CHAPTER 5: Epiphany (climactus!)

In which, at long last, the author consummates his eyewitness account of how a trio of heavenly forces masquerading as: (1) A starknaked Jayne Mansfield lookalike; (2) A pink Cadillac, and; (3) A red traffic light converged at the corner of Hollywood & Vine to help him write the first sentence of Morons Awake!

IT WAS PURE MAGIC!  What other words can a (hopefully) bestselling novelist use to describe the sight of a voluptuous platinumblonde sitting starknaked in the car next to his on a balmy starlit night at the corner of Hollywood & Vine? Especially one in my circumstances—which, until she appeared so miraculously, couldn't have been more desperate! There I was: Not only nailed by a (metaphorical?) red light to that most disappointing of intersections; but impaled on the crucifix of my own failure to write the first sentence of Morons Awake!. And then, suddenly, there she was—a vision of feminine loveliness that couldn't have been more dazzling! Or heavenly!

     Or was she just that—a vision? One of those last temptations aspiring messiahs have been said to hallucinate while in the final ecstatic throes of their selfsacrificial agony? If so, it was a delusionary temptation I wasn't inclined to resist.

     No. If this was indeed to be the only terrestrial reward I would ever get for my fiascoed crusade to rescue the human race from drowning in its own mediocrity I wasn't about to argue myself out of enjoying it to the hilt.  Whether she was truly The Girl Of My Septuagenarian's Dreams—or the flawed reality from which a younger man's most fervent fantasies of sexual perfection are subsequently fabricated—I was determined to relish every nanosecond of the thrill she was giving me. Even if I had stopped to analyze what was happening to me with my habitual assiduityG  the result would only have been to confirm what my guts were telling me: I was witnessing one of those rare occasions when life turns itself into a work of art. And in this case nature had created a genuine masterpiece! With her platinum silk mane billowing in the Santa Anas, her breasts still slightly aquiver from the Cadillac's sudden deceleration, her cherryred lips freshly reglistened by a tonguetip honeyed with the salivary nectar of lust and that merest fringe of golden fleece at the triangulated convergence of her belly and thighs she put to shame all the nudes ever painted by Rubens, Manet, Rousseau, Modigliani, Hopper and Benton. Nor did the greatest sculptors of ancient Greece and Rome come close to capturing in marble those sparks of pagan abandon I saw dancing in her eyes. As for her feline smile, well—even in his most delicious dreams of sexualsuicide Sacher-Masoch97 couldn't have imagined being cannibalized by a mouth so perfectly made for maneating.

     But when such artistic supermen couldn't have done justice to her beauty with their pens, brushes and chisels, what hope is there for me to express the beatificG effect such a divine creature produced on my psyche? Only, I suppose, the faint hope any author has of providing a reader with the raw material from which she might reconstruct the ecstatic state of his mind within hers. In doing just that I will try to be as accurate as it is humanly possible for a man to be when giving an eyewitness account of his own epiphany.

     At this point, dear reader, I must digress briefly to explain what you must be thinking is my preoccupation with sex, because that word seems to appear (in one form or another) in practically every sentence I write. Believe me, when the idea for authoring a manifesto to reverse the decline of Western Civilization first occurred to me sex was the farthest thing from my mind. I certainly never dreamed I would be writing a scene literally drenched in it as the one I am now in the process of consummating. Like you, any connection between civilization and sex seemed to me of only the most tangential relevance; and quite inconceivable as the major motif in an artistic masterpiece—or even in a bestselling novel. And what literary genre could be more utterly devoid of sex than that of the manifesto? One can read Christ's Sermon on the Mount, Luther's 95 Theses, Paine's Common Sense, Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, all three volumes of Marx's Das Kapital, and Hitler's Mein Kampf without coming across a single word that could be remotely construed as having anything to do with sex. On the other hand, as Katya Kahkov points out—could this avoidance of sex itself explain why the authors of such pious books have, in the final analysis, failed to alter the consciousness of their readers? But even after having read her sexdrenched Intelligent Woman's Guide To The Writing Of An Artistic Masterpiece I still didn't alter (or even reexamine) my own puritanical prejudices toward a subject whose surpassing profundity seemed so plainly to exempt it from the rules she laid down for fictionalizing even the most solemn truths!

