Althouse: "This beauty, this icon! I'm so so happy I met her!!!! We spoke about our amazing Armenian journeys!"

May 10, 2015

"This beauty, this icon! I'm so so happy I met her!!!! We spoke about our amazing Armenian journeys!"

In case you're wondering what happened when Kim Kardashian met Cher: They talked about their amazing Armenian journeys!

In case you are wondering why I ended up there — at Cosmopolitan — this morning, it was a journey. Not an amazing journey, and certainly not an Armenian journey, but a journey nonetheless.

I was going through my email and saw another ad for one of these fashion catalog companies and I contemplated blogging something that I've been trying to figure out how to articulate, something about the radical difference between catalog models and runway models. Runway models look fierce, mean, contemptuous, ready for some nonexistent battle. These clothes are not for you. And I am not for you. Peasant! Something like that. By contrast, catalog models look bizarrely weak, as if they are swaying in the wind or about to fall over. They look sleepy and dreamy and so damned accessible I'd fear for their safety if they lived in reality.

I was distracted by the expression on one model's face. She's trying to smize. Remember smizing? It used to seem important to figure out how to get your eyes into the smiling shape without having your mouth smile. Nobody talks about smizing anymore. Or do they? That would be bloggable — if the expression that peaked in public consciousness around 2009 has faded utterly away. But it hasn't faded utterly away, because I found it in Cosmopolitian, which was trying to be cute and flippant. Blecch. Not bloggable.

And yet, I had found something that broke the bloggability barrier for me: the claim that Cher had deigned to share "amazing Armenian journeys!" with Kim Kardashian.

By the way, that phrase "Amazing Journey"... that's something from somewhere. Another non-amazing journey into Google immediately delivers the answer. It's one of the tracks on The Who's "Tommy": "Deaf, dumb and blind boy/He's in a quiet vibration land/Ten years old/With thoughts as bold/As thought can be/Loving life and becoming wise/In simplicity/Sickness can surely take the mind/Where minds can't usually go/Come on the amazing journey/And learn all you should know...."

"Journey" is a much-overused, trite word. (And that was already so back in 1973 when former members of Santana and Frumious Bandersnatch formed the band named Journey.) It's used to bullshit about one's personal narrative over the course of a lifetime, but the original meaning of the word "journey" is one day or one day's travel. (See the French word "jour" (day).) There's no way to return to that meaning. "Journey" has made a long journey from that literal place. But I'd be able to like it if it meant that. I'm oriented to living in the day, day by day. It's an orientation that blogging indulges.

45 comments:

Meade said...: Just a small town girl
Livin' in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin' to Armenia; 5/10/15, 9:31 AM
Sebastian said...: Yes, we need closure on the use of journey.; 5/10/15, 9:39 AM
robother said...: Or, as our modern day Napoleon in rags might say, "Le Journee, le journée, toujours le journée!"; 5/10/15, 9:43 AM
Original Mike said...: Now, here's a journey. 182 of Kim Kardashian's Greatest Outfits; 5/10/15, 9:43 AM
Wince said...: Althouse: "Runway models look fierce, mean, contemptuous, ready for some nonexistent battle. These clothes are not for you. And I am not for you. Peasant!"

Handsome Boy Modeling School:

Interesting. Well Sapphire, Sparkles, all of you. This next week will be full of a lot of pain and a lot of sweat, it won't be easy. Some of you won't make it. Those of you who do may achieve the ultimate pinnacle of this glorious occupation--a runway show at a local department store. God how I pray that you all have that experience just once in your life. And now, gentlemen, let's make models...

The attitude is like saying "Scum. You're all scum. I'm better. You're all scum."; 5/10/15, 9:53 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Coupe, I had to delete that. Please try again, without that word.; 5/10/15, 9:56 AM
Chris N said...: This posting lacks panache.

Acceptable levels of vim, though, so, looking good there.

Meade: that's a midnight train 'goin' to 'Yerevan.'; 5/10/15, 10:03 AM
Sam L. said...: I do not recall hearing of smizing.
A circle through or near which I have never walked.; 5/10/15, 10:06 AM
Sydney said...: I believe both Cher and Kim Kardashian were born in the United States. What kind of an Armenian journey could they possibly have had?; 5/10/15, 10:12 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: I once had sex with an Armenian girl. Wasn't much of a 'journey' though: just from Appleby's after she got off work, to her apartment. Same neighborhood, even.

Even though we had sex with her wearing a Cheerleader outfit I don't think you can extrapolate that all Armenian Girls like to have sex in a Cheerleader outfit. Not enough data.

