charm isn't cool, nor is it style

I. Okay, I Admit This Is Worded Pretty Strongly
But still, Eugene McCarraher is a theologian who wants to burn down capitalism, and his scything summaries of history and power are pretty convincing:

From the mercenary standpoint of the market, “if I have the vocation for study, but no money for it, I have no vocation for study.” Similarly, “I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness...is nullified by money.” Thus money, Marx wrote in the Grundrisse, “is the god among commodities.” Divinity had not expired, but relocated. Capitalism promoted what the theologian William Cavanaugh might call a “migration of the holy.” [...]

Any challenge to neoliberalism must therefore begin as a demystification of its negative theology: since markets, property, money, and commodities are not divine but human creations, they can be represented, understood, and democratically governed. Palaver about what markets are “doing” or “thinking”—commonplaces of business journalism—should yield to knowledge about the quotidian realities of production, technology, accumulation, and exchange. Such knowledge will bring much sorrow to anyone who believes that men and women are made in the image and likeness of God. For all the wealth it produces, capitalism depends, and will always depend, on exploitation. There’s more than the future of democracy riding on the disenchantment of neoliberalism.

II. Someone Stole My Life Story
Brian Phillips is one of my favorite living writers. He just had a book come out - which I'm hoping to review - and an excerpt from the book was published in the New Yorker. Phillips is from Oklahoma, as is most of my family, and he writes with uncanny familiarity (for me) about the region. The essay is wonderful, as is the entire book. The below are words almost identical to ones I've written about Broken Bow Lake, which was also built by the Corps of Engineers over the bones of a dying town:

Kaw Lake always fascinated me. I’d heard that when the Corps of Engineers dammed the reservoir many years ago, an entire town, Kaw City, had been submerged. (This was true.) Whenever I swam in the lake, I half expected fingers to seize me by the ankles and pull me down to the drowned city, where I’d be lost to the sun and air.

Yes. Exactly. That's the feeling exactly.

III. What Is Charm?
The answer, basically, is Audrey Hepburn! The below essay is fascinating in ways I didn't expect, but it does imply (if not outright argue) that charm is as historically specific as coolness. Cool belongs to the birth of jazz; charm belongs to the Golden Age of Hollywood. (Uh, maybe.)

Some people I talked with thought charm was synonymous with “cool.” In fact, the two, charm and cool, are all but opposed. Cool aims for detachment, distance; charm is social, bordering on the intimate. Cool is icy; charm warm. Cool is costive; charm often ebullient [...]

To be seated at a dinner party, Mel Brooks on one’s left, Audrey Hepburn on one’s right, would make for a most interesting, if perhaps somewhat dizzying, evening. The two represent the boundaries of charm, charm in its masculine coarseness and its feminine refinement.

IV. Opinion
J.R.R Tolkien famously said that fantasy books were treated like well-made, but out of fashion furniture. Both were relegated to the nursery. Antiquated and therefore embarrassing for the adult, both could be handed down and put out of sight. Working in a library, I'd say that about sums up all books at this point. Books are for children. Families flock to the library. They overwhelm the library. Adults without children who visit the library are mostly retirees who've reached the limits of TV watching. That is, they're free to be outmoded themselves. (These are the best patrons.)

All of the arts basically exist within this dynamic. Painting is for children or for professionals. Same with singing or dancing (for the most part). That these arts essentially exist in my body - my mind's eye, my voice, my hands, my legs - is what makes them so much fun, and so unfashionable. Not everyone has to love the arts, but then those people are usually still outdoorsy or athletic. Even that's more a minority than we like to admit, especially if you're somewhere like Colorado. But most committed cyclists in America, much like most daily readers, are also children. TV offers easier ways to travel, just as it offers more accessible stories. The adults I see most active with reading, the arts, and getting outdoors who aren't also art students are parents.

I guess what I'm saying is that maybe children are a blessing from the Lord because you once again regain the wholeness of your body. So. Yeah. It's basically have a kid or disconnect the wi-fi at this point.

Have a great weekend!