Sadly for you, she took her shirt off but was still fully dressed.
May I ask why Anna Nicole Smith's death is being treated in the news with the same fanfare ask JFK Jr.'s or Princess Di's deaths? Not to be cold or bitchy or any of those other things I'm often accused of being, but what did this person add to the world? As far as I can tell, the only thing she ever gave us was a reference point for all future golddiggers. The PostDailyNews this morning was comparing her to Marilyn Monroe. Why? Because she was blonde and tried to convince people that she was just like Marilyn Monroe? Marilyn Monroe added something to the history of American cinema and actually contributed to twentieth century American pop culture. Where is the similarity?
One of the lead stories on MSN this morning is headlined "What Made Us Care About Anna Nicole?" Well, what did? Beyond the fact that the media seemed obsessed with pushing her pathetic life at us via TrimSpa commercials, coverage of the various lawsuits she filed to get the dead billionaire's money from his kids, and that awful E! reality show. I'm sure that this is hard for her family, and you have to feel bad for her baby daughter, but, really, this is not news. She is not news, never actually was. And her saga was more revolting than interesting or sympathetic.
We had a conversation in one of my high school classes about the relative importance of individual deaths. The question was, "why shouldn't people feel equally bad about each and every human death?" My answer was that if we did, we wouldn't be able to function for the constant grief. I also don't feel like I should be compelled to feel bad about the death of a person who was more of a drain on society than anything else and likely brought about her own end, whether intentionally or not. Seriously, if archaeologists a thousand years from now discover evidence of Anna Nicole Smith and decide that she was some sort of cultural deity the way the current news cycle is attempting to portray her, they would think we were a bunch of flaming idiots and wonder how we managed not to spontaneously implode under the weight of our own meaninglessness.
A person has died at a young age. That is sad. For her family. It is not news.
Moving on.
My horoscope--I really wonder why I read them--in The Village Voice this week said: "Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly. It wants to rip to shreds all your erroneous notions of truth that make you fight within yourself and with others. Love sometimes wants to do us a great favor: hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out." I have not decided yet what the hell that means, especially in relation to myself. But it sounds a little brutal, so it matches well the mood I'm in, what with Valentine's Day beating down about our heads. I've developed this Tourette's-like tic wherein whenever I see a gooey commercial featuring diamonds, candy, or the color pink, I holler, "Fuck you, Cupid!" Vincent calls it Singles Awareness Day. I call it a pain in my ass. It is yet another case where society is blatantly trying to force its values on me, and I would really appreciate it if society would back the fuck up.
Unrelatedly, I am reading the Border Trilogy right now. My sister got me the Everyman's Library tome containing all three books. On the one hand, I like having them all together like that. On the other, it is significantly less portable. I read it on the subway and people look at me askance. They're the same kinds of looks I got the summer I was working at The Goodwill and was reading Brothers K on my breaks: the "oh my God, how can you read such a big book?" look. When I was rereading my London posts a few weeks ago I came across one in which I defined the term "literidiot." I am annoyed by the fear people seem to feel towards books that are more than, at most, a couple hundred pages long. Like you've got to have some sort of superpower to pay attention to something for that long. I am annoyed by the way people constantly overestimate the difficulty of a thing as a way of underestimating their own capabilities. You don't have to try if it's too hard to begin with.
I'm also annoyed with the idea that length=difficulty. The last Harry Potter book was, what, eight hundred pages? And I breezed through that in under a day and loved it. Meanwhile, Old Man and the Sea, which is right around a hundred pages long, was one of the most difficult books I've ever read. I had to go through that sucker three times before I finally figured out what Papa was really talking about and actually appreciated and came to like the book.
I have no idea what to do with myself this weekend. I am woefully short of funds. Also, there is no football to plan my Sunday (and, therefore, parts of my Saturday) around. Loose ends and all that.
One of the lead stories on MSN this morning is headlined "What Made Us Care About Anna Nicole?" Well, what did? Beyond the fact that the media seemed obsessed with pushing her pathetic life at us via TrimSpa commercials, coverage of the various lawsuits she filed to get the dead billionaire's money from his kids, and that awful E! reality show. I'm sure that this is hard for her family, and you have to feel bad for her baby daughter, but, really, this is not news. She is not news, never actually was. And her saga was more revolting than interesting or sympathetic.
We had a conversation in one of my high school classes about the relative importance of individual deaths. The question was, "why shouldn't people feel equally bad about each and every human death?" My answer was that if we did, we wouldn't be able to function for the constant grief. I also don't feel like I should be compelled to feel bad about the death of a person who was more of a drain on society than anything else and likely brought about her own end, whether intentionally or not. Seriously, if archaeologists a thousand years from now discover evidence of Anna Nicole Smith and decide that she was some sort of cultural deity the way the current news cycle is attempting to portray her, they would think we were a bunch of flaming idiots and wonder how we managed not to spontaneously implode under the weight of our own meaninglessness.
A person has died at a young age. That is sad. For her family. It is not news.
Moving on.
My horoscope--I really wonder why I read them--in The Village Voice this week said: "Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly. It wants to rip to shreds all your erroneous notions of truth that make you fight within yourself and with others. Love sometimes wants to do us a great favor: hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out." I have not decided yet what the hell that means, especially in relation to myself. But it sounds a little brutal, so it matches well the mood I'm in, what with Valentine's Day beating down about our heads. I've developed this Tourette's-like tic wherein whenever I see a gooey commercial featuring diamonds, candy, or the color pink, I holler, "Fuck you, Cupid!" Vincent calls it Singles Awareness Day. I call it a pain in my ass. It is yet another case where society is blatantly trying to force its values on me, and I would really appreciate it if society would back the fuck up.
Unrelatedly, I am reading the Border Trilogy right now. My sister got me the Everyman's Library tome containing all three books. On the one hand, I like having them all together like that. On the other, it is significantly less portable. I read it on the subway and people look at me askance. They're the same kinds of looks I got the summer I was working at The Goodwill and was reading Brothers K on my breaks: the "oh my God, how can you read such a big book?" look. When I was rereading my London posts a few weeks ago I came across one in which I defined the term "literidiot." I am annoyed by the fear people seem to feel towards books that are more than, at most, a couple hundred pages long. Like you've got to have some sort of superpower to pay attention to something for that long. I am annoyed by the way people constantly overestimate the difficulty of a thing as a way of underestimating their own capabilities. You don't have to try if it's too hard to begin with.
I'm also annoyed with the idea that length=difficulty. The last Harry Potter book was, what, eight hundred pages? And I breezed through that in under a day and loved it. Meanwhile, Old Man and the Sea, which is right around a hundred pages long, was one of the most difficult books I've ever read. I had to go through that sucker three times before I finally figured out what Papa was really talking about and actually appreciated and came to like the book.
I have no idea what to do with myself this weekend. I am woefully short of funds. Also, there is no football to plan my Sunday (and, therefore, parts of my Saturday) around. Loose ends and all that.