarrassing it is, make sure they know you’re getting yourself off, okay? And if you’re going to kill yourself, make sure that whatever is left is easily identifiable as, well, a suicide, okay (unless you’re framing someone for your “murder,” which is cool)? Make it easy on those left behind! No “Oh no, he killed himself, or actually… Oh, I think he was trying to… See the way that thing is… Oh… Oh… Oh, dear,” okay?

Just a little bit in the way of mad linkage:

The building 2012 paranoia may be a bit stupid.

How to be single and stay that way.

The-Dream feat. Kanye West “Walking On The Moon,” a song that I love for a lot of reasons, especially it’s Michael Jackson-ness. You can make an army of babies to The-Dream’s album, but I also like this song because it’s… what’s the word… more sweet and goofy, less sexist than the rest.

John August is doing an interesting experiment with a short story of his, entitled “The Variant.”

And speaking of writing, if you’re a little saddened by the declining state of literary culture, then Dave Eggers would like to send you a personal “Buck up” about it.

The flag of Earth.

Io, a moon on fire.