If only Novelty Government U.S.A. would “heart.” If only it would spray-paint. Then it could spell “i ♥ melody” in a fuzzy charcoal proclamation on the northbound side of an overpass which fjords—yes, fjords—a minor, trickly tributary. (A crick.) Novelty Government might prefer a gal named Melody. Or it might prefer the melodious through-action of music, “i ♥ melody.” Some constituents might regard the potential for two affections as ambiguous, too complicated to merit their untethered support. After all, they had voted for Novelty Government U.S.A. with the lobster-redness of exasperation, a lobster-redness that hearkened back to the single-minded exasperation of earlier generations, pioneers, men and women donning severe sugarloaf caps. Novelty Government does womanize, thus, on the one hand, professing amour (and sporting ‘under amour’ garb) for the hand of one woman in particular, might wrinkle a few lobster-red thought balloons, but as for “i ♥ melody,” the melody of song, well, just what in the Jiminy Cricket does that proclaim? And what kind of melody would Novelty Government U.S.A. prefer to heart? (Jessica Simpson cover-crooning a ditty by Scritti Politti?) One opines “if only” since Novelty Government doesn’t appear to heart, own spray-paint, hang out on the overpass, know a gal named Melody, and tap its toes to melody. It’s not difficult to imagine Novelty Government U.S.A. in the girth of a business suit, adopting poses that could be described as the “scrunched fists of seasonal desecration” or “lobster-red effort to distinguish between a bowel movement and a gasser” or “juvenile hyperventilation upon denial of favorable building permit to construct another leisure resort.” Novelty Government U.S.A. would like us to think that everything conspires against it—virulent veganism of everyday columnists, ghostly voters arising from Tammany Hall graveyards, grousing of international cultures yearning for subsistence—when instead, Novelty Government can cradle “the red telephone” anytime it chooses. It can destroy the world again, and again, and again.
Cultural Affairs Week 2017 Editorial Schedule
