Essays in Idleness

Everyone has met her, I gather, because there is a flash of recognition in every face when her name is mentioned. My own memory of her goes back to the ‘sixties. She was the original Valley Girl — from whatever valley — eloquent, indeed musical, in an illiterate, innumerate way. She was not unkindly; but neither was she intentionally generous or obliging; neither saintly, nor ruthless. One could enjoy the whole afternoon with her, and be sure to accomplish nothing at all. Not even sin.

She was by nature a friend of a friend — many times removed, and then many times multiplied — upon herself, without being conspicuously selfish. The world was filled with the Creamcheeses — after Frank Zappa invented the first one. (Did each contain a rib of Frank Zappa?) They were “immortalish,” from that day to this. They were legion.

“Always a freak, never a hippie.”

The remark applies to Mr Zappa, not Miss Creamcheese. It was his proud declaration, that he would never be a hippie. He went so far as to not take drugs — except those that could be classified as food, such as aspirin and cigarettes. He was an innocent, a fanatic innocent, for he believed in the United States Constitution, and was a faithful composer of quasi-classical tunes. Marvellously free, he was — of romantic notions. Little to conflict with his honesty. He had strange liberal tendencies, but all of them, completely out-of-date.

He found his fame, with an absent mind. He rose to it carelessly. It was his pleasure to become Suzy Creamcheese in reverse. He was a non-rock star.

But this Essay is entirely about Suzy Creamcheese, considered in the abstract. I look back to a time before she ever became a Valley Girl. Her origin was equally American and European, and her nationality was unimportant. She simply was, and her existence gave comfort, to those without wants. And she persists.