     No. It was only after the events of that night in Hollywood I began to dimly discern the relationship between sex and civilization which has come to dominate Book One of Morons Awake!—and for good reason. Without civilization there can be no sex as we humans know it. And, conversely; without human sex there can be no civilization. This syllogism is itself, of course, saturated with the sex of dialectical analysis and that mutual attraction opposite ideas frequently turn out to have for one another. Hence it becomes possible to define civilization as the difference between the way human beings and all other life forms conduct their sexual affairs! A housewife need only ask herself what kind of sexlife she would lead in the absence of those rules for civilized behavior which prevent men from having their rapacious way with every female they can lay their horny hands on?  But there is much more to the relationship between sex and civilization than the mere elimantion (or at least curtailment) of rape. Were it not for my old age and the toll taken on me by writing this masterpiece a very thick (and no doubt juicy) book could be written on the role played by civilization in developing the extremely complicated (and entirely artificial) concept of that most primal of all human drives we call "sex."

     Well dear reader, now that this little detour we have taken has, hopefully, changed your mind about why the word "sex" seems to raise its provocative head in every sentence of this novel we can return to the main thoroughfare of our story.  As I've already told you, Mahler's Fifth Symphony was playing on her radio. About this crucial fact there can be no dispute. While my hearing isn't what it used to be, the "quadraphonic" effect that first alerted me to the possibility I might be sharing my traffic light predicament with another motorist wasn't the result of an auditory impairment on my part. Having since consulted with several eminent specialists in the field you can take it as a medical certitude I did indeed hear Mahler's symphonic masterpiece playing simultaneously on my radio and the one in her convertible.  I can also state with absolute conviction her eyes definitely did make contact with mine. With the top of her Biarritz down she must have known my elevated position gave me an unobstructed view of the scandalous state she was in—one which, from ground level, could be mistaken for that of just another straplesslygowned starlet driving her way homeward from some major film studio on one of those autumnal nights whose picture postcard balminess made such sights not impossible for a tourist to hope seeing if he remained standing at the corner of Hollywood & Vine from dusk to dawn. While I can only hazard a guess about why she directed her gaze toward me, it's not unreasonable to assume she was prompted by the natural curiosity every exhibitionist has about the gender of the person who is secretly observing her. Having satisfied herself that I fit the general requirements for that sexual opposite whose scrutiny of her could set off a chain of mutually electrifying hormonal reactions, any ideas she had thereafter concerning even the remotest possibilities of becoming "romantically involved" with me is, to say the least, conjectural. And the notion we might be linked for all eternity in the writing of a book that would launch a Second (SocioCultural) American Revolution must have been just as unthinkable to her as it was to me! It is also questionable whether any female exhibitionist—let alone a Hollywood sexgoddess—can appreciate the kind of moral meltdown she triggers inside that chronically unstable core of the average masculine mindset. Although she couldn't have known at the time, it was my intellectual fortitude more than any geriatric inertia which, in the final analysis, prevented me from ravishing her on the spot.

     Or maybe she did know. Now that I think about it, as our eyes remained mutually fixed, I got a more or less distinct impression she was pondering what part, if any, my "older man character" might play in the "seduction scenario" which seemed to be improvising itself as we both sat there waiting for that traffic light to turn green. Sitting in the Winnebago's partially shadowed cab my otherwise overthehill facial features might have seemed to her like those whose cragginess made a MayDecember storyline not altogether implausible. Then again, perhaps she managed to read the signals I sent her with every volt of my telepathic resources that she had stumbled upon a man whose skills in satisfying a woman's deepest psychosexual yearnings more than made up for the 50 years it took him to acquire them. In any event I must have made some kind of favorable impression on her because the smile she gave me was one whose congeniality went far beyond that normally expressed by a woman's lips over the embarrassment her nudity might have caused some strange man whose advanced age prevents him from exploiting the opportunity of a lifetime her (deliberate?) carelessness has given him. Nor was the amiable curl of those cherryred lips so artful as to arouse my suspicions that what I was seeing wasn't the genuine coyness shown by some amateur Lady Godiva to a similarly inexperienced Peeping Tom; but rather the pathetic wincing of a housewife caught in the compulsive act of fully revealing to a perfect stranger those sexual secrets about herself that no longer mystify the man she made the fatal mistake of marrying.

