O-H, I-O muthafucka

Surrealism becomes the midwest. I have been thinking about how the theories of European Surrealist Movement in the 1920s have become the reality of the American Midwest. I think that Midwestern society reflects this multiplicitous view on life better than any other area in the world. It is hopeful, layered, cheery, dark, death-filled, bright, stormy, etc. It has a blend of all the critical elements of a surrealist composition. I think that my interest in the theory behind surrealism is really driven by my own interest in defining my home. In this way, the uncanny returns in my own study. I am looking towards the unheimlich in my own experience to help direct my future actions. It is a dark pursuit. It is also a very rich one.

Ohio State beat Michigan yesterday. Cincinnati upset Rutgers. The Democrats now have the majority in both houses in Washington. President Bush is changing his tune. The Midwest is winning. Someone needs to map it. Fuck the coasts. Their time is through. They can enjoy the self-sustaining fashion of skin deep architecture and revolving door of trends and hipster status. The real meat of life, the real mess of American identity is in the middle of the country. Where tobacco barns have wireless internet, Campbell’s soup is required in almost every holiday recipe, War memorials, war protests, and war stickers litter the landscape, where people drive to the corner store, where grandmothers hide dark secrets and half-empty liquor bottles under their macrome baby’s blanket, where one god and one country still resonate and highschool sweethearts still fall in love and get married, Where ancient architecture, neither the dumbly catagorized “Fort Ancient” or a real “cosmologial map” cannot capture its real presence, exists within a mile of fast food restaurants, neither real food nor real restaurant. God Bless America. Bring the Troops Home. No Blood for Oil. The Midwest loves slogans, and it believes none of them. It evades every definition that you try to put on it. The coasts don’t understand the midwest. They imagine it only as a marginally interesting political battle ground for about two days of the year and more often as tedious gridded cornfields to fly over en route between NYC and LA. Jetsetters are not welcome in the Midwest. Silo cups and Wrangler jeans trump Armani and Louis Vuitton. Sure you can stop by for a beer, but you will never be called a good ole boy. When the revolution occurs, I know where it will be. O-H, I-O mothufucka.