The Modern Pendulum

This is a vignette about a dioramic view of modernism dungeons.

I just couldn't retire from writing without a dioramic opus on the dystopian paranoia of modernism dogma, and this depression-focused 'postcard' was inspired by the dystopia-destiny film I, Robot.

Thanks so much for reading (signing off),

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Allow me to tell you the tale of the typical American yuppie, drowning in moral apathy and Wall Street avarice. He is blind to the new era of normalized vice, as the world around him becomes more vulnerable to the effervescence of the perfume of flesh. This yuppie is the avatar of our little vignette about modern mass jitters.

As Jesus prepares to return for the Apocalypse and make war with Satan and the AntiChrist, the archangel Michael is ready to stand against the cries of false pity and the corruption of fertility. This is a grand struggle, and it speaks to Americans' simultaneous love of the global social networking website Facebook and fascination with graphic imagery in the media in the form of horror-films, racy music-videos, and unfiltered racism. Is this the signature of this new era of mob gossip?

Fortunately, there are great social figures and media role-models to remind the youth that heroism is not dead even in the age of dizzying consumerism. Sure, heroism is not easy, but it can come in the form of costumed evangelists and urban angels who inspire kids to think fondly of comic book heroines and night-time serenades! Surely, this suggests that our prototypical slothful American yuppie will not destroy our sense of natural vivaciousness.

Enter an Internet-blogging self-proclaimed "democracy-defending vigilante" named Ajay Satan, a young Algerian-American who wears masks and posts blogs about the joy of pornography in the modern media age of censorship-intrigue. Ajay Satan is a huge fan of the Hollywood (USA) movie-star Leo DiCaprio who's just completed an iconic film about the 20th Century journalism-embroiled political giant J. Edgar Hoover. Ajay Satan puts on masks and makes himself out to be some kind of dystopian Thomas Nast while yearning to meet Leo DiCaprio and ask him what it's like portraying a dystopia-intriguing American man like J. Edgar Hoover. Ajay Satan is the new Roy Rogers!

Ajay Satan is not an idealist or a fool. He's actually and ironically correct about his wild conjectures of modern media era hyperactivity! The modern media is all about crazy images and crazier storytelling, casting our American fears about a complete loss of democratic self-control in the dizzying age of Internet and convenience-capitalism! Who's going to make sane sense of capitalism-rituals such as the Gulf War?

Ajay Satan peruses the Internet and finds countless alluring photos of luminous gorgeous American celebrities celebrated in poses highlighting consumers' interest in fashion, celebrity, candy, gossip, fortune, toys, and yes vanity in forms galore! Ajay Satan wonders which of these paraded 'web-models' are real-life James Bond girls, paragons of modern espionage. Heck, if you're a sweet-and-sour 'Bond-girl' then at least you're not an AIDS musician.

Ajay Satan sometimes uses classic-era American family-values themed photos of religious and community-spirited typical families preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday! Ajay uses these photos to talk about what might bring comfort to daily magazine, MTV, and Internet-consumers in the 21st Century who may be constantly worrying about why the Home Shopping Network is making them confused about social racism. Is Ajay Satan a genius or a cliched priest?

Ajay sits in his photography dark-room in front of his brightly-lit pseudo-neon green-lamp light and reads comic books about great superheroines who rescue man from the utter pits of modern darkness, reminding them that flesh is not as sweet as simple poetry! Ajay Satan is indeed something like Roy Rogers, cooking up fried-chicken for the soul so we think Jesus will return not to punish mankind but to draw it out of the Lazarus Pit of eternal depression. Ajay Satan wonders if there are media role-models out there who can serve as superheroes that challenge the vanities of our prototypical sloth-yuppie introduced in the preamble to our 'republican' vignette!

Maybe what we really need are sweet and soothing movies that remind us of our imaginations about escapism and the delight in forgetting about urban sloth in preference for the idyllic landscapes of the beach and unpolluted Earth-islands! Heck, such movies at least encourage a healthy forgetfulness of acquired, inherited, or improved wrath. Ajay Satan, our 'dystopian' vigilante' worries, however, that such movies will make us numb to the reality of capitalism agitation. That's impossible, right?

Nothing is impossible. You can kill anyone. Heck, crazy fundamentalist terrorists managed to fly into America and destroy the World Trade Center in NYC! Maybe that's why Ajay Satan watches crazy vigilante comic book movies about deformed but 'passionate' anti-heroes like DC Comics' Two-Face who defy urban sloth with their crazy brand of anti-fascist dogma! Should Ajay Satan even waste time with such media dummies?

Ajay Satan decides to use fanmail as a fanboy to make contact with the Hollywood (USA) superstar Leo DiCaprio and ask him what moved him to make an iconic film about J. Edgar Hoover or why he invests so much time and money in his eco-conservation group the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation! Ajay Satan receives a response from Leo's fan-PR agent telling him that Leo might be interested in some of Ajay's pro-dystopian Internet-blogs in the form of constructivism submissions! Ajay Satan learns that there are real media democrats (such as the democratic Leo DiCaprio) who just might be willing to listen to all kinds of modernism doctoring.

