Things I Learned This Week

Sandra Bernhard, bell hooks, Amway, Amelie, Al Bowlly, and Buddhism

I got on one more fully-funded MFA waiting list, and I should be getting one last decision. I plan on making a decision soon, but unless some miracle happens today, I’m pretty sure I know what I’m gonna be doing next year. In the meantime. Here’s some facts I picked up this week.

During the 80s and 90s, Sandra Bernhard was so hot. At the time, I knew she was somebody notorious, but I wasn’t sure why. I remember attending a book party for John Stewart’s Naked Pictures of Famous People, and she was there, and everyone was going bad shit over her. I’ve never fully understood her appeal or why she was so infamous… until last night. Why have I never seen The King of Comedy before? She is wild in that movie. An absolute riot! Fabulous. And Jerry Lewis. That performance! Oh my God. Even though the main character is a delusional antihero, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie where Robert De Niro was more appealing—ten thumbs up.

As a child in the 1980s, the higher-ups at my rural South Carolina private (founded after *ahem* 1954) elementary school were consumed with Amway to a cult-like extent. Many of the adults on the board were part of the pyramid-scheme cleaning products company, and I remember my mother talking in hushed tones about how nuts they all were. (My mom loved a good conspiracy theory when it was aimed at taking down the religious right.) They’d throw parties and hand out fur coats at the beginning to give the illusion everyone was rich, and then they would stand by the door at the end to collect them from guests as they left. They sent letters home to parents warning of the satanic nature of Proctor & Gamble products. So, when I read this article in The Atlantic, so much of it rang true. If you have a few minutes, and want to feel equal amounts of horror and empathy, it's a great read.

Most of the Impressionist painters drew on the exact locations in and around Paris to paint. Studying this painting this week reminded me of how deeply it is featured in the beloved film Amelie. (Which is still so great after all these years!) Amelie’s uncle, Raymond, is obsessed with the painting. “It’s The Luncheon of the Boating Party, by Renoir. Here, I have been painting a copy every year for the past twenty years. The hardest part is the glances. At times, I have the impression they change their looks on purpose as soon as I turn my back at them. […] Well, after all these years, the only person I still struggle to outline is the girl with the glass of water. She is in the middle of it, yet she seems outside it all.” The model for the girl with the glass was Ellen Andrée, an actress who sat for Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and other impressionists. While not as infamous as the impressionist nudes of artist and model Victorine Meurent (The Luncheon on the Grass), it’s incredible to think about Paris during that period, and the women who surrounded these men yet didn’t receive the fame that was due. Figures.

Speaking of Amelie, after that movie—like lots of folks— I got obsessed with Al Bowlly (the British Frank Sinatra), and that obsession lives on ‘til this day. He’s my go-to anytime I want to put something on in the background, so he’s been such a part of so many important and intimate moments in my life. In Amelie, the song Guilty is used to great effect, but his entire catalog has always entranced me. He died at only 43 during a 1941 air raid in London, I feel personally awful for what might have been for that guy. His music is perfection.

While I will admit to watching The White Lotus, I am not in love. But between that, taking Eastern Religion during Covid, and the husband of a friend I met this week who is a Buddhist monk, I’ve been thinking a lot about conversion. Not for me, really. It is just the idea of changing your whole worldview based on one thing. The writer bell hooks converted to Buddhism as a way to understand the suffering and discrimination in the world so that she might respond to it with love and compassion. While I have never been calm enough to practice meditation (I can’t even last one minute on those online meditation apps), it has always appealed to me for similar reasons. How do you find peace when there is not much hope around? Obviously, I don’t have the answer to that question, but it is something to strive for. It’s either that or just come to terms with the fact that humanity is not what it’s idealized to be. And on that happy note…

Quote of the week?

“For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?” — bell hooks

‘Til Tuesday! (But probably Wednesday…)

Burgin

(I’m finishing college at 50+, follow along and read my story here.)