Here is a list of the Top Five Cultural Artifacts I Currently Think Are Awesome. Rather than listing them numerically, I'll be choosing one winner in each of five categories.
TV Show: Mad Men.
Are you watching? If you're not, then stop. Stop not watching right now! With Battlestar Galactica on hiatus, MM is the best-written show on television. The casual misogyny and racism can be off-putting at first, but...well, a quote from Chandler Bing fits here: "OK, but you have to push past that, because it's about to get sooooo good." Seriously, we all know that in the early 1960s it was a white man's world, and MM wants nothing so much as to immerse you in that world, to envelop you in a gin-soaked haze of Lucky Strike smoke and Brylcreem fumes. And as I've watched, I've realized that the struggle of the female characters--strong, intelligent, ambitious women who today would be CEOs and Senators instead of secretaries and trophy wives--to carve a place for themselves in that world is, for me, the most engaging aspect of the show. Mad Men's backdrop is fascinating and its characters are richly rendered. The acting is top-notch, and the production design and art direction are nothing short of sublime. I actually look forward to Sunday nights now.
Music: Duffy.
I'm sort of putting myself out there with this one, because lately Aimee Duffy's songs have started to turn up in the kind of places--cosmetics commercials, chick flick soundtracks--that could lead to her becoming the next KT Tunstall or Natasha Bedingfield, i.e. a ubiquitous, vaguely "girl power" (yech)-identified pop singer whom I want nothing to do with by virtue of her ubiquity and girl-poweriness. But I'll have you know that I jumped on the Duffy bandwagon early, essentially the moment I heard her brutally catchy single "Mercy". After listening to "Mercy" at least two or three times a day, every day, for a week, I plunked down my fifteen bucks for Rockferry, her debut album. (At least, it's her debut album as Duffy. Apparently she made a record before under her full name, but I don't know anything about it, nor do I want to. I suspect it might be on the order of Alanis Morissette's pre-Jagged Little Pill work.) She's been compared to Joss Stone and especially Amy Winehouse (and all three have been compared to Dusty Springfield simply because they're British lady soul singers), but of that trio I think Duffy's the standout. I like Stone okay (really dug her re-working of the White Stripes' "Fell In Love With A Girl"), but something about her seems false, and I really don't care for Winehouse--her vocal affectations grate and her songs strike me as cynical pastiches. On the other hand, Duffy's tunes sound like lost classics: while I was initially disappointed that nothing else on the record has the uptempo intensity of "Mercy", I was quickly won over by soaring, string-drenched soul ballads like "Warwick Avenue" and "Stepping Stone". While I was listening to my mp3 player on random today (something I only recently started doing), the latter song came on after the Shirelles doing the glorious Goffin-King number "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?", and it didn't totally pale in comparison. That's pretty high praise from me.
Foodstuff: Julie's Organic Chocolate Ice Cream Bar Dipped in Dark Chocolate.
One of the things I miss most about smoking pot is eating while stoned. Even if you've never smoked marijuana yourself, you probably know that one of its effects is a perceived intensification of sensations, including taste. Put another way, pot makes food taste better. Since it also increases focus, when you're stoned and you eat something, you are all about eating that thing. I guess it's fortunate that I don't smoke anymore, since I'm sure my metabolism could no longer handle digesting a whole pint of Cherry Garcia or an entire loaf of toasted raisin bread, both of which I have eaten while baked. Anyway, I picked up these ice cream bars one day when I was upset about something and felt like I deserved a treat (they're kind of spendy), and they are insanely good. They are so good that, even though I have not smoked pot in well over a decade, I feel like I'm stoned when I eat them because the chocolate flavor is so intense. Unfortunately for you non-Oregonians, Julie's is a local company and they pride themselves on making ice cream in "small batches", so you probably can't find it anywhere else.
Website: Stuff White People Like.
Instructions:
1) Read.
2) Laugh hysterically.
3) Start to notice how many things actually apply to you.
4) Stop laughing and become concerned that you are too white.
5) Decide you don't care and go back to laughing hysterically.
Advertisement: Those commercials for Progressive starring "Flo".
At first I, like any human with a functioning cerebrum, found these ads annoying. But the more I saw them, the more they grew on me. (Ah, the insidiousness of advertising. Don Draper would be proud.) The fact is, it's all about Flo. There's just something ineffably sexy about the way she says "tricked-out name tag." And underneath all that clown paint, she's pretty cute.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I also found myself inadvertently charmed by those commercials. I actually thought about how it must look on the page as opposed to how it plays out: it's her over-the-top performance that really sells it.
I have not seen a single episode of Mad Men, even though I keep saying I'm going to check it out. I mean, I haven't tried, but I've tried to try.
We're watching Mad Men and it's rather good, though we didn't see the first season and I'm wishing now we had. I particularly like the stately pace of it, which takes some getting used to but it allows individual scenes to breathe. The show also makes the early '60s seem like the most culturally stifling time ever; makes me glad I was born then but grew up in the '70s (which look better and better the older I get).
We have the Duffy album too. I like it, though I think the only other song that matches "Mercy" is "Rockferry". I think Amy Winehouse is a more striking and original talent (though she may not be in it for the long haul, obviously). I admit to wondering if Duffy will be relevant in a few years, or just, "oh yeah that Welsh chick who had that Mercy song, whatever happened to her?" I mean I'd prefer if she did stick around, I like her voice alot, I just wonder.
Post a Comment