"The Other Bohemia"

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ffi%ryffiffiKffiffiWKffiWIlarrel A4ansell : "l'hc Sh;rdcw of Conscience in the Human

Miird"A-lison Pearlman: "The Other Eohemia"Fcter Bner: "Waiter Benjamin's Sparks of l{oliness"Vlaxim I-t. Shrayer: "Ftromage To Isaac Babei"Fiction i'ry Sc.ott tslackwood, Susan Engberg, Ben Fountain rii,

and Sandra l.,eong

Foetry by Peter Campion, Anne Dirks, Nlonica Feriell,

|udith Hall, Leslie Noyes Harrison, l)avid C. tr{art,

|oanne Flayhurst, |ohn lr,rnseitra, I{ugh Cgden, KevinPrufer. Kay Sioan, Chariie Smith, and l)aviC Sofjcld

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Essays

The Shadow of Conscience in the Human Mind,DARRET aneNsrrr / 13

The Other Bohemia, ALrsoN ntexrmeN / 34

Walter Benjamin's Sparks of Holiness/ IETER enrrn / 79

Homage To Isaac Babel, MAxrM D. sHRAyEx I t++

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Repulsion, sANDRA r,noNc / 6z

Rain, suseN ENGBERc I SS

Fantasy for Eleven Fingers, BEN FouNrerN rrr / rz3

See How Small, scorr BLACKwoo n I fiB

PoetryThree Poems, LESr,TE NoyES uennrsoN / 49

Co-Winner of the zooz Morton Marr Poetry prize

Persephone in the North, JoANNE nevuunsr / 5zCo.Winner of the zooz Morton Marr Poetry Pize

Dusk at Homer's, cHARLTE srvrrrH / 55

Rumors of the Bathless Wife, Juorru wet-r f 57

The Ides of March, 2ooo/ DAVro sorrorn / 59

Geburt des Monicakinds, MoNrcA lEnnEr,r / 6r

Promises, HUGH ocoEN / r18

ALISON PEARLMAN

qF The Other Bohemia

"Marrrry" is a special kind of Hollywood actor. Performers likehim are crucial to producing mass entertainment forms such as rvand film, yet masses can't name them. You haven,t seen Manny onThe Tonight Show, Access Hollywood, or arry other celebrity vehicle.He is not a celebrity. But chances are you have seen him time andtime again, standi.ng next to those very stars in the same media-inthe backgrounds of rv shows and commercials and playing principalroles in music videos. He knows celebrities such as Britney Spears as

co-workers; he can speak of her discipline on set and unpromptedfriendliness to the extras and the crew. He's worked closer than ex-pected with some artists; laughing, he tells me about the time EnriqueIglesias' ass landed in the palms of his hands. Manny had to catchthe singer as he dove from the stage into a crowd cast as fans.

Manny's roles have not all been supporting. He was recently castas a principal actor in two feature films. However/ you haven,t heardof Manny yet because his performances aren't available at this writ-ing. The release of those films-o{ most films, actually-is uncertain.Maybe that promo for a lapanese children's rv show that Mannyrecently acted in will attract a buyer. Then others may see the explo-sive martial arts moves he choreographed and performed in the star-ring role of the warrior superhero.

After two and a half years pursuing acting, Manny says what heloves most is his lifestyle as a performer-the intensities o{ perform-ing, the chance to exploit the power of his physicality and charisma,his free-agent status/ and being around people like himself, peoplewho enjoy creative pursuits. Manny is constantly inventing originalmartial arts choreography that stands out for its savvy incorporationo{ urban subcultural movement and dress styles. So far, only hismartial-arts buddies and his co-stars and associates on the projectshe has worked on have seen what he can do.

"Kah," a guitar player, is Manny's counterpart in music. She's been

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:':rsuing performing work in Hollywood for more than five years.luli has appeared in music videos and commercials and as a model-- iashion shows and in print. Most consumers could not name:er. but vast audiences have nevertheless seen her over the past six-,rnths on stages around the world and performing on rv spots.!:e's been the hired guitar player of artists the stature of Christina,dzuilera and fennifer Lopez. (If I were to specify the actual artisrs.re's played with-or even describe her appearance beyond the generic

-rartoos and piercings-I would violate the anonymity that Kali,--ke Manny, requires.)Kali loves the rush of the performing li{e just as Manny does. I can

:e11. It translates into ane:iyt off-the-handle energy on stage and fi1m.-*he says she also relishes "the opportunity to play different types ofnusic with different people. I love all types of music. I play pretty:euch everything. I've had to learn it. Even music that I thought Icould never play. People want me to be in their band andr rcalized,lVow, I can do this."' When not earning money from music, Kaliplays Gospel at a little church in the city every weel<.

