So-and-So was just named new head coach of the state's most prominent team.
Who?
So-and-So is leaving. It's his last day at work.
Who?
So-and-So was just named to the (whatever) Hall of Fame.
Who?
So-and-So passed away.
Excuse me, who?
Is it just that the older one gets, the more people one hasn't heard of? Or is it a case of staying too much in one's own invisible plastic bubble while the world passes one by? That's what I wonder when hearing for the first time of somebody I feel I "should" have known about.
A case in point occurred the other day when the new Arkansas Razorbacks football coach was named. "Who?" I wondered while everyone else was tweeting and verbalizing their approval.
True, I'm not exactly a big-time sports aficionado. But this happens with things other than sports. Yeah, it's happened in the case of departing co-workers. And, less ignominiously, the case of celebrities. Most younger showbiz people whose names ring a bell, I've heard of mainly because they're outrageous enough to dominate the news mercilessly. Or — on a bit of a somber note — I hear about them only when they die untimely deaths. Sorry, Nipsey Hussle.
But perhaps even more numerous than the "Who?" questions are those "What?" questions. This being Christmas, I must mention the European Christmastime folklore "What?" that I hadn't heard of until a few years ago ... Krampus, the half-goat, half-demon creature and St. Nick antithesis who punishes children who have misbehaved. That wasn't just a "What?" That was a "Say whuuuut?"
I most often react with "What?" when Big Movie Award nominees are named.
The Oscars, for instance, are always ripe with movies unknown to me before they were nominated. The 2019 Oscar nominees (in various categories) probably included the most movies I was familiar with at the time of their nomination, including Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody, RBG, A Star Is Born and Best Picture winner Green Book. I've seen two and a half of the 2019 nominees. A close second would be the 2017 nominees, of which I'd heard maybe a handful and a half including Arrival, Fences, Hidden Figures, Moonlight and Suicide Squad. I've now seen a whopping four of these movies and, well, understood two.
Other years? Not so much. Take the 2018 nominees. Um, there was that year's Best Picture, The Shape of Water. About a woman who can't talk who falls for a captive, water-dwelling alien dude — who, thanks reportedly to the director's being inspired — looks like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, two-thousand-teens-style. Didn't hear of it until the Oscar buzz. I had heard of Get Out, I, Tonya, Coco and the redo of Blade Runner, but of all these, I've seen nada. Speaking of movies I've missed, I didn't hasten to see the 2015, definitely non-Oscar nominated movie Krampus, which hipped me to the folklore.
Now the 2020 Golden Globe nominations are out, and most of them are drawing "Whos?" and "Whats?" ... especially among the TV shows, which have become a bewildering mix of largely made-for-cable and made-for-streaming-services shows.
At least I've heard of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which has a G.G. nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series — Musical or Comedy. (Other nominees in this category include shows with such delightfully appealing-sounding titles as Dead to Me and Fleabag.) And I'd heard of the recently ended Game of Thrones, which reached beyond the grave, so to speak, to garner actor Kit Harington a nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series — Drama.
Per the movie nominations: I pride myself on having heard of Rocketman, Dolemite Is My Name and Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood again, none of which I've seen. Per the "Who?" question when it comes to the nominated movie stars: I suspect that the only reason I'm so familiar with those nominated for the categories of Best Actor/Actress in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture, is because just about all of them — Kathy Bates, Tom Hanks, Laura Dern, Anthony Hopkins, Annette Bening, Al Pacino, etc. — are 50-plus.
I suppose I shouldn't feel so self-conscious. One of the best parts of life is the continuing education it offers. It doesn't hurt to embrace the role of lifetime student.
But that Krampus mess, though ...
What? Email. Who? The Talkmistress, at:
hwilliams@arkansasonline.com
Style on 12/15/2019