Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Are you obscenely wealthy? Are you really?

Are you wealthy? Really wealthy? Obscenely wealthy? Do you really think so? Oh, you are so, so wrong. Your wealth is not nearly as high, nor nearly as obscene as you think. Sure, you live in a five bedroom McMansion, most of the rooms of which you never see. Sure, you only buy your food from boutique supermarkets where you refuse to pay at least three times more for anything that you would, if you ever shopped down there with the peasants. Sure, you don't even flinch as you have your servants fill up your 8mpg Hummer, which is powerful enough to climb Mount Everest, even though it has never seen so much as a gravel driveway. But you're not really wealthy unless you are one of the lucky, lucky few (the actual number is a secret), who were able to purchase the fine "timepiece" pictured here, the "Day & Night", by Romain Jerome. (It sold out almost instantly.) Not only would you have been lucky enough to spend 300,000 Dollars, yes Three Hundred Thousand Dollars on this watch, but you could revel in its unique splendor. It is made with steel salvaged from the site of the Titanic. A special lubricant was developed to keep it running with perfect accuracy forever. The rumors that the lubricant is made from the mixed tears of orphans from New Orleans and the Indonesian Tsunami and the prisoners at Guantanamo bay have been vehemently denied by the manufacturer, but I'm pretty sure he gave me a wink as he denied it. Also, the machinery of the watch is buffered by a special dampening cushion that is rumored to be made from the blood of newborn baby harp seals. Again, this has been denied. (wink) This transcendent artwork will allow you to walk amongst your fellow billionaires, secure in the knowledge that you are at least a little, very important bit more obscene in your consumption than they are. But there is one thing that the Day & Night will not allow you to do, and that is TELL THE TIME. The gears and levers are remarkably accurate, but any watch can tell you the time, can't it? It's hardly pointless consumption if it has any actual use, is it? This work of art can tell you only one thing, is it night or is it day? If the gears behind the sun are moving, it is day, if the gears behind the moon are moving, it is night. In truth, the watch can tell you one more thing. If you own it, it can tell you, every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year, it can tell you that you have no actual worth as a human being.

http://www.luxist.com/2008/04/23/300-000-dayandnight-watch-doesnt-tell-the-time

Monday, April 14, 2008

I won't even try to explain this.


But here it is, for your confusion, and mine.