You know the whole “elf on the shelf” thing? Isn’t it crazy how it’s the panopticon? Isn’t it crazy how we collude in our own disenfranchisement and oppression? “it’s just a stupid thing for children” you say, but “stupid things for children” are one of the primary ways new cultural values are propagated. See the Grimms and their bizarre, hysterical quest to consolidate and publish all the original folk tales of ancient Germany, as a means of indoctrinating children into good solid German values such as heroism, honesty, and burning witches and Jews.
Anyway, shit is crazy and you are literally crazy if you do the elf on the shelf thing for your kids. It is LITERALLY Big Brother! But presented as fun! “Isn’t it fun to believe you are constantly being watched by someone who judges the moral appropriateness of your every thought and action? Ha ha it’s the true meaning of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross”
Can you even imagine how embarrassed Jesus would be of us. He’d be so ashamed. I always picture Jesus and Thomas Jefferson shaking their heads sorrowfully at literally everything we do. “Y’all this is NOT what we meant, good lord”
Not to align the slave-owning elitist Thomas Jefferson with the selfless populist Jesus Christ, but still. Two pretty solid thinkers, all things considered.
Although actually Jesus himself was pretty panopticon-y, what with the whole “I can see your most secret innermost thoughts and send you to hell for them” thing**. GOD, can western culture never catch a break?? What’s a guy got to do around here to catch a break, culturally speaking??
So Elf on the Shelf is basically just Jesus Christ, and we are all doomed
I have had significantly too much coffee and I feel like I have entered an alternate dimension. I feel like jokes about people doing cocaine and making brilliant art that the next morning is just weird unintelligible scrawls. “Did you get my book manuscript? Do you want to publish it?” “No but I got a creepy envelope full of mud and leaves with your return address on it, is that what you meant?”
I’m trying to write an abstract and I feel I have typed the phrase “capitalist values” so many times that I no longer know what it is meant to refer to. Maybe it should be a band name. Maybe this paper should be about elf on the shelf. What if I become a noted scholar of contemporary manifestations of the panopticon with my paper “Elf on the Shelf: Foucauldian Ethical Dialectics as Consumer Hermeneutic: What Do Words Mean”
I just literally tried to put a Heidegger quote in this abstract. I deleted it, furious with myself. A Heidegger quote is the Chekhovian gun of academic paper abstracts; don’t stick it in there if you aren’t gonna use it later, and #realtalk, I have no intention of actually presenting myself as someone who has read and understood Heidegger. Thank you Chekhov for your valuable life lesson.
I am drinking a smoothie called “The Jimmy Buffett”
Remember how Jimmy Buffett’s dog is named “Cheeseburger”? I think there is no living human I am more ambivalent about than Jimmy Buffett. And I am using the actual correct meaning of “ambivalent,” the meaning no one actually means when they use the word, where you actually feel passionately in two contradictory ways. I mean that I am not sure whether I love Jimmy Buffett so much or whether I think he is a manifestation of contemporary evil.
That’s always the way, with nihilism. You don’t know whether to applaud or shoot yourself in the face
One of my favorite things is to sit next to people at coffee shops while they loudly explain politics or other cultures to someone. “They don’t value human life the way we do.” It truly is amazing what you can learn just from eavesdropping on your average total dipshit! “Bullhorn Benny: the wisest jackass in the world, if by ‘wise’ you mean ‘as dumb as a jackass'”
although the other day at the coffee shop a man was loudly explaining the politics behind fracking and he was actually being extremely nuanced and astute in his analysis and even though I was annoyed by the incredible volume of his voice I ultimately was forced to metaphorically tip my hat to him. After all, this is what coffee shops have traditionally been for. I remember going to Anna Bananas after the disastrous Bush/Gore election debacle and everyone in there was screaming about Ralph Nader and I was like, damn, this is old school. I was expecting a Desmoulins-like figure to leap atop a table and begin whipping up mob violence at any moment! It didn’t happen, but a man did buy me an extra shop of espresso when I said I didn’t have any money left. Then we all linked arms and sang the national anthem (not true)
On Christmas Eve I snuck downstairs in the night and set up a bunch of presents I had secretly procured and wrapped in gaudy paper and glitzy ribbon for my old man. These included but were not limited to: a sled; a pair of long underwear with “this is what a cool grandpa looks like” embroidered on the butt; and seasons 1 and 2 of Comedy Bang Bang. I also bought and wrapped a present for myself (moisturizing face spray). In the morning my old man was so focused on making coffee that he walked right past my carefully arranged display and finally I had to be the one to yell “HONEY SANTA CAME!!!!” which was a bit deflating, although ultimately it was still fun to hear him yell “WHAT!” and come storming in from the kitchen and stand there gaping like a little boy. The main downside to my whole elaborate scheme is that I had been assuming that come December 25th the hills and vales of quaint new england would be covered by a pristine couple feet of downy snow, yet for a week it has been a balmy and rainy 50 degrees, with nary a snowflake in sight. Thus my fantasy of running outside and forgetting our shitty adult cares via frolicking like historical children in a Saturday Evening Post advertisement was dashed and instead we stayed inside and played our new board game: JOB FAIRE*
Awhile ago we found a place that has old school candle-pin bowling, so we drove there. It’s in a little town 30 minutes away that is just impossibly fucking quaint and adorable. Candle-pin bowling turns out to be far superior to regular bowling, at least in the opinion of small weak-armed women like myself who are essentially unable to regular-bowl even if we use a bowling ball intended for a child. In candle-pin, the ball is small and light, and is held in the hand more like a bocce ball (no finger holes). The pins are very tall and thin. You just wing the ball down the alley as best you can. You get three tries. The pins are surprisingly difficult to knock down. But, due to the lightness of the ball, I was actually able to hold my own for once, even winning one game against my old man, who is usually a fair-to-middling bowler compared to me (I role exclusively gutter balls or balls that bounce into the neighboring alley and you have to go get the guy working at the counter to stop everyone from bowling so he can go retrieve them. I also injure myself every time I bowl, and am sore for days afterward).
After bowling, we walked across the bridge into what was apparently another town. Classic new england! We made many jokes about there being a super heated and hateful rivalry between the two towns. “Well maybe that’s the way they do things in SHELBURNE FALLS, but in THIS town we don’t hold truck with such doings.” We went to a quaint-as-shit little pub built right on the river, and ordered a glass of wine. The old man also ordered an enormous dish of ice cream, perhaps the last thing in the world I wanted to eat at that moment, which is fairly standard for us, as we have profoundly different food needs throughout the course of your average day.
This is all we have done on this vacation, although we also have big plans to go to the basketball hall of fame in Springfield.
We also watched Under the Skin, which was very good. And I re-read the Hobbit for no real reason. Turns out, that is just a fun book to read while you fall asleep. I have been looking for Tolkien’s Beowulf translation at the library for six months and it has yet to turn up. Should I just buy it? Am I now so financially successful that I can buy full-price non-academic books on a whim? I will pray on this and get back to you.
God bless us, every one
*not a joke
**not his actual words
A friend’s niece, age 3, wisely refers to that elf as “the spy.”
What about inter-library loan?