In a previous post where I talked about Rouxls' House Rules ability, I mentioned having some thoughts on what he would be like as a secret boss. Here are those thoughts now! I was originally gonna include it in the original headcanon post, but decided to turn it into its own one since the other post was already very long.

Once again, I'm putting everything under a cut:

In a theoretical secret boss-type boss battle with Rouxls where he unleashes the full extent of his abilities (and assuming they're in a place where Rouxls doesn't have to worry about turning to stone), I imagine the fight would start out extremely difficult and chaotic. Rouxls is adding and removing House Rules left and right, constantly changing what you can and can't do. And I imagine the game mechanics would change somewhat, and allow you to target anyone with anything, in order to adapt to his new rules. For example, Rouxls creates a House Rule dictating that healing and harming effects are reversed, so you become able to target your party with the FIGHT button in order to heal them. But watch out! If you don't pay enough attention to when the House Rules are removed, you might end up wiping out your entire party with your own attacks. I could see another House Rule reversing the effects of the Graze mechanic, so your TP goes down if you graze an attack. And it wouldn't feel like you're making much progress in the fight at all: his Spare Gauge won't increase no matter what ACTing you do, and if you choose to damage him, Rouxls just heals himself back to full health once he reaches a certain threshold.

Eventually, though, after surviving for long enough, things start to change. Rouxls starts getting more reckless with his House Rules, creating ones that directly impact Kris and the others, perhaps culminating in one that prevents the SOUL from moving at all. Susie, who's been getting more and more frustrated by the increasingly unfair additions to the rules, shouts that she's sick of having to play by them.

* Miraculously, once Susie said that, you regained feeling in your SOUL.

* Suddenly, you have an idea…

You've finally discovered Rouxls' weakness, and now the tides of battle are shifting in your favour. You gain the ACT option to X-Reject (requires all three party members), and with it, you break down all of Rouxls' House Rules one by one.

You continue shutting the House Rules down until Rouxls creates one last one: a protective rule that sets his defence to max (or, in the context of a Snowgrave run, he's had a rule that gives him an immunity to ice magic active for the entire battle). He is really insistent on keeping this House Rule, since. Y'know. It's keeping you from being able to hurt him. You can try to use X-Reject, but this time it doesn't actually seem to do anything. In this final phase (which is actually pretty easy), you've got a couple different ways to go about things.

If you use the other ACT options, Rouxls' Spare Gauge will actually start to increase now! So you can let him keep the defence House Rule up and just convince him that you don't want to fight, eventually being able to Spare him like that.

If you continue to use X-Reject enough times in a row, your will will eventually manage to overpower Rouxls' own, breaking down the final House Rule. Rouxls is now defenceless and exhausted, and you're able to end the fight however you wish: you can defeat him violently in one hit, or you can Pacify him with Ralsei, or you can Spare him (possibly getting different dialogue compared to if you spared him without breaking the last House Rule).

Like I said in my last post though, Rouxls doesn't have any offensive magic of his own, so he'd need a battle partner or a weapon for this theoretical fight. Honestly, my ideal would be a scenario where Rouxls and Queen show up in a Dark World together to Cause Problems On Purpose and fight the Fun Gang just because they think it'd be funny to mess with them. And then they just decide to end the battle on their own terms because they've started turning to stone dgshshd. So basically. Team Rocket but it's Queen and Rouxls. Lancer is Meowth. Please. But that would be for a fun miniboss fight, not a secret boss Rouxls fight like I've been talking about for this post.

For the secret boss battle, I think giving Rouxls a weapon would work better than giving him a fighting partner. That way he's the only actual person you're fighting and would be the only one talking n stuff, and thus the spotlight is fully on him. Though I guess it'd depend on the context behind the fight, which I haven't actually figured out dgshshf. But yeah! Maybe he could have an upgraded version of the Thrash Machine that combines all of its possible parts and attacks (so you're still getting a tough fight even if you made a duck). Or he could get a new weapon related to whatever Chapter this fight takes place in. Pull a Spamton and steal some sort of powerful magical artifact dgsfshf. But whatever it is he has, it's gonna get buffed a ton by his House Rules during the fight.

My Beloved, Penis

Fuck it. I was infected by Penis SMP by @demonboyhalo reblogging a bunch of it and the lack of consistent lore bugged me, so I somehow banged out 2000+ words of fanfic about the Penis SMP and how it got started. Lots of internet humor and classic MInecraft shenanigans in this one folks. *slaps roof* This baby can fit so much crack treated seriously, lol. This is also up on my AO3, Zazibine, if you would prefer to read it there.

_-_-_-_

It was never supposed to get so big. It was just an SMP with a couple friends of his he had met from the Hypixel discord server, where he had logged on simply to trash talk the absolute asshole who had dared to kill him last minute in bedwars, only to stumble upon said asshole- going under the name shittyfartbaby69 of all things- complaining to his girlfriend(?) Milfboss in the voice chat. Thirty minutes later of awkward hellos and the manliest of bitching at each other (with Milf chiming in every once in a while to roast them both), and PenisUnavailable had perhaps his first Minecraft friend in, like, forever.

