Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Isn't This World a Crazy Place?


Wanna feel old?

It was thirty years ago today that Miss Vanessa Williams, aka the Last Holder of the Title Who Turned into Anything Interesting, was crowned as Miss America.  Thirty years.

She's had a pretty good run, when you think about, having overcome the hubbub that ended her Atlantic City reign; that little matter of racy snaps seems awfully tame nowadays, no?

"The Best for Last" was her biggest hit.  It may be the living embodiment of Noël Coward's pronouncement - "Extraordinary how potent cheap music is" - but it remains, at the right moment, potent even so.  What can I say?  When you're someone who didn't meet the love of your life until 40, you know that sometimes it is all a big surprise.

9 comments:

  1. So true. So true.
    I just hope she's wrong about that whole "sun and moon" business. That might be scary.

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  2. It was a snowy night. We were in my car driving slowly through the quaint shopping district of my hometown. We had just come from a birthday celebration (for me) at my parents'. They had all just met "him" for the first time. It was our third or fourth date. Ms. Williams tune came on the radio. I coasted over to the curb and parked. I leaned in and we kissed. It all seemed perfect. I was approaching 30, and after a parade of characters for the past decade, it seemed as if I really had saved the best for last. It was perfect.

    So naturally 5 months later, he left me for some silly boy who'd set him free.

    We're still very good friends. My big surprise arrived ten years later, and we've been together ten years. And 20 yrs later, the friend of the aforementioned kiss, single for ages, still receives a taunting phone call or text whenever I hear this song.

    I just texted him now.

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    Replies
    1. Ah, but when do we not? He is like unto a new client to Olga - keeps a girl on her mettle!

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  3. i have no cute tale like bill's,
    but you are so right mr. m.
    this song always seemed
    ridiculous to me, yet i loved it.

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  4. After the ceremonious dumping, that axe stuck in the tree stump in the beginning of the video became a much more meaningful part of the video for me.

    I still love the song. It still makes very little sense lyrically. But it just sounds so pretty!

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  5. I still like this song, and I am not a mussy song lover. But you have to be in the mood for it. And they used it to such wonderfulness (thank you Bill Cosby) in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, too.

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    1. It is impossible for me to listen to this (or, more ridiculously, Charlene "I've Never Been To Me") without it being part of "Priscilla"... Jx

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