Of course, Leo is also busy planning a trip to Romania to link up with a liberal neo-leftist eco-conservation group called the Green Lanterns who want to embrace the resources of modern media to encourage consumers to buy energy-efficient goods such as eco-friendly light-bulbs! Leo even begins dating one of the gypsy-women who serve as executives of the neo-hippie group in Romania. Unfortunately, Ajay Satan has no idea that Leo is using media resources to make new age revolution feel much more sane. That's truly Satanic!

A real psycho begins reading Ajay Satan's blogs and goes mad. He believes everything Ajay's saying about our prototypical Americana-deflating sloth-yuppie is absolutely correct and his mind starts to splinter. This psycho, a redheaded Irish-American named Cletus Kasady, morphs into a flesh-mutating wild-eyed ravenous manslayer named Carnage! Carnage goes on top of the newly-reconstructed World Trade Center with a megaphone and announces that he's infatuated with Madonna. Carnage is killed by the military but is canonized as a new age Genghis Khan.

Ajay Satan decides to now hide by advertising glow-in-the dark cereal-box comic book superhero rings as symbols of modern era youthful optimism towards democracy and heroism. You see, Carnage scared the hell out of Ajay Satan, and now our delightful if strange Internet-vigilante now no longer wants a crazy 'fan' to 'claim' him as some inspiration for new age anti-socialization violence! Ajay Satan decides it's simply safer to hype toys than it is to lambaste modernism schizophrenia. What an anti-climactic dream, right?

Was Ajay Satan a real ninja, or was he simply yet another pawn in a new era that eerily resembles the same kind of anti-socialization angst we saw in the time of J. Edgar Hoover and crime-bugs? Do we need an Ajay Satan or are video-games about cute little pro-American hedgehogs sufficient to inspire our kids to daydream about Earth? Who needs a ninja-hero on a planet otherwise content about mashed potatoes?

Maybe if Ajay Satan stayed around, he'd have contended with a psycho like a Leatherface horror-film copycat manslayer who insisted that he should kill cops who liked Ajay Satan's idealistic blogs. After all, at least Ajay Satan was somewhat more old-fashioned than our prototypical urban sloth-yuppie. So what's the harm in all this neo-dainty folklore?

If Jesus does have to return to fight the AntiChrist, maybe there will be a real-life Woman of Babylon who strangely affords corrupt sloth-yuppies with strong thrones that challenge Americans' idealism towards accessible spiritualism in modern media (e.g., EWTN - Catholic TV). Such a mysterious 'Woman of Babylon' might tell us something strangely-intriguing about the modern value of pornography and slang. Wouldn't we feel somehow slightly liberated by her power over drugs? Weird deep thoughts abound.

Fortunately, even Ajay Satan can find great comfort in the plethora of shock-delivering modern American horror-films that easily remind everyone that fear is in no short amount in any nation made complex by pluralist traffic. You might find swamp-dwelling zombies, haunted killer-dolls, and spooky creatures who remind us that democracy is never pretty! That's why we all love Duracell...and Dracula.

The Hindu god Shiva, master of destruction doesn't want to feel left out of this Apocalypse-equation so he descends to Earth as the master of the bottomless-pit named Apollyon and makes war on an Earth-invading terrifying alien intelligence called Xenomorph who insists that human civilization isn't valuable. Shiva wants to defend American democracy and believes Jesus can redeem man and woman. However, the Xenomorph wants to eat people for food.

SHIVA: Humans sufficiently praise Orwellian fears, alien!
XENOMORPH: However, they neglect capitalism warfare.

SHIVA: It's a matter of edification, not extinction!
XENOMORPH: Eco-pollution is manmade and deformative.

SHIVA: That doesn't equate to cannibalism!
XENOMORPH: Well, it certainly makes mankind stink badly.

SHIVA: That's why Internet-sites sell herbal perfumes now!
XENOMORPH: You can't solve capitalism-sloth with Patchouli.

SHIVA: What's wrong with a little 'hippie' daydream?
XENOMORPH: Nothing; as long as you don't ignore Christian prophecy.

SHIVA: So you accuse mankind of ignoring the Book of Revelation?

XENOMORPH: I'm just hungry and want to eat humans, since they'll destroy themselves anyway.

SHIVA: Untrue; Italian car-makers make gorgeous Lamborghini cars, and that's praise!
XENOMORPH: Praise of what?

SHIVA: Praise of aesthetics...capitalism...and geometry.
XENOMORPH: Alright, I'll spare humanity...just make sure they keep making cars.

SHIVA: I'll pass the word onto Jesus, so never return again to this place, evil alien!
XENOMORPH: Alright, Shiva; you return to your meditation-chamber.
SHIVA: I'm content humanity will find its aromatic sense of disgust.

XENOMORPH: Great!

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