Friday, June 13, 2008

Tangent within a Tangent

Update on the Kosinski Trial via comments board and a handful of emails:
Turns out those porn pics were his son, Yale's, and that they were probably on the family server because of some viral email. In other words the pics were not sought out by Yale, or for that matter, his father. The real crime might be that his son's name is Yale. And not because it's a "funny" name of course; but because it's a brand name.

Speaking of which, did everyone pick up the same issue of Dwell magazine one day, decide they wanted to be bougie cunts, and name their kids Jayden? I've heard no fewer than three references to the name this week, including mention of the name in Los Angeles (I thought maybe it was a Park Slope thing). Again, I don't object to the "funny" names. Names that include anything uneuropean or afro-american. In fact in a perfect world, all the Jason Kim's in the world could go back to being Kyoung-ju, and KJ (as in KJ Choi, as in The Monster) doesn't have to be the sixth rank golfer of the world and be apologetic when people fuck up pronunciation of his decidedly pronouncable name.

Though in what I think is one of the most tragic ironies of adolescent America, I was at a high school band concert recently, where a Chinese-American girl with a "funny" name was called out in recognition of "high achievement" at the flute or somesuch, when a couple black kids with "funny" names started mocking her with the whole ching chong ching chong routine.

Anyway, the point of all this, which is now completely unrelated, is that I've got a short mouth-off in PW this week, about medical manga, if you're interested in what I complain about when I'm not "personally offended by broad social trends." (One of my favorite lines from a Simpsons episode that aired last night.)

No comments: