My arguably obsessive files on the state of the world, a.k.a the mess we are in, include one labelled “You Have Mistaken Me For Someone Else,” as a repository for offers to curate this, moisturize that, and improve my “email deliverability.”
asserted
You → include → deliverability
It is evident that many people live in ways I could not emulate and do not wish to.
uncertain
I → live → ways
And also that marketers have surprising trouble telling me from our libertine liberal elite.
asserted
marketers → have → elite
For instance the moisturizer from the New York Times “Wirecutter,” a sometimes-useful guide to “lifestyle hacks” if I had a lifestyle or were into hacks.
asserted
I → have → hacks
Instead they lost me at hello, a.k.a. “Do you need a different moisturizer for each season?” to which my response was “No, the tap works year round.”
asserted
tap → lose → which
But evidently they had something different in mind.
asserted
they → have → mind
I won’t dwell on the demoralizing offer to “Improve Your Chess Rating” that arrived right after achieving my lifetime peak.
asserted
that → dwell → peak
But hot off the presses here’s another Times item, Canadian-girl-makes-good, where “She Makes the Impossible Happen for Her Ultrarich Clients.”
asserted
Impossible → ’ → Clients
To mistake me for the ultrarich would take some doing.
asserted
mistake → mistake → doing
But it’s also weird that they thought I’d get a vicarious thrill from this debauchery.
asserted
I → ’ → debauchery
If you get the joke about the preacher who read the Bible and the Times every day to know what both sides were thinking, you’re aware that the “Grey Lady” is the sober, reputable voice of wacky woke liberalism.
asserted
Lady → get → liberalism
It favours DEI, loathes Donald Trump, and wants higher taxes, Net Zero, income redistribution, an anti-fun nanny state and blah blah blah progressive orthodoxy.
asserted
It → favour → taxes
Yet it also celebrates grotesque displays of hedonism among those whose rank and wealth bring privileges.
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rank → celebrate → privileges
And it’s no coincidence.
asserted
it → ’ → ?
I won’t wallow in the horrifying details.
asserted
I → wallow → details
You have the Interwebs on your computer, your phone and possibly also your watch and can read it for yourself if you find high-flyers with pointless lives and huge bank accounts bathing in champagne alluring.
uncertain
flyers → have → champagne
As many people apparently do, since the influencer or whatever she is in question has some two million followers online and a contract for a “scripted series” to somehow push her over-the-top existence over another top or something.
asserted
she → do → top
Suffice it to say that one featured event she created, or possibly curated, for a client evidently determined to prove money can’t buy class, involved spending six figures just on Dom Pérignon sprayed on party-goers by … um … sexy young women in revealing outfits.
uncertain
money → suffice → outfits
Not exactly Woke 1.0, is it?
asserted
it → wake → 1.0
As philosopher J. Budziszewski observes, people disinclined to obey natural law are inclined to deny its existence.
asserted
people → observe → existence
The piece calls it “pointless excess” with apparent glee, revelling in the final cost of all this wasted high-tone booze, including “artisanal” tequila, being “$226,000 and change” and quoting the facilitator of this sinful display that “Honestly, (the client) would have spent more.
asserted
client → call → more
But he got hit hard at the casino the night before.
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he → hit → casino
Not hard enough, I say.
asserted
I → say → ?
(Cue the opening scene of Diamonds are Forever.)
asserted
Diamonds → cue → scene
But the Times, and the entrepreneur, know their audience: nearly 3,000 people “paid anywhere from $1,500 to $25,000 for a table at the outdoor club” without even knowing the host.
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people → know → host
“But that hardly mattered.
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that → matter → ?
What the glossy strangers provided was an appropriately uproarious backdrop when the inevitable reels of the blowout would stream on social media.
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reels → provide → media
So there was a point, hidden in plain sight: obscene excess that would have had Caligula talking like Cato the Elder.
asserted
Caligula → be → Cato
But surely the Times too should declare censoriously that the money could have been better spent on the homeless, the carbon footprint was the size of the Chicxulub crater and as ominous that Narcissism inhibits compassion and so on.
uncertain
Narcissism → declare → compassion
Instead the piece is celebratory to the point of parody, chortling that our heroine “has flown to Paris to retrieve the largest croissant in that city to please the daughter of a Miami billionaire.”
asserted
heroine → chortle → billionaire
“Luxury Beliefs Go Wild” for your private public pleasure.
asserted
Beliefs → go → pleasure
If you’re wondering how the rich can roll about in cash and wasted luxury foodstuffs cackling in ways Marie Antoinette would have found disquieting while Times readers savour the frisson, consider that one of this panderer-to-conspicuous-consumption’s working mottos is, “Our job is to execute, not judge.”
asserted
job → wonder → consumption
Non-judgementality gives you licence to bask in privileged excess while flaunting your social conscience.
asserted
judgementality → give → conscience
If you care to.
asserted
you → care → ?
Yet again, they appear to have mistaken me for someone else.
asserted
they → appear → someone
I’d be out back hosing off the tequila with municipal moisturizer muttering “O Tempora O Mores.”
asserted
I → hose → Mores
But with a client list who “must fork over an annual fee of $100,000 and agree to book $1 million in yearly travel,” the mere planning of which would kill me, I don’t suppose they care.
asserted
they → fork → me
The Aporia
