encountering comfort
_POSTED_BY desik   
Tuesday, 24 June 2008

in new stepford there are no long queues at the post office
or for anything else for that matter
the business of everyday life is conducted calmly
stress is banished
all transactions conform to  sedate bourgoise  ends

its a very genteel place
perhaps they import the rarefied air
from some mountain retreat with sweeping vistas

whereever the calm is from  

the ruthlessness behind it all is conducted by their alpha mates elsewhere

only their dirty money makes it here

to be laundered by the au pair  with added fabric softener

the stout woman in front of me loudly declares her intention to her friend
to play bridge this afternnon
she says she is off to liverpool at the weekend to listen to choral music
her friend replies that she is going to listen to david play at the local concert hall
its all very very  musical
but also has a sickly sweet competitive edge

david  fell in front of a bus with his cello?

oh how awful ...of course we got the best seats in the house in liverpool...

what time's the funeral? 

its another fucking world
even the post office counter staff can sniff i dont fit in
they lack the troubled air of their inner city comrades
they are used to issuing gift tokens, first day covers and foreign currency here
perish the thought that some low-life would stumble in hoping to cash a social security check
i'm just sending a small package but its still too unglamourous for the counter assistants liking
put it on the scales she says
sniffily weighing up my worth
as I casually wonder what the odds are of the place ever being held up at gun point
outside i trail behind two well dressed women
all the women in this area are immaculately dressed

the new stepford wives spare no expense to wear the uniform
of the 'my husband is wealthy and i have all the time in the world to spend '  kind
one of the women in front of me is Asian
' the new girl is from bulgaria or somewhere just as frightfully awful ' she confides to her friend
i havent given her the key yet - who can you trust nowadays - and i have had to tell her to clean the bathroom again. Heavens sake, just imagine!'
her friend bewails the fall of empire
and the incredible burden of not being able to totally rely on her every need being met 

and then there's the socially mobile  kids 

in sedate stepford SUV -like child buggies now seem to be de rigeur
with to scale catterpillar tyres and chrome bull bars
they hog and Hummer along the sidewalks
making the statement 'start as you mean to go on -

we're bigger and more important than you , get out of the way'
in the park the scandanavian nannies have a handful of small children each on leashes
like fucking huskies in harness
the stepford wives know all about economies of scale and risk management
the children lunge forward in their lust for life
everything is within their grasp
for now though  they are just gently restrained from grasping it
but these restraints will not endure
succorance will ensure they take their rightful place at life's high table
and then they'll gently rein in their own packs
and then unleash them for the kill after the usual blooding up

Comments
Anonymous   |2008-06-24 14:18:36
"the worst cruelties of life are its killing injustices......tyrants fear
storytelling."
John Berger
D  - Ways of Seeing   |2008-06-24 16:47:20
Here's another Berger quote relevant to this post and other themes explored on
this website.

“When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because
that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total
loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total
losses than in all the rest of our life put together.”
Anna  - re Ways of Seeing   |2008-06-24 23:56:32
That's a pretty devastatingly relevant quote. Where's it from?
Jane   |2008-06-26 13:08:16
Are there any girls working in new stepford? Those guys have got to have a lot
of frustrations and disposable income that their wives arent handling properly.


Can I at least have the zip code?
redstarfist   |2008-06-26 03:11:21
Jesus Jane! There's a guy named DOS that occasionally shows his face around
here, he's incredibly frustrated, and I'm pretty sure that he has read 'Bobos In
Paradise'

(I think he was a real Wall Street star in the late 80's....working
as a trader, NOT A BROKER!)

But he lives somewhere on the east coast.
vinny  - bobos in paradise   |2008-06-26 04:11:50
well......i had a laugh when I read about the children on harnesses, like a pack
of huskies, and the last 3 lines left me with a smile, so much hypocrisy, makes
me want to review all of Pasolini's work again.
Jane     |2008-06-26 13:06:58
Hey Redstar I eyed DOS but I get the distinct impression that one time Wall
Street high flyer or not he's probably irreversibly downwardly mobile now ,
reading ' How To Get By On Ten Dollars a Day ' type literature rather than
anything highbrow and stealing from his wife to pay for handjobs . I need guys
on the up elevator!
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