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Make Room for DadA   
Taitlin at Home (1920) -- Raoul Hausmann 

A periodic exploration of the somewhat undefined conceptual space created between Danny Thomas and Man Ray

by Richard Holland

       --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This evening we look at the frustration and angst that accompany
existential marketing as we follow: 

The Continuing Adventures of Randy Kamoo–
Door-to-Door Philosopher

Episode 1 – The Fortress of Solitude

Randy Kamoo walks down a silent street of well appointed and newly constructed colonial style homes. He wears the obligatory corduroy jacket with fake leather elbow pads in a shade that is neither gold nor green, but rather faintly resembles each.  He holds a weather-beaten leather satchel in hand, overstuffed with papers half spilling out.  He stops at a large white center entrance colonial with closed garage doors.

He rings the doorbell.

From behind the door:  “Who is it?”

Randy: “Hello, Randy Kamoo, door-to-door philosopher”

From behind the door:  “What do you want?”

Randy:  “Now we get to core of the inquiry – what do I want? … for that matter, what do we all want?… which implies the question – What is our purpose? … That is the fundamental question for all of us, is it not?”

From behind the door:  “I mean, what are you selling?”

Spiritual Death of a Salesman

Randy:  “In short, an opportunity to focus on your vague station in this uncertain universe, to challenge yourself to ask the really difficult fundamental questions that we rarely attend to between mocha frappachinos and trips to the mall.”

From behind the door:  “What?”

Randy: “Madam, what would it take to put you into an existential dilemma today, right now?

From behind the door: “Go away. I don’t understand what it is you are trying to sell and I am not interested.”

Randy: “But can’t you see that your answer is an illusion, being in fact a disguised expression of an either – or proposition, for if you understood fully my purpose you may in fact be interested. And leaving, or “going away,” as you term it, is an illusion of itself, as if there were a stationary point of reference, whereas we know that everything is in motion relative to each other. Try to think of me as leaving at this moment, but traveling in the same direction and speed as your house.”

From behind the door:  Silence

Randy:  Ah, but shouldn’t I ask or inquire as to who you are, for I at this point have no evidence of your existence other than a voice, which could easily emanate from a recorded device or machine of some kind. For all I know, this house is, and has been empty for years, and the voice I hear is the last practical joke of an existential clown.

From behind the door:  Silence

Randy:  Okay, then let me ask you this -- how soon do you plan to make a decision on adopting logical positivism?

From behind the door:  Silence, but from a distance the faint sound of a police siren begins to grow louder.

Randy: Aha! Now we see the imperative of the state as keeper of the bourgeois status quo! Very well, I shall “go away,” but only in the physical sense, as my discourse has its own permanency. (As he walks down the street he mumbles to himself:) Perhaps my goals are best reached through specific accommodation with the bourgeois materialist culture.

Stay tuned for the next episode of the adventures of Randy Kamoo -- mall-kiosk philosopher.

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