Madonna and Other Scattered Objects

We invited Enrique the Gay Philosopher to guest blog on White Courtesy Telephone.  In this installment, he uses the latest issue of OUT Magazine to explore the BIG QUESTIONS that exercise the minds of people in the gay community …

There’s a cover photo of Madonna, then this photograph, six short pages into the magazine: a beautiful man, strong-jawed, bearded and most noticeably dirty.  But why?  The most compelling explanation I’ve heard is that it’s a visual pun: Acknowledging that we have succeeded in sweeping aside many barbarous stereotypes, the editors of the magazine now ironically encourage sex with a miner.

The interview with Madonna raises new questions.  No one will stop calling it the Eiffel Tower if I replace one of its beams.  But what if I replace ten? or a hundred? or all of them?  At what point does it strain our sense to identify it with the structure built by Gaustave Eiffel?  Philosophers call this the problem of identity conditions for scattered objects, and it arises with other historic structures like Cher.  We might remove a rib here, enhance a breast there, replace her nose entirely, so that over time we’re left with only a few ratty bits of the original Cher.  Would the creature then really be Cher?  I should mention that Madonna claims her supernaturally youthful appearance was achieved without plastic surgery.  Yeah, right, and I’m the Eiffel Tower!

Comments

[ahfukit]

Oh, please not to make the eiffel tower into that physique. I make the pee-pee.

[ahfukit]

(fwiw, had a gay dream the other night; how do you guys put up with that stuff??)

[Tony Bologna]

That kind of stuff never bothered me. I had an uncle, from Sicily, had erotic dreams about Omar Shariff his entire life. Never interfered with his ability to womanize or raise 12 children. If you want to get it off your chest, you should tell us your dream, ahfukit. Sally, I think, can help you. She told me she once read Man and His Symbols cover to cover.

[ahfukit]

Tony, I cannot do that because of a confidentiality agreement with my subconscious, but I will say this, excerpted unedited from a recent exchange with a younger man in the arts:

Kissing is usually better than sex. Sex is better than no sex. No sex is better than poverty. Poverty is better than death. Death is better than living in chains. Haircutting is an art, but haircutters are shallow and scary -- a paradox. Creativity manifests in everything; try not to limit it. Amen.

[ahfukit]

(p.s. My mother was quite fond of Omar Sharif, but married my father, a full-figured man of Bologna. Love is mysterious, is it not? Thank god.)

[Enrique]

My barber is part hairstylist, part phrenologist. Nobody who spends 10 hours a day pondering people's heads is shallow, in my view.

[ahfukit]

Interesting point, Enrique. I say all are shallow, you say none are shallow. But are we really at loggerheads?

I really do think the best are artists, a sincere compliment. But I puzzle at anyone being able to spend 10 hours a day in a room lined with mirrors; that is a particular form of hell to me.

Yep, that's my bias, definitely. Can't see how spending that much time in physical self-regard is healthy, or character-constructive. But, Enrique, I like your phrenology metaphor. Free your head, 'fukit, free your head. Perhaps your hair will follow.

[ahfukit]

Ms. Wilde? I have my dream ready now, if you please:

Ok, Sharon Stone is Preznit Bushe, see? She delivers the state of the union from between her fabulous thighs. Right in the middle, a stroke of genius: VP Fluffy teabags her, and continues, completely investing her through his lower digestive tract. Certain portions of her formidable anatomy prove intractable and orbit Preznit Fluffy as a loquacious minor planet, nattering on and on about stink or quim and how to aspire beyond uranus. Aphasia Carrera becomes the new VP, perfectly suited to keeping Fluffy fluffed. Thus stimulated, (s)he effects social and economic reforms unprecedented in the history of porn. Raise an octave and repeat, a closed loop.

I don't know why I thought this was gay, but it was weird.

[Doctor Dread]

Processing ...

[Sally Wilde]

I see the trappings of an individuation dream -- the Whore archetype (Stone), the Knave archetype (Bush), and others, but I think it more likely you simply fell asleep with your copy of Fluffy Does the Oval Office in your DVD player. I spoke with Enrique today about your dream, and his only comment was "yuck."

[ahfukit]

Thanks, Sally. I'm sure Enrique meant "yuck" in the best possible sense.

Cher, dear (or whatever's left of you) what do you have to say?

[ahfukit]

Dreams again. This time Enrique walking down my perfectly clothed street tout nu (like in the picture but sideways.) He walked past the futon store, The Center for the Advancement of Different People, and through a rainbow that hovered softly as a patina on the entire neighborhood. He was on his way to the local reprise cinema. I could not read the marquee.

FYI: All was, apparently, well.

[Enrique the Gay Philosopher]

It was a double feature: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! There was also a short documentary about a Czech boy who spends quality time with his friend Dominic before picking up Chad, the American porn star, from the Prague airport.

I had my go-go boots on. I don't know where you get this tout nu stuff.

[ahfukit]

Thanks, Enrique. Blank marquees are such a bother. (I missed the boots a go go. Who nu?)