H2Omeloncholy: March 2020

VOGUE copyright Conde Nast

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The following is an absurdist exercise in film criticism. The reader - ever an appreciated accomplice in this perpetual surrealist e-performance art 'action' - is asked to read in the same vein that one might peruse a movie review.

Suddenly dawns on one - lo these years passed - that the singular most revolutionary art piece that one hath e'er beheld is the B movie, camp classic, daresay, cult status-ed, Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon.

Note: Left brain; right brain. Then that amorphous region scraping remnant scales from our reptilian ‘tale’. Last Dragon is a Pandora-ean box-ed ‘treasure’ trove of cultural appropriation — pirated, sunk, waterlogged looted. Avoiding decompression ills, one should pen that critique once present absurdity ascends slowly up, breaking REM’s surface to press its snooze button. Still, lest one be derelict in Asian allyship, any filmic fawning here is surrealistically sardonic at best. Or worst. Whilst reading, if teeth begin to clinch or a jaw lock, may chompers at least remain rooted. Or as safe as responsible firearms. Ah, conscientious violence.

To it, shall we?

C. Columbus had the navigation skills of that friend who drinks too much so one is vigilant to grab their car keys. Erstwhile, Pacific Islanders 'explored' the high seas - traveling vast distances that Columbum could scant imagine - thru their intimacy with astronomy and impeccable observance of waves' moods. Voyages of Hōkūleʻa ("Happy Star") have recently relied upon this traditional Polynesian 'wayfinding'. The organic predecessor to GPS manages to avoid any cellular radiation.

All's well. Until a certain man's bullet. Not the man, now. But his bullet.

From the Incan to the Egyptian - pyramids!

All's well. Until a certain man's bullet. Not the man, now. But his bullet.

Indigenous tribes of North America sipped tea that was the preventative for a 'host' of illnesses (other than C. C.'s syphilis or smallpox). Responsibly stewarding this medicinal plant within the bosom of Mama Earth's resilience, Her abundance was honored rather than assumed. Seven Generations eschewing pharmaceutical cooperate boon...doggles, First Peoples naturally harvested Medicare for All. No leaf nor branch was incidental — whether cultivated directly for healing human form or extending traditional Native ethos to Earth's body — intentionally as intuitively practicing cultural burning to seasonally relate to 'wild' fire as restorative rather than destructive.

All's well. Until a certain man's bullet. Not the man, now. But his bullet.

Whilst a certain man emerged from his cave, rubbing two sticks for fire, technology abounded on continents yet colonized. In some of these civilizations, women were warriors and men could inhabit/exhibit both genders. The untold had been contemplated and/or invented and implemented. Except a cohesive instrument of annihilation. Otherwise 'advanced', a specific apparatus to exterminate kin just wasn't on the radar. The Mayan preferred gathering around mugs of thick as fragrant liquefied cocoa, holding late night oral poetic 'slams' in what would become the first unrevised drafts of Popol Vuh.

All's well. Until a certain man's bullet. Not the man, now. But his bullet. These aforementioned societies are not to be eroticized-idealized nor were they utopian or romantic archetypes under smoothest egalitarian 'groove'. Still, their warfare had yet to conceive of mechanisms optimizing carnage, ensuring mass fatalities. Like double-barrel bayonet pistols. Cannon balls. Atomic bombs. Or Facebook.

This brings us to the cheesy as cherished eighties' motion picture, Last Dragon, produced by Motown's founder, Berry Gordy, and written by Louis Venosta. Venosta's 'journeying hero' is ('Bruce') Leroy Green who trains - with only the utmost dedication/discipline - his whole life. It is not, however, Sho' 'Nuff that he must conquer. Acquiring "The Glow" will not save him. All is for naught in that moment that Kew Garden's gangster, Eddie Arkadian, shoots his gun. Might it be argued that martial arts encouraged sum'in essential within Leroy, laying the foundation upon which he develops the miraculous skill of bullet-catching-via-incisors? Granted. The film opens to a scene in progress. Unaware of his own mastery, Leroy instinctively identifies the blue arrow. How?

"Leroy, you KNEW without knowing."

Again though, it is neither the finale's Sho' 'Nuff show-down nor gift of 'glowing' that measures the protagonist's craft. These aspired accomplishments - in isolation - oddly beckon certain death. No matter how sincere the sanctuary we diligently create, our insular quest, albeit sacred, is surrounded by a panoramic view of an oft polluted reality.

In the end? All about the bullet.

Silicon Valley's anemic idea of a commerce 'disruptor' pales miserably in comparison to ('Bruce') Leroy's swift act of Liberation. A cultural coup, universal service, and millisecond-ed rebellion. What qualifies as more disruptive to supremacist (metastasized capitalist) order than halting the lethal tool of 'the man's' trajectory, i. e., implied historical systemic dynamics of oppression - glaring - in the critically current gulf of inequality? Smoking gun clocked in its structural tracks. With Master Green's teeth.

All's not at all well. Until teeth catch that bullet. Now is the time for a (hu)man.

We can educate ourselves at the highest levels, achieve human feats unparalleled, and we can meditate our way to some notion of enlightenment. We can nobly endeavor and charitably inspire - birthing movements. Momentum can build, carrying us towards the ideal experience: a semblance of fruition thru success. But if we cannot "catch bullets with our teeth", there is an inevitability to our demise. And yet, pray, dear reader, lower not thy head with downcast discouraged eye. Perchance a quote - dōjō advice to Leroy - from that blue arrow opening scene in Last Dragon shall betta suffice to lift thy chin:

"What you seek is not written on the floor."

Leroy Green or Bruce Leroy? Which Leroy Are YOU? | #IAMTHEMASTER | The Last Dragon Tribute

Thence? "Eye on" inferred as elusive "prize". Ay, onwards. Past the thickest fog obscuring some promise of a horizon. Albeit Sisyphean bouldered (or bulleted), quest on...quest eva. For it is in the great quest that we...well, we...keep close...to...sum'in...and...yada, yada, yada...

a clever as compassionate critique

on the implausibility

of POSTness

CV

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

catching H2Omelon seeds with teeth