There were three magazines my dentist’s waiting room: the current issue of Showplaces; a dog-eared copy of People (“Robert Pattison Bares All!”); and a new publication, Consumer’s Guide to Sex (“CGS Rates the Vibrators”).
So I picked up Showplaces. “For his Telegraph Hill pied-à-terre,” I read, “Donner Danworth Dimbulb III – pictured here with his Russian wolfhound, Giggles – chose this stunning faux-marble fireplace from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Marble.”
It’s been a few decades since college French, but the word faux is still in my lexicon, so I knew instantly that what we were talking about, vis-a-vis Mr. Dimbulb’s new fireplace, was fake marble.
Astonishing. Surely the point of being rich is that you get to buy real stuff? Yet here was a man with three last names and a Roman numeral, openly sharing his flat with stone that had never seen a quarry.
According to Showplaces, people with even higher Roman numerals than Mr. Dimbulb’s are now cohabiting with faux mahogany paneling and trompe l’oeil windows. Trompe l’oeil is still in my lexicon too. It means “fool the eye.” AKA: fake.
I experience an aperçu
This started me thinking, which I had plenty of time to do while my dentist was detained by a tricky extraction on the golf course.
Obviously it was French that turned the tacky into the tasteful, lending cachet to the declassé. Could otherwise worthless objects be similarly transformed?
Take cow pies. If I called them tartes de vache, could I sell them as “occasional pieces” to fans of Southwestern décor?
Used engine oil could be put in recycled glass bottles and labelled huile des machines — “extra-virgin” if it came from a late-model car. Old plastic bags? Sacs plastiques antiques.
And it wasn’t just the money. Items that would otherwise go into landfill would now be cherished and bequeathed. I’d be living the dream of all us idealists: I’d be Making a Contribution!
But to become an entrepreneur, I’d need a state-of-the-art computer system. (Entrepreneur is a French word, which is why it’s such a desirable occupation.) And then I could go all the way (toute la route), emulate Hewlett-Packard and Apple in their infancy, and work out of my garage, which, amazingly enough, is also a French word!
I go on reconnaissance
So I made the rounds of the local high-tech emporia. Gosh, these saleschildren get younger every day, don’t they? In the Apple store, the “geniuses” who sidled up to help me looked as if they’d just graduated from learning to tie their shoes.
The last store I visited was called Virtual Things ‘n’ Stuff. “Tell me,” I said to the sidling-up fresh-faced youngster. “This system with the oiled-walnut CPU and the solid ivory keyboard: does it have a big hard disk?”
“Virtually,” said the youth, flicking a speck of dust off the lapel of his Armani suit. “It’s what we call in the trade a faux disk.”
“You mean it isn’t real?”
“Well, that’s one way of looking at it.”
I’m made au fait with the facts
“So it won’t run software?”
“No.” He adjusted the knot in his silk tie. “We have to keep the cost of the hardware down to give you the ivory. All from elephants that died happily in old age, by the way. We give you a certificate on that. But it will impress the hell out of your friends.”
“And the stripped-pine printer?”
“Our faux laser. It’s awesomely impressive, right?”
“The knot-holes are a nice touch. And this?”
“That’s our faux fax. State-of-the-art lacquerware. Paper goes into it, paper comes out of it, but nothing gets sent anywhere.”
“Not very effective then, is it?”
“No. But it’ll impress the hell out of your friends.”
“Tell me about the 30-inch monitor.”
“Well, words appear on it, but … ”
“They’re all faux?”
“Totally faux.”
I looked closely at the screen. Words scrolled past: “intelligent design,” “family values,” “free market,” “tax and spend.”
“Awesome, isn’t it?” said the youth.
“And it’ll impress the hell out of my friends.”
I’m complimented on my savoir-faire
“Hey! You climb fast up the learning curve!” He handed me a business card.
“‘Lord Charles Saville-Row’,” I read. “Wow. Cool name.”
“Thanks. I picked it myself. My real name is Grover Shanks.”
“Oh. Well, thanks, Grover, I’ll think about … hey, wait a minute! That’s not an Armani suit! And that’s not a silk tie either!”
“Go faux to the max,” said Grover. “That’s our motto here at Virtual Things ‘n’ Stuff.”
So I bought a system. It’s in my office on a faux jade table, and my clients admire it while they drink my faux l’eau. It’s tap water, but I tell them it’s imported from (where else?) France.
The huile des machines never did catch on, but the tartes de vache are selling like hotcakes.
