Categories
Aesthetics Satire

Why I Didn’t Like American McGee’s Alice

Scene: A restaurant, interior, night.

A man sits at a table, holding a menu.

A waiter approaches.

Man: Ah, waiter. I’m ready to order. I’ll have the pate for starter, steak (rare, please) and fries with a side salad for main course, and the creme brulee for pudding. Can you recommend something to go with that?

Waiter: Certainly, sir. If I might recommend the zinfandel this evening?

Man: Yes I think I shall have a glass of that. Thank you, waiter.

The waiter walks off.

The man gazes off into the distance as he waits for his starter.

After a few moments the waiter returns, pulling a ruminating cow behind him on a piece of rope.

Sound effect: Moo!

Waiter: Your steak sir.

Man: What?!

Waiter: Your steak, sir.

Man: What?!

The waiter holds up a chainsaw and pulls his goggles over his eyes. He pulls the starter cord on the chainsaw.

Sound effect: Chainsaw petrol engine revving up.

Man (shouting): Look I just want some steak, cooked rare, in its capacity as part of a satisfying meal of subtle and varied flavours!

Waiter (revving down chainsaw): But sir, you ordered steak.

Man: Yes, about twelve ounces of it, prepared in the kitchens, as part of the main course of a meal. With fries and a side salad. After a starter.

Waiter (stopping chainsaw): But sir, surely if you want steak, you want more steak than you can possibly eat, steak to eleven as it were? Forget the rest of the meal, forget the subtle richness of the experience, don’t you just want to go for the full-on core proposition of the meal qua meal, i.e. the hacked up dead cow?

Man: What?

Waiter: The full experience of everything that steak can possibly mean, an immersive sensurround of steak! The visceral experience of steak, the subtexts of steak desublimated and given full reign to finally realise what we all know steak to be, steak set free! Steeeeaaaaaakkkkk!

Man: What?

Waiter: You want a bloodbath of steak you tart, don’t deny it!

Man: I bloody well do deny it.

Waiter (Pulling the starter on the chainsaw again): Ah, shut up you reactionary old square. You don’t have the first clue what you’re talking about. Steeeeaaaaaakkkkk! Steeeeaaaaaakkkkk!