Ishmael Gradsdovic Papers, part sixty-six


30 July 1999

If I knew Latin I'd come up with a first and last name for it and that'd give me the vulcan death grip on the phenomenon just maybe - naming magic is one of the tools in the arsenal of the technoshamen, the ones in white coats with the degrees, I mean. Doctor doesn't know what you've got or what to do about it, but she Latinizes a description of your symptoms and gives the reassuring and healing impression that everything is under control and that there's a course of action just for you recommended by the high priests set down in black-and-white with illustrations in a dusty volume on the high shelf behind the bust of Hippocrates.

And by this thing I'm looking for the Latin for, I'm not talking about the delusions of reference I got when I called up the Hilton "Courtesy Shuttle" to pick me up and the operator asked me where I was calling from and I looked down at the plastic plate next to the phone which informed me I was at location "B-23" which is the name of the virus that William Burroughs used as a literary device to describe the memetic infection of the human race.

What I'm talking about is the gibbering madness frothing up on all sides - the rattle of the peoplemover under my feet on this business trip as I impersonate at company expense a wealthy man flying to Dallas - with my company-issued laptop checking in to my $300 suite. Through this imposture, I've stumbled in to the Valuable Market Segment Casino and Lounge - Report: no wonder the rich are insane, they're pursued by an escaped asylum of advertisers and hucksters.

I'm having a hard time holding it together, but nobody notices, they treat me like a fellow inmate and not just a visiting researcher - am I slyly blending in with the natives or are they just humoring my delusions in the hope that I'll return the favor - "sure you're just visiting, kid, look, we'll give you more stock options, you get your own padded room and a monogrammed drool bucket and a barbecue fork that tells you when the meat is done..." but more about that later.

The conference rooms at the hotel, where our training session is being held, have names like "Equity," "Dividend," "Acquisition," "Earnings," and "Merger." It's somebody's idea of how to make us high-flying finance types comfortable, but to me (who admittedly doesn't know what he's talking about) it's like naming your football stadiums "Tackle" and "Helmet."

$7.50 bottles of beer in the airport, everything a rip-off, exploitation of captivity gold-plated with pretensions of luxury. Obscenely dishonorable - room service brings me eggs, bacon and toast with ice water and it ends up costing me (or my company, eventually, if I can expense breakfast) $15 because I'm groggy and there's a line for "tip" on the receipt and I don't read until later that they've already added 18% to the bill as a "service charge" on top of the bacon at a dollar a slice and a $1.50 "delivery charge."

None of the service staff are allowed to offer assistance that takes them outside of their carefully- and thoroughly-scripted roles and into flexible and unprofitable courtesy, but palms are out everywhere and I feel less like I'm in the lap of luxury and more like I'm fighting off the Haight street burnouts.

Cursive writing and French translations on the gold foil seal around the cap of the tiny glass bottle of preserves that came with my toast, but inside it's the same old purple corn syrup.

Doesn't anybody else feel used, disrespected, disgusted? Or after all this time do we think we deserve this treatment?

People flash through our field of attention out of which we try to build a model of respectable humanity and great goddamn if it ain't the case that like baby ducklings following the developmental psychologist we're gazing up at our consensus ideals on a cathode ray pedestal of counterfeit, gas-siphoning campaigners jabbering for four more years of mammon-scented, magnetized insoles.

"Best Price Guarantee - Take This Catalog With You" is in the upper left corner of the front cover of the catalog I found in the seat pocket in front of me after I switched to the emergency exit row so I'd have enough leg-room to unfold at six foot two. The title of the catalog, I think, is "SkyMall," although since every letter in the aforementioned phrase was capitalized, it'll work as a title, BPGTTCWY for short. In any case, I followed the advice and took it with me.

Want a $19,000 miniature golf course you can set up at home in two hours or less? A $150 motorized compact disc rack that will send 100 CD cases skimming past your eyes on the power of six D batteries? A $50 hairbrush that emits ion-rich, odor-neutralizing ozone (bargain hunters note: the version for pets is $10 cheaper)? A $70 putting green that floats in your backyard pool so you can practice those really tough shots?

It's all in the BPGTTCWY - a $50 water dish for cats with a motor that keeps the water filtered and flowing (like the toilet, y'know) - extra filters sold separately. The amazing $200 Outdoor Wok that uses propane to deliver "from 12,000 to 130,000 BTUs for cooking." Haven't you always wanted a $90 remote-controlled indoor flying blimp (helium tank: $40).

Here's an item the utility of which might not before have been apparent - a Classic English Heated Towel Stand, which circulates heated oil through its hollow frame ($150-200). BPGTTCWY working... for you!

It's about time, I say, that modern science hands over the LitterMaid ($170), a "Self-Cleaning Litter-Box System [that] uses microprocessor technology to finally eliminate the unsanitary, odor-filled chore of emptying your cat's litter box. The idea is simple. [Simple!] About 10 minutes after the system's 'electric eyes' sense that Tabby has left the litter box, the automatic sifting comb sifts through the litter, scooping up any waste and depositing it into a sealed, air-tight container. The comb then smoothes the litter as it returns to its original position, and is automatically re-set. When waste container is full, throw it away" - replacements available at 12 for $15 - "or empty it for re-use" - oh who would be so cheap?