Performers such as Manny and Kali are interesting not simply be_cause they belong to a vast population of sub-celebrity performerspeople know so little about but because they belong to a far morespecial category: a distinct subculture that harbors some of thepop-culture entertainment world's greatest risks and most creativeenergies. I call this culture the other bohemia.

I discovered it after moving to Holll'r,vood nebrly two years ago.I expected to find L.A.,s bohemia where bohemian cultures havetraditionally grown-in the fine-art world, literary circles, thetheater, and in the subcultural lairs of live music. I was not preparedto {ind one where I did-smack in the center of the pop-culture en-tertainment "Industry. "

I would not have discovered it had I not moved to Los Angeles.Already within the first few weeks of my a,ivar, I could sense theshift in perspective that would ultimately lead to it-a view of massculture from an angle impossible elsewhere in the united states. Here,global mass culture is not only global and mass but also locar andtangible. The reality of it goes be;nond the mere fact that mostrv celebrities live nearby. Anyone who lives here for a time will real-tze that the economic and cultural tentacles of the Industry touch

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36 / Southwest Review

practically every other industry in Los Angeles. It is a commonplacehere that an unusual proportion of L.A.,s businesses-from furnitureto food catering to legal practice-would not survive as is withoutIndustry dollars. They function essentially as supporting extensionsof entertainment production.

The Industry also permeates every level of the social hierarchy.The homeless know their film rlghts here. On Melrose Avenue, Iwitnessed one man become proprietary jumping up and admonish-ing a group of tourists that they had no right to videotape his dogwithout permission. Industry-related anecdotes are local color.Recently, a man made the evening news when he jumped onto theroof of a car the police had been chasing-not, as one might think,in an effort to stop the vehicle, but in the interests of building hisresume as a stunt man.

Such stories are not out of the ordinary for Angelenos. They areeven less so {or me. I live with an actor and have contact with hispeers, a fair number of whom would clualify as subjects for this ar-ticle. The other bohemia is a speci{ic sub-realm within the Industrythat even few Angelenos get to know. My training as an art historianprovided no guide to it, even though the phenomenon of the classicalbohemia arguably originated in the fine arts, and there is no shortageof theory about it in that {ield.

Art historians generally agree that bohemia developed in the finearts as a by-product o{ avant-gardism, as the expression of the avant-garde's anti-conventionality in the form of lifestyle. Many varietieso{ bohemians have animated the bars, coffeehouses, studios, hole-in-the-wall theaters/ salons, and impromptu cultural events of the avant-garde since the late nineteenth century: Wildean dandies, roughhewnrevolutionary realists, sex-crazed surrealists, alcoholic abstract ex-pressionists, beat junkies, and orgiastic feminist performance artists-to name a few. Artists' unconventional living and working awarrge-ments/ defiantly non-nuclear relationships, excessive drinking anddrugging, disregard for proprieties, and other hallmarks of the roman-tic personality have become badges of bohemia in the fine arts. Thinkof |ackson Pollock boozing, carousing, and splattering paint throughthe lens of fungian psychoanalysis and primitivism. Think o[ LarryRivers tucking into black jazz cIubs, heroin, and a host of male andfemale partners. Think olthe jazzclubs themselves, stomping grounds

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' - -,ng iine of bohemian performers. or the Beat writers and artists-.,.-ere likewise drawn to them.

- -.=sc classic examples and many others may have shared little in' . '... i\- of politics, aesthetics, or erotic appetites. But they,ve displayed.:mon threads. For example, they've opposed values associatei with' :. '.qacy of the Industriar Revolution and the rise of the mercantire- -:le class; materiarism, utilitarianism, and the mechanization' re and, therefore, rabor. Bohemians have flouted conventional' :-:'i hierarchies and roles. In sum, they have chosen risk over

:::sctability, intensity over stability. Consequently, they have'--::.ced social guarantees associated with th" .orpor"t" -od.l 0f,.: icveloprnent: the incremental rise in rank and .arningr, the or--- .r:ation of life into advancing stages o{ status commensurate with..: expected expansion of the family.:{rstorically, bohemia,s resistance to the corporate culture has gone

=rd-in-hand with its antipathy to mass, or pop, culture. Eo, thi, l,.-- culture that is economically sustained by members of the corpo_:':: culture. Therefore, the rast place a theorist of cultural vanguards:uld expect to find a bohemian curture is in the belly of tho.;r^rt.

