Seven years ago, my friend's teenaged daughter said, 'Odilia, watch TV so we have something to talk about.' Since I dropped out of graduate school to pursue my life, I have watched pop culture a little bit and the most prevalent thing seems to be a thirst for implosions. I listen to casual conversations in coffee shops and am surprised at the callousness with which people speak of celebrity mental illness and celebrity drug and alcohol addiction. I see famous people all the time - in my neighborhood, at the supermarket, at my volunteer job. They are workers like all of us, in their uniforms, dealing with the pros and cons of their jobs like the rest of us. Some of us get stalked by paparazzi and some of us are stalked by debt collectors. It's all the same thing, dog. I have to say that I enjoy not being famous - nobody is taking my picture while I order coffee at HoFoo or stealing my garbage to sell it on Ebay. Although, men do take my picture on the train with their little cell phones - don't really understand that.
But back to the celebrity thing, it seems that people who adore celebrities also want to see them drawn and quartered. I can't think of anyone in my life who I'd like to see torn to pieces by wild horses - there are some people I'd like to slap but that wouldn't be right cause Iam a Buddhist really. Sometimes, people smile and nod to me on the street and someone will say I look like some actress on a TV show or soap opera I've never heard of and I wonder why they tell me. I also see the glee on their faces to have spoken to someone who is not famous but looks like somebody famous. Strange the things that matter to people; it makes me want to read esoteric shit and write some more gentle poetry that no one will ever read and let my hair turn into one big dred.
For interesting insights into public torture, read Foucault's Discipline and Punishment
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