- Sep 22, 2013
- 4,956
- 250
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This is a 'TrumpUSA-abstract' inspired by Reversi.
Signing off,
====
A sociologist named Dr. Satan was collecting kids' schoolhouse doodles (from art-classes) to see the 'tone' of youngsters' views towards creativity in modern America. Satan wanted to see if capitalism was somehow 'coloring' Americans' perspectives on imagination. He found a nifty little doodle of an 'evil elf' which he believed was a nice 'symbol' of consumerism blended with folklore (e.g., Christmas-themed ghost-stories)!
Satan decided to travel to South America and look at some authentic old-world handcrafted dolls being sold by merchants/artisans on the street and compare them to Barbie dolls in America. Satan theorized that a nice presentation of the 'development' or 'evolution' of doll-toys would reveal intriguing trends in creativity-orientations about consumers and merchants. After all, toys represented interactive self-awareness!
Satan created a rather handsome illustration of the shifts in trends and even used Cartesian graphs and re-presentations of culture-evolution 'distortions' to characterize the sensitive links between consumerism and creativity. Could toys themselves be understood in terms of a malleable (or inventive!) culture?
Satan decided to contact his colleague at Yale University who was studying a related subject, Dr. Andrews. Andrews loved Satan's idea and suggested that what Satan was really investigating was the contouring of boundaries and limits within the 'framework' of a constructive consumerism consciousness (e.g., LEGO city-sets). Andrews suggested Satan investigate the philosophical symbolism of the ancient (but developed) board-game Othello (sometimes referred to as 'Reversi' or 'Go'). Othello involved two sides of pieces, one half white and the other half black, being placed/arrayed in positions to create ideal substitution (or displacement) schemes for trapping/caging. Satan liked Andrews' suggestion!
Satan decided to attend an Othello board-game tournament at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. He noted how the various gifted/eager Othello players were using a variety of schemes/strategies to create intriguing caging-orientations designed to 'slow down' the pace of substitution progressions employed by their opponents/rivals. Satan thought it was all very very interesting...
An Othello board reveals strange and sometimes haunting patterns of pieces being arranged in horizontal and vertical lines but also creating diagonal sequences of territorial advantage. A player could only substitute or displace his/her opponent's piece (of the opposite-color!) by placing his/her own piece next to an opponent's piece which sat adjacent or next to his/her own piece. These displacement-arrays designed to create territorial domination (by simple counting of the total number of pieces 'reversed' or 'converted'), Satan realized, could be referenced in consumerism-culture discussions about the process of toys/goods design/aesthetics 'reversibility' (e.g., Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola). Reversibility was of course conducive to market evolution and negotiation (e.g., NYSE-Euronext).
Satan decided to visit multiple small-towns in America and visit their firestations and ask the firefighters to play Othello and discuss how the experience of playing the game reminded them of the general 'intelligibility' of society/consumerism jargon itself (e.g., Facebook, Amazon.com, etc.). Satan discovered that many of these surprisingly-intrigued firemen thought that Othello did indeed remind them of 'consumerism lattices.' Satan was about to complete his 'lifestyle-oriented' research...
After Satan presented his findings to the Society of Anthropologists, the American celebrities Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise (who happened to be reading Satan's work while linking Dianetics and Dan Brown's modernism-Christian novels with consumerism imagination --- e.g., WikiTravel) took note. Hanks and Cruise invited Satan to play Othello with them, and he accepted! The trio discussed everything from mega-trends to LEGO city-sets to even the video-game adaptation of Dante's Inferno!
Satan then started looking at new age horror-films and perusing the fan-blogs and posts of horror-film/comics writers/fans on Internet forums (such as Horror.com). He noted that many modern-day horror-fans associated consumerism/capitalism-paranoia (i.e., 9/11) with pedestrian aesthetics! Could consumerism itself therefore be linked to folkloric-imagination (e.g., RoboCop)? After all, Americans were fascinated by junk-food...
Finally, Satan decided to rent the Woody Allen magazine-culture themed sardonic film Celebrity which featured a wild and unruly Leo DiCaprio portraying a hypothetical uncontrollable American movie-star (named Brandon Darrow) who symbolized all of the 'glamour-labyrinths' of modern America. Satan concluded that consumerism, like capitalism, celebrity, and Othello, was something like a 'gauntlet.'
