#910 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Monday April 29)
Good morning,
A potpourri this morning:
WORD OF THE YEAR—RIZZ
I’m still reeling over the Oxford English Dictionary’s terrible decision for the 2023 “Word of the Year.” The winner has left the Boomers and Millennials in the dust, as it’s a word attributed to GenZ (born 1997 through 2012). The word is “rizz,” apparently derivative of “charisma.” It is defined as “style, charm or attractiveness” or “the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner.”
It’s not like the rest of the list was much better, as “rizz” beat out “situationship,” “de-influencing” and “swiftie.” Good lord, it feels as if the language has been taken hostage by tenth grade English class dropouts!
Another loser, which I thought was more clever than these others (but which I also hadn’t heard before reading the list), was “beige flag,” meaning a person’s intimate partner is boring.
Perhaps I’m out of touch, but I just don’t think “rizz” (or any of these others) will stand the test of time…
DATES THAT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY
I’ve been thinking about dates that forever will be etched in the memory of those who lived through them. I’m excluding news that is in the “ordinary course,” notwithstanding the devastating impact of that news (e.g., the election of Donald Trump, the Iran Hostage Crisis, or, for Notre Dame fans, the 55-24 drubbing at the hands of USC in 1974). Here is an initial list:
12/7/41
11/22/63
9/11/01
1/6/21
10/7/23
Some events are no less critical or infamous, but the actual date is unknown, or the events unfolded over the course of several days: the Rodney King incident and the riots that followed, the Northridge Earthquake, the Challenger disaster, Vietnam airlift, and the Munich Olympics massacre come to mind.
THE NEW MET EUROPEAN COLLECTION
In a great review of the Metropolitan Art Museum’s reopening and redeployment, Jason Farago, of the New York Times, notes that no museum is effectively visited if one is trying to see too much. I agree with this philosophy. Better to pick out a few exhibits you’re interested in or several paintings you’ve singled out. Farago suggests six portraits, His final observation is really a wonderful pearl of wisdom:
“With some 700 pictures, it may be hard to know where to start. My suggestion is to zero in on six faces here: male and female, human and divine, European and otherwise. The face is the central focus of Western painting, and its central challenge…Put these six together, stare into their 12 eyes, and you can just about map the European cultural enterprise that has become a global inheritance.”
We all should value the expansion and updating of museums whose goal is to share this valuable global inheritance with us and with our children.
BERNSTEIN, REDUX
Bradley Tabach-Bank reminds me that in my Musing about Leonard Bernstein, I neglected to mention one of his greatest compositions—West Side Story. This was a brilliant collaboration with Stephen Sondheim, certainly the greatest composer and lyricist of his generation. Here’s a taste, a trailer for the movie, from 1961, with that early-60s aesthetic!:
MUSICAL TASTE AND PLAYLISTS
People say my musical taste is weird. I think it’s just eclectic. In support of that notion, here the random “shuffle” played from my saved music: It began with “Love Will Save Your Soul,” by Grouplove, followed by “The Little Things We Do Together,” from the musical Company, “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” sung by Barbra Streisand, “Aqualung,” by Jethro Tull, and the Overture from Candide.
Have a great day,
Glenn