And the winner is
Sep. 3rd, 2008 11:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that, either."
- Jack Benny
Tell me what you want to win, and I'll tell you what you care about:
If you chose Olympic Gold Medal, you value superiority.
The Olympics are not merely about skill, strength, speed and stamina, nor are they simply about internationalism, sportsmanship or good clean competition. Mostly, they are about beating your opponent's brains in. (Sometimes literally.) The Olympic Gold Medal is the only award on this list where the winners are adjudicated by objective criteria and clearly delineated from the losers. And there are so many losers! Not just the competitors vanquished by the champion, but all the losers who couldn't even qualify for the Olympics, to say nothing of all the losers sitting at home who couldn't even describe a back handspring much less perform one. As if all this winning wasn't enough, they actually put the winners on a pedestal so they're taller than everyone else.
If you chose Academy Award, you value fame and fortune.
Sorry to make this sound like such a shallow and superficial dream, but if Hollywood award shows tell us anything, it's that winning is more important than what you're actually winning it for. (See also: "Forrest Gump.") The Oscars are handed out in front of a billion starstruck spectators -- like the Olympics, except people actually pay attention to the Oscars -- and are mostly useful for commanding bigger roles and larger paychecks. There are some folks out there who would probably be satisfied just to attend the Oscars, just so they could show off their cleavage (which qualifies as fame and fortune).
If you chose Pulitzer Prize, you value intellect.
Because Pulitzer Prizes are awarded for skill with the written word. But nobody really bothers with the written word anymore, except for university students, fellow writers or stuffy, holier-than-thou intellectuals. Most writers think they're smart to begin with -- if they realized how little they knew, they would keep their thoughts to themselves -- but to be told that you're talented by other smart people is like a blessing from the Pope.
If you chose Nobel Prize, you value humanity.
The Nobel Prize is awarded to individuals who make outstanding contributions to the fields of Peace, Literature, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Physics or Economics. Essentially, it is given to people who have tangibly made life on this planet at least a little better. While at least most of these fields offer the opportunity to make quite a bit of money, they also tend to attract the type of people who will assert -- without a trace of irony or contempt -- that they "want to make a differencee." Isn't it interesting that the most passionate humanitarians are often the same people you'd most like to take a good swing at?
If you chose "World's Greatest Grandparent" Tee Shirt, you value family.
Obviously. This goes beyond even "World's Greatest Mom" or "No. 1 Dad" because parents are always around to pad their stats with gratuitous ice cream sundaes and indulgent trips to the toy store. But grandparents are totally within their rights to "pass" on the latest generation and focus instead on the slow and steady decumulation of any potential inheritance. For grandparents to be any kind of presence at all in the rearing of young children is a testament to their sense of family tradition (and dwindling sense of hearing). [Hugs and kisses to my Grandma Fuffy, 1986 winner of the Best Grandma Ever Award, on her September 3 birthday.]
So far I haven't found a record of anyone winning all five awards. Al Gore has two (Nobel and Academy) plus he defeated an Olympic Gold Medal winner in the 2000 Democratic Presidential primary -- Bill Bradley, who was actually the subject of of Pulitzer Prize-winning author John McPhee's first book, A Sense of Where You Are. Research on Gore's, Bradley's and McPhee's grandchildren are still pending, as is Mark Spitz's forthcoming documentary about his own nonlinear poetry.
- Jack Benny
Tell me what you want to win, and I'll tell you what you care about:
If you chose Olympic Gold Medal, you value superiority.
The Olympics are not merely about skill, strength, speed and stamina, nor are they simply about internationalism, sportsmanship or good clean competition. Mostly, they are about beating your opponent's brains in. (Sometimes literally.) The Olympic Gold Medal is the only award on this list where the winners are adjudicated by objective criteria and clearly delineated from the losers. And there are so many losers! Not just the competitors vanquished by the champion, but all the losers who couldn't even qualify for the Olympics, to say nothing of all the losers sitting at home who couldn't even describe a back handspring much less perform one. As if all this winning wasn't enough, they actually put the winners on a pedestal so they're taller than everyone else.
If you chose Academy Award, you value fame and fortune.
Sorry to make this sound like such a shallow and superficial dream, but if Hollywood award shows tell us anything, it's that winning is more important than what you're actually winning it for. (See also: "Forrest Gump.") The Oscars are handed out in front of a billion starstruck spectators -- like the Olympics, except people actually pay attention to the Oscars -- and are mostly useful for commanding bigger roles and larger paychecks. There are some folks out there who would probably be satisfied just to attend the Oscars, just so they could show off their cleavage (which qualifies as fame and fortune).
If you chose Pulitzer Prize, you value intellect.
Because Pulitzer Prizes are awarded for skill with the written word. But nobody really bothers with the written word anymore, except for university students, fellow writers or stuffy, holier-than-thou intellectuals. Most writers think they're smart to begin with -- if they realized how little they knew, they would keep their thoughts to themselves -- but to be told that you're talented by other smart people is like a blessing from the Pope.
If you chose Nobel Prize, you value humanity.
The Nobel Prize is awarded to individuals who make outstanding contributions to the fields of Peace, Literature, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Physics or Economics. Essentially, it is given to people who have tangibly made life on this planet at least a little better. While at least most of these fields offer the opportunity to make quite a bit of money, they also tend to attract the type of people who will assert -- without a trace of irony or contempt -- that they "want to make a differencee." Isn't it interesting that the most passionate humanitarians are often the same people you'd most like to take a good swing at?
If you chose "World's Greatest Grandparent" Tee Shirt, you value family.
Obviously. This goes beyond even "World's Greatest Mom" or "No. 1 Dad" because parents are always around to pad their stats with gratuitous ice cream sundaes and indulgent trips to the toy store. But grandparents are totally within their rights to "pass" on the latest generation and focus instead on the slow and steady decumulation of any potential inheritance. For grandparents to be any kind of presence at all in the rearing of young children is a testament to their sense of family tradition (and dwindling sense of hearing). [Hugs and kisses to my Grandma Fuffy, 1986 winner of the Best Grandma Ever Award, on her September 3 birthday.]
So far I haven't found a record of anyone winning all five awards. Al Gore has two (Nobel and Academy) plus he defeated an Olympic Gold Medal winner in the 2000 Democratic Presidential primary -- Bill Bradley, who was actually the subject of of Pulitzer Prize-winning author John McPhee's first book, A Sense of Where You Are. Research on Gore's, Bradley's and McPhee's grandchildren are still pending, as is Mark Spitz's forthcoming documentary about his own nonlinear poetry.
