The Catalog of Atrocities and My Grandmother's Butter

It's holiday time and that means my mailbox gets overburdened with the paraphernalia of pushers -- excuse me -- marketers of false cheer. Slick catalogs spill out every time I open the box. They slide to the floor in a torrent and make me drop my briefcase and whatever else I'm carrying in an effort to collect them all before one of the heavily scented seniors who lives in my building careens around the corner into the spill, slipping and falling, and then demanding from building management a copy of the security video of the lobby to use as evidence against me in the inevitable lawsuit.

Christmas brings out my best holiday neurotic ideations.

One particular catalog page, open on the floor, caught my interest. Beside a picture of a laughing redhead who stands with a friend next to a park bench is written, with italics and bold:

"I AM inspired by stories that endure, like my grandma's stories of evenings by the radio and fresh churned butter. Stories that last because they're about things that are real and rich and human, not synthetic like so much in life now. Wearing organic cotton is like that for me."

Now, doesn't that make you yearn for authenticity? Manipulative bastards. They got me thinking all warm and fuzzy thoughts about my grandma's fresh churned butter. Thing is, I don't know about you, but my grandma was probably too busy being chased by Cossacks across the plains of Mitteleuropa to care much about fresh churned butter. And I'm guessing you don't concern yourself much with foods that spoil quickly when you're huddled in steerage with the rest of the masses yearning to be free.

Come to think of it, sticks of butter wrapped in wax paper and readily available at the A&P probably made my grandmother pretty goddamned happy that she was finally living a life that was, if not rich, at least, and I quote, "real . . . and human." When it comes down to it though, my grandmother probably preferred to use schmaltz to butter. What is schmaltz? Chicken fat. But, and now I'm laying the irony on thick, the word schmaltz has come to mean . . . you guessed it . . . mawkish, hackneyed sentimentality. Coincidence? Perhaps not. But perhaps life without schmaltz in this second sense is too harsh for the marketers:

"I AM inspired by stories that endure, like my grandmother's stories of home butchered chickens and evenings in the ghetto spent hiding in the chimney from the press gangs. Stories that last because they are nightmarish and terrifying and real, not banal like so much in life now. Wearing organic cotton is like that for me."

Organic cotton? It probably just reminded my grandma of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.

Now, I'm not knocking organic cotton. Synthetics in my closet are as rare as fresh churned butter. What pisses me off is the attempt to reimagine memory that's pushed by the marketers. The things that are "synthetic like so much in life now" are primarily the stories used to make us want stuff. If you choose to wear polyester, poor soul that you are, you're going to have an authentic experience, I assure you. Likewise for typing on a computer. You could blog with a fountain pen (I believe it's called writing in a journal), but your experience won't be any more or less real, even if it's more difficult to download.

This longing for authenticity isn't new, of course. I could turn you on to Herbert Marcuse or T.J. Jackson Lears, if you like. What's frustrating is that people keep falling for it. We now have glossy magazines, filled with advertising, whose editorial mission is to inform cosnumers how to live in a Real Simple fashion. Would you like to live simply? I'll give you a few of the great snob secrets of life. Read carefully, now. Don't buy what you don't need. When you buy what you need, make sure it is the best, longest-lasting, least faddish, you can afford. Oh, and stop giving gifts for the sake of giving gifts.

Maybe, just maybe, we can achieve an authentic experience that doesn't come from a catalog.

And check out my very cool sister's interview on blogging