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intrikate88I love Stephen Fry so bloody much that even though he doesn't like women and is at least double my age I still sometimes think he should marry me. Life would never get dull.
From his speech on America's Place in the World:
The entirety of the speech is somewhat more flattering, and has such brilliant observations of the paradoxes of America, of it being a hopeful, dreaming culture as well, so many things that I've thought before, but he puts so much better.
From his speech on America's Place in the World:
So let me look again at that holy text: ‘if life gives you lemons, make lemonade.’ Huh? But… but… Lemons are amongst the best and most wonderful gifts of nature. They are adaptable, versatile and delicious. A slice for your gin and tonic – juice to zing life into salads, stews, fish and seafood. Oil and sweetness from the rind and zest that is pure and perfumed and precious. They are a staple of what doctors agree is the best dietary regimen we can follow. So if life gives you lemons, shout ‘Thank you, Life, thank you!’ But the American response is ‘make lemonade’ in other words – just add sugar and sell it.
Add sugar and sell it. This can be translated across into culture, can it not? When life gives you folk literature, gothic fairy tales and myth, what does Disney do? Add sugar and sell it. When the body of world art and tradition gives you complexity, ambiguity and difficulty – add sugar. When news and events present obstacles, problems and conflict – add sugar. For America sugar is an unalloyed good in and of itself and as a metaphor, a symbol. It might seem that Americans have the taste buds and desires of children. We know this from their popular foodstuffs: melted cheese, fried chicken, milk-shakes, cookies, candy, fizzy sugared drinks, pappy hamburgers smothered in sugared sauce – even their so-called high-end coffee is flavoured with sweet vanilla, cinnamon or hazelnut. Adults are helped to stay childish though sport, games, gadgets, monster-trucks and escapist movies, cowboys, superheroes, comic book villains and thrilling science fiction.
Add sugar and sell it. This can be translated across into culture, can it not? When life gives you folk literature, gothic fairy tales and myth, what does Disney do? Add sugar and sell it. When the body of world art and tradition gives you complexity, ambiguity and difficulty – add sugar. When news and events present obstacles, problems and conflict – add sugar. For America sugar is an unalloyed good in and of itself and as a metaphor, a symbol. It might seem that Americans have the taste buds and desires of children. We know this from their popular foodstuffs: melted cheese, fried chicken, milk-shakes, cookies, candy, fizzy sugared drinks, pappy hamburgers smothered in sugared sauce – even their so-called high-end coffee is flavoured with sweet vanilla, cinnamon or hazelnut. Adults are helped to stay childish though sport, games, gadgets, monster-trucks and escapist movies, cowboys, superheroes, comic book villains and thrilling science fiction.
The entirety of the speech is somewhat more flattering, and has such brilliant observations of the paradoxes of America, of it being a hopeful, dreaming culture as well, so many things that I've thought before, but he puts so much better.
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Date: 2009-07-27 04:46 am (UTC)AND HOW IS IT THAT WE LIKE ALL THE SAME MUSIC. ♥
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Date: 2009-07-27 04:23 pm (UTC)Because clearly some accident happened, you are my alternate-universe self but you're from the universe where I became an engineering student. I knew it happened somewhere, this just clears it all up.