one of the best phrases i 've heard lately was in an interview on npr about christmas music, highlighting the segment was a review of the oc's christmas cd, "have a very merry chrismukkah". the critic referred to the show, oc, as having an element of, "profound superficialism". this he went onto to conclude aided in the landscape of the albumn. but it was the phrase, not the songs or the final word of the review that stuck to me. like glue.

just earlier this afternoon as i connected the dots from one store to another, in haste to finish my christmas shopping before the stores finished their christmas eve work day, my mind, without warning or instigation, went there-back to that phrase. and i couldn't help but notice- in marketing attempts, in my fellow shoppers, in myself, at how we're all obsessed with it, with profound superficialism. it's not something i would ever want to admit: being a ridiculous by-product of pop dichotomy, but it's worth noting for the sake of honesty, that i do. every period in time is given an age: the age of reason, the age of enlightenment, the dark age, the age of imperialism, and now, the age of profound superficialism.