Viewing entries tagged
zeitgesit

THE WASTELAND

THE WASTELAND

Warning:  the cultural landscape, once lush and fragrant, has been plagued by a terrible and long-lasting drought.  The lush foliage has shrunken into pale patches of grimy moss.  The shards of glorious sunlight have darkened into just a glimmer of shadows.  Rainbows no longer include the colors green and purple.  The sociological touchstones that once served to ground us are often now misunderstood or completely ignored. 

It was only a matter of time really.  I saw most of the signs, even the ones I pretended for a while to ignore.  I would show The Graduate to my students and one of them would always ask, “Is this Simon and Garfunkel?” and I would smile and tell them how Mike Nichols had gotten the duo involved with the soundtrack and I’d see some slight nods of recognition and hear at least two whispers of “My parents like them” and it didn’t matter that the kids themselves weren’t fans; at least they were somewhat aware that a group called Simon and Garfunkel once existed on the planet.

THE CANNING OF KIM RICHARDS

THE CANNING OF KIM RICHARDS

At some point yesterday during the heavy cloudiness that set in right about midafternoon, I heard a heavy sound begin to blare in the distance.  I initially thought I must have been hearing rumbles of thunder, but now I know that the sound was really a thousand and one champagne corks being popped in unison across the land because of the announcement that Kim Richards will no longer be a full-time Housewife on the next season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.  And as she has never managed to be a full-time human being either, I’m going to forge ahead and say that Bravo has finally made the right call.

Do I sound harsh and maybe kind of cruel?  Yes.  

Am I entitled to have an opinion that has been cultivated after watching something with the self-awareness of half of an amoeba skulk across my television screen for the last bunch of years?  Fuck yes.
 

SELLING YOURSELF AS A KOMMODITY

SELLING YOURSELF AS A KOMMODITY

I am krazily koncerned about the Kardashians.  I’m a kompassionate kind of girl, so really, how kould I not worry about this komplex family unit?  

And, by the way, I’m koncidering starting a movement to eliminate the letter “K” from the English language entirely, which means that I will need a new last name.  I’m thinking I should probably steer clear from the surname “Duggar” though, what with their heavy associations with religion and chastity and recently revealed charges of child molestation.  

Ironic how some things turn out, no?

THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS THAT PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT YOU

THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS THAT PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT YOU

I feel like the world has finally reset itself back onto an axis I understand.  

Watching this episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, I found myself returning to a very familiar and long-term mindset wherein I realized something rather definitive:  I DO hate Kyle Richards!  My recently detached hatred for a woman who is proud of having shiny extensions and a best friend who capitalized on another friend’s murder by spreading it for Playboy – heeeeeyyyy, Faye Resnick! – is back and I now grasp this very real dichotomy:  I can feel badly for the life Kyle leads as the sister of an addict in denial, but I don’t have to allow that empathy to mean that I want to mentally hold hands with a woman I’d much rather clothesline during a good game of Red Rover. 
 

SUR-TIFIABLY INSANE

SUR-TIFIABLY INSANE

There exists a world, it seems, where the highest aspiration one can possibly dare to dream is that one day you will become a server Sur, a Los Angeles restaurant that I think serves Mediterranean cuisine, but the only thing I’ve ever seen anyone order from the menu and then consume is a fried ball of goat cheese.

Now, I’m not a crazy person; there’s probably nothing more delicious than a fried ball of any kind of cheese, but I’m also pretty sure that it would be to the benefit of your immune system to never nibble from a morsel of food that has ever been handled by a few of the servers at Sur who also moonlight as the stars of Vanderpump Rules.

LISA'S BUSH

LISA'S BUSH

It’s official:  Lisa Vanderpump has risen in my mind from ABSOLUTE WALKING PERFECTION to THE DEITY I WILL FORCE MY MINIONS TO PRAY TO IF I EVER START MY VERY OWN CULT – and here’s how I know it:  on last night’s episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, she discussed at the dinner table that she does not trim the hair that covers her nether regions, and I did not want to vomit while listening to a woman who has lived for over five decades discuss her bush.  Not only did I not feel even slightly nauseous, I actually gazed at my television set as it was graced with her supreme divinity and thought to myself, I’ll bet even this woman’s pubic hair is fabulous.

THE DEKLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION

THE DEKLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION

I stood in front of my class yesterday in a flippy skirt and opaque black tights – it’s November now after all – and told my eighteen year old seniors that we were leaving the 1940s behind and sauntering our way into the next decade.

On the board behind me, written in a pretty purple-colored chalk, was the word zeitgeist.
                                                             
“Say it with me so you know how to pronounce it,” I told my students who are old enough to vote, even though most of them don’t.  “Zeitgeist.”

“Zeitgeist,” they said back in unison, and for a brief moment I thought I knew what teaching kindergarten must be like.