Remember the barbecue fork? It has a "'Doneness' probe" built right in! "Insert the fork into your steak, hamburger or chicken, push the button, and an LED will indicate: rare, medium-rare, medium, medium-well, well, and pork/poultry." Pork/poultry? "Honey, do we have any double-A batteries? The fork's dead." And only $25. In the future, every fork will have its own IP address and you'll be able to probe your poultry remotely.

Don't know what I'd do with a $120 hand-hooked rooster rug, though. And I----- can talk to me about the wisdom of those astrologers and alternative health practitioners until the hand-hooked cows come home but I'm not going to wear a magnetic healing bracelet as seen on the PGA tour, nor magnetic lumbar supports, neck pads, wrist-wraps, or insoles.

I'm writing this from a bar at the Hilton, charging pints of Guinness to my room. Probably $7.50 apiece but I haven't bothered to check. They're playing that damned Pina Colada song by who, the Doobies? Steely Dan? Ah, whatever. Texas? This building could be a spaceship, hovering every evening in a cloud of luxurie coquette and landing in a new city. Don't even have to close my eyes and I'm in Florida, Sri Lanka, on the Cote d'Azur, ESPN, rock-and-roll, Guinness on tap, just off the plane, reviewing the ol' BPGTTCWY, checking out a device that's about the size of a remote control - you slide the tip along an unfamiliar word in a book or newspaper and it scans it in and displays the definition on the face.

I'm not kidding you - it's the "Quicktionary" and it can be set for left- and for right-handed use, includes etymology and syllabication, and is also available in models that translate to and from Portuguese, French, Spanish, German and Italian. A pricier model will not only translate English but will pronounce, out loud I'm telling you, the word in question.

Check this out - saw one of these babies at a party and was awed: It's a martini mister - you put your vermouth in the mister rather than the drink, and you lightly mist the inside of the glass just before pouring in the chilled gin. If you're gonna be pretentious, I always say, be pretentious about your martini (my own pretension, though, is old-fashionedness - I think vermouth is not merely a symbolic ingredient but belongs in the martini as a full-fledged member of the drink - you'll never get that through to the kids these days, though).

Ah scenic. Framed posters with some beeutifyl natural scene on top and an allegedly inspirational message at the bottom - thought you'd outgrown these by the time you were released from high school? Nope "Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed... every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle... when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."

Electric tongue cleaners can be had for just under $25 - this battery-operated model vibrates at 8000 rpm.

Here's an item I found in a friend's car and had to ask about, but the catalog's got a complete description: "Today's shoulder belts, air bags, side impact beams, and controlled-crush zones restrain and envelope you in a cocoon of safety. But what happens if your seat belts won't release, or the door locks jam? You could be imprisoned in a flaming wreck. The Germans, no strangers to high-speed fatals, have developed a Life Hammer that I discovered in widespread use among enthusiasts who regularly ply the Autobahn. Life Hammer comes with two heavy, conical steel points that will quickly shatter a side window. So you need not futilely flail away with kicks or punches. A recessed razor-sharp blade also cuts through your seat belt in one quick motion. So you can extricate you and your family after surviving the initial crash impact, and live to tell about it."

That's enough, don't you think? Naah, hell, it's more than enough, and you know that and I know that but the locusts keep coming and there's still more crops to eat. Long after the crash when the economy starts booming again your kids will be selling crystal golfer sculptures and fucking electric tongue cleaners as pricey kitsch on eBay-2032.

I used to play with this stuff and muck around and try to twist it and poke it and make it jiggle in funny ways. Now I just stand by slack-jawed and drool. It's a pathetic sight. I consider making a move and find that the whole gordita has preempted me by projecting something even weirder and darker than my sickest gags, without irony or apology, and people pay for it and stick around for the reruns. I try to amplify and distort some cultural pathology for shits and grins, and by the time I get home to gloat society has leapfrogged me - tomorrow I expect to pick up a catalog with a book entitled "weird and useless shit found in catalogs" with a push-button computerized index and Tibetan brass bindings, autographed by the author with a certificate of authenticity and a free set of triple-A batteries as seen on TV.

How will Burning Man compare in its timidity to the increasing insanity off the playa? Walked over to the mall across the street from the hotel and stepped inside to get out of the heat wave and take a stroll. I couldn't tell from the outside but it was one of those big malls (not a gigantic one like those of which I've heard legends with whole indoor amusement parks, but it *was* starting to develop its own weather system) and I walked and walked and thought for a while that I'd never get to the end.

Lots of silly stuff like in the catalog that I could comment on, a nature-themed store with a big aquarium, a moving model of a boa wiggling down from the faux wooden plank ceiling, a pond with rising steam and a big growling model crocodile, lots of beanie creatures and endangered animal T-shirts and such, you can fill in the blanks in your mind. They hand you a passport when you come in if you want reservations at the adjoining and even more over-decorated restaurant. Ah, but don't get me started.

Managed to get out of the mall without buying anything but a 97 cent paperback of Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus" - at the time I was just thinking that hey, it's on sale and I've always wanted to read it, but I think I may also be at subconscious loggerheads with the knowledge that I'm way beyond merely complicit in the creation of the monster that is the inscrutable soul of the global brain.

I've got doubts about the wisdom of Our course in creating this monster, but it feels so much more like a tidal force tugging Us than some ship that We're piloting that I feel currently more satisfied right in the thick of things, and when I can't stand the heat, then maybe I'll try to get out of the oven. Right now, though, I'm helping to wire the neural network of this global brain, and I may find the insider knowledge comes in handy when the monster starts to growl.



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