J.F.K. I

The three letters, J.F.K., have always held a magical meaning for me. John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Youngest President of the United States. Upperclass. Self-Sacrificing. Catholic. I think I became Catholic one time in my life just because of J.F.K. What impressed me first about J.F.K. was the way he was able to speak. I know that he had many speechwriters, but even then, his words had style, class, and beauty. The American language nowadays has really been bastardized. Wicked cool. Fucking Good. People don't use words like "fabulous, wonderful, or even excellent." Language has also become pornographic. That is, we use language to express our sexual frustration when no change is actually occuring either in the political or private sphere. WE constantly complain about the status quo through language but can settle on no one singular issue when it comes to political progress. J.F.K.'s language was the language of vision. It was also a language of simplicity, but a simplicity filled with meaning. His central vision was the vision of "City Upon A Hill." The US was to be a shining example to the rest of the world, the Pilgrim and the Puritan were supposed to work together toward that vision. Then, there was the other language, the language of orders, the language of the mob, phallic language. I recently saw the Great Gatsby and Leonardo Di Caprio did an OK job of portraying Jay Gatsby who uses two languages. He uses the language of the British or Oxford English and also the language of the gangsters and the bootleggers. There is this tension in J.F.K.'s voice. Privately, he was oversexed and phallic. Publically, he was calm and reasoned. This is not unusual in upperclass families all over the world. Power formalizes our gestures and she who loses the game must pay with sex or otherwise.