Archive for March, 2010
Free Hugs in the Land of Moving Sidewalks
Monday, March 8th, 2010
So what if when the trapdoor opens the world is never the same. A tiny room with just a 3 by 2 meter window. You don’t know where or when you are, but what you can’t figure out from signage and facial features is irrelevant.
Could be a screen, resolution being what it is these days. Don’t know if it’s the real world or if there even is a real world anymore. Not that the real world seemed real last time you checked.
Kneel under the 3×2. Put your hands in the wall-mounted silicone gloves, thick and squishy. A momentary disconnect when your arms extend through the wall, weird biofeedback tingle in your fingertips. Relax into the moment, searching the world outside for something – anything – to connect with. Vehicle lights are a blur of red and white blood cells. People stream by. Everything slows, masses become individuals. Contrast suddenly is.
Pop your gloved knuckles so loudly the sound echoes. Your eyes dart around. Salarymen, schoolgirls. Two seconds of decoding signs confirm it’s Japan. It’s like watching a kaitenzushi, that great conveyor of raw fish, rotate round (singing “the wheels of fish go round and round, round and round…”) and round. So many choices. Gotta start with one.
An office lady, thumbs racing over a phone keypad. Reach out and slap her tight-skirted ass. She stops, startled, looks around, sees nothing, shrugs it off, keeps going, dreams about it that night, imagines her long-ago high school English teacher, smiles, sleeps well. You relish in the afterglow of first love.
A stuck up blond Russian model type, hair sculpted with so much gel you don’t know how she holds her head up. Ruffle her hair and splay it out in all directions. She doesn’t look around, only screams, runs directly into the nearest convenience store, hides her head, remembers losing her metro pass in Moscow, struggling home in rain, beatings that followed, running away, drowning herself in another country and culture. You keep the adrenaline and shame.
A salaryman, staggering, tie loose, face red, combover uncombed over, cheap suit unruffled thanks to permanent miracle of polyester. You wrap your arms around him and hold him fast. He tries to pull away from the hug, eyes cast down, school bullies, failed diets, fear, the one girl who took pity on him in university. You let go and he pulls away, almost reluctantly, folds himself into the crowd and gives in to the familiar feeling of security, safety, anonymity. You’ll take those too.
Safety in anonymity in numbers in distance: for you this is everything. You are perfectly safe, yet alone. Trade-off. Weak smile.
You pull your hands from the gloves, slink down the ladder and close the trapdoor, sure to latch it good and tight, curl up, dream of connecting, in some small way, with someone, anyone, in any version of reality.
It’s enough for now.
The Cabal’s third anniversary is approaching, and we’re looking for help figuring out how to celebrate, so we’re holding a contest. Click here to read the details and give us your ideas!
Act Local
Friday, March 5th, 2010
Wheel of Fortune went to commercial, my signal to head for the kitchen. Another beer in hand, I stepped back out to hear, “–your hair can look supermodel good.”
The latest 007 girl was sitting in one of the chairs at Sybil’s Salon. Sybil’s, which always looked dingy and empty when I passed while walking to the corner market. The actress looked airbrushed just sitting there. And the salon was huge, with bustling hair stylists and manicurists and a dozen happy-looking customers. How the hell could Sybil afford a television ad, much less one that looked this good? How could she afford an actress who only went by a single name?
The next commercial came on. “Dog walking by Carol,” said the announcer over a simple geometric background that morphed into a picture of my wife standing by a pair of Pomeranians. She’d never looked so luscious. The ad was Cleo-worthy. It was Superbowl-good. I spent most of the time looking at my wife instead of listening to the voice track.
A full orchestra backed Frank Sinatra as he extolled the virtues of the lemonade stand on the corner. “But seriously,” he said. “Kip and Kerry only use the freshest lemons and the purest sugar.” He was computer-generated, but to get that true to life they were using the latest Hollywood tech.
It went on. Million-dollar ads for the taco truck two blocks away, for the high-schooler across the street who mowed lawns, for the upcoming garage sale planned by the Hilliards two doors down. During prime time there were commercials for the same businesses, but these were different ads, just as impressive.
The phone rang. Somebody wanted Carol to walk her labs. Again, the snooty VanMasons asking if she could sit their pedigreed poodles over Labor Day. People paid more attention to the commercials than the prime-time shows.
Are the auto manufacturers gone? The insurers? The fast food franchises? All the other big businesses whose ads would normally be airing? I’m sure I have friends who work – or worked – for them, but I can’t think who just at the moment. I’ll have to check my address book.
But first, a lemonade from Kip and Kerry. Advertising works.
The Cabal’s third anniversary is approaching, and we’re looking for help figuring out how to celebrate, so we’re holding a contest. Click here to read the details and give us your ideas!