One of my favorite passages in Authenticity — yes, an author is allowed to selectively admire his own book — is the “One Unreal Day” experienced by fictional Brenda and Eddie (the popular steadies) on pages 32-34 and all the “Fakery” that follows later in Chapter 3 — all the commentary on fake actors, fake phone calls, fake law enforcement, fake IDS, fake sports, fake advertising, fake sales, fake music, fake art, and fake fixtures.
Every once in a while, a single newspaper issue reminds me of all the fun we had tracking and accumulating a sampling of the fake happenings that occur in everyday life. The New York Times of October 18 supplied one such issue. That Sunday paper marked the first appearance of this year’s full-page ads for faux Christmas trees (for www.TreeClassics.com and www.FourSeasonClassics.com). The Irishman Paul Hewson, a.k.a Bono, wrote an op-ed piece entitled “Rebranding America”, in which he distinguished between “the real President Obama” and “a fantasy version of the president” and explained “why I think the virtual Obama is the real Obama.” He did, seriously. Elsewhere there was an article about “Battling Faux Disabilities and Fake Permits”. At least the article was entitled that in hardcopy print — yet another neologism. (While we’re at it: Why do newspapers so often have us battling faux headlines by changing titles when placing articles online?) But the article to top it all off was this gem: “Body Mistaken for a Halloween Display”. Yes, for five days a dead body sat in patio furniture on a balcony in Marina del Rey, California, thought to be a house decoration. “He looked fake,” said one neighbor.
Another unreal day indeed.
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