VOGUE copyright Conde Nast
© 2019 h2omeloncholy@blogspot.com
© 2019 KM Fikes
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from KM Fikes is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to KM Fikes & h2omeloncholy@blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. No excerpt or link may be used for monetary compensation.
Bespoke. A tactile craft honed on London's Seville Row for ostensibly the finest in Western custom tailoring. An exclusivity synonymous with luxury. A meticulously structured blazer - made to exacting measure. Bespoke, in a fit no less flawless, rhymes with 'woke'.
Vernacular is a form of fashion. And like most expressions, once wretchedly appropriated and thereby distorted past recognition for relevance, might 'woke' - anon enuf - find its defunct definition, like the loosest thread it be, beginning to unravel? If so, shall we light a candle to burn until it may fray the stray strand, bowing our heads, humming in unison, Chopin's Funeral March: "Dun, dun, da-dun..."?
Altho'? One personally need not bid 'woke' farewell so ceremoniously since one has avoided its utterance. Pondering, howe'er, as of late, why? Indeed, one has intentionally dodged said usage. So much so, that one has found oneself choking on the most benign phrase when this night owl explains a rare morning correspondence: "I...woke...[cringe/shudder]...up early." Even then, sum'in 'bout 'woke' registers as tainted.
Upon further deliberation, one may glean what one deems so adverse about the alleged adverb - or whateva part of speech or tense to which it qualifies. Does 'woke' mark the act of 'awakening' to a relevant present or defunct past? 'Woke' vies to rise yet its continuum is too much a labyrinth. Might it be granted safe passage - anywhere - in a culture so rife in 'spoke' contradiction? Perchance, 'woke', like most dissOrientalized dissOrder(s), ceases to be a clear demarcation due to the breadth/depth of its spectrum. Given there are degrees - in masterful stitches - one submits a mo' comprehensive 'woke' framework:
WOKE SPECTRUM
Ghost > Zombie > Comatose > Yawner > Power Napper
The Ghost
© Charles Schulz
The ghost is not in denial. Ghost types are in resistance - but far from the exalted brand of 'resistance' associated with Da Wailing 'Woke'. Ghosts know that they are dead; they just refuse to accept it. The ghost clings to a misguided notion of bidness preempted which prevents it from crossing over. Anti-transition. The ghost is not at the mercy of a plush purgatory where the waiting room's sky-blue sectional nestles cumulus throw pillows. The ghost - dogged plus - wanders a decrepit house that decreases the property value of an otherwise gentrified neighborhood. Its purgatory is a chosen state when passage into the Cosmic Netherworld of Wonder pales in comparison to exerting a kind of secular squatter's right. Right here.
Example: Vice-President Joseph Biden asserts Senator Cory Booker owed him an apology - for Biden’s fond as fumbled reminiscing (as only a ‘woke’ ghost can reminisce) of segregationist-snuggling in the interest of aisle-crossing. Crossing can become thematic for the ghost. Cross after political life? No. Cross ova unsavory ideology? When expedient. To Booker, Biden is credulous: "There is not a racist bone in my body. Period."
Classic Casper.
The ghost is bereft of bone or breath which prevents investigation except by a renowned team of hyper 'woke' archaeologists. If a charitably-funded 'dig' lead to the discovery of this ism-immune clavicle, their find may merit the first dual Nobel for both Anatomy n' Peace.*
Bone-dense, Biden double-downed when confronted by Senator Kamala Harris for whom his bi-partisan footsie would have screeched the brakes on her bused-in education. The ghost is ill-equipped to center itself in the present — given its discombobulation wherein the past, miraculously, seems not to further inform. As if relieved of any ramification, weightless, uninhibited by gravitational reciprocity of basic physics in the natural law of cause n' effect. For what is hubris if not the toxic inhalation of ‘voice’-squeaked helium? Less earned elevation than entitled levitation, Biden followed (bespoke) suit: caught off-guard, predictably agitated, that Harris - on a sardined stage of a presidential primary debate - would reference reality. As if Lady Liberty was Biden's eccentric aunt, and in her CS Lewisian wardrobe, she hangs more than patina-green togas. The date is October 31. Your "friendly ghost" happens to note a glowing white cloak, removes it, cuts out two holes for eyes, and parades down (really, ‘above’) the campaign trail, floating door-to-door for caramel-coated votes.
Classic Casper.
