Another day lost in a haze. I was having computer problems, but I seem to have solved them. Actually, it was just a stupid oversight that cost me $18.00 to set right. I forgot that my scanner needed a SCSI terminator on it, and so I left that back east with all my other junk. I had to go out and buy another one. I am consuming media here, helplessly. I am unable to avoid turning on the teevee to watch the shameless hucksterism of the Olympics and the breathless and paranoid 24-HOUR BOMBING SPECIAL BRIEFING UPDATE COVERAGE, not to mention the absolutely disgusting back-patting tunnel-vision attitude about the TWA 800 incident. I know that Dan would be sick with the sensationalism. And the advertising. The actual amount of time spent on the Olympic competition. Maybe 20% of the time. The complex way of mixing the visuals down — distorting of time and space … The heavy nationalistic slant on the coverage is shocking. Snide comments by the announcers — for example, during the opening ceremonies, the announcers began to discuss the political situation in China when that countries athletes came marching out. And so on. Actually I hardly want to discuss this, rather leave it as simply another example of The Spectacle.
In other parts of the world there are people who are born, live, and die in a perpetual crowd. To be always visible — to live in a swarm of eyes — a special expression must develop. Face coated with clay. The murmuring rises and falls While they divide up among themselves the sky, the shadows, the sand grains. — Tomas Tranströmer