The grammar of ornament.
Actually, the poster in the window of the Meier & Frank is worse, much worse: she’s lying on her back on that zig-zag couch thing, coy-defenseless, chewing on her come-hither pencil.
It’s part of a Macy’s (née Meier & Frank, and that’s a whole other kettle of fish) promotion, complete with a crappy Flash-based website and tie-ins to crappy bands you’ve never heard of with albums you’ll never hear to flog. Aspiring poet. Aspiring celebrity chef. Aspiring indie filmmaker. Aspiring editor-in-chief. All of them aspiring to do little more than dress and accessorize the part (what else could they do to convince you of their worth, since all you’ll see is a single still image in a store window?): callow images of callow youths aspiring to little more in truth than flattering snark from a Nick Denton website. (The aspiring poet is spot-on, an unholy cross between Jonathan Safran Foer and Leotard Fantastic.) —And ordinarily, I’d be laughing at this joke that can’t figure out who the punchline is; ordinarily, I’m well-enough inured.
But aspiring therapist?
(That’s what it says, there in the white box. “Aspiring therapist.”)
The other callow youths all have the accessories of their aspirations: a sleek little digital camera, a sleek kitchen set, a not-at-all sleek library of serious-looking tomes bought by the yard from the Strand, mockups of sleek magazine covers to be marked up. All our aspiring therapist has is her couch and her pencil and her fun, short-sleeved tee: Let’s Play Doctor. And her patient, of course. Who else you think she’s looking at, bub? All coy-defenseless and come-hither pencil like that? —It’s a sexy nurse joke gone off, therapy and sex and nurture and desire and love all snarled and confused, projection and projector, subject and object inextricably mixed up: who’s aspiring to what, here? This pose isn’t Dr. Melfi, it’s Tony Soprano’s fantasy of Dr. Melfi, and I shudder and turn away and stalk off with a scowl on my face. The other callow images make me snicker; even the aspiring celebrity chefs are Bobby Flay’s fantasy of what it’s like to want to be who he is. But this one makes me angry.
(Is it just me? I dunno. Think about what the image is telling you you should want, or want to be. Just ignore it? Maybe, perhaps it’s best, King Canute and all that, but first slip Mary Daly’s lens in place for a moment: ASPIRING THE/RAPIST. —Whose idea was this, anyway?)
Massage therapist.