Double Flee A

It started with "life's little instruction book". Pretty soon there was a sequel. "More little instructions" or something. Tears were choked back throughout the land as people read heartwarming yarns, anecdotes, aphorisms and country wisdoms. Then the real shitstorm started. This should sound familiar -- "chicken soup for the soul". There were more than a couple of sequels to that one, because as it turns out there are millions of people who need inspirational stories to help them cope, which is strange considering that their lives are, historically speaking, better than any one group's has ever been. People like teenage girls - -"chicken soup for the teenaged girl's soul", nurses, mothers, I'm guessing any group of women, really. In fact, out of all the possibilites for titles to this irritating deluge of brave smiles through the pain, tears and laughter and comfort, I can think of only one chicken soup book you'll never ever see, and that's "chicken soup for the chicken's soul." I wish somebody would make that thing and just fill it with the horrors of the ages, stories of innocent people frozen in fear, helpless to stop the senseless screaming horror of it all, from Kafka's childlike fears all the way to sexually perverse, demented surrealism. That's the book America needs. Comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, which should be everyone's hobby, doesn't mean filling your potpourri-laden house with little books depicting how great it all could be if you would open your heart to the love all around you between shopping trips to oppression-mart, bedrock of modern slavery. "Chicken soup for the chicken's soul" would absolutely sell like crazy. People's lives are empty. They DO need a form of chicken soup for the soul. But the little books defeat their intended purpose; the real remedy is to confront people with the silliness of their percieved needs and the ridiculous ways in which they try to fulfill them, such as buying shit they don't need.

posted by dale @ 7:05 PM