- -:e idea that mass curture is antithetical to vanguard culture has arg history well beyond my scope here. suffics it to say that this

"surnption has rooted itself so deeply in cultural criticism that itsriluence extends well beyond the sphere of the fine arts. Forlstance/ how many times have you read the newspaper and ,zine

: rlumns of disgruntled music critics bemoaning the corporate take-r-er of rock and other once_deviant genres? How often have you

,'stened to their grousing about pop stars selling pepsi, and about'the:anned rebelliousness o{ groups made safe for rvrrv? whenever a critic:n any cultural sphere complains that culture has 10st its critical biteand been tamed by the juggernaut of mass culture, this perspectiveshows its teeth.

Not only did i find the other bohemia in the heart of pop culturebut also-and perhaps more surprising, given the definition of classl_cal bohemia-I found that the other bohemia is actually producedb7, the engines o{ mass culture. perhaps you are wondering, isn,t theeristence of a bohemia within the Industry impossible, a contradic-tion in terms? If my claim seems to fail in logic, it does only becausethe real {ailure lies deeper-in the persistent assumption that bohemia

38 I Southwest Review

and mass culture are opposites. This dichotomy is rooted in an analy-sis of mass culture that focuses on its products, the commodities andthe system of their exchange.

While this approach has its advantages in answering certain kiridsof questions, it has limitations. We need to shift paradigms if wewant to observe more and explain more. Mass culture is not only ahomogenizing system of successfully marketed products; it is alsoa complex and dynamic scosystem of producers. These producersdevelop in response to the high probability and daily experience ofrejection and failure, not just the hope of success. As a result, thedynamics of this ecosystem are often at variance with the homog-enizing e{{ects of the culture of commodities.

Deep within the Industry's hierarchies o{ producers I found theother bohemia, the pop-culture bohemia. Along the lower economicrungs of the entertainment ecosystem are the per{ormers who com-prise it. A few have yet to become {amous. Most never will. All arein various stages of navigating the many levels and types o{ perform-ing work-trying to land roles on television shows, commercials,music videos, and films, if they're 4ctors; working toward headliningatt say, The Laugh Factory, if they're comedians; and aspiring to sellout a concert venue, i{ they're musicians.

The competition in each arena-dance, acting/ music, comedy,etc.-is positively daunting. |ust getting to the point of auditioningrequires battling {or chances within a multi-tiered system geared sim-ply toward auditioning. Before getting to try out {or a spot anywhere,one had better audition for an agent or manager who can book audi-tions with casting directors and other gatekeepers of entertainment.One pursues, and is hopefully called to try out before, the best pos-sible agent or manager one can snag from an elaborate hierarchy ofagents and managers boasting varying specialties and clout. The big-ger-fish agents and managers get the better audition opportunities.Performers must also regularly update their pictures. It is crucial tohave good pictures/ especially for actors, because pictures are the basison which everyone-from agents and managers to casting directors-decides they want performers to audition.

The fight for agents and managers is ruthless. New busloads o{hopefuls arrive in Los Angeles every day. The competition is espe-

cially intense because there is no rigid distinction among actors,

*y]l

Pearlman / 39

. - .:-us, dancers, comedians/ etc., in the early, i{fy stages of poten_,r--rS; so the numbers all performers must compete with are

, , :ia1ly increased. Performers audition for everything they can,. .:: arc the chances of success in any one area. At the sub_celeb_

.-.'e1, Hollywood is nothing less than a border-less near_chaos,:-. :-rformers find themselves hustling every asset. Manny and

. -:rimize their chances for exposure and income by maintaining. :-e agents for di{ferent categories o{ work. Manny,s got one agent, -.:.trical work, one {or commercials, one for print {modeling),- :' music videos, and a manager to boot, who can send him out

: . --:itions in any category. Kali has one agent for print and commer-- : =rd, as o{ just last year, one who represents her strictly for music.- r: a dee-1ay spinning turntables, the performer multitasks at

- - --:roning, updating pictures, and staying at the top of their agents,.--- 1ists. To keep the engines running, most need some kind of,:-:ig. Think back to that soft-drink commercial you saw on tele_. -,n last night that took place in a nightclub. you may have given,:-: thought to the throng of bodies dancing away behind the core

- :p of principal actors in the ad, even though, upon further reflec-: :r vou'd have to admit they were necessary for setting the scene.

