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January 31, 2004

Fop Rock: Metrosexuality and the Long-Haired Rocker

I hadn't planned on writing about this topic, but it was the perfect opportunity for trying out the TrackBack feature so new to me. Jimbo wrote about his experience in a Texas country bar and described himself as metrosexual.

According to the Word Spy notes:

A metrosexual is a clotheshorse wrapped around a dandy fused with a narcissist.

Really, the last time I encountered the word dandy outside of Yankee Doodle was in a historical romance novel I read in high school. It was in the same paragraph as words like mincing, fop, tights, pastel, and lace. This was not a description of the hero, mind you, but of the young men who paled in comparison to the darker, more virile, more masculine, more intimidating alpha male character that was the hero.

So now, even though the definition really has nothing to do with the 18th century mincing fop, I hear the word metrosexual and see the poor dandy covered in pastel and lace.

But that can't be right, can it? Is the metrosexual today the equivalent of the tights-wearing fop of yesterday?

Then I thought about The Beatles. The 40th anniversary of their American invasion is coming up, and their faces are once again plastered all over the media. They looked so cute and clean-cut in their suits, their hair just barely covering their eyebrows and ears and skirting the backs of their necks.

Parents back then disapproved of The Beatles and criticized their long hair and their wild "that's not music!" music, but The Beatles are such a far cry from rockers today, who have much longer hair and much wilder "that's not music!" music. How can the two be the same?

Then I realized that it's all relative. As soon as the Beatles hair became acceptable, rockers had to have longer hair to be seen as wild and rebellious. They are still called long-haired rockers, just like the Beatles were; they are simply flashier, grungier, and louder, and they have longer hair.

So... could I say the same of fops and metrosexuals—that the metrosexual is really only the descendant of the fop? And if so, does that mean Texas cowboys are the darker, more virile, more masculine, more intimidating alpha male types? (Good God, I hope not, because that would mean George W. Bush would make the ideal romance novel hero, and the guy does absolutely nothing for me except make me frigid.)

My conclusion?

I think if Jimbo is hiding pinker pastels, tighter tights, and a bigger, frillier lace collar in his closet, then yes, maybe so. But after seeing South Park's episode on the subject, I am more inclined to believe that a metrosexual is nothing more than a successful male graduate of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Posted by April at 07:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 28, 2004

The Great Love Story

So the Oscar nominations are out, and they're just as I expected. I watched a lot of grown up movies this year, and by "grown up" I mean well written, well directed, and, well, totally devoid of any Happily Ever After.

Mystic River had me crying a river. Monster completely ripped me to shreds. I lost myself in Lost in Translation. And Cold Mountain, good God. Cold Mountain embodied the futility of a salmon swimming upstream to mate just once and then frickin' die. What the hell kind of a love story is that?!

H.E. calls it a woman's ideal romance (even though men wrote this story)—the touchy-feely Hallmark kind that, while very high on the feely part, isn't really much on the touchy part. Lots of deep and passionate emotion; yet, not a whole lot of conversation or compromise between the toilet seat being up or down.

It's the ideal lover idealized ten times over in fantasy and then promptly done away with, so that the fantasy is never ruined. Ah, perfect love. No doubt Ada would consider Inman the great love of her life, and she will let her daughter know exactly just how perfect Inman was, thereby assuring that the daughter will never be happy with whatever man she marries because he simply isn't as perfect as her father obviously was.

But of course Inman was perfect. Ada never bickered with him, never had to tell him to take out the trash, never had to ask him for emotional support. He never criticized her cooking or the way she raises their daughter, never even asked her for a beer while he lazily watched the football game.

They never had problems in bed because they had sex only one night. They never disagreed about politics and religion because they never really got around to having an actual conversation.

Is this what people think makes a great love story?

If you ask me, Ruby got the better end of the deal. Her man Georgia managed to stay alive and be there for her, even though his gestures weren't as grand or as dramatic. For me, the more numerous smaller gestures are what makes a great romance—like what Smith does for Samantha.

It's always the small things that make a great love story.

Of course... it helps, if some things are big.

Posted by April at 10:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 26, 2004

Meet Me at the Park

What do you see? Click to view 1024 x 768 version.

It's been a while since I've done one of these. Anyone see what I see? Be sure to use your magic eye.

Posted by April at 11:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 25, 2004

You Want Flies With That?

I was in a discussion with my co-workers the other day about restaurant food and the extra ingredients we sometimes find in them—the proverbial fly in the soup type of conversation.

The thing is, we never really think it will happen to us, and it never even occurs to us to look closely at our food before we bite into it. We hear the horror stories and are thoroughly disgusted, but until we have personally experienced it, finding a fly in our soup is kind of a comic strip joke.

So we talked about our own experiences.

The circulation manager once found a bug in the lettuce of his salad—pretty common, actually, if lettuce isn't washed well.

For me, the worst experience I've had was finding a used Band-Aid in my take-out soup/stew—thank God, I never even tasted it! My mother took ithe entire order back and complained until she got a full refund, and we never went there back again.

But I think the worst experience ever belongs to our creative director. She had ordered some kind of creamed spinach dinner from Boston Market and bit into something strangely crunchy. It took her a moment before she realized it wasn't supposed to be crunchy, and it took her another moment before she realized that it tasted kind of funny—not only a little off, but also somewhat bad.

When she stopped chewing altogether and inspected the parts in her mouth and the parts yet uneaten, she discovered that she'd bitten into a cockroach.

Mm-mm-MM! Yummy.

Posted by April at 11:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 24, 2004

Like a Virgin

Please excuse the ongoing mess. This is all new to me.

I decided to switch from Greymatter to MovableType this year because I wanted to be able to provide RSS feeds without having to come up with a plug-in or a work-around. It's a small price to pay to give people what they want, but I can't avoid the learning curve involved—there are new variables, new scripts, and new ways of doing things. I no longer need to shave my head, as I have practically pulled all of my hair out by the handfuls.

I've even imported my Greymatter files into the fold, though I'm not really sure how to quietly retire the old archives without breaking all kinds of links on or off the site. Perhaps I need to look up .htaccess redirects or something. Any advice is welcome.

The MovableType calendar, however, is an alien thing to me. I am not sure how to incorporate my little riddles into it. I'm amazed that I got it up at all. My first try made 2004 the biggest leap year ever, and we would have all biologically aged 10 years on this day in 2005.

Categories? Blah! I can't even begin to categorize my posts except for tutorials, so it seems I will need help with coming up with categories as well. I brainstormed a few for a while, but I could not decide between:

or:

...so I gave up on that.

But, hey, as soon as I can figure out how the TrackBack feature works, I shall be ready to ping pong like crazy.

That is what is meant by "pings" right?

Posted by April at 02:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack