As a portrait of a young man doing his best to make a hash of his parents' best-laid plans, "The Man in the Gray Flannel Skirt" is a story of relentless self-doubt and the endlessly sliding sideways through odd jobs, with the author losing himself in fleeting obsessions, like body building or collecting serial-killer cards.
We've all had our stages with different scenes, but mostly they're just fleeting obsessions with a rebel ideal.
So instead I turn my fleeting obsessions into momentous occasions, seemingly earth-shattering, and it gives my life a point at least for a while.
With no small amount of trepidation, I lay open here the first page of my diary — high-schoolish stabs at intellectualism, fleeting girlish obsessions, deliberately obscure annotations and all.
In the Sunday Book Review essay "My Life With Bob, Pamela Paull describes her habit of writing the title of every book she's read since high school in a journal she calls Bob: With no small amount of trepidation, I lay open here the first page of my diary — high-schoolish stabs at intellectualism, fleeting girlish obsessions, deliberately obscure annotations and all.
It didn't matter that the numbers were as fleeting as my recent obsession with chocolate mint gum, which ended when I tasted it.
While some fashion obsessions can be fleeting (doorknob shoulders) or fickle (It-bags), our love affair with shoes shows no sign of fading.
It was, in fact, the movie which introduced us most fully to Allen's very serious obsession with death: how fleeting life is, how dependent on chance, and how overshadowed it is by the thought of its approaching end.
But for New Yorkers, sports is an organizing obsession -- one that promotes conversation, provides relief, generates some collective if fleeting nourishment.
Portia Munson sculpts and paints her way to messages of the "fleeting nature of time, the fragility of life, the representation of women, and our cultural obsession with disposable things," as stated in the show's description.
