The age of Paris

David Seaton's News Links

I'm reading "think pieces" about Paris Hilton.... (???).

There is really nothing much to think about here. If we take Oscar Wilde's definition of "celebrity" as "someone who is famous for being famous": as apt, then Ms. Hilton is a perfect celebrity.

She is reasonably pretty, but nothing that some bleach, a little silicon and a bit of dieting couldn't produce in almost any supermarket checkout lady. So her look is achievable or at least aspirational for most girls. She is seriously rich, which means she can have anything (anyone) that money can buy. So she works as an object of fantasy.

What does she do that people could fantasise about? As far as I can see, her activities are limited to acting like a jerk and balling a lot. Those are things that most people never do as much of as they would like to. She appears to be talentless and stupid. I say appears, because if she were intelligent, she would be smart to hide it. Any visible talent or intelligence would reduce her possibilities as a blank, fantasy sheet, ready to be scrawled upon by all and sundry.

Scarlett Johansson, for example, is truly an unforgettable beauty, possessed of obvious intelligence and a formidable talent: most of humanity, if they ever even dreamed of getting it on with Ms. Johansson would wake up and apologize. But it just might be possible for a patient onanist to imagine that Paris Hilton could wake up some afternoon and say to herself, "today I've just got to do it with an overweight, out of shape, pimply, high school dropout!". A perfect fantasy object... a truly humantiarian gift to all too human humanity.

Then of course the media finds that she provides them with content that isn't drenched in blood and hate, and that she allows a reasonably literate person, who reads things written to be read to feel superior. And that of course, for all of the above, Paris Hilton draws readers. She is a perfect example of the Taoist ideal of "Wu Wei", not doing anything, all is done.

Full disclosure: this post itself is an experiment. I'm interested in following it in my trackers and seeing if the tags draw more that normal hits on a slow Monday. Testing the "Paris Hilton effect" its called. I've tried to make the experiment as entertaining as I could. I hope faithful readers of the blog aren't horribly offended. DS

Waiting for the other shoe to drop: a slow day

Daubentonia madagascariensis

David Seaton's News Links

I'm glad I don't have to meet any deadlines today. I have been patrolling the net, making my daily tour d' horizon/fishing trip, looking for interesting articles and I have come up dry as a bone.

Everything, from global warming through a stock market crash to a war with Iran is about to happen... but hasn't happened just yet. And there isn't even a new thing just about to happen that hasn't happened yet... yet... Not even a juicy "think piece". Everybody seems to have done there thinking yesterday or are planning on thinking tomorrow.

You may be wondering why I have featured a photograph of this hideous little lemur called the "Aye-Aye", which like so many of us, is in danger of extinction, in order to illustrate this post. I can only answer your curiosity with the following story:

___________________________________

A non-denominational, whitebread, shit kicking, Christian Zionist, neocon, über-Goy, from way down home, was visiting Jerusalem, hoping that the world would come to an end, and he happened to wander into the ultra-orthodox, Mea Sharim neighborhood.

In case the "end of days" didn't come first, the rustic Republican was looking at his watch, just to make sure he'd be back at his hotel in time for lunch, when he discovered that the battery of his watch had gone dead. Naturally he looked around for somewhere to get a new battery, but since all of the signs were in Yiddish written in Hebrew letters he was at a loss as to what to do. Then he saw a dusty, old shop window with many different clocks and watches of all sizes and shapes hanging in it, so he went in.

There was an old man with a long, white, beard sitting behind the counter reading a newspaper from right to left. He was decked out in full Hassidic regalia, complete with fur Shtreimel and full-length, black caftan. Our tourist cleared his throat and asked him, "Could y'all fix my watch for me, please?" Without looking up from his newspaper, the ancient Hassid replied "I don't fix watches. I'm a moile; I perform circumcisions." So the rube asked him, "Then why do y'all have all those clocks and watches hanging in your window?" The moile finally looked up from his newspaper, sighed and asked in turn, "So what you want I should hang in my window?" DS