an embarrassment of riches

Somebody came up with a copy of Vanity Fair magazine the other day. This is not a thing that we often see here in Lotarot...the prevailing atmosphere, while decidedly money-ish, is not opulent, refined or sophisticated. Rather, there is the ever present turmoil of chickens scratching the dirt, stumpy-legged dogs churning the trash, horses leaning out into the roadway forcing one to screech to a halt, pigs lying in the middle of the road, cows lying in the middle of the road, goats running in a herd from one crop of weeds to the next--in short, agricultural. The cars are generally quite new and of the Range Rover ilk. Roads are too steep and subject to mud slides and worse for there to be too many Lamborghinis or Countachs, but there are a few Hummers.
So into this lush, mosquito infested, tree frog orchestrated isle came a copy of Vanity Fair with all its glossy, decadent, rich, burnished beauties and dandies. How foreign it seems, how rich and unattainable and, in fact, undesirable. Like the richest of chocolate desserts when one has become used to boiled eggs and dry toast.
But the shock of all those beauties heaped one upon the other, exhorting one to buy to spend, splurge and suffocate in the sheer too-muchiness of it all has sent me into a spiral of self-questioning panic.
Suddenly one feels more like an Old Order Amish than a New Order nostalgic. The poor cousin, the cheapside suitor, the snot-dripping snivelling perv, Aqualung in wonderland.
Wish you were here.