Brace yourself!
A savage but strange war now rages along the border, and throughout Mexico: on the surface of things, a fight to the death between narco-trafficking cartels that has claimed 28,000 lives since December 2006. The carnage called me back, to write not so much about the war as a place in time of war. And to find that the war was in part rooted in the border’s daily life of exploitation in sweatshop factories and battles for domestic drug-dealing turf, and also in general themes of globalised markets and trade, hyper-materialism and consumerism that hallmark any post-industrial, post-moral society in collapse.
Oh! Une belle correction de grille dans l’Illinois! (Je fais collection des corrections de grille!)
(Photo Google Maps)
At the height of my obsession with David Foster Wallace, garnered after reading ‘Infinite Jest’ over several weeks in 2001, an act which literally changed my life, I began going after any and every piece of writing not only of his, but that he had recommended, blurbed, mentioned in interviews, taught, etc.
Through Gielen’s lens, outdoor exercise yards become nothing more than cages, cramped prostheses on the backs of the prisons proper; whatever freedom or physical excitement such spaces were meant to offer looks appropriately absurd from such heights.
“You can’t go a day without hearing how Obama’s a radical cactus sympathizer who wants to sap America of all its drinking water, or how he was actually born in the Kalahari Desert,” said media critic Lynn Pelmont, referring to cable news outlets that suggest the president has prickly spines he uses to protect himself from thirsty animals. “For a man who prides himself on delivering a coherent message, there’s an awful lot of confusion out there about whether he’s a Harvard Law graduate or a leafless flowering shrub.”
“Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone is speaking to the media outside the base. He confirms that 12 people have been killed and 31 wounded. He also said that the shootings took place at a readiness facility, which is where soldiers go before deploying overseas. Gen. Cone said that the gunmen were Fort Hood soldiers and used handguns. Two soldiers have been detained as suspects in the shootings.”
