CLINTONIAN MEM’RIES

In the wake of the writer’s strike, ABC is putting back episodes of “My So-Called Life” on their website. It’s nostalgia in a wave of plaid flannel and bad flower-print dresses and Cranberries soundtracks – in high school, i used to watch every episode – and it was the first and final moment Claire Danes was a decent actor, but it is a terrific show, and the pacing is so much slower and simpler than anything now. The Clinton era, pre Bush, pre bin Laden, seems now nebulous and impossible, like it was a dream. But then I feel that way about all my ’90s memories.
The real reason I’m writing this is to let you know that in the third episode, up there right now, a young, pre-Moesha, pre-Federline Shar Jackson plays a minor role as a student whose locker gets shot open in a gun accident. She has great style – bomber jacket, huge loops, Left Eye cap. PS in 9th grade I fully had a bootleg cross colours 8-ball bomber, in black suede with multicolored sleeves. In retrospect, it was crazily hideous, and cost $86 which was a fortune then, both for the ’90s and for my family, but I persuaded my moms to buy it for me one holiday – Xmas, I think, and I loved that thing and wore the crap out of it for like, 8 months, until someone stole it from my locker. What double-sucked about that – my fake Rayban wayfarers and Mariah Carey “Emotions” cassette were both in the pocket when it got jacked. True story.