A peculiar condition that will occasionally hit all of us, pseudo-elegant, wannabe-cool, partly-europified people-that-like-
kulchur.
You normal desires fall in the direction of
Bang + Olufsen audio gear, basic black clothes ... you are an avid reader of
Lawrence Durrell. You collect
Peter Greenaway movies. You own a lot of CDs by
Harmonia Mundi.
Your job and activities do not matter, because inside your head you are so
smooth.
And then it all goes to pieces. Insidious marketing forces place on your path a Korean owned store, replete with all sort of Hello Kitty merchandise. You actually crave the giant Piyo-Piyo, an almost spherical ball of yellow fur that, in your unaltered state, you would find painful to behold. Before realizing it, a Hello Kitty mug has found its way into your hands. Stealthily, you fondle the salt and pepper set shaped like (dare I say it?) a little pissed off black bird with spiky hair - feathers, even.
Your teeth ache with all the sweetness: not a single bad feeling in the place, not a thought that goes more than two microns into any subject. All is cuteness. Your pancreas loudly complains because of the sugar that is trickling into your bloodstream from your brain (a rare feat of reversing the usual hemato-encephalic barrier jump), but you don't give a damn because all you can hear is the Hello Kitty carillon.
To each one his own damnation. For some it may be Hello Kitty, for others it could be a headlong dive into the bodice ripper section of the bookstore. For others it could be the awful temptation of "The Complete John Denver Singalong Book".
But eventually you will get it: those cuteness cravings tap into the global kitsch reservoir and they are stronger than thee.