I knew there was a disadvantage to beginning to write a blog, but when I started I wasn't sure which of several possibilities it would turn out to be. At the moment, uppermost is the requirement of producing posts on a regular basis. Along with my disaffection with volunteerism, I'm getting to a place where I don't want to look at the date on the last post!
Didn't we tell each other when we moved to a "retirement community" that one of its appeals was the first word in that phrase? It didn't take a month to show us the naivete of such a notion. Things are getting a bit desperate around here nowadays because people who came when we did are 15 years older, dozens have passed to their reward, and the newcomers (too few and far between owing to the housing market crash--most people sell a house to pay the entry fee) tend to be already relying on walkers, suffering from macular degeneration, or too deaf to converse. All this makes them unlikely prospects for committees, offices in the association, or even decent bridge.
I passed my 80th a while back. I don't want to do this any more. Most of the people I know well don't either. The Decorating Committee petered out a couple of years ago. Trying to persuade somebody to take an office on the Residents Association Board is getting to a place where it involves bribery, extortion, or blackmail. I've already refused to be on the nominating committee again.
Shouldn't I be spending my time and available energy on writing -- as opposed to blogging? Furthermore, I can't help thinking I have a right to claim these September Days for myself. But there's always an voice whispering in my ear that of course I can -- serve on this or that deserving committee, polish the brass candlesticks, weed the flowers, and give this spot an occasional word or two in case anyone might be reading it. On the other hand, I'm still lucky enough to be healthy if not hearty, and possessed of my faculties.
So now the guilt rises up again. These moans aren't worth bothering with. Well, maybe next week when I finish helping with rewriting the handbook, have the third meeting on revising the scholarship application forms, and get the next issue of the newsletter out (thank goodness, it's only 2 a year I have to deal with), I can make some sage or funny comment about what I'd rather be doing--and it isn't fishing!
Old Moon
Showing posts with label social conscience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social conscience. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
I Wish I Were Jonathan Swift...
...Because if I were, I might be able to shake up a few readers. Does anyone remember "A Modest Proposal?" Consult your handy dictionary of quotations.
In the October 26 edition of the New York Times Magazine there is an article that should shock the ethical and even the reasonable parts of any reader's brain. The title is "Once Upon a Time in Namibia" with a subhead, "Sergio Leone Meets Ralph Lauren in an African Ghost Town." The title alone takes an entire page.
The first picture is a moody low-key photo of a girl with scraggly hair seated in a window opening (sic.) with an artful lens-flare the brightest spot in the near-silhouette of the picture. She appears to be looking thoughtfully down on a completely barren landscape with a glaring white sky above. One can barely see that she is clad in a jacket with raveling hem on the three-quarter sleeve, a tight, long sleeve protrudes from that, and she seems to be wearing a necklace. The picture's caption identifies the designer of the jacket, which is priced at $2,910, pants (invisible) at $1,240, a belt (also invisible and unpriced), and a Lanvin necklace. That little price list is the only text on the page.
The next two pages are photos of respectively, a truly giraffe-like figure clad in a sort of slouch hat, two-piece tan dress, elbow-length black gloves, and stiletto-heeled shoes. She is leaning against a scabrous interior wall in a building obviously long abandoned. The facing page shows a desert landscape photographed through a ruined window and absent wall indicated by the remains of severely weathered wood that form the frame. In the near distance is what appears to be the same model in the same hat, but this time in a black evening gown accompanied by what look like long brown leather gauntlets. The left-hand page in the spread again has the only text for both pages. It consists of the clothes designer's names and the prices for the main items. They begin in excess of one thousand dollars, and the gown on the right-hand page is $10,000.
This same style (?) continues for four more pages, each as heat-drenched and arid and empty as the first. The dramatic atmosphere of once-inhabited desolation is astonishing—an effective photo essay on a recently independent and obviously nearly destitute part of Africa.
If the reader thinks that, it's only for a brief instant, before he gets to the sparse, tiny, white-ink inscriptions on the lower corners of the pages.
The model is extremely thin and extremely tall and her hair needs combing. The clothes are black or tan and without exception unflattering. The prices are staggering. The pictures are artistic, emotionally charged, and memorable.
I felt as if I'd fallen into some kind of out-of-body experience, or had misread the few words available after the whole page of elaborate fonts and background for the title. What was the editor thinking? Above all, I wondered, Why was that place used as a setting for those designers to exhibit those clothes at those prices? Above all, what was the editor thinking?
There seems to be no excuse for the callousness of the choice of such a site for the exploitation of conspicuous consumption. I thought of Swift's ability to flay human folly and wished I could somehow convey in the way he would have done the combination of fury and incredulity that assailed me as I looked at that spread in a respected, traditionally liberal medium I've known since childhood. If "the medium is the message," I tremble for us all who can accept it without question.
In the October 26 edition of the New York Times Magazine there is an article that should shock the ethical and even the reasonable parts of any reader's brain. The title is "Once Upon a Time in Namibia" with a subhead, "Sergio Leone Meets Ralph Lauren in an African Ghost Town." The title alone takes an entire page.
The first picture is a moody low-key photo of a girl with scraggly hair seated in a window opening (sic.) with an artful lens-flare the brightest spot in the near-silhouette of the picture. She appears to be looking thoughtfully down on a completely barren landscape with a glaring white sky above. One can barely see that she is clad in a jacket with raveling hem on the three-quarter sleeve, a tight, long sleeve protrudes from that, and she seems to be wearing a necklace. The picture's caption identifies the designer of the jacket, which is priced at $2,910, pants (invisible) at $1,240, a belt (also invisible and unpriced), and a Lanvin necklace. That little price list is the only text on the page.
The next two pages are photos of respectively, a truly giraffe-like figure clad in a sort of slouch hat, two-piece tan dress, elbow-length black gloves, and stiletto-heeled shoes. She is leaning against a scabrous interior wall in a building obviously long abandoned. The facing page shows a desert landscape photographed through a ruined window and absent wall indicated by the remains of severely weathered wood that form the frame. In the near distance is what appears to be the same model in the same hat, but this time in a black evening gown accompanied by what look like long brown leather gauntlets. The left-hand page in the spread again has the only text for both pages. It consists of the clothes designer's names and the prices for the main items. They begin in excess of one thousand dollars, and the gown on the right-hand page is $10,000.
This same style (?) continues for four more pages, each as heat-drenched and arid and empty as the first. The dramatic atmosphere of once-inhabited desolation is astonishing—an effective photo essay on a recently independent and obviously nearly destitute part of Africa.
If the reader thinks that, it's only for a brief instant, before he gets to the sparse, tiny, white-ink inscriptions on the lower corners of the pages.
The model is extremely thin and extremely tall and her hair needs combing. The clothes are black or tan and without exception unflattering. The prices are staggering. The pictures are artistic, emotionally charged, and memorable.
I felt as if I'd fallen into some kind of out-of-body experience, or had misread the few words available after the whole page of elaborate fonts and background for the title. What was the editor thinking? Above all, I wondered, Why was that place used as a setting for those designers to exhibit those clothes at those prices? Above all, what was the editor thinking?
There seems to be no excuse for the callousness of the choice of such a site for the exploitation of conspicuous consumption. I thought of Swift's ability to flay human folly and wished I could somehow convey in the way he would have done the combination of fury and incredulity that assailed me as I looked at that spread in a respected, traditionally liberal medium I've known since childhood. If "the medium is the message," I tremble for us all who can accept it without question.
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