Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Standards

The "21" club has dropped its absolute tie requirement. For you whippersnappers, good restaurants used to require a coat and tie. But no more, according to today's NY Times. And "21" used to be the epitome of style and fashion, which country bumpkin farm boys had vaguely heard of, but movie stars like Bogie frequented. [updated]

And do I need to mention this piece of "how-to" advice--disgusting it should be on the web. :-)

For everyone who mourns the loss of standards, I recommend Gran Torino, which my wife and I saw yesterday. (Of course, Eastwood is the star of my favorite movie, Kelly's Heroes, which no one has ever heard of but it captures the nihilism of the late 60's perfectly.) Eastwood's character's granddaughter has multiple piercings, need I say more?

It seems the old Catch-22 is at work. In a poor economy, restaurants have to lower standards to compete. In a boom economy, consumers have to try the worst things to try to stand out. What's an old timer to do?

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