Hooray for Child Labor!

Ok, ok. I know that my blog has of late been nothing more than pithy commentary with the occasional side dish of snark. It's not my fault! Japan is clearly out of control:


Baby Mop from Chris Milk on Vimeo.

First You Can Shave the Baby, now this! What do the Japanese think babies are? Certainly not smaller versions of themselves. This complete de-personification of their young baffles me. The gorier aspect of floor cleaning, namely the use of soap and water, is totally circumvented in the ad. Were this to be a real depiction of Baby Mop, and using a real baby instead of what I'm convinced was a jacked up robot baby, here's how it would play out:

A young Japanese woman purchases Baby Mop once her child reaches the working-age of three months. After running a bucket of warm, soapy water, she puts the baby in Baby Mop, dunks the child and places the soaking tyke on a dingy floor. The baby begins to wail in protest, not crawling about and not squealing with happiness. The woman scratches her head, rereads the directions and regards the now furious baby. Faced with the decision of a clean floor or a contented baby, the woman fashiones a stick and digs it into the back of her child. Twenty minutes later, she has a clean floor and a quiet, lifeless young one!

Dark Sided

As all of you are well aware, I have been sick the last few days. The flu decided to skip an overture and head right into Act II (of VI). My pleas for mercy rang through the halls, but the flu would hear none of them. In my darkest hours, sweat coating the bedsheets and kitty cautiously sniffing and poking my bloated carcass, I needed a savior. I called upon our dear lord to send me an angel, one whom could rid my body of this taint, this putrescence, this unholy contamination. After hearing my prayers, cooking a pancake and watching Gossip Girl, god answered my prayer and placed within me the only being (besides himself, naturally) capable of banishing the evil for good.

Thank the holy lord for Marguerite Perrin. I couldn't record what took place within my bowels, but I found footage of Marguerite when she happened upon a show called Trading Spouses. If you simply replace the envelope she mauls with my sickness, the house with my body, and her family with, uh, some bewildered organs, I think you'll understand her powers:

You Can What the WHAT?!

There are so many problems in the world today. Whether it's international terrorism, crumbling economies or civil rights abuse, it seems like everywhere you turn, another devastating event is trying to ruin your day. Right now, somewhere in - oh, let's say Japan - this lovely creature is gracing the shelves of toy stores. Not quite human, not quite satyr, the "you can shave the baby" doll is, in my opinion, a monument to our collective global issues. When the weight of the world presses upon us, we deal with it each in our own way. Some people take vacations. Some people see their therapist. Some take comfort in the kinship of friends and family. For this particular toy maker, s/he thought to deal with it by creating a suckling "human" baby covered in fine, red hair.

I keep having to recheck the picture to make sure I'm actually seeing 1) Hair "suspenders" 2) Baby crotch bush the likes of which not even 1970s porn has seen and 3) Round-the-calf hair leg warmer cuff thingys.

Just checked again. And again. One more time. OK, so I'm not hallucinating but I'm still pretty sure that thing has evil powers and is poised to attack.