#He can be very sanctimonious both about him personally and facets of himself without much tolerance for others or deviation

[bumblingbabooshka]

[TUVOKTOBER: Day 6] Based on this line of dialogue:

#I will forever be like 'what did you mean by that??' jennifer lawrence clip about Tuvok saying he 'spoke out against it' #He isn't??? A politician?? And never was??? #Is his family one which holds a certain amount of sway?? #I need to know if he 'spoke out' in an official capacity - like a way that mattered to the world at large or if he was just talking shit #I tend to assume mostly the latter - maybe talking shit to specific people but still. It reminds me of how in Gravity he says #HE chose to leave Jara and school when in reality he was kicked out and banished - adjusting the facts #anyway one of the things I sincerely love about Tuvok is that he would be like one of many petty Vulcan antagonists* in another series #especially when he was younger but it's not like he's THAT much better in canon #Ex: Though Tuvok agrees & praises the peace treaty he still seems to view B'Elanna unfavorably bc she's Klingon #<- Like what Neelix says 'That's just it!! You don't feel anything FOR me but you feel things AGAINST me' that's him a nutshell #<- Another example is how he treats Chakotay in the earlier seasons: Deliberately undermining him and questioning his authority #He can be very sanctimonious both about him personally and facets of himself without much tolerance for others or deviation #It's a legit character flaw and I do love highlighting it bc I love him even when I want to choke him to death he's fascinating <3 #It's also VERY interesting bc he WAS more of a rebel punk as a teen then he went to the monastery and now he is shown to be very #devoted to Vulcan ways and have a keen interest in monastic life. #I know Vulcan philosophy is NOTHING like christianity or catholicism but like forget that for a second. Ok. Now: 'Tuvok's born again swag? #off the charts' v_v thank you #bea art tag #Tuvoktober #st voyager #st voyager fanart #*And this never changes. Unlike Spock or T'Pol he never has moments (that I can recall) where the narrative's like 'GOTCHA!' #& he's never insecure about his identity as Vulcan. Never desires to feel or be more human. & I /do/ think this is bc he's older! We see #himas an ensign in 'Flashback' struggling with his identity as its pitted against humanity AND in 'Gravity' where he's shown to have disdai #for Vulcan culture & customs. It really makes me wish we had gotten more character-building episodes from him rather than character-breakin #ones where he's not really acting as himself in full. v_v #also one last thing: I recognize that other characters do try2 'GOTCHA!' Tuvok both seriously and lightheartedly but Tuvok is never framed #as being actually affected by this unlike Spock or T'Pol where it's a whole like Thing about their characters (humanity - feeling) #tuvoktober

[amoralto]

Thoughts on the Vanity Fair excerpt of the new Jann Wenner biography (Sticky Fingers)? It not only establishes how angry John was over Lennon Remembers but also Paul's unvarnished opinion of Wenner. Basically John never forgave Wenner, so after he died Jann dealt with the guilt by blatantly reclaiming his hero worship and using Rolling Stone to create the St. John (& Yoko) myth.

Yes, it would seem that the grief over John’s death and the (frankly rather sanctimonious) guilt didn’t so much moderate Wenner’s stance as it served to compound it, in the admixture of his inherent and always apparent bias for John, which went beyond harmless preference and into equal parts unconcerned and calculated disparagement of John’s former other half.

The fact of John’s anger over Lennon Remembers being published as a book and Paul’s pointed lack of regard for Wenner has been established before, so that at least is not necessarily new information. John and George actually allude to it in 1974:

GEORGE: I remember the day when John did an interview with a certain magazine and said certain things, and then I remember the day when he disagreed with what he’d said, but the man who interviewed him denied him the right to change his mind and, even though it was two and a half years, later still went ahead and published something which John said he no longer agreed with himself on. Which means the dream was over, yet certain people wouldn’t allow him to have his dream… over. Nudge nudge wink wink, say no more. [inaudible]

JOHN: In other words, imagine if somebody or if you accidentally bang your head and you shout, “Ow!” – that’s the end of it. [self-conscious; laughs] Right?

GEORGE: And he said that too.

JOHN: I mean, it doesn’t go on for the next five years, right? And we all did that.

— John Lennon and George Harrison, interview for KHJ 930-AM. (December 21st, 1974)

It’s wonderful to have broader perspective on things, though - more facets to the prism, as such. The story of John and Yoko weeping Let It Be just off the throes of primal therapy and crying was entirely new to me, and just the notion of it, the idea of John overwhelmed with sadness at the image of a cold, wind-swept Paul singing in harmony with him awards the barest, faintest hint plausibility to that dubitable, uncredited anecdote of John primally screaming ‘Yesterday’. I was also rather heartened by the proud Polaroid John sent Wenner of him and Paul hanging out in Los Angeles, as if to communicate that neither Wenner nor the machinations of his hallowed institution could ever make a dent where it actually mattered.

