This Is The Creepy Side Of The English: The Jade Goody Death Watch and toilet paper
I wanted to write about my life now, how my mind buzzes with ideas about the sitcom with Colby, Blake's play, my own work, I've been dying to write all day. But my baby has been crying and creating liquid events so no dice.
But then my husband, who is a 43-year-old partner at Bird & Bird, comes home this evening (in time for pizza night) (they only have dominos in the uk; DON'T JUDGE) and says that people are wondering whether Jade Goody would make it through the weekend. For my husband to mention a pop culture event like this, it has to be big. Big. And the papers are calling Jade the new Diana and I feel like I am watching the UK get its grief on - a collective emotional release of a emotionally constipated people.
I watched the Big Brother UK that she was on sporadically and she was comically ignorant but she had a big heart and an interesting spirit. So she was a bitch sometimes. All of the interesting women I know are bitches sometimes. It comes with the territory.
So anyway, in the UK public opinion/focus is so homogenous (too big for a theme park, too small for a country) that there is this weird thing going on where a lot of people are letting themselves mourne at once, a strange rock concert, collective consciousness moment. The flowers that will be at her gate. . . the collectible plates. The death of Diana was a truly global event
We speak so little of dying in Western Culture and this is proof positive of the mistake. This overwhelming collective need to share in a death. This almost glorification of it. Face it head on.
We as a culture need to face a lot of things head-on. Alison Benjamin wrote an article in Thursday's G2 entitled "We don't need it - that's the bottom line on toilet paper". You can kinda get the point from the headline, and she was saying that other less neurotic cultures can clean themselves after defecating and the environmental price of toilet paper is steep - so why can't we just get over it and learn the methods?
Well, it's hard to change people's relationship with their bodies, but that may be what it takes to make the world a better place. (This article made it look like toilet paper was using up all the trees in the world)
I personally sorta blame Christianity for the distant and unfulfilling relationship many of us have with our genitals. Especially gay people. Blake's play makes the point that in American military culture it is far more forgiveable to have a random drunken sexual encounter than to foster a healthy same sex relationship. I attribute this to Christian culture's message of sin and forgiveness. I have friends and family who are believers I respect, but my path must be what it is, which involves pointing out the many negative psychological effects of a born-again Christian upbringing. And
But then my husband, who is a 43-year-old partner at Bird & Bird, comes home this evening (in time for pizza night) (they only have dominos in the uk; DON'T JUDGE) and says that people are wondering whether Jade Goody would make it through the weekend. For my husband to mention a pop culture event like this, it has to be big. Big. And the papers are calling Jade the new Diana and I feel like I am watching the UK get its grief on - a collective emotional release of a emotionally constipated people.
I watched the Big Brother UK that she was on sporadically and she was comically ignorant but she had a big heart and an interesting spirit. So she was a bitch sometimes. All of the interesting women I know are bitches sometimes. It comes with the territory.
So anyway, in the UK public opinion/focus is so homogenous (too big for a theme park, too small for a country) that there is this weird thing going on where a lot of people are letting themselves mourne at once, a strange rock concert, collective consciousness moment. The flowers that will be at her gate. . . the collectible plates. The death of Diana was a truly global event
We speak so little of dying in Western Culture and this is proof positive of the mistake. This overwhelming collective need to share in a death. This almost glorification of it. Face it head on.
We as a culture need to face a lot of things head-on. Alison Benjamin wrote an article in Thursday's G2 entitled "We don't need it - that's the bottom line on toilet paper". You can kinda get the point from the headline, and she was saying that other less neurotic cultures can clean themselves after defecating and the environmental price of toilet paper is steep - so why can't we just get over it and learn the methods?
Well, it's hard to change people's relationship with their bodies, but that may be what it takes to make the world a better place. (This article made it look like toilet paper was using up all the trees in the world)
I personally sorta blame Christianity for the distant and unfulfilling relationship many of us have with our genitals. Especially gay people. Blake's play makes the point that in American military culture it is far more forgiveable to have a random drunken sexual encounter than to foster a healthy same sex relationship. I attribute this to Christian culture's message of sin and forgiveness. I have friends and family who are believers I respect, but my path must be what it is, which involves pointing out the many negative psychological effects of a born-again Christian upbringing. And
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