Some Similarities Between Osama bin Laden and Arthur Rimbaud
There is a boy who has captured a considerable amount of my heed lately, and that boy is called Osama bin Laden (or, if you’re in the CIA, UBL). Obviously, I, along with the rest of the world, was aware of this boy for quite a while. But it wasn’t until one of the most disgusting days in recent history (that is, the day when the Supreme Court repealed formidable features of DOMA) that I began to discern the details of his origins; for, on that disgusting day, girl-boy Judith Butler told me that Osama, by residing in the Middle East, was surrounded by ungreivable lives — lives that could be erased and encroached upon without any kind of fuss because they already “inhabit a lost and destroyed zone.”
The devil-may-care attitude affixed to Osama’s homeland and peoples made him murderously upset. After some further investigation, I found that Osama’s consternation correlated to that of Arthur Rimbaud’s. In the late 19th century, Arthur declared war on the Western world with his poem “What Do We Care, My Heart.” He wanted America to “vanish!” He screamed: “Power, Justice, History, fall!” A century later, Osama, too, declared war against the advance, civilized nations, telling them (though, really, just America): “You are not unaware of the injustice, repression, and aggression that have befallen Muslims through the alliance of Jews, Christians, and their agents, so much so that Muslims blood has become the cheapest blood and their money and wealth are plundered by enemies.”
Uh-huh, both of these boys have bellicose bones to pick with, what Judith Butler describes as, secular modern states. The traits these countries confer upon their subjects — ones that make their lives grievable — violently appall Arthur and Osama, as Arthur and Osama exhibit an affinity for behaviors that don’t comply with those of normative Western humans. What follows are a few of the ways in which both Arthur and Osama contrast with humans from democratic, Capitalistic societies.
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Alexandra Petri and John Deming Should Probably Get Married Because They Have A Lot In Common Because They Are Both Considerably Misinformed About Poetry
I intentionally missed most of the inauguration of Bruce Springsteen’s boyfriend. Symbols of democracy and freedom make my tummy quite queasy. I prefer the enchantment of The Little Mermaid to the mediocrity of the middle class and the person that they pick to govern them. But a couple of days after The Boss’s “partner” was publicly sworn in, I overheard two princess friends of mine discussing a poetry quarrel that arose from this inauguration. Supposedly a poet named Richard (I’m not sure of his last name, and considering his connection to Obama, he’s certainly not talented enough to Google or even Bing) read. The poem prompted a girl Washington Post blogger, Alexandra Petri, to declare that poetry is probably dead. A poetry boy, John Deming, quickly rendered a rebuttal. After reading both, I’ve come to the conclusion that each has a very un-magical, unsupportable viewpoint on poetry.
To begin, I’d like to declare that being “dead” isn’t deplorable: it’s delightful. Sylvia adored the dead. She covered herself in concentration camp victims. Her skin was “bright as Nazi lampshade.” Was Sylvia disempowered or on the margins of culture? No way, progressive gays! Sylvia was a spitfire. She slashed her daddy and her canonized poet husband. Charles Baudelaire, one of the best boy poets ever, sought the dead too. In “Spleen (ii)” Charles boasts that his skull holds “more corpses than a common grave.” Identification with dead doesn’t disadvantage Charles either. He’s a dandy — someone superlatively superior to humans, a boy who follows his own special set of laws. The dead are special and unique. They’re much more powerful than humans. To call someone or something dead is a term of incredible endearment, and should be embraced.
A Lot — Basically All — Gay People are Normal and Don’t Deserve Any Special Attention Whatsoever
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Newlyweds were kind of popular shows on the telly when I came to the conclusion that if I were to ever do that disgusting activity that you should probably never do it would be with a boy.
Sometimes, while flipping through the trillions of telly channels, I would stop on Queer Eye. The snippets that I saw of the “queer eyes” turned and twisted my tummy terribly. They had lots of product in their hair, wore insufferably strange trousers, and, just in general, looked as if they had spent the last gazillion hours scrubbing themselves in a shower stall. All these boys seemed to care about was their bodies. They didn’t watch PG movies or collect teddy bears or commit French poetry to memory. Their primary concern was the appearance of their flesh as well as the flesh of the straight guys that they were making over.
Straight people are just as corporeal as gays. Nick Lachey is a straight boy. He sort of has massive muscles and wears product in his hair. Whenever I saw Nick on the Newlyweds, I said to myself, “I do not want to be like this boy. I want to be like Jessica!” Jessica was quirky and inquisitive. She was thoughtful about that which she interacted with. She asked questions, like why a tuna fish company would name themselves Chicken of the Sea. Nick seemed unable and unwilling to string sentences together. But Jessica was a cute chatterbox, like Anne Frank when she was in school.