Kitschen, or From Our house to BathoUsE

BATHOuSe
By J.B. Pravda, author of the critically acclaimed and extremely pithy
essay, "Clown Shoes"

A Critical Essay Concerning Our Modern 'Pox Americana'

Introduction

One self-evident clue as to what's wrong with the picture the author
boldly paints with postmodern gusto is the self-congratulatory
appellation bestowed upon the besotted nation-state in
question-----'superpower.'

Now, having virtually opened this Pandora's Box [yes, all my allusions
are rooted---arghh---in scatology], it is fitting that I should, even
from the grave, call it what it is: phallic nonsense of a most
adolescent kind.

With the understanding that no respect is due the reptilian cretins who
are its author, this state of affairs does violence to even the most
extreme expositions of my seminal [you were warned] delvings into the
somewhat dark and primeval foundations of modern man's psyche.

While it is certainly lamentable in and of itself that mankind has not
shown any sign of escaping its pubescent state of mind, lamentation
itself is seen as inadequate to the task of somehow shocking America,
and its infectants, out of its seeming contentment with a social state
of affairs wherein dysfunction, preferably owing to sexuality, is at
the heart of all commerce, itself at the heart of a soulless
society.

But don't get me started: look, one of the privileges of being
incorporeal is that there are no mindless commercials emblazoning their
puerility upon one's now liberated soul, assuming the living still
either possess one or otherwise care to. No, it is simply my wish to
leave you, the needy reader, with my message characterizable as
anything but a Freudian slip: 'Get lives!', especially before you start
crowding the soon to be ungrateful dead as will you all, albeit brain
death will have preceded the wholesale variety long beforehand, I've
got that going for me and my companions 'here'.

In the dim hope of your awakening to wisdom wholly unrelated to
anything masquerading as such in the din of your present pseudo-culture
(to use the term of my countryman, Thomas Mann), I leave your minds in
the capable hands of a really smart guy and follower of Jung whose
teachings, often in opposition to mine, are still probably correct if
for no other reason than your so-called culture tends to support my
theories! Damned, as they say, by faint praise.

Subliminally yours,

Herr Doktor Sigmund Freud
Writing to you from the Placeless/Timeless Cosmos
Really Smart Person Section

Preamble: So, What Should We Talk About?

Gonna keep it simple, stupid; who isn't familiar with the ABCs system
of taxonomy. Going for the unwashed masses here; it's a dirty job but
you'll all---'them' included---thank me later.

A is for avarice, that sort of thing. The beauty of this approach is
that if the anonymous you out there doesn't/don't get it the first
time, there's always another shot [see G for greed, got it?].

Come with me, then, into the bowels of the beast, a real inside (not to
mention really smelly) look at a body politic in real decay; think of
it as an autopsy on a subject already essentially dead, just too
clueless to lay down.

Chapter "A": What Did They Want to Buy So Badly?

