In that celebrities are a wide-spread and shared point of associative reference I wonder how much they color our perception of the strangers all around us? Take the example pictured in the thumbnail above: Paul Giamatti.

During the period when the movie Sideways was moving through our culture like wildfire did the common perception of him physically combine with attributes of his character intellectually and emotionally, to form a kind of reference point for short, balding, goateed men everywhere? Which is to say during that period did our minds involuntarily find that strangers around us, of similar physical proportion, were a bit more endearing? Perhaps even a bit more amusing or likable? Did short, balding, goateed strangers everywhere, unfounded though it might be, grow slightly more well rounded and “fleshed-out”  in in the eyes of we judges?

An obvious example might be Michael Jackson impersonators. I have to assume that since his trial on charges of pedophilia, and the resulting shift of public opinion,  their interactions with strangers must have become more complex and their business less lucrative. Agreed? So why shouldn’t it be the same for more subtle variations?

For example:

Did horse-faced women walking the streets suddenly become a bit more attractive during sarah Jessica Parker’s ballyhooed stint on Sex and the City?

Did obese tackily-dressed grease-balls in the office-place become somewhat less laughable and simultaneously more imposing after the cast of The Soprano’s became popular?

Did severe-looking suited shrews seem even more hideous and shrew-like after Ann Coulter’s ascendance?

Did poindexters with glasses and bowl-cuts seem suddenly more attractive to the devious among the opposite sex after Bill Gates became the single richest man on the planet?

Did vacuous, squinty-eyed, good-ol-boys and bald, permanently scowling, humorless suits suddenly seem even less affective and trustworthy after Bush and Cheney’s second term began?

I’m not sure, that’s why I ask. But it does seem likely, even leaving aside my poor examples here, that celebrities which occupy easily recognizable physical archetypes must inform our judgement when it comes to the strangers around us, and let’s face it, really, everyone is a stranger.

What say ye?

After a discussion I had this morning here are a few points to consider and kick around, in no particular order:

American culture, meaning the culture, not the government, of the United States of America, was nurtured under puritanical principles, which we have yet, in our 230 years of existence, to shake off. Today’s so called “culture wars” are just another in the long line of skirmishes in which one group of people, lets call them “those who wish to move forward and evolve” attempts to throw off the suffocating and muscle numbing yoke of the old guard, let’s call them “those that wish to take globs of warm amber into their lungs and become fossilized forever in the continually outmoded past of human experience.”

American culture is one fed on repression. Our notions and experiences of sex, the most universal and natural of human experiences, are warped, from our puritanical upbringing, in ways no other culture (save perhaps the Japanese) could even begin to comprehend. For us everything must be hidden and secret. For us everything must be dirty and guilty. For us pleasures of the flesh can never be trusted and so never completely enjoyed. We are a land of philosophical eunuchs, even the best of us, when it comes to human sexuality. We skulk around feeling guilty, averting our eyes when we are supposed to, masturbating in secret places with the memories of what we’ve seen. The worst of us would have vagina’s sewn up with consecrated threads, only to be cut on a wedding night, with saintly scissors; penises lopped off, only to be attached again for the purpose of overpopulation. Every man, woman, and yes- child, knows the deceitful unworkability of this. But we are cowed by those with the loudest mouths. We nod and pretend. We must deny everything and sublimate our yearnings into lies and violence.

Other cultures, with the good fortune to have existed for thousands of years, in one place, look at us and shake their heads. “How can they be so childish?” they must wonder. “How can they be so full of shit?!” And I wonder as well. How?

How, in the year 2006, can so many of us still be so ignorant of the obvious? Heads can be cut off on 80 foot screens, bowels torn from bellies to slap against thighs, bullets can enter bodies from 10 different angles, but the word “fuck” can not be permitted on the airwaves. A breast can never be glimpsed. A fully nude body must be accompanied with a warning which tells us: “This is very naughty and bad for you!” The peoples who descend from ancient Romans, who walk the same avenues as their ruined forefathers, look at us and laugh as they slap one another on the asses without benefit of a lawyer’s council.

We despise the old. We cringe at their wrinkles and bellow behind their slow motions. We put them in cheap rooms to die while doing every ineffective thing we can to fend off age in ourselves. Knives slip between our skin and bones to artificially tighten, firm-up, enlarge, and slim down. We inject poison into our faces to remove our hard-won wrinkles. We dress in children’s clothes and pretend at child-like freedom. We buy a never ending succession of “toys” we don’t need. In short we make vulgar monsters of ourselves. Everyone sees this but no one admits to the ugliness of it all.

