It’s exactly as Heidi Klum said, people!

Sunday, January 22, 2012

THERE'S a lovely song by The Byrds, from back in the day, called Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There is a Season), which was taken almost word for word from Ecclesiastes in the Bible and put to music by Pete Seeger. The song includes the lyrics To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted, etc. In short, the song, like the passage of Scripture, posits one of the great guiding principles of life: there is symmetry in the world. But more than this, the song really is an exhortation that nothing lasts forever, and that what goes round comes round. You may be down in the dumps today, but you won't stay there. By the same token, the person who is flying high today would be wise to consider that he or she may come crashing down to earth tomorrow.

I know you think you know where I'm going with this, the election still so fresh in our minds and all. A time to win elections and a time to lose them in the most ignominious of ways, right? But hold that thought.

I think we can all agree that the big news, replacing the election upset, shattering us to the core and testing our faith in a merciful and benign God is the report, emerging last week from the New York Post, that the reign (some may say, inexplicably protracted 15 minutes of fame) of the Kardashians, those devious divas of reality TV, may finally be ending. [Insert tears and/or jeers here.] Seems that Brand Kardashian took a really big hit after Kim K's blink-andyou-would-miss-it 72-day marriage to Kris Humphries ended in divorce and recrimination with whispers that the entire union was faked, mined simply for television ratings. People have reached saturation point with them. Businesses that previously would have done anything to attract these people's attention are now willing to pay excessive sums to keep them away. According to an ABC news report last week, Travis Bass, coowner of the New York City nightspot Red Egg, reportedly sniped, “I'd pay her $600,000 personally not to go to Red Egg. Kim Kardashian would be crushing to us.” Meanwhile R Couri Hay, who once worked as their publicist, admitted to being bored by Kim and her “little clunky sisters” now.

Ouch.

The New York Post, to strengthen its argument that the Kardashians were over, also reported that circulation for the gossip magazines that the Kardashians once ruled, such as Us Weekly, In Touch, Life & Style and OK! — had dropped nearly 18 per cent in December when any of them were on their covers. If these statistics are in fact true, I imagine that the Kardashians' season in the sun may truly be drawing to a close.

I wonder how they will take this news. I suspect they will not go gently into that good night. Personally, I can't imagine that there's any aspect of their lives to which the public has not already been exposed. The fact is, as cold as this may sound, the Kardashians are a commodity. When demand for a commodity wanes, according to Business 101, then said commodity will be dropped. The public is up to its gills in Kardashian, a glut had been developing for a while now. We won't even get into the Boycott Kardashians Petition that has been circulating online, and the alleged beef between them and First Lady Michelle Obama.

Let's face it, though. There was bound to be a backlash against the Kardashians. Hype of that magnitude is never self-sustainable. Last year's hotties are this year's notties. (Unless of course, you're Madonna or Cher. Or hot Helen Mirren. And, really, all those old gals we witnessed taking the fight to the young 'uns at last week's Golden Globes. Jane Fonda, gurrrl, we've got to talk!)

This is where an argument can be made for an exit strategy. Not long ago, I came across an article in Newsweek from the Sudanese-born model Alek Wek, whom we remember from the 1990s when her ascension to high fashion indicated a seismic shift in what we'd all come to view as beauty. I was glad to read her inspiring story, as told to Abigail Pesta, since I'd found myself wondering what had happened to her, since it seemed she'd quietly left the catwalk. While she is no longer the It girl she was when she burst on the scene at 18, in 1995, she has apparently embraced another phase of life, out of the spotlight, as an advocate for the United Nations' refugee agency, which provides aid to people seeking asylum. “Recently,” she disclosed, “I decided to start talking to kids in schools around my neighbourhood about the famine — a small local step to get young people thinking globally... I thought, maybe I could share my perspective and help bridge the gap between these different worlds. What I found was heartening. The kids listened. They questioned. They asked what they could do. Now I'm going to start talking to schoolkids around the world, through Skype. We all have different backgrounds, different relationships with each other, and with the food we eat. But there's one thing we all share: We eat to nurture ourselves, to feel stronger. We eat to live.”

Isn't this inspirational? Wek, instead of clinging to the glory days past, has adjusted her focus and is using her celebrity to be a positive force in her world. Maybe the Kardashians can take a similar tack?

The Kardashians, and, yes, our Jamaican politicians. When one is in public life, it behoves one to understand the fundamental fickleness of people, the very people who orchestrated one's ascension. There's always someone else waiting in the wings, on whom we want to bestow our love and devotion. Yesterday, Andrew Holness was the Crown Prince; today, Portia Simpson Miller is the Queen. And as difficult as it may be to consider today, one day Mrs Simpson Miller, too, will become a footnote in history. It's the way this world works. Be gracious, and move on. As dear Heidi Klum, herself a maven of reinvention, always intones every week on her Project Runway show: “In fashion, one day you're in, the next day, you're out.”

As in fashion, so in life, dear reader: Today for you; tomorrow for me.

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Teen killed for laughing at man who fell from bicycle

It’s exactly as Heidi Klum said, people!