While watching Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966) last night — and go back and watch it yourself — you'll see the first few minutes of the film are right out of Occupy Wall Street — I was working over two new pairs of work boots, bought the other day at half-price from a local merchant known for their fine footwear. This merchant, with many other shop owners, had gone through Hurricane Irene's flood waters rushing in a four foot tide of mud and misery through the lower channels of town and where this shop owner's boots and hiking and camp gear are housed. It made a royal mess of things. I guess instead of taking the foot wear as a total loss, the shop owner got his army of workers together by digging out of the muck the best of the lot and these were on makeshift shelves today in the same part of town where the flood knocked over the apple cart. Right next door to this temporary headquarters for the boot sale, builders were mad at it laying up new wallboard and putting down tape and mud and making a new place in a rush before winter. The weather has been cooperating, except for the rain, and it was cats & dogs rain when we arrived for the sale.
I was deeper into the film while damp sponging with vigor these new boots of light crud. I was trying to imagine an older work ethic selling boots in this condition and shape, and of course they wouldn't. Every boot would have been wiped down clean on the shelf and managing its best to be civil and presentable. Every worker at work. I watched a half-dozen workers in one big room that day just stand around and bumble around, never thinking of cleaning the boots up more than half-baked. It's a culture thing. In the meantime, I’ve picked up brand new high heel and no steel toe or shank work boots just like I like them but can’t afford them like once upon a time. I have 3 pair of steel toe Red Wing work boots banged up and sloped in my work room back home all with years more life in them. I couldn’t pass up the regular work boot crew, and Sweetheart found a pair of sturdy shoes she likes. Just rub off the dirt.
Occupy.
The consciousness raised from Occupy Wall Street is its merit. It doesn't have to have a "philosophy" since its philosophy is survival. Basic fact. It's the 1% who are now forced to explain, not the 99% who are the victims. The party lines will be dropped when everyone finally gets it through their rigid platform heads that they've been abused and taken to the cleaners by a vast minority who are living way beyond their means, and criminally, with all our earnings. And in many cases peoples lives (who have died because-of). This is when the despicable nature of humankind comes to the forefront without any explanation, except its greed. Von Stroheim spelled it out ages ago in another film. We free the many innocent in prison, and put into shackles the very indecent and crooked. There will be plenty. If Obama is smart, and gets off his slightly elitist horse, he will begin to marshal his vivid instincts into Occupy Wall Street quarters. If he's afraid of losing his giant corporate backing (and he is), it will be the mistake of his lifetime. The climate, the economy, the media, the crass, has now reached a fever pitch
— it's time for the right boot.
image:
from Blow-Up, Michelangelo Antonioni
