Phoebe Kate

I don’t think Proust and I will have many (or any) remembrances in common — and I doubt he’ll mind me using his title because he’s dead and beyond the confines of time and caring about such things.  But I was pondering today the changes, technological and societal, that have occurred over the course of this Baby Boomer’s lifetime.  With all due credit for the many welcome advances on all fronts, there are some things that I just plain miss from back in the day.  For instance, going to the library.

Nobody goes to the library any more.  All over the country, they’re closing.  Those that remain open are streamlining their collection and selling off books — good ones, not Harlequin romances  – for pennies.  (My regional libraries have taken de-acquisition to such an extreme that we joke that if a borrower failed to return ”the book,” that would be it, they’d shut their doors for good.)   

Everybody stays home now with their computer.  They get their information and do their research online.  Those few who still enjoy reading books download them or order them from internet book dealers.  Yes, it’s convenient.  Yes, it’s easier.  Yes, it’s simpler.  But it’s nowhere near as much fun. 

I loved going to the library, as a child and as an adult.  Back in the day, it had the status of an event.  You announced your plan at breakfast and everybody knew you’d be away and busy and incommunicado for a good part of the day.  You always dressed nicely for the occasion.   In a smaller community, you’d run into everyone you knew at the local library.  In a city like New York, it was de rigueur to look your best at all times, of course.   

Walking into a library was like entering another world.  It smelled like nowhere else – a combined scent of paper, leather, fresh ink from the daily newspapers and the lemon oil they waxed the tables with.  

A deep, reverent hush permeated the place – and not because librarians were going “Ssshhhhh!” at everyone.  You were in the cathedral of erudition.  It was tantamount to a mystical experience, being in the presence of that vast accumulation of centuries of human knowledge collected under one roof for the general public’s edification and intellectual good health. 

You looked around and you saw serious people with stacks of tomes, doing serious work.  And you knew you were in good company — the fellowship of those who loved learning and loved the printed word.

I miss that.  A lot.  It’s a bygone era.  Libraries are going the way of woolly mammoth and the dodo bird.  And I can’t help but feel that respect for knowledge, for scholarship, for lifetime learning is going that way, too.

–phoebe kate 

“The Garden”

by Ezra Pound

Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall

She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens

And she is dying piece-meal

Of a sort of emotional anemia.

And round her there is a rabble

Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.

They shall inherit the earth.

In her is the end of breeding.

Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.

She would like someone to speak to her,

And is almost afraid that I

will commit that indiscretion.

The latest trend in urban vigilantism, it seems, is a weird one.  Presently, there are approximately 200 people in places like Phoenix and Orlando and New York City and Indianapolis who nightly attire themselves in homemade superhero outfits and patrol bad neighborhoods after hours.

They have no guns, no knives, no weapons.  They have not, as of yet, either manifested or divulged their secret superpowers.  But they are dedicated to controlling crime by their very presence.

Ooooooo-kay.

I like fantasy as much as the next daydreamer, but short of the surprise or “creep out” factor (hardened street thug turns around and freaks out to find a mysterious caped crusader hovering behind him), I can’t possibly see how this will work unless everybody buys into the illusion.  Somehow, I just can’t make myself believe a criminal is going to play along, unless his IQ level is lower than a garden slug’s.

Or maybe if he’s a child at heart?  Hmmm, this could be interesting.  Drug dealers and rapists and muggers and purse snatchers and perverts and murderers all getting in touch with their poor, unhappy, abused and long-neglected inner child.  What a wonderful world that would be!

More likely, however, we’ll be hearing news reports about oddly costumed people winding up in gritty inner city hospital ERs and on the slabs at the morgue.

In real life asphalt-jungle confrontations between good and evil, sad to say, The Joker usually wins.

–phoebe kate

At least, I hope it is.

The rumor that Britney Spears might appear in the Sex and The City movie sequel is enough to make me drop my martini glass in horror — and anticipate breaking the 5-inch heel of my Manolo Blahniks as I run, not walk, away from the theater.  That such a massive casting faux pas would even be under consideration is appalling.

I’d understand the PR maneuver if the original movie hadn’t done all that well at the box office.  But it did — #7 on the list of summer 2008’s top grossing films – and largely because it, like the series, was a class act all the way.  ”A grown-up movie,” as Sarah Jessica Parker described it.  

The problems the protagonists faced in the flick were grown-up ones — disillusionment, the loss of self-image, the need to compromise and overcome ego coupled with the ever-ticking clock that reminds us we’re running out of time and energy to do things right in our lives.  They were not problems that could be settled with a “Whatever!” and a finger snap. 

Apart from the fact that Spears has no serious acting creds, she’s been in the face of the public for way too long.  Over-exposure is as dangerous for a celeb as under-exposure, especially if it is for negative things and half-assed measures to save your rep.  As an in-your-face famous fictional character once remarked, “There are certain shades of limelight that can wreck a girl’s complexion.” 

Britney has come to that point, whether she realizes it or not.  Except for her most diehard fans, the rest of us are sick to death of her and her numerous “comebacks” from self-created artistic oblivion.  Now I guess she hopes to add a supporting role in a major film as yet another comeback.  I certainly hope not.

Hit me, baby, one more time?  Thanks — but no, thanks.  We’ve had enough BS.

–phoebe kate 

Spare us, oh Lord.

To the list of Governor Blagojedich’s malfeasances, let’s add idiocy.  He actually considered popping Oprah, of all the many unqualified people he could have favored, into Obama’s vacant Senate seat. 

Had this piece of madness come to pass, it would have required a change of furniture in the Senate chamber.  While it arguably might take a pretty big man to fill Barack’s shoes, it would take a much bigger seat to accomodate Ms. W.    

All kidding aside, Number Five on my ongoing 2009 list of “Stuff I Really Don’t ’Get’“ is the bizarre notion that celebrities are good candidates for public office.  Political leadership is not just another role to play nor is it the ultimate of Red Carpets or ego trips.  A large fan base and a widely recognized, well-liked face does not a stateman (or woman) make. 

Which, of course, brings up the question: what qualities and qualifications do we want to see in the people that make our laws and govern our country?  Do we know?  Have we even thought about it? 

We frequently decry the poor performance and dubious character of our politicians – their shady dealings, bad decisions, self-serving attitudes, ignorance, moral laxity.  Do we ever stop and think that it is ”We, The People” who put them in office and we have nobody to blame but ourselves for electing crooks, con men, creeps, clods and blockheads?

Bottom line: in a democratic republic, we get the leadership we deserve. 

And if idiocy is not a reason for impeachment — well, darn it, it ought to be.   

–phoebe kate