The collapse of both last year's and this year's Tots for Tots gingerbread houses led me to study the existential angst candy-coated objects experience in Florida humidity. Immersed in my creation's crippling doubt that it could remain upright for a month, I empathized with GBH's soul-sucking limbo, but mostly I did it because Netflix wasn't available.
Faced with the stigma of being a transitory holiday decoration doomed with past failures, GBH exist for eleven months in a semi-conscious fugue state, filled with ennui and disillusionment while watching depressing black & white Swedish films.
(See...this is what TOO MUCH SUGAR does to you!)
When December arrives, they emerge from the pantry as objet d'art, yet burdened with the responsibility of bringing joy to others. I turned to philosophers who could aid my GBH in its existential crisis, posing fundamental tenets and recording its responses:
ME: Jean-Paul Sartre said: “At first, man is nothing. Only afterward will he be something and he himself will have made what he will be.”
GBH: What the…? Is this clown for real? He’s saying that I am Nothing but a half-baked concept until I bake myself? I’m a HOUSE, bozo!
(pause. Inhale deeply. Exhale slowly.)
ME: Let’s start again: Friedrich Nietzsche stated, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
GBH: For the love of...he’s joking, right? Because otherwise I am completely surrounded by MORONS! Let’s see how Mr. “I’m special because no one can spell my name” feels when red peppermints bleed all over HIS pristine Royal icing snow. I'm sticking with Søren Kierkegåård who said man is responsible for his own actions. He's my hero! Henceforth, I shall be known as Gingerbreååd Høuse.
ah, hold on! That’s not right. I am NOT responsible for my own actions! I DID NOT CREATE HUMIDITY! Go ahead…ask GOD!
Oohh...wait a sec…Existentialist don’t believe in God. Or do we? Are we atheist? Or agnostic? I always get those two confused. Can you still ask God questions if you’re waffling on semantics? Anyway…why are you asking a gingerbread house? I’m 50% sugar!
ME: Speaking of sugar, try this little trick: A hand-held Dremel will spin a tiny blossom of perfect cotton candy when slicing a candy cane. Really! Try it. Then keep grinding for 3 days, 7 hours and 13 minutes at which time you’ll have spun enough cotton candy for a mouthful. Then stop this silliness, you umlauted Übermensch, and do something useful!
(meanwhile, back to the Existential blather...)
ME: Albert Camus (another idiot with a weird name) said Absurdity exists because the human instinct for order is frustrated by the world’s refusal to be orderly.
GBH: Really. They’re gonna talk to me (moi!) about order? What with my disintegrating gingerbread walls and seeping stain-glass windows and dissolving candy canes?? Let’s see how YOU deal with melting snowman noses, you nihilistic jerks!
I’m not even going to dignify Schrödinger and his damn cat.
ME: Enough with these loser clowns! No wonder they were depressed all the time. I've condensed this existential crap into a concise manifesto which will be nailed to the doors of my next GBH:
I exist.
There was humidity.
I am gone.
{{sigh}}
Faced with the stigma of being a transitory holiday decoration doomed with past failures, GBH exist for eleven months in a semi-conscious fugue state, filled with ennui and disillusionment while watching depressing black & white Swedish films.
(See...this is what TOO MUCH SUGAR does to you!)
When December arrives, they emerge from the pantry as objet d'art, yet burdened with the responsibility of bringing joy to others. I turned to philosophers who could aid my GBH in its existential crisis, posing fundamental tenets and recording its responses:
ME: Jean-Paul Sartre said: “At first, man is nothing. Only afterward will he be something and he himself will have made what he will be.”
GBH: What the…? Is this clown for real? He’s saying that I am Nothing but a half-baked concept until I bake myself? I’m a HOUSE, bozo!
(pause. Inhale deeply. Exhale slowly.)
ME: Let’s start again: Friedrich Nietzsche stated, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
GBH: For the love of...he’s joking, right? Because otherwise I am completely surrounded by MORONS! Let’s see how Mr. “I’m special because no one can spell my name” feels when red peppermints bleed all over HIS pristine Royal icing snow. I'm sticking with Søren Kierkegåård who said man is responsible for his own actions. He's my hero! Henceforth, I shall be known as Gingerbreååd Høuse.
ah, hold on! That’s not right. I am NOT responsible for my own actions! I DID NOT CREATE HUMIDITY! Go ahead…ask GOD!
Oohh...wait a sec…Existentialist don’t believe in God. Or do we? Are we atheist? Or agnostic? I always get those two confused. Can you still ask God questions if you’re waffling on semantics? Anyway…why are you asking a gingerbread house? I’m 50% sugar!
ME: Speaking of sugar, try this little trick: A hand-held Dremel will spin a tiny blossom of perfect cotton candy when slicing a candy cane. Really! Try it. Then keep grinding for 3 days, 7 hours and 13 minutes at which time you’ll have spun enough cotton candy for a mouthful. Then stop this silliness, you umlauted Übermensch, and do something useful!
(meanwhile, back to the Existential blather...)
ME: Albert Camus (another idiot with a weird name) said Absurdity exists because the human instinct for order is frustrated by the world’s refusal to be orderly.
GBH: Really. They’re gonna talk to me (moi!) about order? What with my disintegrating gingerbread walls and seeping stain-glass windows and dissolving candy canes?? Let’s see how YOU deal with melting snowman noses, you nihilistic jerks!
I’m not even going to dignify Schrödinger and his damn cat.
ME: Enough with these loser clowns! No wonder they were depressed all the time. I've condensed this existential crap into a concise manifesto which will be nailed to the doors of my next GBH:
I exist.
There was humidity.
I am gone.
{{sigh}}