Satan then compared the philosophies behind the Hindu gods Shiva (destructor), Vishnu (protector), and Krishna (negotiator) with folk-tales about dragons. Satan was evaluating how the Hindu gods viewed 'consumption' itself and compared these views to dragon-tales about anarchy and avarice and concluded that modern metaphysics was somehow an allegory of capitalism-schizophrenia (e.g., Enron, Gulf War, Exxon-Valdez, etc.)!
Satan then visited U.S. President Donald Trump and discussed with him the special significance of modern industrialization-themed toys such as Tonka trucks and Transformers robots. Satan's work was considered so mainstream and symbolic now that President Trump was glad to meet with him and chat. Satan and Trump agreed that new age consumerism-iconic toys such as the Transformers super-robot Metroplex (a giant warrior who shape-shifts into a robot-city as well as an impressive and mobile battle-station) symbolized 'Wall Street consciousness.'
GOD: This is excellent work...
SATAN: Consumerism is linked to psychology!
GOD: Indeed; that's good news for America's 'cholesterol-culture.'
SATAN: True; Burger King should be considered convenient and not spiritual.
GOD: And reversibly(!), Amazon.com should be considered creative and not junk-food.
SATAN: It takes a lot of work to convert capitalism into philosophy.
GOD: Why do you think that is?
SATAN: People associate merchants with profit, not hospitality.
GOD: Perhaps Toys 'R Us can change all that!
SATAN: Americans need to focus on the vices of capitalism --- e.g., toxic-waste.
GOD: Yes, industrialization-related pollution is a scar...
SATAN: Perhaps the Environmental Protection Agency will be a lighthouse.
GOD: I like the idea of kids playing SimCity video-games and dreaming about architecture.
SATAN: Maybe they'll make more movies about commercial vanities...
GOD: They already have made one --- Brewster's Millions!
SATAN: Let's watch that on Netflix; perhaps TrumpUSA can become...a hobby.
GOD: Fancy-thinking.
====
Signing off,
====
A sociologist named Dr. Satan was collecting kids' schoolhouse doodles (from art-classes) to see the 'tone' of youngsters' views towards creativity in modern America. Satan wanted to see if capitalism was somehow 'coloring' Americans' perspectives on imagination. He found a nifty little doodle of an 'evil elf' which he believed was a nice 'symbol' of consumerism blended with folklore (e.g., Christmas-themed ghost-stories)!
Satan decided to travel to South America and look at some authentic old-world handcrafted dolls being sold by merchants/artisans on the street and compare them to Barbie dolls in America. Satan theorized that a nice presentation of the 'development' or 'evolution' of doll-toys would reveal intriguing trends in creativity-orientations about consumers and merchants. After all, toys represented interactive self-awareness!
Satan created a rather handsome illustration of the shifts in trends and even used Cartesian graphs and re-presentations of culture-evolution 'distortions' to characterize the sensitive links between consumerism and creativity. Could toys themselves be understood in terms of a malleable (or inventive!) culture?
Satan decided to contact his colleague at Yale University who was studying a related subject, Dr. Andrews. Andrews loved Satan's idea and suggested that what Satan was really investigating was the contouring of boundaries and limits within the 'framework' of a constructive consumerism consciousness (e.g., LEGO city-sets). Andrews suggested Satan investigate the philosophical symbolism of the ancient (but developed) board-game Othello (sometimes referred to as 'Reversi' or 'Go'). Othello involved two sides of pieces, one half white and the other half black, being placed/arrayed in positions to create ideal substitution (or displacement) schemes for trapping/caging. Satan liked Andrews' suggestion!
Satan decided to attend an Othello board-game tournament at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. He noted how the various gifted/eager Othello players were using a variety of schemes/strategies to create intriguing caging-orientations designed to 'slow down' the pace of substitution progressions employed by their opponents/rivals. Satan thought it was all very very interesting...