::r- gave the ad that trendy vibe the soft-drink brand wanted for its:-.. campaign. Well, in that high-energy tangle of cool threads, looserbs, and tattoos was probably someone who moonlights as a dee-

' another as a bartender or waiter, another as a personal trainer at: i]'m, someone working security at a real nightclub, another whor:rtularly works as an extra, and a host of others doing jobs that keep:ie days and early evenings open for auditions, and allow flexible.:heduling or nomadic re-employment should they land a part that:-'quires consecutive days of work.

Manny earns money by doing ,,extra,,work on rv commercials.Cornmercials offer the highest paid form of extra work, and it has:aken Manny one and a hal{ years to work his way up through thenultiple strata that background work alone encompasses. Today, hecan make at least $4oo*$5oo per day, so Manny tries to book at leastthree commercial jobs a month to stay afloat.

Some of the actors in our hypothetical soft-drink commercial maynot even be trying primarily to be actors, and are working mainiyat promoting themselves as, for instance, musicians, comedians, or

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dancers. Many of those people become members of the ScreenActors Guild, get agents, and go on auditions for acting not bccausethey want to become actors but to get a part that will help supportand increase their chances at related ambitions in music, dee-jaying,or what have you. Kali, for instance, is primarily a musician and yetbelongs to sAG and tries out {or commercials and print work whenthe music jobs slow down. In fact, only in the last six months of hermore than {ive years pursuing music has Kali been able to make musicher main source of income. For her first three years in Los Angeles,she was barely making ends meet playing at loca1 clubs, a rhythm so

arduous that she was compelled to find an agent to look for actingand print and runway modeling jobs. As she tells it, "So when I wasn'tmaking much rnoney playing guitar, I could make money as a musi-cian in a commercial. And, when the commercials weren't happening,and it was fall season, I could go out and do {ashion shows."

Whatever the per{ormer's choice of side-job, however, one ruleprevails: it cannot be allowed to advance toward professional consis-tenc, achievement, and status without draining time and energyfrom the demands of auditioning. . . and auditioning. The bottomline is that performers who stick with this life are compelled to de-

stabilize themselves pro{essionally, remaining in try-out limbo. And,no matter how accomplished or how green they are at their craft,performers still {ace a near lottery system o{ success. For there islittle comfort in the process by which performers work their waythrough this elaborate hierarchy of jobs and agents and managers.Although the process is Byzantine, there is no bureaucratic systemo{ rewards in which seniority is automatically favored. One success-

ful audition out of several hundred can catapult someone way aheado{ a peer who had been levels ahead just one week earlier. On the otherhand, one can stagnate at a certain level {or years. For the seriouslytrained actor, the still worse news is that there is little predictabilityto these jumps, because so many opportunities for success do notdepend on the skill of the actor but turn solely on whether or notone's look matches the casting director's mysterious and specific need.

Now turn your attention to the foreground of our so{t-drink com-mercial. The principal actors may or may not be masters of theircraft. But the main reason they got the job was their look.

By now you may be asking, what makes this pop-culture bohemia

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: :=mian? Well, put yourself in their shoes: If you,re a performer.- - s been auditioning regularly {or a few years or more/ you may or

:,i; not realize it, but you have become d.ifferent. Choosing the life. -: sticking with it has alienated you {rom the corporate culture.- ":: the fine-art bohemians, you have chosen risk over respectabil---,' rntensity over stability. The fierce odds you endure every day,

" -: rerhaps thrive on, have led to profound instability in terms of.::-,me and social status.

ie qarding income: sec statistics are revealing. At this writing the, rcupational Outlook Handbook,, for zooz-3 on the National-:eau of Labor Statistics' web site states that the average income: r sAG member is less than $5,ooo per year. Keep in mind that this

i,, -rage includes all of the celebrities who belong to sec-the |ulia' i,'ertses and the Tom Hankses-not just the unknowns. If you take-:-. stars out of the equation, the picture is even bleaker. celebrities=:e drastically skewing the average of less than $5,ooo per yearl

