I don’t watch television. I mostly read, I go to shows, I see clowns. So I only had a vague idea of who Kelly Clarkson was. I knew she was in a talent show with Justin Guarini, who I know from the theater.
On October 10, Ms. Clarkson walked into Art of Play, the curiosity store in Brooklyn where I live. She was here less than five minutes and caused quite a commotion. She asked a saleswoman if she could buy me, Molly, the store mascot and was duly informed that even if that was impossible, she could contact artist Bliss Kolb to request a $15,000 duplicate. Bliss, of course, makes hand-cranked mechanical contraptions that mimic living creatures, much like daytime talk show hosts.
The first clue that I wasn’t for sale might have been that I was hanging on the wall. Other items not sold in Art of Play include the light fixtures, the dresser, and the sign reading “The Art of Play,” which a number of people also inquire about, almost all of them gay men. I’m sure Mrs. Clarkson wants an Oompa Loompa too, but we don’t sell those either.
Why would a store have an item that is not for sale? Maybe Mrs. Clarkson has never been to Brooklyn. Nothing in the stores here is for sale. They look like the frozen yogurt shop and doll store underneath Barbra Streisand’s house. We are all funded by our parents, including Barbra Streisand.
Ms. Clarkson posted on Pretty woman.”
Even though I didn’t see Pretty womanor any work by Garry Marshall other than his excellent performance in Lost in AmericaI have since watched the clip she refers to and find the comparison confusing. If Julia Roberts from 1990 had arrived wearing a cropped white tank top attached to a blue miniskirt with a silver O-ring, I would have jumped in her purse. As seen in security footage uncovered by podcaster Pablo Torre, Ms. Clarkson wore the same appalling outfit as every other Art of Play patron. Maybe now owners will listen to my plea for a dress code. Then again, one of them wrote the children’s book Dragons love tacosso I’m not holding my breath. Unless you don’t turn me on.
She’s not the first Karen to enter Art of Play. A white woman asked to speak to the manager about how the $1,200 applause machine wouldn’t applaud her. Another complained after asking for help solving the $185 egg-shaped puzzle, and we jokingly suggested she “Goop it.”
The online brouhaha caused Clarkson’s supporters to doxx our owners and send them death threats, leading the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union to issue an official statement defending us against celebrity-fueled harassment. America is sadly divided between those who kneel at the altar of TV celebrity and those who want to enter the secret theater in the back of a curio shop and see Jay Gilligan’s “Stories About Gravity” magic show.
Molly at home at Art of Play.
Before you decide which side you’re on, let me remind you what Voltaire wrote about a little animatronic wooden duck from 1764 made by artist Jacques de Vaucanson that could eat, digest, and excrete. He said: “Without… the Vaucanson duck, you would have nothing that could remind you of the glory of France. » Replace “France” with “America” and “the Vaucanson duck” with “Kelly Clarkson” and it’s really funny.
Part of the reason I write is because once you get me pumped up, I can’t stop. But also to warn other institutions about Ms. Clarkson. The Louvre may want to post additional guards around the Mona Lisa to prepare for her visit.
We now have a tongue-in-cheek price tag of $15 million because by law we can only do things in Brooklyn with irony. But also because we think Blake Shelton could really buy it for her.
Ms. Clarkson is currently doing a hotel residency in Las Vegas, a place I’m as likely to visit as Manhattan. I hope she will be comforted by the wooden toys she may have acquired there, perhaps a Thomas the Tank Engine. It’s no city for a bird with a wooden worm gear that operates a star gear and eight cams each operating a lever that controls either a movement or a leather bellows that blows air through a brass whistle that varies in pitch by a piston operated by its own lever and cam.
This is all just a media distraction from what we should really be talking about, which is Palestine. As a privileged wooden toy bird, I feel a responsibility to use my animatronic voice in alliance with oppressed people, birds, toys, toy birds and bird toys. As another famous wooden toy said: “I don’t have any strings!” » But for 15 million dollars, I’m willing to sing whatever you want.
Behind closed doors at Art of Play in Brooklyn.
Associated Press
Gn entert
