Hey Cory:

Have a look at this ad. I’m sure you will be able to deconstruct it. My eyes hurt when I saw it.

Thanks, my man, get to work!

Mirror Balls
 
Dear Mirror Balls:

Christmas and its associated detritus have indeed arrived early: October 9. Cory couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing when he opened your email. No wonder your eyes hurt. A little research reveals these are actually offered for sale ($238.95 Canadian for the group of three, a “large gnome” and 2 “new mini-shimmers”) and were designed – on purpose, apparently — by Robert and Cortney Novogratz, who have some sort of television program about decorating.

It takes a few minutes of staring at these bizarre objects to see that they are indeed gnomes. They just seem like bling covering either undifferentiated protoplasm or, for those who cleave to the phallic, stubby circumcised penises with varicose veins. They are also oddly reminiscent of Easter Island statues.

When did gnomes and disco balls come to symbolize the festive season? Were the three wise men actually garden gnomes (Cory has arrived at the point where he will believe just about anything about Christianity, that dog’s breakfast of religions as practised)? Or did the Chanukah long-burning, miraculous lamp oil come with a more miraculous rotating mirrored ball?

The pathetic display in the picture you sent features 1960s tree lights buried in what looks like albino vomitus. Those lights’ reflections will not dance around the room without a turntable (not included). What is in the minds of the Novogratzes?

From the ad copy:

“the Novogratz Holiday Collection combines their eye for colorful bold modern with their love of vintage finds they’ve gathered for years to transform their New England country home every Christmas. ‘We’ve combined the fun and glamour of a disco ball with the friendly charm of a lawn gnome to create the ultimate party companion,’ Robert says. ‘This sparkling character shimmers with thousands of mirrors, each applied by hand.’“

Cory can think of thousands of “party companions” that would be more ultimate than this, as he’s sure all his readers can, starting with Tom Welling.

Just how disposable has disposable income become when, in planning the festive season, the income holder is tempted to send for a family of three mirrored gnomes? Thrift stores sometimes post signs saying that they don’t want the leftovers from your garage sale — this is precisely what they have in mind: reminders of income irretrievable and fully disposed of. While on the subject of income, Cory wonders just which poor souls of what ages in which countries apply the all-too-countable mirrors “by hand”. Will you think Cory uncharitable if he thinks it might be tempting to assign the gluing of tiny mirrors to minors with their tiny fingers? He fervently hopes those workers are not among those whose families subsist on a dollar or two a day. And he’d like to know what those workers, as they scramble for their daily sustenance, make of the westerners who want these weird objects. If they are nourished enough, and their fingers are not bleeding too much, they surely have a good laugh at us.

Thank you, Mirror Balls, for submitting these items, despite the fact that Cory cannot conceive how he will remove their image from his overactive brain. It is rare to find something that so perfectly encapsulates tastelessness, waste, the decline of the capitalist system, the dismal state of much design and, indirectly, the now-unbridgeable gap between those who order and those who manufacture (the mindless wealthy and the poor). Disco gnomes are fit for Jeff Koons to parody, but nothing else.

Easter Island is apt as a visual allusion. The islanders consumed their natural resources until they couldn’t survive there. If we are squandering our resources in the manufacture of Christmas disco gnomes, we are surely on our way out. Doesn’t the prospect of human extinction sometimes seem like a mercy?