new line cinema
"They all want me as a friend or as a fuck" (Heather Chandler, "Heathers")
NOTE: Following all taken verbatim from emma's Vegas post and ensuant discussion (link at bottom):
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Vanessa Richmond's most recent (dour) piece at the Tyee is about (or at least mentions) how (your typical) fashion mag's brilliance bullies. Maybe the issue you're dealing with is that your gang of 13 is in some sense "Legally Blonde" (your reveal has made you seem kind of a mix--never quite back to emma peel black for you!), and your effervescence bothers those in shadows? There's a huge bunch of gush at OS, though, that smacks of people on a dopamine thrill ride they cannot afford to let stop. (Mind you, I find it difficult to not be at least a bit performative right now.) There's also a lot of people with stellar personalities, huge souls, that shine bright 'cause life has buoyed them up, not beaten them down.
I recommend watching the popular crowd in "Pretty in Pink," "Legally Blonde," maybe "Sixteen Candles," again (I'm gen x, evidently), and see if there isn't in fact some, as they say, "they all want me as a friend or a fuck" ("Heathers"), in your guys' strut.
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Michael: Wow. What a fuss over nothing. Are we to now be crucified for supporting our friends? As you’ve said several times, Emma, this is not personal. Perhaps “gushing” and “cliquish” were improper to use, and we apologize for that. But understand those words were meant for a friend who felt she was being unfairly attacked for expressing her hurt feelings. No one is saying these types of gatherings shouldn’t happen or be written about. As we said in our comment, “No one begrudges anyone the right to go and have a good time somewhere,” and anyone is free to tell others about their good fortune if they wish. But I cannot. I can’t eat in front of someone who’s hungry, and I can’t celebrate around people who are weeping. This is not a judgment against anybody. I would be a hypocrite if I attempted to bring division to this place. It’s people like DJ, the peecemakers of the world, that we most admire. Melissa and I have never had an unkind word to say about anyone here, nor do we now. (metaness, response to post, “‘Hurt’ and ‘sickened’ by ‘cliquish’ Vegas posts’,” emma peel, 25 July 2009)
re: "What a fuss over nothing. Are we to now be crucified for supporting our friends?"
Michael, likening the lot of commenters here to "fuss-over-nothingers," to inquisitors, may well mean you have in fact had an unkind word to say about some people here, that you in fact have done so here.
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If you expect every kid who knows what it is to be back-of-the-bus, to not enjoy playing at being popular when the opportunity's available, you expect too much, way too absurdly, cruelly much. Given the opportunity, I'd expect them to flaunt about some, in-your-face-like-nobody's place!, at our expense--and good for them. That can be fun. That can be appropriate. That can be a release from the chains of modesty; can be empowering. It may be that none of this was taking place, that what we had here amongst this Ocean's 13 (there were 13 of you, right?) of some of OS's most popular, its celebrities, were people simply concened to meet, greet, enjoy, and love, enthusiastically but no more than due, making them seem very inappropriately suited to the Earth's primary home for vastly more than simply that! But if not, fair enough to be off-put by it, but there may be redemption, there may be good in it.
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none of the vegas meetup posts ever seemed to make editor picks or the front page from what I can tell. so yeah, I can see how ppl can miss it. another indication of a divergence between the "Community" and the Management. (vzn, response to post, “‘Hurt’ and ‘sickened’ . . .”)
Like BBE said, don't feel guilty about having some joy and celebrating that joy. Those who have a problem with it, honestly need to look at their feelings and think: "Why in God's name am I feeling hurt and sickened if some acquaintances on the internet had some fun". Feel that "sickened and hurt feeling" and honestly try to divert your feelings to things that matter, like making joy in your life.
Envy is a terminal heart condition that frankly there is little if any cure for in this life. Envy can eat one up and increase their misery beyond imagination. Until, people who are sickened explore their jealousy, they will not overcome it.