     In fact, the more I recall about the expression on her face when she smiled at me the less confident I am about my description of it as having been a smile. I don't want to mislead you into confusing the curl of her lips with that of Da Vinci's La Giaconda. No. There was none of Mona Lisa's serenity in the wanton way she parted those freshlylicked lips of hers to show me a set of teeth whose pearlike perfection authenticated her Hollywood sexgoddessness—or at least her aspirations for becoming one. Not that she contrived her smile to provide me with further evidence confirming the super stardom to which she was so obviously entitled by what I had already seen her showing me from the neck down. On the contrary. Her lips had opened themselves with a spontaneity that was unmistakable—as if she were reacting impulsively to one of those notso sly sexual innuendoes contrived by some cocktail lounge Casanova to test a lady's IQ for appreciating the nuances of his conversational smut.

     More likely still is the possibility she was responding to a mildly offcolor story she had told herself. A story in which 2 motorists with their radios tuned to the same station—one of whom happens to be starknaked—find themselves stranded by a red traffic light in the middle of a completely trafficless night?  Yes, dear reader, that's it! What I saw was much more like a laugh than a smile! But a laugh that was silent. Although, against the quadraphonic background of Mahler's Fifth98 I can't be absolutely positive a peal or 2 of vocal amusement didn't escape from her swanlike throat. I would be surprised, however, if that were the case. My best recollection is this: That from beginning to end, whatever information passed between us did so in a perfect verbal vacuum. It was, in fact, this total lack of linguistic contamination which imbued the entire affair with that aura of presymbolic purity surrounding all Holy Visions—or the unfolding of an Epiphany.

THE MESSAGES PASSING BETWEEN US that night were all transmitted via the language of our bodies. This might seem like a preposterous (and typically chauvinistic) statement for me to make given the fact her nudity was fully frontalized while "mine" was limited to what she could see only from my shirt collar up. But, all those newfangled notions about the "pure physicality of sexual attraction" so popular in today's hedonistic zeitgeist notwithstanding, what even the most emancipated woman looks at first when taking the measure of a man's virility is—his face. Oh yes, dear reader. It is in a man's eyes, in the creases charting his temperamental geography, in the lines of that autobiography time itself etches into a man's skin for all to read, and in those cryptic furrows of a brow behind which lurks that most mysterious and sexual of all male organs; his brain—these are the masculine attributes upon which (whether she knows it or not) a woman's search for a potential lover is initially focused. While they might appear to be more refined than those purely reproductive aspects of the female anatomy to which the average male is attracted, beneath their ladylike surface the romantic window shopping proclivities of women are no less reproductivelyminded than those of men. And there is no reason why they shouldn't be! If the purpose of sex is to perpetuate the species by selectively breeding the fittest males with the fittest females it's just as sensible for a woman to seek a man with the best brain as it is for a man to seek a woman whose reproductive brawn indicates she is suitable to bear and nurture his progeny. Such a brutally frank Darwinian analysis sounds like that made by all chauvinistic males to justify their perception of women as mere sexobjects. But, dear reader, if you can overcome that righteous indignation of yours and calmly reflect on the issue you will, I think, admit (so far at least) the human race has survived primarily because of those secondary sexual characteristics whereby men function best from the neck up and women do so from the neck down.

     While this "arbitrary" North/South distinction I've drawn might seem like just another example of those hemispheric dichotomies by which males relegate women to third world citizenship; it is an undeniable anthropological fact that the congenital "talent" primitive females have for recognizing the intellectual prowess of the men with whom they choose to mate has evolved into that superior innate capacity modern women have for appreciating fine art. Indeed, the question can be asked whether there would be any art at all were it not for the moral support women give to the men who produce it? Without Sylvia Beach could James Joyce have persevered in his lonely labors to write the Great Irish Novel?  Are the Spanish prostitutes immortalized in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon merely the models for Picasso's revolutionary masterpiece or the inspirational wellspring from which his seminal genius sprang? Is there any musicologist so blinded by his machismo he can deny seeing the impassioned handwriting of Baroness Dudevant99 in the most brilliant of Chopin's piano scores? And, dear reader, if the role played by these "Madonnas" in the birth of almost every artistic masterpiece doesn't make up for their exploitation, consider this: While in the everyday transactions of social intercourse a woman's most provocative sexual attributes are, for the most part, hidden beneath her dress—those of a man (being more or less exclusively facial) remain fully revealed for all to see in a state of exposure that couldn't be more frontalized.100 So; when it comes to the prevailing wisdom concerning which gender has a voyeuristic advantage the issue isn't quite as clear cut as some militant feminists would have their constituents believe.

