Friday, November 11, 2005
I specialize in makin' all the girls get naked
so I was just wandering around, trying to avoid cleaning my data set, when I came across this article. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/education/11CODE.html?ex=1131858000&en=91eab791c69511d9&ei=5070
1. As a young person having taught in a middle school, I am conflicted about which side of the debate to come down on. I feel that I emerged from a sexualized youth relatively healthy, but I am open to the possibility that I really am on the other side of an accelerated contemporary teen sexuality that dwarfs the one I existed in. One has to wonder if they sky really is falling on self-respect, or if school administrators worry because that is what school administrators have been doing since time immemorial. When in doubt, blame the permissive boomer parents. Everybody's doing it.
2. How long will all things done on sept. 11 have a pall cast over them. (serious question, not irony.) There must be a statute of limitations, because I don't even know when pearl harbor day is (Dec 15?) or when Kennedy was shot (history buffs, don't chime in her), but I am sure people felt the same way about those events. I received some blackberry rhubarb jam from a bushpilot that was made on 9/11, 2000. (not even the same year). the jam was terrible, but I still gave it to the snow buntings, but I felt bad about it.
on the continued subject of young women making themselves naked, http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/selinger/myspace_101905.htm. I hate this article. It exudes both snobbery and immaturity. But I suppose I live in that glass house and shouldn't throw stones.
Reading the previous article about her AA bikini got me thinking about how I feel about American Apparel. I guess it is nice that they nominally resist the trends towards really conspicuous sorts of consumption. but they stuff is still expensive as hell and sold downtown, and it feels like they are the same wolf dressed in sweat-shop-free logo-less hotpants. And the CEO is a creepy jerk. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30C17FD3F590C738DDDAE0894DD404482
But someone deserves some credit in their marketing department for being able to sell successfully to hipsters.
.
1. As a young person having taught in a middle school, I am conflicted about which side of the debate to come down on. I feel that I emerged from a sexualized youth relatively healthy, but I am open to the possibility that I really am on the other side of an accelerated contemporary teen sexuality that dwarfs the one I existed in. One has to wonder if they sky really is falling on self-respect, or if school administrators worry because that is what school administrators have been doing since time immemorial. When in doubt, blame the permissive boomer parents. Everybody's doing it.
2. How long will all things done on sept. 11 have a pall cast over them. (serious question, not irony.) There must be a statute of limitations, because I don't even know when pearl harbor day is (Dec 15?) or when Kennedy was shot (history buffs, don't chime in her), but I am sure people felt the same way about those events. I received some blackberry rhubarb jam from a bushpilot that was made on 9/11, 2000. (not even the same year). the jam was terrible, but I still gave it to the snow buntings, but I felt bad about it.
on the continued subject of young women making themselves naked, http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/selinger/myspace_101905.htm. I hate this article. It exudes both snobbery and immaturity. But I suppose I live in that glass house and shouldn't throw stones.
Reading the previous article about her AA bikini got me thinking about how I feel about American Apparel. I guess it is nice that they nominally resist the trends towards really conspicuous sorts of consumption. but they stuff is still expensive as hell and sold downtown, and it feels like they are the same wolf dressed in sweat-shop-free logo-less hotpants. And the CEO is a creepy jerk. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30C17FD3F590C738DDDAE0894DD404482
But someone deserves some credit in their marketing department for being able to sell successfully to hipsters.
.
# posted by 8yearoldsdude @ 2:30 PM 
Comments:
<< Home
As a young person having coached both middle school and high school girls, all I can say is that I'm glad I don't ever have to be one again. Oh and I don't ever want to have them! Actually that's not true. But what's crazy is how some of those 13 year olds still play with dolls and the others are off wearing make-up. I dunno. It was easier for us, I think.
Also that article? Sure sucked just like you said! I'd never heard of myspace before. Just facebook. But I'm of the friendster, non-dress code regulated generation (save for the military fatigue; I went to a Quaker school!)
Also that article? Sure sucked just like you said! I'd never heard of myspace before. Just facebook. But I'm of the friendster, non-dress code regulated generation (save for the military fatigue; I went to a Quaker school!)
On the serious note, I think that 9-11 will remain a cultural bookmark for about ten years or until another major cultural event overtakes us. Traumatic events fade quickly, particularly in our hyper-stimulated society. Its importance will hang around longer in some segments of society, but most of America is already moving on.
The thing about 9/11 is that some equally traumatic event is going to have to happen to us for it to disappear. The tsunami, the earthquakes, and terrorist attacks elsewhere haven't yet supplanted 9/11 in the national consciousness. For one thing, it's got a lot of emotional and patriotic capital, so we can't count on politians etc refraining from references any time soon. But the real statute of limitations is personal memory. Individual Americans aren't going to suddenly forget where they were on 9/11. It has been incorporated into our consciousnesses as an important date, along with births, deaths, and marriages. People who remember when Kennedy died, aside from history buffs, are those who remember what they were doing when it happened. Or, in my mother's case, they distinctly remember what they were doing "when Kennedy died," but have no clue what the date was (I had to interview her about it for some school project and I think she guessed 1960). For me, JFK's death is a date I had to memorize for school; there's nothing personal about it. Since 9/11 is identified by its date, there will probably be some degree of pall-casting on September 11ths for years to come---which is weird, because the significance of the date is that it's generic (I don't buy the 9-1-1 theories), it could have been any day, but that's the day it was---especially if you take two seconds to think about it. Those who are into sentimentalizing, or who witnessed it, will probably never let a 9/11 go by unpalled. But more importantly, who messes up blackberry-rhubarb jam?
Post a Comment
<< Home