The ghost is bereft of bone or breath which prevents investigation except by a renowned team of hyper 'woke' archaeologists. If a charitably-funded 'dig' lead to the discovery of this ism-immune clavicle, their find may merit the first dual Nobel for both Anatomy n' Peace.*
Bone-dense, Biden double-downed when confronted by Senator Kamala Harris for whom his bi-partisan footsie would have screeched the brakes on her bused-in education. The ghost is ill-equipped to center itself in the present — given its discombobulation wherein the past, miraculously, seems not to further inform. As if relieved of any ramification, weightless, uninhibited by gravitational reciprocity of basic physics in the natural law of cause n' effect. For what is hubris if not the toxic inhalation of ‘voice’-squeaked helium? Less earned elevation than entitled levitation, Biden followed (bespoke) suit: caught off-guard, predictably agitated, that Harris - on a sardined stage of a presidential primary debate - would reference reality. As if Lady Liberty was Biden's eccentric aunt, and in her CS Lewisian wardrobe, she hangs more than patina-green togas. The date is October 31. Your "friendly ghost" happens to note a glowing white cloak, removes it, cuts out two holes for eyes, and parades down (really, ‘above’) the campaign trail, floating door-to-door for caramel-coated votes.
The Zombie
© Universal Studios © Sony/Legacy
The zombie is not a ghost.
Again, the ghost knows. But disagrees.
The ghost defies the idea that their past incarnation is complete. To a ghoul, death proves a galling imposition. A zombie, contrarily, fails to realize that it is gone, done, hence the term, 'undead'. Zombies may momentarily terrorize but they do not proactively haunt. Zombieian wrath ain't deliberate; taking it personally wastes one's valuable resources. Mummified in cluelessness, the zombie is not privy to the ghost's freedom from bodily constraints which render the ghost, otherwise inept, a paranormative tactician. And yet? The zombie holds a bett' rekanize advantage, saving it from the ass-end of the 'woke' spectrum: where the ghost is sure, the zombie is unsettled (i.e., 'undead'). Too cumulus cloudy, insight is distant.
Therefo', the zombie does not know. But senses.
Sum’ins off. Edging out the ghost, this very ambivalence harbors an excruciatingly proximal potential to incubate awareness.
Meanwhile, pre-lightbulbian momentum, if one dares to tell the zombie, it is, in fact, a zombie, their rebuttal will range from shock to offense to profound pouting. It cannot grasp its current existential sentence. Torn. Soiled. Such is the condition of the zombie's bespoke suit. Zombies have another telling feature: a combination of that gaze from Steve Carell on the movie poster of 40-Year-Old-Virgin, admirably-impossibly fused with the sunken, hollow black holes of the obliviously 'undead'. A comprehensive visual might be the backup dancers in the October 31 perennial favorite and music video opus, Thriller. Zombies also move to a brooding rhythm - characterized by that specific 'undead' limp. Misquoting Garnett or Dunnigan mistranslating Tolstoy before misquoting Kundera mansplaining Nietzsche misinterpreting Parmenides: while the ghost is "unbearably light", the zombie finds "being" heavier than 'balance', i.e., equity. Granted, this contentious offering may now prove untenable for those who no longer engage the MJ canon, or other lit-wits misread - as not to damage their 'woke' credentials.
Hallow-weaned eye on the (prized) sparrow.
Again, the ghost knows. But disagrees.
The ghost defies the idea that their past incarnation is complete. To a ghoul, death proves a galling imposition. A zombie, contrarily, fails to realize that it is gone, done, hence the term, 'undead'. Zombies may momentarily terrorize but they do not proactively haunt. Zombieian wrath ain't deliberate; taking it personally wastes one's valuable resources. Mummified in cluelessness, the zombie is not privy to the ghost's freedom from bodily constraints which render the ghost, otherwise inept, a paranormative tactician. And yet? The zombie holds a bett' rekanize advantage, saving it from the ass-end of the 'woke' spectrum: where the ghost is sure, the zombie is unsettled (i.e., 'undead'). Too cumulus cloudy, insight is distant.
Therefo', the zombie does not know. But senses.
Sum’ins off. Edging out the ghost, this very ambivalence harbors an excruciatingly proximal potential to incubate awareness.