     Which brings us back to the purity (and parity!) of those visual means by which that starknaked sexgoddess in the Cadillac and I were mutually communicating our thoughts about the spectacular situation we suddenly found ourselves in. "Exactly what," you ask, "were you and this 'sexgoddess' trying so urgently to communicate with your bodies alone?"

     Before answering that question, my dear reader, it must be understood: At the time this "miracle" occurred I had no idea I was witnessing an act of divine intervention. Even a man with my skepticism toward the noncelestial ways in which The Supreme Being seems habitually to work His Almighty Will can, I think, be pardoned for not expecting his own epiphany to unfold in such an unorthodox manner. No. It was perfectly reasonable for me to assume any "heavenly" help I might receive in the writing of my historymaking book would be revealed in a form more or less recognizable as that traditionally rendered to someone who had embarked on a mission of such Biblical magnitude. A bush bursting into flames perhaps. An ominous voice resounding in the cosmic void. The handless writing on a wall of some terrible truth. These are the standard Old Testament devices normally employed for restoring the zeal of a dejected prophet or savior. Using a starknaked woman in a Cadillac convertible to energize my messianic morale was an innovation surpassing any of those marvels previously performed by that Most Masterful of all Magicians.

     The impressions that follow hereafter then, are those of a mere mortal who, at the time, couldn't have been less aware of his impending apotheosis—or more conscious of his evangelical shortcomings. And dear reader, before you judge me too harshly for what might appear to be my artlessness (or artistic guile) don't forget: While from the very first sentence of this novel you have been given the advantage of knowing what lay in store for me at the corner of Hollywood & Vine; as I myself sat there waiting at that (now legitimately) "mythical "intersection I did so in a state of complete ignorance about what would eventually turn out to be an event of cosmic (or at least global) magnitude. Accordingly, I beg you to forget for the moment everything you've read so far in order to simulate the state of my mind at that moment when I first saw the astonishing sight I will now attempt to reconstruct in answer to your "body language" question.

     As for what her body was communicating to me, the message was perfectly clear. It consisted of a single 3 letter word spelled out in neon capitals taller than a Vegas hotel/casino. It read: S-E-X. How else could I (or any other red blooded American male) construe the flagrant way she displayed her voluptuousness except as the most cogent statement a woman can make to a man about her carnal designs on him? The effect she produced on me was so dazzling I doubt if the combined talents of Ovid, Petrarch and Dante (for rhapsodizing on the bliss of female pulchritude) could separate into its component parts a phenomenon of such dumbfounding singularity.101  Nevertheless I will try to do just that for your sake.

AS HOWARD CARTER SAID when he got his first look at Tutankhamen's burial chamber: "The only problem now, gentlemen, is deciding where to begin our cataloging of such a fabulous treasure trove?" In this case—for reasons that are strictly arbitrary—we will start our own inventory of those natural artifacts I saw displayed by that starknaked sex goddess from the top down. While coiffeured in a style resembling that seen in some Renaissance portraits of feminine pulchritude, the radiant platinum hue of her hair was a metallic tint unavailable to Botticelli, Raphael and Michelangelo. And, even if their palettes had contained a pigment so flamboyant in its luminescence it's doubtful whether those painters would have used it to halo the heads of even their most saintly seductresses. No. The glory signified by her crown of spun platinum was that of an era whose splendors were far more brazen than any ever dreamt of by the most intoxicated of those Florentine madmen who thought they could epitomize the female sex with a paint brush. 500 years would have to pass before such a Venus could emerge—not from a clamshell—but from a cake collectively baked in the minds of those Hollywood moguls who turned an art form into an industry; and ordinary actresses into Blonde Bombshells. Hers was a crown not worn by the beauty queens adorning the walls of an art museum but by those who appear on the covers of glossy fashion magazines. Even the best of those prurientminded painters of yesteryear never dared coif the hair of their most provocative nudes in a style so palpably pornographic. Such a "do" had to await the mid20thcentury before it could be invented by those photographic gunslingers who shoot their moving models from the hip, hoping to freeze a momentary pose of quintessential eroticism on at least one of the frames they so lavishly expose. Nevertheless, like most educated men who should (and do!) know better, my heart leapt at the sight of those gossamarized GlamourGirl tresses of pure platinum (their fakery notwithstanding) being teased by the invisible fingers of that balmy Santa Ana wafting its enchanted way through the empty streets and boulevards of Tinseltown on that magical autumn evening.

