Don't listen to Misty Harris.

Who is Misty Harris?  Why would I make such a statement?  Misty writes a weekly column for The Edmonton Journal.  I find her writing uninspiring, except that it inspired this writing, so I guess I don't find it uninspiring, what's the word I'm looking for?  Hackneyed.  

The subject of her column is trendy topics in the deep and fascinating areas of lifestyle and pop culture.  Her column is not about world events or the economy so it is fair and reasonable to expect it to be fluffy.  There are columns like hers in every paper.  There are entire magazines about these things.

Her writing is a weekly giddy endorsement of whatever the latest craze happens to be.  And I know that just because it is idiotic it doesn't mean it is easy.  Writers like Misty have a tough job trying to keep on top of all the latest trends.  The zeitgeist fluctuates unknowably in its shape and subject.  This week a new fashion designer is hot, next week candlestick holders from Uruguay are the biggest thing ever.  Until the next thing.  A keen eye and a unique mind with no memory are crucial since the craze can be anything from make-up to house-wares to pass-times.  Fashion and lifestyle writers all must rise to this serious fucking challenge.  They answer this call, it's not an important call, and the call comes from another person in the same field, but it still needs to be answered by someone in that field.  

I suppose I should try to appreciate the effort Misty puts in to homing in on the sparkly objects in the shallower regions of social reality with her penetrating anthropological method similar to Cosmo Girl or Tiger Beat.  I know I couldn't do it.

But I have noticed fashion and lifestyle writers seem to exhibit a conspicuous absence of any judgment criteria for the trends they heartily jump on the bandwagon for.  Being a trend is a good enough reason to do it.  I suspect if it became sheik to glue a peacock to your head then fashion and lifestyle writers around the globe would be walking around with them.

Paparazzi shot of Jen-Ben with this years newest craze.  Don't wait too long Misty, peacocks are hard to find.

Now the subject of style is not totally uninteresting to me.  Just like anyone I like new things and I want to keep up with what's going on.  But I find it impossible to sustain a conversation on styles and trends for more than a few minutes.  After that I start to feel like my eyes and ears are heating up from struggling to escape my head.

After reading that kind of writing, such as it is, I have the faintest sense that I have somehow ironed a wrinkle out of my brain.  Although it now looks and feels a little smoother, it no longer works as well.  This process can be repeated until a very important part of your brain is polished clear of any particular purpose.  Clean and blank.

But who cares?  Not everything needs to be serious or useful.  Some argue that life would be intolerable without occasionally indulging in the whimsical and pointless.  And I really don't mind fashion anyway, its not so bad as long as drilling holes in your head never finds its way into being vogue.  

As far as Misty goes I'm just amazed that someone could actually only write pure fluff and never wonder why their writing at no point in the past or future will ever intersect with anything of actual significance.  But I applaud her ability to give the reader what they want.  I just don't know how she can do it without getting a headache.  Well I have some idea.

The only type of writing lower than fashion writing is album reviews.  But there are some exceptions.  There's a few album reviewers who actually know what they're talking about, some of them write for Vice, and a few for this magazine called Sound or Noise or something, I can't remember.  Then there are all the rest.  For example there is a web site called pitchfork media that does album reviews.  Their reviewers know as much about music as I know about pitchfork media, which is only one thing, they don't know shit.  For instance they gave glowing reviews of The Postal Service and Death Cab For Cutie and actually gave a bad review to Jawbreaker.  The Postal Service?  Unbelievable! 

I judge all written reviews primarily on their length.  No review should be more than 4 sentences.  The longer the review, the more full of shit the reviewer.

In contrast movie reviews are the highest form of writing but the length rule still stands.  And that leads me to the Xmas Cop Movie Review Extravaganza.  That's right, in the spirit of Christmas I'm reviewing all of the cop movies that take place at xmas that I've seen.

Lethal Weapon 1.  Awesome.  But xmas in L.A. has some surprises in store for Murtaugh and Riggs.  There is a crazy psycho on the loose played by Gary Busey who will kill anyone that stands in his way including these mismatched cops.   That is if they don't kill each other first!

Riggs is a man pushed to the edge, a cop with a deathwish.  Since his wife died he is confronted by what Neiztche describes as the abyss, and Sartre describes as nothingness.  This hero is wrapped in an existential struggle against the absurdity of life and its ultimate conclusion in oblivion.  This spurs him with longing to take suicidal risks to either save the day or end his pain in the stupidest way possible.

Murtaugh is a seasoned veteran just a few days from retirement whose only concern is drinking budweiser while working on his motorboat.  Just his luck, the last thing he needs is to be partnered up with a live grenade like Riggs and go down with him.  But who else is good enough to handle this case?  Retirement will have to wait.

Die Hard 1 and 2.  The first one is outstanding, the second is less outstanding.  Bruce Willis is a wisecracking cop on xmas vacation when terrorists strike.  But this tough as nails hero steps up to the plate because a badge is a badge.

In the first one ultra slick eurotrash terrorists take the hero's wife hostage in an L.A. office building and its up to New York cop John McLane to outwit and singlehandedly stop them.  The action is awesome and the dialogue is super.  The hero is even up against the LAPD and the FBI, who are almost as much of a problem as the terrorists.  

In the second one he is up against traitors and faux Cubans who have taken an entire airport and all the planes hostage, including one with his wife on it.  The terrorists are attempting to break out a bad guy who looks like Fidel Castro who is on a prison transport plane.  But they never counted on John McLane.  The Cubans lose this guy just like they lost Elian Gonzales.  Chalk up another one for the U.S.A.

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