Fanny Chicken: tv spot #1 because it mentions stealing Calvins. Dig the Rick Astley dance moves!
And tv spot #2, which is even funnier and QUITE the period piece. “Cuz they don’t make the hype shawrts.” “They fit good and they hold, hold me snug [cut to crotch grab].” “Oh, she got fweckles.” Also: more Rick Astley dance moves!
Back in the day (rapping with the kids on these here internets) who would have guessed this meathead would end up a decent actor and highly accomplished producer?
In retrospect, he does show good wit and self-awareness. But that’s only in hindsight. Back then? MEATHEAD!
Would pay $1 for a recording of all that was going on in Kate Moss’ head. Okay, $5.
On the radio, a liberal talkshow host starting talking prudishly/compassionately/condescendingly about Mark Weiner having a “sex addiction” for having tweeted some photos showing off his plumage/prowess/power in a cyber mating display.
His main mistake with PR is ignoring the fundamental rule of them with scandal management: full disclosure, right away. Otherwise the news cycle gets extended as details leak out, and the coverage becomes about the coverup, not the initial transgression(s).
Ya know, we’re all primates. We all do undignfied things every day. Like, say, poop. We’re not a classy species. No big deal.
As long as Weiner didn’t harm anybody, he’ll get through. People love pecadilloes. Heck, they’ve shown time and again they find such behavior adorable. Shows that leaders are just like them. Weiner will get re-elected, no problem.
What is irritating is the media wringing its hands like the moral arbiters of the country. Not necessary.
Would love to be a bon vivant, but being cultivated takes a LOT more effort than I’m likely to put into it. A severe curmudgeonly streak also sours that enterprise. Maybe a ennui vivant? Nah, I get too amped up and laugh too much for any credible affectation of malaise. Golly, it is SO frustrating to develop self-labels.
TED Talks are downloaded to my TiVo. I’m getting increasingly likely to delete with a scoff an episode based on the title, and even resistant to watching a whole episode I do choose to start. Viewing what I do has made me stronger, as I HATE flesh-ish colored foam covers on microphone headsets. Is that a floating tumor? A morsel of food? Hey, don’t think you can FOOL me, I KNOW you’re wearing a microphone!
Sidetracked.
Giving a TED Talk must feel like a big deal. No idea what the criteria are, why they are filmed in different towns. Does every city have a giant “TED” prop to drop on a stage any time someone feels profundity coming on? TED Talks feel rehearsed and precious.
Though this has to do with ladies’ fashion (not a topic I ever seek out), I watched this one all the way through. It was short:
The “Golly, I’m thrifty, but also paid money for wear-once clothing and then donated it back to make a point to you all” is charming on the surface, but the overall concept absurd. And the vibe of “dig my life” was a bit much. I was also distracted by “What kind of home life does she have?”
Didn’t laugh at this so much as relate. Most every meal I have is a contest of wills between my hand and my head as to which will compromise the most. Sometimes my hand doesn’t WANT to be the appeaser. Sometimes it sticks up for itself and goes “Hey, head. How about you meet me halfway every once in a while instead of 10-15% of the way?” My head will be all like, “Hey, fuck that. I’m the head and I run you!” And the hand will sometimes go “Oh, okay.” and cave in. Every once in a while it’ll reply “I don’t care if you get any food or beverage. I don’t have any taste buds. Hardly anything in it for me.”
This dialog usually happens on lunch breaks, and I do the voices both for the hand and the head. And before you’re all like “Heh, awkward!” — know that my hand and head usually get applause at the end because they are both that damned entertaining and awesome.
I’ve been re-reading a favorite book, Harold Bloom’s The Western Canon, a massive elegy for the sublime in literature. Its tone of defiance and celebration of great art, yelling like Lear at the overwhelming storm of dying standards and political correctness. has always brought great pleasure.
And I hated, as Bloom did, what he labeled “The School of Resentment” — literature critics with political agendas that trounce aesthetics. The late 80s and early 90s were overrun by the massive overshoot by multiculturalists who went beyond consideration and reflection on other cultures to a mad competitive rush to see who could be the most sensitive over the self-identified labels of the day (generally fine) and on behalf of categories they did not belong to (okay in theory, hideous in practice).
And among the things I enjoy now, 20 years later, is the world feels as if the School of Resentment has significantly faded. Gone is the Carry Nation prudery and groupthink of anti-sex writers like Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin. The feminist field is now as wide and diverse in approaches as it should be, given its constituents are more than half the population.
