[this post has now been completed, for those who need to know…]
I think these words are what's called in the trade 'a teaser'? Or is that now termed a 'taser': the advertisers stun the viewer just long enough to disable what cognizance they may have retained in 2019, fit them with a virtual 'Strange Days' helmet of probes then in Adam Smith mythology we shall find out what you want then give you what you need! Freedom and happiness! You never knew we were there.
or did I mean that in reverse. You're sorry-grateful, regretful-happy...
Yes! Andrew is back! He hasn't disappeared, he never did, or maybe….
As the second season of HBO's Succession rolls out this August and September (what else do rich powerful folk have to do this time of year but watch themselves, smart programming;) it occurred to me that Succession is really the fictionalized mini-series of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America.
that's the taser….
in the words the Panama-Sedena Red weed: "I'll be back!"
I'll make sure you stay tuned.
…..tbc….
Some elevator photo music. (Excerpts from a symphony…what..hello..) I know…Photobucket! Who! but they were very, very loyal and everything I loaded back in 1879 is still there. Julia Margaret Cameron can vouch for that:) You want an editioned photo then pay for it. Buy it from me not from those Dust devils;) !
Nil points…
The Way We Were.
Indeed.
At his most characteristic, medieval man was not a dreamer nor a wanderer. He was an organiser, a codifier, a builder of systems.
-C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature
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I've no intention of writing a 1,000 word essay on Succession, though don't let that deter others from such. I should at least begin the argument so brazenly set forth above. If Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed owes everything (he freely admits) to Tocqueville and more recent thinkers, I owe this post to Deneen. A colleague noted when buying said book, the 'look' they received from the worker at the cash register. That came as no surprise to me. They haven't even read the book! They've simply made an assumption that it is anti the Democratic party. So not so.
Liberalism is all about the individual finding their own voice in society apart the hierarchical political/social structure. The sad truth is that liberalism always has and will continue to fail by its very nature for being human. For needing rightly or wrongly a guiding force. Forever thus an Utopian ideal. Author Toni Morrision (who just died) wrote her Master’s thesis essay about the isolation and loneliness of the individual no matter of what race or creed (Virginia Woolf’s and William Faulkner’s Treatment of the Alienated). But liberalism isn't by definition a lonely world. Tocqueville observed the communal strengthened American voice of church, family, the local. The strength of the Roy Family in Succession derives from a shared belief in family. Their weakness in individualism ironically fostered and thwarted by the patriarch Logan Roy. It's a strange but familiar twist of Ibsen's play Ghosts: The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. In Logan Roy's case his only sin was liberalism in his erstwhile belief of family not his distain thereof.
Logan Roy's belief in buying up failing local news stations in America is not shared by his son Kendall. They are both right and both wrong. The HBO series is loosely based on the Rupert Murdoch family and empire. There's a speech Logan Roy gives privately to one trusted outside the English castle in which his only daughter is being married (and the ceremony to which he very reluctantly attended). Vehemently he denounces the history of slavery and exploitation that paid for all those bricks and mortar. I couldn't help but think that was Murdoch himself speaking that speech without 'any town-crier writing the lines' what ever one's opinion maybe of his vast media empire and influence. What he really thinks of British royalty maybe only his family knows. If that. The British Monarchy another failed case of liberalism? Don't get me wrong, I think there is much genuine respect and always has existed for individualism within the British Commonwealth. It's the politicians and Prime Ministers that truly fuck it all up!
tbc…my candle is waning and I have no dog to lick my toes…;) or,,, is that what the cat does?…see how alienated je suis ////
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Ok…so there are just as many good and bad politicians as there are hhhhh..humans and hmmm…
I've been thinking a lot about Deneen's book on Liberalism bringing as it did into sharp focus many of the problems I have personally experienced with 'the Left' both in Britain and America over the decades. Ken Loach's 2006 film The Wind That Shakes the Barley about the Irish War of Independence (1919–1921) and the Irish Civil War (1922–1923) resonated such with me. The character Damien writes a goodbye letter to Sinéad, expressing his love for her, and quoting Dan's words It's easy to know what you're against, quite another to know what you're for. Dan and Damien believed only that a collectivisation of industry and agriculture. Damien threatened the existing and next rung of that ladder so fiercely fought for. Reluctantly he was eliminated despite his erstwhile belief in the cause.
