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Or The Whitman’s Sampler of Swedish Pop
Recently I returned from a brief jaunt across the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea to the best little Scandinavian country ever- Sweden. Way back when I was still studying at the University of Massachusetts* I was in a study abroad program with Uppsala University. It was there that I made a lot of quality friends while certainly not drinking an obscene amount, nor dancing far too often. It helped that I spent a good chunk of time that with Kalmar Nation, the premier music oriented student collective/co-ed fraternity/student business/social club.
Hey Durian, what's happening?
Many groups and institutions have been asking for government money in recent months in order to fend back the prevailing tide of economic hardship. Banks, financial managers, the auto and porn industries, jewelry manufacturers and even Harley Davidson have all asked the US federal system for money in order to help save their respective operations. These motions are outrightly socialist in nature, true, but the way that capitalism works is that if no one wants or needs your product, you close up the business and instead make something that the people want. It functions on the basis of a Free Market. Examplum gratis: the fresh durian market is extremely slim in this country because it is a fruit that according to Richard Sterling smells like “pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock” and not a lot of people (that we know) are into that sort of thing.
Hello, I am Escalade, and I'll be your server for the evening.
So maybe the American auto industry should have made sleeker, more fuel efficient cars at a lower cost instead of petrol devouring tankers designed to haul one middle aged man and his middle aged wife and their 2.3 Ritalin medicated children. Who are we as the general financing American public to remind a hegemonic oil dependent industry of the primary rules of engagement in the capitalist market? Or who are we to demand honesty in our economic systems? If socialist policies are going to be used to save The American Dream™ then perhaps it ought to be that stated and accepted that capitalism is not sustainable and the economic tremors we have been experiencing are it’s death throes.
Monday was movie night with some of my Radical Philosophy crew and we went to see Godard’s La Chinoise (1967) at our local non-profit movie theater. Sometimes, I feel inundated and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of important literature, film, and music that exists in the world, so I always appreciate it when some outside force helps me to make a decision about what to read, see, or listen to next. This impetus came in the form of my thesis advisor giving an introduction and post-film discussion at this particular screening and his alerting the Radical Philosophy student group to this event. Here’s the trailer and my commentary for La Chinoise follows after the jump:
