George Saunders, "My Flamboyant Grandson"

Grandpa’s racing to get his son to the theater, but he has his obligations to advertising to think about it.

(from In Persuasion Nation)

All around and above us were those towering walls of light, curving across building fronts, embedded in the sidewalks, custom-fitted to light poles: a cartoon lion eating a man in a suit; a rain of gold coins falling into the canoe of a naked rain-forest family; a woman in lingerie running a bottle of Pepsi between her breasts; the Merrill Lynch talking fist asking, “Are you kicking ass or kissing it?”; a perfect human rear, dancing; a fake flock of geese turning into a field of Bebe logos; a dying grandmother’s room filled with roses by a FedEx man who then holds up a card saying “No Charge.”

That’s a rather long excerpt, I know. “My Flamboyant Grandson” portends a ghastly future wherein every citizen is obligated to endure the advertising the corporations have created just for you. Now, the machine being satirized here is not the sort of stuff I’m currently worried about. It’s very Minority Report, very Reaganomics. But hey, it funny and pretty in its own way. And, while it doesn’t feel quite as relevant to this modern world as it could be, it hits its targets with with finesse and humor. Read an oddly horizontal version of it here.

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