Last night I wrote about self-absorbed self-actualizing self-styled "New Age" (if you'll forgive the expression) "culture" taking a fatal header into a spiritually empty swimming pool. But I'm telling you, this synchronicity shit really works. I just now searched Amazon for "new age" and the first book that comes up is the one you see pictured at the right, Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting: The Astonishing Power of Feelings. And sure enough, there's the diving board!
Now, whether or not it was that particular post that put her over the top, it seems I have once again drawn fire from Elaine of Kalilily, Self-Proclaimed Resident Crone of Blogdom. This time, to be sure, Elaine stops short of foaming at the mouth, which is unfortunate, as the only reason I blog is to elicit this reaction from her. This time she is careful to not to attack me outright, as she has done in the past, bless her twisted little heart, but rather to insinuate that I have no life. (I could have saved her the trouble had she only asked -- "No, Elaine, I have no life, as I've tried to communicate here more than once, God knows! And yes, I spit on both poetry and the moon!") However, despite the lack of full-frontal prudery, the tropes she employs in this post on "tinkering" constitute an excellent demonstration of what is generally referred to as passive aggression.
Note the rhetorical use of the interrogative, encouraging witless readers to unwittingly adopt her perspective. For instance: "Chris likes to tinker with the ideas of others. No, wait a minute. He doesn't really tinker, does he? He blasts with his creative bombast." If you buy the charge implied in the question -- i.e., (somewhat amazingly) that I don't tinker -- then you're more likely to buy the unstated but implied conclusion: that I attack unfairly, without warning or reason.
"We project instead of protect," the frumious Crone of Blogdom writes. Though, by "we," I doubt very much she means that she does that. She means I do that.
Yes, and?
You see, it's all part of our mission...
To Project and Serve
The example Elaine gives is my purposefully unREASONable savaging of Virginia Postrel. It was part of the joke, doncha know? Not, I should hasten to say, that I don't despise Postrel. Perhaps I should have explained why. But a) I thought it too obvious to bother with, and b) even haphazardly glancing at her books, which have sat unread on my coffee table for longer than I like to think, gives me apoplexy. Yes, Virginia, there is a Hannibal the Cannibal, and I hope he eats your brain. Soon.
Moon June Spoon. Fuck yoon!
OK, OK, I'll tell you why, goddammit. It's because her first book, The Future and Its Enemies (which I have not read), is an extended ayn-randian paean to the "dynamism" of swill-hearted technofascists and venture capitalists, and a head-wagging tsk-tsk-ing of the "stasis" championed by such weak willed "enemies
of the future" as those who would suggest curtailing environmental
rape and the processing of the indigent into lunchmeat for the
rich. Most of us already, after all, lead lives of soylent
desperation.
Her second book, The Substance of Style (which I also have not
read), argues for the ascendancy (as the cliche has it) of style over substance, rationalized with all sorts of aesthetic ballyhoo, full of sound and fury signifying -- who would have guessed? -- das
kapital. God is dead. No problem. Tattoo a swoosh on your ass.
Other than that, she's pretty cool. And smart? Ohmygod! Plus, which never hurts, given the purported substance of style, she's cute.
Now see, Elaine, I don't hack on these people just to be mean. I hack on them because they deserve to die painful deaths, say, squashed flat by a steamroller or slowly devoured by giant clams. (Except I hate to think of the environmental impact on the clams.)
But none of this is what I sat down to write about this evening. No. What I had planned to do was to tinker with -- or, if you prefer, "blast with [my] creative bombast" -- the dumbfuck author of the book pictured above, Lynn Grabhorn (no, I did not make that up) about how (excuse me) your life is leaking out on the sidewalk, and none too soon. For as it is written:
An 'nem schönen blauen Sonntag
Liegt ein toter Mann am Strand
Und ein Mensch geht um die Ecke
Den man Mackie Messer nannt.
On the sidewalk Sunday morning
Lies a body oozing life
Someone's sneaking 'round the corner
Is that someone Mack the Knife?
But let not the savaging come this time from my own lips, but rather in the form of the following left-handed praise heaped on this hapless excuse for an author by a couple of her fans. First up, we have the this review except by one "lulubella (see more about me) from Chicago," titled "willful suspension of disbelief needed." I'll say.
"According to Lynn Grabhorn, the reason that most of us are trapped in unhappy, unfulfilling lives is because we vibrate negative energy and therefore attract negative energy, much as a tuning fork vibrating at a particular pitch vibrates other similarly pitched tuning forks. So we need to consciously change the vibrations we're sending out in order to attract positive things into our lives.......she uses the example of visualizing yourself driving a shiny red sports car instead of focusing on the fact that you don't have one, because if you focus on the fact that you don't have one, you'll continue to not have one."
Now is that just fucking profound, or what?
Back to Elaine for a sec: is it unkind of me to notice the inbuilt idiocy of such... (how should I put this?) thoughts? Does my "creative bombast" -- so far exceeding the gentle accommodation of mere tinkering -- result from my not having looked often or longingly enough upon the juny moon? From never have sung the loony tune?
I leave these questions, as I must, to you, most Valued Reader.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, "reggaejunkiejew [I shit you not] from Toronto, Ontario" writes:
"The experiences of Lynn Grabhorn originate from the channeled material of Esther and Jerry Hicks, known as ABRAHAM. She makes this knowledge, and her experiences available to people who would typically be closeminded to such a thing as the channeling of
non-physical entities and intelligence."
Now that one really got to me. Shucks, I guess I'm beginning to see your point, Elaine. Maybe I should broaden my horizons a little instead of going around making fun of nice little old new age narcissists like you and your witch pal Laurie Doctor. Thank you for this precious insight.
But it all makes me wonder if you ever watch snuff movies.
I mean, early on in our lives, we marvel at the avalanche of psychotic abuse cascading out of our parents' bedroom. And then, one day we look around and find ourselves mired in shit and stink and missing the pure trauma that can be tinker-toyed from our all too private hell. We retch instead of etch a sketch.
