That’s a great question, Ariadne, and I find it a challenge to answer as the examples usually arise from a liminal space I enter when I no longer am using the technology to do a search for specific research or have a plan of action I want to make happen. It is more off to the side, something I save and look at later, a glimpse of some face in pain, or an odd turn of phrase in an article. It is usually present when I am in a certain mood and the material finds me receptive. I hear overtones, I feel the presence of something invisible, I marvel at something that I could not have anticipated. Life is like that.
I feel the presence of the Trickster. I am not that interested in scandal but I am drawn to the recent uproar around Jussie Smollett, a gay, black, activist/actor/singer who has managed to enact a master hoax on just about everyone and seems to have gotten away with it legally. He has had a slide into the mud in public opinion.He did not show up for the NAACP awards last night, was fired from job as a leading actor on the hit show Empire, has been mocked by late show comics. But he seems to have had people in high office pull some strings on his behalf. The man who cried victim is become a smooth operator, a manipulator of others for personal gain, hiding behind those who have been dealt a bad deal by society. Smollett and most recently, the young celebrity, Octavia Jade and her notorious actress/mother, are the faces of a highly privileged hypocrisy. I offer this video as an overview of this whirlwind of a scandal, which seems to have landed Jussie ( renamed Jessie by Chris Rock, a dark skinned performer mocks a light skinned fraud) on an easy joke list. I imagine this scandal the tip of an Iceberg, as the Me too movement and the Mueller report expose how Hollywood and Washington, DC. are more fully entangled as a new kind of show business. It is becoming a giant ponzi scheme. The rich lie for each other, then get caught on camera with their hand in the public cookie jar, and posted all over Youtube. Oh the banality of evil! Can we align ourselves with Trickster and make use of these serendipitous events for good rather than for ill? Perhaps.
There is a shift ( I imagine) as the Trickster uses the technology to stage certain tricks on the rich and famous and the fans who have made them rich and famous. It appears that the Trickster is a powerful agent of change, who hides behind and assembles these multi layered scenarios and often triangulates from the margins, trying on different roles, and intruding in public affairs. These large scale scandals happen, leaving the rich and the powerful in their glass houses, with lots of broken glass scattered around the community. It just doesn’t seem to stay localized but the crisis spreads to other glass houses. I could add the recent College Admission Scandals as another related example of how private subterfuge opens up deep fissures in public facades . These are the kinds of odd and weird activity that is generated by Trickster, they are thick with plot and hidden dynamics. Trickster is everywhere and will upset the best laid plans. We need to pay attention to these cracks that we try to collectively paper over. When the ice caps melt and the waters of a heated up ocean start to rise, many a rising career will be floating out to sea. Can we do something for an endangered ecology with these scary clowns causing so much commotion? I wonder. As Shakespeare says, Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.…