The other bad news is that health insurance benefits are not guar-::teed by membership in sac but are awarded to those who work. :cr number of days or earn a certain amount per year. Beginninganuary r , zeo3 t the number of days or earnings required for eiigibil-

,rv in their two health plans increased. For all of zooz, plan r required:arnings o{ $r5,ooo or $7,ooo with ten years of earned eligibility,-: sixty days with ten yearc oI earned eligibiiity. The minimum for?.an rr was $7,5oo or sixty days of employment. On |anuary r, mini_::rum eligibility for Plan r jumped to gzo,obo. plan rr now requiresS9,ooo or sixty-one days of employment. And the numbers get steeperrr lth the arrivar o{ each new first of any calendar quarter. Now, com-pare these figures with the known average incomel Moreover, thesealLready gloomy percentages in fact over-represent the succesS cases;for the numbers pertain only to union members. A much rarger butimmeasurable percentage of performers at any given moment, andior various reasons that could be the subject of another articre, arenot members of sec.

Regarding social status: In the eyes of pop-culture consumers ig-norant of the production side of the Industry, there is no respectablemiddle-management level, only a drastic chasm between Nobody andcelebrity. There is no status in between to be bartered for respectoutside of the subculture, where others your age, especially if you

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are over twenty-five and brought up to participate in our consumersociety, are expected to be gradually "moving up." Insiders knowbetter, recognizing that single appearance with one line on a sitcomas the victorious culmination of many years of pavement poundingthat it actually is.

The longer you are in the Iife, the more you are of it. Each yeat thatgoes by you are less employable in another profession and more outof sync with the corporate culture's expectation that your incomeandf or rank will increase, or at least stabilize, with your advance inage. Sticking with it has distinguished you, further, from the hordesof young newcomers who won't last a year before packing it up and

taking the train back home. I don't count the newbies as part of thepop-culture bohemia. Kali has hung in there longer than most. Listento her describe how she survived the first, and worst, three years ofher life as a musician and sometimes actress/mpdel in L.A.:

It was difficult. There were times I had to pick between 'do I putgas in the car?' and' do I eat?' And it came down to, okay: I'11 putfive dollars in the gas tank and I'll go and get a ninety-nine-centmeal somewhere. And that will get me to my next gig, so I canget money. I lost my apartment. It took about three or {our yearsbefore I could really handle my finances: my car insurance, myrent/ my phone bill. There were times I had to pawn my com-puter and my guitar just to pay bills. Then, when I had money, I'd

-go back and get them out o{ the pawn shop. Then, the next month,

I'd pawn them again to pay ient. But I hung in there. And it keptgetting better and better. I saw that I was making progress. And Iwas working hard. It wasn't like I was sitting at home and wait-ing for someone to go get me something. I got myself out there. Ishowed up on time. I did my job. People wanted to have me back.

The pop-culture bohemians may have renounced the corporateculture's choice of respectability over intensity, but that doesn'tmean they lack a work ethic. On the contrary, endurance in this sub-celebrity netherworld often takes unusual degrees of persistence and

diligence-not to mention imagination.Indeed, endurance is a defining characteristic o{ the pop-culture

bohemian-particularly in the fields of acting/ dance, and music-for the Industry does not consistently reward the experience that

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. '' r:h age in perforfilers; o11 the contrary, it regularly discrimi-- ....inst age. As a defensive measure, Kali and Manny tell no: ,'.d to their work their age. Both Manny and Kali have taken

- - :rona1 precaution of eliminating even the most indirect clues-:-: lges that would be traceable on or through any links from

,','-b sites. So, even on the inside of this subculture within the.: r., there is little chance for the establishment of a stabilizing

r : :racy that would guarantee rewards for the development of.::J dues-paying over time, a system of predictably increasing

-. =:d income that would parallel standards within the corporate

--::. On the contrary, this life is closer to Sartre's existentialism,. -.--r,ng one to prove oneself, define oneself/ all over again practi-- .' r\ ery day-at least every audition. The only comfort is others- . . same boat, a camaraderie among those who entered the game' . . same moment, who have endured some of the same trials,-. are more or less at the same level, and with whom one may' .. - Fd|ticular artistic interests.

