My Descent Into Madness

Pride cometh before a downfall, dear readers, and I fear that today, I have heralded my own.

It began, as these things often do, in a Williamsburg coffee shop, with me modestly admitting my previous triumphs in the art world, and a small group of fellow hipsters expressing their understated admiration for the same. Then these inquisitive hipsters began to wonder, innocently enough, the purpose of my art. I panicked, as you can imagine, dear readers, since my "Art" was a sham--an excuse, if admittedly a clever one, for my own failings as a hipster. I began to hem and haw, and was, I saw quite clearly, losing my audience, when it dawned on me: just because I hadn't intended to create art didn't mean I hadn't. After all, art is a relative proposition. Warhol could easily just have been some guy who liked to paint soup cans, but the world perceived him to be an artist, and so he was. What was the difference in my case? The fact that I could not readily conceive of an answer had a salutatory effect on me, and my confidence grew. As my pontification became assured, more and more "cools" and disaffected shrugs followed. This high praise intoxicated me, as a dance troupe of slim-hipped youths would a pederast, and when they asked me what my next project was, I carelessly alluded to telemarketing.

Yes, I had brazenly exposed my own greatest weakness! They raised their eyebrows--the hipster equivalent of a shocked gasp--and I wildly sought to reassure them. I had faked my way into telemarketing, I told them, so that I could execute a Found Audience Art masterpiece. Which would have been well and good, had what I had so crapulously laid out not committed me to something I fear 1) is not possible, 2) will cost me my job if attempted, and 3) will cost the job of my dear friend John, without whom this attempt cannot be made.

A disaster, dear readers, entirely of my own making. If only I'd left it simple--claimed that I would, say, passively resist, like Bartleby the Scrivner--I might have escaped unscathed, but oh no, I had to make this grandiose announcement: that I would convince my fellow telemarketers to play a game of telephone with a rival teleconferencing company.

I knew that the idea--a long-running joke I share with John--would be well-met (how could it not?) but even I could not have predicted the collective excitement from the group. I even got not one but TWO admiring chuckles! Suddenly, I was the focal point of the entire room, as hipsters began hurling suggestions at me faster than I could take them in, each one hitting me like a snort of snuff. Before I knew what had happened, I had giddily committed to not only performing this insane feat, but making an audio recording of it to boot!

I believe I have worked out the logistics, dear friends, but it is madness--a veritable suicide mission--and its success will require not only my efforts, but those of my closest friend, who I fear will not be easily convinced. At stake: my reputation in the hipster world.