Tertium Quid

"Do you know the difference between capitalism and socialism?"> "No"> "In capitalism, man exploits man. With socialism it's the other way around."-- dialogue from The Alienist

 When I was on the verge of leaving prepubescence, not much older, or younger, than Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier were in 2014, I never saw cable channels such as Home Box Office through a particularly polemical perspective; if anything, the august movement of its logo across my neighbor’s television screen was intimidating, for in the beginning of the cable era I watched it while my mother’s peer was minding me in her duplex. The network was simply the package you subscribed to in order to have daily content available, movies all of the time, even at five in the morning, the new constant distraction, a gratification stimulant which would lead to an ever growing demand for content, not that the naiveite of childhood could foresee all of this, not like Sidney Lumet did with Network. If you ask, or even if I search those diaphanous memory triggers, what content I saw on these fledging subscription providers, my introspection thickens with milky white blanks, the foamy textures of oblivion, but it certainly wasn’t Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, or Coppola’s The Conversation, which, although inimical in it’s encroaching build up toward a frothy climax, was tame enough for commercial projection. Weier’s father sounding off to Brodsky about iPad content isn’t new, in her careful probing of these distraught families. What is new, and almost beyond organic cognition, is the interface between hydraulic generated power, micro circuitry, mass media, mobility, the pressures of collectivization on it, and any subsequent reaction to that pressure.

To a certain extent, all documentary films are forensic excavations, and Brodsky and her crew excavate aplenty over this autonomic perniciousness which assails boomers in this new age manufacture of killer children, and this writer would argue that this feral niche culture resists the comforting grasp of categorization, in terms of oh yes mental illness and schizophrenia are the trial balloon floating at this altitude while a debased society floats at the other, and well, fuck, parents can’t export kids out to the colonies to apprentice a trade anymore, and why is it still so hard? Beneath all this is a woman’s pain in not catching the monstrosity in their otherwise angelic baby, but Angie Geyser, if she had been aware of her husband Michael's schizophrenia prior to Morgan's birth, might have had her daughter periodically evaluated by behavioral specialists. It may not have prevented the attempted murder, which, when scaled down to size, might have involved 'best friend spite', which roiled over in viciousness, but it may have made the judge hesitate before trying two girls barely out of childhood, as adults. This was absurd, regardless of the level of premeditation. The heart rends itself for Morgan, still a young woman, because regardless of how successful her pharmaceutical cocktail might be, her life ended the day she adjudicated her apology to Payton Leutner, and there is something even still more invidious in that.

Que se vayan todos!

"they do not heap conditions upon others or promote themselves as the only 'keepers of the truth'. -- Pope Francis, role playing with Peter Parker.

When spastic was a burgeoning teenager, cable television may have not been in its infancy, but it was still a new and complex technology, one based on subscription, and subscription, as a type of revenue generation, still seems an easier way to generate capital, in contrast to collective models. I looked at the HBO network differently then, persuaded by the logo’s muscle. It was premiere, vintage, and later, when The Sopranos soaked up that exclusivity, I felt left out for not having the means to join in to the sinews of the public conversation. Things have changed. When AT&T awarded me access to the venerable survivor of the streaming wars, I came bearing metaphysical crucifix in hand; from this perspective, treating Iglesia’s 30 monedas with sagacity is difficult. Concessions? Certainly there are concessions. The CW’s lengthy commitment with “The Supernatural” was writing for superficial Americans with one track minds. Every so often, the show runners tipped their hats as a sign of respect. Paramount’s “Evil,” discomfited me slightly more, but interest waned when the series married the Satanic to Minority Report special effects. Iglesia, on the other hand, takes Apostolic witness very seriously, as well as the corruption within the clergy. After three episodes, I asked myself, as a matter of ethical concern, whether or not I should stop watching it. I am rebellious, violent, after all, so who am I to be appalled by lack of Spaniards tender mercies, with not a little assistance from Cosimo Fusco, the Italian who nearly disrupted Jennifer Aniston from her perky little perch? What nags conscience isn’t solely a matter of aesthetics, but how the industry has graduated in portrayals of established faith, and 30 monedas is rather a nasty and convoluted condemnation of the Curia. The first convergence of unease: Iglesia doesn’t mesh modernism with Old World caste and station very well. This may have been deliberate, to offer up foreboding along with the grotesque, but it gives each episode a chunky quality, earthy and hard bitten as we follow Vergara, then ornate and Baroque as Santoro schemes with his ill begotten henchmen. The juxtaposition is queasy. Aldomovar has a much better balance in his excellent horror film. Perhaps Francis might be reminded that indignation can be equally beneficial.