BRANGELINA

There’s an editorial submission in Annapolis’ Capital Gazette that I really like. It’s called The simple life : How Brad Pitt convinced me to sell my silver

It’s neat to see the way Brad (and Angelina) are influencing the lives of rich Americans as well as the poor of the world.

The actor and I have never met, but while packing my home last summer to move for the second time in two years, I was flipping channels and found Brad Pitt touring an Ethiopian village while being interviewed by Diane Sawyer. As he dodged questions about Jennifer Aniston (from whom he was separated) and Angelina Jolie (with whom he was linked), he spoke of how the poor in Africa struggle to survive with so little, and how he himself was aspiring to live “a more simple life” without so many possessions. “I have this romantic idea,” he said, “of getting my closet down to a section just like this …” (he placed his hand about waist high) “and a little pile of clothes.”

I was only half-listening to the program, but that comment caught my attention. And not because the two-time Sexiest Man Alive seemed to have an odd sense of what’s romantic. As I boxed-up an oversized house containing the belongings of two adults and three children, I realized that I, too, aspired to a simpler life. At that particular moment, I aspired to a life in which I didn’t have to pack, protect, store and care for a valuable bounty of fine china, crystal and silver that had become as much a den as a blessing. Brad Pitt was shedding his Hollywood Glam for Save the World Grunge. I was ready to shed the Formal Life I Never Lived for the Informal Life I Really Live.

.. oh and Brangelina’s romantic getaway this weekend was to Bilbao in northern Spain.