… I can only bring myself to contemplate and ruminate on Jann Wenner in short bursts before wanting to submerge myself in a Brain-Duster, I’m afraid. I do apologise for not being more verbose and penetrative; I was holding off on this ask for a while precisely because I wanted to gather my thoughts and take some special consideration into my answer, but at the same time I don’t want to find myself devolving into giving out about characters whose opinions I don’t necessarily share nor hold in esteem. As a consolation, have some waffle I wrote years ago on the St. John (& Yoko) projection:

As for the JohnandYoko myth: they politicised their love, basically. Which is an elevation above plain romanticism, which is fairly ubiquitous in human nature - everyone romanticises their life or certain events of their life to some degree, after all, because of the emotions that have been accumulated since then and have come to be associated with it. Ostensibly, this was their political agenda, during the early 70s - they certainly weren’t very intellectual or sophisticated in their methods or their discourse on politics and political activism and/or altruism, but they knew that they could bring awareness to a cause because of their high media profile, and being generally associated with a particular movement or cause was enough to arouse public interest of that cause. Sell peace as a product, have it promoted by a popular figure who is known to the public as hip and iconoclastic, and peace will be a hip and iconoclastic product that people will want to buy. It’s certainly idealistic, and a naive endeavor for effecting deeply-rooted, long-term change, but they projected an image and established it iconically, which did indeed encourage discussion and movement amongst the common populace. So, to speak specifically about their relationship and the image of their relationship that they presented to the public - fundamentally, it was what was conceptually sound for them in trying to achieve a median between being private figures and public figures: project the reality you want to believe, and the reality that is perceived will be reality. Details are collapsible because it doesn’t alter what’s true on a simple, abstract level (in this case, the fact that they loved each other). Which I believe in part came from an innate understanding of the relationship between the consumer and the icon (the artist, or product, to be even more general), and generality is more straightforward and striking than tedious specificity. Promoting love > promoting exhaustively accounted and functionally “irrelevant” inconsistencies or mood swings in marriage. As a side-note, because I don’t want to make a fatuous comparative: I’m reminded of John referring to the Beatles themselves as a myth, and indeed, John and Paul both tended in interviews (not all the time, but definitely enough times) to talk about songs written almost entirely by the other person in interviews as if they were written together  - which is, in its own way, a collapsing of details in light of the intrinsic truth of the partnership. Different contexts, of course, but still. The fact that the Beatles myth was largely media-perpetrated as well (beyond the image of cheeky suit-wearing boys from Liverpool) probably spurred John on when it came to publicising his relationship with Yoko - this time, they had the presence, power, and agency to perpetrate their own myth, on their terms.  

All that being said, I’m still looking forward to reading Sticky Fingers when it’s released. In the meantime, here’s a winning anecdote from Robert Draper’s Rolling Stone Magazine: The Uncensored History (1990):

When Langdon Winner praised Paul McCartney’s new solo album [McCartney] as a departure from overproduced Beatles records, Winner made no mention of the album’s press sheet, on which McCartney took several digs at John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Beatles.

Said Greil Marcus, “Jann told me, ‘I don’t want to run this review without taking this other stuff into account. Here’s this sunny-sounding record—everything’s coming up roses—that in fact has been made with a tremendous amount of bile. And I think the review should reflect that.’

“We must have argued two hours about this. Finally he convinced me. So I went and had a two-hour argument with Langdon.”

Winner rewrote the review. He did not regard the incident as an example of wrongheaded meddling. “I took it as the sign of a strong and good editor,” he said.

Or two:

When not invited to a party thrown by Paul McCartney, the editor repaid the snub by inserting a barb in a McCartney cover story.

(If anyone would appreciate a palate cleanser, here’s a cheerful and evenhanded listen: The Word Podcast: The McCartney Cast! In which editor and publisher David Hepworth, editor and journalist Mark Ellen, journalist Laura Barton, and journalist Paul Du Noyer (of Conversations with McCartney) chat about Paul, his persona, his public conduct, his altogether acumen, and most importantly, his best looks. Mid-1967, clearly.)

#ask #jann wenner #'made with a tremendous amount of bile' #to borrow @pivoinesque's tag: okay.jpg