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Alice, child with dreaming eyes, Noting things that come to pass Turvey-wise in Wonderland Backwards through a Looking-Glass. ♠ Saki, The Westminster Alice ♣ |  |
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[ 100428 ] nocturne, King Pear – Alexandra Cabot reappeared in L&O: SVU, so I wiki'd >> Casey Novak >> Diane Neal, whose entry specifically states "She is a redhead." // Though I'm sure Amy was in my subconscious. 28 Aries 10 07:07 [ 100428 ] Ian, the Blue Berry Timothy – Did Amy trigger this? 28 Aries 10 06:47 [ 091026 ] andrew – thx 11 Aquarius 10 21:09 [ 080711 ] anon – i read your text. I'm not your friend. And i fell in here because i was looking for Pania Rose pictures. // Ah i'm also a male, so your tactic kinda worked. 25 Capricorn 10 11:45 [ 091107 ] nocturne – I'm sorry, I have no clue what you mean. Please try again. 08 Scorpio 2k9 10:15 …more…  |
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A few weeks ago, I arose from sleep with a line in my head. And I thought to myself, Wow, you’re a bleeding genius, you are. I was all enthused and going to write it down and bask in the glory that is self-satisfaction. And, in that beatitude, I reached the fullness of the Wake, and that beautiful line, and such a beautiful line – “loved with a love that was more than love” – I realised, not to be mine. But it’s such a simple line, isn’t it? Anybody could have written it, but, in the thousand years of the English language, it was Poe who wrote it into the pages of history, in Annabel Lee. Greatness is HumanHercules may have slain the Nemean Lion, but we prefer Tiger Woods. Superman may be faster than a speeding bullet, but, really, we prefer Roger Federer’s launching of the balls. Do we like Christian Bale for being Batman, or for acting as Batman? At some level, while the stories of the legends inspire, the heroes are those who live and breathe, who walk amongst us. Once they, too, die and fade into the pages of myth, we care so much less. Alan Turing vs Bill Gates? Or even vs Kevin Rose? The great have to be human. We want to believe that they’re not too far away, that they are living our lives, that – had a tiny, small thing happened when we were young – their path is ours. Anyone could have done this, but it is this guy who did. This guy is really not that much different from me. Feats are EasyI’m good at what I do. If writing were golf, I’m surely not Woods, I’m not even a pro-player, but, when me and my small group of friends gather at the club every week, I’m amongst the best of them. Even in this tiny group, when the topic comes up, it comes up in the form of “I can’t write like you; I’m not as talented”. It’s not talent, and I keep saying that, but nobody believes it. You can tell that they don’t want to believe it – that they’d rather believe me to be humble (uh-huh) – rather than accept that I’ve spent most of my life in devotion to my craft (fuck art; writing is like carpentry). They refuse to accept that I’m good at what I do in the exact same way that they are good at whatever it is they do that isn’t as meaningful as writing and can’t impress the chicks. This is not to say that I’m not a brilliant writer, or that I’m not talented, just that I’m no more talented than any of the other bloggers I read. So don’t take it as a sign that I don’t feel worthy of your adoration, and don’t take it as a sign that you shouldn’t send me naked pictures of yourself (females only, please – I can’t stress this enough. This means YOU, lonelyboi84.) The Feats have to look easy; have to look effortless. People like to see tenacity but they so much prefer to watch the tenacious meet his match, at the hands of the master. People want to believe that greatness is easy, that the deeds of the great come from some God-given talent. Models may be born beautiful, but most of them work at it, they watch their diet, they work out. Maybe their life is easier than the life of Sweatshop Worker #17, but it’s not as easy as we’d imagine it to be. Anyone could have done this, but it is this guy who did. This guy is lucky because he’s born talented. PuddingYou actually get to see this in action in reality contests such as So You Think You Can Dance, Last Comic Standing and, presumably, Somewhere Idol. While some people go to the auditions for a lark, others take offence, or are utterly stunned, that the judges don’t think they’re good enough. They simply think that the judges are, for some reason (too tall?), picking on them. They don’t seem to notice that the people who make it to the final rounds, when asked “How long have you been doing this?”, answer “Five years.”, “Eight years.” That those who make it have had training, have had professional experience, have devoted their lives to this singular calling. And these people think they can come on stage and wow the judges, just because they can wow their group of friends, just because what they see on the show looks so easy. Arise, BreadWe live in an age where the old axiom of “nothing travels faster than bad news” is truer than ever. Thanks to the Internet, bad news travels really fucking fast. Because of the speed and spread of bad news – scandals – the mainstream media has to pick up on it, or risk losing its relevance, and, with that, its credibility. Ironically, in the process of reporting the scandals, it actually lends its credibility to the scandals. Fame is the measure of worthiness. I could be the best writer in the world, but, if no one thinks so, am I? Someone has to witness the falling tree. Lots of people have to agree that it fell. Lots of people have to agree that it fell wonderfully. The flipside of the nature of Greatness – that Feats are easy and only the human are truly Great – means that the great are measured by our own standards. We expect them to live up to our own expectations. This really isn’t all that much. We expect them not to steal, we expect them not to have children at 16, that kind of thing. In exchange for fame (which has its rewards), we expect them not to let us down. When they do, that’s when the bloodbath begins, once he who is without fame casts the first stone. It’s really like bread. When bread rises, it is the smell of bread, the idea of bread, not the substance of it, that promises.
Outside the fame-expectations social compact, but as a mechanism for the enforcement of it, fame makes the famous live in the public eye. So, people like me, who make value judgments on the private lives of public figures, get to make value judgements on your private life. Also, people might want to take pictures of your private privates, and then make them public. This is Emma Watson, when she went out to celebrate her 18th birthday. Lines being lines, a mere day before, this picture would be illegal as child-porn. Now, however, it leads to witty captioning.  Witty Caption – Insert wand to achieve Harmonie. In reply to Ian’s “Leave Dawn Yang Alone”, she lied. This wasn’t a girl with feet of clay, this was a girl who put herself on a pedestal made entirely of clay. It wasn’t someone who became famous on merit and then failed. It was fame via fraud. This is entirely the result of her naivety in thinking she could get away with it. She cheated us and now we want our pound of flesh. There is no other way her story could have ended. Dawn Yang’s story isn’t Cinderella. It’s really a cautionary tale. All About MeMy three readers will have noticed I go to great lengths to quickly squash any rumours of credibility, intellectualism and all of the assorted maturity-thingies. It’s called managing expectations. I can lie with impunity because anyone who takes my word for anything is stupid. If this post makes sense to you, it’s not because I’m right, it’s because I’m believable. That’s what good fiction is. I really do just make things up.
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“There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them.”
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You might think that Paris Hilton isn’t really good at anything. She’s a failure at acting, a failure at singing, and a failure at being a human being. But she’s Great at being Paris Hilton. And we, the people, want, in addition to our actors and our singers, at least one Paris Hilton.
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Things that fall contrariwise, Difficult to understand Darkly through a Looking-Glass Turvey-wise in Wonderland ♠ Saki, The Westminster Alice ♣ | |
