On a hot, sun-drenched street, amidst the bustling waiters, I congratulated my sister Gracie at a summer café. Above us, a man and a woman in that utterly traditional, and therefore charming, pairing, only the nasal voices of Yiddish singers filled the air.
In the strange morning damp of shampoo scents and oceanic sighs, a woman’s hand rested on my shoulder, and then the rest of Miley Cyrus appeared: she wore a sheer boho dress, black polka-dot panties, and Mickey Mouse Crocs.
“My album came out half a month ago. I check your Telegram, and it’s full of some bullshit about Russian toddlers no one outside your village even knows!”
“Oh my God, Miley, my brother’s been really busy lately!”
“I invited you to the afterparty for Drake’s concert, but you said you were in Russia, and then you went to see Lilo & Stitch at Quad Cinema!”
“Miley, your new album sucks, okay? Claire, Gracie, and I bought champagne and Parmesan, had a pillow fight, and wanted to put on Miles Davis, right? But Claire was so un peu éméché that she mixed up Miles Davis with Miley Cyrus; in the end, we just fell asleep to your generic pop boomer-jams, and when we woke up, the champagne and Parmesan had expired. That’s how much your album means nothing!”
“Ewww, generic pop… champagne… God, my nephew’s channeling his mom’s snobbery… already reread Oscar Wilde, right?”
“Oh my God, Miley, relax!”
“Alright, little toddlers, finish your milk, right? And next week, I want a review of my album on your channel, but not like that puke-worthy Pitchfork or that idiot Anthony Fantano, you know? I mean a real cool review, BIG DEAL! And I’m also waiting for four articles supporting Palestine and abortion rights, two or three articles on objectification, and some dirt on Sabrina Carpenter, that bitch pisses me off!”
“But Palestine is against abortion,” Gracie noted.
“I don’t give a damn, you know? Just write that shit from my perspective, like it’s my stance, right?”
“My brother only writes from his own perspective.”
“God, sweetie, our culture has long reached the point where that doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to authors who choose a path of sincerity with their audience.”
“Blah, blah, blah. Sincerity is just another marketing ploy to sell more sincere crap.”
“I think we’ve strayed from the topic,” I observed.
“The only difference between me and you is that I don’t wear a monocle and don’t talk like a pretentious asshole, and I’m sure your brother dreams of being inside our pop culture, but he’s above that, right?”
“You’re right, Miley, I have no love for modern culture, but I am a part of this culture, its prodigal son, and I use all the benefits of this culture against itself, and that makes my position even more relevant.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard today. Please tell me it’s a joke post.”
“I’ll say the same thing as you. In our time, it doesn’t matter.”
“Brother, why not leave an island within this pop culture for lovers of complex and independent music?”
“Friend, you mean for smelly bores?”
“There are already enough contenders for the role of ark builders, and I’m forced to agree with Miley, their music is as stuffy as a mole’s ass; I wouldn’t want to be in the same room with them. With the transition of culture from elitist to egalitarian, the mass man appeared, demanding mass culture, and those who released albums titled ‘I AM NOT COMMERCIAL’ ended up doubly ridiculous, because their non-commercialism appeared within and thanks to commercialism, and even my beloved Tsoi in my homeland fell into this trap – all his protest was fake from the start.”
“Brother, you’re repeating my stance, fighting modern culture is meaningless. It’s not your concern.”
“Nothing has meaning, sis, and you’re right, I’m not a hero; let’s leave that privilege to the blissful fools. However, we clearly see what a ridiculous state culture is in, and even if history has no direction, we can somehow have fun: we’ll exchange our stuffy principles for the magic wand of total nihilism, pushing modern culture to the maximum point of absurdity, where it’s impossible to track where personality ends and image begins, where sincerity ends and a joke begins, because it’s all one big performance that will destroy itself. Minus times minus equals plus.”
“God, you guys are so fucked up… my head hurts. Please bring me a glass of milk, just not to the music from A Clockwork Orange, or I’ll go insane.”