The
article that follows will be as terse and cohesive as the title.
So
how does one write the perfect article?
How does one create something that encompasses everything? How does one become a consummate
individual? Well, to find an answer to
these questions I studied the only way I knew: watching old WWF tapes of Curt
Hennig, also known as “Mr. Perfect.”
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| Not sure if the hair is perfect... |
But
really, the word perfect may be misleading and nebulous. We could sit here and argue back and forth
like some crazed, sex-deprived philosophers upon soapboxes about whether
perfection is even possible. I mean,
does its diametric opposite exist? Is there
anything extant which is the embodiment of failure? Okay, enough; stop yelling names of friends,
family members, politicians, athletes, etc. at the computer screen. That isn’t my point.
What
this examination is derived from is a combination of my personal artistic
aspirations and a casual vivisection of history. My Beastio
Theorio co-creator and I were discussing the various polymaths of the
past. The list includes people like
Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe, Theodore Roosevelt, Benjamin Franklin, Aristotle,
and so on. I mean just take a quick peak
at da Vinci’s resume: painter, sculptor, architect,
musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer.
That’s sheer absurdity. The
conversation consisted of us questioning where modern-day polymaths were. Why has there been such a sudden extinction
of versatile men? Yes, yes, I know; the
amount of knowledge available then and now is like comparing the amount of
women you bedded to the amount of women Genghis Khan bedded. (On a technical note, I don’t think many of
his beddings were consensual. I also
believe a prickly bush beside a burning village is a more likely setting than a
bed.)
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| Even his retarded bird fucked more women than you. |
But despite this fact, is there
even a desire in modern man to strive for such consummation? Are most not content with the standard of being
a man of one single aspect of life? Most
of us decide in perfunctory casualness that we will be an accountant or a
teacher of archaeology or an owner of a restaurant or a computer
programmer. And then we hope to be able
perform our job average enough so that we go unbothered and undetected long
enough to eat, fuck, watch television until we have to be escorted out. From here on, the conversation led to
vitriolic comments regarding job market saturation, over-population,
apprenticeships, and eugenics. Those
comments shall be reserved for a potential future work.
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| Gotta' love sterilization by coercion. |
Now we move on to my personal
ideologies and aspirations. I began the
article with a reference to Curt Hennig, Mr. Perfect. The truth is that he really was one of my
favorite wrestlers growing up. His
wrestling schtick was that he was “absolutely perfect.” I mean, the man could throw a football 100
yards and be on the receiving end of the catch!
He could bowl a perfect game! He
could sink half court three pointers, throw a perfect horseshoe, perform the
perfect high dive! The man was perfect
and I was fascinated. But, opposed to my
opinion, he was perceived as an absolute heel; the “bad guy” per say. But what is so irksome and detestable to the
people about a perfect being? See you’ve
got to understand that this was not just man of great hubris and gall claiming
he was perfect. Because WWF wrestling is
entertainment and not based in reality, the CHARACTER of Mr. Perfect was indeed
inarguably perfect. Is the pursuit of
perfection doomed to revilement by society?
Is it doomed to intrinsic failure?
We’ll explore that a little later on.
Now back to myself, a topic I
would prefer to discuss at all times.
I’ll make this match.com biography frank and succinct. I don’t buy into all this bullshit. I don’t buy any tradition, religion,
politics, or universal code of any kind. There is no single ideology or occupation or manner of classification I
could subscribe to and be content. There
is no SINGLE thing in life I would like to become. The only pursuit that keeps me here and awake
and toiling and functioning is the pursuit to create something consummate. Do I mean to make myself consummate? Well I don’t deal with matters of self; it
becomes real messy. I can only
comprehend this whole pursuit when allocating the responsibility into CREATIONS
and a CHARACTER. I don’t want anyone to
look at me and say “He is smart” or “He is strong” or “He is funny” or “He is
entertaining.” I don’t want any single
adjective.
How is this obsession of mine
progressing? Well, here before you, you
see one of methods in which it has manifested itself: Beastio Theorio. We present
this as the modern vanguard for the combination of strength, science, and
everything that falls in between. EVERYTHING. Outside of this blog, in my literary
ventures, I have attempted to capture this all-encompassing style. I strive to create literary pieces which
rifle through the audience’s emotions like a rolodex. It’s a complex style that often flirts with
failure, turgidity, incongruity, esotericism, exasperation, and quite simply, a
poor product. When success means
perfection, you better be accepting of a high failure rate. I have recently learned to keep things from
being so prolix and fecund. Here’s a
piece produced in my days as an impetuous and fiery youth:
roosters
and cats
the
men and women do it as perfunctory
as
blowing the nose during a cold
or
mowing
overgrown grass.
the
boys and girls do it like the crimes
of
Capone,
like
pagans setting the Church aflame,
like
the betrayal of Benedict.
the
eunuchs do not do it.
nor
do they think of it.
it
would be like the Great Oak
contemplating
death
or
Summer
or
Cadillacs.
I
do it like the boys, like the men,
like
the Great Oak;
I
do it drunken, self-
aware,
brown-eyed,
red-eyed
Camus
in breast pocket,
an
adagio of human movements
a
drawer full of knives,
the
soprano's lilt
the
thud of thunder crumbling,
a
fog fading a dog aging,
bodies
the work of Monet or Renoir
bodies
as significant as the roll of a die,
words
of Valentino deaths of Dillinger
like
Lorca's poesy like Lorca's bullet,
Beethoven's
canorous deafness
van
Gogh's ear crawling with ants and rouge,
a
son of Gautama blazing
the
witches of Salem blazing,
like
a matador beneath Pamplona sun
like
a broken washing machine,
words
of revolution words fizzling and failing
like
a tiger in the rain---
shimmering
dull guttural beautiful
like
the cleaver of a chef
like
the tip of a lit matchstick
like
you, like me
sometimes
Wordsworth,
Wordsworth,
sometimes
Baudelaire,
Baudelaire…
but
sadly, tonight,
as
the pages so frankly
prove,
I
do it like the eunuchs.