The world will not and cannot create a bubble to prevent people from experiencing envy and all the horrid sickening feelings that it brings on. (Stellaa, response to post, “Hurt’ and ‘sickened’ . . .”)
vzn: Well spotted. Most popular likely means not editor's prefered. The editor likes to talk up the OS crowd, but shows his suspicion of it in prefering pieces with ascetic remove over stuff that draws out/encourages our liveliness and life. Lauerman is about the opposite of Walsh, who unapologetically will gush, gush, gush over puppies! The Las Vegas stuff should have been cover. It's what drew my attention and interest. The good stuff was there.
stellaa: The mode of thinking that spots and condems ENVY is also the mode of thinking that works against ever admitting any untoward INDULGENCE going on here, for it amounts to about an equal sin/crime. If someone wants to ID accusers as envious, then they MUST understand all the goings-on as simple innocent fun, even if this assessment is not fully in accord with the truth, even if it means making what you need to be true the only truth you're ever prone to know.
new line cinema
Sorry Patrick but I think you're assuming too much. No one on this Vegas trip was 'flaunting' or playing at being popular, or intending anything at anyone's expense (except our own). I wouldn't have a problem with anyone being this wa y, it's just that on this trip no one was.
We piled 5 to a room to keep costs down. I skipped every meal but two, to keep costs down. I did not buy coffee in the morning, to keep costs down. I kept my hotel stay to 2 nights, to keep costs down, and had my return date on Monday instead of Sunday - again, to keep costs down.
I'm completely broke, lending my apartment to an even more broke friend while I cram myself into a closet at my new husband's house. I haven't drawn a salary in two years to that I won't have to lay off my employees. I pay for my business travel out of my own pocket, letting the company accumulate IOUs. I used frequent flyer points to defray the cost of the trip to Vegas.
I know I am not the only one that was economizing to this degree. In such an atmosphere, there is zero 'flaunting' or pretending to be something we're not. Mostly, what we did was hang out together at the pool, at the casino, in the room, talking and sharing stories and laughing. It was an OS gathering but no one talked about OS - we were there, in person, spending the time to get to know one another more deeply.
You don't need money for joy, as Stellaa so aptly points out. Joy is manufactured from within. The only thing we need to be happy is to make the decision to be so. I've been lucky in life and had some big boom times. I had fun then, but not because of money. I knew that then, and I know it now, having very little but experiencing the happiest time in my life. That's due in large part to the 3 years of therapy I chose to invest in - I was harboring some unpleasant habits of feeling and decided it was high time to get rid of them. It was hard, but possible. An interesting side effect - it greatly enabled my writing. (Sandra, response to post, “Hurt’ and ‘sickened’ . . .”)
Well Sandra, I understand that you enjoyed yourself, but I for one truly wish that you could have lived it up even more. It's a meeting of what is apparent to all of us, a very lively, interesting, pronounced and fun group of people. For the joy you treasure, any place might well have served, but since it was las vegas I had hoped you guys had the means to put to play every bit of excess Vegas' gorge and glitter, into a "thousand-miles of (summer) fun."
There may be good point to setting things straight. I think I trust your account, but I do sense in that sacrificed cup of coffee maybe also a quarter or two displaced into the cup of well-regard. There may have been no flaunting; but flaunting can be a form of play--not something to be excused or denied, but appreciated: there very much can be a spirit in the flaunt, in the flash, that I can very much like. It can bespeak not primarily meanness or sinful selfishness, but a kind of therapeutic, rightful insistence on self. Step toward being generous to yourself, to being truly motivated to give aid/love to others. The power of GUSH as an accusation, condemnation, needs some working against. Something I have hoped to offer here.
May you find yourself better situated, sooner rather than later. It's tough to hear of your living in conditions so evidently so very unequal to you.
Link: “Hurt’ and ‘sickened’ by ‘cliquish’ Vegas posts (emma peel)
I assure you this is the ONLY time in my life I have ever been accused of being a Heather of the in crowd. It feels weird.
Promise in high school which you are referring to here I was the geek who went to all school assemblies and not the keg parties in the woods, was always pictured either typing or in the corner reading a book in the yearbook, and was upset by others' stories of the prom I did not attend. I think I fulfill that role as well in Oceans 13 ;0) So I get why people might have been upset but . . .
2010 will be my 30th high school reunion. I left that behind a long time ago. I don't understand why others have not done the same. It was not the happiest time of my life so I choose to no longer live there.
First time a Heather? How wonderful for you--Welcome to the club! Remember: Others will hate you, but they'd kill to be you.
