Monday, June 25, 2007
The Willendorf Factor
We all know about the Venus of Willendorf back from art school, right? Well, a lot of you do. And, if you don't, I'll give you a heads up. The Venus of Willendorf is a really tiny little piece of art that was discovered in, well, Willendorf, wherever that is, somewhere in Bavaria. Anyhow, the significant thing about the Venus of Willendorf is that she has massive tits as well as a very big pronounced vagina. The theory goes that the artist was creating a fertility symbol and that he was focusing on these powerful and practical symbols of motherhood. So, I was just thinking what it is that we today focus on. We've totally messed with this original symbol. As a society, as far as female symbols go, we value thin young women. We still value sex but not so much motherhood. And I think of how we've placed so much attention on sex and how we constantly hungry for new stimulation. So, in come the girls in flip flops. As we navigate through our days, sex on the brain at a relentless pace, we place an incredibly high value of anything titilating. It's a dance played by the observer and the one in the role of object observed. We outright desire the stimulation. It doesn't matter if flip flops aren't especially practical footwear. It gives us a chance to see more skin, and more vulnerable highly sensitive skin. Hey, it's the Willendorf Factor as far as I'm concerned. If our primitive ancestors needed fertility images to console them, it makes perfect sense that we need to see and/or wear something ultra-sexy that get us deep inside to get through our crazy days.
Labels: a really bad foot fetish in a good way, feet, fertility, hyperreality, kinky sex, open toes, sex, symbols, toe sucking, Venus of Willendorf
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Random Nation Part Two
So what do we call ourselves this time? "The YouTube Generation" sounds about right. WIRED, in it's current cover story, comes close to saying, "The Bite-Sized Generation." I am still holding onto calling these times, "The Random Generation" or use the term, "Random Nation."
From the mailbag, I got this recent post that I'll go ahead and quote from. It's in response to my post, "Open Toes, The Beauty of it All!":
Talk about overcomplicating. Indeed, it is a pop song of the Nelly type, who has a similar poppy song devoted to open toeds, targeted at the -just wanna have fun- teen to 30 something female, and anyone who likes feet really. It should be known by now after countless mentioning of feet surrounding Mcphee, she loves them. I saw her on Tyra Bank's show and Trya (Chingy's foot girl) took off her shoes for some reason and showed them to Mcphee, then she said "you have pretty feet". Right then I noticed her eyes alone immediately turned to the crowd as her head followed in the same way when someone says something and they are unsure how or if they will be judged or also when ego is checking if relation is apparent, kind of like when someone lies but thats just because the crowd was directly to her right side. Well her expression was cheekier than usual and to me thats enough proof. I hear Tyra is pregnant and due, also think its Chingy's, also think they only hooked up because of her feet, now isnt that a stupid reason to bring a kid into this world
Well, this won't be the first time we have a child born from excess.
We live in an ultra-narcissistic age.
Reality and fantasy collide at more rapid intervals.
Here is where I think a discussion of Hyperreality would prove useful. And, if you're going to go to Baudrillard, then you must go to McLuhan as well. I haven't gotten any takers on views regarding Marshall McLuhan yet. I'm just wondering if people are familiar with him at all given that he once was truly a household name.
Here is where I think the foot becomes a far more interesting symbol. It can represent excess. But it can also represent a coming back to reality in a spiritual and grounded sense. If you think of the '60s, for instance, you can clearly see the foot back then as a symbol of the age: excess commingling with spirituality.
Labels: Baudrillard, blogs, celebrity, feet, foot fetish, hyperreality, images, Marshall McLuhan, philosophy, pop culture, social studies, society, television, text, video, Writing
