Lost in a Disco Age Time Bubble

The other day I was driving on Hawthorne Blvd. in Torrance when I spotted a middle-aged woman with platinum hair and dangling earrings and other gaudy jewelry driving a gray Infiniti G35 coupe. Her lips were tightly pursed and her jaw jutted forward. There was something humorless  and self-important about her demeanor. Her license plate had a gauche gold frame and displayed the following words along the license plate's margins:

If U Can Catch Me, Can U Handle Me?

This is not a remarkable or witty expression by any means, but was remarkable to me is how passe this display of self-aggrandizement is. I had thought that such earnest, non-ironic braggadocio had died during the Disco Age. In fact, it is my belief that this woman's hey day was the Disco Era and that unwilling to move beyond that period she had willingly stayed inside a Time Bubble. 

Comments

[Ed S.]

I've started reading "Traffic"...did you read it? It explains some aspects of people like this woman It makes a lot of sense in the anonymous car-culture of LA... You really have to be obvious and garish to establish any "identity" around here....

[Ed S.]

In my hometown, there was a young lady who drove a sports car with the legend, "If You Beat Me You Can Eat Me" or at least that is the urban legend I remember.

[jeffrey McMahon]

Any woman with such a legend is unstable and probably on medication. In other words, she is more trouble than she's worth.

I quit reading traffic in spite of the author's intelligence, acumen, insight, and enthusiasm.

I could have read an essay on the topic but his book seem padded and he seemed in love with seeing his words in print rather than write a book born of necessity.

His voice seemed a weak, contrived imitation of Malcolm Gladwell, author of the Tipping Point and that annoyed me.

Amazon sends me free books to review and I'm now reading David Carr's memoir, The Night of the Gun. Very good but should have been edited down a 100 pages. Oh well.

[Ed S.]

Speaking of Malcolm Gladwell, I hear he has a new book coming out before year's end (timed for Xmas gifting?..Nahh!).

[Ed S.]

Speaking of "Traffic"--just driving my smartcar has made me known around here as "the weird guy in the weird little car"....

[jeffrey McMahon]

Your Smart car is already being imitated by several car makers, in some form of tiny car or other, and soon your car will be ever so normal.

I like Gladwell. I wonder what subject he's tackling this time.

[Wals]

Saw the "Last days of Disco" the other night. Not bad, with some good young actors and crisp dialogue.

[jeffrey McMahon]

I believe The Last Days of Disco was directed by the same person who directed one of my favorite films, simply titled Safe, about an upper class bored housewife who becomes a hypochondriac.