Anonymous
Posted March 31, 2007
Go spelunking in the Techno-Cave with author Harold Jaffe as he takes you underground to expose the duplicity and double standards of corporate entrenched American media, culture and politics. Once again Jaffe¿s genius examines the socio-political post-Millennial culture as it corrodes and then implodes before our eyes, the final step before it slides finally into the abyss. Jaffe performs his careful micro-surgery with sharpened katana blade held high and bright-beamed spotlight aimed directly at the hypocrisy of the present American administration. And, at a time when few have the courage to step up and speak the truth, Jaffe subtly and skillfully indicts the American power machine as it struggles to maintain its ever-increasing death grip of domination on the globe. As always, Jaffe¿s style is elegantly varied yet remains on target. The eloquent, almost heartbreakingly poignant style of ¿Dance¿ resonates with a dulcet music all it own while ¿Gitmo¿ is a searing interrogation of the horrifying, deplorable and shameful war crimes that continue to this day at Guantanamo, Cuba. In ¿Suu Kyi/Giacometti,¿ two seemingly unrelated figures are aligned together to ultimately dovetail in a moving testimony of endurance. Inside the Techno Cave Jaffe¿s melodious prose sings out like a mystic shaman against oppression, against the neo-cons, against sameness and conformity. May Jaffe long continue his virtuosic performance-prose. It is fortunate that we have his voice for comfort in the vast void of what passes for culture these days ¿reality¿ shows, self help books, fast food, Prozac¿for anyway you look at it Dear American, you are not free, your life is owned, owned by the very entities that Jaffe rails against. Do you ¿own¿ you cell-phone, house or SUV? Or do the phone/mortgage/car companies own you? Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer voices like Jaffe who are gutsy enough to stand up and interrogate the mean-spirited mess of our post Millennial world. Tanya Shannon Belfast, Ireland
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Posted January 26, 2007
Harold Jaffe, in his latest book ¿Beyond the Techno-Cave,¿ expands his critical commentary to include artist¿s role in an anesthetized society and does so in style that has a rich, evocative clarity. The writing, purposefully lacking of fashionable literary pyrotechnics, makes up by employing a very particular rhythm, language and provocative narrative. Fourteen brutally honest texts, full of acute observations and calculated speculations, transmit Mr. Jaffe¿s own brand of social anthropology. He calls these texts ¿docufictions.¿ The book works on many levels, and its main premise highlights the simple fact that more often than not writing about the truth requires not inventiveness but sincere depiction, and staying faithful to truth demands a morally uncorrupt writer. Sincerity of the writer depends on his veracity and this veraciousness calls for untainted morality. The chapter, titled ¿Slash & Burn: A Narrative Model for the Millennium,¿ effectively sums up Mr. Jaffe¿s dissatisfaction with larger mainstream culture and his antidotes to cure the society¿s ignorance to the assent of totalitarianism. His diagnosis is that of intellectual forces and artists losing ground by either choosing to immigrate inwards or adopting the rules of the system in order to fight from within but becoming the mouthpieces of the endorsed ideology. He is especially disillusioned with today¿s literary productivity, besieged with ¿ivy league fecal fetish underwritten by a grant from¿¿ Then, ¿How can art subvert the existing order¿ How can the artist create unacceptable images?¿ Mr. Jaffe¿s propositions underline the importance of morality of the artist that is considered immoral in today¿s scheme of things. If dissidence requires subversion, then the process should start by subverting the sterilized morality. Courage helps the engaged writer with finding the concealed truth, but bringing it out to the masses requires a healthy dose of ¿guerilla writing,¿ which operates by ¿defamiliarizing official ideology.¿ Rest of the texts in the book repeatedly point out the lethargy inducing solipsism of the global art community, restate the responsibility of the artist in ¿post-millennial culture¿ and call for the adjustment to the prescribed morality. If you are an engaged reader, tolerant of your cultural nerves tested, your morality checked, and in need of your principles rekindled, ¿Beyond the Techno-Cave¿ is for you.
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Overview
Cultural Writing. Essays. For some 25 years, Harold Jaffe's name has been synonymous with confrontational innovative fiction with a subversive edge. BEYOND THE TECHNO-CAVE collects the author's recent "creative nonfiction," including insights on art, writing, technology, global politics, travel, and intersections of all of these. Many of Jaffe's texts read like formally innovative narratives, others function like conceptual art, remaining in the mind long after. Everywhere evident is Jaffe's broad erudition, ...