     Her face, as you might expect, was typical of those once turned out on the assemblyline of Hollywood 's dream factory. Like most merchandise made for mass consumption it was one whose features were designed according to John Q. Public's idea of what a sexsymbol (or the grille of an automobile) should look like. As such she lacked those slight "human" flaws a man of my refined taste normally prefers seeing in the face of a woman with whom, as he explains it, "a serious relationship can be created precisely because she lacks that 'superficial' perfection to which men of baser motives are so fatally attracted." On the other hand, what man is so saintly he's never fantasized a lovemaking fling with one of those dollfaced bimbos whose very brainlessness indicates they were created for just such a promiscuous purpose?

     But I don't want to leave you with a false impression. At the time, of course, I wasn't paying the kind of avid attention to her face this recollection of it might seem to indicate. Quite naturally my gaze suffered from a definite downward bias. In point of fact, my netherly inclinations were so pronounced it's only now, in the process of giving you this head to toe description of her starknakedness, that I suddenly remember—she wasn't entirely nude! Yes! Her neck was (at least partially) hidden from my view by a scarf! One made from the flimsiest of fabrics—probably chiffon—and woven with such delicacy from filaments so fine its twin, winglike ends continued fluttering behind her after she braked for the red light. Or were they held aloft by the gentle blowing of those Santa Anas? As for the scarf's color, that's difficult for me to pinpoint. An item of such wispiness makes even the most fastidious description of its ephemeral tint seem lurid. But, since it would be irresponsible for me not to provide some chromatic peg on which to hang the hat of your curiosity, I will go out on a credibility limb by defining the color of her diaphanous neckwear to you as that of a ripe peach. Or, better yet, the peachcolored blush appearing on the creamily complexioned cheeks of a maiden embarrassed by her unmaidenly thoughts. One could also, I suppose, compare the allbut invisible hue of her neckwear to the peachlike shade of those cosmetics purchased by the readers of gothic novels to imitate that "blush of virginal shame" their Sleeping Beauty role models display so enticingly to the Prince Charmings who woo them—and whose precise shade the authors of such claptrap have been known to spend whole paragraphs trying to describe!

     My failure to notice until just now the scarf she was wearing then doesn't necessarily detract from its significance. It's not infrequently the case, in the words of Sigmund Freud, "that phenomena which might first appear to be peripheral in nature turn out to be the keys with which some (if not most!) of life's most impenetrable mysteries are unlocked."102 Just as we tend to regard information contained in the footnotes of a novel as being merely tangential to its plot, so also in life itself we are prone to overlook those smallest of details which have a nasty habit of tripping us as we rush headlong toward some seemingly grandiose objective.103  Wait a minute! Oh, yes! In retrospect I can see clearly just how large that bit of fluff she wound around her neck loomed in the overall scheme of things!

     But any further discussion of that topic must be postponed. To do otherwise wouldn't only impede the climactic momentum I've been gathering so methodically in telling you the story of my epiphany—it could adversely affect the credibility I have also worked so diligently to cultivate between the readers of this revolutionary manifesto and its author. Since, until just a few moments ago, I myself was unaware of that single sartorial exception to what you have been repeatedly told was her "fully frontalized state of starknakedness," doting now on the scarf I didn't notice she was wearing then could strike at least some of you as being suspiciously like one of those literary deceits practiced by the authors of more conventional novels. After all, only a few pages ago didn't I solemnly promise you I would "try to be as accurate as it is humanly possible for any man to be when giving an eyewitness account of his own epiphany?"  And yet here I am testifying on a subject about which my "eyewitness" objectivity has been seriously compromised by those selfserving machinations of memory mixed with ulterior motives resulting in what every apologist euphemistically calls his "hindsight." Ulterior motives which, in this case, could be said to include those I might have for minimizing the damage done to my credibility by having led you for so long into believing the sexgoddess I saw in the Cadillac convertible that night was sitting there in a state of fullyfrontalized nudity that couldn't have been starker in the totality of its stitchlessness.

