Bronzer

Less common these days, bronzing corpses was once widely practiced.

There comes a time in every person’s life when our biological clocks tell us: it’s time to memorialize something by coating it in metal.  Of course, the form that this natural urge takes is often dictated by cultural and social norms.  Look around yourself at this moment– chances are there is something metallized on your fireplace mantle, adorning your bar cart, or serving as your drinking receptacle.  I, for example, am seated in a leather wingback whose feet are burnished copper kittens, and just out of the corner of my eye I can glimpse my gold-plated citrus fruits glinting amongst my geode collection.  Now ask yourself this– who was it that covered your precious items in metal?  Was it you?  I’m betting it was not.  I, however, am fully responsible for all of my coated-in-metal objects.

It doesn’t take much to become a licensed bronzer, and I recommend that you go for it, if only to avoid paying the exorbitant fees that commercial bronzers will charge you.  How many of you are still making payments on your bronzed Elvis wigs?  Don’t be ashamed– many people think of bronzing and other metal arts as too specialized, too difficult, and best left to the professionals.  But with only three years and $84,000, you can join our ranks.  (I cannot guarantee that price; it is the amount that I paid 32 years ago, and it might have gone up slightly.)  And once you get that first whiff of molten metals, I promise you will be hooked.  When you see the look on your grandmother’s face after you present her with her cockatiel, Pete-A-Poo, forever immortalized in silver with tourmaline eyes, you will never want to stop bringing such tears of joy to others’ eyes.

No, the art of bronzing isn’t hard to master.  So many things seem filled with the intent to be bronzed that their bronzing’s no disaster.  I’ve bronzed my way through two cities, lovely ones, and vaster.  It’s just a shame you can’t bronze a voice, a gesture.  That’s what will finally get you in the end, put the final platinum-dipped nail in the coffin of that career.  At least it was for me.  But I hear science is making great advances in this area, so if you happen to figure out a means of doing this yourself, be sure and get in touch with me.