War of the Worlds, Tom Cruise, and Kim K

I think it has been established that language no longer exists. Not the imprecise language of words, that resists definition and professes roots in gardens. Instead we have a hardcore gallimaufry of manufacture. Can poets match that test?

We saw War of the Worlds the other night. It was an entertainment and worth reseeing, but a word to Steven Spielberg: you might want to pull up your socks. As far as atmosphere, it isn’t a patch on the Gene Barry starring thriller. Okay, I saw that one when I was believable (able to believe): a young and willing auditor of marvels, and the words that tell them. Marvels like Tom Cruise (synecdoche for Hollywoodia) have made me wary, wary. Spruced up marvels of any ilk, I mean.

Spielberg’s movies usually look good; this one looks hasty, compiled, and a bit sloppy. It held up as entertainment, a worthy purchase from the supermarket cheap rack, but embarrassing, perhaps, in terms of Spielberg’s oeuvre. It aint no Close Encounters.

Tom Cruise irritates me, which means I should investigate. I don’t mean Scientology or that stuff, that’s just the human side of murk seeping thru. As a Star of Acting, he makes me flinch. I grant him actual acting skill. He’s not just a one tempo puppy (Arnold, Bruce, Sylvester). Unfortunately, you always see the gears turning, the calculation. If he could just let go of that occasionally, I might release some of my irritation. Anyway, he’s competent as actor, even so.

Fred Allen said something to the effect, Hollywood is where you brush away the glitter to get at the real glitter inside. Tom’s inner glitter is hard to express in words. Is he goodlooking in the certifiable, documented, Hollywood way? I guess so. The young Cruise seemed like a stupid high school jock. He looked malleable, with a mushy, wet clay smile. Perhaps the clay has hardened, he looks more chosen now. I mean, he fulfills the checklist, except that he’s unacceptably short. And yet he lets that be no barrier.

He resembles the veritable Kim Kardashian in some ways. In Hollywood terms, she’s no spring chicken. The rage of age has brought her unforgivably into her 30s. Yet she’s buffed and bound and looks perfectly identifiable. She is thus allowed to become pregnant. Who knew that women got heavy when pregnant? According to my read of magazine covers at the supermarket, Kourtney and Khloe have also become pregnant. And fulfilled (and yet).

You do wonder about these Kardashians. When journalists must explain the Kardashian quantity, the women are called stars of reality shows, i.e. stars of their lives. It’s an odd complex, but then, Tom Cruise has been doing that right along, tho not in so many words. Not in any words, let’s be honest.

Kim is the star Kardashian. Khloe is the baby. Besides getting married, divorced and pregnant, Khloe doesn’t seem to Star in much. Kourtney was a something or other on one of those shows, but has since been fired. It might even have been her job to get fired, so that the larger theme of being something within nothing could supremely squirt into the atmosphere of attention. Kim, meanwhile, has been the spokesfemale for Midori watermelon liquor, at any rate, tags on bottles have forensically flaunted the Kim K image. Which has led to the enviable position of attachment to the Kanye West whatever, with further episodes beckoning.

Kourtney may be some sort of avatar. Rumour has it that she’s really O J Simpson’s daughter, which puts scale to the property (Kardashian Inc.). She’s notably taller than her sisters, and… and… Oh, I dunno…

I guess they are all avatars. The conservative wrecking ball demands a secret insensitivity to human iniquity. That’s why healthcare is such a great topic of contetion. Within the meta-range, Cruise and the Kardashians make unmitigated flarf out of life terms. I say flarf because it is context recontexted. The Kardashian flarf is immobile, however, lacking words. It’s not really flarf, or anything, at all.

I sweated bullets when the aliens almost finished off Gene Barry et al., in that black and white movie. Almost, but the human-saving virus did its deed. Spielberg thoroughly brushed that tension aside as afterthought. Instead, it’s the majesty of monster that he,and we, indulged. Independence Day, an exhilarating romp, as they say, showed how wonderful monster can be.

Cruise and the Kardashians are monsters, in the old school way. It says in Merriam Webster that monster derives from monere, to warn. I guess that’s all I’m saying, in my personal science fiction here.