     The suggestion could even be made that by dwelling at such excruciating length on this "scarf business" I am putting into practice the foreplay technique of prolonging a woman's preclimactic agony about whose ultimate virtues I have previously preached! If, dear reader, you do indeed think me guilty—or even capable—of entertaining such dastardly ideas I can only plead the innocence of my motives. It was my respect for what I believe to be the superior intelligence of your sex that led me astray. What was I to do? Having suddenly remembered I saw something you might consider a fatal flaw in what I promised would be the truthful telling of my story can I be blamed for blurting it out in the way I did?  Before condemning me for what I confess was a breech of literary etiquette, I beg you to consider this: Is it really fair to punish me for failing to conceal from you one of those secrets about authorship a more discreet (or artful) novelist would never think of revealing to his readers?

     As it turned out, of course, prematurely disclosing my remembrances about that damned scarf was a mistake. For which I apologize. And, while I'm not making excuses, I would be less than honest if I didn't point out that any temporary discomfort—or even pain—this most recent digression of mine may have caused you, will make the finale of our literary affair that much more blissful. So, dear reader, please forgive me. And, for the time being at least, forget everything I've just told you as a result of my suddenly refreshed memory about exactly what that blonde driving the Cadillac was or was not wearing.104

Book One Chapter 5 Part 2    Return to Index

Footnotes

97 Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch (1835-95), Austrian novelist., author of the notorious Venus in Furs (1870) and the tormented soul whose name has been immortalized in the term "masochism."

98 Which at that precise moment, my subsequent examination of Mahler's score revealed, Bernstein was (or should have been) whipping his players into an orchestral paroxysm of romantic frenzy.

99 Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin, Baroness Dudevant [1804-1876]; better known as George Sand.

100 Curiously, this rather esoteric fact of male life is reflected in the way male Morons use hats to conceal the height of their brows from scrutiny. While the reasons for this sartorial eccentricity are, naturally, not understood by the Morons who exhibit it, there can be little doubt it is a form of "figleafing" not unlike that practiced in more civilized societies to conceal various anatomical features which have assumed an erotic connotation. Hence the Japanese woman is just as scrupulous about shielding the nape of her neck from the gaze of strange men as an American woman is about displaying her unshaven armpits in the same circumstance. And, while at this pregnant point in my story there would seem to be no excuse for doing so, I can't resist pausing here to speculate on what would happen if these puritanical attitudes were applied to my theory concerning the sexual significance of the male face. Would men begin hiding their masculine mystique behind dark glasses and full beards? Would the wearing of hats and masks become fashionable—if not obligatory—in polite society? Could a fellow be arrested for indecent exposure (or sexual harassment) by simply showing his unadorned mug in mixed company? These matters might appear to be the most irrelevant sort of trivia but, given the difficulties of conveying to you my impressions of exactly what transpired between me and that gorgeous nude at the corner of Hollywood & Vine, I make no apology for having spent this precious time in exploring them.

101 Not that any Latin love poet ever had to parse the kind of erotic beatitude I found myself witnessing. The fullyfrontalized vision of stark nudity I saw sitting in her Cadillac convertible was not that of a Beatrice or Laura whose vital statistics were obscured by the fashions of a classical couture that (mercifully or otherwise) left such disturbing anatomical matters to a man's imagination.

102 Freud, Sigmund, A Technique For Solving The Most Perplexing Problems Through The Assiduous Application Of Ordinary Human Intelligence, p.37.

103 Such as the writing of a novel with millennialG pretensions.

104 Such advice is, of course, easier given than taken. As when a judge admonishes a jury to disregard testimony he deems legally inadmissible—or so flagrantly unspeakable it goes beyond even the pale of a judicial system in which a wife who surgically neuters her husband can offer his severed manhood as proof she was "defending herself against a deadly weapon"—whereas an author accused of writing a "pornographic" nonfiction novel based on that same act of matrimonial mayhem would be forbidden to discuss its gory details in making his case that: When it comes to the perverted sexual fantasies he puts into words no novelist can hold a candle (no porn intended) to those actually fulfilled by the average housewife.

Glossary
assiduity noun plural assiduities 1.) Persistent application or diligence; unflagging effort. 2.) Often assiduities. Constant personal attention and often obsequious solicitude.
beatific adjective Showing or producing exalted joy or blessedness; angelic: a beatific smile. [Latin beatificus: beatus, happy, from past participle of beare, to bless + -ficus, -fic.] - beatifically adverb
millennial adjective...3.) A hopedfor period of joy, serenity, prosperity, and justice.