In Which I Laminate Do Stuff

In which I pay too much attention:

The radio station to which Artie listens (when I'm lucky; he listens to a Lite station when I'm not) advertises itself as the "true" oldies station. Then there are the clothing catalogues that describe the fit of some of their pants as "authentic" or "true." Or how about the television shows that advertise an "all-new" episode? Or the commercial that has the dad announcing that "in this house, noone uses drugs"?

What, pray tell, would a fake oldies station play? And what would an inauthentic fit be, exactly? And are some episodes only partly new? Does an all-new episode include an all-new cast? All-new characters? (It would be entertaining if one of those two things were true--an all-new cast playing the same old characters, or the same old cast playing all new characters.) Does the anti-drug message apply to antibiotics? Antidepressants? Treatments for erectile dysfunction? Sleep aids? Oral contraceptives? Alcohol? No? Then which drugs, exactly? (Actually, i suspect this is a longer rant.)

You've observed me ranting about sports cliches--have you played "he's-the-kinda-guy-who" lately?--but, on some level, I cut them a little slack. They're calling a game, live, and you have to expect a certain amount of infelicitous phrasing.*

However. Someone thought about the infelicities described above--hell, someone probably paid some marketing firm or person big wads of money to come up with those phrases. And I think that's what makes me a little crazier about them than about the sports cliches. Seriously: what the fuck is an authentic fit? (It's what I throw when I'm really peeved.)

*I also note that (a) they do NOT need to fill every single damned second with babble, (b) they have entirely too many factoids at hand, all of which they feel compelled to share, and (c) the proliferation of factoids promotes the wrong kind of attention, e.g., to bizarre little statistics that don't really enhance my watching or enjoying the game at hand. When MJ was still playing basketball here, I'd typically watch the playoffs with the sound down and the local radio broadcast on--not just for the excitement of the announcer, or because he was a home-team supporter, but because he was trying to paint a picture with words, trying to communicate the action, rather than trying to fill airtime. Similarly, I like a well-broadcast baseball game on the radio.

In which I buy things:

Two new pair of shoes, both on sale. One is yet! another! pair of Keens, a winter boot thing, complete with thermal lining of some kind. I have a pair of LLBean boots, but they're neither warm nor comfortable nor convenient, and the Keens were on sale at Footprints, as were Earth shoes. Yes, I had a pair a million years ago (where million = approx. 30), and they went out of business for awhile, but they're baaack. I got them in part because I can feel my calves tightening up every single day. Yes, I could practice yoga daily, but buying shoes is more fun.

In which I eat things:

A loaf of olive sourdough bread, to be specific, between last night and tonight. It was a smallish loaf, but still. With cheese, mind you--a lovely goat cheese today, and something brie-like-but-not-brie last night. And red wine was involved, but only after editing ceased for the evening. And some chocolate. (There's a list for you: bread, olives, cheese, chocolate, and red wine. And tea and honey. I suppose I should eat a vegetable once in awhile, doncha think?)

In which I read things:

I'm rereading Anthony Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds, and I am once again struck by several things. One is Trollope's point of view: he frequently provides judgments about his characters. In this novel, he often points out how unfamiliar Lizzie Eustace is with Truth. He also makes it difficult to completely despise Lizzie, despicable though he tells and shows you she is. Part of the reason, I think, is that Trollope, like Jane Austen, is well aware of the necessity of marrying someone who can and will support you. It almost doesn't matter whether you're male or female: if you don't have an income of your own, then you'd better find someone who has that. He is especially aware of what not having an income means for women (again, like Austen), in that there are few ways that a gentlewoman can earn her keep. Governess is about it, really. Or companion, like Miss Macnulty in the current work. That in itself is interesting: Lizzie must either have another woman with her (Macnulty) or live with another woman (her aunt, at an earlier point in her life), because it is simply not respectable for a woman to live alone.

Men can work in other occupations--minister (or whatever it's called), schoolteacher, barrister or lawyer, and reporter are the occupations of a few of the men who must earn a living--but women don't have those options, and Trollope doesn't romaticize that. He does allow his heroines to marry for love and to find love, and he clearly values that, but he also recognizes the boundaries within which women must operate. (I seem to remember The Way We Live Now as being particularly strong on that point, but I might be mistaken.) One of the guys with whom I used to play handball was writing a dissertation on Trollope many, many years ago--he never finished it, but we discussed Trollope more than once, after handball, which was entertaining on multiple levels. In any case, his dissertation would have argued that Trollope's novels ended when the characters had reestablished the community--or Community--that had become disrupted in some way by some character(s) or situation(s). Which probably would have been an interesting dissertation.

In any case, I highly recommend Trollope (with the exception of Phineas Finn and The Small House at Allington, both of which bored me to no end; if you're a completist, the way I tend to be, skim them as part of the series in which they appear, but don't spend too much time on them). If you're interested, I'll even recommend specific books or the Barsetshire or Palliser series, and you can go to any bookstore and find cheap editions of many of them.