Bauhaus Fashionettes vs. the Discothèque Sirens

[goldenmyst]

I. Bauhaus Fashionettes vs. the Discothèque Sirens

A lone fashionette, in her Bauhaus solitude, is lost among the Discothèque Sirens whose glamour contrasts with her monochrome dress. But she learns disco moves from the Queen of the ball.
A man asks her about the geometric patterns on her blouse and she tells him of the German architecture turned into fashion.
She says, “We of the Bauhaus movement are minimalists. We build simplicity into our art and dress. We aren’t slaves to fashion but rather quite comfortable in our utilitarian clothes.”
He replies, “Your modesty is a form of minimalism that I find quite fetching.”
“Am I back to the basics enough for you to take me out of this temple to the waning God of Disco to a coffee shop where Japanese ambiance fills the quiet?”
“Wabi-Sabi waits for us.”
“I see you are educated in that unpretentious school of aesthetics. God, that really turns me on.”
“Care to join me for a materialist lifestyle?”
“Does having cable TV make me bourgeoisie?”
“Not in my book. And you get first choice of movies at the video store.”
“Kind of like the ladies first custom but more gender studies since movies can be part of a feminist curriculum.”
He replies, “Definitely not patronizing like me opening your door.”
“More like me giving the cooperative lid of your Mason jar a twist.”
“It came unsealed when I marched with the women’s rally with my Mom.”
“I know I am not sounding very intellectual but you won my heart.”
“Even scholars get mushy between exams.”
“But I have a dilemma. Now I’ll be a card carrying member of a movie rental shop. But, I was in a Trotskyite activist group as a teenager. Do you think Trotsky would approve of me patronizing the capitalist entertainment industry?”
“He’d be in line at the register.”
“It all sounds like fantasy. We need to focus on class struggle.”
“A videotape player in every home so they can fast forward to skip the ads.”
“It all seems so fanciful. ‘Moviegoers of the world unite. All you have to lose is your ads.’“
“You can check out Doctor Zhivago from the library and get romantic coffee with your Bolshevik beignet.”
“That sounds so decadent.”
“Café au lait can get steamy when pressed to French lips.”
“Even the proletariat rents movies these days. It sounds very egalitarian because all classes go to those stores.”
Thereby, a marriage is made when his color cinema enters into her black and white movie.

II. Even Reds Get Moon-eyed On Saturday Night

“Now, you have me at the video store. And I was promised the first pick of the movie. I have a yen for something with a socio-political subtext. Here, is one, ‘The Trial’ an Orson Welles movie based on the Kafka novel. That is my choice.”
“How Kafkaesque, but watching a guy accused of a nameless crime sounds kind of dreary.”
“No not at all! You just have to get in the right mindset. Paranoia can be healthy in small doses like salt on French fries.”
“Then what about ‘Rebel Without A Cause?’”
“My urban rebellion has a cause. But the alienated youth played by James Dean has its appeal. Hey, what about this one?”
“You mean ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’? Doesn’t that clash with your feminism?”
“Well yes kind of, but it could be construed as empowering. Marilyn Monroe was ahead of her time. She seduced the president of the US after all. That takes power. Besides I am in the mood. As a woman who is not afraid to use her influence, I need to provide no more explanation.”
“After that thesis how can I object?”
“When we get to your pad, who will prepare the hors d’oeuvres for our movie night?”
“I can make popcorn and have a six-pack of cokes in the fridge.”
“Nonsense, junk food is out of the question. Do you have anything nutritious at your man cave for troglodytes?”
“I never got called that on a first date. But yes I have some leftover, Greek salad. Does that count as health conscious?”
“Does it have GMOs?”
“It is gastronomically mid-eastern and organic.”
“I mean genetically modified organisms you silly man.”
“I don’t know if the olives are hybrids or not.”
“Then we will have to go grocery shopping first. I can sense that your pantry is full of things I dare not even mention.”
“OK, here we are at the store. What about barbecue?”
“I love barbecue tempeh.”
“Ever since I read ‘Animal Farm’ I got a humanized view of farm animals.”
“I’d never dine on animate creatures.”
“I don’t dine on cartoons either.”
“But Bugs Bunny can be taken as an allegory for the sly subversive pursued by Elmer Fudd the omnivorous capitalist with a hunger for the freedom Bugs represents. Bugs outwits the hunter and turns the tables on his predatory corporate values.”
“I always thought Bugs Bunny was the symbol of a hippie who sold out to the free market ethics by dining on carrots that were grown on large farms that put the small farmer out of business.”
“You have it all wrong. Bugs knew better than to acquire his favorite food from the grocery store. The subtext of Bugs as a wily rebel indicates his disaffection from laissez faire economics. He is a role model for Marxism who escapes the bar code nation by lurking in the underground of American society as a subversive vegetarian.”
“In the interest of collectivism and environ-mental consciousness, we will dine on soy protein.”
“You will love my stir-fried tofu too. Do you have your card with you?”
“Wouldn’t me paying for dinner conflict with
your feminism?”
“That depends, on whose pocket you are in. Are you a running dog lackey of the capitalist imperialist oppressors?”
“I teach social studies to high school kids. But I am a knee-jerk bleeding heart liberal.”
“I am a socialist but buy my Bauhaus clothes from catalogs and they are pricey. Does that mean I’ve sold out?”
“Being true to yourself isn’t a luxury like going first class on a plane.”
“True, so if being myself is having a car, house, and front row seats to the opera does that absolve me from using my resources to help the poor?”
“Shall we break out my vintage Chablis and live like king and queen for tonight even though it was paid for by the almighty dollar?”
“Well, maybe just this once. But I’ll still vote for Bernie Sanders and read Noam Chomsky.”
“So will I darling. Let’s have pizza delivered.”
“Let’s also watch that great social satire program ‘Saturday Midnight Groove’.”
“You seem too cerebral for that show.”
“It makes me feel groovy and in the mood.”
“Since you aren’t wearing a mood ring your emotional weather is a mystery to me.”
“I let my hair down and laugh a lot.”
“You mean intellectuals like you can dig comedy shows for the masses?”
“Oh just watch me. I can get wild and wooly hearing those jokes.”
“I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Think again partner.”
“What happens next?”
“That is my secret ingredient.”
“Does it involve your facial expression which is that of a goldfish blowing bubbles?”
“Maybe my bubble blowing is yoga breathing to destress by sinking into my inner aquarium because a betta is lurking above.”
“I see you as a lonely little tetra seeking a way out of her fishbowl world.”
“Bingo, but it only happens when romance is in the air. So only if your wooing is romantic in nature will there be osculation.”
“Spoken like a true intellectual.”
“Whose heart is not up for grabs but rather soft caresses.”