Truly love that line from O'neill, old man sitting in the rocker,
wondering just when and why he had sold his soul for silver (in his
bathetic case, as in 'screen'----------look, just read the play,
alright, there's a clue in Chapter "L").
Avarice---very illogical. See Game Theory, as in zero sum game. For our
object lesson, let's use (term chosen advisedly, hey, (s)he's quite
ready to use us; and, yes, many women have caught the virus,
testosteronus wannabeus,very sad; see Chapter "G" for gender, can't get
into it just yet) an all too typical moneychanger, Wall Street
variety.
His/her (see virus comment) credo is: 'you can never be too rich or too
thin.' Droll; first of all, both are unattainable by definition,
especially in his/her case; in fact, there is an inverse law at work
which seems always to coextend gelt with girth.
Why illogical? In his/her worldview, you must somehow lose, howsoever
indirectly, in order for him/her to win. This leads, over time, to a
lot of pissed off losers, especially when they happen to pick up one of
my tomes (all the more likely due to their compelling wit and wisdom,
not to mention the very large promotional campaign the publisher is
happy to employ) and learn just how needlessly and willingly fucked
over they have been. The greater the number of potential enemies, the
more it costs to keep them at bay and/or fooled. This is all very
top-heavy not to mention increasingly insecure, inasmuch as bodyguards
and security types, with their growing power, compliments of our robber
baron/baroness, are ripe for treachery and/or extortion, as in pay me
more or else. In turn, our little power-monkey's girth is enhanced as a
result of nervous eating and/or failure to exercise due to fatigue
and/or fear of encountering a growing number of awakened
victims/enemies, even if he/she does venture out, protected as he/she
is by less than secure security. Vicious circular dynamics take over,
causing the ultimate irony: a growing feeling of powerlessness. And its
nothing new, perhaps the greatest shock to his/her chubby little (Hell,
study the chronological paintings of Bonaparte I, and that was with the
sympathetic eye of David) system: from the caves to the Caesars to rock
stars, every one of the 'might makes right' boys &; girls (going
unisex hereafter; don't you agree this crap has gone too
far----besides, show me a really hardass cavewoman or Caesar or rock
star) has had a comeuppance.
Look, this could go on forever, but you get the point: you start
selling your Soul (seminal definition forthcoming at Chapter "S")----to
your self-defining 'profession', to your significant or even
insignificant other's desires, as in 'keeping up' with some schmucks
you don't even know, vice versa, and wouldn't want to if you did, vice
versa, to goddam Mephistopholes himself, you're gonna get burned by
your own stupid choice, and for what? Money is an instrument, not a
goal; read Deepak Chopra, get in touch with your true Self, generally
the opposite of your Ego self-image/mask, really, before you're
disgustingly fat, increasingly alone and just an abject embarrassment
to Nature and Her balanced reputation.

Chapter "B": Pretty 'Bathetic', Wouldn't You Say?
Bathos: look it up, then read every other chapter with renewed passion;
it's the one sure 'gift' of Greek civilization to America and,
increasingly, the West a la the Pox Americana a/k/a
'globalization'.

Chapter "C": Culture Should Not Be Found in Dairy Food
You know, yogurt, 'active cultures', blah, blah, blah.
Nor should 'Consumer Culture' be acknowledged as anything other than a
particularly offensive paradox. Can anyone guess who might have been
behind this particularly acquisitive concept: 'you are what you
buy/own': bingo, see Chapter "A".
One more question of the rhetorical variety: why is it that all those
cretins described in Chapter "A" seek to spend more of their time in
Tuscany or its equivalent, when the Mediteranean, and its forbears,
long ago gladly chose a culture over an economy as its/their idea of
living as an art and not a mere contest.
This concept, like its older cousin, is again a nasty gesture in the
direction of logic itself.
We take as our model a somewhat obese shopper, the Frankenstinian
creation of its rather aesthetically diffident Doctor, often to be
found either in Chapter "A" or Tuscany during the right season.
Unaware, or afraid of its true self, every manner of activity is
slavishly pursued in avoidance of "It": the being behind the mirror,
that device (interestingly tainted with silver) used by said Doctors to
administer their cruel therapies, usually manifesting as 'shop till you
drop'.
Now, our robotized subject, looking not unlike the horizontally ample
Robbie the Robot of 'Forbidden Planet' fame, undergoes loss of either
the ability to pursue these 'therapeutic' activities and/or the
copiously acquired "objet sans 'arte" so dutifully procured on
countless hunting and gathering missions: 'what do I do now!?'
Read all those books you never had (made) time for, you know, the ones
that have been around for hundreds of years, downloaded lectures from
the greatest minds ever to have existed; take a walk (no, you can't
drive); think, paint, exercise, play, sing, write (sorry, postcards
don't count); learn (it is recommended that the TV be permanently
disabled if this is ever to occur, right along with 'thinking' of the
independent variety).
You get my drift: kitschy things do not a culture make, even seemingly
very pretty and artful ones.