Misrepresentatives
I moved back into my flat on Sunday, and am currently going through the pain of unpacking all my books from cardboard boxes.
Buying books is one of my compulsive disorders. I think a fair proportion of my disposable cash per month (not much by the way) goes to aquiring fresh volumes for consumption by bedside-lamplight at night. I should qualify this by stating for the record that I am not one of these people who buy a copy of a book simply for the sake of having a copy - I know lots of people who buy the "classics" because they consider it criminal not to have a copy (e.g. they'll spend months accumulating the canon of Russian classics, yet have neither the capacity to comprehend Bulgakov, the nor the stamina to complete Tolstoy or Vasily Grossman, nor even the courage to read Yerofeev. All that results is a set of pristine bound volumes, the crowns of their virgin leaves gathering dust on the shelf). If that sounds superior, it isn't meant to be - it would be the same criticism of myself if I bought the most expensive tennis racket without knowing how to play the game (I have neither a racket, nor any capability to play).
I always buy books with the utter intent to read them - it's just time conspires with distraction to create lists of books earmarked for reading at a later date, often undefined. It's a backlog, no more. If I were given sufficient time, I expect I could gulp down those suckers without much difficulty.
I'm also trying to book a flight to New York, which is causing me much pain - like estate agents and lawyers, travel agents appear to have become bandit scum. Misrepresentation abounds. My last (and first) trip to NYC was booked through a lat minute agency, and the room I got was woefully below the standard intimated online. Undertaking the task another time, I am finding descriptions of hotel accommodation delivered with a conscious, tacit mendacity. Allow me to illustrate: one hotel was described as having a "semi-private bathroom" - what the fuck is one of those? Privacy is an absolute state, as far as I can tell - you are either in control of intimacy or not. Can intimate nakedness be graded into hemisphericality? I think not.
Buying books is one of my compulsive disorders. I think a fair proportion of my disposable cash per month (not much by the way) goes to aquiring fresh volumes for consumption by bedside-lamplight at night. I should qualify this by stating for the record that I am not one of these people who buy a copy of a book simply for the sake of having a copy - I know lots of people who buy the "classics" because they consider it criminal not to have a copy (e.g. they'll spend months accumulating the canon of Russian classics, yet have neither the capacity to comprehend Bulgakov, the nor the stamina to complete Tolstoy or Vasily Grossman, nor even the courage to read Yerofeev. All that results is a set of pristine bound volumes, the crowns of their virgin leaves gathering dust on the shelf). If that sounds superior, it isn't meant to be - it would be the same criticism of myself if I bought the most expensive tennis racket without knowing how to play the game (I have neither a racket, nor any capability to play).
I always buy books with the utter intent to read them - it's just time conspires with distraction to create lists of books earmarked for reading at a later date, often undefined. It's a backlog, no more. If I were given sufficient time, I expect I could gulp down those suckers without much difficulty.
I'm also trying to book a flight to New York, which is causing me much pain - like estate agents and lawyers, travel agents appear to have become bandit scum. Misrepresentation abounds. My last (and first) trip to NYC was booked through a lat minute agency, and the room I got was woefully below the standard intimated online. Undertaking the task another time, I am finding descriptions of hotel accommodation delivered with a conscious, tacit mendacity. Allow me to illustrate: one hotel was described as having a "semi-private bathroom" - what the fuck is one of those? Privacy is an absolute state, as far as I can tell - you are either in control of intimacy or not. Can intimate nakedness be graded into hemisphericality? I think not.
posted by nickwong8 at 10:54 pm
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