1. Sunday Times Combined Metros 3 - 10/07/2007 04:02:45 PM - Plate:
SUNDAY TIMES LIFESTYLE | JULY 15 2007 ý 3
EDITOR: Laurice Taitz
DEPUTY EDITOR: Lerato Tshabalala
DESIGNER: Gila Wilensky
SUBEDITOR: Philippe Millan
WRITERS: Bongani Madondo, Caspar Greeff,
Lin Sampson and Oliver Roberts
BOOKS: Michele Magwood. CARS: David Bullard
SHOPPING: Craig Jacobs
PICTURES: Aubrey Paton
COVER: Tour de France in London by Getty/Gallo images
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S
INCE MySpace is ”a
place for friends”. The ca-
nine is man’s best friend,
so it was only a matter of time
before the social networking
site went to the dogs.
Amid the teenyboppers, rock
bands and aspiring models on
MySpace.com, you can also ac-
quire friends of the four-legged
variety.
There’s Tater-Tots of New
Port Richey, Florida, a beagle
mix whose theme song is Who
Let the Dogs Out. From his pro-
file we learn that he’s a Virgo
and a teetotaller whose occu-
pation is “licking myself”.
Tater-Tots’s top friends are
all dogs, with the exception of
one cat, MySpace’s ubiquitous
Tom, and Tots’s owner-ghost-
writer, Chris Nehr.
It began modestly enough.
Nehr, 29, would post photos of
Tater-Tots on his MySpace
page, but friends and family
kept requesting more photos of
their furry godson. Nehr got
the idea for Tater-Tots’s My-
Space page after seeing the
profile of a friend’s cat.
“What a wonderful way for
family and friends to see him
whenever they wanted,” Nehr
said. “Anyone from across the
street or across the country
could find out what the Tots
had been up to these days.”
What the Tots has been up to
is visiting Fred Howard Park,
playing in the yard at Nehr’s
flat and sporting superhero
costumes on Halloween.
“To me, he’s my kid. I don’t
see myself having kids in the
near future, at least,” said Nehr,
a teacher in New Port Richey.
“He’s the first dog I’ve had
living on my own.”
Through MySpace bulletins,
dog owners trade tips, post
warnings about pet food recalls
and solicit breeder information.
Dr Bruce Friesen, professor
of sociology at the University of
Tampa, explained the trend.
“It’s not unusual to think
about people personalising their
pets, showing them on MySpace
and giving them human attri-
butes, personalities etc,” said
Friesen, who has neither a pet
nor a MySpace page.
“It’s just an extension of
probably the lack of intercon-
nectedness on a face-to-face ba-
sis,” he said. — © (2007) The
New York Times
I
HAVE an abiding disdain
for cinema nouveau movie
experts. Who the hell cares
if the use of long shots and bad
weather conditions in such and
such a film was to satirically
expose the subtle nuances of
gender dynamics in today’s so-
ciety? So what if an incredibly
bleak, morbid and suicidally
depressing film highlighted the
constant threat of bloodshed in
Chechnya? Who wants to use
their Sunday evenings to watch
slow, politically correct films
packed with pompous meta-
phors? I did once. In fact, I’m a
recovering pseudo amateur
film critic.
In the days of drama school,
Doc Martens, Peter Stuyvesant
mild, second-hand clothes
stores and yip, Sunday night
film groups, when my fantas-
tical love interests were none
other than the magnificent
Mamet, Bergman, Kubrick,
Fassbinder, Kieslowski and
Tarantino and the study of au-
teurship in cinema led to
lengthy debates over bottles of
something or other.
Impassioned friendships
would form born out of one true
love — the love of storytelling.
But the love of telling stories
comes with a lethal side-effect,
an egotistical thrill for decon-
structing them.
After watching the biggest
self-obsessed crap ever to find
its way onto the big or small
screen, I finally became con-
cerned with my fascination for
dark and distressing stories
and began the long journey
back from out of my own arse,
or was it navel?
Now, two kids in tow, no
sleep and a wonderful husband
who loves films, I’m a changed
woman. I don’t need to watch
someone else’s heart being
torn out in order to feel con-
nected to my own pain.
