By the way, I have contributed to/started enough serious discussions here -- it's weird when I mention something like Paris Hilton, some people get upset. I should be able to splurge. The list says that the "merely cultural" is fair game. Then again, Hilton's appearance on Letterman reminding someone of "the epistle to Arbuthnot" -- wow.
The PoMo fixation on Madonna was interesting, but from a cultural standpoint, I find the Paris Hilton phenomenon much more interesting. Like I said, a meta-celebrity -- famous for being famous. Everyone thinks she's a joke -- yet she continues on, a porn actress who's been caught on camera using the n-word, using drugs, gone to jail -- brazenly unimpeded by public opinion and acting like anyone who wants to talk about that stuff is rude to her. Maybe the most extreme example of the post-irony era celebrity ever.
-B.
Michael Smith wrote:
"I wouldn't have thought that anything could possibly make me feel any sympathy for Paris Hilton -- nor would I have thought that anything could make me like David Letterman less. But Letterman has achieved it -- inviting a mental defective onto his show and then sandbagging her."