Ray St. Louis
7/1/07
BETWEEN THE LINES
We speak now of Paris Hilton, gourmet dog food, iPhones, the Supreme Court, Iraq, Congress, Mister Twohats,
and the office of the Vice-President.
Right about now my editor is having a panic attack. “Great! Here comes one of Ray’s rambling columns that jump
all over the place,” I imagine him saying.
Well, it’s true. But there’s a thread here; I just have to find it.
You see, I’ve been reading this book about Dada (“What, eight topics aren’t enough? You have to throw in a
ninth?”)
Dada was a wild, break-all-the-rules, no-holds-barred, artistic movement that occurred during the 1920’s and
1930’s. Dada bridged the gap between Impressionism (pretty little dots) and Surrealism (globs of flesh held up by
crutches).
The thing about Dada was that the Dadaists took pride in being kind of crazy, which to them was the only rational
response to the insanity of a world reeling from the sweeping changes of the Industrial Revolution sandwiched
between two world wars.
Which is exactly the place I believe we’ve come to again, here in the latter part of the first decade of the 21st
century. The world has gone completely nuts.
How else does one explain the empty can of gourmet dog food plucked from Paris Hilton’s garbage selling for $1.5
million on eBay? Okay, maybe it’s a bogus bid, but her used toothbrush is going for $285.
I read an article recently, I forget where, in which the essayist made the point that the country had slipped into a
kind of general psychosis. This is what happens when things quit making sense.
Up is down, problems have no solutions, government officials break the law they are sworn to uphold, global
warming is coming and nobody’s doing anything about it, Congress is dysfunctional, and then there’s the war in
Iraq.
And those who are supposed to deliver our news so we can begin making sense of this fine mess instead serve
up mind-numbing pabulum.
Larry King’s hour-long interview of Paris Hilton last week was his top-rated show so far this year. Paris said she
spent part of her time behind bars reading the Bible but couldn’t recite a single verse.
Across the country, throngs of people desperate for the latest high-tech gadget camped outside Apple and AT&T
stores to be first in line to buy the new iPhones, which can do everything except beam you up to an orbiting
spacecraft.
All the news channels covered the release of the new iPhones in between intensive coverage of Paris Hilton’s
release from jail. Meanwhile, the worst three months of American casualties in Iraq, 329 dead, was just coming to
an end and went barely noticed in the national media.
Also, the Supreme Court turned back the clock fifty years on desegregation and freedom of speech. And Vice-
President Cheney claimed to be a separate branch of government not beholding to rules affecting the executive
branch. This was all last week!
Here in Alachua, Florida, Mister Twohats got a new contract. It pays him a full year’s salary even if he quits the
job. City commissioners were happy to sign off on it. It’s the cult of Mister Twohats.
At least this local story got actual coverage from the High Springs Herald, which maintains a serious degree of
dedication to real news. When the Herald starts putting Paris Hilton on the front page, I quit my column.
The world has gone crazy. I have no other explanation for recent events.
The Dadaists chose the name for their artistic movement by opening a Swiss dictionary to a random page and
blindly stabbing a word with a steak knife. It was the French word “dada.” It means hobbyhorse.
Makes about as much sense as anything going on in this day and age.