Words of wisdom from, of all places, New York Social Diary's No Holds Barred column, December 14:
Nicolas Poussin, The plague of Ashdod, 1630.
Everybody seems to be talking about “getting back” and hopefully rebooting their “pandemic interruptus” lives in 2022. But look at the hit Beatles documentary Get Back (Disney Plus) about their final recording of “Let It Be.”
The series shows all their rehearsals, and the rooftop “Get Back” performance as they decide whether they wanted to continue as The Beatles anymore. They “came back” for that moment only to break up immediately after — forever. Cautionary tale. There is no going back and “you can’t go home again” especially now when the landscape has so radically changed. Nobody can find their sea legs.
People are still trying to feel relevant in a life that has become unsettled and strange. Even Instagram stars are over and out in a click. Warhol’s prediction of everyone being famous for 15 minutes is now too long a life span. And “comebacks” don’t count. They become last gasp retreads.
Covid has thrown everyone under the bus. Usually that feeling of dislocation happens to people over 65 – 70. Aging is about no longer being current. And in some cases, death is the best answer to being out of the loop. But now even 40-year-olds are feeling tossed aside in job opportunities and everyone feels stuck in neutral. Nobody can find a comfortable “re-invention” button. People thought they would BE something and somewhere by now. But who knows if that will ever happen.
We are still in a period of unprecedented pause. We can’t even say “see you next week” because who knows what might happen. Perhaps all the housing relocation to Florida and Montana is about giving people something to DO while they figure out who and what they are.
Recently we’ve seen a lot of desperate attempts at reboots. Look at Hillary Clinton, who recently broadcasted her 2016 victory speech. Apparently, she never wrote a concession speech, only an acceptance speech. Now, who cares? Talk about living in the rearview mirror. It was a cringeworthy performance complete with tears. In a way, it wasn’t even a “repeat” — it was a “never was.” Part of being irrelevant is the inability to Move On. Maybe even Hillary doesn’t know where to go. And don’t even think about the Presidential Office!
Then we have the “Sex and the City” return on HBO Max. Now called “Just Like That.” The show suffers from the same deadly results as the recent Met Ball, Oscar and Emmy Awards — all red carpets — and even some charity parties. Some viewers just loved seeing “the girls” back at it in their mid-fifties. Some said it was “fun” seeing them deal with death and dying their grey hair. But is that really enough?
Is that “entertainment?” Seeing them dressed in clown attire proves you can’t over-style aging. And frankly the crossdressers and trans market have now taken over a lot of high-end fashion, and frankly do it much better than Carrie and Crew. The scripts include a lot of annoying “woke” accents and sadly there was not that much of The City included. NYC was always the show’s celebrated co-star. Maybe they shot it in semi-lockdown. After all — and in real life — NYC has been suffering. Not a great visual!....
....MUCH MORE
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Well, it's about time I outed myself on this.
I am a fan of New York Social Diary.
I can't tell you how many times I almost linked to one of their posts but refrained.
Today though, today we hit "publish."
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