The Wiz, Lacan, and the Flaming Ginger Son.

Earlier this week I went to visit a planet in the more well-to-do part of the galaxy. The planet in question is ruled by a flame-haired entrepreneur with steely eyes and steelier ideals. He does not laugh at much, and when he does you know it is funny. He has a sense of humour dryer than dead twigs in the desert sun.

My reason for going was that I had been hired in one of my many capacities by an insane artist who lives on one of the planet's moons. This artist told me that he had been slowly swamped over the years by letters and documents, and he needed me to help him sort it all out. I mutated myself into a hooded vulture woman so as to maximise my abilites as a filing cleric.

I docked on the planet, but did not see anyone when I got there, apart from the mechanical pilot on my shuttle to the moon, who was smoking roll-your-own tobacco mixed with rubber.
Looking out of the window as I neared the sattelite, I saw what appeared to be fairly large model skyscrapers and other buildings. It was only when I disembarked that I realised they were in fact towering stacks of paper.

The artist was no-where to be seen. I called out:
"Oi, oi! Mad Rodge!", but there was no reply.
I began to roam the streets and small alleyways between the paper stacks, singing 'Ease on Down the Road' (from the 1978 musical version of The Wizard of Oz, starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson) at the top of my lungs.

Soon, "Mmph!" I heard coming from somewhere inside one of the paper piles.
" Get ’em up, goin’ down, ease on down?" I sang.
"Mmmph, mmpphwa!" I heard. I scanned the place with my eyes and soon I saw it. The top of a tufty head was sticking up through the surface of a glacier of reciepts. It resembled the top of a turnip growing out of the ground. I braced myself, took hold of the tuft, and pulled with all my might.
'Ploooooooooop!' Out of the mound came Mad Rodge, the insane artist.
"Cause there maybe times
When you think you lost your mind,
But just Ease on down, ease on down the road!" he sang heartily and did a little twirl on his tippy-toes. The two of us linked arms and skipped onwards for a bit, until he stopped, out of breath.

Once the joy of skipping had worn off, Rodge looked up and around himself. Paper skyscrapers.
He raised his arms in the air and shook his fists at the sky.
"Oh woe, oh woe!" he cried.
"Aah, yes, I see your point." I said.
Rodge sighed. "If I only had a heart, a brain, and some courage, I could deal with this much better." and he plucked a double bass from inside a one of the paper bungalows. He played three mournful notes.
"But hang on a minute," I said, "Aren't you an artist?"
He looked at me dolefuly. "Whats your point?" he inquired.
"Well, you could just make a heart, a brain and some courage out of paper mache couldn't you? And they would be even better than the real thing because they would be an artist's interpretation of a brain, a heart and some courage, or lack thereof. Besides, don't artists thrive on adversity and woe? Your work would contain the eternal themes of desire and lack.
It is not surprising that, according to Lacan, we are not even in control of our own desires since those desires are themselves as separated from our actual bodily needs as the phallus is separated from any biological penis. In a sense, then, our desire is never properly our own, but is created through fantasies that are caught up in cultural ideologies rather than material sexuality. For this reason, according to Lacan, the command that the superego directs to the subject is, of all things, "Enjoy!" That which we may believe to be most private and rebellious (our desire) is, in fact, regulated, even commanded, by the superego.
Our desires therefore necessarily rely on lack, since fantasy, by definition, does not correspond to anything in the real. "

"My God, you are right!" he exclaimed, and whipped up some paper sculptures.
"I can sell these for millions!" he whooped, and danced the trylobite.
"Actually, I was just thinking, wouldn't it be a more pure art-form to just - Burn this Disco Down?" I suggested. "The spectacle you know, dont forget the spectacle."
"Hmm, all this paper, it would be quite a sight." he said, rubbing his chin
"Okay then! lets do it!" he hallooed, and we jumped on the shuttle.

Shooting off into space, we fired a 10-tonne sparkler bomb back at the face of the moon.
"KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!"
went years of letters to the editor, scribbled notes to himself, and reciepts for chocolate sante bars.
The moon was a new sun.

Back on the main planet there was a festival going on in honour of this amazing firey sight. Scores of dancing ladies and pink elephants and men with big drums were shakin' they asses on down the road.
We bumped into the flame-haired ruler. He thanked us for the extra heat we had generated on the planet, effectively turning a winter day into a summer one.
"So what shall we all do for the rest of the day?" I asked.
"I'm going to have a dance and bang some gongs!" said mad Rodge.
"Good, I'll watch you while I get really drunk on whiskey tea." I said
"Hmmm," said the ginger entrepreneur, stroking his chin.
"I think I might get myself a tan."
Oh, how we chuckled.