Gâcher sa fête

As if the indignities of aging were not quite enough!

A brutal confirmation visits daily in the form of aching joints, recalcitrant bowels, failing eyes and evanescent gums.

My poor but hearty friend Currado Malaspina doggedly perseveres despite his pitiless decay.

His physical putrefaction, however, is a minor hiccup compared to his professional obsolescence.

At one time the name Currado Malaspina was synonymous with radical, avant-garde, fringe artistic insurrection. His work was seen as representative of the seemingly insatiable French appetite for garish libertine exhibitionism.

Now, much to his astonishment, he is regarded as a national embarrassment!

At the peak of his foie gras years his work would attract the grasping, greedy attention of sheiks, curators, speculators and all manner of cultural traders and hangers-on. Now he's lucky if he can peddle his pictures at the marché aux puces!

Bitterly, he points his incriminating finger at the global reach of American political culture. In his twisted rendering, France enjoyed centuries of delightful sensual consent between the sexes. In the United States by contrast, a pall of prudery stiffens the rituals of courtship into a blustering pragmatic negotiation between potential litigants. 

And so with Big Macs, superhero movies and the longer work week, Currado sees another disfiguring import messing with his chill.