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Circular Logic: The Threat Revolving Doors Pose to All of Us (Celebrity Rebuttal: Theopilus van Kannel, Inventor of the Revolving Door) |
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July 2005 Cow Poo: Because Genevieve Thinks That's Funny.
June 2005 The Power of Cruise Compels You!
May 2005 When Authors Attack: from the desk of Faeluver
April 2005 Love Hurts: Examining the Sequel
March 2005: I Can Be Clever. Camus?: How to Be an Intellectual
February 2005: Prince of Thighs: Forgotten Realms and a Little Skin
January 2005: Neil and Worship: Letters to Gaiman
December 2004 And Lo, She Heav'd: The Seedy Underbelly of Classic Literature
November 2004 Pants, Pants, Magic Pants!: Labyrinth Fan Fiction and Your Puberty Celebrity Rebuttal: Faeluver
October 2004 Where the Sun Don't Shine: A Vampire Study Celebrity Rebuttal: Anne Rice
September 2004 A Knocking on Heaven's Door
August 2004 A New Dawn Celebrity Rebuttal: That Guy's Mom
July 2004 Radiodead: A Very Special Correspondence Celebrity Rebuttal: Thom
June 2004 Lizsting to the Left: The Best Concert Ever
May 2004 Circular Logic: The Threat Revolving Doors Pose to All of Us Celebrity Rebuttal: Theopilus van Kannel, Inventor of the Revolving Door
Celebrity Rebuttal: Hellboy
March 2004 Lord of the Bling: How Hip-Hop is Changing Fashion One Velour Ass at a Time Celebrity Rebuttal: P. Diddy's Jewelry Bitch
February 2004 Velveeta Wrestling: Why Gay Marriage Should Be Legal Celebrity Rebuttal: GOD
January 2004 The Magic Flute: Why V.C. Andrews is Rolling in Her Grave Celebrity Rebuttal: V.C. Andrews, Deceased
December 2003 Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover: Why Men Cheat, Exposed!! Celebrity Rebuttal: Eileen's Ex-Boyfriend
November 2003 'Wuthering Ho'": A review of MTV's Wuthering Heights Celebrity Rebuttal: Hugh Hefner
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Everyone has a nemesis. Schopenhauer has his mother. Ernest Hemingway has F. Scott Fitzgerald. But my nemesis is far far worse. Made up of four rotating doors, it is the Venus Fly Trap of technology, ready to snatch up its first available victim with the help of a steel, metal or chrome pivot. The revolving door. Satan, a.k.a Theopilus Van Kannel, patented the revolving door in 1888. I looked everywhere for some information on Theopilus, only to find none. Because he’s Satan, or Lennak Nav Sulipoeht, which is Satan in Latin. This “Theopilus” also came from Philadelphia, and we all know the only good things to come out of Philly is cream cheese and that awesome male stripper bar, “The Plank”. Supposedly these satanic spinning Ferris wheels offer a handy replacement to the conventional swinging door, with a component that equalizes air pressure, preventing cold air from entering as well as reducing energy costs. But did you know that they also create a sense of vastness in a buildings lobby that is regularly not so large? Ah-ha! Revolving doors are a source of trickery and lies! How many times have you walked into a building, expecting to be encased in a large lobby, only to find that it is not so vast? How many times have you turned in fury to that spinning circle of debauchery shouting, “You exist around a pivot of circles and falsehoods!” Architects and door historians might tell you otherwise. But this is how I see it in playwright fashion: After a long hard day of firing, drinking Iron God Tea and spinning around in circles in his cowhide chair, CIO Ben THE MAN Jenkins takes a meeting with a high-class architect.
BEN THE MAN JENKINS: Lets make this quick, I’ve got to tell my secretary to hold all my calls while I moon Donald Trump. ARCHITECT: I think we should install revolving doors in your building. BEN THE MAN JENKINS: What for? ARCHITECT: They’ll save on energy and your visitors will stay warm in the winter. They’re also very pretty. BEN THE MAN JENKINS: I piss in a platinum toilet, why would I want to save money? Uncomfortable pauseBEN THE MAN JENKINS: Will they cause severe embarrassment and torture for those of the clumsy persuasion? Causing them to trip and fall and get caught whenever they traverse through? ARCHITECT: Of course! BEN “THE MAN” JENKINS: I’m sold (unbuckles his belt). Now if you’ll excuse me, my bare ass has a date with a windowpane. It’s a mass conspiracy! We don’t deserve such trickery when all we want to do is enter our local office building, mall, or in my case that fancy restaurant down on Boylston Street which has a wonderful meet and greet event every Monday known as “Margarita Madness”. I cannot express my pain enough when I have to deal with revolving doors. I tried to express my anguish with a picture, but then I found that I couldn’t even draw a straight line. Either I was more pathetic then I thought, or drunk. Basically, revolving doors are evil. They hit you on the back of your heels if you’re not quick to jump out; they trip you if another person pushes too quickly. Also, some have such big spaces you have to stifle the strange urge to jump in with someone, because obviously they’ll think you’re hitting on them or trying to steal their wallet. And you don’t want that. I stole a wallet once and people will just not let it go. Then there is the over compensation of spinning. Sometimes you get so lost by twirling in a circle that you miss getting out. You look like a damn idiot as you pass through again, because it’s not like you got off the elevator on the wrong floor. You can’t say, “I meant to do that!” as you turn around like an idiotic hamster on a wheel. Also children like to play in them, and anything children like is evil by default. You don’t see these supposedly beautiful pieces of architecture featured in action movies very much, do you? That’s because they destroy the momentum! I mean, putting a revolving door in the middle of a chase scene kind of ruins the effect.
“I’ll get you Chase Conqueror!” screamed Klaus Fenstermaeyer. “As soon as I escape into this very important and top secret government building and find the secret formula that will erase you and all of mankind!” He charged to the government building and then quickly stopped, waiting for a sweet old woman to exit from the revolving door. Then with an evil laugh Klaus Fenstermaeyer placed his meaty killer hands on the door bar. “Victory is mine!”
He clamored. He pushed with just
enough force to propel himself carefully to the other side.
He whistled as the doors slowly whisked him around. He chuckled, a vision
of destruction flitting through his malefic mind. “Oh crap,” he
realized. “I just missed the entrance.” Of course, the scene above merely reveals the personal vendetta I hold for the revolving door. You see, I am in love. But my dearest, my buttercup, my sugarkins, is a wanted man, a fugitive. Only by the moon’s light can we meet. In a revolving door. It pains me! Our passion never to be consummated because we stroll round and round in separate compartments! Oh Klaus, someday! Someday you’ll stop
spinning and return to me! (Editor's Note: Christopher Beltas is only thirteen and can still draw better then Eileen.)
____________________ CELEBRITY REBUTTAL: Theopilus van Kannel ____________________
Miss Eileen, clearly you are suffering from some particular feminine delusion. Perhaps you have come under the spell of hysteria? Surely, in this Age of Discovery, even a woman can understand that the revolving door poses the very pinnacle of human achievement! I realize it must be hard for the feminine mind to fully grasp the implications of my incredible door. But, Miss Eileen, just think - the scores of unwashed workers rolling through its welcoming panes each day, spinning out again when day is done and their backbreaking menial labor only just completed - why, it makes me proud to be a scientist! Now, if you don't mind, I seem to be having some trouble. My revolutionary door has quite a bit of inertia, and I haven't been able to extricate myself these three days.
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(c) Defenestration Magazine, 2005