We see the fake breasts creasing and bulging on the sides, we see the faces pulled back into masks, we see the wigs shift, we watch the artificially plumped lips move, we see the huge heads, like baubles, of those who had the fat vacuumed from them, we watch the starving women making excuses and we pretend this is beauty. We pretend we are fooled and celebrate it on every magazine cover and television screen. We pretend the glow of youth dwells on a knife edge, in a needle, in a cream, in a wish.

We blame and repent and pass judgement, never for a second doing the only thing required of adults: taking responsibility. We sue, and we go on talk shows, and we tell all, and we accuse, and we weep, and we “self-help,” and we take our medicine, and stuff our fat faces, and stuff our pockets, and we congratulate ourselves, and we pamper ourselves, and we turn our culture into a infantile embarrassment fit not for men and women but for children whose development is forever arrested.

“We must do it for the children!” What better sentiment for a culture that endlessly caresses and fondles and probes the tight anus of youth!  Our culture, from our music to our “literature” to our entertainments is all unsophisticated and childlike. Every market salivates over the youth dollar and every decision must take the children into account. Nothing legal seems to exist anymore for the benefit of adults. We idolize vapid celebrities. We make millionaires of game playing man-children. We elect intellectually stunted buffoons because they remind us of ourselves, because they are “average” and visibly flawed, as though that were a selling point. The stories of our leaders are always coming of age stories in which mistakes must be made in order to be learned from, but each leader is temporary, and each lesson must be learned anew.

We worship youth both in our rhetoric and in our degradation. But not for the actual youth of our population, to them we are happy to leave cesspit of waste and debt and ecological ruin. “The children” we so adore are ourselves. Our young country is full adolescents, awkward and uncertain, always looking to their invisible father figure in the sky for approval, always fueled by a bottomless undercurrent of fear at facing any reality.

Some of us defer to our invisible father figure in the sky whenever we are made uncomfortable, whenever we are unsure, whenever we would rather not be responsible. We honor him in public, always, saying the things that must be said, but in private we are compelled to push the boundaries and see just what we can get away with. We are rebellious in all matters where his “law” does not serve our purpose, but relent when caught. After all the power to invoke daddy’s name is the greatest power of the weakling child.

These among our number will always stand at daddy’s pant leg. It is only his perceived power that allows them to cover their ears and shake their head chanting “la la la la I can’t hear you la la la…” when things like science and facts and logic threaten. It is the weakling child’s last defense when those among us who want change and progress and betterment attempt to speak up.

It is my feeling that American culture, as it stands today, is very nearly a kink in the evolution of human culture on the whole. (We are by no means the only kink, but a kink in the smooth flow none the less.) It’s dominance is troublesome when elsewhere in the world there are more mature cultures who by turns seem willing to celebrate life, to enjoy themselves, to love, and most of all to learn. If those among us who want further enlightenment here on earth do not eventually shake loose of the yoke which keeps America backward and fearful, if we don’t grow up and punch the schoolyard bully square in the mouth as it were, then we are part of the problem and not at all the shining light which we’ve always assumed ourselves to be.

In any event we have some serious fucking issues.

Discuss.

The title, Three Weeks, did not constitute some snickering school-chum in-joke, nor was it plucked, between clever forefinger and aping thumb, from some Borges or Beckett quotation. No, the title Three Weeks was an simple admission: This will be quite possibly the only paper which intentionally adheres to a tri-weekly publication schedule.

For 18 issues, three-weeks-in, three-weeks-out, the editor Henry William Brownejohns, delivered a stylish, funny, and highly intelligent paper, which believe it or not was free, or effectively so, in that the asking price (after issue #3) was “two cents, voluntary.”

In a 2001 piece titled High-Button News New York Press columnist John Strausbaugh took notice and conducted what I believe to be the one and only official interview with Brownejohns, beginning:

The paper also featured a column called The Eavesdropper which transcribed interesting overheard conversations and predates Overheard in New York (and its book deal) by a good long stretch. 

In all the paper followed its spirit guides admirably, they being a beaming Washington Irving and a scowling H.L. Mencken.

I had the good fortune of having been acquainted with Mr. Brownejohns. We would occasionally share a libation on MacDougal street or browse the nearby record shops. (I remember distinctly that we disagreed on the musical merits of Steely Dan.) This was before The Nonist existed and though he seemed amenable to the idea of my contributing something to Three Weeks I was at that time still focussed mainly on the visual arts and didn’t posses the discipline to be a contributor to any undertaking of even moderate import, let alone a wonderful paper such as Three weeks. It’s a missed opportunity I regret to this day.

