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Detritus and Deleteria* for GazetteOfTheArts.com™, say:
Norman chic: You'd think that after 9+ centuries the Anglo Saxons in the English speaking world would have gotten over feeling like second class citizens because of being conquered by those cultured Normans from across the channel, not so! Here is a list of distinctions we Americans use, every day, that perpetuate Norman class consciousness, first the Norman (French/Latin) derived "high class" word and then the lower status Anglo Saxon (Old English) derived equivalent:
Norman: Salary/Anglo Saxon: Wage
Norman: Career/Anglo Saxon: Work
Norman: Superintendent, Employer, Employee/Anglo Saxon Worker
Norman: Residence/Anglo Saxon: House or Home
Norman: Spouse/Anglo Saxon: Wife
Norman: Passenger/Anglo Saxon: Rider
For example, a high class Pulitzer prize winning journalist may prostitute (Norman) his or her self with a sensational story written for monetary gain but, a yellow journalist working for the tabloids is a literary whore (Anglo Saxon) pure and simple.
Interestingly, in the area of scatological and sexual profanity the Anglo Saxon monosyllable reigns supreme. The forbidden "four letter words" of yore are almost all Anglo Saxon in origin. After nine hundred years its interesting to note that most of the "offensive" words in today's pop music lyrics would have been as well understood by and as offensive to William the Conqueror in 1066 as they are to Tipper Gore today. Who says Americans have no cultural continuity.
Wilde Times on the Tail Fin Circuit We've always suspected that Ralph Nader was
anti art.
Our most recent proof, this quote from old art for arts sake himself, Oscar Wilde,
"We can forgive a man for making a useful thing, as long as he does not admire it
The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it immensely.
All art is useless."
Take that, Mr. Nader, you tail-fin-hating-barbarian know-nothing.
According to Oscar, the tail fin, one of the most useless and adored icons of America, was, therefore, one of its most artistic creations. Mr. Nader and his ilk held this cultural artifact up to ridicule, exposing themselves as Babbitt-like philistines who "know the price of everything and the value of nothing" and who wouldn't recognize high art if it impaled them on the highway of life. Mr. Nader attacked tail fins precisely because they were art: they were useless and people liked them for purely aesthetic reasons. Shame on the American artistic community for not coming to the defense of Detroit. We deserve all these little lozenges that we are all forced to drive about in today. Yuck!
* About Detritus and Deleteria: Think of them as your wise guides on this page. Think of Detritus, perhaps, as a present day Diogenes, after his wick has been blown out. Mayhap you will think of Deleteria, as a modern Demeter, with an emphasis on her role as the CORN goddess. Detritus and Deleteria believe that we live in a golden age of many things, including the outrageously decadent exercise of every conceivable human foible This decadence is coupled with and fed by an unprecedented availability of power, wealth, and access to publicity; a citizenry whose intellect and passions are increasingly corrupted by a nihilistic chattering class.
Fascinatingly, all this decadence is taking place side-by-side and hand-in-hand with one of the most fascinating renaissance periods of Art, Literature, and Music, much of it centered in the technology you are using as you read this page. As a cultural enterprise, society is simultaneously going to Hades in a hand basket while soaring to the heavens of unprecedented achievement. Confusing stuff, but not for Detritus and Deleteria. Detritus and Deleteria believe that the cultural decadence thrust upon us by what passes for the intelligentsia these days deserves to be appreciated on its own terms, total buffoonery masquerading as relevance. They believe that it is all too important and interesting to be taken as seriously as it often is.
Put succinctly, if you can't find sustenance for satire in this century's swan song, you're definitely living in the wrong century and you are for sure, on the wrong web page!.
Welcome, O ye culturally deprived! We are Detritus and Deleteria. We will be your guides to the cultural debris of the day: puns too bad to listen to, let alone repeat; cultural kitsch of such glorious, shameless, extravagance as to humble the audacious tar; random acts of cultural carnage and senseless acts of blathering by the congenitally clueless. A guide to cultural atrocities so wonderful that you'll be inspired by the inventiveness of your fellow humans. A page, in other words, devoted to - with apologies to the immortal bard - all the natural cultural flaws and gewgaws that flesh is heir to! A page which can best be appreciated, and contributed to by denizens of - in the words of the great Tom Lehrer- The Massachusetts State Home for the Permanently Bewildered.
All this has come to pass. ~Detritus and Deleteria
Detritus and Deleteria will guide you through the backwaters and brambles of American and world culture, where much of the world's REAL cultural life and many of its most important cultural artifacts languish, to be appreciated only by future cultural cartographers and of course, NOW, by you -- through the artifices of Detritus and Deleteria. Oh, yes, this pesky couple is a trifle wordy-- well, okay, very wordy.
By the way, did you hear about the L.A. cop who beat up the street musician. He was trying to eradicate street violins. (paraphrase of a 60's cartoon, we can't make up every bad pun ourselves. If you want to help, use feedback below.)
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