I WILL extrapolate and say that, when talking to a cheerful woman, you can make the comment "You are so full of life -- I bet you were a Cheerleader in high school" and occasionally the woman WILL have indeed been a Cheerleader. If you ask enough women.

This is also not to say that the women who work at Appleby's are more apt to have been Cheerleaders, but it does get more positive hits than, say, Outback Steakhouse. In my experience.

I hope this helps.

I am Laslo.; 5/10/15, 10:13 AM
Roughcoat said...: I'm oriented to living in the day, day by day.

Wow. Thats's so groovy.; 5/10/15, 10:19 AM
buwaya said...: I've known quite a few Armenians. They are either a subculture of international merchants and traders, like some other ethnic groups. Or are immigrants from the small villages of Armenia proper, of which so many have settled in California. If so, these ladies are thoroughly deracinated.
They certainly haven't behaved according to their community standards.; 5/10/15, 10:51 AM
Stephen A. Meigs said...: There's always a kind of trade off between greater certainty in making present decisions and greater future wisdom. In trying to be wise, knowledgeable, invulnerable, etc., one (tacitly or otherwise) presumably decides on a time in the future at which you're trying to be most wise, knowledgeable, etc.; 5/10/15, 10:53 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: "... living in the day, day by day." ": How "Godspell."

I am Laslo.; 5/10/15, 11:15 AM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: I'd gotten "Amazing Journey" confused with "The Incredible Journey," which was a book about two dogs and a Siamese cat chasing their human family across I forget how many hundred miles.; 5/10/15, 11:19 AM
William said...: I've only known one Armenian girl. She was first generation. I didn't notice anything especially different about her until I asked her about her feelings for the Turks. She really lit up and became vivid with hatred and rage. It was a Hulk like transformation......The fault lines in American society are cracks in the pavement compared to the jagged tectonic plates that underlie other societies......I remember when Cher was Indian.; 5/10/15, 11:28 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: Kim Kardashian made a Sex Tape. Kim Kardashian is Armenian. Cher is Armenian. Sonny Bono skiied into a Tree.

I am not sure if the Armenian Community has a Statement about this.

I am Laslo.; 5/10/15, 11:29 AM
William said...: I remember when Indians referred to native Americans and not Asians.; 5/10/15, 11:30 AM
buwaya said...: Sonny Bono was Italian.; 5/10/15, 11:42 AM
Titus said...: I have done a few Armenians. They were hot.

tits.; 5/10/15, 11:50 AM
FullMoon said...: Ann Althouse said... [hush][hide comment]

Coupe, I had to delete that. Please try again, without that word.

Pretty sure I have seen every offensive word possible in the comments over the years, Including Louis C.K. imaginative "jokes" about a Chinese family living within Sarah Palins' body.

Not to mention some rather colorful and imaginative phrases.

Sure would like to know which particular word is powerful enough to be warrent deletion.; 5/10/15, 11:52 AM
YoungHegelian said...: Andrea Martin is another Armenian. She was on some talk show years ago talking about her trip to Armenia to discover her roots, and the host just wasn't too interested.

Clearly, she used some of her Armenian family stories for skits like this one.; 5/10/15, 12:03 PM
Patrick said...: We are left to speculate, FM. Perhaps it's less the word than its context. Just a guess.; 5/10/15, 12:04 PM
Etienne said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/10/15, 12:16 PM
lemondog said...: Both are ethnical mixed. And as 2nd, 3rd, or 4th generation Armenian, chances are great that unless in contact with newly arriving Armenians, are far removed from the immigrant experience or Armenian traditions.; 5/10/15, 12:29 PM
Will Cate said...: "Amazing Journey" (and "Sparks," the instrumental which accompanies it on Tommy) is one my very favorite pieces of music by The Who.

I have never in my life heard the term "smize."; 5/10/15, 12:34 PM
Jason said...: In the future, everyone will do lines of coke off an Armenian hooker's ass in the back room of a dive bar in Riga to Klaus Harmonie music playing over a vacuum tube PA for fifteen minutes.

Or was that just me?; 5/10/15, 12:40 PM
lemondog said...: ethnical=ethnically; 5/10/15, 1:24 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Sure would like to know which particular word is powerful enough to be warrent deletion."

Assume there is exactly one word that gets your comment deleted around here. There. You know the word.; 5/10/15, 3:11 PM
Jason said...: "Winebox."; 5/10/15, 3:20 PM
Michael McNeil said...: My favorite “journey” book as a youth was anthropologist Loren Eiseley's The Immense Journey (1957):

“If dead matter has reared up this curious landscape of fiddling crickets, song sparrows, and wondering men, it must be plain even to the most devoted materialist that the matter of which he speaks contains amazing, if not dreadful powers, and may not impossibly be, as Hardy has suggested, but one mask of many worn by the Great Face behind.”