Since the last issue of the paper was published in October of 2002, I’ve lost contact with Brownjohns. He was nice enough to hand over a small package containing a complete run of the paper as a birthday gift that year, after which he seemed to disappear utterly. A shame.

I’d always intended on doing a post about Three Weeks here in that I admire it greatly, but I could never decide how to approach it in such a way to do it justice. Short of transcribing every issue there didn’t seem a way. Well I’m happy to say only recently I was dumbfounded to find that some other enterprising soul had done every groaning moment of the heavy lifting for me:

BROWNEJOHNS.ORG The Henry William Brownejohns Appreciation Page contains transcriptions of all 18 issues as well as cover scans and a few subsequent pieces written by the paper’s staff after its cessation.

I think it’s wonderful that those who were not around New York during the small window of the paper’s existence can now enjoy Three Weeks online. I heartily recommend that any of you with a love for the written word bookmark the site and begin reading straight away. You will not be disappointed, I promise.

Lastly, on the off-chance that Brownjohns has finally made the begrudging leap into cyberspace, or at very least randomly logs on for the guilty pleasure of a “vanity google search” and happens upon this post, let me direct a statement directly to him:

Do get in touch. I’m curious to know what has happened in the intervening years. It’s been too long.

Essentially the story of Buddy goes like this: In the Mid-30’s a baby gorilla was offered to a freighter captain as a gift from some friends who were African missionaries. The Captain accepted and brought the gorilla aboard his ship, naming him Buddy. He was adopted by the crew and became the darling of the ship being given specially prepared foods, taught to preform seaman duties, and otherwise adored.

A sailor aboard the ship took exception to the discipline doled out by the Captain and knowing how fond the captain was of the baby gorilla threw nitric acid in Buddy’s face as a means of vengeance. Buddy was nearly blinded and forever disfigured. Buddy hid himself refusing food, shrieking, and attacking anyone who came near. The sailors, at a loss for what to do, urged the captain the euthanize Buddy, but the captain knew a wealthy woman in Brooklyn who cared for sick animals and decided instead to bring Buddy to her.

Her name was Mrs. Gertrude Lintz and she was a bit of an eccentric.

Under Mrs. Lintz care Buddy grew to a huge 600 lbs. A plastic surgeon attempted to repair his disfigured face but left him with a permanent terrifying sneer otherwise out of character with his gentle nature.

Evidently one night it was stormy out. Buddy was frightened by the thunder and lighting and broke out of his cage. He crawled like a frightened child into bed with Mrs. Lintz. She decided then and there to give the 600 lb. eight year old lowland gorilla to the circus. She contacted John Ringling in 1937 who came to Brooklyn to see Buddy. He was later quoted as saying:

Ringling bought Buddy on the spot, and renaming him (at his wife’s suggestion) Gargantua, after Rabelais’ giant king of Gargantua and Pantagruel, launched an advertising campaign centered around the gorilla which hailed him as “the largest gorilla ever exhibited” and “the most terrifying living creature.” Millions flocked to see Gargantua. He was a huge success as an attraction which single handedly helped rebound Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey from the ruinous period of the Great depression.

The circus built Gargantua his own special air-conditioned cage on wheels and toured him successfully for years.

From Time magazine, 1938-

June of 1938 saw one of the few comical aspects of the gargantua story when former heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunny revived the age old Ape vs. Man argument with an article in the Connecticut Nutmeg in which he wrote the following:

In 1941 as a publicity stunt a “marriage ceremony” took place as Gargantua took a female gorilla named Mitoto as his wife. Called “Toto” for short. (Toto had also been property of an affluent woman who during tea with the gorilla had her both her wrists snapped.) Mitoto, Swahili for “Little One,” became known as simply “Mrs. Gargantua.” Ringling had hoped to mate the gorillas. Their first meeting was romanticized in a time Magazine article in March of 41-

In point of fact all that really happened was Gargantua threw some rotten vegetables at his intended mate. Though they toured together for many years they never mated or had offspring.

When in 1949 it became obvious that he was not well, no one dared approach him to find out what the trouble was. He died that November of double pneumonia. Gorillas in captivity often live for 40 years or more, Gargantua, however, was only 20. Newspapers announced his passing with prominent headlines and in 1950 Gargantua’s skeleton was donated to the Peabody Museum where it is still on display.

A sad story if you ask me, one which was later desecrated further in the 1997 flick Buddy. Poor ol’ Buddy.