Friday, January 15, 2010

Zelda Fitzgerald Sings the Blues

Ten year ago Doug and I were at a dinner party and I briefly mentioned one of Plato’s dialogues because it was germane to the conversation. The gentleman I was conversing with looked quizzical and Doug pointed at me at laughed. “Beth,” Doug said, through bouts of bent over hysterics, “nobody actually read Plato but you and your geeky college friends.” The gentleman was quick to disagree, “Hey I think read it…the Cliff Notes.” Doug continued to laugh about the exchange for two weeks.
While I do not, by any means, consider myself the purveyor of high culture (unless you consider Campbells soup based slow cook casseroles haute cuisine), I am undeniably no a stranger to it. I am a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College. Need I say more? I do?
Marymount Manhattan College is located in a very exclusive section of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. 221 East 71st Street. There is a tree in Central Park located in quiet romantic spot far from the murmur of tourists clamoring to get their picture taken on the carousel and shove their family through the miniature zoo that lovers go to for an afternoon canoodle. On the base of the tree it is carved: Marymount Manhattan College loves Marymount Manhattan College …as if it really needed to be written. Everyone who knows the school is aware of its affection for itself. My college looked down its brownstone nose at, well, everyone. The one acceptation was our next door neighbor, the Daughters of the American Revolution. Now, I live on the north shore of Long Island. I’ve met some …people. Yet the sense of entitlement concentrated at 219 East 71st Street can be seen blue as Baby Dean’s eyes from the Clark belt. Marymount Manhattan finds them good company.
This is not to say I have anything but love in my heart for my alma mater. I pray that the girls choose to go there and I will try, with every propagandistic bone in my body to sway them over the Tri-borough.
Marymount Manhattan (Don't you dare call us Marymount) wasn’t just a college education, it was an education in culture with New York City as it’s campus and Central Park as it’s quad. I don’t know of anyone else who had Art Theory as a part of their core curriculum. And we didn’t just sit in a darkened classroom looking at slides; we were required to go to all the major museums and a handful of “important” galleries. Another core curriculum course was Understanding Theater where Thursday evenings we went to see a Broadway or Off Broadway play followed by drinks and discussion with our professor “Gordon” who always seemed to know someone in the show. For Contemporary World Cinema we were given a full access pass to the New York Film Festival. Marymount Manhattan was not your normal college. Nobody was skipping class (would you?) and everyone was prepared every day with whatever reading was required, whether it be an article, chapter or book. It was truly an amazing educational experience that taught me in five short years, culture at its highest snow crested tip.
It is because of this extensive exposure to the epoch of high falutincy that I feel justified and validated engaging in the lowest cultural activities.
Television- I can give, on command, an engaging two hour lecture on the invention of the television, beautifully and vividly describing Philo Farnsworth as a prepubescent farm worker in the early 1900’s plowing his daddy’s field and coming up with the idea for progressive scanning, the technology that made television possible (I have given this lecture to students at 8am- it really is engaging). I can theoretically discuss how television led to the creation of modern notions of masculinity. I can point to four different sources that argue, nay prove, that the television industry is the core of the American economy. Yet what do I watch? Masterpiece Theater? NO. Meet the Press? NO. Inside the Actors Studio (Sometimes). What I watch religiously; avoiding all social engagements that fall on that night; schlepping from library to library on the off season in search of an episode I may have missed is Ghost Whisperer.
Yes, Ghost Whisperer. How do I know that Ghost Whisperer is the bottom of the taste totem pole?Do you watch it? No. I have yet to meet anyone who watches it. I surround myself with highly intelligent people (good looking to boot). None of them watch it. Even the less intelligent people that destiny has surrounded me with look at me funny when I admit my fandom. People generally have the same reaction when I tell them; embarrassment. Not for themselves but for me. I have to admit it is hard for me to keep a straight face when I tell people I watch this show. In fact, I saw an interview with Jennifer Love Hewitt and her bosoms recently I they couldn’t keep a straight face when they talked about it either. It really is silly. I have to follow it up with a more credible and culturally accepted show that I watch, The Girls Next Door.