Then Admiral_Anus had entered chat, bitching about his competitor in ABBA Mining and his bullshit bad luck and the whole process repeated. By the end of the day, Penis had three new friends, a private discord server for the four of them, and a promise to meet up with them in Hypixel next Sunday for the ultimate round of bedwars.

The game went spectacularly. Somehow, Admiral had some of the best bridging skills any of them had ever seen, and between Milfboss' terrifying Scottish screaming and pvp and Shitty with his clutch TNT skills, the three of them almost made up for Penis' awful depth perception. They still lost around forty percent of their games, but that was certainly better than Penis' own abysmal record, not helped with his habit of walking off the edge at inconvenient times.

And it was... fun. Usually bedwars was just him playing in his bedroom alone for an hour before he rage-quit and went back to survival for a bit before he died to fall damage and rage quit that too. But shittyfartbaby69 would crack dirty jokes that he'd never even heard of before, and Milfboss would roast him for looking it up on reddit and Shitty would cuss her out as he tried to prove that no, he was being original- all while Admiral would comment of them as if they were a sideshow display. Then Admiral_Anus would turn around and knock an enemy player off their island with some clever pvp and they would all hoot and holler and swear for a while before going back to their conversation, joking about forgetting the topic and starting up a running gag about something new.

And their accents, mmm. PenisUnavailable would never say it, but he really was as American as white Wonder bread and Milfboss' Scottish brogue, Admiral's smooth British snark, and Shitty's shrieking in Australian, well. Ear candy, you know? Even if he teased them mercilessly for pronouncing shit wrong, like "buhguhr". Ppffttt, it still cracked him up how Milfboss had threatened to murder him after the dictionary app on his phone had proved him right that it was actually "Bur-gur", even if Admiral kept insisting it was pronounced "bruh-girl".

Four hours and twenty-eight wins later, they had agreed to meet up the next day to play again, preferably at an hour that wasn't two am for Shitty again. (It was two am for Shitty again, although that was because they played for six that time.) Eventually, it just became a regular thing, them playing bedwars and competing at ABBA Caving- the one game Penis was unnaturally good at, much to Admiral's annoyance- to the point where they ran out of funny jokes about their competitors and the game itself and started talking personal anecdotes.

Milfboss owned a motorcycle. Admiral, entirely independently, also owned a motorcycle, as that was the only vehicle of reasonable speed and style that could actually handle the London traffic. Shitty couldn't drive at all, something about never passing his driving test. Admiral ate cheese at breakfast. Shitty liked to burn his garbage in a metal oil drum in his backyard. Milfboss posted herself singing covers of shit over on Youtube. And it wasn't just real life stuff either- their minecraft skills were also on the table for them all to collectively roast.

Admiral had never seen a single Minecraft Championship. Milfboss thought a flat cobblestone roof was entirely acceptable. Shitty's favorite block was the flint and steel. (That's not a block, sixty-niner. Shut up, is too. OoOh, real clever, 'shut up'! Uh, how about no? How about I fuckin' make you, ever think 'a that? No nono nonono, I'm on two hearts! I'm on two hearts, stop!) It made him curious, honestly. He wanted to see Milf's builds for himself, get revenge on Shitty, see if Admiral really could beat the Ender Dragon with a knockback stick like he said he could.

So he made a minecraft server. And they all joined it. (And stuck PenisUnavailable with the bill, suckaaahhh~!)

Predictably, it all went to Hell in a hand basket pretty quick.

See, it's one thing to play with nutters like his friends in a structured set up like Hypixel games, it's quite another to try and keep a semblance of order in an open world survival server like the Penis SMP. The first five minutes had been him trying to explain the rules and teleporting everyone back to spawn over and over as they tried to "escape the cops," ie, him. The next five minutes was Shitty scream-laughing "scatter!" and other John Mulany references down the mic as everyone ran off to start their houses. Penis, as he was still "god" at that moment, used admin commands to find the closest flower field biome to settle into, hoping for some- ha- peace and quiet.

Shitty, inevitably, ended up trying to settle in the fucking Nether. Like a mad lad, you know, as you do when you are apparently obsessed with all things lava. Milfboss ended up making an oak plank box of a "tree house" in a dark oak forest, while Admiral_Anus picked a nearby swamp for his starter base. Outside of that, they just kinda vibed in discord as they tried to fend off the mobs and get enough resources to try and build up houses that were a bit more than cobblestone towers and wood boxes- er, mostly. Milf kinda just fucked off to go mining, found a skeleton spawner by chance, and made a set of iron gear to stand in the dungeon room with to just chill and kill mobs for a while. She ended up with something like 45 levels and burned her only diamond on an enchanting table so she could buff the Hell out of her iron weapons and armor.