III. Movie Night

“Well, we got out of the store without doing more than the necessary damage to your billfold.”
“I needed a woman to divert me from my path to dietary apocalypse.”
“You need only omit one word, that being ‘woman’. Anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of nutrition would know that day-old pizza is unacceptable.”
“The surgeon general would concur I am sure.”
“Then why do I have to tell you what is obvious?”
“Perhaps because I am part of the unwashed gender.”
“Well even though you again interject gender into this conversation at least you are acknowledging that you have much to learn.”
“Yes I do but now we have your delectable coconut bacon to replace my gastronomically brutal animal protein. What do you say we chow down?”
“First I need to appraise your refrigerator. If I must act as your schoolmarm tonight then let me do a thorough job.”
“Well then examine if you must. If I pass inspection it will be a miracle.”
“Indeed, look at your kitchen. The counters are caked in grease from a source I care not to know. Now please open the cooler door so that my eyes can roam.”
“Love how you phrase your instructions. This night is turning out to be a stroll through Webster’s.”
“I expect the Department of Health would shut down your mockery of all that is sanitary and sane for the Goddess’s sake.”
“Well, then take a peek. At least there is no crud caking the inner workings of my machine.”
“True, and look here. There is sushi which by the looks of it is the California roll vegan variety. But this inspection isn’t complete without a scent test. Though I am not a canine such as they have at the airport to smell for illegal substances some say I have a discerning olfactory sense.”
“Well, I can’t imagine how you’d object to my rice rolls complete with seaweed wrapping.”
“Ew. Now tell me honestly, how long has this mockery of all that is fresh and fair in this world
sat in your fridge.”
“Not past the expiration date for sure.”
“Are you kidding me? You, go by those arbitrary dates for edibility indicated by overworked people who process tons of food every day? Please tell me this is not your norm. Surely that Greek salad was bought today and meant to be consumed tonight.”
“Ok, I’ll tell you that.”
“I bet you would graze on that lettuce until it was so wilted you couldn’t stand it.”
“Of course, I might. But now I know better.”
“If this romance is to get off on the right foot then you simply must stop patronizing me. Be honest. Do you really have any sincere intention whatsoever of changing your habits? Or are you simply trying to placate me in order to get a kiss? I would lay odds in Vegas the latter is the operative factor.”
“Admittedly that is how my motives began. But I am seeing there is more to you than met my eye. You could instill in me values that go beyond the principles of sane dining.”
“Well, at least the wine is good. Wine gets better with aging, unlike most liquid refreshments. So let’s
drink a toast to salubrious living.”
“L’chaim, and bon appétit. I’ll drink to that.”
“You may yet pass muster in my boot camp for a healthy lifestyle. That has yet to be seen. But your cooperation has been most appreciated. For that, we can go through the preliminaries of light cousin kisses on the couch until the movie’s title sequence rolls by at which point I expect you to respect my need for total concentration on tonight’s entertainment. If you can get through this film on the gentlemanly preference for blondes without profaning Marilyn Monroe’s screen art then we are halfway toward the blue event horizon that could, possibly take us to a parallel universe in which you are the health food connoisseur you must become to win my heart.”
“Does that mean we forgo the pizza tonight?”
“Pizza will serve the purpose of an icebreaker. We’ll talk about how the modern pizza was first invented by Neapolitans as a tasty meal for workers on the go.”
“What will we talk about after that?”
“The nocturnal implications of listening to Ravel’s ‘Daphnis et Chloé’, you fill in the rest.”
“Pizza’s here. Out of respect for a venerable old tradition of ladies first, you may have the first piece.”
“Though the ladies first thing is a ritualistic way of keeping women down, I will accept the initial piece not because I in any way endorse that antiquated and chauvinistic ritual but rather because I haven’t eaten all day.”
