Saturday, December 27, 2008

Deck the Halls with Whores and Zombies



These kids want brains for Christmas, dammit! And with November bringing the end of Halloween’s bliss-through-mimicry, it seems that crossing off the names on your list is all that matters.

Confused and agitated parents towing kids on phone chord-leashes, decked out rent-a-strollers shaped like cars, teenagers snapping cell phone photos of what must be some shopping mall apocalypse – it’s impossible to walk in that muck. But when you closely follow the slow, observant wake of zombies, it’s a lot like driving a sleigh with the same level (but a different kind) of significance as that overfed holiday monster, Santa Clause. When you realize you have no power over this unhinged horde you can still make some sort of accomplishment as you make your way through the decomposition. Shoppers clear a path at any sight of this unsightly group of youth and anti-shoppers dressed as zombies wading through the shock-leaden passivity of their holiday consumption.

You will see castrated security guards try to communicate with this breed of invaders. Above their desperate squeals of lost authority, you might reach some sort of transcendental understanding where the zombies become comprehendible: “you’ve taken their brains long enough. This is our day. Fuck you officer. They’ve been tossed around by commercials and those invisible authorities controlling the department store PA systems have breathed down their necks all year round – this day, their brains are ours.”

But they will have some competition on this day: the halls of this one-stop monolith are hungry too for the abundant brains being sucked into the bullet-proof transparency of every shop within.

Every year, at different shopping locations, this strange ritual takes place: an annual reminder of the pious attention shoppers pay to their calendars and commercial breaks and the efforts of the undead to take their rotten brains. Loved ones reduced to names on shopping lists, dogmatic authority is passed on to the commissioned store clerks of hipster-defining and disposable-income-outlet giants that scream in terror at these consumption antagonists, “We’ll lose business you dogs! This is our harvest season!”

Whether the shoppers will cease or understand the efforts of these zombies is uncertain. But the zombies will moan. They will moan at the apathy of wallet-depletion and lost values, moan at the practice of a tradition that submits to materialist greed and the ability to capitalize on it.


Non-consumer gift ideas: DIY gifts
-photo albums
-baked goods
-recipe booklets
-give a download list (i.e. “check out these songs”) or self-made mix tape/disc
-paintings
-poems/poem booklets
-take a fan to their favourite band’s concert
-re-gift

* originally published in the University of Guelph organized publication, Peak Magazine.
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