On Being Out of It

Born and raised in New York and educated at New York University, I used to know about pretty much everything except brain surgery and rocket science. Certainly I was up to speed on literature, art, food, music, theater and film. You could have asked me anything and I'd have an answer. This is no longer true and it's not because I have Alzheimer's. It's just that two things happened, one causing the other: I moved to Maine and I stopped caring.

Living in Maine one cares most about the weather, the black flies and how the fish are running. There is only one art museum to speak of and it has a new exhibit only two or three times a year, mostly of boats and rocks and surf crashing on rocks painted by Maine artists. The symphony plays rarely and sometimes when you go expecting violins and Mozart you get a fake rock concert instead. Big name performers come here only every few years. The theater is amateurish and movies that open simultaneously all over the country don't play here, or else finally show up when they are already old news. To be fair, the city of Portland is very into food and many of the trendiest places serve all the same pretentious things you never heard of that you find everywhere else.

Katy Perry

These are facts, folks, not my skepticism talking. Anyway, because I don't listen to popular music, instead limiting myself to my son's rapping and my Queen CDs, I have never heard Taylor Swift sing and had no idea her song was responsible for that horrid "haters gonna hate" line. (My husband, who is 11 years younger than I, knows all that stuff and he told me.) And who is Katy Perry and is she any relation to Governor Rick Perry?

I don't watch regular TV, only reruns of comedies from the 90s when I was busy raising a child and never could watch them the first time, and so I missed that Diane Sawyer interview with Bruce Jenner about how he has always felt like a lady inside. I know nothing about the art world these days. I read books I have loved for years, eschewing modern fiction for obvious reasons. But something caught my eye in this morning's paper: Harper Lee has written a new book and everyone is all excited, with bookstores nationwide ordering many copies and planning "read-a-thons" to draw in customers.

I have to say that I read "To Kill a Mockingbird" back in 9th grade and thought it was just okay. Then I read it again a few years ago and thought it was a boring drag, and because there would be no test I stopped halfway through. So I will not be reading her latest and instead will keep working on my own novel, which I am hoping will be finished before I am. It is quite a good story and one you won't want to miss.