Penis, rather typically, he though to himself, put together a basic sheep farm and started work on a cute little cobblestone cave base. He managed to get a whole twenty by twenty block room done and fully furnished before he noticed the chat full of Shitty's death messages and went to go investigate. After nearly dying in lava twice, he managed to find Shitty's pile of items floating on a basalt pillar about a hundred blocks out from his... base?

It was a soccer ball. Shitty's base was a perfect fucking spherical soccer ball made up of quartz blocks and basalt. Just. What. The Fuck??? Then out popped shittyfartbaby69 and it was PenisUnavailable's turn to misjudge a jump and plummet right into lava. Fifteen minutes and much shrieking later about losing his diamond pick, and it turns out that Shitty didn't really care about his lost items, as he really only had four gold picks, a stack of dark oak, two furnaces, a bucket, and thirteen cooked mutton to his name. Not even a bed, the fucker. He just ran back to his portal from spawn every time he just burned to death, taking the chance to gather resources on the way back each time.

And no, he wasn't following a tutorial for his "football" base. Jerk. (Although Penis did have to admire his determination...)

The day ended on Milfboss, Shitty, and Penis reconvening back at spawn to try and hunt down Admiral_Anus, who they found later having built a thirty block tall castle of all things. Out of cobble stone and the windows weren't quite even, but still, it was pretty impressive. And of course, when presented with a castle, what can what do but siege it? So they lay siege to the castle and Milfboss curb-stomped Admiral in pvp and laid claim to the throne, crowning herself queen before summarily throwing the rest of them out. It was a good day.

And the day after was a good day. They played dodge ball crossed with hide and seek in forest around Penis' house with arrows supplied by Milfboss. And the day after that, too, where they had a building competition using nothing but cobble stone, specifically to spite Milfboss, who had kicked all of their asses the day before. In fact, three wonderful weeks passed of doing normal Minecraft shit and being friends passed by, and every bit of it was great fun.

And then came the fucking role play.

PenisUnavailable would have liked to preface that with he only participated under duress, but really, Milfboss had been queen for too long and nobody wanted to risk TNT cannoning any of Shitty's nice builds, so. Well, the castle was better than his drafty cave, alright? It was cold and wet and didn't have a proper door because aesthetic (and because it usually took him several tries to work an iron pressure plate door), so there were far too many mobs wandering in at night and spawn camping him. He and Shitty had almost the same number of deaths and Shitty lived in the fucking Nether.

So yeah. Castle time, baby! Daddy needs a new home! And Admiral obviously wasn't happy living out of Milf's awful tree house hot box where they all did drugs together on day fifteen and it still smelled of burnt wheat seeds, aka "weed." It was only obvious that they teamed up to try and take back the castle.

The battle itself didn't exactly go great, but it wasn't exactly horrible either. A lot of shouting shit at each other for fifteen minutes, the majority of which he wouldn't remember until it was too late- something about server unity?- only to find out that it wasn't two on one girl boss, it was two on a girl boss and her "baked out of his mind" henchman, also known as Shitty in a squirrel furry skin.

The ears man. Those stupid (cute) ears.

And then they were running for their lives because Milf had somehow gotten her hands on a flame bow with infinity enchants.

It all culminated in a dramatic stand-off in front of Shitty's Nether Soccer ball, Milf on one side, diamond axe in hand, not a bit of armor on because of an unfortunate run in with lava, Penis and Admiral on the other, picks in hand, threatening to tear down shittyfartbaby69's base. Shitty wasn't online just then to comment, but they could all hear him click-clacking away on his keyboard so he obviously hadn't gone to sleep just yet like he said he had. At an impasse, and unable to justify letting her teammate's home be used as collateral, Milfboss stood down and gave up her "crown," an enchanted golden Prot IV helmet she had gotten off a skeleton from her spawner.

Then the great betrayal, the beginning of the end. Shitty came back online. 96-Cam joined the game, not that they noticed in the chaos. Admiral-Anus cackled wildly and PMed Milfboss the message that Shitty had sent him, giving Team Gay Sex permission to tear down his base in the name of winning the war if it came down to it- making Milf's sacrifice worthless in the end. Penis gave another dramatic speech, circling around Shitty, who was acting weirdly apologetic to Milf about betraying her and still wearing that fucking squirrel furry skin.

"You see Milf, there's one thing more powerful than a girl boss, and when it comes down to wars between kingdoms, there's something you need to remember!" Penis got out his golden ax, helpfully labeled 'Piss Off'.  "And that's a dilf with something to lose!" An enderpearl in his off hand and he teleported behind Milf, catching on fire from the lava but still landing the last hit needed to finish her off. She puffed into a cloud of EXP, swearing up a storm, and then Admiral and Penis turned their gaze to the cheering Shitty.