Meanwhile, pre-lightbulbian momentum, if one dares to tell the zombie, it is, in fact, a zombie, their rebuttal will range from shock to offense to profound pouting. It cannot grasp its current existential sentence. Torn. Soiled. Such is the condition of the zombie's bespoke suit. Zombies have another telling feature: a combination of that gaze from Steve Carell on the movie poster of 40-Year-Old-Virgin, admirably-impossibly fused with the sunken, hollow black holes of the obliviously 'undead'. A comprehensive visual might be the backup dancers in the October 31 perennial favorite and music video opus, Thriller. Zombies also move to a brooding rhythm - characterized by that specific 'undead' limp. Misquoting Garnett or Dunnigan mistranslating Tolstoy before misquoting Kundera mansplaining Nietzsche misinterpreting Parmenides: while the ghost is "unbearably light", the zombie finds "being" heavier than 'balance', i.e., equity. Granted, this contentious offering may now prove untenable for those who no longer engage the MJ canon, or other lit-wits misread - as not to damage their 'woke' credentials.
Hallow-weaned eye on the (prized) sparrow.
The Comatose
© University of Liege
The comatose share a cadre of phrases - faulty as familiar: "I don't see race." They also refuse to acknowledge their privilege: "My family came thru Ellis Island so what do I have to do with slavery?" The comatose are oft disappointed in others, like the neighbor whom they would generally characterize as high-functioning until the chump next door recommends Bryan Stevenson's TED Talk. The comatose have long surmised that those involved in or concerned with 'public' policy, whom allow themselves to be duped by the distraction of mining the implications of race? They are the racist ones.
Whilst Halloween has twice crept into this 'woke' missive, it is the Thanksgiving holiday that is the most fraught for the comatose. Halloween may be widely associated with the month of October although this eve of All Saint’s Day, November 1, is followed by Día de los Muertos, on November 2. Mexico has traditionally practiced a sacred reverence for their departed. The goal is to assure that late loved ones rest, remembered, in peace, rather than relying on any deceased to implement change. Whether beckoning November - from beyond the grave - or stuffing its last Thursday with Indigenous indifference, all calendar events, including November’s neon-civic first Tuesday, epitomize the fall.
The comatose has family all along the spectrum. Except one. The uncle they all try to ignore. His suit is off-the-(rusted)rack - with Velcro elbow patches. Some pre-teen, recently promoted from the kid's table, is apt to borrow it, uploading themselves in a polished photo shoot on the latest hip platform. Inadvertently, the cusped adolescent launches the next fashion trend - that a year later will be muse in haute couture houses before demotion to the seasonal runway. Trickle-Down Theory of 'Woke'. But back to the rest of the family of the comatose. They gather, annually, for a feast as diverse as its organic vegan loaf alongside non-hormone, range-free turkey. Because the comatose signed not a medical directive, the family argues about its fate. Alas, there is no resolution by the last fork-full of sweet potata pie. Planets yet...yet aligned, the comatose will then likely remain comatose for at least another season.
How, then, can the comatose trump the zombie? Because of the wish that no family member will utter. Aloud nor to themselves. They resent the work of such dire deliberation and wish that Mama Nature, the scorched-earth-estranged godmother to Lady Liberty, will spare them and take her course. Her way. Not theirs. As they cannot bear the claim. This abdication of less ancestral culpability and more so inherited complicity, howeva, leaves to chance that in which only the tween believes: that the comatose, of their own mystical accord, might rouse - the wisest of 'woke' - to share their implausible as inspired tale of seeing Da Light.
Whilst Halloween has twice crept into this 'woke' missive, it is the Thanksgiving holiday that is the most fraught for the comatose. Halloween may be widely associated with the month of October although this eve of All Saint’s Day, November 1, is followed by Día de los Muertos, on November 2. Mexico has traditionally practiced a sacred reverence for their departed. The goal is to assure that late loved ones rest, remembered, in peace, rather than relying on any deceased to implement change. Whether beckoning November - from beyond the grave - or stuffing its last Thursday with Indigenous indifference, all calendar events, including November’s neon-civic first Tuesday, epitomize the fall.
The comatose has family all along the spectrum. Except one. The uncle they all try to ignore. His suit is off-the-(rusted)rack - with Velcro elbow patches. Some pre-teen, recently promoted from the kid's table, is apt to borrow it, uploading themselves in a polished photo shoot on the latest hip platform. Inadvertently, the cusped adolescent launches the next fashion trend - that a year later will be muse in haute couture houses before demotion to the seasonal runway. Trickle-Down Theory of 'Woke'. But back to the rest of the family of the comatose. They gather, annually, for a feast as diverse as its organic vegan loaf alongside non-hormone, range-free turkey. Because the comatose signed not a medical directive, the family argues about its fate. Alas, there is no resolution by the last fork-full of sweet potata pie. Planets yet...yet aligned, the comatose will then likely remain comatose for at least another season.
