Sunday, March 9, 2008

mith antagonizes

I thought: I need to start buying cool art magazines so I look more attractive to people on trains.
I thought: But 7 pounds? That's roughly, what, 400 dollars about?
I thought: No one will ever think you're anybody if you're commuting with a beat-up library copy of Kate Hamburger's The Logic of Literature (by my lights an unjustly neglected classic of phenomenological literary theory).
I thought: Why don't you just read it in the station and put it back on the shelf?
I thought: How do you expect to be discovered if you're always exuding this image of nerdiness, second-handedness, a ragman picking through shelves and putting things back? This isn't about expanding your knowledge; it's about showing pizazz.
I thought: OK, let's compromise. We'll buy the magazine, read it -- very publicly -- and then see if we can return it.
I thought: This is pathetic, I'm not talking to you anymore.


here

4 comments:

Jenny Davidson said...

Funny!

"Post-Google" by TAR ART RAT said...

the 7 Pound art mag dilemma is that beacuse it is so big and glossy and pretty (AND you spend as much on is as you would for a paperback) then you (or I) will never want to dispose of it.
the solution might be to get a subscription to MONOPOL or FRIEZE or something, nto read ALL the articles or look at ALL the pictures so there are still some surprises left and then then then: take them with when you go a'travelling.
;p

"Post-Google" by TAR ART RAT said...

oh §"&%&! just notices the orange "here" there... do I copy and paste the comment now... is that tacky?... &$"§&!

Mithridates said...

JD: Thanks.

TAR: No one could possibly be tackier than I.

PP: Perhaps "ant-agonizes": such a small struggle. Thanks again for the redirected readership. The folks at blogger were about to stage an intervention: "You know, Mith, this blogging thing isn't working out. Have you thought of a career as a bank security guard?"