How to be pretentious in the modern era

Paul: Take a look at this piece over here.

Rudi: Peace? It’s like a madhouse in here.

Paul: No no, this piece of art.

Rudi: Ah I see. That bit over there? That painting?

Paul: What’s a painting? I can only refer to art as a piece.

Rudi: What if it’s made of more than one piece? Like a train-set.

Paul: That would be an interesting piece. An allegory of the industrial era, bustling and careening through the fertile landscapes of our previously pastoral existences.

Rudi: Let’s get back to the work in front of us. I think I know what we’re going on about now.

Paul: All right, hit me with your ism.

Rudi: When I look at the “piece” in front of me, I feel that the artist is referencing a guttural feeling, perhaps recalling the days when we were hunter-gatherers, the ooga-booga of frustration. I sense that the artist is feeling caged, trapped inside modernity. It really is a tour-de-force, of force.

Paul: Funny you should say that.

Rudi: Really? You’re not laughing.

Paul (adjusting his beret, eating a baguette nonchalantly): Titter. What you just analysed was a lipsticked glass of white wine and a left over cocktail weenie. That was left behind by one of the other arty-types. It’s not art.

Rudi: But is it art? Who are we to decide?

Paul: Actually, now that I think about it, now that I take my mind forest, mow it down for grazing land, put some cows on it, grow them up, kill them (humanely), sell their skin for leather, make some shoes, sell their meat to make hamburgers, start a hamburger joint, name it the burger-hole (only for good citizens [bilingual pun count : 1, use of two different types of brackets : 1]), turn it into a franchise, become a corporation, sell it out, become a hippy, move to India and really ruminate on it – I think you have a point.

Rudi: When you said “ruminate”, did you mean act like a Persian poet from the thirteenth century?

Paul: Well. Yes and no. They call me the double entendre.

Rudi: You walk into rooms twice?

Paul: The second coming is just my shadow self, slinking behind me like a chastised dog.

Rudi: Did you just say second coming?

*smack*

Paul: Heck yes I did. God that was a good high five.

Rudi: So, you were saying how you thought I had a point?

Paul: Yes, I mean, who are we as humans, as these tiny, little, infinitely small specks of dust on the shoe of the universe, nay – the very atoms that dare to hang on the dust that aspires to be on the shoe of the universe – who are we to say what is art?

Rudi (doing a little pirouette): Is this art?

Paul (about to cry): It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Rudi (drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette): Is this art?

Paul: What a searing take on modern youth! My lungs fill up with sweet water and rust at the sight of your raw honesty.

Rudi: I’m like a piece of steak.

Paul: Let’s get to business, you arty bunceball of a man.

Rudi: Do let’s.

Flea from RHCP looks like Wayne Rooney. What a sellout.

The dialogue you just witnessed, acted out by Rudi and I, shows you just how far pretentiousness can get you. I’ll let you in on a little secret – there was no glass. There was no cocktail weenie. The weenie was inside you all the time, wriggling around and finding the soft little folds in your gutbags. We weren’t even at an art exhibition. On pure pretentiousness alone, Rudi and I went from two guys dressed as a laptop and a paving stone respectively, to two highly important sounding intelligentsia.

Point Number One: Use unnecessary words

Intelligentsia. No, not clever people. Not people who like art. Not cultured types. Intelligentsia. It’s not a paint brush, it is a device that paints bloody swathes of the discourse between modern man and his barely repressed sexuality.

Point Number Two: Find meaning that isn’t there

You’re staring at a piece of art. It is a painting of a knife, a fork and a plate; restaurant art. It is an allegory for the plight suffered by Africans. See that checked tablecloth in the painting? That is made up of blood-red HIV positive signs. And you thought it was a simple representation of eating utensils. Tut tut, you philistine.

Point Number Three: Be condescending, in fact, deign to condescend

Some people may look at things and like them for exactly what they are. They are sorely mistaken. Sorely mistaken. Mistaken sorely. We are not allowed to “enjoy”! Our job is to frown over glasses of white wine and shake our heads knowingly.

Point Number Four: There are certain things you just do not do

Have a family? Like walking dogs? Like rainbows? How silly of you. You are an automaton of consumerism.

Point Number Five: Your music is so mainstream

You listen to a person locked in a cupboard batting their eyelashes against non-stick pans? You are so mainstream. You listen to three Inuit tribesmen, who throat-sing Abba songs while performing bondage acts on seals? You are so mainstream. You listen to a person who only records major rivers? You are so mainstream. You should listen to this new band, it’s made up entirely from recorded ambient sounds. In fact, it isn’t really music as such, besides – music is so 2008. What? You aren’t in 2011 already? Not being in 2011 is so 2005. Anyway, this band, this collective really, they don’t really play music. In fact, they don’t even talk. They aren’t really people. They are just a construct of my mind. Yeah, they get on stage and sit down. They don’t even face the crowd. They face the wall and think about what their music would sound like. Sorry, now that I just told you about them, they sold out. I don’t like them any more.