"AAAAAYYY, LET'S GO DADDY!" the squirrel man screeched, wild laughter shorting out the discord voice chat, making him go quiet in patches when the volume overloaded the client. Behind him, Admiral quietly started building a chair out of birch fence posts and slabs.

"Not so fast, shit-ty-fart-baaaaa-byyyyy~, this isn't quite over yet!" Penis fucking chirped, barely holding back his laughter. "You're still a fucking traitor and we can't have you backstabbing us too. Get in the chair for Daddy, okay baby?"

Admiral finished the chair just in time for Shitty to turn around and see the completed monstrosity, shrieking dying off immediately. "Oh screw you, that's just mean. The Hell man? That's not a chair, that's illegal. If you want an electric chair or some shit, just ask. That's just sad." Mentally shrugging, Admiral lit up his work with a flint and steel while Penis pillared up above where Shitty was building an electric chair out of iron bars and trap doors. Admiral nudged Shitty into the chair, Penis dumped a bucket of lava over the edge of the pillar so it flowed over him, and Shitty started giving a soliloquy about how betrayal and how his love for his "Daddy" still "burned strong".

Like his dick. Apparently.

By the time the lava finally hit the floor and burned Shitty to death, Penis was crying with laughter, shrieking down the mike and banging on the desk hard enough to make him forget that his was still on the mouse, making him mine the block under him with the bucket and sending him hurtling to his fiery death too.

It was a good day... almost.

Because, as it turned out, shittyfartbaby69 was actually a tiktokker of some renown and his cam account had record everything. And he had uploaded the bit to tiktok, as you do, where it went viral, where it wasn't supposed to. And Milfboss, who had recently been uploading covers of herself singing old classic Minecraft songs, had attracted the Minecraft fandom kids to her twitter, where she had gone to post her rage about the events of her dethroning and Shitty's execution.

Penis SMP had gotten on. Fucking. Trending. And now everyone was demanding the full clip, their names, their Twitch streamer handles, their characters' backstories.

The masses wanted lore.

Penis watched in disbelief, head in his hands and mouth agape as sugar crash played over a clip of him killing Milf on loop.

They were making memes.

...Oh god. They were screwed.

Biennials: Supporting global culture & suppressing ethnic authenticity

VITTORIA MARTINOTTI

The contemporary art world is usually seen by the public as a realm full of creative people which are perceived as open minded and liberal thinkers (McCord, 2016). Many large-scale art exhibitions, praise their inclusivity as they represent artists from all over the world and therefore label themselves as supporters of cultural diversity (Morgner, 2015). Contemporary art, as everything else, is deeply influenced by the homogenizing effects of globalization, that keep the underlying structure of art worlds still resistant to the construction of ethnic identities (Artsy, 2017). Many critics and experts of the field want us to believe that the so-called imperialist thesis, which claim that there is a one-way flow of products and innovation from the centre, the Western world, to the periphery, the rest of the world, is a past phenomenon (Wu, 2009). However, if we take a closer look, we can immediately notice that the contemporary art world, did not fundamentally change as it still preserves the same old power relations which favour a Western ideology in spite of leaving rooms for ethnic authenticity (Artsy, 2017). A venue that can clearly show the perpetuation of this structure and ideology in the art world is the new global trends of Biennials.

In order to better understand how biennials, through globalizations, are suppressing ethnic authenticity, we should first understand what is contemporary art and ethnic authenticity, and why globalization and cultural hegemony are so relevant in this art form. First of all, authenticity is a socially constructed phenomenon, while ethnic authenticity is seen in scenarios in which recognised group membership gives the right to represent that specific group (Peterson, 2005). Secondly, contemporary art evolved from a previous artistic trend, modernism. This trend resulted in a system that protected Western art from being corrupted by ethnic or popular art through the marginalization of local production, by labelling it as unprofessional (Belting, 2012). Art history and ethnology in modernism were considered as two completely different worlds, which meant that art history was present only in the West (Belting, 2012). Contemporary art instead had a different meaning, since it was influenced by post-modernism, it rejected both art history, supporting a Western meaning, and ethnic tradition, considered as a threat to local culture in such a globalized world (Belting, 2012). In contemporary art there is a strong contradiction between promoting originality by breaking with old conventions, and therefore denouncing Western tradition, and stimulating standardization by excluding ethnic tradition from the new artistic standards (Sassatelli, 2015). For these reasons, new comers from “peripheral” countries struggle to recall Western heritage, typical feature of contemporary art, in their works as they cannot position themselves in the history of modernism (Belting, 2012). According to this underlying ideology, contemporary art is often perceived by insiders as “global art”, however what does global art means? Biennials are a perfect example as they exemplify how global culture is, to a certain extent, suppressing ethnic authenticity as it is considered as a new scene in which hegemonic and homogenic cultural rules are being reproduced (Sassatelli, 2015).

