Reference Materials

Call:
You know, it's that "post-modern sort of we're-in-the-know,
everything is referencing everything" thing. And people are okay with that.

Response:
Oh, I know what you mean. it's like, there I was in the cafeteria and there, at eye level, was this little wooden Easter Island head, on a counter, and someone, someone had fashioned, out of a paper napkin, out of a school cafeteria, food services, in bulk, bleached white paper napkin, a tiny tie on it.

I mean, there were so many things there. Like, Easter Island. And the commercialization of Easter Island. And commercialization. And forests being cut down. And men in ties, which references the fifties and the sixties and the seventies and now and the eighties and mainly Father Knows Best, right? The tie, that's also all about the colonization of the brown man by the white man, that's what. And multi-culturalism. And art, because it was a sculpture, and finally, after all that, the whole damn thing was taking place inside of a cafeteria. A school cafeteria, with all that implies: bad food. Mass production. Mean cafeteria ladies. Bad food. Pepsi machines, which calls to mind coke, which calls to mind the history of coke, which started with cocaine in it, and then it got taken out, which calls to mind who did the taking out and why?

It all got called up, from one giant pomo data bank, one huge thumb drive sitting on a floor with people walking on it, flashing one icon after another: Easter Island Head. Money. Environmental Degradation. Food and Our Health. Stereotyped People. The Floor (which, by the way, was linoleum, which conjured up A New Life With Plastics). And there were also Cash Registers which practically screamed Trying To Live on a Minimum Wage Income. And Those Little Stiles that make you remember the New York subway. And it was all there, and it all swirled around and around until, once the sound of it had risen and risen and drowned out everything and everybody, and nobody could hear or see anything, the little Easter Island guy wearing the paper napkin tie just stood up and screamed:

"WILL EVERYBODY PLEASE SHUT UP?!"