Editor’s Note: ‘Between the Lines’ is a new column featuring a “fresh take” on area news.
Mayhem erupted in the halls of the Kingston Library during the final minutes of last night’s referendum on whether to burden city residents with an additional tax levy. Candidates for the board of trustees Suzie Loudermilk and Gretchen Von Luben had held differing opinions regarding the philosophy of writer Brett Easton Ellis.
“Buckets,” said librarian Daisy Wolstercliff, who had to be helped to her feet in the aftermath of the skirmish. “Buckets of blood.”
The librarian explained that she wasn’t sure what had set Loudermilk off. “At first I thought the whole thing was a joke,” she said. “But then I realized Suzie had fire in her eyes. She was completely unhinged.”
After the combatants had been restrained by a confused jumble of shaken bystanders, the facts started to come out.
“There is no difference between the contrived appearance of a thing for ironic purposes as there is from the thing itself!” insisted Loudermilk. “The effect is the same.”
Von Luben could not answer back immediately. The mounds of cotton balls laced over her mouth and nose to staunch the bleeding prevented her from talking.
Executive director Sandra Shandershot had sent her second in command, Zizi Bonk, to fetch a bucket and mop. The exhausted Shandershot tried to explain the disagreement.
“You have to understand that Gretchen is a big fan of ironic juxtaposition,” said Shandershot. “Loves it. So, I don’t know where she had it hidden, but with five minutes left to go for the voting to end, Gretchen comes in wearing a bright red baseball cap. You know, that hat. And she said, I guess as a joke, ‘I just love the uneducated. They’re very special people.’ Now, you have to understand, Gretchen did not vote for he-who-shall-not-be-named. That’s not who she is at all. She’s the farthest thing from it.”
“Thank you, Zizi,” said Shandershot as she took the mop out of the bucket. “There’s no head on this mop! Come on, we’ve got to do better, guys.
“Anyway, Suzie’s hero is David Foster Wallace, God hang his soul, Wallace argued that satire taken to an extreme …. Say you’re in a bowling alley all dressed up like white trash. You know how the kids do. Wearing wife-beaters and Confederate-flag baseball hats. Belt buckles with eagles on ‘’em. The whole nine pins. Well, they think it’s funny, talking with a Southern drawl and drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon. To them it’s a costume. They’re mocking the white trash. But one bowling lane over, here’s a South American family, can’t speak a word of English …. How do they interpret the situation?
“They see the hat, the shirt, they hear the drawl and they’re afraid. Maybe they’ve been trafficked by racists before. So for them because they’re not in on the joke, they only feel the fear.”
Zizi has gotten a proper head for the mop and starts to swab the bloody floor in water.
“Ewww, it’s so puffy,” says Zizi.
“I know, I know,” says Shandershor. “That’s what happens when the blood oxidizes. I was saying,
The issue is sincerity versus satire. It was Wallace that insisted upon sincerity in part because, well, because if someone can’t tell the difference, they’re offended. Halloween or not, a Nazi uniform is still a Nazi uniform. I’m hazy on Ellis’ rebuttal, but it had something to do with satire as a vital expression of art. The awful humor that results from the ironic juxtaposition is essential to exercising freedom. Have I got that right, Gretchen, you poor thing?”
“I was just mocking fascism,” says Gretchen from behind the cotton balls. “The red hat is a power symbol to the idiots, so when I wear it, it’s subversion. And it’s funny because I’m the last person you would think to see in such a stupid hat. Those challenged with cognitive dissonance don’t understand they’re being duped. But for me it’s a repudiation of their philosophy of hatred and xenophobia.”
“Well, of course, honey,” says Shandershot. “But then you might get punched in the face before someone realizes you’re just joking. I’m not saying Suzie was right to jump over and start strangling you, but we’ve got to use common sense, dear .…”
Gretchen sighs. “Sandra, we can’t let the most easily offended decide for the rest of us what’s appropriate behavior or we’ll all be waltzing in straightjackets.”
The janitor arrives at this moment and rolls his eyes.
“Librarians,” he says. “God help us all.”
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