I credit this book for helping recover my love of reading after graduating college. Showing that it was important to read for reading’s sake – as I’d spent the last several years reading in anticipation of quizzes and discussions and dissecting the works in graded essays and other projects. Harold Bloom and Camille Paglia helped me recover my ability to enjoy and seek out works for their ambition and their strangeness, and that I could fly by the nets of identity politics and engage with art of lasting merit.
But Bloom himself.
The videos I’ve seen of him have been of a man who probably looked 60 by his late 30s yet has held steady within his sturdy torso, resembling a bag of profound sighs (though he rarely sighs). A melodious, despairing, challenging voice that suits his authorial tone. He proclaims himself “Bloom Brontosaurus Bardolator” as a badge, a sense of resignation, and “a certain fury”. He rarely looks at the interviewer or the camera. He obviously tasks his brain with searches and phrases too much for visual courtesies, though he is perfectly gracious in his words to people.
Naomi Wolf famously accused him of hitting on her while she was an undergraduate student at Yale. If true, doubtless a horrifying, macabre experience, and she’s entitled to her rage at the unethical behavior. Yet his alleged line to her was so sublimely skeezy (“You have the aura of election upon you”), the dirty old woman/man part within us all can’t help but feel a little moved.
But, all allegations, and who has NOT had a shady moment in the “Just trying to get laid” department?
Resolutely fond of him I will remain. Sorry for that Yoda syntax. I remain fond and grateful to the man.
My default setting is to stay up late. Go to bed around midnight to 3 a.m. No matter how many grown-up years pass that teach the hard lessons and wisdom of getting 8 hours of sleep, I petulantly stay up late.
Part of me still thinks: “Woo-hoo! I’m not a kid anymore. I can make up my OWN rules!” This may be the same instinct that causes me to see a colored bead or wayward Lego block or hair barrette on the floor of my house and think: “That’s not MY mess. Leave it to whomever dropped it there.” I have to reflect, realize: “Oh, yeah. I’m the adult now and if I don’t pick that up someone will step on it and I’ll feel badly.” Then pick that bauble up.
As soon as Friday night the habit reverts. Doesn’t matter that I wake up first with the kids 6 of 7 mornings each week. Doesn’t matter what my activity is: writing, reading, watching tv, reading on the internet about what I just watched on tv, listening to music. There I sit/lay/slouch/stretch. Brain glazing over. Yet I will not budge until exhausted.
Rationally, 8 hours of sleep is important, daylight is important. But I can’t (usually) bring myself to put cause and effect together: go to sleep at a decent hour, get decent sleep, all for a more decent day tomorrow.
Why, then, rage, RAGE against the dying of the day as if I could wait out and defeat (or at least stalemate) the rotation of the planet?
I don’t think it’s an inherent trait. People say “I’m not a morning person” and “I’m a night owl” like sharing they have brown hair and that’s just the way it is. I think it’s fear of missing something. Of making the most of good health and mind right now because tomorrow may not bring this solitude (and it is always solitude – I don’t hang out late anywhere since my mid-20s) and this ability to browse and mentally meander.
The headline to this is a little dramatic. I sleep easily. My dreams are very simple and fond. I get out of bed quickly. But even on weekends, the mornings start with tasks. Making breakfast. Pets. Read the paper. Clean house. Plan the day. Not bad, all necessary and often delightful, but not as much fun as traipsing around, or standing still, in a marsh of mental confections and the occasional alligator easily dismissed with a FLICK on the snout. [Shout out, Fanny!]
Induced a mental cramp. After recuperative staring at a candle, things to unpack:
1.) The gal seems a couple years older than Bieber. Should the ad carry some kind of warning, depending on state of residence?
2.) She also leads an aritocratic existence with a ballet dancer’s build. He’s an intrusive, daring scamp in lavender tennis shoes. It’d NEVER work! [Cue dramatic music, their mad dash to a car and drive away from the grown-ups who just don’t understand/]
3.) Does it count as subliminal advertising if human anatomy is outright depicted on the container?
4.) Though I wish him no ill will, I bet Bieber repellent spray would sell better.
I open the window to let in the sound of the rain. Gust falls. A police siren. Subsides. A train whistle to the east. Another heavy burst. Then quiet, steady.
Passing car in the alley splays the steady runoff down the pavement. Dry room. Fond room. Another heave of the wind brings water through the screen, Onto the windowsill, onto the floor. Worry later.