Biennials are large-scale art exhibitions which supply a homogenous culture through the promotion of few artists and movements (Morgner, 2015). This new global format is lately being perceived as a subtle form of cultural hegemony, as the majority of biennials around the world use a standardize format which is borrowed from a Western model that leaves no room for an ethnic account (Sassatelli, 2015). Biennials take place in an economic field in which on one hand, helps creating the circumstances necessary for their distribution, yet on the other hand jeopardize their independence (Sassatelli, 2015). The word biennial became nothing more than a synonym for remarkable events with a Western typology that permeated its proliferation in every corner of the world, displaying Western domination through artistic exhibition (Sassatelli, 2015).

Biennials are the archetypal form of cultural imperialism, underlined by the attempt to impress the audience by employing plurality and mobility at the surface, to hide the actual structure which is dominated by few elites that shape and control a new form of culture from a very small and unchanged centre (Sassatelli, 2015). However cultural construction is typical of human agency and aim at preserving and renewing culture, therefore it is constructed through the interaction of individuals in society at large which also use ethnic boundaries to determine identities and groups composition (Nagel, 1994). Biennials instead, shape a culture in which ethnic boundaries are erased in favour of a homogenizing narrative borrowed from a Western ideology. Biennials structure is a such dominant process that threatens the art that these platforms are trying to display (Sassatelli, 2015). Exhibitions are not characterised by any specific art movement or artists but by their hegemonic setups, which have as goal the one of creating ad-hoc art that through its support to the format and ideology, favour uniformity and forget any link with ethnic and racial authenticity (Sassatelli, 2015). Therefore, biennials are generating a field based on standardize conventions that oblige newcomers to give up on their ethnic heritage if they want to be part of this network (Sassatelli, 2015).

Biennials are perceived as key institution in this globalized artworld hence, they are criticised for two main reasons (Morgner, 2015). The first critique is that due to the vast amount of biennials around the world there is an increasing formation of so-called biennials artists and culture, that through the use of city branding strategies and a new global policy, make expositions look the same everywhere (Morgner, 2015). The second argument is that global participation is threatened by the claim that biennials exclude artists form non-Western countries and force them to hold to Western practices (Morgner, 2015). This can be explained by the fact that white raciality is perceived as culturelessness and therefore their hegemonic power is reinforced, even unintentionally, since culturelessness can be a mean to racial superiority (Perry, 2001). Biennalization lead to the so-called “McGuggenization” (McNeill, 2000) which means the eradication of local cultures in favour of a more standardized global culture, as Westerns curators are the patrons of this hegemonic rationale which is exported globally by exposing the same artists and concepts all over the world (Morgner, 2015). Thus, biennials are said to be lacking of any sort of cultural diversity as their production of “biennials” culture and artists, are contributing to a further homogenization of the art world that prevail on several forms of multiculturalism (Morgner, 2015). Regardless of how far from the Western ancestor, biennials’ nature connects any of its platform to this global new culture that exclude ethnic artists and movement to this lucrative professional sphere (Morgner, 2015). Thus biennials maintain a hierarchical and concentric structure, hierarchical because as all dominant interactions there is a centre, the West, and a constellation of peripheral clusters, and concentric because it is formed by a centre and a periphery, and in order to reach the top, the centre, artists must give up on their ethnic identity (Wu, 2009).  As Wu (2009) described it “Despite its decolonizing and democratic claims, proved still to embody the traditional power structures of the contemporary Western art world; the only difference being that “Western” has quietly been replaced by a new buzzword, “global” (p. 115).

The so praised internationalism of biennials is nothing more than a political and economic rationale which is reinforcing Western authority on other countries (Buchholz & Wuggenig, 2014). Even though international exhibitions, such as biennials, made unknown art scenes visible around the world, this trend did not modify the relationship of inclusivity and exclusivity in the art world but instead tried to obscure their endurance (Buchholz & Wuggenig, 2014). Hence, ethnic boundaries still persist regardless of a flow of people across them, and stable social relations are maintained and reinforced through these boundaries which are usually based on dichotomized ethnic positions (Barth, 1969). Despite the sad conclusion reached about biennials, not all the fields within the contemporary art world are so stuck with this old power relation. Another key institution in the contemporary art world is the one of auction houses. Contrarily to biennials, auction houses are thought to be a place in which wealthy people invest money into just to have fun, as collectors sometimes are not even experts anymore (Mead, 2016). Despite its consideration as more of an “economic” field and less of an artistic open realm, like The Venice Biennial could be, the auction house Sotheby’s in May 2017 introduced a new African-American segment, in addition to their Asians, Aboriginals and Islamic sections, showing how even more elitist venues do not consider ethnic art as a marginalized novelty anymore (Banks, 2017).

