MAGA, NASA, and Split-Trajectory America
2021. The year of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. Two radically different trajectories in American culture, on display for decades and accelerating toward opposite destinies. Let’s call it split-trajectory America—MAGA and NASA, fascism and futurism, old violence and new vision, side-by-side, right before our eyes. [See Table 1]
MAGA came for the Capitol. Since MAGA leaders will not be punished, they will come for the Capitol again, via votes or violence. …
The Photography Book About Texas in 2008 That Prefigured America in 2021
“On his quest for suitable signs and symbols, the photographer traveled more than nineteen thousand kilometers throughout Texas, working from a stance of distant observation and skepticism as he captured images of emptiness and stagnation in George W. Bush’s home country.”—Hatje Cantz website
Backstory
The evolution of the main essay in this art-photography book has an unusual backstory.
In the summer of 2006, Gail (my long-time girlfriend) and I were wandering through an abandoned movie set next to the Rio Grande, the river that separates Texas and Mexico. The movie set looked like it was built for a spaghetti western. The…
The mythos of Trump’s wall and MAGA’s attempted coup
One last look at his Wall. President Trump could not resist. Philosophically, no final journey could be more fitting. January 12, 2021, Trump’s last stand in a border town called Alamo, Texas. The Wall and “Alamo” have clear symbolic meaning and are deeply related. No doubt, Trump’s MAGA followers see themselves as heroic defenders of an American Alamo. “Remember the Alamo”—it’s a powerful mythos.
Trump’s last presidential trip was to rally support for building more of the Wall, but the underlying philosophical purpose was to put one last stamp on the myth of the Alamo for MAGA America. Of course…
“I don’t believe in any of Earth’s monotheistic religions, but I do believe that one can construct an intriguing scientific definition of God, once you accept the fact that there are approximately 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone, that each star is a life-giving sun and that there are approximately 100 billion galaxies in just the visible universe. — Stanley Kubrick
As the world knows, a silver monolith was found in the remote deserts of Utah, discovered accidentally via helicopter by the Utah Department of Public Safety during a routine count of bighorn sheep. Tall and sleek, the monolith…
It Starts in the “Chill” Gaze
Looking Out and Away
What if the “Dark Skies” movement might be the most important long-term idea for our civilization and life on Planet Earth? What if a new philosophy can generate new dreams, desperately needed amid the waking nightmares haunting our lives and civilization: climate disruption, environmental destruction, anti-science worldviews, conspiracy theories, and racism and nationalism? What if Dark Skies is the natural light we need, if only we will look out and away from ourselves, away from our species?
“Dark Skies” refers to the worldwide movement to protect the Milky Way from light pollution, efforts which have many practical benefits for humans…
Bond, Nietzsche, and Sartre: Double 0s of “the Future”
Sean Connery’s 007 stood astride the abyss of the 1960s, the fears of nuclear annihilation of the Cold War and the rising technological fetishism of the Space Age—between man and Superman, between rockets and sleek cars, between now and the future. That abyss is still present in the 21st century, for tomorrow always comes, but “the future” never arrives.
Sean Connery was a sexy and uber-masculine megastar, an icon of 20th century cinema. But, he symbolized much more as 007 in the 1960s. Embedded in the sleek cars, sexy assassins, evil super-villains, and immortal cinematic imagery were the deep existential…
The fly. The future. What’s the connection? It’s much more than the buzz of internet memes featuring the fly on Mike Pence’s head. If film, art history, and philosophy have any meaning, that fly is a warning from the universe. The future of America hangs in the balance.
“The Fly” in Film
Last night on Saturday Night Live, the opening skit featured Jim Carrey as Joe Biden, transformed into a fly on Mike Pence’s head. The skit is referencing David Cronenberg’s The Fly, the 1986 remake of the 1958 sci-fi classic with the same name. In both films, a scientist invents a chamber-like machine…
“My well came in big, so big. And there’s more down there. Bigger wells. I’m rich, Bick. I’m a rich’en. I’m a rich boy. Me, I’m gonna have more money than you ever thought you could have.”—James Dean to Texas rancher Rock Hudson (Bick) after striking oil in Giant (1956)
_______________________
James Dean’s epic line sums up the Texas attitude toward oil and fossil fuels, all of which made the Lone Star State so wealthy. In Giant, Dean plays “Jett Rink,” a poor ranch hand who strikes it rich in oil. …
For now, all secular culture has to offer for a shared destiny is the 24/7 consumer-entertainment-narcissism society
Crashing into the Future
After six decades of cool cars, sexy assassins, evil super-villains, and immortal cinematic imagery, the above scene from Spectre (2015) might be the most existentially profound in all the James Bond films. That’s because 007 is flat wrong. “It” didn’t stop “right here.” “It” keeps on coming, building momentum, a huge “unstoppable force.” Blofeld is spot on.
“It” is nihilism—the sprawling spectre that confronts 007 and humanity as it searches for a meaningful and hopeful narrative in the awe-inspiring universe revealed by its own science and technology. Nihilism was always the secret agent inside modernism.
Earth. Alone. Amid the stars…
Trapped in our skyglow metropolises, who looks at the night sky with awe and wonder?
In the remote regions of far west Texas and northern Mexico, plans are underway to create the largest “International Dark Sky Reserve” on Planet Earth. The Dark Sky Reserve will span approximately 18,000 square miles of Texas and Mexico. That’s almost the collective size of Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.
Of course, this may seem like an irrelevant topic to the 90% of humanity living in the electric skyglow, far removed from the starry skies that surround our planet. …
Barry Vacker
Theorist of big spaces and big ideas. Writer and mixed-media artist. Existentialist w/o the angst. PhD: Univ of Texas at Austin.