When I have the time to see a
film, I’m more discerning than
ever. But my barometer for what
makes a film worth watching is
totally different. It must leave
me with a sense of upliftment.
Okay, I’m not perfect, I once
forced my husband to see Win a
Date with Tad Hamilton, which
he’ll never forgive me for.
Some films are best left for
teenage girls. Our most recent
flick of fun was Blades of Glory.
Any discerning movie-goer will
avoid it like the plague, there-
fore I knew it would be right up
my alley. There are simply no
depths I’m not willing to plum-
met to right now. I feel no
shame either. Surrounding me
are stories of crime, family dra-
mas, heartache and, well, just
the shite state of the human
predicament, really. Why
would I use my precious recre-
ational time to see stories of
child kidnapping, genocide, hi-
jacking and corruption when I
could watch two men in tights
ice skating to the theme song
from Flash Gordon?
Obviously, it’s relevant that
topical stories are told. I forced
myself to see Hotel Rwanda,
because a friend of mine was in
it. It was a sacrifice of friend-
ship. I’m still haunted by the
atrocities shown. I drew the
line at Blood Diamond, and not
because Leonardo DiCaprio
bugs me. I know that planet
Earth can be a living hell.
Admittedly there’s some-
thing utterly sacred in a large
box of popcorn stuffed with
msg-flavoured salts, a fluores-
cent, glow-in-the-dark coloured
slush and a stupid, funny, feel-
good film that’s only contribu-
tion to the human population is
that it’ll make you smile. I keep
a keen lookout for the most
OTT junk Hollywood could pos-
sibly spew out and I adore its
promise to whisk me away to
true, unadulterated, mind-
numbing escapism. Angst is no
longer the new black.
EN PASSANT
More Bridget Jones than Bertolucci
HOT SPOT
First dog in cyberspace
FREE-TIMER: Like a part-timer or a full-timer with one major difference, a free-timer has no job. They have a lot of free time, so they are therefore
free-timers. — Source: urbandictionary.com Mail your words with a definition to: lifestyle@sundaytimes.co.za
WORD ON THE STREET
DOG BLOG: Pet dogs now get
their own MySpace page
WALKING THE PLANKTON
IF THE intrepid Theodore Yach and his
fellow “iceman” keep up their swimming
antics “The Big Picture” (July 8), the
Bowhead Whale, which cruises the icy
North Polar seas in its 150-200 year lifespan,
might have to relinquish its place as the
longest lived mammal on Earth!
— Rob Glanville, KwaZulu-Natal
COMING TO A CITY NEAR YOU
YOUR article “First the souls, then
property” (July 8) refers. The sardonic tone
of the article was typically British and only
skims one obvious fact: Scientology is
growing, and growing rapidly.
While the article makes reference to a
building in Joburg, it really does not
capture the breadth of the programme.
Since 1993, we have opened 11 new
buildings and a further 60 will be opened
soon — four of those in South Africa and a
further two in Zimbabwe. People want what
we have because it works.
— Ryan Hogarth, President Church of
Scientology, by e-mail
HEART OF ROCK
ROCK n’ Roll is alive and well, thank you
very much. Kicking too, just not the way
Oliver Roberts would like it to in “Not green
day, again” (July 1). He yearns for the days
when “rock n’ roll just didn’t care”, but I as
far as I was aware, it has always cared. I
agree that you go to a rock concert to get
wasted, but not to waste. That has hardly
ever been the point. You get wasted with
like-minded people who are singing and
slurring along about the way things ought
to be, the way we wish they would be.
— Lisa Kruger, Stellenbosch
CHORUS OF NONSENSE
IT IS hard to say whether Caspar Greeff is
being tongue in cheek or not in his piece
describing the self-styled angel threesome
in Cape Town “The sound of one wing
flapping” (July 1), but the article does show
the uncritical praise that is ever more
bestowed on the preposterous these days.
— Patrick Linzer, by e-mail
LETTERS
lifestyle@sundaytimes.co.za
Daniella Renzon