Word: ennui
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Whatever is behind female bingeing--conformity, crypto-feminism, ennui--it's hardly a feminist act. Gender equality wouldn't be worth fighting for if all it meant was the opportunity to be as stupid and self-destructive as men can be. Not that 21st century feminism is likely to revert to 19th century prohibitionism. Women no longer seek to eliminate all the dangerous and exciting things that men have historically tried to keep for themselves. But they need to appropriate alcohol on their own terms and with their own biochemistry in mind--weighing the harms and the benefits, and then...
...strange and distant culture, whose graceful decadence initially seems light-years away from the haste and thirst for progress of modern Japan. But 21st century Japan shares the same sense of fecund decay as Genji's Heian period?in both eras, society has become complex, gaudy but, finally, ennui-inducing. Now, as then, it is more rewarding to scrutinize the smallest signs of every human interaction rather than engage in the tawdry world outside the concubine's boudoir?or love hotel's rumpus room...
...prosaic in the extreme, filled with hearty Aussie backpackers, haughty French, outwardly friendly but inscrutable native guides, beachside bars in Cambodia, beachside bars in Thailand, etc. Although Tansy enjoys it, the strongest sensation the reader is likely to get from her trip is the been there, done that ennui pervading the backpacking scene...
...latter include the somber and acerbic hymn of hate to the boredom French lefty intellectuals always attribute to respectable middle-class life, Sunday, 1888-1890. (Does the worthy proletariat ever suffer from ennui? Apparently not.) Nothing is happening. A young husband in a stiff jacket and striped pants is poking the fireplace in a desultory way. His wife stares out the window, her back to us. The folds and pleats of her costume, intensely formal, suggest a caryatid--but a caryatid with nothing at all to support and nothing whatever to do. An equally bored-looking cat, if cats...
...plays a cartoon on your computer. Well, forget the 'toon and listen to the tunes, for this is the most imaginative pop record of the year. Nakamura's beats are wonderfully atmospheric and danceable; Del Tha Funky Homosapien's playful rhymes are the perfect foil to Albarn's ennui-filled vocals, and Weymouth's giant bass whomps away throughout...