Bibliography:

Artsy. (2017). Can Art Change the Future for Racial and Ethnic  Identity? A Roundtable Conversation. Retrieved from Artsy:  https://www.artsy.net/article/the-art-genome-project-can-art-change-the-future-for-racial-and

Banks,  P. A. (2017, May 25). Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary African Art Sale.  Retrieved from C&:  http://www.contemporaryand.com/magazines/fluid-categories/

Barth,  F. (1969). Introduction. In F. Barth, Ethnic groups and boundaries: The  social organization of culture difference. London : Allen & Unwin.

Belting,  H. (2012). Contemporary art and the museum in the global. Disputatio,  16-30.

Buchholz,  L., & Wuggenig, U. (2014, July). ‘Cultural Globalization Between Myth  and Reality:. Retrieved from ART-E-FACT: http://artefact.mi2.hr/_a04/lang_en/theory_buchholz_en.htm

McCord,  K. (2016, June 17). EQUITY, DIVERSITY, AND INCLUSION IN THE ARTS: IT IS  POSSIBLE. Retrieved from Alternate ROOTS :  https://alternateroots.org/equity-diversity-and-inclusion-in-the-arts-it-is-possible/

McNeill,  D. (2000). McGuggenisation? National identity and globalization . Political  Geography, 473-494.

Mead,  R. (2016, July 4). The Daredevil of the Auction World. Retrieved from  The New Yorker : https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/04/loic-gouzer-the-daredevil-at-christies

Morgner.  (2015). Multiculturalism and the Global Art World: The Policies of Large  Scale Art Exhibitions. The Journal of Multicultural Society Vol 6,  62-98.

Nagel,  J. (1994). Constructing ethnicity: Creating and recreating ethnic identity  and culture. Social Problems 41, 152-176.

Perry,  P. (2001). White means never having to say you're ethnic: White youth and the  construction of “cultureless” identities. Journal of Contemporary  Ethnography 30, 56-91.

Peterson,  R. (2005). In search for authenticity. Journal of Management Studies 42,  1083-1098.

Sassatelli,  M. (2015). The biennalization of art worlds: the culture of cultural events .  Handbook of The Sociology of Art and Culture.

Wu, C.  T. (2009). Biennials without borders? New Left Review 57, 107-115.

Chapter One

(In which my dear friend Jane Austen spends an entire chapter in exposition, and since I have committed to try this thing chapter by chapter, I do too. Don’t worry and hang tight, I promise that the next chapter begins with dialogue)

    The greatest delight of Senator Walter Elliot’s heart was to scan through his collection of Most Influential editions of Time Magazine, Forbes, and Washington Posts to find his name and high ranking. He had been featured in Time Magazine three years in a row, twice by Forbes, and five times by the Washington Post. Each came with similar accolades, but that did not make the reading less interesting to the Senator. He enjoyed picking out the nuances in each article, the different ways the authors chose to describe his strong points, of which there were many. Most of the profiles looked something like this:

NUMBER 15

Senator Walter Elliot.

Born March 1,1965 to a family with deep political and Virginian roots, Walter Elliot is one of the key figures to watch this political season. With a grandfather on the Supreme Court, a father as a former governor, and now himself as the next up-and-coming senator, Walter Elliot is well on the way to cementing his family’s reputation as the “Kennedys of Virginia”. The senator was married to Elizabeth Stevenson two years before he graduated from Harvard in 1987, launching his political career as a state representative shortly after graduation. Rising meteorically in influence, he became state whip in 1988, and a United States senator in 1990. He has three daughters, Elizabeth (born 1987), Anne (1989), and Mary (1991). Despite being busy (his opponents might say too busy) working through tax reform, he continues to be a family man and to make time for hosting the best parties D.C. has seen since the days of Dolly Madison. Senator Elliot has remained the toast of the town throughout his stay, and should definitely make your ‘ones to watch’ list. For the senator’s tips on how to keep your teeth Making Friends and Influencing People white, turn to the health section, page 63.

    These facts were exciting enough for Senator Walter to leaf through the articles around once a week without wearying of his own accomplishments. It is true that there is no shortage of vain senators in and around Washington, D.C., but Senator Walter managed to outdo them all. For starters, we find him at a time when he is no longer a Senator (in fact, he had not been one for over five years - and yet he insisted that all who knew him still maintain his title). He had spent the time since his illustrious Senator-hood working as a political consultant, throwing D.C. mixers, and working out at the gym. He had been naturally bestowed with a face and form which was pleasing to both himself and the rest of the world, and so his tall, tawny body did most of his work for him. Unlike many vain men who are exiting their younger years, he did have the ability to make his exit with grace. This miracle was really a further extension of his remarkable vanity: his grey hair made him look like a silver fox, and he knew it. What his frame could not do, he filled in with the charismatic charm that had lent him likability and votes ever since the day he won “Most Likely to Become President” in the fourth grade. During his days as an active politician he had been somewhat efficient, however his effectiveness was more about showing himself to be effective (further ballooning his ego) than causing change. Still, his successes had landed him a historic, sprawling house in Alexandria, a personal stylist, and ten features in Most Influential editions; what more could he have asked?

