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Monday, April 02, 2007
BABY SAID
Hot Chip
Coming on Strong
Astralwerks : 2005
[Buy It]
BABY CAPTAIN
Xiu Xiu
La Foret
5RC : 2005
[Buy It]
BABY BLUES
The Stills
Without Feathers
Vice : 2006
[Buy It]
BABY STRANGE
T. Rex
The Slider
Repertoire : 2005 (original release : 1972)
[Buy It]
BABY, WHAT IS GOING ON
The Old Ceremony
Our One Mistake
Sonablast : 2006
[Buy It]
After witnessing a disquieting scene at a coffee shop this morning, I feel compelled to address a cultural phenomenon that seems to harbor dire, if obscure, ramifications for us all.
Whether you believe that babies are mad geniuses from outer space or just tiny, catastrophically insane humans, I think you'll agree that they have some perfectly reasonable functions. They look cute (sometimes - in the words of Cerebus the Aardvark, "All babies look like Winston Churchill to Cerebus."). They can be a nexus for the surplus of desire with which we adult humans seem unduly burdened. Certain concepts about propagating the species come to mind. But babies seem to have developed some entirely unreasonable functions as well, like this one: Adults whose lives have become so babycentric that the rituals of mature socialization no longer apply are conducting entire conversations through the media of their mute, drooling offspring.
You know what I mean. Consider this gruesome little scene: You're sitting in a coffee shop, enjoying your morning caffeine-and-reading time. You're having a hard time focusing because of the blood-curdling screams periodically issuing from the next table, where an infant presides over two young mothers. While you'd never considered it consciously before, you realize that you've been laboring under the misapprehension that babies don't drink coffee, and therefore don't really belong in coffee shops. It's not like you go to drink chai and smoke cloves at the playground (one hopes).
At any rate, while the infant occasionally becomes furious for no apparent reason, the young mothers carry on a normal, if slightly stilted, conversation, one that adheres to social norms. But suddenly, one of them does something that's at once surprising and unsettling: She turns to the baby and asks it a question. "Did you have a nice weekend, Charlie?" she coos. You are nonplused. Your mouth hovers expectantly over your coffee cup. The young mother is still leering expectantly at the infant, which has somehow removed its shoe and inserted its entire foot into the remains of an espresso milkshake. You realize, with some alarm, that you're waiting for the child to respond as well. Did it, in fact, have a nice weekend? The question hangs in the air like a punted football, holding its spin against a backdrop of infinite blue. The other young mother takes the cue: "We had a great weekend with Daddy, didn't we, Charlie?" Then, in the same high-pitched lilt, she instructs the child to speak. "Say, 'Daddy took us to Tweetsie Railroad,' Charlie." This goes on for some time.
What the fuck. Is it meant to be cute, or are there more sinister implications? Has the baby telepathically commandeered the mother's mind, using her as a mouthpiece to express its sordid desires? This premise flatters my affinity for the paranoid and fantastic, but seems unlikely. If it were the case, I imagine exchanges like the following would be more common:
YOUNG MOTHER 1: "Did you have a nice weekend, Charlie?"
YOUNG MOTHER 2 [body stiffening and eyes glazing as baby executes Vulcan mind-meld]: "Say, 'Not really,' Charlie. Say, 'I crapped myself and no one noticed for hours, since Mommy and Daddy spent most of the day arguing about which private pre-pre-school to send me to.' Say, 'I insereted a lima bean into my left nostril, and I'm pretty sure it's still there.' Say, 'It was a hundred damn degrees outside and they bundled me up like an Eskimo; I sweated like a pig. So no, I actually had a pretty shite weekend, thanks very much.'"
Or:
YOUNG MOTHER 1:"Did you have a nice weekend, Charlie?"
YOUNG MOTHER 2 [eyes glazed, in creepy monotone]: "Blah. Blah blah blooey. Milk. Crap. Milk. Attention. Pacifier. Give. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Gaaaaaaah."
And that's not all. Since I began my extensive work on this jarring expose, it's come to my attention that the phenomenon has exploded the boundaries of the infant world and infiltrated that of pets:
PET OWNER 1: "Hiya Spark, did you have a good time at the creek today?"
PET OWNER 2 [speaking in gruff, utterly inexplicable doggy voice]: "Say, 'We sure did,' Spark. Say, "We almost got into a fight with a raccoon, but other than that....'"
You fools! Dogs can't speak English. You asking a dog a question is like a bird asking you to fly, then grabbing your arms and kind of flapping them ineffectually while it and the other birds laugh at you. And it's only a short leap from pets to inanimate objects. The possibilities are manifold and surreal. Businessmen in boardrooms, making their ballpoint pens "say" things about fiscal quarters and leveraged assets. Teachers waving around chalkboard erasers that lecture students about mitosis in the voice of Bobcat Goldwaithe. Doctors making their scalpels "ask" for 50 ccs of whateverthehell, stat!
I'm not even going to get into people having conversations via their sexual organs. It's just too tragic.Labels: babies, brian
posted by Brian
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