Wednesday, January 18, 2006
True Story
With four of his followers - if not friends - the world's greatest pick-up artist rents a mansion, just up from Sunset Boulevard. An after-party party palace. To take wannabee film-stars, porn-stars and strippers, tourists and odd-jobbers from the nearby clubs. Into an LA lair made for sex. And one day destroying a wardrobe, the next serving lemonade to all the strangers there - while wearing nothing but knickers - Courtney Love drifts, bangs, demands and babbles about their rooms. Welcome to Project Hollywood.
And he makes a living from this lifestyle, by teaching it. They fly in from all over the world, the men who come to be taught how to pick-up the cheap-chicks by him; they fly in and pay in their thousands. But they do not learn from him the art of seduction. They learn the science of it. The science of speed hypnosis. Of how and why and when to lower a woman's self-esteem. Of when to ignore her and when to call her. In fact, not only science, but an amateur philosophy, too (something like Nietzche's cheap take on Darwin, but lensed through their misunderstanding of Dawkin's concept of the selfish gene) was preached in this church of the chase. And so many routines and jokes, so many manoeuvres. And - for the extra-talented few - how to massage two strangers; down to a threesome. Yet most of the mass weren't talented; the mass shaved their heads like him, dressed in flash shirts like him, learnt lip-reading techniques like him; the mass cloned themselves for the sake of sex, with porn-stars and strippers, and various other strangers.
Come deeper - for the story goes deeper. Much deeper, say, than the insincere disclaimers scattered throughout his book, the out-of-the-blue announcements that deep-down this wasn't really him. His position - this playboy lord of these losers-turned-lovers, and all the other flies buzzing about the glittery plastic gardens of LA - would not last. Two other pick-up artists, Papa and Tyler, plotted against him. They turned Mystery, his guru-turned-wing-man-turned-fan, into a mental wreck. Pushed him to almost the point of suicide, by seducing his favourite girlfriend, and other contrivances, lies, cruelties. Mystery left to live rather than stayed to die, and in less dramatic fashion, they soon usurped their king, too. He walked from his creation, as it turned out, into a movie ending: chasing his true love, a rock-star called Lisa, finally into his arms - after so many months of trying. By simply, after all that time, dropping the act and being himself.
What does this all mean?
That the freedoms of our modern lives doom men to re-enact Lord of the Flies - mixed with Fight Club - for sex? Even there, in such a rich, luxury pad? There at the top of the world, there in Hollywood? Hollywood: the Tinsel town that turned film, a minor entertainment medium from the start of the twentieth century, into a global industry by the end of it. Into the centre of everyday culture. Into the commander of money and power. Into the inspiration for ideal lifestyles and lovelife’s. Yet even here, in Neil Strauss’s odd, true, tale, a familiar moral of the Blockbuster irresistibly suggests itself: That destiny in mysterious ways brings couples together.
Or perhaps we conclude something different, different from that prosaic hope. That even for those who’d never, not even once, think to treat the world as a troubled, complex friend, for those whom love is thus as unlikely as aliens, they’ll still take a risk on its rumour, take a break from their routine.
And he makes a living from this lifestyle, by teaching it. They fly in from all over the world, the men who come to be taught how to pick-up the cheap-chicks by him; they fly in and pay in their thousands. But they do not learn from him the art of seduction. They learn the science of it. The science of speed hypnosis. Of how and why and when to lower a woman's self-esteem. Of when to ignore her and when to call her. In fact, not only science, but an amateur philosophy, too (something like Nietzche's cheap take on Darwin, but lensed through their misunderstanding of Dawkin's concept of the selfish gene) was preached in this church of the chase. And so many routines and jokes, so many manoeuvres. And - for the extra-talented few - how to massage two strangers; down to a threesome. Yet most of the mass weren't talented; the mass shaved their heads like him, dressed in flash shirts like him, learnt lip-reading techniques like him; the mass cloned themselves for the sake of sex, with porn-stars and strippers, and various other strangers.
Come deeper - for the story goes deeper. Much deeper, say, than the insincere disclaimers scattered throughout his book, the out-of-the-blue announcements that deep-down this wasn't really him. His position - this playboy lord of these losers-turned-lovers, and all the other flies buzzing about the glittery plastic gardens of LA - would not last. Two other pick-up artists, Papa and Tyler, plotted against him. They turned Mystery, his guru-turned-wing-man-turned-fan, into a mental wreck. Pushed him to almost the point of suicide, by seducing his favourite girlfriend, and other contrivances, lies, cruelties. Mystery left to live rather than stayed to die, and in less dramatic fashion, they soon usurped their king, too. He walked from his creation, as it turned out, into a movie ending: chasing his true love, a rock-star called Lisa, finally into his arms - after so many months of trying. By simply, after all that time, dropping the act and being himself.
What does this all mean?
That the freedoms of our modern lives doom men to re-enact Lord of the Flies - mixed with Fight Club - for sex? Even there, in such a rich, luxury pad? There at the top of the world, there in Hollywood? Hollywood: the Tinsel town that turned film, a minor entertainment medium from the start of the twentieth century, into a global industry by the end of it. Into the centre of everyday culture. Into the commander of money and power. Into the inspiration for ideal lifestyles and lovelife’s. Yet even here, in Neil Strauss’s odd, true, tale, a familiar moral of the Blockbuster irresistibly suggests itself: That destiny in mysterious ways brings couples together.
