Dans le Metro
Actually am sick, no longer just becoming so. Feverish and mean, so best to watch it, yo. And DC is still raining so the remaindered 4th of July midwesterners are damply crowding the Metro, not just crowding it. A family of Kraft-fattened yokels, as I was wending my shivery and gross way home-yoiks, hit me with every one of their oversized LL Bean totes and some backpacks as well. Then, to add injury, their sneering youngest brat poked me in my already engorged spleen with a golf umbrella. Once they left, though, there was a seat for me. ME! Oh goody. So I sat. And since I finished Catch-22 yet again and have only sweet memories of Red Harvest (I returned it from whence it was borrowed) and Evelina now has Rosseau selections folded into it, making travel impractical, I looked at what everyone else was reading. So:
1 copy of The Da Vinci Code. What? You think this is last summer? Seeing the movie made you want to read it again? Questioning your decision to join a Catholic cult?
3 chick-lit novels: you can tell by the bright covers with the loopy, handwriting-"style" type. 2 of them were the hardcore inner-city kind, with non-WASP-y lovin.
2 thriller/mystery novels, variety best-seller. Most seemed to be by Grisham. Has he published anything new lately? Isn't he dead or summat?
1 Penguin Classic, couldn't see title. (NOICE! Rawwwr, coffee wench! Next time, let me see your tiiiiiitle!)
4 new translation Bibles, some with self-help sections.
1 financial planning book.
1 sheaf of much-highlighted xeroxed pages.
2 inspirational books.
1 computer programming book. Is teh tech boom over?
1 copy of the free weekly Spanish paper.
5 copies of the morning's Express. Buggering tragic! The gossipy back bits of today's were boring.
And that's what DC reads during evening rush hour, on the orange line, heading to Marralan, in this specific car, that I could see. Ahem. And none of the tourists was reading so much as a guidebook. And we all know they can't read Metro signs (esp. ones telling them about where trains are going, how to use fare machines, or the STAND-TO-THE-MOTHEREFFIN-LEFT signs). Therefore, cities make you literate even if they won't do anything for your taste. And this is what interests me when I'm damp and sick and unemployed.
1 copy of The Da Vinci Code. What? You think this is last summer? Seeing the movie made you want to read it again? Questioning your decision to join a Catholic cult?
3 chick-lit novels: you can tell by the bright covers with the loopy, handwriting-"style" type. 2 of them were the hardcore inner-city kind, with non-WASP-y lovin.
2 thriller/mystery novels, variety best-seller. Most seemed to be by Grisham. Has he published anything new lately? Isn't he dead or summat?
1 Penguin Classic, couldn't see title. (NOICE! Rawwwr, coffee wench! Next time, let me see your tiiiiiitle!)
4 new translation Bibles, some with self-help sections.
1 financial planning book.
1 sheaf of much-highlighted xeroxed pages.
2 inspirational books.
1 computer programming book. Is teh tech boom over?
1 copy of the free weekly Spanish paper.
5 copies of the morning's Express. Buggering tragic! The gossipy back bits of today's were boring.
And that's what DC reads during evening rush hour, on the orange line, heading to Marralan, in this specific car, that I could see. Ahem. And none of the tourists was reading so much as a guidebook. And we all know they can't read Metro signs (esp. ones telling them about where trains are going, how to use fare machines, or the STAND-TO-THE-MOTHEREFFIN-LEFT signs). Therefore, cities make you literate even if they won't do anything for your taste. And this is what interests me when I'm damp and sick and unemployed.
posted by J at 5:57 PM
1 Comments:
I think you should read things by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Or alternatively Google image search his name and be awed by the results. (I am doing this and it is a heartening endeavour, replete with brilliant colours.)
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