New York Film Academy and Common People

Feeling a bit cranky on a spectacular spring Sunday, but that's what blogs are for, right, to vent when you feel a bit or more than a bit cranky. So, it seems like about 95 percent of the bus stop kiosks now are advertising the New York Film Academy where, to judge by the poster, the student body diversity runs the gamut from pale white all the way to light brown. This in the arguably most racially diverse city in the world. And in front of all the depicted crew, a white boy, hair tousled just so, the requisite amount of stubble on his chin, standing next to his cinematographer and squinting at the scene he is about to shoot. A scene, no doubt, of his life story because you can just tell by looking at him, that he is an auteur and like all white boys he has a story to tell. And you know what, having been a white boy myself and having recently conducted a scientific survey, 97.23 percent of those white boy stories are exactly the same.

And then there's Common People, a different story entirely, about which I may have written at some other point in the last four years or so, but worth another post even if I have. One of the finest poseur putdowns (see above para if in doubt about a poseur) ever that launches right from the start with "She came from Greece/She had a thirst for knowledge." Jarvis Cocker has never matched those five or so raucous minutes, but hey, he had them once.