    But there are things that a snapshot profile will not tell you, and twinges that run deeper than the superficial success and happiness of any family. The one and only mar on Senator Walter’s euphoric state while flipping through his honorable mentions was that his wife had passed away suddenly in August of 2000. During a tennis game on their family vacation, she had collapsed. By the time she reached the hospital, she was beyond help. The doctors had told the grieving Elliot family that she had died of a heart attack compounded by HCM, a condition which makes it more difficult for the heart to pump blood in the first place. Elizabeth Elliot had been the North Star for their little family; her even-keeled nature and ability to view the big picture had given everyone near her stability. Although the newspapers could not have told you this, Senator Walter was indebted to her for most of his success. Marrying the young Walter Elliot was the only truly foolhardy thing she ever did, but this can be explained by a blinding infatuation that floated her through the honeymoon season, and abandoned her with a startling quickness afterwards. Being a steady woman of her word, she stuck with Walter. She understood the need to economize in certain areas in order to keep up with the D.C. social (and therefor political) market, and took her task very seriously. The parties for which the Elliots were known were masterfully pulled off by Elizabeth, who was not above using coupons or washing her own dishes. Far from being a drudge, Mrs. Elliot managed her house with elbow grease, common sense, and taste - three traits which are not often found together. Despite all of the Washington glitz and the growing stack of magazines in the living room, Elizabeth did not think of her husband’s career as her legacy. No, that hope was placed in her three girls who she left behind.

     Liz, the eldest, was the light of her father’s life after the death of Elizabeth. This was not due to being loveable or brilliance on her part, but more because despite being named after her mother, she was a reflection of her father - and he loved nothing more than his own reflection. As both the oldest and the favorite, she had been given the rule of the roost, which she enjoyed immensely. Since she acquired control at such a young age, she had grown into a headstrong woman who expected to be the center of attention when she walked into the room. At one time nearing the end of her college education (liberal arts, class of 2007) she had thought about marrying Samuel Beckett, son of one of Senator Walter’s dear friends and up-and-coming law student. The senator had even gotten Samuel his first internship with a prevalent Virginia law firm, in the hopes of ensuring the same meteoric rise he had experienced for his future son-in-law. Fate and a little scheming intervened with Liz’s plans, however; as soon as Samuel was enstated in his new job, he eloped with his high school sweetheart (who just so happened to be loaded, thanks to her family’s frozen waffle empire). Furious at being used, Senator Walter cut off all ties with the upstart. Following a mourning period of two days, Liz began her long and winding road to finding herself and her calling. After a year of traveling in Europe and a couple of year’s work as her father’s social assistant (a job which consisted mostly of hosting mixers and checking over invite lists), Liz became a life coach. In addition to online coaching, she had a YouTube lifestyle channel that was growing along with all of the other social media outlets which can be used to tell people how they ought to live their best lives. With her confidence, glamorous beauty, and troubled path ending in success she drew a large following (after all, who would not want to be this gorgeous end result?). She also acquired a superiority that sometimes comes from being told and actually believing that you know better than most of the world. The best part about her job was that she could work from home, and continue to be at the center of both online and physical social life with little to no inconvenience.

   Mary (the Elliot’s youngest child) had a very average childhood, teenage years, and now adulthood. She had married Charles Musgrove, a guy she had met in college, and now had a growing brood of her own. Since she married Charles, she had added a solid branch of decent notoriety to the Elliot name - he was next in line for a position as dean of Thomas Nelson Community College’s Newport News branch. The sealed connection to academia was greatly appreciated by Senator Walter, and it had potential to grow. And so Mary was fairly happy - wife of a local influence, mother to three, and the mother who could be depended upon to bring healthy snacks to every soccer practice. Her overall attitude was not one of contentment, but she made the best of their position, and schemed to move up in the ranks.

    Anne was the dreaded middle child. It turned out that all of apprehension placed on this particular middle child by society and parenting magazines should have been reserved for her two sisters, because she was modeled far more after her mother. Because of this, Anne had a difficult time fitting into her own family. Compared with their aspirations of notoriety, influence, and plenty of cash, her desire to become an expert on 20th century English poetry seemed lackluster. To anyone outside the family with an ounce of sense, Anne was the only truly admirable one, but within the family she was seen as a wet blanket. If she ever had the nerve to suggest reigning in the ever-increasing spending, she was told not to worry her head about it - and to try and have fun for once. Add to all of this a roundish physique, hair that was  fuzzy (not curly and not straight - fuzzy), and a tendency towards quietness, and we have the Elliot family wallflower. Although she did not think of herself in this way most days, it is how she was perceived. Anne’s saving grace was a childhood friend of her mother’s, Elaine Russell. Mrs. Russell saw Anne’s value, and brought Anne along until she could see it for herself.