“Life, even cellular life, may exist out yonder in the dark. But high or low in nature, it will not wear the shape of man. That shape is the evolutionary product of a strange, long wandering through the attics of the forest roof, and so great are the chances of failure, that nothing precisely and identically human is likely ever to come that way again.”; 5/10/15, 3:30 PM
traditionalguy said...: Genocide?

The Armenian Journey started with all Armenian men over age 5 enslaved or slaughtered and the Armenian mothers, girls and sons under 5 forced on a Bataan Death March style "journey out into a vast desert to be starved to death. But only 1.8 million died.

Some Armenians survived to reach a merciful place and thrive again. But tge term Armenian Journey means facing cruelty and horrible treatment from Islam believers who want any excuse to steal everything you have.; 5/10/15, 3:37 PM
lemondog said...: Genocide?

Continued reluctance by Turkey (and others?) to finally sanctioned the Armenian slaughter as a "genocide."

Luxembourg Recognizes Armenian Genocide; 5/10/15, 3:52 PM
Lydia said...: Cher spent some of her youth in Fresno, California, which once had the largest number of people of Armenian descent in the U.S. Up until the 1960s, there was a part of town reserved for them; it was even called Armenian Town. So I think she (born in 1946) probably grew up with a feeling of close kinship with that "out" group.

Anyway, I think what Kim Kardashian was referring when she spoke of their "Armenian journeys" were the actual trips the two have taken to the country. Kardashian just recently finished a much-publicized trip there, and Cher has been in the news lately protesting the Armenian genocide.; 5/10/15, 4:04 PM
amielalune said...: OMG, I would have thought Althouse was one place we could go and not have to hear about a Kardashian.

Sad world.; 5/10/15, 4:54 PM
fivewheels said...: My favorite Armenian-American is Christy Canyon. Upon learning she was Armenian, I asked her if she chose her stage name because it rhymed with -ian, and she said she did, and I was the first to ever notice that. It was very effectively flirtatious of her to make me feel clever. And lucrative, given the situation.

I guess this post is for Laslo.; 5/10/15, 5:32 PM
Æthelflæd said...: And here I always thought she was half gypsy, half Cherokee, or something.; 5/10/15, 5:54 PM
BudBrown said...: ok, so I took ninth grade French but
never noticed journey's journey. Mid 70s my dad got into Eisley and so I eneded up reading several of his books. But only today
40 years later do I appreciate the
playful Genesis allusion in The Immense Journey title. And they say blogs are a waste of time.; 5/10/15, 6:00 PM
lemondog said...: Assume there is exactly one word that gets your comment deleted around here. There. You know the word.

Only one?; 5/10/15, 6:46 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: A daily journal.

In Spanish a jornalero is a laborer.; 5/10/15, 7:08 PM
averagejoe said...: Until today I had never heard of the band Frumious Bandersnatch, yet this morning, 2 of the 4 blogs I lurk at included Frumious Bandersnatch links within 20 minutes of each other. Ace of Spades at 9:03 am, and Althouse at 9:23 am. Incredible coincidence, or is Althouse going to admit that she also lurks at Ace of Spades HQ?; 5/11/15, 1:00 AM
roundeye said...: I was of the impression that Kardashians actually are ethnic Russian Molokans, a dissident Orthodox sect which members fled 5he Orthodox Church and Tsarist repression, stopping briefly in Armenia and then to LA. One feature of Molokans (Milk Drinkers) is ecstatic worship and speaking in tongues, which then started appearing in the Pentacostal churchs which appeared in LA at the same time the Molokans showed up in the early 1900s.; 5/11/15, 4:55 AM
tim maguire said...: Never heard of "smizing" prior to just now.

I expect to quickly forget it, it's an ugly word even if it has an interesting meaning (making one part of your face tell a different story than another part of your face).; 5/11/15, 6:33 AM
Bad Lieutenant said...: Lemondog, great link. I have found it: (let's see how long this stays up)

Ann
(North America) a white woman to a black person—or a black woman who acts like a white one. While Miss Ann, also just plain Ann, is a derisive reference to the white woman, by extension it is applied to any black woman who puts on airs and tries to act like Miss Ann.[7]; 5/11/15, 7:31 AM
Bad Lieutenant said...: Btw re smizing: althouse seems to just dote on artifice, one of her most unappealing characteristics. In nature or in literature, there are people who do this naturally (c.v. Felix Leiter, Casino Royale, who "seemed to smile more with his eyes than with his mouth") and there are legions of the insincere whose smiles do not reach their eyes. Trying to fake this is no doubt as ghastly as the word itself.

Speaking of nonsense: really?

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