Friday, August 21

Plus, Th' Fuck Keeps Fruit In A Cellar?

WASN'T the Sell-by date for this shit, like, 1983? At whom, exactly, is something like Cristina Nehring's A Vindication of Love: Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-first Century being hurled (aside from Megan Cox Gurdon, that is)? I know it's too much to ask that Slate not hand the thing over to Meghan O'Rourke, et. al., to see if they couldn't wring all the non-triviality out of it, if any, because Slate is on a mission to destroy Life as We Know It, on the grounds that anything Slate says or does guarantees its opposite.

Okay, sure, I'm two months "late", as it were, as though this is the sort of thing one ought to stay right on top of, as though a tiresome polemic scoring a strawomyn Feminism the ranter is happy to benefit from otherwise isn't forty years late before it reaches the packing line. Was there some panicked study that noted our nation's dwindling Wealthy, Rapidly-Middle-Aging, Ivy-and-Seven-Sister-Educated White Women with Artificially-Flavored Literary Chips on their Shoulders Because Shopping Is No Longer Considered a Respectable Career Path in Some Circles resources that I missed?

Oh, but of course, Nehring's is no straight exchange of once-living trees for simple Feminist bashing, oh no. Because otherwise she wouldn't be praised for avoiding simple Feminist bashing. By Megan Cox Gurdon:
Not that feminism has been a total bust, of course; legal equality and the expectation of female sexual satisfaction are surely pleasant results of centuries of activism. Ms. Nehring concedes this but notes: "We need not trash feminism's flowers to dispose of the rotting fruit in its cellar."

How much longer is this shit supposed to work (other than on Megan Cox Gurdon)? Some of my best friends are!

And look; I'm not without a heart. I was too young to drive at the time, but allow me to apologize to y'all for the Sixties and all that Equality stuff anyway. Believe me, had we been able to look into the future and seen that the succeeding generation of overripe debutantes would find their own Class subsumed by the wrong sort of vapidity we'd have just kept our mouths shut, I'm sure.

But y'know what? If there's Something Lacking in the Romance Department in my little corner of what people who live in Paris and Los Angeles (Nehring's The Nation bio. No. Really. ) refer to as Where? I'll guarantee you it's not caused by shrill Feminist harpies demanding desexed marriage contracts and down-the-line equality, though it might be due to excessive drinking and pill consumption caused by the need to sleep occasionally despite the constant, ear-splitting drumbeat of consumerist crap and phony issues.

At least there's no gambling going on in this establishment! And speaking of inexplicable book deals, Tom Ridge hits the hustings reveaing (gasp!) that he might've been pressured into raising the Terra Threat Alert Level (just a little!) right after the 2004 Democratic National Convention for political reasons, which is like revealing that the Titanic sank because it was in the water at the time.

So, Mr. Secretary, we'll ask you the same question we keep asking Colin Powell, but he's busy saving our educational system: Why didn't you resign? Was it because loyalty to a political campaign took precedence over loyalty to the country? Was it because the whole $Trillions-wasting operation was just a big game? Or was it because you figured the advance money would be better in a few years?

8 comments:

  1. From the WSJ, Nor does anyone consider Dante humiliated, or his masterpieces tarnished, by his unconsummated passion for Beatrice.

    Isn't that the plot?

    If neither the author of the book, nor the reviewer can read competently Dante, and yet both insist upon writing an expose of their ignorance, they ought to be sentenced to ten years hard labor on a tree farm to make amends for their waste of paper.

    My intention is to comment on the most moving lines literature has achieved. They form part of Canto XXXI of the Paradiso, and although they are well known, no one seems to have discerned the weight of sorrow that is in them; no one has fully heard them. True, the tragic substance they contain belongs less to the work than to the author of the work, less to Dante the protagonist than to Dante the author of inventor.
    Jorge Luis Borges, "Beatrice's Last Smile"

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Mrs. Gurdon"

    Mrs. Oh snap.

    ReplyDelete
  3. also:

    "legal equality and the expectation of female sexual satisfaction are surely pleasant results of centuries of activism"

    is "surely pleasant results" supposed to be wry? these weird coastal contrarians speak a totally different language from me. maybe 20 years from now when we're caught up with them it'll make sense.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yo, Chrissy...make me a samwich, will ya? And iron my shirt!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous1:01 AM EDT

    Dear Sir,

    I must insist that you increase your output to at least three columns per day. World O' Crap, and Sadly, No! are, of course, fine efforts, and I value them highly. Your work, however, is (you'll pardon the vulgarity) the Pure Shit, and I'm afraid my habit has outrun your level of production. Reading your work, one cannot help using the term "Burkean" to describe it (if Burke had common sense, and an ounce of integrity, I'd refer to his work as "Rileyean", before I got laughed out of the Dictionary Club...). Flattery aside, please take the necessary steps towards this end ASAP, as the level of discourse in our fair land is about to drive me up the fuckin' wall (again, I crave your pardon for my language), and you're about the last thing I have to look forward to on the 'Net these days (Scarlett Johanson simply refuses to make a sex-tape! Selfishness has clearly become our society's guiding principle...). I realize your wife may not be 100% on-board with this new schedule; Please apologize to the good lady for me. Inform her that I will be happy to assist with yard-work/garbage taking-out/general chores in your absence. Thank you for your time, Sir.

    Yours,
    Kordo

    ps- Don't ever let Brooks off the hook. I live to see that lizard scribbling for 0.25 cents a word at Reader's Digest...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ridge is trying to repackage his soul into $20 segments for the secondary market, but the goods are seriously tarnished.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Not that feminism has been a total bust, of course....

    Do red pencils and pens no longer exist? Does every writer have an ironclad no-edit contract?

    ReplyDelete
  8. All the Washington insiders were saying Ridge was going to run for the Senate from Pennsylvania in 2010, even though he hasn't lived here since he went to work for his friend George, but the Beltway boys don't know that as governor, Ridge deregulated electricity, and in 2010 the chickens are coming home to roost in the form of 40% rate hikes, and his former governees might use some tar with those chicken feathers if he shows his face in Pennsylvania next year. (And no, dozens of electric companies are not beating down my doors to sell me cheaper electricity. I still have the same choice of one company and its rates, take it or leave it.)

    ReplyDelete