.
.
.
You may not be the “Internet meme” type. That’s OK. Like pepper spray, it’s not for everyone.
But if you do enjoy seeing the frenzied creativity of your fellow Earthlings rippling through the skies like the Aurora Satiricus, this has been a really good week for you so far.
Lt. John Pike, the UC Davis campus cop who casually strolled up and down a line of sidewalk-and-grass blocking college students with linked arms and bowed heads, methodically spraying them with what was apparently a mix of pepper spray and tear gas — I suppose because a straight dose of either would have been a bit much — has become an object of sport among the nation’s Photoshoppers. It has become an object of sport to the degree that, bleeding-heart liberal that I am, I hope that he’s on suicide watch. As a fellow Person of Chunk, I feel bad for Lt. Pike as an object of visual derision. But, hey, funny is funny.
And this stuff is funny! The notion that pepper spray, rather than say dragging people off to a paddy wagon, is not to be used casually on those engaging in minor misbehavior is unsurprisingly amenable to myriad historical and artistic examples. For example:
“Sitting in the park, are you? Well, we can’t have that! Feel the sting of nature’s torture condiment, miss!”
You may think that my referring to it as a “condiment” is just my being arch, but no — as always, I am just taking my cues from Fox News’s anger-vixen Megyn Kelly. Megyn (as I like to call her, pronouncing both vowels long) had this to say about the “is this really such a big deal?” aspect of this particular method of compelling compliance in a tete-a-tete with Big Thinker Bill O’Reilly:
“Pepper spray, that just burns your eyes, right?”
“Right. I mean, its like a derivative of actual pepper. It’s a food product, essentially.”
As the Talking Points Memo story to which I link above says: “Exactly! Like jalapeno poppers, or queso dip. Delicious.” Then it goes on to note that pepper spray is in fact about 1,000 times hotter than a jalapeno. As if that would keep college kids from eating it!
The tour through the art world continues with the likes of these:
Isn’t that one on the left a scream? And is it any wonder why the French are supposedly disinclined to use deodorant, after something like this? Ah, high culture — it’s so … lowerable!
All three of these images (and perhaps before long the first as well) are taken (for illustrative fair use purposes, of course), from a Tumbler site called Pepper Spraying Cop. I’ve left out the Jimmy Stewart and the M.C. Escher and the Stephen Hawking and the Guernica — you’ve got to see the Guernica! — so please click on that link and tell them that Orange Juice Blog sent you. Or go check out “Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop”, which also has an “instant history” of the “Pepper Spraying Cop” meme that is right up to the moment — oh my God, look what they did to Megyn Kelly? “It’s Surprise Sex, Essentially??” — and will no doubt be an excellent source for keeping up with every jig and zag of the life-cycle of this meme (as if it will ever die) for a long, long time to come.
It’s not just activists out in the streets or the parks who are totallyengaged now — it’s also the cheeky geniuses with their lese-majeste stance towards power. They won’t change anything right away either, but — well, let me ask you this: would you want to be Lt. John Pike right now?
Other police officers armed with pepper spray will be asking themselves that same question — and their behavior may change accordingly. Funny things, these memes: they seem so silly, but sometimes they meme business.
Ahhh, the Seurat version is brilliant!
“Stunspray in the Park with George.”
great art…but you guys are a bunch of whiners…got gassed all the time at college in the early 70’s…made me a better man
Well, the pregnant woman in Seattle apparently miscarried after being pepper sprayed. This tear gas isn’t like the tear gas of your youth. “Stay away from the orange acid.”
Bull shit, don’t believe you. And you say that’s good?
In boot camp you had to do the tear gas room, not fun at all.
“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” JFK
Now its: Ask not what you can do for your country; but ask what can the 1 percent do for me. I didn’t earned it, I just want it. Silver spoon’ers just got to love’em.
Matt Taibbi has a nice piece on the the baby steps that we’ve taken on the road to ruin.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/uc-davis-pepper-spray-incident-reveals-weakness-up-top-20111122?utm_source=dailynewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter
was it the orange acid or the brown acid, i just don’t remember
It was either brown or purple, as I recall from watching Woodstock (I think it was.) The capsacin, though, makes the acid orange.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203611404577041950781477944.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
My eyes! My eyes! Damn, and I thought that pepper spray hurt! It has nothing on reading an opinion piece by Caddell and Schoen.
what is the criteria..if you remember the sixties/seventies, you really were not there
Dawn would love this article. What do you think Dawn?
This incident has exponentially engaged people from all over. The UC Davis Alumni letters are filled with panic. They should be. It is very disturbing that Campus Security has been armed with industrial strength pepper spray. They obtained training from The Department of Homeland Security. The Davis City Police refused the training.
You better watch out, you better not shout, when Paul Blart, Mall Security lurks around the corner with “The OC” spray while you are out buying those Christmas gifts! Ugh…
This artwork has been cathartic, but for me the most imaginative thing going has been the grace exhibited by the students in the days afterward. Using Mass Silence as a means of confrontation and shaming, was BRILLIANT!
Both on that sidewalk and in the crowd at the spraying, and again at the Walk of Shame, the unified non-violence of the protesters has been amazing. How do they pull it off? The recent history of non-violence in this country is not that extensive, yet people have absorbed the message. Against a power structure that has democratic responsibilities to a fundamentally decent populace, it works.
“It’s a food product, essentially.”
Does anyone have Megyn Kelly’s recipe for pepper spray?
I’d like to try it on my turkey’s right wing.
As the human body is mostly water with a generous helping of meat, it should be noted that Megyn Kelly herself is essentially a food product.
She does seem a lot more appetizing since she gave birth earlier this year.
Perhaps. I prefer something a bit less bitter and more tender.