Archive: December 2006

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Monday, December 18, 2006

Season's greetings

Not content just to fester within my blog, I’ve been out in the world, fighting to make it more like Trouble Sells. A lot has happened in the intervening time; to me, and to the world. Some things I had nothing to do with: O.J. Simpson’s book, the first hypothetical tell-all, a fascinating premise, which itself became hypothetical. This is an important lesson for somebody. Things I had more to do with: the upcoming feature film about the life of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, starring Gael García Bernal.

Mostly, I have sat amongst my generation as they drank coffee and read Recognizable Tropes Magazine; a generation which asserts, quite obviously, that “fur is dead” when a more mysterious generation once considered that “Paul is dead”. Have we lost something?

I have also become the oldest person of Facebook; Elizabeth Spiers, runner-up. It made me realize the limitations of the system; you can say who you are friends with, but not keep a list of adversaries. It would be better if you could create factions to oppose other factions. What is the purpose of collectivization if all you can express is whether you like Alias or the New Pornographers?

Anyway, I could not claim I was Spiers’ friend, not only because we are not friends, but because she probably doesn’t remember me. (In New York, famously, someone can be your friend if you have met them once, but only if it lends you caché to make this assertion.) She came into the bar one night with a small-to-middling crowd of friends. It was a month after Elliott Smith had killed himself, and his ex-girlfriend had showed up, and I was sitting with her drinking Jameson’s and listening to Elliott Smith on the jukebox. Spiers went over to the jukebox. Ever vigilant, I followed her there to explain that she could play anything she liked as long as it was Elliott Smith (“The Dearborn Doctrine”) and mentioned the reason.

She did not take my advice. I suspect she didn’t believe that I was sitting with Elliott Smith’s ex-girlfriend, and didn’t feel she needed to pay attention to my story. I don’t think she was actually trying to complicate my attempt to score with Elliott Smith’s girlfriend, or that she meant disrespect to Elliott Smith. Although all those are viable possibilities. The upshot is, we are not Facebook buddies. Also, who cares about Wall Street gossip? Those guys may be just as dumb as celebrities, and often as rich, but I don’t see the movement taking the mantle from Us Weekly. If it does, I have dibs on the magazine title Bull Run.

More as it happens.

by Jack, 3:36 PM | Link | Comments (0) | More from Foundational Issues | More from The Damned Human Race | More from Women

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