“Glad your appetite is strong because someone has to finish off the side of breadsticks.”
“Are you implying that I am not curvy enough for you?”
“Nothing personal but women these days look too much like choir boys.”
“You want more sexual dimorphism like the Venus of Willendorf.”
“Those figurines were Rubenesque because they represented pregnant women.”
“So you must want me pregnant and barefoot?”
“Barbie has created a plague of anorexia.”
“You have it all wrong. Little girls are smarter than you give them credit for. They see the subtext of Barbie as surfing the gender stereotypes on her own journey into feminist role modeling. Beneath her slim and trim appearance is a warrior woman ready to unleash her ferocity on the patriarchy by rebuffing Ken’s advances when they are based on superficial and objectifying motives. She teaches girls that the sisterhood of women can include all morphologies. Indeed when women form bonds with their sisters they aren’t based on physique and that blonde doll befriends all manifestations of the feminine form.”
“She teaches young girls that to be a blonde bombshell is the greatest aspiration in life for their gender. That is obvious.”
“What may not be obvious to you is that Barbie is just as likely to be a doctor and a lawyer who shatters the glass ceiling these days. She enters into professions once limited to the sacred brotherhood of gentlemen. Note that Ken is also a hunk in the physical sense so the playing field in that respect is equal. But this plastic woman embodies the hopes of dreams of girls everywhere to transcend the concepts of physical being into a spiritual sense of the mind and heart. You men do tend to get hung up on a woman’s appearance with those testosterone-addled fantasies. But we women have evolved beyond the standardization that men hold us to. Women come in all shapes and sizes you know.”
“Hopefully not anemic.”
“Pop the movie in and quit putting your foot in your mouth before it gets stuck there.”
“Here it goes. God that pizza is good even with only veggies and sauce per your instructions.”
“Hey the closing credits are showing so I’ll have another slice of that heavenly Italian food. But I see there is no more. You took more than your share!”
“I thought as a woman with less muscle mass you would want fewer calories.”
“There you go again making assumptions about us women with little basis. I am not obsessive or neurotic about my figure. Just because I am thin doesn’t mean I measure every morsel I eat. You think all women want to be slim as pixie sticks to please their men, how arrogant.”
“Would you like me to order another one?”
“Are you crazy? If I dine anymore I won’t fit through the door but how will we spend the rest of our evening?”
“We could watch the 11 o’clock news. That
would appeal to your need to be aware of the pressing issues of our time.”
“The only thing pressed about those speaking suits is their starched smiles that beguile the masses with doublespeak designed to brainwash with dystopian lies.”
“Then let’s play scrabble.”
“Can your fragile masculinity take losing to me?”
“No worse than failing to get to first base with you.”
“Don’t give up for the night is still as young as a film noir starlet on her first cigarette.”
“Smoking isn’t sexy.”
“Antiquated customs have their charm.”
“Cigarette tar is as noxious as the smog in Manhattan.”
“You would have to smoke thirty cigarettes to inhale the equivalent of eight hours of breathing smog.”
“Let’s just get comfortable on this couch and breathe your perfume which has no carcinogens whatsoever.”
“Even my Parisian fragrance isn’t as sexy as that scintillating moment when Dietrich put a cigarette holder between her lips.”
“I happen to be the proud owner of a rare movie poster of Dietrich and Cesar Romero kissing in ‘The Devil is a Woman’ which is proudly tacked to the wall of my bedroom. Would you like to see it? That is if you can overlook his lamentable conservatism later in life.”
“Even dyed-in-the-wool daughters of Bolshevism like me can appreciate the symmetry of a man such as he. The prospect of gazing upon Marlene in such a pose with her Latin lover in the privacy of your bedchamber holds more than an academic fascination for me. Lead the way, good sir.”

