The Zeitgeist

       

George Peppard kissing Audrey Hepburn in BatTiff; Edwards Maya's new CD cover, Avril Lavigne and the cover for "A Country of Vast Designs."

Dating In The Big Town, Part II

Back for more of my ruminations about dating post-40 in The Big Apple: Best way to describe the situation? How about “Six Degrees of Desperation?” There is an enormity of disappointment, heartache and loneliness out there among New York singles of a certain age. A calcification of the heart so constricting and blocking of daylight that it’s amazing these people manage to function altogether. This is reflected in the near total eclipse of the hearts of so many men and women I meet these days. Masses of them don’t believe in love. Many don’t think they’ll ever achieve what they dream of while at the same time doing everything in their power to sabotage attainment of those dreams.

I’ve had an acquaintance actually “de-friend” me from Facebook for my temerity in disagreeing with her rantingly cynical wall posts disparaging the reality of love and happy marriage. Seriously. Because so many people have been alone for so long and have been so often disappointed or heartbroken they’ve erected sarcastic and bitter defenses on letting anyone in. Because they don’t want to be hurt and disappointed again, they choose not to take risks for love again. It’s an amazing accomplishment, particularly in Manhattan to get beyond a third date with anyone – because after that third date they’ve run out of the carefully constructed scripts they’ve crafted for themselves that they put on autopilot especially during the first two dates. Going to four or more means they might actually have to come up with new stuff or let their guards down and drop their poses, which opens them up to risk of heartache.

This cynicism is manifested by extreme pickiness. They have lists, big lists. Within the lists they have sub micro-lists, mini-lists and nano-lists. If you can break through half the list there is an automatic program that churns out more objections to refill the lists. There is also a bleakness of spirit which really is a numbness to feeling and emotion. It’s as though for many, their lives are really all about going to work, buying things, eating and going places. Consumer Lemmings who’ve become Vulcans – self-contained, devoid of emotion and feeling. As some people have experienced more than 20 years of hurts, any possible slight or failure by a prospective suitor to live up to an unattainable idealized Hollywood romantic ideal is immediately shot down with digital precision. The result of which is putting themselves right back on the hyper-dating merry-go-round instead of making a commitment to anyone or anything lasting.

To quote Gwyneth Paltrow in her new film “Country Strong,” "Don't be afraid to fall in love again, its the most important thing in life." Doesn't mean you can't be happy unmarried but being alone and fahrbisseneh for the next 40+ years is equally sad and also empowers whoever burned these people so badly to keep burning them over and over again. There is little to no self-awareness that by their hyper-pickiness and unrealizable fantasies that they are imprisoning themselves in their gilded birdcages (condos) and sentencing themselves to a life of eternal dating misery with no real emotional intimacy. There are a lot of people in New York who will never, ever, have children. And this is a tragedy. There is a prescription for unbinding one’s heart, and it was written by the late Truman Capote and articulated magnificently by George Peppard in his closing speech to Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” (See embedded video below, worth a few minutes). The joke of it all is that I’ve just come off an awesome heartbreak (divorce) and I’m not down on love, life, relationships, romance and marriage. It’s just that I’m Captain Kirk surrounded in a starship crewed mostly by Vulcans. Scotty, beam me out of here!

New in Culture

Edward Maya and Vika Jigulina, composers and crooners of the monster hit “Stereo Love” (more than 90 million hits on YouTube) have a new one out (only 275,000 hits so far) called “Desert Rain.” A worthy follow-up to their giant hit of the past two years. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY49R8nz01Q. This is what you would call “World Music” in that it’s not identifiable as coming from any one particular place and is not culturally specific to one either, but great beat and lyrics. Also new in music, the ubiquitous Avril Lavigne (pronounced like “Levine” – no, she’s not Jewish…!) who has gone Platinum many, many times has a great new song out called “What The Hell.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFIqdm75pw. This live video comes from this year’s Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve show, introduced by Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas. This is from just this past week. Very fresh. Great girl-rock. Not dance music. “All my life I’ve been good but all I want is to mess around…What the hell.” Speaking of messing around, the late Ray Charles did this really well back in the day with “The Mess Around.” Catch this live video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TgxQg3Z818.

Book ‘em, Danno

Robert W. Merry spent a dozen years as editor of the Congressional Quarterly. He’s also written a bunch of solid histories. Last year he came out with “A Country of Vast Designs, James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent.” Polk was president from 1844-48 and oversaw the Union’s acquisition of the states of Texas, New Mexico and California, all wrested from Mexico in a war that saw U.S. Grant, Robert E. Lee and William Tecumseh Sherman all fighting together on the same side and Oregon and Washington pried away from the British without firing a shot. Perhaps bigger in scope than Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase. This is a brilliantly written biography of one of America’s most underrated presidents. He was a Democrat at a time when the Democrats were anti-tax and anti-big government if you can imagine such a thing. A one-term president by choice, he died at 53 shortly after leaving office as a result of the stress and abuse of the job and the terrible political polarization in Congress and Washington that took it’s toll. Merry quotes extensively from Polk’s own diaries and from the newspapers and Congressional Record of the day. If you think Washington is a swamp today, just check out the mid 19^th Century. It was probably worse. Great book.