Ripped

While I was splitting wood today there were several times when some piece of flotsom- bark, twig, whatever- would fall through one of the holes in the knees of my bluejeans. It's still warm enough for there to be creepy-crawlies in the logs so every time that it happened I did a little "shake a leg" dance. There never was any entymological excitement, I guess it was just habit.
At one point (and after several Hokie-Pokies) I went in the house for a glass of water. Before I put my coat back on to head back to the wood pile, I tried to remember if there were any safety pins left in my sewing box. I'd been meaning to pick some up, but I thought there might be three or four rattling around in there. (My sewing box, like my fishing box exists in a highly entropic state. Both are ongoing scientific experiments designed, so to speak, to determine what is the least disturbance required to prevent sedimentation/petrification.)
I almost went for the pins when I remembered an advertisement. (Ah-Ha! It's just the durndest thing when snark imitates life.) There was this "dudes'" magazine on the back of the crapper at work (no, not that kind- it rhymes with Wax Him) and it had one of those full-page glossy fashion ads. Some young feller with those hollow cheeks those violent puppy dog eyes and those
pre-washed, pre-faded, pre-grunged, pre-ripped bluejeans.
Hell's Bells thought I. I have an honest-to-Madison Avenue pair of stylish dungarees.

I'll admit it, at this point I languished in indecision. Should I change my pants and save these haute couture togs for my next night on the town? Are chainsaw oil stains au courant?

In case you're wondering; Yes. I do have a smug, self-righteous smirk on my face. In any event
it was time to go back to the wood splitting...with my ripped jeans. I was still on this train of thought when ripped entered my mind again- different context. Don't they call a human body "ripped" as well? Like when said body exhibits "well defined" musculature? Someone who is "in shape", so to speak?

Both instances- the togs and the torso- are a veneer (this word too came to me whilst playing with my wood) A facade if you will. Reminds me of an old essay by Umberto Eco from Travels in HyperReality about a European perspective on Disneyland.

Look. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with shelling out money for clothes that look like they were pulled from a Salvation Army dumpster. And there is certainly no reason to denigrate folks who spend time at the gym, far from it! I'd just like things to be a bit more, more....more real. I mean what is the "look" we are going for here? The ripped jeans signify a sympathy with folks who wear-out their clothes doing stoop labor? Same thing apply to that banker with those ripped biceps? "Well, you see, I could just as easily been a steelworker/longshoreman/crab-fisherman/bouncer/intrepid explorer/porn star..."

Perhaps my angst derives from a source not unlike the spring from which bubbled forth Persig's elusive Quality? Could it be source similar to the Spaniards' Fount? The liquid in the lamp of Diogenes? I flatter myself in the dream aqueous, more likely mine is a case of the "vapours"- of the nebulous and erratic breezes which turn (slowly, slowly) Don's windmills.

At one time another "fashion" held my attention. The beltless, gravity-defying low-slung trousers of "hep youth". The stumble-shuffle gait induced by those sub-sub hip-huggers, I learned, was similar to that walk used by prisoners. In fact many of the trappings of urban kids, from the low-slung drawers, laceless shoes, askew caps- were identical to what would be found on the other side of the wall.

Surely I thought; these kids are exhibiting empathy with the Forgotten Man. It was some kind of a Johnny Cash/Man in Black sort of phenomenon that I wasn't privy to. So many questions remain...and hope springs eternal.