News of future irrelevancies

[MajGenl.Meade]

Selena Gomez has revealed she is engaged to songwriter Benny Blanco.

The actress and singer posted a picture of a large engagement ring on Instagram, with the caption "forever begins now".

It comes after the couple confirmed their relationship last year.

Pop star Taylor Swift was among the famous figures to offer congratulations.

[BoSoxGal]

Interestingly, one of the literature Facebook pages I follow (nerd alert) came up in my feed this morning with this quote from the novel The Fall by Albert Camus:

'I knew a man who gave twenty years of his life to a scatterbrained woman, sacrificing everything to her, his friendships, his work, the very respectability of his life and who one evening recognized that he had never loved her. He had been bored, thats all, bored like most people. Hence he had made himself out of whole cloth a life full of complications and drama. Something must happen and that explains most human commitments. Something must happen even loveless slavery, even war or death.'


It brought to mind a favorite of Pascal's pensees, 'All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.’

[Big RR]

It could be that, but I imagine it's more the need to do something to stay in the fan headlines, much as the old Hollywood stars married and divorced to stay in the headlines and gossip columns. A proposal gets a lot of free publicity.

[Sue U]

It could be that, but I imagine it's more the need to do something to stay in the fan headlines, much as the old Hollywood stars married and divorced to stay in the headlines and gossip columns. A proposal gets a lot of free publicity.

Selena Gomez has been constantly in the entertainment industry headlines ever since becoming a teen-age star in Wizards of Waverly Place. For the last decade since that TV show ended she has had a string of Top 10 pop hits (including last year's Calm Down). Plus, she co-stars with Steve Martin and Martin Short (and most lately Meryl Streep!) in Only Murders In The Building, which has been a truly delightful series. She's now in her 30s so I'm not surprised she's looking to settle down, but given her career to date I would think she'd never have to work again if she didn't want to.

[Big RR]

given her career to date I would think she'd never have to work again if she didn't want to.

Perhaps; however, other than knowing her through some TV shows (like Only Murders...), I have no idea of what she wants or not. But many of those who have gained some modicum of fame seem to crave it more and more, continuing to work at maintaining it well beyond the time when they could easily retire to a life of luxury. I'm sure we can all think of dozens who fit that bill. And the PR people they hire work hard to keep them in the public eye, often by manufacturing news (face it, why do so many fallen stars go on shows like Celebrity Rehab (or whatever it's called) to help get them in the public eye again?). Even those who are genuinely talented need that PR to stay in the public eye and on fan pages (and there are many fans who live for information on the private lives of their "idols").

I have no idea if that's the case here, but it clearly would not be unprecedented.

ETA: And FWIW, if she didn't want the PR boost, why the Instagram announcement and reveal of the ring? Most of us tell friends and family and that's it.

[Sue U]

ETA: And FWIW, if she didn't want the PR boost, why the Instagram announcement and reveal of the ring? Most of us tell friends and family and that's it.

Most of the youngs these days live their lives on social media, posting everything they do. I'm certain that if and when my daughters ever get engaged, they will announce it on their Instagrams.

[Big RR]

Point taken.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I did not have in mind much about the young lady or her ilk. Rather, it is the fascination of the media (and the public) with future irrelevancy that intrigues me.

And Mrs Meade and I stopped watching "OMITB" when the coarse language tipped the barely tolerable crassness of the male characters over the line in an otherwise excellent premise. The spirit of the program was displayed in the credit card (?) commercial that Martin and Short obnoxed through to such banal effect.

Or something like that anyway or not as the case may be