How, then, can the comatose trump the zombie? Because of the wish that no family member will utter. Aloud nor to themselves. They resent the work of such dire deliberation and wish that Mama Nature, the scorched-earth-estranged godmother to Lady Liberty, will spare them and take her course. Her way. Not theirs. As they cannot bear the claim. This abdication of less ancestral culpability and more so inherited complicity, howeva, leaves to chance that in which only the tween believes: that the comatose, of their own mystical accord, might rouse - the wisest of 'woke' - to share their implausible as inspired tale of seeing Da Light.
The Yawner
© Warner Bros.
Ultrasounds have captured babies yawning in utero. What comes more naturally to human physiology than tiring? Or boredom? Physical exhaustion and intellectual boredom are not interchangeable. Nevadaless, for this stroll down the 'Woke' Spectrum, shall we allow them, if not to merge, to run cozily parallel? For the unexamined privileged, when wokenessity proves inconvenient, social justice dialogue might make their minds - and thus tongues - feel like the eyeballs of Malcom McDowell's 'Alex' when subjected to the Ludovico technique. Pray thy pardon, patient reader, as again, like the Thriller reference, Kubrick's Clockwork Orange may no longer be apropos to mention. Point? Staying 'woke' is hard and the yawner bothers not to hide how much.
A sector of yawners attempt to remain commendably inquisitive. They can be spotted on the streets with a copy of Michelle Alexander or Ta-Nehisi Coates - or whomeva is the de rigueur NYTimes best-seller - tucked proudly under the same bespoke sleeve that panics, on cue, clinging to its handbag when certain citizenry (conceivably first cousins of Alexander or Coates) pass. When democracy of the streets proves as o'er-stimulating as espresso, the yawner waits to read Alexander or Coates in an airport lounge. Woefully paraphrasing nigh-'cancelled' comedian, Aziz Ansari, isms cannot be "solved" by Dominant Cult "at brunch". The yawner - inexplicably - prefers a hospitable approach to deeply entrenched constructs. Akin to dusting off bespoke lapels. Dipping toes in water, murky due to being unmediated, they tend to withdraw upon an unintelligible excuse - shrouded in a full-bodied yawn. Ignorant of the experience yet ironically o'erwhelmed by the articulation, the yawner seeks the very respite that their privilege affords.
They try. When they can.
The comatose evoke fingers crossed until tips pinch pale or allude to patina coins tossed in fountains. The yawner, at least, awaits no stubbed toe upon the jinn's lamp. Stilled comatose and straddling yawner share but one practice in da mystical realms: both require a séance to access nuance. Hence, the yawner is an inconsistent advocate. Be there a mo' impeccably-suited dichotomy than the unreliably ready yawner? If those irksome could register as idyllic, how nimbly they adjust/stretch/distract thru disastrous preparedness exercise. Bottom button opened, the yawner is the 'goodwill' ambassador to the besieged territory of Perhaps. As they have been exposed to preliminary concepts with corresponding introductory vocabulary, each yawn is a pause..."burdened" with the propensity to consider availing itself of ‘woke’ spoke.
A sector of yawners attempt to remain commendably inquisitive. They can be spotted on the streets with a copy of Michelle Alexander or Ta-Nehisi Coates - or whomeva is the de rigueur NYTimes best-seller - tucked proudly under the same bespoke sleeve that panics, on cue, clinging to its handbag when certain citizenry (conceivably first cousins of Alexander or Coates) pass. When democracy of the streets proves as o'er-stimulating as espresso, the yawner waits to read Alexander or Coates in an airport lounge. Woefully paraphrasing nigh-'cancelled' comedian, Aziz Ansari, isms cannot be "solved" by Dominant Cult "at brunch". The yawner - inexplicably - prefers a hospitable approach to deeply entrenched constructs. Akin to dusting off bespoke lapels. Dipping toes in water, murky due to being unmediated, they tend to withdraw upon an unintelligible excuse - shrouded in a full-bodied yawn. Ignorant of the experience yet ironically o'erwhelmed by the articulation, the yawner seeks the very respite that their privilege affords.
They try. When they can.
