Watch Where You Step

You might not think of this as an appropriate subject for reflection, analysis, introspection, what have you, but I would like to talk about some shit. Yes, excrement. Walking to class one day (my "tackle the subjunctive tense class"), pain au chocolat in hand and basking in the sweet savor of those buttery trans-fats, I nearly stepped in a neatly arranged pile of merde. Like a gag vinyl prop it looked perfect, like from a dog with well-balanced diet. Planted in the pile, erect like a little ivory tower, stood a plastic fork, gleaming in the famous sunlight of Provence. The streaks of chocolate in my chocolate croissant now disgusting, I stuffed it in my backpack and pondered the turd before me.

My tastes in art of all genres tends toward the florid and romantic side. Chopin instead of Bach, Caravaggio, not Mondrian, Britney with drug problems, not Britney the virgin. This little shit before my feet though, has vaulted itself to one of the most fabulous pieces d'art I have ever beheld. I laughed instantly then fell immediatly after into introspection on the qualities and universal appeal of this piece. Not some overwrought controversy or pickled Hirst horror, but an urban Monalisa; Rodin never sculped something so real and so 'art' as did the anonymous genius that crafted "Merde with Fork". Sublime, really.

I stood enraptured perhaps too long when I noticed a baguette bearing madame greeting me awkwardly, as good folks do when they see someone weird and want to politely dislodge him from the neighborhood. Discovered as I were, gazing at poo in the street, I lost my wit to banter and returned a sheepish "Bonjour" and headed on my way to class. Looking back, there she stood, head bowed, reluctantly snacking on the butt end of her baguette and pondering the meaning of the merde. We were d'accord. Had it not stank so badly, as the medium tends to do, one of us would have scooped it in a to-go container to appreciate later.

The quantity of art-history major claptrap that could come out of this piece is immense, and what is most impressive is the very meaningful and appropriate quality of such analysis. Who doesn't shit? Who has stepped in a pile of dog-poo in the street, carrying for the rest of the day the scarlet letter of shame, stink, and frustration like someone wrongfully accused of murder? The piece has universal, deep appeal. What's more, the object stuck in the steaming pile was not some derived object, something obviously "deep" like a flag or, let's say, a headless barbie-doll, but a simple tool that we use every day to perform a necessary action in order to live (and produce more of this base medium), that is. . . eat. In this way, "Merde with Fork" is a fully contained comment on a basic instinct of survival, less "you are what you eat," more "ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

The anonymous Avignonnais work has a parallel in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy in the lotus flower, transcending the muck into a pure, beautiful blossom. In our Clorox obsessed, domestically sterilized culture, we have very little idea of how much we owe to the excrement of all the beasts that are digesting and recycling the stuff of life that the earth pushes up to sustain us. In many traditional cultures, much of India for example, dung is a very prevalent and important part of life. Not only does it line the roads, leftovers from the millions of cows that calmly masticate in urban pastures, but it fuels cooking fires for the masses that cannot buy fossil fuels. It helps them build walls where they cannot get building materials like bricks and concrete. For the rest of us, it fertilizes (in a permaculture fashion) the fields that give us the bounty we just celebrated this Thanksgiving.

"Dirt made my lunch" sings the very Santa Cruz Banana Slug String Band. To go a step further, poop made my lunch. I applaud the efforts of the artist in the street for making me think of how low brow life really is and how s/he has risen above the muck into transcendent thought just by stirring it up a bit with a plastic fork.

Rock!

Bad writer! I've not been keeping up. To keep you entertained check out the latest, greatest rock sensation from deep in the countryside of Provence, land of lumière extroadinaire. . .