There’s an ancient story about a man who was walking down the road when he encountered a great sage, whom he greeted with great respect.   The rabbi replied “You worthless, ugly person. Are all the people of your city as ugly as you?” The man rebuked him, saying “I don’t know, but you should say to the Craftsman (God) that made me: How ugly is the vessel you made.”  The sage fell do the ground, contrite.

Contemporary studies find that beauty is an advantage.  Beautiful people are typically treated better by others, aren’t insulted by passing sages.  For women, researchers found that enhancing a woman’s attractiveness boosted people’s perceptions of her competence, likability and trustworthiness.  Of course concepts of beauty may vary, from Rubenesque fleshy appearance popular from the 15^th century, to the emaciated Twiggy look of the 1960’s.  Powdered wigs, blonde hair, green hair, no hair… the variation is endless.

Physical beauty or ugliness is rarely an issue in Judaism; wisdom and knowledge take priority.  In Proverbs we are told that a woman’s charm is deceptive, her beauty vain.  The same woman, though, is praised for her wisdom.

The novel Quantum Cannibals was inspired by a woman from history; both wise and beautiful.  I introduced her:

Asenath accepted her beauty and wisdom as a gift. The former, she ignored; the latter, she nurtured and fed. She didn’t feel arrogant about either. “Tanayt” wasn’t a name, but a title her people had bestowed on her. It was reserved only for the greatest sages, for the most able of leaders, and hadn’t been given to anyone in hundreds of years. Certainly not to a woman…  Such beauty, people reasoned, could only be a result of divine favor.

This description applies as much to the historical (16^th c.) Asenath Barzani as it does to my fictional adaptation.    She was head of the Jewish religious academy in Mosul, Kurdistan, and was admired by both the Muslim as well as Jewish population.  Although she was a legitimate female rabbi, her title “Tanayt” was a much higher designation.

I took my Asenath out of ancient Kurdistan.  I kept her as a scholar, but placed her in Bronze Age Mesopotamia.  I also set her in the arctic, where she was an exiled inventor, quantum biologist and warrior.  It may sound confusing, but if you read the book you’ll understand.

The poet Ralph Waldo Emerson said “never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.”  The historical Asenath Barzani was the personification of that idea in her beauty and wisdom; in her life.

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My wife was shocked to find fecal matter on our kitchen table.  She called me over right away, and pointed to a photo:

“ENTRANCED: Gifted Montreal designers Fecal Matter admire the mastery of legendary Manfred Thierry Mugler at the official launch…”

There it was: in the Social Notes of the Weekend newspaper.  Also in attendance at the launch was the Director of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (hosting the event), Kim Kardashian, supermodel Tyra Banks and other representatives of the social elite of western society.

Seeing these turds was jarring.  I had been happily trying to remember the lyrics of the song “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Oklahoma,” when my wife summoned me.

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning

“All the sounds of the earth are like music
All the sounds of the earth are like music
The breeze is so busy it don’t miss a tree
An’ a ol’ weepin’ willer is laughin’ at me

Oh, what a beautiful Morning’
Oh, what a beautiful day.
I’ve got a beautiful feelin’
Everything’s goin’ my way.
Oh, what a beautiful day! “

It’s corny, no argument about that.  The lyrics aren’t deep, they don’t raise any major social issues.  The words reflect the carefree, self confident America of the nineteen-fifties, where everything appeared to be going its way.  It was a society whose artistic theme was optimism and appreciation rather than poop.

Fecal Matter is a Montreal-based fashion duo, whose surreal and stomach-clearing creations have garnered international recognition.  They’ve been featured in Vogue and other fashion journals.  Artslant magazine described them as “the design provocateurs subverting fashion’s throwaway culture” who “express solidarity with other outsiders” (emphasizing their progressive credentials).  In an interview they said:

“Calling our platform Fecal Matter was really a stab at the heart of the industry—showing that all of these material belongings we are all collecting and harvesting is all just shit at the end of the day.”

You don’t protest sh*t by adding to it.  It’s more radical to declare “Oh, what a beautiful day, I’ve got a beautiful feeling everything’s going my way.”  The folksinger Phil Ochs (1940-1976) put it this way:

“In such ugly times, the only true protest is beauty.”

The Banality of Evil

Offensiveness is banal, not creative; crudeness is certainly not protest against the social order.  It’s high fashion, as shown by the fawning socialites who celebrate Fecal Matter.  It’s evil when society normalizes deviancy, shrugging its shoulders at widespread coarseness and nihilism.  Fecal Matter and their sycophants are not revolutionaries or radicals stabbing at materialism and power.  They are the establishment that must be overthrown.  Let’s do so by following the advice of Phil Ochs, and Rodgers & Hammerstein: fight back with optimism, beauty and decency.

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