What a fucking helter-skelter jambalaya
rant of an over-educated teen with a pen and pad. So what?
Can any artistic expression be a microcosm of the universe? I don’t know if there’s a definite answer to
that but there have been several attempts.
What I will offer now are a few examples of completeness and
self-fulfillment spread across mediums.
Ulysess, a novel by James Joyce
As a bibliophile since the age of
14, no book has captivated me, educated me, affected me quite like
Ulysses. My respect and adoration for
this novel may be ineffable. I am not
here to summarize plot of this near 1,000 page epic. As succinctly as possible, Ulysses is the documentation of June 16,
1904 in Dublin, Ireland; a day in which Leopold Bloom must find a son and
Stephen Daedalus must find a father.
What I appreciate most about this
novel is the massive pair of balls on James Joyce. He does not beat around the bush; Joyce
overtly lets it be known that his only intention is to create the greatest and
most complete novel ever penned. The
title, Ulysses, is the Latinized name
of Homer’s epic, the Odyssey. Joyce, with much bravado and hubris,
immediately places his work amongst one of the most well-known narrative poems
in history. Throughout the novel, Joyce
further elucidates his self-assumed place in literary history with plot lines
regarding William Shakespeare, the Bible, W.B. Yeats, and other lofty
topics. Also, the reason Joyce used
Odysseus as an archetype was because he believed Odysseus to be the consummate
man; Odysseus was father to Telemachus, husband to Penelope, son to Laertes and
Anticlea, King of Ithaca, lover to Calypso.
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| Odysseus about to tap some Calypso ass as a voyeuristic cherub watches. |
How complex and surfeited is Ulysses?
The subjects discussed include Theology, History, Philology, Economics,
Religion, Botany, Literature, Architecture, Music, Rhetoric, Mechanics,
Politics, Painting, Medicine, Magic, and many more. And each subject is not simply briefly grazed
like you seeing a voluminous ass on the bus beside you; it is presented and
manipulated with a genius’ volition.
So what was the fate of Ulysses in the public eye? Well, outrage of course. The novel was taken to the Supreme Court and
banned from publication.
Synecdoche,
New York, a film by
Charlie Kaufman
When I first saw this film, lying in
bed at 2 in the morning, utterly inundated by the ineluctable force of
absurdity and profundity which had hit me, the first thought which occurred to
me was, “This is the Ulysses of film.”
What is interesting about Synecdoche, New York is that not only do
I believe that it is a film that encompasses nearly all aspects of human life;
simultaneously, the plot of the film is about a theater director, Caden Cotard,
attempting to create an artistic piece that encompasses nearly every aspect of
human life.
I’ll tell you, Caden’s vision
reminded me so much of my own. What is
the fate of Caden and his vision? Well,
he toils on for years and years, into his old age, the piece grows more muddled
and tangential and dissonant, until finally Caden passes of old age, without
ever even deciding upon a title for his work.
Awesome.
But in all seriousness, as a film, Synecdoche, New York offers comedy,
drama, a love story, wisdom, sex, art, and anything else you may want to see. I’ve seen it over ten times and I still
discover something new with every watch.
Theodore Roosevelt, 26th
President of the United States
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| "Hey, Teddy; pose for a picture!" |
I know I said that many polymaths of
the past were simply part of an epoch where if a few stars aligned, you could
be a polymath. So to use as my example
of a consummate human being, I’ll go back only as far as the early to mid-1900’s.
Theodore Roosevelt: 6’0”, 200 lbs of
mustache, steel, and badass appeal. I’m
not one for politics; I think it’s a goddamn cesspool of inefficiency,
corruption, and deceit. Honestly, from
many of the quotes I’ve read from Teddy in regards to government, he wasn’t a
firm believer in the legitimacy of the system either. You want to know Roosevelt’s political achievements? Well, he was a recipient of the Noble Peace
Prize, passed important Drug and Food acts, began work on the Panama Canal, was
a master of foreign trade and policy, created several National Parks and Animal
Reserves. That’s all fine and dandy. What fascinates me most is that along with being
leader of the United States are his extracurricular accomplishments. Roosevelt was a 3rd degree brown
belt in Judo. He regularly sparred with
Heavyweight boxers, ceasing only when his retina was detached and he went blind
in one eye. He read at least one entire
book every day. He was an author,
historian, cataloguer, hunter, explorer, cosmopolitan. In social settings, he was known to be a comedian,
an avid debater, and a veritable fountain of knowledge.
In short, ol’ Teddy probably has a
lot more to offer than you do.
So what of all this? Is the concept of “perfection” in art and
self possible? I don’t know. What I do know is that the pursuit of
perfection is very possible. And if more
people took it upon themselves to attempt to be as accomplished, well-rounded,
and fulfilled as they could be, I can only see the overall worldly impact being
positive. This article most likely was
not the perfect article. But in its
attempt, hopefully it educated or entertained you. And that’s all I could have hoped for.
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| Yeah, YOU. |
-Sameer
Saklani
The pursuit of perfection is definitely one worth looking into.
ReplyDeleteIn the pursuit, we may not become perfect, but we sure as hell will become better.
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