To be clear, I am not attacking Left wing politics. For those from all political factions with the perseverance, Deneen's book is revelatory to all in its research.
* p.167 (mid)- Publius (the pseudonym chosen by Federalist authors Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay)- the Constitution's bestowal of flexible powers upon the central government…require such to wield incalculable, unlimited power. "So it is impossible safely to limit that capacity (Hamilton Federalist 34) cf Machiavelli-
* Deneen: the State's unleashed ambitions will lead to national wealth and greatness, making it more likely that other nations will seek to appropriate and invade; and thus, by a kind of iron syllogism, the ambition for national greatness and wealth makes the accumulation of unlimited power necessary and inescapable.
* p.145 (top)- On Liberty (1859-John Stuart Mill)- Writing at the dawn of the era of popular sovereignty, he acknowledged that popular opinion might someday be translated directly into popularly mandated coercive government power; but at that moment, "the majority have not learnt to feel the power of government [as] their power, or its opinions their opinions." What concerned him was not coercive law but oppressive public opinion.
Back to Succession (Episode 2 of Season 2 airs tomorrow Aug 18 on HBO and Aug 19 in the U.K. on Sky Atlantic-holding the domestic rights to HBO and Showtime programming, formally owned by Murdoch? now by Comcast). Most folk won't know (why would they?) the history of Rupert Murdoch the man let alone his empire. Logan Roy is a fictional media mogul born in Dundee, Scotland. That's kinda about all we know about him. Did I miss something? Being Scottish doesn't necessarily mean that one's DNA is honest let alone even remotely devout to interest in 'the people'. There are plenty of Scots who are as fanatical in their beliefs as some in the mid-West of America. So remove Murdoch from the equation for a moment and considerate evidence we have of Logan Roy the man. I'm sure I might have missed some beats in binge watching Season One. But I find it hard to believe that Logan Roy doesn't have a Scottish fire burning in his soul carrying the flames of freedom and popular rule. Braveheart lives on very much today!
The trajectories of Murdoch and Logan Roy's lives may indeed be different scenarios. And what one may think, believe or know about Murdoch isn't the issue here. It is Logan Roy and his family. Apart from the patriarch (we have no evidence to the contrary) all his children are sexually dysfunctional. Let's not get psychoanalytic here (though don't let me stop you;) But whyso? The aphrodisiac of power and money? Can any of them discern the abrasion of wood against their genitalia from the talking trees? What happened to the first born from Logan's second marriage? I think there was mention of a death? The writing and character development are so good in Succession that it really does make one curious as opposed complaisant. And why did Logan marry (2nd wife) the 'middle-Eastern' ?Tripoli? Marcy. Shiv even got a private detective on to that one with little enlightenment and more befuddlement.
It is simply more than money and power slowly gnawing at this family. Hopefully we will never find out in Season 2, that would be genius of series writing. Aside from the human innate propensity for money and power, Logan has a lot else going on. Who was his father? We see Ewan (pure male Margaret Attwood) Roy-Logan's estranged brother and Greg's grandfather secluding himself in Canada but still with a seat on the Waystar/Royco board. We know little else. Maybe the series writers weren't quite that savvy to silently savior Patricia Highsmith hints. No matter. I loved the Pizzeria and tomatoes MacGuffin in Billions but Succession is a far more a fascinating cave on which to watch our flickering shadows.
