I don’t watch television. I mostly read, go to shows, see some clown. So I had only a vague idea of who Kelly Clarkson was. I knew she was on some talent show with Justin Guarini, whom I know from theater work.
On Oct. 10, Ms. Clarkson entered Art of Play, the Brooklyn curiosity shop where I live. She spent less than five minutes here and caused quite a hullabaloo. She asked a sales associate if she could purchase me, Molly, the mascot of the store and was duly informed that while that was impossible, she could contact artist Bliss Kolb to ask for a $15,000 duplicate. Bliss, of course, makes crank-driven mechanical contraptions that imitate living creatures, much like daytime talk show hosts.
The first clue that I wasn’t for sale might have been that I’m mounted on the wall. Other items not for sale in Art of Play include the light fixtures, the commode and the sign that reads, “The Art of Play,” which a number of people also inquire about, nearly all of them gay men. I’m sure Ms. Clarkson also wants an Oompa Loompa, but we don’t sell them either.
Why would a store have an item that’s not for sale? Perhaps Ms. Clarkson has never been to Brooklyn. None of the things in any of the stores here are for sale. They are like the frozen yogurt shop and doll store underneath Barbra Streisand’s house. We are all funded by our parents, some of whom are Barbra Streisand.
Ms. Clarkson posted on X that she “literally was looked at as if I couldn’t afford it and was told he could find something comparable for me. Wow, dude. You’re an idiot and just lost a huge sale. But y’all should go check out Art of Play in Brooklyn if you enjoy being treated like Julia Roberts’ character in Pretty Woman.”
Although I have not seen Pretty Woman, or any of Garry Marshall’s work other than his excellent performance in Lost in America, I have since viewed the clip she’s referencing and find the comparison perplexing. If 1990 Julia Roberts walked in wearing a cropped white tank top attached to a blue miniskirt with a silver O-ring, I would have jumped into her purse. As the security footage uncovered by podcaster Pablo Torre shows, Ms. Clarkson wore the same dreadful outfit as every other Art of Play customer. Maybe now the owners will listen to my plea for a dress code. Then again, one of them wrote the children’s book Dragons Love Tacos, so I’m not holding my breath. Unless you don’t crank me.
This is not the first Karen to enter Art of Play. One white woman demanded to talk to the manager about how the $1,200 applause machine wouldn’t clap for her. Another complained after asking for help solving the $185 egg-shaped puzzle, and we joshingly suggested that she “Goop it.”
The online kerfuffle had Clarkson supporters doxxing our owners and sending them death threats, causing the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union to issue a formal statement defending us from celebrity-fueled mobbing. America is sadly divided between people who kneel at the altar of television celebrity, and those who want to enter the secret theater in the back of a curiosity shop and see Jay Gilligan’s “Stories About Gravity” magic show.
Before you decide whose side you’re on, let me remind you of what Voltaire wrote about a little animatronic wooden duck from 1764 made by artist Jacques de Vaucanson that could eat, digest and excrete. He said, “Without … Vaucanson’s duck you would have nothing to remind you of the glory of France.” Replace “France” with “America” and “Vaucanson’s duck” with “Kelly Clarkson” and it’s really funny.
Part of why I write is that once you wind me up, I can’t stop. But also to warn other institutions about Ms. Clarkson. The Louvre might want to post extra guards around the Mona Lisa to prepare for her visit.
We have now posted an ironic price tag of $15 million because, by law, we can only do things in Brooklyn with irony. But also because we think Blake Shelton might really buy it for her.
Ms. Clarkson is now doing a residency at a hotel in Las Vegas, a place I am about as likely to visit as Manhattan. I hope she is comforted by whatever wooden toys she’s been able to acquire there, perhaps a Thomas the Tank Engine. It’s not a city for a bird with a wooden worm gear that operates a star gear and eight cams that each operate a lever that controls either one movement or a leather bellows that blows air through a brass whistle whose pitch is varied by a plunger operated by its own lever and cam.
All of this is a media distraction from what we should really be talking about, which is Palestine. As a wooden toy bird of privilege, I feel a responsibility to use my animatronic voice in allyship with oppressed people, birds, toys, toy birds and bird toys. As another famous wooden toy once said, “There are no strings on me!” Though for $15 million, I’m willing to sing whatever you want.
