Candidly Speaking 11/03/22
Random bits of thoughts and reflection
It’s been a busy and uneventful week, so I am just going to be brief.
Confession: I used to have a crush on Avril Lavigne when I was in high school. I suppose I found her emo look attractive. Recently, I listened to her latest album. Couldn’t get through the first two or three songs. It’s worth noting that this is a 37-year-old woman, who makes music as if she still spells ‘boys’ with an ‘i’. Suffice to say, my unrequited infatuation with Ms. Lavigne has reached its abrupt conclusion.
I had an unexpected run-in with an Internet celebrity. She was over-reacting because of a certain wardrobe malfunction. I made a tongue-in-cheek comment saying that she was overreacting: “All this because of a nip-slip?” She pulled the “You’re a man, therefore you cannot understand” card. I made another tongue-in-cheek comment, poking at how she used the lamest feminist trick in the book. And she made the whole thing public via her Twitter account, sending a bunch of her rabid fans my way. Mind you, I have not seen the supposed ‘nip-slip’, nor do I desire to. I was simply making an observation on how this woman, with her legions of followers and vast influence, would throw a hissy fit over something so trivial. The fact that she made our private argument public shows just how phony she and many other Internet celebrities of her kind are. Perhaps I should have seen it coming - after all, these people have the most fragile ego on Earth. Or I should have held my tongue. Or maybe I should just be less active on social media in general. Nevertheless, one of us still has a lot to answer to, and it’s not the one who respects privacy and anonymity.
J.D. Vance sucks now. Time and time again, the author of the beloved book “Hillbilly Elegy” shows himself to be parochial, demagogic, and ignorant. Noah Rothman’s piece on Commentary is a thorough critique of how the New Right, much inspired by Trump, appropriates the same kinds of argument made by the likes of Charles Lindbergh. Vance was a hero of mine - I was deeply moved by his book, and even recommended the movie adaptation to my parents. There is no doubt that the memoir brings to light many of the problems faced by the long-suffering American working class, which have not received the full attention of the country’s mainstream media. The disappointment I have with Vance is probably the same kind that the American public felt towards Lindbergh back in the old days. Once someone’s off the deep end, it can be hard to pull them back.
I have been watching the latest season of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” on Amazon Prime. It has been a delight. Then, I started watching the show “Gilmore Girls” on Netflix, and frankly I have not been able to stop. It’s a laugh riot and it has lovable characters. The two shows share the same showrunner, Amy Sherman-Palladino, and it shows. It’s tough to get some free time from work, but when I manage to do so, these are my escapes. It’s always better to observe the semi-functional lives of fictional characters on TV than the real-life one of your own.
Finally, I’d like to leave you with Leonard Cohen’s “You Want It Darker”. A future tribute post to Cohen is in order, but right now, this song should salve the anticipation: