crazy pattern quilt

Sat'rday night! Good thing this is a journalblog, and already a crucible for a whole lot of Who Cares, because tonight's a solipsistic doozy. Blah blah blah. Well, you put TV in -- something will out.

There has to be a term for the Oprah Phenomenon that I keep seeing myself and other women go through--I mean, why do we CARE at all by now? We should know better. SHE should know better by now, which is why she's a problem. Anyhow, I did it again last night--got sucked in and frustrated. It was a show about Class in America and I guess (this would be the real problem) had the possibility for being really fascinating. But it immediately was so...grrr. Sketchy. They didn't address the idea that class exists (or used to) separate from income until way more than halfway through (for instance).

The thing that was really interesting about this particular episode, though, was that it just couldn't exist within Oprah Constructs; because she's one of the small percentage that broke out of their "class," and one of the tiny percentage that did it to great wealth and fame, she clearly wants to believe it's possible for anybody, but there was lil Robert Reich shakin his head and saying no, yer an anomaly, over and over. The whole thing became a fascinating, direct challenge to her Living Your Best Life rhetoric. The show started by stating that Katrina showed us how class really operates in this country, but ended by more or less exposing the show's middle-class love, because despite all the talk of spirit, there is all this moneyed underpinning that didn't fit with all the talk of class but wouldn't go away. The other rich people on the show kept saying "we are lucky" and Oprah kept saying "I don't believe in luck." Oprah just didn't wanna hear Reich talk, but she couldn't disagree either. I suppose I enjoyed watching her hoisted on her own petard, frankly, a very uncommon result of the Oprah Phenom. Usually you're left just fomenting...

Then, of course, there's that weird unspoken feeling when you know she's gaining weight again and nobody's saying it. Oh OPRAH. (I hear Rita Moreno in my head warbling "you should know behhhhhtter".)

I needed to hear New Order's "Temptation" last night more than I needed sleep...another $.99-ed tune I think. I bet if you graph everybody's iTuning it'd fall under some serious demographic lines--ooh I gotta have [whatever]. That's one of those songs I thought as a DJ in college would be around me for my listening forever. Like adult life would be one big dorm full of LPs!

The sweetest, most melancholy four bars of melody: I don't want to wait in vain for your love.

I have *no* idea what the Da Vinci Code's about. The appeal from the little I see seems a little Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler...which means I'd like it, although clearly we're not Supposed To (and maybe I wouldn't). I dunno, must figure out what it's about.

Youthful lingering absurdity. Still incredibly cool and unique to me: top-split hot dog buns! They seem so...exotic. I don't think I've ever even had one.

Pharrell is so darn cute, but I'm worried he's gettin anorexic. Placin a lil bet there.

Wolfgang Puck is so hopelessly uncool in the world of cooking these days in some ways, but DAMN! He made a lentil soup with lamb meatballs and tangy yoghurt the other day on his show that got me more excited than anything I've seen made on TV in forever. He's really a good cook, and his accent is fun enough to listen to on its own--too hilarious. I don't think I would have guessed that he'd be up there with some of me favs (such a huckster), but he's dang good. Esp. when he doesn't have to forced-socialize with Letterman or whatever. And his patter has matter to it, unlike somebody like Giada or whomever, who specialize in telling us things we already know. He's really good.

I have been very un-watching the Next New Food TV Star or whatever it's called on the Food Network (yawn), but I can't help but wondering if America's really ready for a slightly femme TV chef with the dreaded he-boobies on their television. I guess so, if he's reached the finals. We'll see.

I officially (finally) realized can't stand Baz Luhrman (sP?). How anybody who uses popular music like a kinda Vegassy high-school musical gets called ground-breaking, I don't know. But I realllllllly dislike him. I couldn't believe anybody liked Moulin Rouge...nasty.

There is something realllly intense? about watching all the booty-poppin on BET's Uncut late-night videos. It's so intensely sexist, but dang - when do you ever see fat ass like that anywhere other than porn. Still catches me up short.

That Anthony Hamilton song is really making me love it...won't go away, but it's not even new anymore.

Crimes and Misdemeanors was so great last night. It's a pretty decent test of Can You Stand the Personal Life While Watchin the Art (this would be the Woody Phenom? the Picasso Phenom? The Joan Crawford Phenom? Actually, I used to call it the Bing Problem in my head for a while), since one of the characters is Woody's 14?yo niece that he just loves, this little worshipful tabula rasa whose mother (by constrast) experiences unexpectedly nasty effects from her desire to be loved (pretty scat for Woody Allen). It's not particularly comfortable, but (for me) it doesn't kill the movie. That means perhaps that my "fibers resemble coconut matting" (to quote DL Sayers)--I'm an insensitive thug--or I don't know what, but it's certainly interesting to Like It Despite All That. It's a situation/argument taken ad hominem/absurdem in the most interesting ways. It's got problems on top of all that too, but one of his best, if you ask me, which means it's awfully good. Yes.........who is asking me this, exactly? But - still. I breathe.