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The Scrumptious Aesthetic.

     I have news for you Mr. Baker, you know? If you can eat it, it’s not art. If
     you can say ‘I’ll have that and a cup of coffee,’ that’s not art. That’s a snack.
        —Fran Lebowitz (on the the bakers who refused—on religious grounds—to

           bake cakes for gay weddings)

[Name Removed] says my hedge fund’s no turkey, that we should go out
immediately and purchase a Picasso, move into our very own condominium 

by Easter, if not by this Tuesday. The truth about beauty is that it swims in

an ocean of blandness. The offense that the sum of these contraptions of 

gilded violence has imparted onto humankind is immeasurable, I say. And so,

to deal them a right gotcha, I accept each as a gift. They come in all sizes

and shapes, and most often they’re cleverly disguised, (think Trojan Horse), 

and might be slung from anywhere by anyone at any time. Given the lack of

decent alternatives, I choose to make a sport of it (one must never look a

gift horse, etc.). And so I yawningly egg on the barrage of atrocities from

today’s de-evolved pseudo-sentients, with their inflated egos and sun-sucking

greed, feeling I must know each intimately at any cost, giving them the 

satisfaction that they’ve put me in my place and have reminded me of who 

I am, so they surely feel too clever by half, their various contributions of 

blight forces me ever nearer the rough edges of surreality; to the margins, 

if you will, where it’s delightfully quiet, but for the sporadic sounds of nature 

and the dull hum of swiftly moving electricity. This is where I find sanity, take

refuge, here, at the outer rim of existence, where I look inward, toward so-called

civilization, from which I remain a safe enough distance away to carry on, yet

maintain the curiosity to focus on my studies. I scrutinize each drifting vessel;

watch one churl flimsily postulate that Post-its (their glaringly blank canvases),

know no limits, are to be revered; while having a bit of fun with another crank’s

forcible attempts to disrupt the swing of my “soul cycle.” Through it all, I faux-

pout and scoot further out toward the very perimeters of existence. It’s from 

here that sense can be made of our godforsaken planet. So, I chip away at the

detritus, try to discover how one might coexist with dullards, or if there’s a way

to simply escape it all, to find my own singular, sustainable slice of universe.

One day, I hope to find answers, to come up with an antidote to the nauseating

mix of vitriol and boredom slung with mediocrity. Until then, if and when I wish 

to have my chakras banged or bent, I’ll be the one choosing from whom. Or 

this is what my inner voice, with as much gusto as it can muster, says to the

rest of me, as I float backwards, away from the chaos, closer and closer to 

some ideal home, a peaceful oblivion that grows ever more desirable the 

closer we get to each other. I look back, toward the demise of humanity,

wave a great big hello with one hand, and clutch my gut with the other.