So, for all those who suffered because some other people of western developed world are prettier, thinner, have more fun, are clever, I say get over it and figure out what you have of joy. I have lived in third world countries where the poorest of the poor find how to express joy, yet in America and the Western world, there is a self imposed misery that is bathed in envy of the "other". The more people envy, the more suffering they invent.
I don't know if my comment makes sense, but I appreciate that you started the discussion.
Wouldn't wanna be a Heather.
I'm more a Veronica.
People who can enjoy life with (what some would consider) little, are very capable people. But if these same people don't enjoy their life more if they find means to go more upscale (I'm not necessarily talking Hamptons, here--though I don't mean to dish Hampton-style too much, either), there is something wrong with them. You do get what you pay for. Expensive bicycles are better bicycles. You should find yourself more happy with one, even if you find much fun with the beater you're using now.
I am so tired of people being petty.
Heathers rule the school, but yet aloof Veronica still keeps her cool.
You are a therapist, I don't know what kind of therapy you do. Your job, your well being depends on people constantly being in a state of misery and suffering. Forgive me if I think that you have a professional interest in taking joy and converting it into some kind of social pathology. A social pathology that has the intent of hurting others.
I do not frankly understand your point and your pursuing this argument. You have taken a meeting of people, a group of people sharing their holiday, vacation, fun, joy whatever, and perverted it into some kind of It can bespeak not primarily meanness or sinful selfishness, but a kind of therapeutic, rightful insistence on self.
What lesson are you trying to teach? Are you trying to teach people to be temperate and prudent, or modest? Or telling people that just the expression of having a good time is a pathology.
Well, I don't buy your take on humanity.
I am a nice person. You should not delude yourself into thinking that you are.
It is Dr. Fox to you.l
Quite frankly, though, when I sense too much trepidation, shadowy retreat, amongst a crowd, when they see others all in too much pink and glow, my inner Heather Chandler speaks, and I kind of do want to make fun of them. Offers appropriate and much needed feedback to them, and good sport for me. We all come out of it, on top--Heather Chandler style!
The point of bringing this up again, is that it was settled rather insufficiently, as is. It was emma bringing up concerns and asking for honest feedback--which was cool enough, followed by the only thing that was happening here was simple good times, and anyone who has a problem with such is an envious 'tard/turd. I thought a whole bunch of discussable truth was forcefully pushed off the chatting-room table, and found that a bit less than we might be up to managing.
I see another layer in your pursuit of this issue, they will not say it, but I will. The women, of course they were mostly women, were attractive. Attractive women are typically demonized and trivialized into indulgent beings to be scorned. So, maybe a bit of self reflections is in order. Would you have seen this as being self indulgent and mean, if the women were not as a group rather attractive based on social and cultural standards?
As a group, attractive women can be objects of scorn and bitterness and called Heathers, mean girls , dumb blondes, etc. Practically all religions seek to hide pretty women. Is it the pretty woman we are afraid of, or the envy and desire that they bring in other women's hearts and in men?
Just some thoughts to ponder.
I use language which is natural to me. This is the way I speak and write, always. Coming to OS was natural to me; I have not felt out-of-place; I presume my language is sufficient/appropriate here. Some have said, though, that OS really ought to be thought of more as Yahoo.chat. That would be your verdict, I guess. Not mine as of yet.
You don't use showy language, but you advertise this fact so very showily. As you do with your use of "Dr." here. Fits in with this particular discussion, but it is unnecessary and the opposite of impressive: it doesn't make you seem so much someone to be heard, as someone who wants to quit/intimidate someone else by letting them know just who backs them--makes you seem someone who got a PhD, in part, so that you could trump all arguments at some point, with this sort of (what-ought-to-be-deemed) rather pathetic little inclusion/surprise/well-as-it-turns-out.
I'm a socialist. People without too much need for titles, perhaps without any, are the ones who impress me: they are the only who truly see something beautiful and wonderful in everyone. They are the only ones who can imagine equivalence meaning, everyone as resplendent. They are the only ones who would have you know that if you think/say/feel something brilliant, THAT is all that's important: doesn't matter at all how here-to-fore, others have "placed" you.
You are "mean boy" using big words to intimidate the girls who shunned you in school as is obvious by your obsession with high school imagery.
Others can play your stupid game.
