This account of New York City's private school graduations this season is delicious! First of all, there is a young person named James Englander Underberg. Which, ha! Play quarters all night and say THAT five times. Also there is Sam Sullivan, the wonderful student speaker at St. Ann's.
"Before anyone in the so-called real world has a chance to fool us, the gardeners, the graduates, into believing that our lives are about power or money or anything else equally mind-numbing," he warned, "let us go out and just be, because only good can come from that. In the real real world, there is nothing, but love."
Mr. Sullivan then pulled out a guitar and led those gathered in a swaying, earnest rendition of ABBA's Dancing Queen.
A lot of us are getting back to that. The getting away from power and money part. That Just Being thing. That Nothing but Love stuff. Because, really? Nothing is sort of what it's all about these days.
But, I'll let you in on a secret: I can do "Dancing Queen" swaying, but not earnest.
That's nothing. I can play a heartbreaking rendition of "Poker Face" on the saxophone.
The rich's graduation speakers are not like yours and mine.
I regret reading this before my morning coffee, as the lack of caffeine slows the buildup of disgust.
Hah! I actually read the article before coming back here & that quote is EXACTLY what I had CTRL+C'd & ready to go.
So I guess I'll have to go with this, then:
"At the West End Collegiate Church, mothers with carefully hair-sprayed up-dos and tweed designer suits swooned over their sweet boys with neatly combed hair and gentlemanly loafers, a surprising number of which spoke with British accents."
Man, those rich! Even their shoes talk all pretentious-like.