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Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.


There has been some pretty shocking weather today: hot, incredibly windy, dusty, and - worst of all - smoky because of some bushfires around the state. You can see the effect on the view from Salamanca Place across Sullivan's Cove to Hunter Street.

I have a theory about hairdressers that involves an elaborate and sophisticated system of overlapping and interlocking – yet deviously independent – plans, plots and cunning schemes to perpetuate the greatest hoax on humankind since that whole notion of New Coke (what a gyp that was).

No, I’m talking about the tendency to shamelessly exploit the vanity of women by lobbing on a thirty percent tariff for seemingly having the temerity to even walk into a salon. No, that’s an everyday garden variety scam. What I am talking about is something far more sinister, and ultimately, something far more dangerous.

You may well be familiar with the concept of the Große Lüge, or – if you like – the 'Big Lie'. The Große Lügeconcerns a lie of a magnitude so immense that no one could seriously believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously”. At its very core, the concept asserts that people will sooner believe a big lie than a small one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will eventually believe it.

What I suspect our cabal of Machiavellian barbers, hairdressers and stylists are doing in an orchestrated, sustained and inhuman campaign designed to rob humanity not just of its money, but of its dignity as well.

What else could explain otherwise rational human beings to part with significant quantities of cold hard cash to not only allow someone to desecrate the very hair on their head, but then consent to flounce around with a poorly executed dye job, a shoddily cut fringe, and seemingly random clumps of hair snipped here and there?

Fashion?

Fashion is supposed to make you look good.

Fashion is supposed to make you feel good.

Fashion is supposed to make other people want to touch you in your naughty places and groan your name while they lick your ear and stroke your thigh.

[Ahem]

Political theorists have described the most insidious form of power as that which sees individuals internalise and replicate the very nature of their oppression.

It should be obvious that power is more effective the less visible it is. Of course, there are many visible and invisible power relationships and dynamics that happen every day in human society. Yet, not all power is measurable. Power is not just about suppressing conflict, but in the absence of conflict itself!

No more clearly can this be seen than in the range of dud haircuts that are sighted every day of the week.

So keep your Zionist conspiracies, keep your military-industrial complex, your race of reptilian humanoids, Area 51s, homosexual agendas, global warming hoaxes,illuminatis, or your 9/11 fit ups covers ups and fuck ups. You can keep the lot of them!

Of course, I can’t prove it.

Yet...

Comments

kylie said…
last time i got a cut and colour it did make me look good, i did feel good and at least one person offered to lick my ear and stroke my thigh ......
at that point i think i had some power

cheers kris
Anonymous said…
Glad you got a shot of the weather and the clouds of smoke and dust. Shocking weather for sure!

As for hairdressing. $18 buzzcut here every time!
I am definitely attracted to that BIG LIE, but, I have no time for it. Drive through hair cuts please.
Sue said…
I think you might find that some of those haircuts you think are duds, just may be INTENTIONAL. THAT is fashion. One person's dud haircut is another's masterpiece! Your view may be distorted as you are a male...and over thirty!! Sigh!
Personally...I did not want to facilitate the exploitation of women and so have not stepped foot in a salon for many, many years. I cut my own hair...and a damn fine job I do! I thought after the last botched job I paid an exorbitant amount for..."Hey! I can do that myself...for free!!"
And anyway, there is no-one to stroke and lick...so who cares??!!
Kris McCracken said…
Kylie, as Foucault said, "power is everywhere". I'm glad to hear that you found someone to lick your ear! It's a fine thing to do for a person...
Kris McCracken said…
Greg, it wasn't a great day to spend the lunch break outside with the camera. I nearly got blown away.
Kris McCracken said…
Diva, do you have to get out of the car?
Kris McCracken said…
Sue, oh no, I am the objective observer, the academic on the hill (if you will). When I say that it is a dud, it's a dud.

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