The theme was so unique and fantastic in 2008 when I first told a certain Australian film director about my idea. At the time he was drinking in my bar in Kings Cross and was licking his wounds after a period of shame over his previous work.
It was only after he took off with my idea and reneged on a verbal agreement many months later that I began to see the slow crystallisation of something which had it's genesis in a little bar I had called the Shh Speakeasy. And little by little the Jazz Age was beginning to be celebrated bit by bit. A white 3 piece suit by Ralph Lauren here, a reference to Nick Carraway there, bow ties get a feature article in a newspaper, Woody Allen gets out Midnight In Paris and it's a huge success, someone writes an article on Bricktop..... And then boom, you are in the middle of a trend.
The sad part about a trend though is that it must have it's moment and then be gone. But it never leaves when you want it to. It never shuts the shop after a good days trade. It instead lingers and gets thrashed and thrashed over and over and over until it goes from being something which was conceptually so unique, so revered, so loved, so cherished - the of way you first look upon Shakespeare and Co after crossing the Notre Dame and you think 'how quaint' until you hear all those American voices inside the store and you feel like you've been duped and it's just the sound stage of a different kind of Disneyland and you better get in line.
The difference between something giving you great joy and happiness and to hating it with all your heart, is repetition. The first time I heard Gotye's 'Somebody That I Used To Know' it kept me up all night thinking and my heart was filled with hope and opportunity. Now I purposefully make sure it is kept in a separate folder so that I don't accidentally slot it onto my SD card.
My meditation instructor, Limor Babai, very good at what she does, asked her Monday night group what we thought heaven was. And stupidly, one of the group suggested some tropical island getaway with pina coladas and a bungalow on the beach. Limor then said 'now imagine you couldn't get off the island and you couldn't drink anything else accept pina coladas. Is this not some form of hell?'
The same can be said of the Gatsby trend. It seems it won't depart us until it's been thrashed to death, until every single friend has had a Gatsby party, until the word makes you physically ill and when someone says it with any zest you just feel like giving them a big ol' slap.
The saddest thing I can think of is that I would love there to be a remake of Casablanca, my only great fear is that they would wheel out Leonardo Di Caprio to play Rick, they would get Jay Z to do the music and play Sam and they'd attempt to turn Nicole Kidman into Elsa. Then everyone would call their cafe Rick's and Knock On Wood would become the number one hit of the year by Gotye.... Please Harvey Weinstein and the important power brokers of Hollywood, don't do this. Let us not ruin the sanctity of that last unbroken institution of Rick's Cafe Americain - because right now I just wish Gatsby would fobb off.
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| Source: 2OceansVibe |
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