An Othello board reveals strange and sometimes haunting patterns of pieces being arranged in horizontal and vertical lines but also creating diagonal sequences of territorial advantage. A player could only substitute or displace his/her opponent's piece (of the opposite-color!) by placing his/her own piece next to an opponent's piece which sat adjacent or next to his/her own piece. These displacement-arrays designed to create territorial domination (by simple counting of the total number of pieces 'reversed' or 'converted'), Satan realized, could be referenced in consumerism-culture discussions about the process of toys/goods design/aesthetics 'reversibility' (e.g., Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola). Reversibility was of course conducive to market evolution and negotiation (e.g., NYSE-Euronext).
Satan decided to visit multiple small-towns in America and visit their firestations and ask the firefighters to play Othello and discuss how the experience of playing the game reminded them of the general 'intelligibility' of society/consumerism jargon itself (e.g., Facebook, Amazon.com, etc.). Satan discovered that many of these surprisingly-intrigued firemen thought that Othello did indeed remind them of 'consumerism lattices.' Satan was about to complete his 'lifestyle-oriented' research...
After Satan presented his findings to the Society of Anthropologists, the American celebrities Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise (who happened to be reading Satan's work while linking Dianetics and Dan Brown's modernism-Christian novels with consumerism imagination --- e.g., WikiTravel) took note. Hanks and Cruise invited Satan to play Othello with them, and he accepted! The trio discussed everything from mega-trends to LEGO city-sets to even the video-game adaptation of Dante's Inferno!
Satan then started looking at new age horror-films and perusing the fan-blogs and posts of horror-film/comics writers/fans on Internet forums (such as Horror.com). He noted that many modern-day horror-fans associated consumerism/capitalism-paranoia (i.e., 9/11) with pedestrian aesthetics! Could consumerism itself therefore be linked to folkloric-imagination (e.g., RoboCop)? After all, Americans were fascinated by junk-food...
Finally, Satan decided to rent the Woody Allen magazine-culture themed sardonic film Celebrity which featured a wild and unruly Leo DiCaprio portraying a hypothetical uncontrollable American movie-star (named Brandon Darrow) who symbolized all of the 'glamour-labyrinths' of modern America. Satan concluded that consumerism, like capitalism, celebrity, and Othello, was something like a 'gauntlet.'
Satan then compared the philosophies behind the Hindu gods Shiva (destructor), Vishnu (protector), and Krishna (negotiator) with folk-tales about dragons. Satan was evaluating how the Hindu gods viewed 'consumption' itself and compared these views to dragon-tales about anarchy and avarice and concluded that modern metaphysics was somehow an allegory of capitalism-schizophrenia (e.g., Enron, Gulf War, Exxon-Valdez, etc.)!
Satan then visited U.S. President Donald Trump and discussed with him the special significance of modern industrialization-themed toys such as Tonka trucks and Transformers robots. Satan's work was considered so mainstream and symbolic now that President Trump was glad to meet with him and chat. Satan and Trump agreed that new age consumerism-iconic toys such as the Transformers super-robot Metroplex (a giant warrior who shape-shifts into a robot-city as well as an impressive and mobile battle-station) symbolized 'Wall Street consciousness.'
GOD: This is excellent work...
SATAN: Consumerism is linked to psychology!
GOD: Indeed; that's good news for America's 'cholesterol-culture.'
SATAN: True; Burger King should be considered convenient and not spiritual.
GOD: And reversibly(!), Amazon.com should be considered creative and not junk-food.
SATAN: It takes a lot of work to convert capitalism into philosophy.
GOD: Why do you think that is?
SATAN: People associate merchants with profit, not hospitality.
GOD: Perhaps Toys 'R Us can change all that!
SATAN: Americans need to focus on the vices of capitalism --- e.g., toxic-waste.
GOD: Yes, industrialization-related pollution is a scar...
SATAN: Perhaps the Environmental Protection Agency will be a lighthouse.
GOD: I like the idea of kids playing SimCity video-games and dreaming about architecture.
SATAN: Maybe they'll make more movies about commercial vanities...
GOD: They already have made one --- Brewster's Millions!
SATAN: Let's watch that on Netflix; perhaps TrumpUSA can become...a hobby.
GOD: Fancy-thinking.
====