I have never been more angry at anyone on OS. I tried in my first comment to accommodate. I tried in my second to explain to a total stranger why I went on that trip. I will NOT explain why I earned a Ph.D.
But yeah mean little boy using big words because pretty girls might scare him,
Dr. Fox
STFU
I don't what "truth" it is that you are after, but to pursue this as you have done indicates that you have some kind of issue with a group of people meeting up to get to know one another better. You are free to read anything into the meet-up that you please, but I was there, my bullshit detector was still working, and it mostly came up empty. And no, I'm not gonna tell.
Pretty woman--pretty, joyful women, especially--draw our aspiration/appreciation, and thereby for many also draw out our discomfort/disease with self-pleasuring. Just to be clear, I wasn't disparaging them by calling them Heathers, myself. I really do like Heather Chandler! (Also Veronica, though.) Legally Blonde captures what the beautiful (in the myriad of ways) and happy "face," so very, very well.
Huge issue right now, you know. What happened to Tom Cruise, even. The guy was just happy about his marriage! Goes off to Paris, gets married--wonderful show! It's not everyone's fun, but it's great Las Vegas fun--playful fun!, and so we go at him the best we can. Apparently, he needed to do his best to minimize the show, minimize the Tom Cruise in the Tom Cruise, for heaven's-sakes!, to have had any chance of a pass-over.
If you got it, flaunt it! If you flaunt it over me, I'll see in this a way to doing it so that it's really not the least bit at my expense--it can be a way of showing how worthy someone finds you--too. There's love of life in that!; real fun in that!
So, I will go to my garden and fight the grape vines.
Re: "with a group of people meeting up to get to know one another better." You believe this pleasant honest, but it sounds peasant modest (which yes, is a bad thing). My main interest in this is in how the "feast" (I know, it wasn't a feast--it was a friendly plate of humble-peasant pie) has been digested. It has to do with the fact that you colour/color (I think this is what you're doing--it's not just aptly describing) the trip this way, rather than in a more appropriate, a rather more true way. The Vegas stuff was fun for me, fun for many of us, because it was a get-together of some of our favourite color/colour here at OS. You guys have shined brightest here. You're the life. Huge part of the draw. Look at what Cartouche did in her report back--that was more fun to witness than anything going on elsewhere in the world of report that day, that week--whatever! It was glorious. And the trip itself: that to me was the OS tribute party, even if it was just everyone in small-talk and a collective scraping of pennies. I know you're saying that to you it was just a friendly get-together, something mild, but to be looked forward to, but I still find it strange that nowhere in your writings will you acknowledge that it too had as much right to be understood as, be most fairly summized a, meeting of the OS Stars in Las Vegas, baby! To deem it simply as it might well have felt--just friends, is inappropriate to anyone at all savy of the larger sense of the event--a group that well includes you. (Then again, maybe you well might--you were surprised by the 170 comments, after all.)
The praire girl in you still finds rampant fun (okay, okay--there wasn't any of that) suspect, off-putting. It's not just about good taste; it's about fearing what happens when everything you really want is pro-offered to you on a plate. You could have been nickel-and-dining it. You could have imagined a more evocative place, and (in truth) more dazzling/engaging people (though I am not suggesting this the case). It was still a meeting of the OS stars, our OS Summit, if you will, no little get-together for biscuits and tea, and you knew it. BTW, that's cool you know. I LIKE that that was part of your guys' event. It's just part of the good fun here. It's okay to have a popular crowd.
It's every Cdn's situation, unfortunately. Its good aspect is that it affords us sensible wants--things like health care. But at the cost of so much discomfort with even the possibility of lived-out sunshine fun! (I know, I know--there wasn't any of the grand--but if there was?) is it really worth it?
I'm glad to know you had as much fun as you did with Dorinda, Emma. Good on you guys. I know that along with the favoring for the duly modest she efforts to claim for herself here, she must have a lot of life, to have drawn your attention and friendship.
I like the folks/stars who went to las vegas, a lot. Dorinda reminds me of all the girls in highschool who used to make fun of me, so I'm not so inclined to think much of her, though.
Signed,
Got my ass kicked a-plenty by the pretty, popular mean girls and mean boys in high school too--are we now comparing credentials?