- <e any subculture, the pop-culture bohemia exhibits tremendous,:,:.rion. Individual mernbers' di{ferences in character, patterns of

. -.-.-ss, family money, and moral support make for wildly divergent::-rooses to occupational instabilities. Yet those conditions of.:ability de{ine membership in this subculture nonetheless. In

.--]ltion, "the other bohemians" share a distinctive relationship to, .. pop-culture entertainment they help produce. Theirs is signifi--,rt1y demystified as well as proactive and formative-not just naive,t:lctive/ and receptive; this relationship separates them from most- nqumers of mass entertainment.

Some may exhibit this difference by being unimpressed with leisure.::tivities geared toward their age group. For instance, performers who:,r "extra" work on the side as dance-club hipsters are not likely tore the ones paying a fifteen-dollar cover charge to get into a real dance

:lub on the Sunset Strip, or anywhere else in the world, on Saturdaytght. Those other people are the ideal consumers. For some, a lowor erratic income prohibits such consumption. But, even with a

choice, it is more than iikely that the pop-culture bohemians cannotbear to pay money for the hipster culture they've played a part infashioning. They're more likely to get "hooked up" on the guest listof a party by the friend who'll be dee-jaying there, and where the


woman who does body-painting on the side will be showing her work.At the party, they might run into another acquaintance they met onthe set one day whose band is playing at a local club next week andwho can get them in there. They will tend to gravitate toward people,like them, who are making culture, not only buying it. Manny avoidsthe cover-charge nightclubs. According to him, little in the way o{ areal dance club could ever compare to the concentration of beauty,the electric energt and the peer-companionship that surrounds himon the sets o{ pretend nightclubs, for example, on liquor commer-cials. His logic is, why pay for a lesser (and, I suspect, more naive)version o{ something he gets paid for?

The Darwinian auditioning process is key to shaping the otherbohemians' distinctive relationship to pop-culture entertainment.Through it, they evolve a hyper-awareness of themselves as themarketplace might see them, as target-marketable social types. Tounderstand what I mean/ picture yourself in this common situation:You go to an audition for one of the principal roles in a music video.Your agency has sent you there on the assumption that you can fitthe profile of a fi{teen-to-nineteen-year-old white skater-type guy.You might be twenty-{ive, but, with your sense of style, your height,and looks, can still get away for ayear or two more with auditioning{or high-school-age parts. {This is not an unrealistic example. Mannyis at least twenty-{ive, the minimum age {or appearing on liquor com-mercials, and he has played high-school-age parts.) Whatever yourown stylistic predilections, your haircut and its style, your level of{itness, and your clothing must be a ready-made package for what-ever is needed that day. Remember, until you are a celebrity, castingdirectors have no time to try to imagine you other than as you appear.

They also don't need to. There are so many others to choose from.When you walk into that audition waiting room, and take your

place next to your competitors, it hits you. You are in a hall of mir-rors, with one fifteen-to-nineteen-year-old-looking white skater-typeguy after another, including you, dressed and accessorized, hair withthe right slacker edginess that is geared toward what you must figureout is the target market of the video. At this moment, and the weeklyor even daily experience of similar moments in audition waitingrooms/ you cannot escape certain realizations: that you and every-

one there seeks to be legible as a specific, marketable type; that that

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: ts rlot the same thing as your identitt even if you really are a- .; guy who skates; and that you are seen by the Industry and, by.-:sion, the marketplace as a potential signifier of commodity and

. : -mer type. These realizations become further entrenched as you--: ior your audition to start, and the audition running before you: re same room empties out a rash of "skinhead types.,, When you

- . , ut of your audition, you note that the waiting room has filled up,:: r-et another group, this time Hispanic girls simulating ,,hoochie

-'..::1mas" with skimpy out{its, who will vie to {ill the shoes of ,,girl-

: :rd" in the R&B video being cast in the adjacent room.re ability to recognize and manipulate signifiers of style, stay

-,:r:ast o{ subcultural and square styles alike, and be aware of howr: can be seen as a type/ including ethnic and racial, adds up to the

:::'at paradox of the pop-culture bohemia: a consciousness that, while* ,r- complicit with the Industry's commodity culture, at the very:.:re time develops a partial resistance to it through behind-the-: -:ne s knowledge. Ideally, the Industry fosters in the consumer strong/-rsonal identi{ications with stylistic trends and their attendant com-

-,rdities. The ideal consLlmers/ who most people turn olrt to be, take

: --mmodities seriously as expressions of sel{. The pop-culture bohe-rians, however, can't help but see the entertainment culture they:elp produce as a chimeric, role-playing masquerade; new clothes: eing the emperor's. They know how the magic trick is done, so they:an no longer watch the show the way the conjurer wants them to.

