TNY weekend reader: hey, look.
(image: carolita johnson)
I was in Junior High School, and the train station was part of the shortcut home. My panties were wedged deeply into my crotch after walking a mile homewards, and something had gone wrong with the configuration of my fleshy parts in that region: it was unbearable. In desperation, I’d thought, here comes the express train—it’s going by so fast, nobody will see…
This was years before I became a commuter on express trains passing people on platforms: needless to say I’ll never forget the first time I was on an express train and noticed that the people on the platform we passed might as well have been moving in slow motion. That was the day I blushed to remember that time long ago when I’d thought I’d cleverly taken advantage of a passing train to unwedge my panties from my crotch and rearrange my labia more comfortably, having reached under my skirt and tunneled past the elastic of my panties with no reserve whatsoever. It brings to mind the poster I saw in the Hallmark shop’s window the other day that went something like, “Sing like nobody’s listening.” Anyway, this was the day I imagined the conversation on the passing train must have been going something like “Hey, look,” by Simon Rich.
Oh, dear.
Well! Denby surely jests when he implies that he’d rather have seen Julie Andrews play Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady”—this “idiocy” in casting is mentioned in the context of John Travolta’s cross-dressing role in “Hairspray.” But preferring Julie to Audrey in this review hasn’t made us forget his last review, of “Knocked up,” which is still raising questions and musings about irresponsible schlubs mating with boring beauties, on Emdashes.
And how about Christophe Mann’s clever illo accompanying James Surowiecki’s “Fuel for Thought”? Almost dispenses with the need to read.
PS - My advice: if you’re going to sing like nobody’s listening, do make sure nobody is listening!
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:24 am
A few weeks ago, when I was on an express train, I saw a boy check for underarm odor while he was waiting on a platform. Deliberately and thoroughly. Not his specific actions, but his air of total obliviousness felt so familiar.
I guess we forget how outwardly focussed many train riders are. I’m almost always more interested in the passing scene than in the reading material I carried with me . . .
What I think is odd is how much the voice used in the film My Fair Lady sounds like Andrews, though it supposedly isn’t. Though it isn’t Hepburn, either, of course.
July 23rd, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Marni Dixon did Audrey’s voice, as well as Natalie Wood’s in West Side Story. Here’s a very informative link: http://www.reelclassics.com/Musicals/Fairlady/fairlady.htm
Yes, well, now I do all my wedgie removals ON the train, while everyone is looking out the window!
July 24th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Oh, and regarding the annoying present-day obsession with “having a baby as the most incredible feat EVER (as if babies’ heads haven’t been crowning between the legs of humans all over the Earth on a daily basis for thousands of years)” – I finally saw Children of Men. Not a romantic comedy, but apparently some of the themes are similar . . .
July 25th, 2007 at 2:16 am
Heheheh, nice to see that some of that thread on Emdashes has leeched into my little blog! I’m very flattered!
Must see Children of Men—sounds like my ideal world, from what someone told me tonight, where everybody has plenty of time to read Granta, freed of the burdens of procreation? I believe that’s what Gary Schteyngart seemed to be trying to tell me, anyway! Not sure he’s a reliable source, being a rather volatile storyteller himself (and he does a great imitation of the Singing Bush!)
Must see for myself now!
July 26th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Also note, a story in this month’s Vogue. I didn’t read it and I won’t – the photos were very odd. Not in a good way.
July 27th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
I’m curious—why won’t you read it? I don’t read any glossy on principle. I wish those magazines would just go away. Do you have a similar reason?
July 27th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Oh, I read the Winona “age issues” Vogue my houseguest brought into the house. It didn’t kill me. And I actually like to read Vanity Fair – is that a glossy?
But I was referring (not very precisely, I guess) to a specific article, entitled (deep breath) “The Inconceivable Truth,” written in a chatty first-person voice by a man and illustrated with photos of women lying around a suburban pool. Not in a sexy way, lying around a pool, in a corpse-like way.
Maybe you’re right. Maybe Vogue should just disappear. Just writing this (and that awful pun) makes me feel creepy.