Lou Mastroianni

One of the weird things about growing up is watching how the past gets recycled. Today's NY Times video is on Fellini's La Dolce Vita. But before it comes on we hear a video clip of a band singing "All you need is love" for an advertisement. Then on to Marcello Mastroianni, who is presented as one of the great screen actors. If somewhere in your adult life, you discovered that life and marriage was not so simple, you watched Fellini, maybe more than once. So as someone who has run through all the Mastroianni and Deneuve and everyone else, it is more than a little distressing to see the NY Times explain, again, how excellent they all are. Is there some automatic erase function in culture? Nevermind remembering Homer, can we not remember the early 60s? The first time this phenomenon hit me was reading the New Yorker. They had an article in which they mentioned Lou Reed. But they could not just say, Lou Reed says . . . . Instead they wrote "the singer, song-writer, Lou Reed says. . . " As if Lou Reed were the same as Paul Anka. As if he needed an introduction. Did anyone reading the New Yorker really need an explanation as to who Lou Reed was? Apparently some (young) editor was concerned, and out of that little concern, I grew worried that Lou Reed, for all is obnoxious ego, was no longer self-evident—much like Italian cinema.