I was kidding about the least popular in high school, btw. (Just playing off the "just said" with Dorinda's further efforts to level.) I didn't like my home life, so I got my revenge, some feeling of turn-about, by making people at school feel as inadequate as possible. I probably ruined a few lives, actually. Not especially proud of that, but at the time the demonstration of prowess was, admittedly, at-some-much-needed-level, quite satisfying.
I wasn't close "friends" with all the people who went, and I'm still not close to some of them. I think you are reading far more into this than it merits. Perhaps there are some who feel that they are stars and going to Vegas was a "star turn" but I don't know who they are.
emma: I believe you. But with the 170 comments, I presume you have full proof that you count amongst the OS renown (or is just further proof that you're not best understood as popular, but as someone whose controversial presence draws the attention and ire of countless lots of people?), even without EPs, even if this is not at all what you want, is of no particular interest to you. That is, when you next take account of who you amount to here, you won't now just be drawing attention to your lack of EPs to suggest your presence is a modest one, or simply just a controversial one. That you have had more posts written about/concerning you than anyone else here, didn't tip you off, surprises me, though. (Popular people are often the most hated--thus my Heather reference.) Maybe your view count is low, or something. Maybe your posts gather few comments, and even fewer rates. But evidence that you weren't simply one of the crowd, based on evidence, not to be evident to you? Surprising.
Still, I hear you that you count yourself one amongst many. No interest in being a star. There is a lot to be said for that, truly--it can be said from someone who knows the way to ease, right comfort, peace, but not much for a reluctance to faithfully be true to your understanding of how others see you.
A fair post from you, perhaps, would be about why surprised by 170+comments. Why was that the news of the OS region week? How could I not know? Maybe this will look less necessary, if this OC rivelet streams into an ocean. But if not, I'd like to hear something about it, maybe with pictures.
You were born into a country that deems the well-lived life, very suspect--very American. If you really lived it, you accomplished something the protagonist of Bell Jar essentially died for fear of.
emma peel is smart as a whip, and kick's ass. but she is unknowable. you know this, right?
It didn't even occur to me to be upset by any of the Vegas posts. I was baffled that this even evolved into a discussion. Doesn't having envy to the point of pain over this whole thing sort of screwed up to the major? It's one thing to have a feeling of wishing you were there, and a whole 'nother thing to harbor bad feelings toward those that went and dare to speak glowingly, or even (prepare yourself) GUSH of their time there. If you can't separate from your ego enough to realize that people exist and have nice experiences apart from you for their own sakes and not to somehow punish you, or promote themselves beyond you, then hon' you got more problems than can be hashed out in the comments section of a blog.
re: "If you can't separate from your ego enough to realize that people exist and have nice experiences apart from you for their own sakes and not to somehow punish you, or promote themselves beyond you, then hon' you got more problems than can be hashed out in the comments section of a blog."
Are you speaking to me?, someone else?, or is this a monologue to and about yourself? Oh, that's right--the whole purple superstar-thing that pops up everywhere and claims all to herself, is just an alternate self--just a joke, no semblence to the originator, the real thing. You've convinced all of us that. No doubt. For sure. No need to see what happens to you when someone else in this developing scene comes up with some rather more current trick, when the new know nothing of you and when "we" have had enough of seeing a flippin' freaky troll supermodel on our plate, 'gardless of what were talking about, what we were dining on.
And no, I'm wasn't speaking about *you*. You stated both in your post and in your comments that you wrote about this to promote discussion of the topic. I discussed.
I'm guessing that last bit was you trying to tell me that I would get all bitter if I become not the flavor of the week. Eh, if you check my ratings and comments and EPs, it's not like I'm slaying them in the aisles. I do my own little thing in my own little corner of this place. But you know, I do find interesting that you assume that I would come all pouty about things... hmmmmm.... 'cause really that's not the case.
And gee, if people don't agree with your "Mean Girl" premise, you get kind of personally aggressive.
My understanding of your implication that my inference was in response to your statement brings me back to my main point. The cultural signifiers of said experience may or may not have prompted some analysis of the anthropological meanings of such said experience. Although "butter" may not have played an immediate role in the anthropological setting of "Las Vegas", it is to be assumed that it did, indeed, affect the outcome of the behaviours of those who were part of the "Vegas Experiment".
In conclusion, I must say I have no point to make but am so enjoying the pedestrian act of typing that I will file another report tomorrow.
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