Whatever the backstory, I think Logan Roy was a failed liberalist. The power, the shareholders, the family and human nature inevitably 'scuppered' him as Mill and Tocqueville predicted. The infamous Churchill quote from 1947: democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. People, alas, have very very short memories. It was the Republicans who in the 1st bank bailout of Sept 2008 voted against the bailout (it needed 218 votes for passage -there were 13 votes short-228 to 205 against. Two-thirds of Democrats and one-third of Republicans voted for the measure) knowing full well that their Republican constituents couldn't possibly stomach their taxpayers' dollars being used for papering over an economic orgy. President Obama called in favors and massaged tentacles.
When I wrote earlier above that Logan and Kendall were both right and wrong, it is very dubious whether any tech stock even the billionaire or wannabe ones (favored by Kendall) will retain their value in a longer term. Equally, Logan's belief in the local news networks probably stems from his Scottish origins: hello Murdoch and Adelaide. But is it their voice, Logan Roy's or a disparate somewhat helpless and hapless White House administration bleeping Shakespeare for a town crier who has all but forgotten his lines?
No wonder 'people' need furry creatures. Disclosure: I was a paparazzi to this poor creature pictured below last year. If he could have wielded a can of 'Hugh Grant' baked beans I wouldn't have blamed him/her. It did stand up almost on hind legs at one point seeming to utter:
ah…the furry MacGuffin.
bon nuit et faites de beaux rêves
F.p.s: neither Furry QED nor Andrew (no m.b.e.) received any free paint from Behr. But we have an enormous color wheel want list and we’d be more than happy to stay ‘shtum’ about…that’s the joy and justice of believing in the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York of Furry Creatures.
Any questions?
[Addition-Aug 21, 2019} In case I inadvertently move more swiftly into the 'afterlife', feeling a bit unfair to the 4 season Billions Showtime series mentioned above. Now into Series 3 'we, they' are not bored! Disclosure: you are reading the words of alien life forces that could/would watch paint dry for 3 hours. That said, not all drying paint is inevitably equal in its majesty neh short falls. You indeed have come to the right 'critters' for counsel.
For starters: the great film casting director Avy Kaufman's suggestions for the lead series casting?! One has to like these Billions folk to be remotely interested in them. No pantomime villain was ever tolerated by the kids if there were no redeeming features. I (and many others) have a hard time hating billionaire Bobby Axelrod-I wish I could say as equally as the US DA Chuck Rhoades. And where are the Wendy Rhoades of NYC I ask you? Please you know where I live! :)
What's especially interesting is that the series really injects life into the question of insider trading let alone the …of rigged treasury bond auctions. The federal government becomes as guilty, maybe not more so, than in living and thriving off such intel. And what's the difference between 'insider' and 'nepotism'? How many successful actors are guilty of both if not at least one in their careers? Many, many exceptions, of course. How many successful …etc..
Speaking of actors, some great singular supporting roles in Billions. No mere 'talent decoration' but essential moons to the planet storyline.
Ya 'all get the point.
The Billions series isn't really part of my internet post 'deposition'. But it is most certainly New York City and beyond. And don't we just LOVE the character of Taylor in Season 2!. Them's ALL get that!
So: We/them saw a squirrel giving birth to kittens last night! They don't get that cervix in the Hamptons no more…there/they was Marcel Wanders and Billy Baldwin sculptin' away…I swear that was Audrey Hepburn…
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Taylor (Season 2, Ep.11): It is unfortunate, offensive actually, to even be talking about this, and that people have to live in near-poverty. But in many ways, a town is like a business. And when a business operates beyond its means, when numbers don't add up, and the people in charge continue on, heedless of that fact, sure that some sugar daddy, usually in the form of the Federal Government, will come along and scoop them up and cover the shortfalls, well, that truly offends me. People might say you hurt this town. But in my opinion, the town put the hurt on itself. Corrections are in order. There's a way to make this work, and that way is hard, but necessary. As Taleb [Professor Nassim Nicholas] says, become antifragile, or die. Once we do this, the town will face that challenge and come out stronger. Or it will cease being. Either result absolutely natural, as in, of nature itself.
