New York and Paris

New York magazine has an interesting piece by Kurt Andersen predicting the possible denouement of our society's fixation with celebrities.

Like other American social tides, the fascination with celebrities has been cyclical, and after several decades of rising (as it also did from the twenties through the forties), perhaps it will now (as in the sixties) ebb. However, one difference this time is the fractured nature of mass culture: Because Americans no longer all watch the same TV shows and listen to the same music, they may feel a more desperate need to immerse themselves in the private lives of a few,almost arbitrary pseudo-superstars (Jessica Simpson?) to feel the glamour by stalking the performers, since the performances don't matter so much anymore.

And how about this little known fact (at least by me):

Nicky Hilton, the great-uncle of Paris (and namesake of her sister), dated Mamie Van Doren, Natalie Wood, and Joan Collins, and married Elizabeth Taylor. By the time he died druggily in 1969, however, the public couldn't have cared less, and the celebrity media that had made him briefly famous were dead or dying as well. So perhaps we won't always have Paris.

One can only hope.

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