The comatose evoke fingers crossed until tips pinch pale or allude to patina coins tossed in fountains. The yawner, at least, awaits no stubbed toe upon the jinn's lamp. Stilled comatose and straddling yawner share but one practice in da mystical realms: both require a séance to access nuance. Hence, the yawner is an inconsistent advocate. Be there a mo' impeccably-suited dichotomy than the unreliably ready yawner? If those irksome could register as idyllic, how nimbly they adjust/stretch/distract thru disastrous preparedness exercise. Bottom button opened, the yawner is the 'goodwill' ambassador to the besieged territory of Perhaps. As they have been exposed to preliminary concepts with corresponding introductory vocabulary, each yawn is a pause..."burdened" with the propensity to consider availing itself of ‘woke’ spoke.
The Power Napper
Heather Heyer (1985 - 2017)
Gotta dig our power nappers. Lest they stand - or coil - to be confused with a hair strand in all its majesty. The power napper, in this context, spirals - Sufi-styled from its 'root' - committed to ism demolition. Cognizant eva that such an endeavor triggers Status Quo. They risk their reputations with colleagues by avoiding idle, futile posturing of productivity. They shut their laptop with the on-line-advocacy petition still blinking on the screen. After scooting this worldwideweb to the side in order to clear their desk, the power napper hangs their bespoke jacket - behind them. The color is neither 'pitch' black, 'midnight' blue, nor Halloween chocolate. The power napper sports a distinct shade of grey. Laying a fertile forehead on the oddest-shaped pillow, boldly, eyes close. They refresh, they revive, retreating from social-mediated chatter. Quick doses of non-REM allow for introspection necessary for innovation. The power napper can sustain their momentum for the long journey or as MLK stated, "arc of the moral universe". This napper knows the power of excavating, less concerned with the cultural temperature than their insular 'state'. They sleep. To wake. Their own macro/micro-aggressions become more lucid, once rested - to then correct. The power napper possesses a knack for time management because they know that time, like people and beliefs or ideologies, cannot be managed at all. The power napper is humbly prepared to respond more than react, in a form of conversational aikido with Other. All praise to Indigenous Action Media for laying down the gauntlet, distinguishing 'ally' from 'accomplice'. Allies are yawners, daresay, quasi sleepwalkers; accomplices power nap.
The power napper is One. In multiple manifestations. She is a world champion, lesbian soccer player, with close-cropped tresses of lavender fields, who, with commercial endorsements and league censure at stake, takes a Rapinoeian knee in solidarity with 'mattered lives' when no other of her hue has done so. Power nappers raise daughters named Heather Heyer. When Heyer is murdered by the reach of Executive Branch-es and tentacles of tire-treaded vitriol, that mother - eerily named, Bro - grieves in twenty-minute spurts, to rise repeatedly, and speak her child into the national consciousness.
Power nappers are the most promising members of the 'woke' community. Most liberals and some progressives mistake themselves for power nappers. Albeit well-meaning, the majority are not. No. How the world would be served if this mass delusion might cease. Thankfully, bright bursts after a power nap can and do occur. Primarily tho'? 'Woke' folk subject the spectrum to pinpricked alterations, squaring off imperfect samples for a harlequin lining of ghost, zombie, comatose, and yawner.
Therein lies what endangers 'woke' as a valid descriptor signaling enlightenment. With its impressive cut, the lauded bespoke suit - too - is a dapper phantom, imp-peck-ably crafted in a bygone era. 'Woke' - mere coverage - occasionally walks Earth in apparent elegant strides, assuredly forward. 'Woke', eva gentleman, implied horseman, more commonly rides. High. Upon another creature's effort. 'Woke' is one headless dandy. Curiously, whether 'pitch' black, 'midnight' blue, or Halloween chocolate? The fabric choice is inclined to remain in the dark.
© hespokestyle.comTherein lies what endangers 'woke' as a valid descriptor signaling enlightenment. With its impressive cut, the lauded bespoke suit - too - is a dapper phantom, imp-peck-ably crafted in a bygone era. 'Woke' - mere coverage - occasionally walks Earth in apparent elegant strides, assuredly forward. 'Woke', eva gentleman, implied horseman, more commonly rides. High. Upon another creature's effort. 'Woke' is one headless dandy. Curiously, whether 'pitch' black, 'midnight' blue, or Halloween chocolate? The fabric choice is inclined to remain in the dark.
basted fitting
a clever as compassionate critique
on the implausibility
of POSTness
Til our next 'post', feast upon produce in season...
© 2019 KM Fikes
© 2019 h2omeloncholy@blogspot.com
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from KM Fikes is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to KM Fikes & h2omeloncholy@blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. No excerpt or link may be used for monetary compensation.
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