Theater- This is the original reason I conceived of this posting. “Motha” and father went to see Mama Mia on Broadway and were so enthralled (much like Klein) that they were moved to call me during intermission. “We are getting you and Doug tickets to this for Valentine’s day” Motha squealed. To which my response was “NO THANKS.” I have not use for live theater. To me live theater is like a low budget film with poor distribution. There is a highly intellectual reason for my distain for live theater: my media consumption is based on the escapism qualities of the text. I engage in media that saturates the senses thus leaving little need for suspension of disbelieve. There is also a less intellectual reason: Plays suck.
Literature- Shakespeare is MY category on Jeopardy. I started out as an English major and was seduced, much like a middle aged man to an eighteen year old blond, to the study of Communication. But I racked up enough hours on the fifth floor of 221 East 71st street to study my share of the greats. The week before my first winter break, inspired by a conversation with our brilliant chair about The Catcher in the Rye, several of us book junkies took a personal walking journey of Holden Caulfield’s path through Manhattan (…jealous much?) My first college paper that I earned an “a” was comparing early Vonnegut to late Vonnegut. Last week I placed my order for the most recent Jackie Collins novel, Poor Little Bitch Girl. I was so excited I could hardly click enter. Thank god she wrote another one. JC pumps out two a year now and as time rolls by so does her apparent regard for grammar and syntax. Yet much like my daily 4:59 pm glass of chardonnay, I really can’t resist the allure.
Film- This may be the most embarrassing of all. My first gig as a college professor was teaching Advanced Film Theory and Criticism at Marist College. This is the class where students learned about Soviet Montage Theory on the first day- literally. I had to show Das Cabinet Des Dr. Cagliari, a German Expressionist film from 1920, not because we were going to be studying it, but because I would be making fleeting references to it throughout the semester. I recall the day my chair asked me what movie I had seen most recently. My answer was Bedazzled- Elizabeth Hurley and Brandon Frazer! Well, it was my turn to pick the movie and I have a girl crush on Liz Hurley. Sadly, I have no excuse for seeing Dude Where’s My Car for ten dollars a pop or seeing Bring It On on opening night. My saving grace is that I can point to a myriad of professional journals that can explain why these films are popular with the masses. Also, I refer to them as films as opposed to movies which proves I is smart.
Clothing- This is my real guilty pleasure. Recently I applied for a position teaching at a CUNY college. I got the job, but I was required to submit three letters of recommendation. One of them was from one of my favorite former collegues, a Fulbright scholar, who sent me a copy of the letter for my perusal. This colleague, bless her heart, wrote a whole paragraph about how stylish I was. Think back to your professors in college. Would you describe any of them as “fashionable”? No? As a general rule fashion and an interest in it beyond writing papers about how it subjugates females is looked down upon in academia. I can’t help it. Fashion is in my blood. My great grandfather was a ragman- if that doesn’t spell haute couture I don’t know what does.
The moral of this posting, and what I hope to pass on to the kids is that you can like whatever you want but learn everything you can so you can make an informed decision and argue your point of view with credibility.
A few years ago Doug and I went to another dinner party and somehow on the way we started talking about Zelda. Doug never heard of her. Zelda Fitzgerald…he still had no clue. When I told him it was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, muse and inspiration the character of “Daisy” in the Great Gatsby he responded with vague recognition at some of the words. He then defied me to find one person at the dinner party that night who knew who Zelda Fitzgerald was. Thank you Jared- the only person, out of twelve college graduates sitting around a fancy table at a swanky steakhouse on the north shore of Long Island, a stone’s throw from West Egg who knew who Zelda was. In disbelief I turned up my nose and dug into my cheese burger and Malibu Bay Breeze.