Why can't I look away?
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Today I have no interesting stories about my life because my last weeks as a lawyer are turning out to be VERY BUSY. Honestly, I was anticipating that my job would wind down in a very luxurious manner, that I would spend this time engaging in long lunches, doing a little online shopping, writing the odd email here and there. Instead, I am having to engage in day after day of INTENSE HIGH PRESSURE LEGAL ANALYSIS, which is only slightly more fun than it sounds. I am sort of enjoying it and sort of looking forward to it being over so I can dedicate myself to the important job of making up funny dialogue between people who exist only in my imagination.
Television
Today, in between bouts of INTENSE HIGH PRESSURE LEGAL ANALYSIS, I am watching the clock, desperate for time to pass so I can inject another episode of the worst television ever made (MAFS) straight into my veins like a slavering filth junky. I don't understand why I am drawn to it, given that I would sooner spoon out my own liver and serve it on little biscuits to a family of geese than spend time IRL with any of the people on the show (which, if you haven't seen it, involves the three dead-eyed weasels dispensing love advice to a cast of glistening idiots whose only life goal is to promote low-sugar snack foods on Instagram). Yet here I am, year after year, convulsing in seizures of pure pleasure at the terrible spectacle of it all. I have to ask myself: what is wrong with me??? To which the only reasonable answer is: what isn't wrong with me???
The poster for my forthcoming biopic
Probably the worst part of MAFS is how much it loves to gaslight everyone by insisting it is a 'social experiment' with the goal of helping people 'find love'. In reality it is the modern-day equivalent of chaining people to stocks in a town square and letting cackling villagers throw rotten fruit at them. The show exists because its audience likes to watch people we disapprove of SUFFER, because it AMUSES US. It's a disgusting concoction which I loathe in every respect and one day I will grow up and become a better person and stop watching it.
(That day is not today.)
Books
On a more wholesome note, I just read Toni Jordan's Dinner with the Schnabels which was a sweet and funny story about a failed architect and his family, which gave me many genuine lols. Why don’t books like this ever win prizes? I read a Richard Glover article in Fairfax a while ago about how funny books are looked down upon in Australia, which is a perplexing phenomenon that doesn't seem to be reflected in the UK or the US.* There are definitely way too many celebrated Australian books about DRAB TIMES and not nearly enough about DICK JOKES.
Weirdly, I am reading a terrific junior mystery book to my kids at the moment - The Detective's Guide to New York City, by my friend Nicki Greenberg - which also features a character called Schnabel. It's raining Schnabels! Hallelujah!!! TDGTNYC is set in prohibition era New York and it is very fun, like the Famous Five but with less camping and better outfits.
And finally I just read Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Lots of people rave about it, and I can see why; it is very absorbing and entertaining, and it explored some interesting ideas about life and friendship. But it was a bit earnest for my taste (zero dick jokes, very few jokes of any kind). Also, I found myself wishing for unexpected things to happen, for the characters to surprise me, which they rarely did. I like a bit of messiness in fiction, which I didn't find in this. It contained some excellent writing though, and it was surprisingly interesting to read about the gaming world given that my previous experience of gaming is limited to an enduring obsession with online boggle.
That's all for now, pals. Would love to hear people’s thoughts on any of the above. Hope you are all having the finest Tuesday known to humankind and I look forward to ruining your inbox with my poorly thought through opinions again in a couple of weeks.
xx Eleanor
*This is probably true of other places too, but I am not sufficiently across the literature of countries other than the US or the UK to take a view, which maybe reflects poorly on the insularity of my reading interests and also me as a person.
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