Our many readers love to bitch and moan at every occasion about the lack of continued critical commentary on Clinomania, this despite the fact that our lapses are always explained through one of several causes, namely laziness, fear of computer-reading security robots, and poor wireless connection caused by sunspots.
But the one overriding cause for laxity here at Somenotions is the sheer overwhelming volume regularly churned out by Jack. How is one meant to keep up with a fellow who types in his every perception of boob and film?
Which is why we took delight in "Style Corner." Here is Jack offering terse, polished observations of the immediate world around him.
DIGRESSION: What is one to make of the contrast in Clinomania between Jack's obsession and fascination with the extreme local, his immediate surroundings (consider "Incredible True Stories of Last Night, 7/8/04) and his broader compulsion to comment on the massive, non-geographical world of popular culture, and to perceive said world as though it were personally aimed, sniper-like, at him? We have here a writer who monitors every last hair and footsmell on his body, and at the same time turns his gaze to widescreen and takes in all of Hollywood, popular music, etc. Yet he seems to view popular culture only in the miniature, the personal - by this we mean he extrapolates larger theories by stitching together from the images that flash before him on his TV, on his Internet pod, on his music portal. For one who feels and senses popular culture in such personal, vivid ways, it makes sense that every ill-conceived movie and magazine feature is seen as a personal insult, an attack on one's own body.
Perhaps you see where we're going with this: The macro and the micro for Jack are one and the same. "Hollywood" is no more distant than his own stinkfeet, because it flashes before his eyes, and he perceives it as just another sensory tentacle touching his fragile body. The foolish miscues of television executives affect Jack as deeply as does a misplaced bag on Layfayette Street. He does not distinguish between distant sources and nearby ones: all are lumped together as equally distracting inputs.
We are considering developing these ideas into a full article; perhaps to be titled "Purportion - Per Portion: Space and Perception in 'Clinomania'". There's ample material to flesh out (if you will) the idea that Jack's driving idea for Clinomania is that all inputs are heaped together in the same bin. A woman's tit he spies on East 9th, something Yang says, an e-mail from his boss, the gentle nuzzle of a dog, stupid scenes from "Waking Life," the latest Lil' Wayne recording - all of these come into Jack's ken with equal velocity.
Tentative conclusion then: Jack is the prime example of the man of what we dub the "supramodern" age. External media, internal thoughts, and physical sensations are all processed in exactly the same way for him. The "supramodern" man does not distinguish between motive, point of origin, or creation when it comes to sensations - he merely adjusts his dial and proceeds.
Anyway, "Style Corner" was well-put, stated with sharpness. Too often Jack leaves little to the reader's imagination, but with this post we ourselves are meant to cast a picture of a denim store in an East Village apartment complex, and the retardedness thereof. This post is not unlike the woman he described therein - showing a little bit of her butt, and leaving the perceiver to form the rest according to his wishes.