This consciousness of how advertisers and consumers might see

,.ne is arguably accentuated among performers who are young racialand ethnic minorities and those who have hard-core subculturalappearances, including tattoos, piercings, and extreme haircuts.Not surprisingly, those per{ormers are called upon most to play ,,fringe

characters," to borrow Manny's phrase. To land such roles consis-tently over time, one needs to be able to manipulate the quicklychanging elements of subcultural style-dress, hair, and behavior,such as standing, walking, and dancing-that might be desirable forparticular auditions. Many o{ these per{ormers at the sub-celebritylevel find some o{ their most consistent work as extras and princi-pals on music videos, where, if you look closely, you will noticean especially high proportion of non-white-looking people and thosewith hard-core styles; steady employment on videos requires such

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performers to stay informed regarding the current range of subcul-tural styles they can play. Manny, who is half Latin-American andhalf European-American in his ethnic makeup and who has thestylishly longish hair of many contemporary rock stars, has workedon countless music videos as an extra and a principal. He puts it thisway: "You basically have to be aware of everything that,s going on.So, when they call you and say they want you to dress a certain way,like 'Lenny Kravitz style' or 'r 8z style' or you're a frat boy or a heroinaddict, you have to know what that looks like. You have to be a

chameleon within your own rartge." Regarding hs own range/ I askedhim what types of roles he usually gets as afl ac,to!t in and apart frommusic videos. "Most of my principal roles and even the extra work isfor musician-looking people, funky-trendy people, or martial-artsrelated." Manny admits not only to being able to play up his whiteside or his Latin side-which he knows can also be read as Greek,Italian, French, or Middle Eastern-but also to show of{ or downplayhis athleticism through the clever application o{ elements of style.He is conscious of how easily people, including casting directors,buy into illusions triggered by cues of dress, hair, and so on.

I was not surprised that/ as a musician whose income depends onher ability to play guitar in as many bands and styles of music as

possible, Kali makes a policy of not disclosing her ethnic and racialmakeup. I doubt that, if she were unambiguously white, she wouldfeel the need to make and enforce such a conscious rule. It seems tome that she avoids being pigeonholed also by her choice of personalstyle as well, which is eclectic and doesn't conform to any racial orethnic stereotype. (In fact, her hair and dress style is so unique that,if I were to describe it, she would be instantly identified by peers,agents, and casting directors.) She says she gets asked all the timeabout her racial and ethnic background and simply replies, ',Does itmatter?" So whether, like Manny, a performer exploits his varietiesof racial and ethnic appearances, or whether, like Kali, she withholdsthat information, performers demonstrate their pro{iciency in theIndustry's sign-system o{ cultural stereotypes.

Pop-culture bohemians take this awareness of style, self, and mar-ketplace and actively manipulate signs of style in culturally seminalways. The combination of their stylistic awareness and their frequentneed to supply their own wardrobes allows the inventive among them

Pearlman / 47

-,,,.,' ro plant the seeds of stylistic trends. Those who would think- :bining a Goth-style black mesh shirt, Hip-Hop sneakers,- : >Karer-punk hairstyle, or Industrial-style combat boots and a

-'- i-out Afro-these performers who arrive on sets with their own: :S and combinations informally but regularly in{luence the styles,. ., r11 be commoditized. They get trend-spotted by the various

.:s and the stars themselves: a wrist band here, a tee-shirt torn' ::: rr-1il show up on one of Nelly,s or Shakira,s next music videos.

:.iimes the creativity comes out of economic hardship, learning.. resourceful and inventive. Like expert costume,makers, they-,.. how to combine disparate, relatively cheap items into looks

,. rr ill draw attention. As a result, they {requently become the. :.rimental starting points for what winds up less experimentally,-. i. expensively, and much later, on shopping mall shelves.