IV. Warhol of Love

“Your bed sheets are tangled as though you’d just come in from a drunk. You must drink like a fish to have let your bed get into such a disarray.”
“I am a social drinker. Just a glass of Pinot Noir gets me through the night.”
“In the spirit of the women’s temperance society I look askance at men who need alcohol to make their nights placid. Is the liquor a red herring for a deeper existential angst such as a conflict between the id and the superego?”
“Not at all. My self-esteem is just fine why thank you.”
“I see you are not versed at all in Freudian lingo. That will have to be remedied if we are to further mess up your bed.”
“I know a phallic symbol from an Oedipus complex.”
“And you speak of such things in mixed company. Fortunately, I am a liberated woman and am not ruffled by such talk. So long as you don’t get into locker room innuendo such as would make even Jung blush we will be on good terms. Do you
even like Chaplin movies?”
“Love him. He was a circus clown for intellectuals.”
“How dare you profane the name of the almighty Chaplin! He was no clown. He created his own genre. Hence his name became a household word.”
“I got his underlying meanings. But ultimately he was a comic character, much like in the Three Stooges.”
“How could you compare the master of mime with those slapstick buffoons?”
“Well he was subtler.”
“He was a bulwark against fascism, a light in the darkness enfolding Europe. But I suspect you must be trying to provoke my ire in the hopes of a libidinal response.”
“Did it work?”
“I don’t have to answer that.”
“You don’t need too because your eyes are misty.”
“You wicked man. But tell me can you kiss like Chaplin? Or are you a clumsy member of the Three Stooges school of osculation. Much as your taste in
movies sounds palatable your bedroom signifies the
Pollock school of art as opposed to the Pointillism
I fancy.”
“I can get to the point in matters of intimacy.”
“Oh my, we are audacious tonight. In matters of romance there is no jumping the gun for me. One must work these things out like Socrates leading his pupils. But not like Aristotle. I don’t take kindly to logicians of the dry and mechanical sort. In such a case deconstruction is required. And I am not of a mood to engage in such dismantling of patriarchal logic tonight.”
“The only thing logical about me is that I make lesson plans for my students. But I am a comedian as a lecturer. High school kids wouldn’t pay attention otherwise.”
“I am one of a heart to appreciate a funny man. So long as you don’t use stereotypes of women in your standup routine. I would take umbrage at that sort of thing.”
“I respect women and would never poke fun at
their emotionalism.”
“Hey you’re treading on thin ice. Implying women are flighty creatures ruled by mood swings
is so passe and indeed downright offensive. If you
are to have any hope of tasting my lipstick such
banter must be eschewed.”
“All people are emotional. I get emotional over football.”
“Much as I find the brawn of those men attractive, I find the sport to be a prime example of chauvinistic brutes carrying on like boys. Men should grow out of that.”
“For me it is just a pastime like watching silent movies is for some. No dialogue just action. I see nothing wrong with that.”
“Oh my God. Next thing you will be telling me you like to sit in a circle with men and beat drums and howl at the moon.”
“Rest assured I don’t engage in barbaric rituals. Though I do yell at the players when they make a poorly executed play.”
“That sounds a bit more acceptable. At least you aren’t so sunk into your animus as to return to the
neolithic epoch.”
“Then do I meet the requirements for a peck on the lips?”
“You never told me how you kiss. Do you let your anima play when doing so? If so, we are in synchronicity.”
“I am not a mere animal whether in bed or out.”
“I see I shall have to explain each term as though you were a schoolboy. Anima, as in your inner feminine side. The woman in every man as there is animus in every woman. The paucity of your lexicon amazes me. You are to romance what Warhol is to art.”
“I may be the Campbell’s soup of love but I kiss like Nijinsky danced in his prime.”
“I see you are not completely unversed in cultural history. Even your primitive masculinity has its charm. Now kiss me you savage beast.”

[winddance]

ah, a perfect story for valentines day. welcome john. so glad to see you again.

[goldenmyst]

Thank you so much for reading winddance, my friend. Very glad to see you again as well. Happy to be back.

John