Or perhaps we conclude something different, different from that prosaic hope. That even for those who’d never, not even once, think to treat the world as a troubled, complex friend, for those whom love is thus as unlikely as aliens, they’ll still take a risk on its rumour, take a break from their routine.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Chess
If you were to find all the dreary desks in dull offices of London that I've sat in during the last five years, and take all the hard-drives away and scan them for .pgn files, you would find a lot. I have no idea how many, but the number would be very high indeed. On the internet you can play games much faster than over the board, because mouse movements never knock over pieces or misplace them on the corner of squares; my usual speed limit is a minute each for each person. As I took some of the jobs I've had precisely and only for the reason that there wasn't much to do and I could play chess all day, there must have been days where I've played 200 games of chess, just in that day. And of course, I also have games via email, I have games on a slow-play server (70 or so games at the moment) and I play in the evenings at home, or for a club, and every now and again on a weekend for a tournament. Does the number of chess games I've played number only in the tens of thousands, or in the hundred's? I have no idea - really.
Chess this way is a weak pleasure; it is a little bit of fun, a somewhat interesting exercise, mostly in tactical sparring and trickery, perhaps like a crossword or Soduko puzzle. It's nothing special. Yet if you were count up those .pgn files, you would think this was not only my only passion, but also my profession. Was I really that bored? No, surely I had better things to do - even if just read a novel on long loo breaks, and make a point of complaining about curries or a housemate's cooking to my boss.
So, I cannot deny the obvious. That all my Blitzin' is a form of repetitive behaviour, not just another innocent example of chess as a hobby. Repetitive behaviour, I know, is a way to force the universe, that so often feels - & is - beyond control, and chaotic, and dangerous, into safe and reliable patterns; it is a way to master a little corner of this vast space we float in and name it ours. Or: it is a way to create ontological security in a changeful, unrelable world. Still, I do not have OCD, I have a bad habit. I don't miss blitzin' at all when I don't do it, and if there's no internet around, I do not seek it out for that purpose. I do it when it's there - but a hell of a lot, and when I could be doing better things.
I sometimes wonder who the other players are, who anonymously blitz as guests on the ICC alongside me. There are some who never resign - they leave the programme as if their computer had been disconnected. There are those who always offer a draw before resigning, or lose on time, or deliberately play bad moves, those who pretend to be Bobby Fischer, and there's one who as soon as the game is finished censors each opponent from talking to him or challening him again. In a word - it is odd, very odd, that I have spent so many hours in the company of these hidden, fleeting creatures. That I, in fact, am one, and that no doubt at some point they wonder about me as I wonder about them. If you are a fellow blitzee, then I'm the guy who goes 1. d4 c5 2. Bf4 cxd4 3. Bxb8 Rxb8 4. Qxd4, threat 5. Qxa7. And I'm better than you.
Count up those files; 10,000? 100,000? 500,000? Even if you did do so, you will not witness me in that number: The count records not only chess moves, not just the time I have killed, but a mistaken choice of mine: to make myself into a drifting shadow. That tally counts my cowardice.
Chess this way is a weak pleasure; it is a little bit of fun, a somewhat interesting exercise, mostly in tactical sparring and trickery, perhaps like a crossword or Soduko puzzle. It's nothing special. Yet if you were count up those .pgn files, you would think this was not only my only passion, but also my profession. Was I really that bored? No, surely I had better things to do - even if just read a novel on long loo breaks, and make a point of complaining about curries or a housemate's cooking to my boss.
So, I cannot deny the obvious. That all my Blitzin' is a form of repetitive behaviour, not just another innocent example of chess as a hobby. Repetitive behaviour, I know, is a way to force the universe, that so often feels - & is - beyond control, and chaotic, and dangerous, into safe and reliable patterns; it is a way to master a little corner of this vast space we float in and name it ours. Or: it is a way to create ontological security in a changeful, unrelable world. Still, I do not have OCD, I have a bad habit. I don't miss blitzin' at all when I don't do it, and if there's no internet around, I do not seek it out for that purpose. I do it when it's there - but a hell of a lot, and when I could be doing better things.
I sometimes wonder who the other players are, who anonymously blitz as guests on the ICC alongside me. There are some who never resign - they leave the programme as if their computer had been disconnected. There are those who always offer a draw before resigning, or lose on time, or deliberately play bad moves, those who pretend to be Bobby Fischer, and there's one who as soon as the game is finished censors each opponent from talking to him or challening him again. In a word - it is odd, very odd, that I have spent so many hours in the company of these hidden, fleeting creatures. That I, in fact, am one, and that no doubt at some point they wonder about me as I wonder about them. If you are a fellow blitzee, then I'm the guy who goes 1. d4 c5 2. Bf4 cxd4 3. Bxb8 Rxb8 4. Qxd4, threat 5. Qxa7. And I'm better than you.
Count up those files; 10,000? 100,000? 500,000? Even if you did do so, you will not witness me in that number: The count records not only chess moves, not just the time I have killed, but a mistaken choice of mine: to make myself into a drifting shadow. That tally counts my cowardice.
