Friday, February 8, 2008

The Week That Was (2/4 - 2/8)

"Thank god the 'Zero Effect' week is over," - Anonymous, commenting on Monday's Chronological Snobbery post entitled "Dan Cortese as Burger King Spokesman (1992)," following a week's worth of posts on the tenth anniversary of the 1998 film, Zero Effect, (2/4/08). Tell me about it. Last week's series of posts on the tenth anniversary of that film was wearisome, although I thought it turned out rather well in the end (and it even merited a link on USA Today's Pop Candy blog). Fear not; it's ten years until the twentieth anniversary.

"I confess that, yes, a culturally jingoistic part of me pitied these folks for caring so much about Super Bowl hoopla instead of enthusing over the sorts of things that keep me riled up and entertained. Meandering through crowds, slurping syrupy margaritas and hogwash beer, cheering music so proletarian and awful that listening physically made me blush (including a Tom Petty cover band performing on a stage in the midway outside the stadium), greedily snatching up promotional trinkets, and devouring all the entertainments presented to them like famine refugees at a banquet . . . why was this fun? Hadn't they ever read a book so thought-provoking they could hardly stand not to tell someone about it or stared at a sculpture so beautiful it made them cry or . . . cared about what I care about? Didn't they know how much richer life could be than this? I wanted to lead them all off to see a Tarkovsky film, like some bleedingly self-righteous Pied Piper of Culture. I felt very adolescent for feeling this way, since I knew better," T.S.T., "(Another) Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: The Super Bowl Edition," Digest, (2/04/08). Who thought that winning free tickets to the Super Bowl would be such a moral and ethical dilemma?

5 comments:

The League said...

A salute to Zero Effect week. And a second salute to TST and her post on the Superbowl (and her comments on Scottsdale).

The artifice surrounding the SuperBowl is, I imagine, a bit like a beer-fueled Disneyland with a 1000 HP Monster Truck zooming around. And I certainly understand not caring an iota for the game.

What saddens me is that TST saw one of the most unexpected upsets in Superbowl history and had no appreciation for the narrative of the events of the game's 4th quarter.

Alas.

T.S.T. said...

Thanks for CS's link and for the League's salute.

The League's nutshell description seems to capture the pith of the SB scene quite well. I wouldn't, though, say that I didn't appreciate the narrative w/r/t the Giants and the Pats. In fact, the football game itself was pretty cool by my lights. It just seemed like a very tiny part of my whole weekend, dwarfed in comparison to "Super Bowl Excitement." Maybe that says something significant in and of itself.

The League said...

TST, that makes complete sense.

Really, I have very little understanding of what it means to be surrounded by a carnival of corporate sponsored hoo-hah for multiple days. I would try to compare it to when I used to work near the stadium where they held the Tostito's Fiesta Bowl, and 1000's of out of state football fans would descend upon Tempe, but it sounds like that multiplied by 100. A very different experience from flipping on the TV twenty minutes prior to kick-off.

The League said...

Chron Snob has gone dark.

Alas.

T.S.T. said...

Dark, indeed.

What gives?