Blogs to Riches

There's this new rags-to-riches fantasy permeating society. Rather than being discovered by Prince Charming and being perched into royalty or being discovered by a wealthy Jewish doctor and being lifted into temple-approved riches (or for the non-archaically gendered version of this, see: The American Dream), we can now be discovered by America by never leaving our houses, and then we can consequentially become legitimate, respected artists. Or at least [book-bound, sold-in-Borders] published writers. No agent or self-marketing required.

Unsuprisingly, my textbook example of this is Diablo Cody.

And a few days ago Christian Lander, the writer behind Stuff White People Like -- the blog I have been insatiably devouring for the last month -- just got a book deal with Random House.

Another case of democratized fame inching us closer and closer to social homeostasis. At least among the sect of "the right kind of White People."

Please click for the [cynically-inclined] timeline of events.

Monkey House Wisdom from Timothy Gunn

I was just re-watching last week’s episode of Project Runway – honestly out of boredom, not as a pre-gamer – however, I am certainly glad I did, because if I didn’t I may not have opened myself up to a 3 minute life pondering session courtesy of the bottomless wisdom residing in Tim Gunn’s brainsoul.

It went like this. So Chris March (the huggable and always good-spirited designer with a knack for ostentatious drag) is showing Tim his collection that he has accentuated with human hair. Tim is horrified. Chris says he loves it. In order for Tim to convey the negative shock value that this hair will elicit, he shares this analogy:

“I have this refrain about the monkey house at the zoo. When you first enter into the monkey house at the zoo, you think, ‘Oh my god this place stinks!’ And then after you’re there for 20 minutes you think, ‘it’s not so bad’ and after you’re there for an hour it doesn’t smell at all. And anyone entering the monkey house freshly thinks, ‘this stinks!’ You've been living in the monkey house.”

This little ditty can apply to anyyything. Feeling complacent with an unappealing job, relationship, life choice that we initially knew was against our best judgment, but we became accustomed to and comfortable in anyway.

Though when it comes down to it, the human hair looks pretty cool…especially the skirt version. Very modern flapper-esque. So on the flip side, perhaps sometimes we need to become desensitized to the immediate discomforts before we can open ourselves to gems that hide within. And perhaps they are gems we never sought out to gain. They just collide with our lives. Organically. In the monkey house. So sometimes it’s good not to let a little stench turn you away.

Monkey House: friend or foe? Circumstantial!