Fear not, O Reader, we still do that sort of thing around here. And the Globe, being the Globe, still does too, I'm secretly a little bit glad to say. (Would it still be the Globe, if they stopped ladling practically every lifestyle story that goes out the door with a soupรงon of pointless and self-conscious gender commentary? Would I still have a reason to get up in the morning if someone, somewhere, wasn't writing a really obnoxious Useless Reveal lede about women who drive cement mixers?)
Well, I'm late in hitting a couple of recent splendid specimens from Morrisey Boulevard, but since they're not really news anyway, it hardly matters.
First, this bizarre little story, "The strange allure of the stand mixer." (Hat tip to champion noticer Amy Derjue for tipping me off to this.)
They may be mere appliances, but they have something to say about women! And feminism! And also non-women! (The Globe is not sure exactly what that something is, but they feel compelled to take bold declarative sentences about Women And Their Stand Mixers, fold them up into tortured little origami, and call it a day.) Viz.:
These women are teachers, lawyers, bankers — modern women with robust lives outside the home, and yet this symbol of homemakers, this tool for home chefs continues to draw them in. While some may be novice bakers or kitchen hobbyists, many would rather leave the cooking up to someone else. Nevertheless, they’re dazzled by this symbol of culinary proficiency. And in their signature color, of course.
But what is it about a hard-working countertop mixer that has some women so transfixed? Is this “keeping up with the Joneses” or is it feminist commentary at its finest?
Questions for the ages, that will forever go unanswered. This being the Globe, the ostensible point in all this verbiage -- that there is a special bond between women qua women and KitchenAids -- is dispensed with halfway through the story.
And it’s not just women who love them.
“I think what’s happened more recently is that many more men are becoming interested in cooking as a form of leisure and relaxation,” Kinchin says. “In fact, it’s just as likely to be the husband who will put that on the registry as the bride.”
Well then.
Full disclosure: I have a stand mixer. It is buttercup yellow and chrome, and it is a sexy beast, and I sometimes lick its smooth enameled flank when no one is looking. Make of that what you will.
Secondly, there is the matter of Billy Baker's story about Southie last month. (Hat tip to Adam Gaffin for this one.) You should be apprised that the douchebagification of Southie is all the fault of women who want to get into Matt Damon's pants.
GOOD WILL HUNTING has turned out to be a double-edged sword. It captured something great about Southie and at the same time ruined it forever. Because what I saw after that was unbelievable: Young women would get out of college and choose to move to Southie. Sure, it’s close to downtown, but the real reason they were moving was because they were subconsciously thinking they were going to find “a Southie” like Matt and Ben. Everything else followed them, namely young guys. That’s how everything changed. That’s how the old Southie reality ended.
It sort of boggles the mind, but I must put a Full Disclosure on this one, too; I moved to Southie briefly myself, lo these seven or eight years ago. Specifically, into a life of sin in a triple-decker on Second Street with an oldskool, hockey-playing, R-dropping, trash-talking, wisecracking, track-pants-wearing, 100% South Boston Irish red hot ticket whose nickname was, in fact, "Southie." So there's that.
I am reasonably sure no Jersey douchebags were hot on my trail, though. And if they were -- hey, sorry about that, Billy.
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