Bathroom Monologue: More Important Than Art Itself

Art began as an imitation of Life. A little simplified, a little streamlined, altering things to appeal to Life more than, say, going out and living. Paintings gave the illusion of depth, but remained two-dimensional. Statues gave the illusion of life, but remained static. Television gave the illusion of objectivity, but managed to be more subjective than Life itself.

Life saw merit in Art. It also saw the David’s amazing abs and all the clever, clipped dialogue on sitcoms, and began to lose track of itself. If Art was an imitation, then it was a representation. If it was a representation, then maybe it was accurate, or even ideal.

So then Life started imitating Art, wearing its logos on t-shirts, quoting from books and movies, dressing up as protagonists and the sexier antagonists at Halloween.

Art was scared shitless. Now Life was catching up to its creativity and sexiness. How was it supposed to maintain attention if Life was just as interesting, or worse, if people thought it was better?

So Art got a boob-job and a make-up girl. It got special effects teams and computer animation to make things way cooler than life ever did. It saw how living were scared of dying, and so it rubbed itself in impossible fight scenes that made death seem not just implausible but downright unlikely for whoever Life liked. And soundtracks. My God, the soundtracks.

But Life started carrying around those soundtracks on iPods and turned masterpieces into wallpaper. It was grabbing whatever Art it felt like and lining its birdcages with it. It was actually doing this because it now defined itself by Art and wanted it around all the time, but Art thought this meant it was being devalued. For fear of being tossed away, Art got another boob-job and began market testing its music.