"Ugly Dr. C - A fist coming to a chin near you, Spring '07!"

The last week has been a mess of deciding, ordering and beginning my latest round of scientific and literary priorities. Thankfully, they have all involved science and (so far) have all had the concomittant structure. Means and ends, hypotheses and methodology, and on we go. Hooray for discovery. I am mostly my rational self these days.

This topic left me scratching my head. Ugly Who? Obviously you have something specific in mind, Cumboy, you devious Redcoat...

One Google search led to two articles (here and here) led to three aneurysms, four minutes of horrid sotto voce muttering, and a partridge in a socketfucking pear tree, and I am bristling with anger and managing a small nosebleed.

Some choice quotes:

"Be real, be smart, be passionate, be true to yourself and be ugly."

"Betty's scheming co-workers resent her in the same way immigration demagogues do: she's an interloper. Yet she succeeds--and even wins over some of her Mode enemies--for exactly that reason. Like generations of immigrants, legal or not, she brings fresh eyes, a tireless work ethic and a different perspective to revitalize a tired institution."

This means War.

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An art collective, The Ponytailed Fuckwits of Sitcomville, designed an enormous mosaic for a city wall. It was mostly awful - garish, glaring, completely lacking in any form of subtlety and artistically bereft. The occasional juxtraposition of the two pieces within it made brief curiosities, which were immediately overshadowed by what a supersaturated eyesore it was.

Nevertheless, hordes of grey vacant swine turned up to gawk at it, patiently queuing in the designated looking area, waiting for their turn to pay homage. They would say "Luk adda priddy coluz" and "My favrit is Miranda, shez my muze" and other such enlightenments.

Occasionally, the ponytailed swine would turn the viewing area slightly to the left, or raise it slightly towards the sky, or extend it slightly down the wall with a few more jewelled trinkets. The slightly altered perspective guaranteed a flock of new rubes as a few of the old ones fell away, rubbing their eyes and complaining about a strange burning sensation in their colon and a big empty hole in their heart.

One day, one of the swine realised that business was good, but could be better. He took a jeweller's hammer and a chisel and carefully prised off one of the small tiles of the mosaic, leaving a barely perceptible hole in the centre of the otherwise complete design.

Immediately, the crowd rushed closer. "Lookadda hole!" they squealed, "Is so REAL." The swine writers who controlled what the swine thought wrote long, glorious dissertations on the meaning and the symbolism of the hole. They wallowed in the luxurious genius of the idea: "If you take sumfing away, iz a different way of PUTTIG SOMETHING THAR. IS TROO MEANIG ART AN CULTURAL ZITGEIST FUR SHURE." This observation pleased them greatly, and they spent longer masturbating than usual that day. Did you know swine have 20 minute orgasms?

A passing stranger, a sad-faced little man in a shabby overcoat, pointed out to the periphery of the squawking mob festering around the mosaic that they were being duped. Every single other part of the mosaic remained intact. All the ideas that went into its construction were the same. Its structure was identical. It operated on the same assumptions. Artistically, he said, the removal of the tile DOES nothing. It's merely a detail.

"You can't destroy an idea like that", he said testily. "It's not being contested, or challenged, or even discussed. It's just a small hole in a formula that is still logically complete. Look at the start and finish. Look at the narrative arc. Think about what it means. What's different?"

"DA HOLE! Hole's dere! Loogit dat hole!" admonished the nearest, craning his ninety-rasher neck around the hocks of the swine in front of him and turning away. "Is DIFRUNT." grunted the sow next to him, twitching her shit-encrusted curlicue tail in a wordless reflex of dismissal. Her mean little eyes never left the tiny divot in the facade for a second.

The man sighed. He did a lot of that these days.

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Fearless prediction:

After this recent round of 'be true to yourself' has faded away into obscurity, the next meme to push its head through the morning soil will be 'it's OK to be beautiful, because we are beautiful yet tragic/soulful/troubled and therefore TRULY beautiful' will be back to sell a whole lot more sandwiches, franchises, toasters, widgets, etc.

GET THESE PEOPLE OFF MY PLANET.