a five-letter word for awesome
"You've turned into one of the Ironic Gays," a certain friend told me yesterday.
We were at brunch at 202, a swanky shop/bistro inside Chelsea Market, seated almost within mimosa-spilling distance of the racks of clothes and baubles. The friend said he felt like we were eating at Anthropologie. The BF ordered the breakfast lasagna, which sounds like a contradiction in terms, but was delicious. I had pancakes with a blackberry compote. Our friend, apparently, had an order of sass with a side of wit. The usual.
Given our setting, I'm surprised he didn't call me one of the "Pretentious Gays," but no, the word was "Ironic" and he was sticking to it.
It was my Pride photo with Queer Duck that led to the label. "Your hair, those glasses, you're totally going for an Ironic Gay thing," my friend said. I'll confess, I don't see it. I was genuinely happy to find Queer Duck out and about — it's been a while. For once, I actually wasn't going for irony.
Or was I?
Have we reached a point where irony is such a given that any glimmer of genuine emotion still comes across as laden with sarcasm? Are we so steeped in the Seinfeld world view that we can no longer see past the rim of our own smug experience? If this is true, am I inadvertantly hilarious — or unintentionally tragic? Or both!
Despite the existential crisis, the BF and I took the friend's advice and went to see Wordplay that afternoon, a movie with moments tragic and ironic (and both!) but overall brilliant, a true feast for Word Nerds like myself. (The BF was bored; go figure.) It's a somewhat slow-moving documentary about the people who create The New York Times crossword and the obsessed contestants who compete each year to be the best puzzler in the nation. Comparisons to Best in Show might bubble up, but Wordplay works not by making fun of its oddball cast of misfits but by showing just how normal they are.
I was also wowed by the celebrity cameos: Bill Clinton? How cool is that? The Indigo Girls. Even Bob Dole. The only person who seemed to not fit was Jon Stewart, whose thorougly tongue-in-cheek take on crosswording felt somehow contrary to the gentle spirit of the film.
I actually got choked up a little near the end. While Shawn Colvin's acoustic cover of Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place" plays, the film rapidly pans through a handful of high-school yearbook moments captured at the annual crossword convention. It's a saccharine maneuver on the part of the filmmakers, but one that works.
After the movie was over, I put my Ironic Gay sunglasses back on and cooly exited the theater, eager to return to a veneer of superiority and affected detachment. Walking up 6th Avenue, I thought to myself, "Ah yes, this must be the place."
We were at brunch at 202, a swanky shop/bistro inside Chelsea Market, seated almost within mimosa-spilling distance of the racks of clothes and baubles. The friend said he felt like we were eating at Anthropologie. The BF ordered the breakfast lasagna, which sounds like a contradiction in terms, but was delicious. I had pancakes with a blackberry compote. Our friend, apparently, had an order of sass with a side of wit. The usual.
Given our setting, I'm surprised he didn't call me one of the "Pretentious Gays," but no, the word was "Ironic" and he was sticking to it.
It was my Pride photo with Queer Duck that led to the label. "Your hair, those glasses, you're totally going for an Ironic Gay thing," my friend said. I'll confess, I don't see it. I was genuinely happy to find Queer Duck out and about — it's been a while. For once, I actually wasn't going for irony.
Or was I?
Have we reached a point where irony is such a given that any glimmer of genuine emotion still comes across as laden with sarcasm? Are we so steeped in the Seinfeld world view that we can no longer see past the rim of our own smug experience? If this is true, am I inadvertantly hilarious — or unintentionally tragic? Or both!
Despite the existential crisis, the BF and I took the friend's advice and went to see Wordplay that afternoon, a movie with moments tragic and ironic (and both!) but overall brilliant, a true feast for Word Nerds like myself. (The BF was bored; go figure.) It's a somewhat slow-moving documentary about the people who create The New York Times crossword and the obsessed contestants who compete each year to be the best puzzler in the nation. Comparisons to Best in Show might bubble up, but Wordplay works not by making fun of its oddball cast of misfits but by showing just how normal they are. I was also wowed by the celebrity cameos: Bill Clinton? How cool is that? The Indigo Girls. Even Bob Dole. The only person who seemed to not fit was Jon Stewart, whose thorougly tongue-in-cheek take on crosswording felt somehow contrary to the gentle spirit of the film.
I actually got choked up a little near the end. While Shawn Colvin's acoustic cover of Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place" plays, the film rapidly pans through a handful of high-school yearbook moments captured at the annual crossword convention. It's a saccharine maneuver on the part of the filmmakers, but one that works.
After the movie was over, I put my Ironic Gay sunglasses back on and cooly exited the theater, eager to return to a veneer of superiority and affected detachment. Walking up 6th Avenue, I thought to myself, "Ah yes, this must be the place."
1 Comments:
Sharply urban, ironic gay? I suspect that would place me somewhere between Jethro Bodine and Jed Clampett on the gay side of things.
Sooo, how 'bout a game of Horseshoes? Or anything suitably bucolic. (rural ailment common to livestock and babies, seven letters).
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