Halo halo

The fact of the matter, make no mistake, is that I am on the side of the perplexed and mystified. Most comics today are visually unintelligible except to a few.

It could well be that you are one of the few, that you feel that comics publishers should not be pandering to the general public and that comic books are just how you like them, with their forty plus years of stylistic inbreeding and complicated continuity. Perhaps you are a kid and, like me, you think kids owe it to themselves to keep loads of stuff secret from their parents, and the secret language of comics is a part of that. Great. Comic book publishers love you. However, with the shrinkage of the market for comics, these same publishers are trying hard to get back that general readership they lost a long time ago.

— Eddie Campbell, “Campbell’s Rules of Comprehension”, The Comics Journal, 20 Feb 2013

PHOTOGRAPHS:  New Orleans Arena, 20 March 2013

OK, just so I get this right: You’re arguing that most Americans have a mental illness.

Exactly. That’s definitely correct.

But — if that’s true — wouldn’t that mean “mental illness” is just a normative condition? That it’s just how people are?

That doesn’t make it normal. This is based on science. If there was a flu epidemic, and 60 percent of the country had the flu, it wouldn’t make it normal … the problem is growing, and it’s growing because there’s a subtle war — in America, and in the world — between business and health. It’s no secret that 2 percent of the human population controls all the wealth and the resources, and the other 98 percent struggle their whole life to try and attain it. Right? And what ends up happening is that the 2 percent leave the 98 percent to struggle and struggle and struggle, and they eventually build up these stresses and conditions.

So … this is about late capitalism?

Definitely. Definitely.

— excerpt from Chuck Klosterman’s interview of Royce White

“The traditional exits, of a sudden heart attack, of dying in one’s sleep, of unreasonably dropping dead in the street, of even a terminal illness, are now exotic ways of going. The longer you live the longer it will take to die. The better you have lived the worse you may die. The healthier you are—through careful diet, diligent exercise, and attentive medical scrutiny—the harder it is to die. Part of the advance in life expectancy is that we have technologically inhibited the ultimate event. We have fought natural causes to almost a draw. If you eliminate smokers, drinkers, other substance abusers, the obese, and the fatally ill, you are left with a rapidly growing demographic segment peculiarly resistant to death’s appointment—though far, far, far from healthy.” 

— Michael Wolff, “A Life Worth Ending”, New York, 20 May 2012

Today, jeepneys are adorned with longhorned bull skulls, imitation Mercedes hood ornaments, and giant bugles mounted on chrome grills.  The horns don’t beep, they belch “La Cucaracha” and emit Star Trek phaser sounds, and — this is creepy — some blare talking doll voices that repeat “I love you” over and over again.  The sides of jeepneys are home to a semiotic buffet of logos and decals that provide a window into the cluttered psyches of their operators.  The symbols represent a mash-up of familial, religious, and pop culture references with no obvious organizing principle.

On my way to Quezon City, I saw jeepneys painted with nativity scenes and portraits of Jesus over hot pink and neon green backgrounds.  I saw cartoonish renderings of professional wrestlers, the Confederate flag, bikini-clad actresses, the Little Mermaid, Shrek, and Alfred E. Neuman.  And there wasn’t a jeepney on the road that day that didn’t somehow pay homage to basketball.

— Rafe Bartholomew, excerpt from Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin’ in Flip-Flops and the Philippines’ Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball (2010)

It’s like getting paid to drive people around in your Facebook profile

(photographs: 1, 2, 3, 4)