History Repeats Its Beach

My life has more and more strange, scary coincidences. Sure, some are part of the all-encompassing confirmation bias, but some are just out there. Maybe in my search for meaning I get too hung up on serendipitous occurrences, or maybe I'm turning into the bimbo cliché of RomComs who thinks that "everything happens for.. increased productivity". And no, it’s not this beach.

Take, for instance, Ana Birchall. I had written about her long ago, when I was just starting this blog, because that scandal meant a big deal to many, and everything about it was wrong, from what caused it, to how it developed, to how others reacted, to how Ms Birchall was defending herself. Rather than questioning the relevance of that video and exposing the double standards in female vs male public personae expectations, she focused on proving it wasn’t her (or adding FUD to the mix). Writing about it was for me an attempt to make it better. So a few days ago, when I noticed that Google was sending me a spike in searches on her, I thought I write something new, in the hope that people will find something else interesting about her. I thought that the story of how we came within a few centimeters of each other, in a TSA line, without ever exchanging a word, was interesting, and yet everyone coming here is still looking for her videoclip. Well, at least I tried, and I managed to write it without writing another “how I met X” type of article.

Me so happy being pseudonymous.

Back when I first wrote about Ana Birchall I had started by mentioning another “celebrity”, Mihaela Radulescu, whom I had called Mrrr. And now it seems that after writing about Ana Birchall (mostly reacting to news), I discover that Mihaela Radulescu finds herself in the unflattering light of showbiz once again, after telling contestants on “Romanian Idol” (or something like that) to lose weight or else they won’t make it past her.

Now, Ms Radulescu is quite thin and maintains a good figure for the 60 years she’s pushing (I’m too lazy to look her up in Wikipedia for the exact age, but I don’t think I’m too far off the mark). The problem with her approach, apart from being unpopular (it seems as if very few people like her), is that it can turn against herself very quickly. After all, if we start excluding based on weight, why not exclude based on age as well? Sure, weight is far more within our control than age, and excessive weight is often an indicator of other issues more so than age, but in the end this is all about in-group vs out-group, about forming your own little clan and wielding that power to exclude or include others. Ms Radulescu is attempting to use this power while being herself in a rather peculiar position within it – she’s not as permanent nor as popular as she thinks she is, and excluding others will not get her closer to her goal.

But enough about old timers. I’ve discovered a while ago some young, fresh writer and find her writing delectable. I’ve even translated (sort of) one of her silly little masterpieces and she’s in my Feedly. Recently, she wrote about a dog, and that’s yet another aforementioned productivity-busting “coincidence” as this is one of the short stories I’m working on for some writing contest.

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Sources / More info: mrrr

Zamo, productivity, romance, writing (Tags)