June 13, 2004

• I'm not on the list so it's obviously bogus.
• Working at the Strand is, indeed, a class in utter contempt. I shelved books there for three months two years ago, and I still don't think I've recovered from the sheer wretchedness of that job. I thought it would be wonderful to work around literature and the literarily-minded. I didn't think about eight-hour days spent in a dusty, unairconditioned, barnlike space that holds in heat and reeks of clogged public bathrooms and old sandwiches left on shelves. I didn't know that our chief boss would be the owner's heavily Botoxed, unsympathetic automaton of a daughter, prone to random fits of rage and profoundly disinterested in books as anything but decor and profit. Imagine climbing up and down a ladder all day, doing nothing but alphabetizing, and being berated when you dare to do so much as examine a book's back cover. Imagine hearing the same concerto (I never knew its name) over and over and over over the loudspeaker for months on end, until its cadences get wedged between your ears and you feel, by the end of the day, like one more repetition will make you start biting people. Now imagine someone, perhaps the seventh person today, asks you where to find the newest Tom Fucking Clancy, which just so happens to be prominently displayed next to the entrance. Try very, very, very, very hard to be nice to her. I did, however, meet some very good people while I worked there; we shared a lot of desperate commiseration in the store's back corners. I'll also admit that the fifty percent employee discount, when combined with the chance to get first dibs on everything, is amazing. My bookshelves are amazing.
• Lenny Kravitz has been known to employ a man to follow him around and carry the flowing tail of his royal cardigan sweater. Holy crap, that alone should get you in the Top 10.
• This confirms my belief that the NY Post mines Craigslist Rants and Raves for material. That's the only other place that I've seen such annoyance with i-Pods. I don't own an i-Pod but I don't understand this thinly veiled jealousy of other peoples toys.
• rolypolyman beat me to the Lenny Kravitz comment. I thought that was hysterical.
• Yeah. I don't carry round my iPod because it gives me an innate sense of superiority, I carry it round because it holds a lot of music. Sorry.
• Did people get angry with Walkman users 25 years ago? (Never had a Walkman or an iPod, in my defence)
• My stance on the iPod is already well documented. But I will add if some newspaper/craigslist/random asshole wants to rate iPod users as loathesome, let 'em. I can't hear 'em whine anyway.
• I love the New York press's big feature issues. Week to week, it's a lousy Village Voice wannabe, but when they do one of their Big Issues, they're just such entertaining reads.
• In New York at least they recognize these people are assholes. Here in Hollywood celebrities are actually, uh, celebrated, for the churlish, self obsessed behavior so well detailed in this article.
• Is there anyone these people don't find loathsome?
• Is there anyone these people don't find loathsome? No! That's the beauty of NY Press. They're like Alice Roosevelt Longworth: "If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." If you're a gentle, kindly soul who likes to think the best of everyone, best avoid them. Now imagine someone, perhaps the seventh person today, asks you where to find the newest Tom Fucking Clancy, which just so happens to be prominently displayed next to the entrance. Try very, very, very, very hard to be nice to her. I used to work in bookstores and be driven mad by idiot customers; once I snapped (in a no-longer-extant B. Dalton's) and when a woman asked me "Does this staircase go to the basement?" (as we were standing next to a staircase that quite obviously went to the basement) I said "No, ma'am, it goes to the attic" and walked off. The rest of the day I kept expecting the call to the boss's office, but I guess she just stood there with a sheeplike expression until her brain canceled the incomprehensible input.
• OED, 2nd edition ... Snark 2) intr. and trans. To find fault (with), to nag. 1882 Jamieson's Sc. Dict. IV. 314/2 To Snark, ... to fret, grumble, or find fault with one. 1904 E. Nesbit Phoenix & Carpet x. 185 He remembered how Anthea had refrained from snarking him about tearing the carpet.
• languagehat, don't get mad with them. Laugh at them. That way they will realize their idiocy without wishing you to be dead.
• Dalton's eh? I worked in a Waldenbooks for five years. And yes, it was indeed teh suq. And laughing at them made them mad too.
• dng - Yes, people did get mad when the Walkman came out, for the same reason - this book talks about it, since it was actually a few years before I was born.
• I remember Dave Marsh in his column in Rolling Stone magazine (once upon a time THE Bible of all things musical, not the pudding-skin it has become) back in the fall of '80 (my Freshman year at college) roasted the Walkman as machinery that replaced public, shared enjoyment of music to a private obsession, or words to that effect. To me-- having grown up without audiophile parents and exposed only to off-brand stereo systems sold at K-Mart and made of Masonite, sheetrock, and fake stainless steel-- the sound of music driven through a Walkman simply EXPLODED in my head. It was like I'd been deaf before. THAT was what they were singing about in "Bohemian Rhapsody"! THERE was the chord change in "Strutter"! God Bless Sony!
• I don't get the iPod hatred, either, though I have to admit that when I saw this, I had to laugh.
• I don't remember overt Walkman hatred as much as hue and cry amongst society's would-be nannies that listening to music through headphones whilst simultaneously moving would lead to death or--at the very least--dismemberment. And that silliness seem quite rational compared to the iPod ire. And does anyone besides me find it strange that New Yorkers are annoyed at other New Yorkers for being fixated with "status symbols?" (BTW, I don't own an iPod, and I think I have a walkman from '92 somewhere...).
• I have a Dell DJ. That makes me edgy, right? Right?? Oh, and this article bugs me. Feh on them and their poopy pants.
• Anonymous, Rolling Stone was so not the "bible" of music in 1980. Punk had already happened, and Rolling Stone was part of what punk was reacting to.
• Further information.
• Hawthorne, I don't think Dizzy will be coming back to respond to you.
• I get the iPod hatred, or, more accruately the iPod/Apple weenie hatred. It's no different from the way Mac-heads hate Windows and Microsoft and Bill Gates for claiming credit for every innovation in personal computing when a bunch of them were pioneered by Apple. MP3 players existed before the iPod, but you wouldn't know it listening to iPod weenies. The hysteria around the mini was just... unbelieveable to anyone who wasn't drinking the kool-aid, because you had something that cost more and did less than the (many) flash based players already on the market, and you had a bunch of people spamming sites (like this one) with Apple product announcements with all the critical thinking of a bunch of 13 year old girls giggleing over the latest boy band. Not that this ought to translate into a dislike of the product per se, but products routinely evaluated in ways that have nothing to do with their functionality. Or, to put it another way: live by the brand, die by the brand.
• Point taken, Wolof.
• I meant to say, Point taken, Wolof, you talentless, self-congratulatory hack, the kind of hack with a hole in his head so large you can drive an iPod delivery truck through it.