The Leviathan

The white whale of Melville's imagination symbolized many things, but above all it symbolized the American propensity to extend itself far beyond the point of diminishing returns to the point of absurdity and collapse and mass-destruction.

Ahab pursues the Moby Dick across the world, beyond the point of no return, risking money, sanity and the lives of his crew in his obsessive quest. His multi-cultural crew nevertheless accepts the situation and throws their lot in with him, mesmerized by the unfolding disaster.

The reason why Melville succeeded in writing the Great American Novel is because he found a perfect metaphor to describe an essential aspect of the American character. The white whale can serve as a proxy for the American military, who "destroy a village in order to save it", the financial system, which seems to be built on a foundation of vapor, which can implode inexplicably, the art or literary worlds, which on their upper margins manufacture artifacts with no intrinsic beauty, but nevertheless "comment" on themselves. The Leviathan of America's celebrity culture is also a subject that fulfills, again and again, Melville's prophecy, ending on a stainless steel gurney in a morgue in Hollywood. This was the final stop for performers like Marlyn Monroe, River Phoenix, and Jayne Mansfield.

The revelation that Joaquin Phoenix's last two years of public meltdown may have all been a hoax is a facinating development that could be an important event - a piece of satire and performance art that played out across a stage that spanned geography and the internet - far from the rarefied world of PS122 and The Kitchen. If it is a masterpiece of public theater that I think it is, it has interesting antecedents in the work of Andy Kaufman, whose work, best seen in the documentary "I'm From Hollywood", depicts a true misanthrope and satirist running amok in the absurd world of pro-wrestling.

Note to those in Hollywood who are pissed off: Artists are supposed to hold a mirror up to life.