:-.- now, you probably see what makes the pop-culture bohemia:::mian: the renunciation of the corpordte culture, on the one hand;

, - lil'per-aware, non-narve, and creative relationship to pop-culturer::-rrainment/ on the other. And yet, it is necessary to differentiate':i\\:eer1 the pop-culture bohemia and the traditional kind lest

i i get the wrong idea that I am equating the two phenomena. I call-:-culture bohemia "the other bohemia,, advisedly. Whereas the

: =ditional bohemia enlists even its sensual and sexual excesses.r part of an aesthetic and political cause/ advancing a new and.,-rrm-antagonistic culture, the pop-culture bohemia does not seek::ogrammatically to change the norms of cultural production. Its::r'iation {rom the corporate culture is not tied to any developed:esthetic, erotic, and ideological agendas. The pop-culture bohemia: an inverse bohemia-not a cultural resistance {rom outside, but

:he direct offspring of a mass-culture industry designed to engenderi.ohemia's very opposite. The fact that it exists is pure historical irony.

Acknowledging and describing the pop-culture bohemia is impor-tant because it reminds us that the production of commoditiesdepends on an ecosystem of producers at variance with the cultureoi commodities. Behind the false bohemia of many commodities-for instance, the rebellious "images,, of r:r:.any musicians-is a dis-tinct subculture that is the real deal. Recognizing the dif{erencebetween the Industry's producers and the culture it produces is worthdoing because it allows us to see behind the display-shelf presenta-


tions of consumer culture and into it as an environment of costsand adaptations.

What's more, precisely because the pop-culture bohemia seeks tomeet the desires o{ consumers, rather than oppose them in the spiritof the traditional bohemia, the pop-culture bohemia can tell us muchmore about the speci{ic nature of that consumer culture than thetraditional bohemia ever could. Studying the pop-culture bohemiashows us, generally, that the contemporary culture of consumptionis predicated on a symbiosis o{ opposites-opposites of labor andlifestyle and values. Each sustains the other by money, infrastructure,and fantasy. Manny, Kali, and the other bohemians they representhelp construct the phantasmagoria bought by pop-culture consumers.Most of those consumers conform to the corporate culture that theother bohemians have to renounce in order to play this role. In turn,those consumers support the Industry that ultimately selects perform-ers like Manny and Kali. The serpent breathes heavily on its tail.

THr SourHwEsr RpvrBwis pleased to announce its zoo3 awardwinners

q$ Ben Fountain, IIIHas won the McGinnis-Ritchle Award for fiction, for

"Fantasy for Eleven Fingers" (Volume BB, number r)and

i5$ efiron pearlmanHas won the McGinnis-Ritchie Award {or nonfiction,for her essay

"The Other Bohemia" (Volume 88, number r)

i$ 1o""ie MackowskiHas won the McGinnis-Ritchie Award for her poem

"Lingerie Department" (Volume BB, numbers z & c)andaIA ^a 1.ffi Charlie SmithHas won the McGinnis-Ritchie Award for his poem

'-'Dusk at Homer's" (Volume BB, number r)

i$ rrtry BradleyHas won the Morton Marr Poetry Pize for his poems

"The Green Going On, " " Cartograph14, " "Formalist Study,',

and "A Failure of Form" (Volume 89, number r)and

i8p r.s TaylorHas won the Morton Marr Poetry Prize for her poems

"The Winter Visitor," "Some Thoughts on the BergenStreet Renaissance," atrd "A Family BaIIad," (Volume

89, number r)

Robert F. Ritchie, who died in 1997, was a long-time and generoussupporter of the Southwest Review. In r96o he established the fohnH. McGinnis Memorial Award in honor of the man who edited theReview from r9z7 to rg43. With a bequest in his will, Mr. Ritchieenabled us to maintain the tradition of his generosity. Since r99g,the McGinnis-Ritchie Award has been given annually to the bestworks o{ {iction and nonfiction published during the previous yearin these pages. The awards consist of cash prizes of $5oo.

The Elizabeth Matchett Srover Memorial Award was established inry78 by |erry S. Stover of Dallas in memory of his mother, who wasfor many years a key member of the Southwest Review staff. Theawards consist o{ $z5o cash prizes and are given to the authors of thebest poems published in the magazine during the precedingyear.

The Morton Marr Poetry Prize is an endowment by Marilyn Klepak ofDallas in memory of her father, whose love of poetry encouraged herto pass this love on to others. The prize of $r,ooo is given to previ-ously unpublished poems in a traditional verse form by a writer whohas not yet written a book of poetry. The judge for this yea{s prizewas Wyatt Prunty, Carlton Professor of English at The University ofthe South, Sewanee, Tennessee, Director of the Sewanee Writers,Con{erence, and editor o{ The Sewanee Writer,s Series.

"The Other Bohemia"

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Transcript of "The Other Bohemia"