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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)

ARCHIVES

 

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

 

April 2004   A Comparative Study of the Oeuvres of George Eliot and Edith Wharton, or: Every Good Book Deserves Favour (Eliot, ibid.), With Remarks by Bear

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

 

Everyone has a nemesis.

Schopenhauer has his mother.

Ernest Hemingway has F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Otter has Satan.

 

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 pause

BEN 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.

 


(c) Defenestration Magazine, 2005