    When Elizabeth Elliot died, Mrs. Russell helped Senator Walter see all of the girls through high school. Neighborhood gossip would have told you that she was trying to get remarried after being widowed five years earlier. It just made sense to the nosy onlookers: two people bereaved of their spouses, practically raising children together. What could be more natural? Interested parties eventually saw all of their hopes disappointed, because Mrs. Russell was not one to be swept up by infatuation - and only the most potent infatuation would cause any woman of good sense to be romanced by the ex senator. She encouraged all of the girls to pursue a good education, was rebuffed by Mary and Elizabeth when she suggested any form of cultural enrichment or self control, and always found a listening ear in Anne. After their first field trip to an art museum, Mrs. Russell took Anne to a bookstore and bought her her first book of poetry. Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends may not be the high-brow literature Anne came to love, but it was a start. It gave her an affection for words which would last her a lifetime, and a taste for how they can be placed in a beautiful rhythm. Mrs. Russell continued on throughout Anne’s young life as her advisor, as well as the source of Senator Walter’s best counsel. She had been Anne’s rock during the most difficult decisions she had ever needed to make.  

    On a clear October morning during Anne’s first semester working towards a Master’s Degree, she awoke to a phone call. This call sent her flying out of her room and driving straight from the College of William and Mary to Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington. While on the way, she had time to go over the facts a thousand times in her mind, the words Mrs. Russell had spoken. “Anne, it’s your father. He’s in the hospital for alcohol poisoning. Right now we don’t know how much damage has happened internally. We think this has been a problem flying under the radar for a very long time.”  She rolled them around over and over in her head, trying to stave off the guilt she knew was unjust, but she felt all the same. How could she have not known? Her own father having an issue that serious, and she just missed it? Anne, who had valued herself for perceptiveness and giving real help where it was needed, how had she not seen? Every time she had calmed herself down, a fresh wave of fear and despair and loss sent ice down her back, and she had to fight for her own mind again. Hospitals had never entirely been a place of healing to Anne after the death of her mother, and so seeing her father lying on a bed in his nondescript room made things difficult. He was awake, and appeared to be remorseful. Once the nurses left the room, he confessed to Mrs. Russell and Anne that he had been drinking heavily for the past three years. He never used the term alcoholic; not in the hospital, not in the rehab center they secreted him in, not in the following years of recovery. His broader acquaintances were kept in the dark; only Liz, Mrs. Russell, and Anne knew.

    Mrs. Russell convinced Walter to offer an honorable resignation from his position in the Senate in order to focus on his health, and afterwards she and Anne steered him into the life of a political consultant, working to become one of Washington’s most renowned firms. After the initial, most difficult push was made to break the senator’s ties to alcohol, Anne stayed on at home (despite a full scholarship at William and Mary) to help keep her father accountable. Working as his administrative assistant, she was with him for much of the day for years, scheduling his appointments, filling out his paperwork, keeping the office organized, and reading as much literature as she could in between. Anne’s original sweetness and love for learning was still intact, but it was weathered by the difficult years; she found herself to be worn out. Looking in the mirror, she could see that her bloom (which, although not glitzy like the rest of her family, had been there) was gone. She watched as her father and Liz continue to spend money that she knew they could not possibly have, but had to choose to be content with Senator Walter’s self control with drinking. Every year they continued to vacation in Martha’s Vineyard during the government’s summer recess, to host outrageous gatherings, and update their house, technology, and appearance to suit the latest trends. Although she could not approve of the spending she saw, she was relieved that the lack of moderation was concentrated in credit card bills, not forty year old whiskey.

 On the day that we first join the Elliot family, Mrs. Russell had been called in for her recommendation on the ever-growing financial problem. Joining her was the Elliot family’s well-loved but often ignored accountant, Mr. Shepherd. All of the people attending this little gathering (Senator Walter, Liz, Anne, Mrs. Russell, and poor Shep) knew what realistically had to be done, but all of them were nervous to talk about it. Mrs. Russell and Shep were unsure of how the senator would take their advice, which really had to be followed to avoid bankruptcy. Anne could not decide if speaking up or remaining silent caused more damage. The senator and Liz were continuing the desperate interior struggle of how to reduce their output without losing face. Obviously they could never sell their Washington home - that would be admitting far too much about their financial state. When Senator Walter approached her with the issue of how to spend less, Liz decided that they should sacrifice by stopping all charitable donations. In addition to this, she would buy no new furniture (even though the living room had not had a facelift in three years), and quit buying Facebook ads to promote her lifestyle vlog. Since even these drastic measures were not enough to keep the Elliots from bankruptcy, Senator Walter had called the great financial counsel. After the caterers left, they were all free to speak more plainly.

Intrigued enough for a second chapter? Behold, a nifty link: http://bit.ly/2uAYdK1