A tradition for me over the course of the past ten years has been to send out an annual email to friends and colleagues filled with shtick meant to summarize the year in the rear-view mirror. I've held back the personal sections in what follows below. But this is otherwise what spilled out in my 10th Annual YearEnder. I hope you enjoy it.
Read MoreTwo Slice Santorum's Secret Ingredient
Of all the things I'm looking into, I've spent a considerable amount of time searching for connections between rural and urban America. The gap might be growing between the two. Still, I honestly don't see outright hostility across that divide. While doing research for this book, I spend time in both "places" - asking people questions that sometimes reflect upon separate states of mind. For those reading closely, you saw that I spent a few days last week in a mostly progressive and fascinating enclave within a sprawling urban landscape - I'm winking at you West Hollywood. A few weeks prior to that, I logged 1800 miles crisscrossing three states in the upper Midwest. I talk with liberals. I talk with conservatives. I've got an angle - we all do - and it comes from questions I have about a very particular snippet of America that I see having connections all across the map.
Now this will sound like a stretch, but I'm led at this moment to think about Rick Santorum and where he resides in the America I'm exploring. You've probably heard some form of his most recent punching bag quotes, loosely paraphrased as "Obama wants everyone to go to college - what a snob" and "JFK's claim that church and state should be separate made me throw up." There are so many others, all of which I can guarantee you based on real experience are percolating in the opposition research archives of countless young politicos, reporters and satirists waiting to make the next "Aha!" point to help their particular aim. The easy and gratifying money is to bet on what Santorum will next come out against (how about refrigerators - "America was a much better place when we just got huge chunks of ice delivered - daily"). My point isn't that his hyperbolic, dated character is on par with Bryce Dallas Howard (Hilly) from the movie version of "The Help". Although if he keeps this up, all of America may soon be leaving toilets on his lawn (read the book and/or see the movie if you miss the reference). No, I'm saying that what's being seen in Santorum's language is a matter of creating an American separation that just doesn't exist anywhere but in the mind of a few dispirited outliers. Maybe he'll do the one thing that no one else in America seems capable of doing - getting people to finally pull the lever for Bob Dole, er...Mitt Romney (although the strong possibility of Democrats crossing over during the open primary in Michigan to vote for Santorum makes too much disruptive and predictive sense to me). Still, wherever you reside in this America - urban or rural, current or past, happy or angry - this sort of separate but equal revisionism just doesn't reflect anything I've seen out there. Call me an optimist. Or a snob - I don't mind.
Sorry - just had to get that off my chest.
Now this will sound like a stretch, but I'm led at this moment to think about Rick Santorum and where he resides in the America I'm exploring. You've probably heard some form of his most recent punching bag quotes, loosely paraphrased as "Obama wants everyone to go to college - what a snob" and "JFK's claim that church and state should be separate made me throw up." There are so many others, all of which I can guarantee you based on real experience are percolating in the opposition research archives of countless young politicos, reporters and satirists waiting to make the next "Aha!" point to help their particular aim. The easy and gratifying money is to bet on what Santorum will next come out against (how about refrigerators - "America was a much better place when we just got huge chunks of ice delivered - daily"). My point isn't that his hyperbolic, dated character is on par with Bryce Dallas Howard (Hilly) from the movie version of "The Help". Although if he keeps this up, all of America may soon be leaving toilets on his lawn (read the book and/or see the movie if you miss the reference). No, I'm saying that what's being seen in Santorum's language is a matter of creating an American separation that just doesn't exist anywhere but in the mind of a few dispirited outliers. Maybe he'll do the one thing that no one else in America seems capable of doing - getting people to finally pull the lever for Bob Dole, er...Mitt Romney (although the strong possibility of Democrats crossing over during the open primary in Michigan to vote for Santorum makes too much disruptive and predictive sense to me). Still, wherever you reside in this America - urban or rural, current or past, happy or angry - this sort of separate but equal revisionism just doesn't reflect anything I've seen out there. Call me an optimist. Or a snob - I don't mind.
Sorry - just had to get that off my chest.
Reading fashion's tea leaves...me stupefied
As NYC's Fall Fashion Week draws to a close, what did I learn? Not much. I'd compare it to speed shopping for snowmobiles to take back home to the family's date plantation in Dubai. Obviously, there's an unbridged gap between the description of what's being shown on the runways and what can be learned by the uninitiated. Maybe I should have spent more time watching "Project Runway". Or any time, really. Maybe I should have learned to sew so I could dissect just how much artistry goes into the construction of clothes. Sadly, the solitary, mandatory "home ec" class I endured in 8th Grade slipped away like an unsecured knot of invisible thread. Still, I looked for themes - things that might seem to carry through from designer to designer. One thing I thought I was seeing was a strong Chinese theme - Jason Wu's buzz thanks to his Michelle Obama connection at least echoed a bit in what I perused early on. But then I realized I was probably only channeling the single actual live fashion show I saw when I'd traveled to Beijing last September. No, I'm not able to take that leap of pretension into "trend forecasting". Although that term - "trend forecasting" and the concept that some people make their bones doing so - did get me thinking. In that pursuit, looking at fashion is no different than obsessing over any public art form. Yes - I said it. Fashion is, quite surely, art. From that admission, however, the concept crosses over for me into a vast, shared space with all the other forms of discourse and commerce. If you'll indulge me - in this way of thinking...fashion is literature is the Westminster Dog Show is political horse-race handicapping. Because for every person who is deep in the process of doing the job, there are countless minions of others dissecting and trying to "trend forecast" what is being created or shown or discussed. And like that vast majority of other forecasters, I can no more say what trend will move from the runway to the Street than why a flouncy little Pekingese could ever beat a Dalmatian or an Irish Setter. Or why Rick Santorum in a sweater vest makes any more sense than Mitt Romney in a tattersall shirt. In other words, I'm done reading fashion's tea leaves. At least until I learn to securely anchor some of those buttons I'm currently missing.