In the laundromat today, the back of a shirt worn by a fellow loading a washer caught my eye. At the top, in large letters, I read “Stop…”
Couldn’t see the object of that most demanding verb, but I thought I knew. Younger I would likely have confronted him, but futility appeals not to Older Me or to My preoccupied state of mind on laundry day, if not every day.
All I craved was to transfer my laundry from washer into a dryer so I could set up shop with Lenovo and a Costa Rican roast at the coffee shop next door. Maybe I’d write about the idiocy of the “Stop the Steal” movement, especially now that a Supreme Court justice is flying its flags. Or maybe I’d put it in my 2S2BW file–Too Stupid To Bother With.
In the coffee-shop, I went right to a recent blog awaiting its turn to appear on social media. My first film review in a couple of months with the headline, “Better Not to Dwell on It.” Couldn’t help but laugh out loud at how well that fit the laundromat scene I just described. In fact, I paused for a moment thinking I might find another headline and save it–only to realize that, in so doing, I would be dwelling on it.
So, onto the feed it went just above another post as arresting to my eye as the word “Stop” in the laundromat. Actually it was a re-post of a meme showing a smiling young woman, an Olympian, holding a medal she had won. The text began with a newspaper headline:
Wife of a Bears’ lineman wins bronze medal today in Rio Olympics.
Below that, the person who posted the meme added:
You spelled ‘3-time Olympian Corey Cogdell-Unrein wins second bronze medal today in Rio Olympics’ wrong.
Yes, having delved into sarcasm myself, I’m a sucker for it. At first, I was fooled and all in favor of the correction. Why should anyone’s identity depend on a relationship to someone else? But then I noticed the identity of the original poster at the top of the meme, just above the woman’s smile and medal and the text I just quoted:
The Chicago Tribune. How else could a headline or caption say “Bears” and let readers assume it is Chicago’s NFL team?
Quickly, in hopes of leaving the first comment (and perhaps convincing my friend to delete the post before it spread), I typed the Olympian’s name into a search engine. It was all I needed. Here’s the comment I left:
The newspaper is in Chicago. The Olympian is from Alaska. Her husband plays for a team based in Chicago. The editor needs a “hook” (i.e. a connection) between the bronze medal and the readers (residents of Chicago & northern Illinois) or the story doesn’t even run–as it did not in, say, Boston, Baltimore, Philly, etc. The husband is the hook. Hence, the headline.
I might have added that this is why right-wingers laugh at us. The meme is a triumph of political correctness over practicality and natural tendency. If this were a national publication, then, yes, the headline would be sexist and offensive–not to mention that it would get an F in any journalism class for naming “Bears” without “Chicago” in front of it. As is, the meme makes us (liberals) look petty and uninformed.
Done with the lesson in Journalism 101, I swilled down the Costa Rican, shut down the Lenovo, and returned to get my laundry. Before re-entering Village Washtub, I spotted the “Stop” shirt, stood still for a long sigh, looked at the sky, rolled my eyes, exhaled, and said under my breath, “No, don’t do it!”
Even at that, I didn’t know if I’d do it or not or even what it was I would or would not do. Nor will I ever find out. As I entered, the fellow walked toward the door, left to right until directly in front of me, but then turned the other way, giving me full view of his back. His shirt read: “Stop Making Sense.”
Well, how can I argue with a fellow fan of the Talking Heads? How can I object to the title of their legendary 1984 concert film re-released last year when I watched it every night I projected it? Like faulting a newspaper for making a local reference in a headline, it wouldn’t make sense.
Or is not making sense what I am now supposed to start?
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Mouth of the River 