The Fantastic and Terrifying Mr. Clean
A museum pays quasi-subliminal tribute to the decay that surrounds us, to which we must inevitably return
‘Don’t be a Button Hole’
Cleanliness is a road to divinity. But did Father know what was going on back home?
The headlines that morning in Pocatello, Idaho, were grim for a town of 57,000 people. I read them in the local paper at Elmer’s Restaurant while enjoying the house specialty, a “German pancake” with a crisp, raised rim that held the syrup and butter in a neat pool. A 27-year-old man had been sentenced to life in prison for murdering his mother, the director of a Humane Society chapter. Another man, 39, had been arrested after a high-speed chase for stealing a car with a “juvenile” inside — a baby or a teenager, it didn’t say. And over in Boise, the state capital, the legislature had passed a bill to permit the death penalty for “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel” acts of “lewdness” against minors under 12. The story mentioned that during its previous session, the legislature had passed another bill allowing for executions by firing squads “if lethal injection chemicals can’t be obtained.” But to me, eating pancakes and preparing for my day, the most upsetting article was the …
