RARA-AVIS: literary merit

From: Frederick Zackel ( fzackel@wcnet.org)
Date: 05 Mar 2007


IHey, the smartest thing I learned in grad school was this semi-drunken fat
(deleted) teaching modern (deleted) telling the class one day that American Pop Culture was traditional middle-class values on trial in a carnival atmosphere. Anna Nicole is getting the full-court press right now. Trailer trash with bit soft pillowy ... boobs. Peroxide blonde, of course. (Is she buried yet? Are you sure she's dead?)

OJ was classic, of course. Star black footballer turned "actor" married bottle blonde with soft pillowy (deleted) and then kills her and her
"friend."

We rara-avians write & read pop genre. That's our arena. "Arena" translates as "blood and sand," which comes from bullfights and gladiators. So...Pop fiction is pop culture.

The following, for example, is just downright creepy...

NY Times February 22, 2007 World Briefing | Americas Colombia: Gunman Kills 2 Performing Clowns By SIMON ROMERO An unknown gunman killed two circus clowns in Cú£µ´¡, on the border with Venezuela, before a crowd of about 20 children and adults. The traveling circus had been performing for more than a week. The shootings, which follow the killing of another clown in Cú£µ´¡ last year, drew attention even in a country hardened by one of the world's highest homicide rates because it took place in front of children.

Man, that can be a noir novel in the time I snap my fingers.

Okay, let's look around. Britney's bald and in rehab. (Or has she left again?) The astronaut's in diapers but wasn't hit with attempted murder.
(IMHO) Anna N. was murdered but she got buried after all.

And last week I saw in the newspapers...

ABC announced the cast for the fourth season of its mega hit "Dancing With the Stars" on Wednesday, and if you thought it couldn't get any more interesting than Emmitt Smith and Jerry Springer, you were very, very wrong.

The new season returns March 19 with a two-hour performance special that will pit Heather Mills, the estranged wife of Paul McCartney and the first contestant to compete with an artificial limb, against Laila Ali, the world champion boxer and daughter of Muhammad Ali.

Yeah!!! The one-legged Beatle divorcee up against Cssius Clay's boxing daughter? Life doesn't get better than that!

I (heart) Genre.

But what bumps genre up into literature?

Compassion. Yes, that may be indefensible.

Which means later this week I will more about it.

Best to all

Fred Zackel Cocaine & Blue Eyes Point Blank Press



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