maybe i’ve made this confession before.
maybe i haven’t.
and this really is something that i should probably keep to myself.
but keeping things to myself isn’t exactly my strong point.
ah boy, here goes.
or, maybe a pre-amble, a set-up, some contextualization.
i used to be a culture snob.
i mean, an obscenely annoying culture snob.
i would only listen to obscure records that no one else listened to.
i would only read obscure books that no one else seemed to like.
i would only see obscure movies that no one else seemed to care about.
and then, years ago, i saw ‘terminator 2’.
and, to be honest, i loved it.
and the scales fell from my eyes and i saw that there was a world of populist art and culture that was fantastic and that i had hitherto been denying myself.
so now my culture tastes do tend to run to the, uh, ‘low-brow’.
i still like some high-brow art and literature and culture, but more often than not i find myself gravitating towards the cheap and incredibly gratifying thrills of trashy pop-culture.
i know, this might be something i should keep to myself.
maybe i have a reputation as an uptight culture snob to maintain.
i may still be uptight, but i’m not a culture snob.
well, to clarify, i aspire to not being a culture snob.
some pop culture is still too loathsome for me to champion, but overall my tastes do tend to run to the populist and mass as opposed to the elitist and the exclusive.
tonight, for example, i went to see the new ‘die hard’ movie.
and, to be honest, it was flawless.
even it’s flaws were flawless.
not all pop culture delivers so flawlessly, but this did.
my cup runneth over.
some of my populist confessions:
i like beyonce.
i rarely read a book that isn’t for sale in an airport.
i rarely see movies that don’t involve explosions.
and so on.
i know, i know, i’m a cheap, populist american whore.
maybe it’s just a phase. maybe i’ll go back to reading foucault and watching ‘andrei rublev’ for the 4th time and listening to stockhausen while eating brown rice and seaweed.
or maybe i’ll read a michael connely book and watch ‘transformers’ and listen to ‘dangerously in love’ while eating an amy’s burrito.
to be honest, it’s a pretty heavy and seductive mass of utterly compelling pop culture to resist.
and again, a lot of pop culture is awful, puerile garbage. but when it’s good(like ‘die hard’, for example)it’s fucking awesome.
-moby
