Scene 2, Part 3

Two ladies perch at the front of the class, sip their Costa coffee.

Alecia: “I am not content, because when I see Alex’s father, I feel inferior. Because fuck it, social status changes everything. It shouldn’t get to me, but it does.

When I say that, I mean I’ll change. And the worst part is, I’ll love it.

I’ve been trained well. All my rearing and private school education has been in singular preparation for this wildcard situation.

Massive plus.

It will help me become skinny.”

Fleur: “Hashtag “katemiddletoned”.

I have got to say that if hashtags were a profession, I’d be fucking winning.”

Alecia: “I have completely and utterly fallen for this man.”

Scene 2, Part 1

He hailed from Studio 54
On the moon –
Shuttered chest, curl-tipped toes, oriental-space-via-millefeuille fusion shit.

He had the background,
But no more vision.

So he bought some hash and got his visions,
And he moved the moon and he shifted the stars,
Tacked up a period in between ’54’ so it read:
“5.4”.

Something new!
– He reclined.
There were divans in this borrowed fantasy.

And the moon was thrilled
And the hash dealer was happy
And the thrift stores gained some business.

But the professor didn’t really notice –

There was still some guy looking
Out the window of his class
Wearing pointy-ass shoes.

Scene 4, Part 3

And then I realised,
I had an Aspartame Daddy.

Scene 1, Part 4

Going to name my child Soba… or my cat.

Neither exist, and maybe I’m condemning these foetal beings, still in their ideational infancy, to gluten-free, Japanese-centric lives.

But, I’m cool with that.

I like names with two syllables. I like names that can be pronounced in any language, and ones that go well on a Starbucks’ cup.

When I take my cat or child to Starbucks, they’ll order their soy latté grandés without the extra stress of having to invent an alias.

My second born shall be Millefeuille.

Scene 2, Part 2

He referred to style as some visual Esperanto.

“Lo!”, he exclaimed. “Cross-cultural negotiation can, nay must be conducted via hat and scarf and sock. Only one thousand people may be native to style globally. Its codes are understood by many, but spoken fluently by few.”

Git.

I replied: “Style, like Esperanto? Easy to learn, sir? Nay! Free from politics? Pah! Auxiliary? Hardly.”

His pseudo-cosmopolitanism was dripping all over my millefeuille. So I took his “visual Esperanto” and raised him one:

“Style is demiurgic manuscript”.

And then all that was left was the hollow thwang of increasingly complex analogies and the foreboding doom of Malapropisms.

Lo.

Scene 9, Part 2

Think you’re pretty clever coming up with the phrase: “The medium is the message, the lens is the microphone”.

That’s the stuff thesis titles are made of. Good job. Have a millefeuille. Sip some green tea. Take the rest of the day off.

Then you realise “lens” is already kind of a metaphor…an eye-based metaphor… you’re not even adhering to the same sensory framework.

Or maybe it’s not a metaphor. Maybe it’s an image. ?!… ?

You Google the word “lens”.

Yep, definitely a metaphor ..

But maybe if the medium is the MASSAGE, then having a lens be a microphone isn’t so bad? Sip some green tea. Take the rest of the day off.

Scene 1, Part 3

Wake up thinking I’m Frida Khalo.

Paint myself. Don’t have paints or a canvas, so use lipstick and foundation and my actual face.

Repeat the phrase “I was born a bitch. I was born a painter.”

Put flowers on my head. Consider eating Mexican food. Feel repulsed by my own lack of cultural depth. Still, crave tacos.

Why is Orientalism so often wrapped up in attitudes to food? Mmmm… Orientalism. Now can’t stop thinking about fried rice.

Stare at myself in the mirror. Try very hard to grow a monobrow.

Fried rice.

Feel a little lonely. Wander around my kitchen.

FRIED RICE.

Identity crisis. My culture bone is broken, just like Frida’s ribs, pelvis, spinal cord.

Suddenly remember why I do LIBERAL arts. Thesis paper identified: “Paints, Floral Arrangements, Monobrows: Situating Frida Khalo within a contemporary culturo-feminist matrix, with extra notes on globalization and international cuisine

Scene 4, Part 2

An hour into the lesson:

Trying to decide what happens to imperfect Hermès bags.

Much discussion around industry environmental regulations. Burning is not a legal option.

Leave class with a feeling that there exists some “Mecca of Hermès”, some nirvanic evolution of Chernobyl, wherein vast buildings shiver, filled to explosion capacity with pock-marked crocodile skins and saddle weaves with slightly flawed structural tension. Nuclear waste.

One day the Chinese will discover this mecca and unleash factory second Birkins into a hungry market, destabilising the very foundations of the French luxury industry with oversupply and flawed produce. Terrorism.

Conclusion:

Screw the environment. Burn the bags. Stay ahead of the Chinese.

Geopolitics. Serious shit, via Hermès.

Scene 1, Part 1

Typical Arts student. Fingers in every pie.

Then you decide you want a sandwich.

No dear, you gave up bread and butter when you reached for the apple pastry and whipped cream.

And then you realized whole wheat was more dependable than millefeuille.

And then your millefeuille flaked all over your pencil skirt.

And then you were like “WTF AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE AND MY PENCIL SKIRT AND MY MILLEFEUILLE?”

Millefeuille isn’t even a type of pie.

Typical Arts student.