liz

I had forgotten just how utterly stunning Liz Taylor was. Without airbrushing or much more than Hollywood make up/lighting. She was so young when she started her career, it makes you wonder how gracefully the Mileys and Olsens will age.
Is beauty like that as much curse as blessing? (obviously I will never know haha) but imagine the pressure? Nowadays it's de rigeur for 'stars' (talentless wannabees caught up in the media machinery like so many moths trying to be butterflies) to be snapped looking drunk, or having an 'off' day. 'Accidental' sex videos, convictions for drugs or stealing; even, God Forbid! Cellulite!!! When Elizabeth Taylor was first working for the big studios, you did not let your public image slip for one second or you were out. Think back to the days of McCarthyism and the Teamsters, there was an invisible power then that is lost now. Probably a good thing, though I dare say it has been replaced by something darker. Lost the point there, sorry ;)
What I want to say is, how heartbreaking is it, to look back at yourself as the most beautiful woman on Earth? Can you take comfort from the iconic shots, or will you mourn what once was? Is it somehow worse for those near immortals than for us ordinary Joes? To be reminded constantly that your rivals are coming up fast behind you, that your appeal is waning, that you cannot let your hips spread comfortably into a Muu Muu and go shopping at WalMart?

oops run out of time, typical me, anyway, in short... who is there left? No one can match up to these screen legends. It isn't about acting skills either. Apologies for losing the thread and time...

now

It seems we have saturation coverage and unprecedented media access to disasters nowadays; we can watch in realtime as these unimaginable horrors suddenly become not only imaginable but in your front room, on your pc and even your mobile phone. Scenes previously watched from the sofa or cinema seat with popcorn, made in a studio for millions of dollars, now actually happening to real people in real places. Are we right to do this? 'Right' or 'wrong' are subjective; if it was me being washed away, or watching my every possession being destroyed, would I want to turn on those mute, dumb cameras and scream at them to fuck off and leave me alone? Are we becoming disaster tourists, or worse, will we gradually get compassion fatigue? From an overdose of pain, fear and sympathy? Of course we should have access to facts, and knowledge of news, but at what cost? There is no privacy, no dignity; no hiding place from the all encroaching eye of the media machine; itself a sort of tsunami of information which we have to filter. Are we psychologically strong enough to watch this snuff movie unfolding? What boundaries can we draw and redraw over how much we do/give/switch off? Do we do everything humanly possible because next time it might be 'us' who need help? or do we turn the channel to a nice harmless sitcom and try to forget the anguish and horror that we can't possibly do anything about? I don't just mean the earthquakes, the floods, the extreme weather, the Earth shaking us off like fleas. I mean the famines, the wars, the atrocities men do in the name of religion. All of this and more, brought to you by News channels the world over, with no PG certificate. I loathe the way the Press will gloss over 10,000 missing persons, and follow it with a huge chapter on 2 missing people from OUR country. There is no sliding scale of human worth, surely? I don't know enough, but I know too much. Are we really all nothing more than road side gawpers at a house fire or road accident? Is it inherent in Human Nature to have this fascination with Death and Disaster, to reassure ourselves we are still alive? Are we drawn by our own mortality, or a curiousity beyond the morbid? Watching the footage over again, hoping this time you will see someone escape, hoping you will somehow comprehend the true scale of things. I lose sight of the question; is it 'right' to watch all these things? Does anyone gain from it?

too tired to blog

prejudice. It's brewing up in my mind, but right now I am covering for a sick colleague for the next 3 days or so...

today

Today someone in the shop thought a colleague was my son... the colleague is twenty something. It is a rude awakening for me, that even though logically I am old enough to be the mother of a 30 year old, I really do not like to be reminded of that fact. The fact that I look old enough to have grandchildren too; let us (meaning me) not forget the customer who thought a friend and her baby were my daughter and grandson. (Or all the customers who think I am married to the owner and ALL the colleagues are our children. And that I live right there in the shop and am online all the time so I can see them making their email order while they are making it - but that is by the by).
So... what is bothering me most? It is the inescapable fact that I am getting older, of course. Is there an invisible line we cross? that we wake up one day unable to dance; that suddenly we will morph, much like a werewolf? Getting hairier and twisted over into a hunched up snarling beast?  Or will I one day look in the mirror and see the truth? That I am that grey middle aged badger shaped thing who has stolen the clothes of a younger, fitter woman? Will I be Atomic Mutton, or am I already? The dreaded '16/61' woman; 16 from behind, 61 from the front. I want to wear tartan bondage trousers when I feel like it, and Pink/leopard skin brothel creepers. I don't want this jowly turkey neck, these crepey hands and lined decolletage. Tired eyes that don't recover, skin that doesn't bounce back; no wonder famous beautiful Hollywood people go nuts and become addicted to 'procedures', they see everything magnified many times over up there on that screen, not to mention evidence of their ageing process documented in every film and magazine article. I read this week that in LA women are even shaving their faces, because the advent of HD TV has meant every impurity or facial hair showing up in minute detail, clogged with make up and concealer. Hm, perhaps I am getting off lightly then, I never got the hang of make up. In a roundabout, muddled way, I am trying to ask when do we retire our 'look'? Why should we have to? If I was Vivienne Westwood it wouldn't matter, but if I am a poor nobody, I am a figure of ridicule? Ha, that is very English; rich and eccentric, or poor and mad. I want to Get Old Disgracefully, because I am not done being young yet.