Skip to main content

37. Nature morte

Support Provided By
dia_de_los_muertos.jpg

Encountered in passing in the New York Times Book Review . . .The review takes pains to note that Simon Critchley wrote the Book of Dead Philosophers on a hill overlooking Los Angeles. And, Critchley says, because of "its peculiar terror of annihilation," Los Angeles is "surely a candidate city for the world capital of death."

Critchley's comment on the place in which he wrote a collection of essays on dead philosophers (and on their dying) comes at the very end of his book, which offers a slightly snarky take on the consolations of philosophy (and being philosophical about the inevitable).

In a short afterward on "Geographical Details" he says, "To my eyes, the (book) is marked by the strange mood of that city and its inescapable clichés: the melancholic Santa Ana winds, broad deserted night-time streets flanked by high palm trees, and sunlight so bright that it becomes indistinguishable from darkness." Sunset Boulevard also makes a brief appearance; noir is mentioned in passing and Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

The oxymoron of "inescapable clichés" is very good. It conjures up a crowd of zombie-like phrases stumbling toward the writer, but, like the generic victims in a dawn-of-the-living-dead movie, the writer never seems to outrun them no matter how slowly the clichés shamble into this thinking.

Critchley might also have a problem picking capitals. I can think of a lot of candidate places where death reigns more ugly, real, and truly inescapable "? I'll start with Auschwitz-Birkenau.

That the New York Times would fit Critchley's bleak and lazy assertions about Los Angeles into a mildly favorable review of his book is fully in character. The book has nothing to do with Los Angeles, but those clichés slewfoot forward, groaning lowly for NYTBR reviewers' brains, whenever clichés of Los Angeles are invoked.

swanson.jpg

Why Critchley is uniquely disconsolate in Los Angeles, writing a book about bucking up manfully (or womanfully) in the face of death, is harder to figure. You can be miserable contemplating your own mortality anywhere.I thought that place mattered not at all any more, now that we're all in the same flat, globalized world.

But if the positive attributes of local do matter "? as increasingly they do "? they mustn't have a place in L.A., particularly if, like Critchley, you head the philosophy department at the New School in New York.

But L.A. will always have noir. And that, it seems, will have to do.

The image of calaveras was taken by Flickr user Anna Jay and the Swanson photo was taken by Christine Wilks. Each was used under a Creative Commons license.

Support Provided By
Read More
Gray industrial towers and stacks rise up from behind the pitched roofs of warehouse buildings against a gray-blue sky, with a row of yellow-gold barrels with black lids lined up in the foreground to the right of a portable toilet.

California Isn't on Track To Meet Its Climate Change Mandates. It's Not Even Close.

According to the annual California Green Innovation Index released by Next 10 last week, California is off track from meeting its climate goals for the year 2030, as well as reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.
A row of cows stands in individual cages along a line of light-colored enclosures, placed along a dirt path under a blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds.

A Battle Is Underway Over California’s Lucrative Dairy Biogas Market

California is considering changes to a program that has incentivized dairy biogas, to transform methane emissions into a source of natural gas. Neighbors are pushing for an end to the subsidies because of its impact on air quality and possible water pollution.
A Black woman with long, black brains wears a black Chicago Bulls windbreaker jacket with red and white stripes as she stands at the top of a short staircase in a housing complex and rests her left hand on the metal railing. She smiles slightly while looking directly at the camera.

Los Angeles County Is Testing AI's Ability To Prevent Homelessness

In order to prevent people from becoming homeless before it happens, Los Angeles County officials are using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to predict who in the county is most likely to lose their housing. They would then step in to help those people with their rent, utility bills, car payments and more so they don't become unhoused.